Halliburton Down Under, Above And Beyond

A Chronicle of the Middlemen Of Militarisation as they help seize South Australia as a US Colony. This blog is reprinted from YOURDEMOCRACY.NET.AU

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Peanut Butter and Ports

The Halliburton Peanut Butter Files

Afterthis week's revelations that the Pentagon, on behalf of Halliburton, has been spying on a US protest organiser
"in the national interest" I would like to know, as an Australian
Halliburton "activist", how much the Australian Government has been
spying on me.

I would also like to know how our Government can
continue to rely upon, in matters of national security and
international invasion, an intelligence system that can make such a
stupid mistake.

Every "conspiracy theorist" looks in shadows for
faces but perhaps some have greater cause for concern than others.
Looking at what's happenned to Parkin I reckon that I qualify for an
extra dose of paranoia.

Scott Parkin has assisted orchestrating,
from public ground, events that draw media attention to the ethically
questionable and financially corrupt activities of a company installed
in its "pole position" by the Vice President of the United States.

The U.S. Army kept files on the fact that he handed out peanut butter
sandwiches in front of a Halliburton office. The Australian Government
arrested and deported Parkin because the US Army had files on him.
Does this mean that Parkin was kicked out of Australia for serving
sandwiches in Texas? Sadly the answer is most likely "yes". Our Prime Minister says he won't be allowed to return.

Parkin' legal efforts to retrieve information
pertaining to his deportation resume in a fortnight. Will the
Australian Government continue to protect the internationally sensitive
information, or confess that they accepted the word of the US Army
without opening the manilla folder for a read? Will our spy network
confess that it "leaked" false information to journalist to protect the
"Peanut Butter Files"

Aside a couple of thing not in Newsweek

Newsweek did not comment on Parkin's deportation, or make
any assumption that the Australian Government used the fact that the US
Army had a file on him as the reason for deporting him
. They don't say
that the Howard cabinet was so eager to please the Bush White House by
kicking out a Halliburton protester
that they might have, being aware
that such a file existed, not bothered to check what was in it.

Newsweek doesn't say that if ASIO had tried to protect non-existant information by leaking a lie then they would be perceived as extremely incompetent by the international intelligence community.

Newsweek also doesn't say that if Kim Beazley was briefed that the US Army had a file on Parkin as a possible terrorist, but didn't ask about the currency and accuracy of the information, he would also appear to be a twit.

On the same Houston Indymedia
that the US Army were monitoring appears the name of a certain
Australian from time to time.. he's even currently linked their from
the front page of international watchdog Halliburton Watch's website. He has been shown on Australian national television putting up placards on KBR land (while
standing on the public footpath) and his blogs and emails have been
read by state and national politicians of many political persuasions.
His postings have been creating ripples of concern in Australia for two years now, and he shows no signs of stopping.

Who is recording my activities? When I walk with my daughter to school is
there a car in the street recording the event? Are phone calls to my
friends and family monitored. When those military base files were
found in a bin very close to my house, was this to serve as possible
grounds for my arrest? Do my emails go through a computer in
Canberra? These questions may have been laughable a week ago, but
look what they've done to Scott !

If ASIO have been protecting
those files then they've surely got a good one on me. After, during
the Rumsfeld protests, helping hang the No War banner on the pillars of
Adelaide's Parliament House I'll have one in America too. However, I
can't be arrested and deported.

If somebody wanted to bring me in for questioning it probably wouldn't be hard to find a reason. When
my family, friends and supporters ask the Government why, will the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Foreign Minister and the Defence Minster say that the fact that the Americans have a file on me was sufficient grounds to put me into a Detention Centre?

In using the files that Newsweek has uncovered, the integrity and
reliability of Australia's intelligence system, and our politicians'
unswerving response to its information, have been shattered. If ASIO
can be so wrong about something so simple, how can they be trusted in
evaluating more complex matters. such as the status quo if
international terrorism in Australia? On the merits of their conduct
in the Parkin Incident, it can be perceived that ASIO are a conduit for
the US Government to manipulate the Australian political system,
dispensing disinformation that Howard and his Henchmen can use without
need to question.

