A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

• Miss America, please tell us about Wikileaks
• Serco doesn’t really work for the people
• London and its torturing allies
• Say after me; Serco isn’t that hard to spell
• Palin’s world
• Israel feels light tap on wrist and marches on regardless
• Our world is addicted to risk to fund our lifestyle

Miss America, please tell us about Wikileaks Posted: 18 Jan 2011 02:00 PM PST

Serco doesn’t really work for the people Posted: 18 Jan 2011 11:28 AM PST Wonderful editorial in the Northern Territory News: The Federal Government’s attempt to gag journalists reporting on asylum seekers in the Territory is contemptible – and laughable. Contemptible because it is undemocratic; laughable because it won’t work. Canberra has told the NT News it broke the law by speaking to an asylum seeker. It also said a complaint had been lodged with the police. It turns out that both these things are untrue. It seems that the federal Immigration Department has resorted to threats, bully-boy tactics and deceit in a bid to prevent coverage of a news story embarrassing to itself. As it is, secrecy already surrounds asylum seekers and the way they are handled in the Territory. The Immigration Department contracts out some services, for which it is responsible, to Serco – a giant foreign company. Serco in turn has subcontracted out to MSS Security in Darwin. MSS – until recently – subcontracted out again to other smaller companies. Each time, lines of responsibility blur. And it gives bureaucrats the opportunity to refuse to discuss some elements of asylum seeker “management” – a public interest issue – under the guise of commercial-in-confidence. Thus Territorians are not ever likely to see reports about the riot or the mass breakout and protest at the troubled Darwin Detention Centre last year. Australia is a democratic country and Territorians have every right to know what’s going on with the asylum seekers in their midst. Territorians may agree with the content of some stories; they may strongly disagree with others. But either way, they have a right to know. Canberra, of course, would prefer that reporting on asylum seekers stemmed only from its press releases. That’s not going to happen. The Federal Government needs reminding that it exists to serve the people – not itself.

London and its torturing allies Posted: 18 Jan 2011 04:38 AM PST Christopher Hitchens may be sharing his bromance with Tony Blair in the latest Vanity Fair, but back in the real world away from elite cocktail party chatter, Britain stands condemned: UK authorities passed information about British nationals to notorious Bangladeshi intelligence agencies and police units, then pressed for information while the men were being held at a secret interrogation centre where inmates are known to have died under torture. A Guardian investigation into counter-terrorism co-operation between the UK and Bangladesh has revealed a detailed picture of the last Labour government’s reliance on overseas intelligence agencies that were known to use torture. Meetings and exchanges of information took place between British and Bangladeshi officials in an effort to protect the UK from attacks that might be fomented in Bangladesh, according to sources in both countries. The likelihood that a number of suspects would be tortured as a result of the meetings went unmentioned, according to the sources. Subsequently, more than a dozen men of dual British-Bangladeshi nationality were placed under investigation, and at least some suffered horrific abuse from the Bangladeshi authorities. At one point Jacqui Smith, then home secretary, flew to Dhaka for face-to-face meetings with senior officials from one agency, the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), whose use of torture had been the subject of a detailed report by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO, less than eight weeks earlier. Seven months before the visit, a report prepared by Smith’s own department had documented the widespread concern about the routine use of torture in Bangladesh. Smith spoke publicly during the visit about the dangers that could be posed by dual nationals; privately, according to a senior DGFI counter-terrorism officer, she urged that the agency investigate a number of individuals about whom the British were suspicious. In September it emerged that in recent years MI5 and MI6 have always asked the home secretary or foreign secretary for permission before conducting any information exchange where there was a risk of an individual being tortured. Smith, her successor Alan Johnson and David Miliband, the foreign secretary during the period of the joint UK-Bangladeshi counter-terrorism campaign, have declined to answer questions about the matter.

