Headlines Thursday 2nd April 2009

A whisker from World Cup: Socceroos beat Uzbekistan 2-0
The Socceroos moved to the very brink of qualification for the 2010 World Cup with a hard-fought 2-0 win over Uzbekistan at ANZ Stadium on Wednesday night.

Rees to push for bikie law crackdown, but own MPs to resist
The NSW Premier will try to rush tough new bikie laws through Parliament today, but he's expected to encounter some opposition from his own MPs.

Mayhem and violence as London G20 protests turn ugly
Protesters swarmed through London on Wednesday, smashing their way into a bank and clashing with police in an outburst of anger on the eve of the G20 summit.

Jobs stripped in Rudd's Job Network overhaul
A quarter of job service providers have lost their contracts under a government shake up of Australia's employment services.

Patient stabs doctor in surgery
A doctor is having emergency surgery after being repeatedly stabbed in a Sydney medical centre.

Vandals blow hole in Lenin statue
A bomb has blown a large hole in one of Russia's last Soviet-era monuments to communist leader Vladimir Lenin.

Angry workers 'bossnap' managers
Angry workers were still holding four managers on Wednesday at a plant run by US firm Caterpillar......

Serial sex predator jailed for 20 years
A Melbourne man who drugged and assaulted string of girls as young as 14 has been jailed for 20......

Multicultural 'role model' cried during cocaine arrest: court
A former NSW Young Australian of the Year sobbed at her arrest for supplying cocaine, saying "I am......

Police on drugs raid find mysterious uranium stash
POLICE uncovered a secret stash of uranium in country Victoria during a series of top-level drug raids yesterday.

They have no idea why a drug suspect would have hidden the material in a storage area near Bendigo.
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Over-acting prophets and profits set to exit stage left
Piers Akerman
GEE whiz, it’s the G20 and Kevin Rudd is singing the Hallelujah Chorus in British PM Gordon Brown’s socialist rock revival concert at St Paul’s Cathedral. Strutting the world stage like a bantam, Rudd is grandstanding in an empty theatre. - I feel the tenor of Piers articles generally to be positive, but then I’m not a dyed in the wool ALP supporter. Even in this article, which has depth and vision, could easily go wider. Consider, Rudd has been snubbed by Obama recently when he wouldn’t share dinner with him as Howard was feted by Bush. Then the press (The press!!) haul into Rudd in UK (a bit of explanation, UK are tired of Labor admin) although some government figures gave a nice headline for back home.
Meanwhile the US is being demanded by socialist Spain to have prominent citizens handed over for war crimes. A bit of explanation there .. Spain isn’t rediscovering that every Democrat President since 1912 has dropped bombs on civilians and wanting to head off Obama, but they want to charge those who defended democracy after 9/11.
US influence is waning. Chinese influence is rising .. India’s is slightly circumvented by Pakistani related terrorism but their star will rise. Meanwhile Rudd has played his top cards without making a single trick, but taking a few own tricks.
The problem is that the media in Australia are too fettered by ALP interests to adequately report on the shortcomings .. - ed.
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ARMOURED ANARCHISTS
Tim Blair
The party begins:
G20 protesters smashed windows and forced their way into offices of state-controlled lender Royal Bank of Scotland in London today, breaking past riot police.

Riot police could be seen inside the bank, in the City financial district, trying to prevent demonstrators from entering the building, as other protesters threw missiles including bottles, cans and shoes at police outside.
They seem unusually well-equipped:
British police have seized an armoured car, at least one police uniform, and arrested at least 11 people …
Among them may be some retired anarchists:
The Met has warned that anarchists from the 1990 Poll Tax riots have been lured out of retirement by the prospect of violent clashes.
I wonder if they brought their kids along.
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SOMEONE SET THEM UP THE BOMB
Tim Blair
Three Victorians are under arrest after police raids uncovered drugs, crime proceeds, a handgun, chemicals … and uranium.
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LOCAL WARMING
Tim Blair
A couple of views on global warming. Meanwhile:
A Mississauga family who tried to light a candle for Earth Hour nearly burned their Meadowvale townhouse down.
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PUPPET POWER
Tim Blair
It’s a people’s movement featuring people who can’t move:
A mannequin chained to the front door of a Kenmore Square bank this morning as part of a protest set off a bomb scare and briefly closed the bank, Boston police said …