The Australian Government can, in any
situation, no longer claim innocence in their activities by claiming
belief that their information was irrefutable. In the hindsight of
this comparitively minor event, basing any judgement or activity on
faith in ASIO could only be classified as negligence, and guilt of
creating any death and/or destruction brought about in this way can now
be laid at the doorstep of Parliament House in Canberra.

Earlier statements that Australia entered into the invasion of Iraq based on
assessments of our own espionage must also now be reconsidered.

If an agency that considers a man with some sandwiches an international
terrorist threat has lead us into war, and brought about the creating
of anti-terrorist hysteria on the basis of its information, we should
withdraw from that war until we are once again certain we can rely on
our knowledge

In the meantime..to any of you ASIO twits who
might be in my neighbourhood, be warned.... I am known to be prone to
violins (and accordions) my attack cat is guarding the door, and my
dog doesn't care who feeds her.

I'm happy to give you an extra
piece of infomation that you might not have... I'm particularly fond of
peanut butter. You won't know this unless you have a camera in my
kitchen.

After the revelations this week regarding how you and
your US counterparts have been violating Parkins' civil liberties, I
wouldn't be the least bit suprised.


Halliburton Takes Port Adelaide

The former global leader of Halliburton's infrastructure activities is now in control of shipbuilding in South Australia.

An expanded maritime site announce today is now owned by a corporation
controlled by ex-Halliburton/KBR chief Andrew Fletcher, who had been
recruited last November to "oversee" the warship project. Fletcher, while still in his Halliburton job, held a seat on the South Australian Economic Development Board

State Premier Mike Rann says that the newly announced shipbuilding facility,
which includes the Star Wars Ship construction, will make Adelaide a
"global hub".

A 2004 edition of Engineers Australia Magazine explains Fletcher's role two years ago:

Senior vice-president of US company KBR, with responsibilities for global infrastructure and the Asia Pacific region A civil engineer from Adelaide University, Andrew Fletcher was catapulted into his international position when KBR, the engineering and construction arm of US giant Halliburton, took over Australia’s
Kinhill Engineers in 1997.

The company now has about 3000 staff in
Australia.
One of Fletcher’s main tasks when he took over his current position was
to “forge a solid global team” from the regional groups in the
Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific including Australia.

The news of the expanded naval site has been released one day before its launching at an international expo in Sydney.

Our State premier has explained that "This new hub, into which the State Government is investing $140 million in infrastructure, will be capable of building other ships at the same time the air warfare destroyers are being built,"

He added that "There is now $55 billion worth of federal defence contracts up for grabs over the next 10 to 15 years."

State Treasurer Kevin Foley elaborated that the site would be suitable for companies involved in"in civil or
military shipbuilding, ship repair and maintenance, metal fabrication
and module construction, paint and blast, warehousing and component
manufacturers and suppliers".


Under its new name of Techport Australia, the maritime construction
precinct will be marketed today at the Pacific Maritime and Naval Expo
in Sydney.

Techport Australia is owned by the Port Adelaide Maritime Corporation, which the Adelaide Advertiser says is "under the control of" the ex-Halliburton Chief. Fletcher told the newspaper that one of his aims was to "deliver a sustainable long-term defence industry base here at Osborne".

Fletcher's previous company was previously spearheaded by the former US Defense
Secretary and current US Vice President, Dick Cheney. The company
constructed and has part-ownership of the Adelaide to Darwin Railway.
It also a major naval shipbuilder in the UK, and a part-owner of that
country's Road Management Group

KBR has recently completed construction of the Port River Expressway that
links the port to the Northern Suburbs. Roadwork construction
improving links from the port to the Southern Suburbs will commence
next year.

Until last year Adelaide was the official global headquarters of Halliburton/ KBR's infrastructure division.

Monday, January 23, 2006

South Australia Defence Land Acquisition- Hill completes Halliburtonisation

As he steps down as Defence Minister, Robert Hill is completing the militarisation of South Australia

MR Hill says that said he had written to the
leaseholders and local indigenous groups indicating his approval of the
acquisition of land near the Cultana training area, near Port Augusta.

The training centre, currently used by Army units for manoeuvre and
weapons training, will triple in size, making it one of Australia's
largest military training areas.