Say after me; Serco isn’t that hard to spell Posted: 18 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST The issue of Australia’s immigration detention centres is routinely misreported/ignored by corporate media. British multinational Serco runs all the country’s centres – not that you’d know that by reading most media reporting – and here’s just a few latest examples of where this information routinely lies (ie. a black hole): One: Hundreds of asylum seekers at the Curtin Detention Centre near Derby have gone on hunger strike this morning and are refusing to even drink water, according to a refugee advocate. Advocate Pamela Curr said a detainee told her of the protest in a short telephone conversation earlier today. “Some of the men have been on hunger strike for three weeks and some have been taken to hospital because they’ve collapsed … he said two people are in hospital that he knows of,” she said. “I asked him if he would consider drinking water – and he said ‘I would consider it, but nobody wants to do it. We have decided no.’” Ms Curr said she had been told that the men, mostly young Afghani males, were frustrated at not being told anything by the Department about how their cases were proceeding. He had also claimed that access to the internet had been blocked, she said [I have heard from refugee activists that Serco has been responsible for this decision]. Detainees’ moods had lifted in October after the Federal Government lifted its six-month processing ban for Afghani asylum seekers. Ms Curr said many of the detainees had been interviewed in November but since then, about 150 people had been rejected as refugees. Two: The Gillard government wants to raze the habitat of an endangered West Australian cockatoo to build its latest immigration detention centre, but is relying on permission from a hostile Barnett government. The Northam detention centre was to hold 1200 asylum-seekers by March and a further 300 by June but has been hit by delays. The Immigration Department now hopes the first 600 detainees will be moved there in late March or early April. The entire proposed camp is subject to a public comment period and has been referred to the Federal Department of Sustainability, Water, Population and Communities because it requires clearing banksia woodland found to be a feeding ground of the Carnaby’s black cockatoo — an endangered native bird found only in parts of southwest WA. “The design of the detention centre will ensure minimal clearing of the identified black cockatoo foraging habitat in the northwest of the project is required. Clearing in this section will be less than one hectare in area,” says a report prepared for the Immigration Department by environmental consultants GHD. Neither story mentions Serco despite the firm being directly relevant to both situations. That’s bad journalism. If any evidence was needed that the Australian government is so desperate to rid itself of refugees, it’s now done a deal with one of the most corrupt regimes in the world, Afghanistan. Furthermore, what kind of pressure has Serco placed on Canberra to lessen its loads in the over-flowing detention centres? Australia has the green light to deport thousands of Afghan asylum seekers after reaching a historic agreement with the Afghan government. The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan Refugee Minister, Jamaher Anwary, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sydney yesterday. It enables the forced return of Afghans whose bids for asylum fail. The move is alarming security experts and refugee advocates. Mr Bowen said it would deter Afghans considering travelling to Australia. ”Never, all through the Howard years, never before today, has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan,” he said. ”To dissuade people from risking their lives by joining people-smuggling ventures, it is important that Afghans found not to be owed protection by Australia are returned to Afghanistan.” About 2600 Afghans are in Australia’s detention centres. Of those, 49 must win court appeals to avoid imminent deportation. The opposition was sceptical about the agreement, saying it was only as good as the government’s will to enforce it. ”The minister is unable to say when anyone is going to be returned,” said its immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison. ”It’s not clear to me the government has the resolve to implement this.” In three years, only three asylum seekers have been returned to Afghanistan – all last year after volunteering to go. In 2008 and 2009, 126 people were returned to their countries of origin. The director of the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, William Maley, warned that ethnic Hazaras, in particular, should not be deported without extreme caution. ”The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely unsettling,” he said. He cast doubt on the security expertise of Australian officials making refugee assessments. The decapitation of 11 Hazaras in Oruzgan province in June contradicted a cable from the Kabul embassy proclaiming a ”golden age” for Hazaras, he said.

Palin’s world Posted: 17 Jan 2011 11:13 PM PST A fine cartoon appearing in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.

Israel feels light tap on wrist and marches on regardless Posted: 17 Jan 2011 10:26 PM PST I’m sure Israel is shaking; two close allies chastise Israel and then do absolutely nothing about it. That’s pointless loyalty: Britain and Australia urged Israel to refrain from settlement building on the West Bank and called for a “return to direct talks” between Israel and the Palestinians. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Middle East peace process had featured in Tuesday’s summit with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd and defence ministers Liam Fox and Stephen Smith.  “Our joint belief (is) that the parties involved should return to direct talks and refrain from acts that undermine confidence such as settlement building,” Hague told reporters.   It follows calls from UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday for Israel to freeze settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, after Israeli media reported that Israel is to approve 1,400 new settler homes.   That push, reportedly into east Jerusalem, is in defiance of pressure to halt settlement building that has stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.  The Palestinians halted direct talks with Israel, brokered by the United States, in September after Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement building. Israel says the construction should be an issue discussed in direct talks.