Guantanamo: Testament to USA's Loss of Honour

"Just what, exactly, is the United States Government doing at Guantanamo Bay?

In November it will be five years since the first contingent of terror suspects rounded up across the world in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, were shipped to the jail within the American military base in Cuba.

Since then, more than 750 detainees are reported to have passed through the prison. Today about 500 remain, including Australian David Hicks. The identities of many, like the accusations against them, remain a mystery."

Mark Baker, diplomatic editor of The Age, raises the critical question in his first paragraph, above, and then goes on his op-ed piece to dissect all that is, and relates to, Guantanamo Bay. The disgraceful feature in all of this is the appalling silence of Howard, Ruddock and Downer in relation to the continued detention of David Hicks. Read Baker's full piece here.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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