Piers Akerman
TIME is rapidly running out for the tortured people of Zimbabwe, but the solution to their ongoing tragedy may lie at the feet of South Africa - the host of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has made claims to be Africa’s leader on human rights and even aspires to a global role in this area.
His “softly softly” approach to human rights in Zimbabwe has gone nowhere. He has operated on the theory that the “big men” of Africa must look after each other or their people will rise up and throw them out of office.
Perhaps it is time for FIFA, soccer’s international controlling body, to tell Mbeki it will reconsider the location of the World Cup if South Africa does not do the right thing.
Football is the religion of southern Africa and such a gesture from FIFA might send Mbeki the powerful message that the world will not let him remain inert while his neighbour continues to slaughter those trying to assert their democratic right to elect the government of their choice.
Australia could have a role in this effort, if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wishes to be counted as person of global significance. He met members of the FIFA board four weeks ago when he delivered the keynote address at FIFA’s 58th annual congress in Sydney, and later feted them at a banquet in the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House.
On Saturday, President Robert Mugabe will stage his grotesque parody of an election run-off, time is running out.
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Six months left to stop Iran
Andrew Bolt
Even Mohamed ElBaradei, war critic and head of the “watchdog” International Atomic Energy Agency, concedes Iran could have a nuclear bomb in just six months:
Muhammad Al-Baradei: If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least… Considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has…
Interviewer: How much time would it need?
Muhammad Al-Baradei: It would need at least six months to one year.
He seems awfully relaxed about it, though:
Muhammad Al-Baradei: I don’t think that what we are seeing today in Iran poses a clear, imminent, and immediate danger…
Interviewer: So there is no justification for a strike against Iran today.
Muhammad Al-Baradei: None whatsoever.
Hillel Halkin:
There is something genuinely revolting about a world that preaches the need for peacefully dissuading the Iranians from developing atomic weapons while knowingly practicing a policy that in the end leaves Israel no choice but to send its planes into the air.
Gabriel Schoenfeld warns that simply bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities will be close to impossible
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Farewell to George Carlin (warning, includes swearing)
Apocalypse delayed
Andrew Bolt
And now the seas have stopped rising, too
Mandela’s terrible silence
Andrew Bolt
Attacking George Bush was so much easier:
OF ALL Africa’s politicians, none can rival the moral authority of Nelson Mandela. Yet the leading figure of South Africa’s struggle for democracy and human rights has not voiced any public criticism of Robert Mugabe’s violent campaign to hold on to power in Zimbabwe.
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Show Q&A you care
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Q&A deserves to be watched tonight. Tim Blair is a guest. But who did they book for the audience?
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What’s hot is the promise
Andrew Bolt
How impossible is Kevin Rudd’s plan to cut our emissions by 60 per cent? Judge from this:
Government data released today showed Australia produced 585 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2007, six per cent more than in 1990…
If land clearing is taken out of the equation, emissions have risen 31 per cent since 1990....
Senator Wong said the reduced rate of land clearing had been a significant factor in restraining emissions, but that this option would be less useful in future calculations.
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The people Kirby hangs out with
Andrew Bolt
A bizarre alliance is to be formed at an ”interfaith conference” in Melbourne, featuring the usual far-Left urgers and radical clerics.
There you will find Michael Kirby, the High Court judge, giving the keynote address, while a message will be be read out from former Iranian president and cleric Mohammad Khatami, a late no-show, no doubt chosen in solidarity against a looming attack on his country’s illegal nuclear weapons plants.
Or put it this way. The keynote address will be given by a prominent gay activist. The other address will be given by the former president of a country which does this to gays like Kirby:
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Is it time for a parenting license?
We have strict rules controlling doctors, builders and teachers, but when it comes to the most important vocation of all, our permissive society says anything goes. This needs to be addressed, according to Alan Jones.
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Learn, learn, learn
Andrew Bolt
Gordon Brown may be proof of the success of accelerated learning in an academic hot-house for children. Or, then again, of its failure.
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Our welfare, our responsibility
Andrew Bolt
More on the two women - friends, not sisters as first suggested - who had 14 children checked for starvation and hypothermia:
All together, some 21 children are believed to be involved in this deeply disturbing affair, mostly those of the two women, but also of the Adelaide woman’s siblings, who orbit in and out of their problematic lives.
Neither woman works, according to neighbours. But Centrelink figures show the Adelaide woman would be eligible to collect at least $57,000 in benefits annually on the basis of having 12 dependent children. Reported to be pregnant with twins, she would be entitled to a baby bonus of $10,000 on giving birth.
Centrelink figures show her friend would be eligible for at least $31,000 in annual benefits for her seven children. She, too, is said to be pregnant and in line for a $5000 baby bonus.
The women have shared men over the years - one of the elements binding them together. Currently, the Adelaide woman is involved with her friend’s ex-partner, while the friend is involved with a relative of the Adelaide woman.
What’s hot is the promise
Andrew Bolt
How impossible is Kevin Rudd’s plan to cut our emissions by 60 per cent? Judge from this:
Government data released today showed Australia produced 585 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2007, six per cent more than in 1990…
If land clearing is taken out of the equation, emissions have risen 31 per cent since 1990....
Senator Wong said the reduced rate of land clearing had been a significant factor in restraining emissions, but that this option would be less useful in future calculations.
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Got a better idea?
Andrew Bolt
Roger Simon:
Whatever one thinks about the neocons, they had virtually the only program, the only idea of how to right the world after 9/11. Conventional liberalism and conventional liberals had nothing to say. They still don’t.
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News from the barbarian wars
Andrew Bolt –
Down from Echuca for some fun in Melbourne:
A WOMAN bashed with a brick in an apparently random attack today was allegedly told by her female attackers they were just ”having a bit of fun”.
As one does these days.
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