"This project will see an expanded range ready for use by 2009 and will
increase the Army's presence in regional South Australia, providing
significant economic benefits, particularly for Port Augusta and
Whyalla," .
"An expanded all-weather training range at Cultana will provide the
Australian Defence Force with a training area that can be used during
the northern Australian wet season and support future joint training
needs."

US and Australian troops wil utilise the Adelaide-Darwin Railway, which is 40% owned by Halliburton KBR for the next 50 years

"The planned expansion will increase the scope of combined arms
training for large mechanised formations, will allow for larger joint
live firing exercises, provide a larger area to manoeuvre the new
Abrams tanks as well as the new generation of Army assets such as the
new Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter and Australian Light Armoured vehicles."

Mr Hill's quotes courtesy of news.com.au

By Richard Tonkin at 24 Jan 2006 - 1:14pm

US Govt Spied On Halliburton Activist- Newsweek

If this is the information that ASIO used to deport Parkin, some questions will need to be asked.

Firstly, was ASIO acting based on a current profile of Parkin, or outdated infomation it had previously received from TALON

Secondly, is the Australian Cabinet, from Prime Minister Howard downward, guilty
of acting on inappropriate information simply because it existed ?

Thirdly: Have ASIO's activities in Australia mirrored the intensity of Paul
Wolfowitz' US program? If so, how many how many profiles of Australian
anti-war activists and writers now exist in ASIO's files.

Fourthly: Are Australian anti-Halliburton activists considered as being of a
level of security risk that the US Army no longer considers Parkin to
be?

[ Newsweek, cover-date 30/1/2006 ]

The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in
2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the
Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once
headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

They were there to protest the corporation's supposed "war profiteering." The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work.

The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to
allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for
troops in Iraq. "It was tongue-in-street political theater," Parkin
says.

But that's not how the Pentagon saw it. To U.S. Army analysts at the top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), the peanut-butter protest was regarded as a potential threat to national security. Created three years ago by the Defense Department, CIFA's role is "force protection"—tracking threats and terrorist plots
against military installations and personnel inside the United States.
In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy Defense secretary, authorized
a fact-gathering operation code-named TALON—short for Threat and Local
Observation Notice—that would collect "raw information" about
"suspicious incidents." The data would be fed to CIFA to help the
Pentagon's "terrorism threat warning process," according to an internal
Pentagon memo.

A Defense document shows that Army analysts wrote a report on the
Halliburton protest and stored it in CIFA's database. It's not clear
why the Pentagon considered the protest worthy of attention—although
organizer Parkin had previously been arrested while demonstrating at
ExxonMobil headquarters (the charges were dropped).

But there are now questions about whether CIFA exceeded its authority and conducted unauthorized spying on innocent people and organizations.

A Pentagon memo obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that the deputy Defense secretary now acknowledges that some TALON reports may have contained information on U.S. citizens and groups that never should have been retained. The
number of reports with names of U.S. persons could be in the thousands,
says a senior Pentagon official who asked not be named because of the
sensitivity of the subject.

I have no doubt that ASIO, along with Prime Minister Howard and his
Cabinet were acting on an outdated script. With this hindsight, the
ASIO "leak" to The Australian's Greg Sheridan appears farcical.

To answer a part of my questions.. it's a fair assumption that in the
hysteria immediately followng the September 11 2001, the White House
and the Pentagon implement a level of surveillance thathas not been
rescinded or reduced by the Australian Government and it's authorities.

On behalf of the civil liberties of the Australian public, an inquiriy
needs to be launched on the level of accuracy and immediacy of
information be ing used by Australia in deciding its actions in the war
on terror!

Halliburton Australia- Moment Of Truth Has Arrived

"Contractors with conflicts of interest would be prohibited fromconducting oversight or writing contract requirements they could bid on, as Halliburton did for its $7 billion no-bid Iraqi oil contract awarded in 2003."

Australian aside:..... and the warship environmental measures, and the nuclear dump safety consultancies, and South Australia's Major Works Development

Adding to the statement in the introductory paragraph, US Democrats believe what is needed is “closing the revolving door between federal contract officials and private contractors.”