A group that calls itself Mannequins for Climate Justice claimed responsibility for the stunt, saying in a press release that its intent was “to highlight, mock, and resist the fossil fuel industry and its collaborators who are destroying the Earth.”
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AN OBAMA MOMENT
Tim Blair
An anti-flying bishop falls in love with Kevin Rudd:
Bishop Richard Chartres heaped praise on the Australian prime minister during a forum at St Paul’s Cathedral in central London on Tuesday …

“It would not be too strong to say the election of Kevin Rudd constituted something of an ‘Obama moment’ for that country,” Bishop Chartres told the gathering.
Hey, he’s not that bad. The deep green bishop’s Rudd adoration ("He has a reputation as a politician who takes ethics very, very seriously”) endures even despite Rudd’s unholy carbon output. Incidentally, remember all the environmentalist outrage that followed Rudd’s emissions target announcement? It turns out that those people don’t make any difference at all.
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Lectures from the Governor
Andrew Bolt
Quentin Bryce has company. Paul Austin worries that Victoria has a green activist as Governor:

The Governor dismisses the idea that Australia should wait for the rest of the world before acting on climate change, rejects the argument that we should postpone “the required actions” on global warming while we battle the global recession, and is unimpressed by the spend-and-spend-now calls that are coming from some political quarters.

“There are cries to stimulate growth and spending. Is this a sensible response when we have a planet with finite resources that is struggling to cope?” he said in February.

Why does David de Kretser - and Bryce, for that matter - think his appointment to a role is also validation of his opinions? And why does such inappropriate hectoring as this almost always come from those of the Left?

PS

De Kretser is angry about small families living in big houses:

These large houses are likely to be occupied by the average family of mum and dad and 1.8 children. Is this sustainable development?

This is the house de Krester lives in with his wife:
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Bye bye, Joel
Andrew Bolt
Helen Liu has been grooming Joel Fitzgibbon for a longer time than first thought:

CHINESE-BORN businesswoman Helen Liu paid for Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon to travel first-class to China in 1993 before they had ever met, giving him access to top Communist Party officials.

One of Ms Liu’s companies paid for Mr Fitzgibbon and his father Eric Fitzgibbon, a then federal Labor MP, to fly to China in June 1993 to mark the start of work on a tourist development. During their seven-day stay, Mr Fitzgibbon and his father were guests of Shandong province Governor and top Communist Party official, Zhao Zhinhao, and Ms Liu’s company, Diamond Hill International.

And here’s another puzzle. Fitzgibbon’s landlord in Canberra is again Ms Liu. Why, of all the places in Australia and China, would Liu pick Canberra to invest in residential property? - Andrew, you aren't seeing the whole problem. Security is something that the left pride themselves on. They love cloak and dagger. When Rudd was first PM their was an assassination scare in Timor involving Timor's President José Ramos-Horta, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, and rebel leader Alfredo Reinado. Why Reinado came to attempt it, and why he died the way he did is a mystery. One possible explanation being that mid level elements of the Australian security detail (faithful to ALP and Rudd) and Timorese security (preferring ALP to conservatives through past loyalties) suggesting to Rudd the possibility of a black ops operation that went south. Rudd would have leapt at the possibility of looking clever. Such a scheme may well have had Chinese advice as a test case for future dealings. - ed.
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Why are Obama’s big taxers big dodgers?
Andrew Bolt
Add her to the long list of Obama’s tax dodgers:

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding “unintentional errors"—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

That list of tax dodgers here:

Tom Daschle, Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services: quit for failing to pay taxes.

Nancy Killefer: Obama’s new chief performance officer: quit for failing to pay taxes

Ron Kirk nominated as U.S. Trade Representative: picked despite owing an estimated $10,000 in back taxes.

Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary: picked even after failed to pay taxes

And let’s not forget some politicians Obama didn’t pick but inherited or worked with:
Rod Blagojevich, Illinois Governor: sacked after trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat

Chris Dodd: given cheap mortgages by Countrywide, one of the lenders he oversaw as chair of the Senate banking committee, and received donations from the now collapsed Fannie Mae.