Australia, according to former Defence Minister Hill in 2004, is protected from contract troubles from such as Halliburton. Hill told SBS Dateline's Sophie McNeill that the "safeguard is the culture of the Australian beaureaucracy." Ha Ha, Mr Hill... pull the other one!

If it's believed that such measures are necessary in the United States, then the possibility of necessity to examine Halliburton's Australian operations, especially its gaining of local defence contracts on a no-bid business, should be considered by all Australian Governments.

The thing is that Halliburton's Australian defence involvement, up to the level of appointing the company's local leader Malcom Kinnaird to solve the DoD's problems, is no longer Senator Hill's problem... he's just resigned the defence portfolio. The Howard Government, as demonstrated by the change of minsterial portfolios after the "Children Overboard" fraud, is becoming adept at avoiding the code of conduct set down by the Westminster System, which Australia's parliament is supposedly based on.

However it is a major responsibility of South Australian Premier Mike Rann, who last year appointed HalliburtonKBR's former Global Vice President for Infrastructure to head SA's Major Works Development Board, on which he also gave a seat to Mr Kinnaird. The possibility of KBR being able to exactly meet the project requirements set by Fletcher and Kinnaird is, even in hypothetical form, too nepotistic to be allowed to exist. Mr Rann should stand down Fletcher and Kinnaird from public postings immediately, or before the State election in March, or explain why he has given South Australia to Halliburton and let voters decide.

Similarly, if Prime Minister Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, now with full knowledge of the ethical breaches that the company has perpetrated internationally, continue to grant the company international aid contracts on behalf of Australia, then these two should also be asked to depart from public life.

The granting of the construction ownership of the railway across Australia to Halliburton by Prime Minister Howard, Finance Minister Minchin, SA Premier Rann and Northern Territory Premier Clare Martin also needs to be re-examined.

Now that Newsweek has revealed that Australia deported Parkin using information that the US Military never should have had (should be up in the morining somewhere) all assumptions of credibility are on stand-by

Halliburton- Giving Troop The Shits

US television and newspapers today are dumping the story into Middle America of how, at one particular army base, Halliburton have been dumping sewerage into a river and then using it to serve U.S. troops.

While on-the-ground KBR employees emailed thunderous complaints, from deep in the bowels of Halliburton Headquarters the stamdard response was trotted out- Halliburton stood firmly behind the statement that there was no problem.
.
While bottled water is used for drinking, the contaminated water, reportedly twice as dirty as the river Euphrates, is used for everything else, including making coffee.

Notification of the problem, including the resultant stomach cramps and diahorrea, began in March 2005

In South Australia, Halliburton and its partners are responsible for Adelaide's water supply, including the Bolivar sewerage plant. Last week the company was awarded the contract to operate Byron Bay's sewerage system

Details here

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Stranger In A Strange (Halliburton) Land

Having had local councils on my mind since learning how the Byron Bay

Council gave Halliburton a contract because they were afraid of a
lawsuit, I"ve had a coincidental week.

I was just smiling over my front gate to a council inspector while explaining my unregistered dog. As I don't drive, I have no licence. In order to prove who I was I had to find three pieces of identification. This was in order to receive a fine.

You can appreciate my level of annoyance, having flown to Queensland using an album cover and a 1971 (age six) passport, played at Edinburgh Air Force Base using a multi-coloured Land Rover and a pub social club card and getting to Port Lincoln using letters sent to me from the State Attorney General, the former Arts Minister and a Liberal MLC. These actions, admittedly, indicate a possible phobia.

I ascribe to the late science fiction writer (and inventor of the water-bed) Robert Heinlein's theory that when a culture demands you continually prove whoyou are, it's time to move somewhere else.

The trouble is, where to go?

I've just spent a few days down at Narrung, on the side of Lake Alexandrina, near the Murray's Mouth. No telly, no net, no shops, no dogcatchers...just one of the world's most beautiful shorelines. Every few hours the soundscape is reluctantly disturbed by a mechanical engine, but that's okay because it reminds you that the noise that you spend your city-life blotting out is alien to the nature you're now inhabiting.

Down at the barrages which separate the Murray from the sea, the gates are open so that you can admire the Haliburton solar panel and pumping equipment. Even KBR seem to have become lackadaisical down here.
A stranger in a strange land, I attempted to grok the technology (or if you prefer Arthur C. Clarke, I was the caveman before the monolith) and failed.

Aside: We have one important piece of technology at the shack at Narrung. Dad uses the ride-on mower to mow the verges in the town. The KBR contractors, with no work to do, drive on.

Returning home, crossing the (bloody bumpy) lake, I looked out on the water where Cheney's Men plan to build a hundred-kay diameter freshwater reclamation system, complete with housing estate and marina.

In the same manner an engine noise conflicts here, the mental picture of such an unnatural construct in the middle of such a naturally pristine environment seemed wrong. In the truest meaning of the word, it's "unearthly".

Back on the shores of reality, we drove back to the city on what is going to become a four-lane highway. Guess who the designers might be?

Nope, this isn't the Heinlein-esque bolt-hole that it should be- at least, it won't be in ten years time.

I doubt there are many left. If one exists, you can expect to see a corporate logo there sometime in the near future

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

"Halliburton Down Under " 2004 TV Documentary

When the SBS Dateline reporter Sophie McNeill came to my house in 2004, I didn't know what I was in for. She'd come to town to film the protest that was to occur in front of KBR's Adelaide-located Infrastructure Division Global Headquarters that day, and had heard from the local NO-WAR group that I had a few views on what was happenning in Adelaide. The opening sequence for the documentary ran from my lounge-room to the KBR address.

This, to my knowledge, is the only televised documentation of Halliburton's activities in Australia You can watch it here.

Halliburton Australia- Foreign Bribes Get A Tax Discount?

In Australia, foreign bribes are tax-deductable

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) has found Australia should increase fines for companies that
bribe foreign officials

It's also concerned that lining the pockets of foreign officials to "grease the wheels of progress" will get you a discount at the Australian Taxation Office. The ATO calls the bribes "facilitation payments"

The Australian-based company that the world knows best for bribery is Halliburton. A subsidiary company, wholly owned by its U.S. parent, Halliburton organises construction projects worldwide from its offices in Adelaide, South Australia. With many projects in many countries, many wheels could need greasing.

In August last year the Nigerian Government voted unanimiously to summon Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar to explain KBR's role in paying bribes to secure a major oil contracts. Investigation is continuing in three countries.

Nearer to home, KBR has a strong presence in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. It also carries out faid contracts for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

As a example, when KBR in Adelaide organises reconstruction work in Iraq, how
much does it allocate in its budget to keep local officials happy? Extrapolate the question over half a dozen countries and it becomes a hairy one.

Bribes appear to be unnecessary in Australia, where local officials are afraid to reject KBR tenders on political grounds because of possible legal ramifications. This is probably not the case in Iraq. In budgeting the cost of infrastructure reconstruction projects, how much KBR Adelaide allow to keep Iraqi local government officials happy? Perhaps the payments come from the Cayman Islands office, but where do the cheques get written? I'm guessing Greenhill Road, Parkside, South Australia.

IT may be, as Attorney General Phillip Ruddock stated yesterday, that

"It's one in which we treat any offences seriously, we investigate them." However, given that the Australian Government has not implemented an inquiry into possible Australian involvement in KBR's Nigerian bribery, and if such is the case for such a publicly prominent situation, the magnitude of activity by an Australian-based company would need to be stupendous before the Australian Government would contemplate the possibility of raising an eyebrow, and is likely to be giving perpetrators a discount for conducting their activities from Australa.


Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Entries from May 13, 2005 to January 2, 2006

I am writing this blog because South Australia needs help. We are an extremely strategically located city, for years headquarters of Murdoch, Halliburton and BAE, and are being systematically brainwashed into becoming defence industry drones without ever being given the choice of taking this path.

For over a year now I've been fairly certain that Adelaide has been the centre of much more international activity than we're being told about. Halliburton's ghostly co-ordination of it's Asia-Pacific activities, not to mention its global infrastructure activities, from this location seems to be at the head of this octopus, if not initiating the thought then at least co-ordinating the tentacles.