Charlie Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee: failed to pay taxes.


Then there’s the Obama picks who pulled out after scandal, controversy or second thoughts:

Bill Richardson, Obama’s first nominee as Commerce Secretary: quit after being investigated over financial irregularities, campaign contributions and construction contracts.

H. Rodgin Cohen withdrew candidacy for Deputy Treasury Secretary.

Charles Freeman, nominee as chairman of the National Intelligence Council: quit after criticism of his attacks on Israel and support for dealings with Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as of his financial ties to Saudi Arabia.

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, commerce secretary nominee: quit over Obama’s stimulus package and centralisation of power.
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President Obama Goes to Europe
By Bill O'Reilly
The president is now in London. He'll meet with more than 20 world leaders to talk about the worldwide recession and — we hope — worldwide terrorism.

Let's take the economy first. If we go down, they go down. If the USA cannot fix its economy, the rest of the world will suffer greatly because most countries don't have the wealth we have. Economic catastrophe for them would be a lot worse than for us.

So President Obama should politely ask for cooperation. He should lay out his vision for what's needed to stabilize the banking system worldwide. On the economy, the president needs to be a persuader right now and he's good at that. But he should also warn the world about terrorists and anarchists — they are growing in number and they are dangerous. If the world ignores that danger, it's just a matter of time before terror strikes and damages the worldwide economy.

Terror and economic chaos go hand in hand.

On the terror front, Iran and Pakistan continue to be the nations that are most helping the evil doers. Pakistan must, must begin cooperating with NATO to find and kill the Taliban and Al Qaeda that are living on its soil. President Obama should make this quite clear to the world. Pakistan is the key to defeating worldwide terror.

Iran continues to be dangerous. And countries like Russia, Japan and China, which provide resources to the vicious Iranian government, need to be called out. By the way, we made a mistake yesterday. Spain does trade with Iran, but it's not in the top tier. And we apologize for the research error.

Anyway, it is here that Barack Obama must get tougher. Every sane person knows if Iran gets nuclear weapons, the mullahs might well provide them to the jihadists. So do the math.

My question is simple: Why is any country helping Iran? The president is not off to a good start with his opinion that the phrase "the War on terror" should be kicked to the curb. Apparently, members of the Obama administration believe some nations find the War on Terror description to be offensive in some way. Why? The world should be fighting terrorists in a coordinated way. That's a war, is it not? Why are we playing these games? Who exactly is offended?

The world didn't like the Bush administration because the Bush administration had little patience with stuff like that. I understand. Diplomacy is good. Persuasion is good. But President Obama should realize that some people will never be persuaded to help the USA. There's an awful lot of hatred toward America in this world, most of it unjustified, even though many in the liberal press are never going to get that.

President Obama has a nice opportunity here to show the world he's smart and honest. But he must also demonstrate that he understands evil and will deal with it. Knocking out the War on Terror description was a mistake.
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'Special Report' Panel on Expectations From the G20 Summit
Special Report w/ Bret Baier following is an excerpt of one interviewee
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, you mentioned stimulus and you mentioned regulation. Neither is going to happen.

This is test of the proposition that Obama had run on last year, that the source of our difficulties broad, the source of anti-Americanism, of dissension among our allies and the alleged isolation of the United States was George Bush.

And Obama was not Bush, and he was going to be a new figure, a transcendent, multi-cultural, attractive, young, new American leader who would rally the world.

Well, we have a test. He's going to Europe. He's not even asking the allies for an increase in troops in Afghanistan, which we desperately need, because he's going to get a "no."

He wants a stimulus in Europe. He's not even asking because he's not going to get it. The Germans and the French are against it for historical reasons and economic reasons, and the power of personal diplomacy that Obama ran on and pretends he has doesn't exist. It's all about national interests.

And then on the issue of Iran, he is not going to get anything. In fact, he is not even going to get assistance for the Russians, to whom he essentially offered new influence over Eastern Europe in return.

The bottom line is that personal diplomacy is a nice idea. It amounts to nothing. Nations act on their national interests. And he is weak in Europe because we don't have a lot of cards to play in this economic crisis.