Consider these Halliburton C.V.entries The KBR director who through the friendly takeover of his company globalised his efforts into the conglomerate,Malcolm Kinnaird, is named South Australian of the Year, then proceeds to draft a report on what should happen next, and then joins the Defence Procurement Board to make sure all is happennining to schedule. The KBR director who built three Murdoch printing plants, then orchestrated the railway bidding and construction, Mr Franco Moretti,joins the board of an oil company, after which KBR get the oil survey jobs for eastern Victoria.

A well known Australian playwright in his speech at his daughter's wedding said "you might as well take her hand ... you've had the rest!". The Gippsland Basin can be considered as the hand - oil and gas pipelines are magically arriving from Papua New Guinea (no mention of how to get the resources out of Irian Jaya yet) and the Western Victorian Otway Basin, co-ordinated by KBR while they plan the future gas supply of New Zealand in its Project Aria. And let's not even talk about Timor....

In the meantime the company, already the state's major planning consultant, drafts the Environmental Impact Assesment for the Naval Precinct, entirely impartially no doubt. Given their involvement in U.K. naval activities this is more than interesting, more on that later.

In his 1947 "Prelude to Space" Arthur C. Clarke wrote of Great Britain's control of interplantetary activities due to its control of that fantastic launching pad, the Australian outback. Today British Aerospace Engineering is the major player, while Halliburton provides support- railways, resources for the uranium mines, fuel supplies for related industries, defence of the location. Watch the unvieling of the naval contracts if you don't believe me.

In the meantime our one primary newspaper, Murdoch's Advertiser, continually writes "local boy makes good" stories of suburban companies winning defence contracts. BAE is always written of in this manner, on the day of writing so was SAAB. I've had a lucky run of defence propoganda repudiations in the 'Tiser letters pages, even managed to get Halliburton GHQ in, but have yet to find a way of reporting the global nature of BAE. I've even managed one this week on long-term armoured vehicle refurbishment, but I"m not even going to try and suggest that SAAB is not a "locally-based" (standard Murdoch translation for "local international corporation office") company. Such a suggestion would be highly unlikely to be published. There was a little paragraph in our Independant Weekly saying that Hal's Asia-Pacific and Global Infrastructure Headquarters were here ... until last year. That and my letter were the only local printing of Hal operating internationally from this city.

They didn't have much to say when we were standing out the front with placards and an SBS reporter. All that Sophie Mcneill got from them was that they had a good reputation in Australia. However she found quite a lot more for her SBS Dateline piece (watch it!). Last Friday's paper had six pages of propoganda devoted to encouraging us to support the naval contract bid. The front page photo was of local journos dressed as commandos "taking the fight" to Victoria.

If anyone thinks that information that doesn't aid the military plans is going to make print in the city of Adelaide, they should think again.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran a feature on South Australian Hal activities in March. The follow-on reporting by Adelaide media? None. South Australian number plates bearing the logo "The Defence State" are becoming quite common these days. You can see what this State is up against.

If anyone who has information or ideas could leave them here we may provide an important resource, or at the very least a historical trail as to where things began to go seriously wrong. I will leave information here as I find it. Links will be added as fast as I can

In parting for now,did I mention that the Bush family's pet company, Carlyle, are currently testing their new drones in the outback before they float this particular research and devolopment group (once part of the British Army) on the London Stock Exchange? They've just announce a scientific alliance with BAE, by the way (see paragrah 20 here )

In some aspects Sydney and Canberra are not necessarilly the centre of all things. Mind you, with communcations these days anything can be controlled from anywhere. I'll sign off with this thought- there is one important facility not available to the companies of Houston and Austin; a military port. A spare spaceport such as Woomera probably won't go astray, either

-----------------------------------------------------------------

19/5/2005

Here's a lively account of the recent Halliburton AGM protest in Houston, at which numerous arrests occurred. The source is an anonymous witer on Collective Bellaciao

At the Four Seasons this morning, before 8 am, barricades were erected, over 30 Houston horse police, undercover cops and heavy foot police presence (photos) was amassed. By 8:30, the march had reached the hotel, with about 140 - 300 protesters with lots of puppets, and signs such as "stop cronyism." Dick Cheney flashed people video, photo, activists held signs, played a samba and did a funky dance. A break-away march was met by Houston Police, who attempted to corral them, with one arrest occurring. By 9 am, there were 12 activists inside the hotel. Four were escorted out by hotel security and Houston police, while the rest were detained. Outside, things began heating up with pushing, cops on horses and arrests (photos: 1, 2, 3, 4). Some concerns have been raised about cruelty to the horses. The horses trampled several people (videos: 1, 2).

Police used pain compliance on occupation inside hotel. Media were not allowed inside the shareholders meeting and protest. Police Officer # 4961, S. M. Forrester, admitted to a female activist that he had lost control of himself. Andrea Buffa and Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, got inside meeting and directly questioned war-profiteer / Halliburton CEO David Lesar. Prathap Chatterjee of Corp-Watch had a private five minute meeting with him which ended in vague assurances.

Arrested: Herb Rothschild, David Graeve, Katie Heim, Ellie Shenker, Maureen Haver, Diane Wilson, Jonathan Kresha and Kendle Greenlee were arrested inside (photos, videos: 1, 2, 3). David Solnit, an anonymous male, James Foley, Baku, David Martinez, Andy Peterson, Rolando Maya, Chris McMullen were arrested outside. Baku and David Martinez, both out of town indymedia videographers, were arrested while shooting video. David was dragged by his neck by a cop while trying to go to the sidewalk as instructed (video, photos: 1, 2). There have been many class B misdemeanors, but it is possible some will be charged with assault

-------------------------------------------------------------

I''m trying to collect information on a Homeland Securtiy Consultant named Scott Bates who was in Adelaide a year ago. Since his involvement in the political reconstruction of Kosovo, From what I can see his main work has been strengthening securtiy for ports. I had a minor encounter with him last year. The part of the conversation missing from the following transcript is where Mr Bates told me to remember that Adelaide has been regarded as strategically important since before the Cuban Missile Crisis:

Mr Bates admits here that last tiime he was in Adelaide he was advising S.A. Premier Mike Rann on election campaign tactic. Which makes me wonder what he was doing at the annual Oakbank races with the Premier and Senators Hill, Minchin and Downer (Federal Ministers for Finance, Defence and Foreign Affairs respectively. I'd make a bet that it wasn't just to watch the horsies go round and round....

Scott Bates, Senior Policy Adviser to the US House of Representatives
Homeland Security Committee (891ABC 10.36-10.54) Bates' career/Iraq

(Abraham: ... flicking through 'The 'Tiser' ... and there is an
article and a photo of Premier Mike Rann with Sasha, his partner, and this
man who's in the studio with us now, Scott Bates ... the Premier had
mentioned Scott Bates was staying with him... ) Great to be with you here
today ... I really appreciate being on what is perhaps one of the top three
morning shows in Adelaide and I'm very excited about that. (Abraham: Now the
Premier's told you to say that.) Indeed. (Bevan: Very funny.) (Abraham: Name
the other two. No ... we'll talk to you about homeland security and what
this job means but you are an interesting person. You are young ... at 26
you were the youngest Secretary of State in Virginia ... ever in America ...
) ... most of what I got to do was appoint people to boards and commissions
... that was one of the more interesting jobs I had ... (Abraham: Now I
imagine you met Mike Rann through Craig James who's a ... we would call him
a spin doctor, but a political consultant ... campaign guru.) ... I had
worked with Craig back in 1990 at a firm in Washington ... we had about a
third of the US Senate as our clients that we helped with their
communications efforts ... maybe in 1997 Craig said how about coming out and
seeing a mate of mine, Mike Rann, and I'd heard about him ... we just hit it
off right away and stayed in touch with him ... (Caller Richard: ... in your
opinion as far as terrorism targets, do you think would a city that's
advertising itself as a defence capital, a city that's got major global
infrastructure headquarters moving in here, do you think that at the moment
we might be becoming a larger potential terrorist target? ... ) ... I've met
with Susan Carman [phonetic] who's your Director of Security and Emergency
Preparedness here in South Australia ... at the beginning of the
conversation I thought ... I'll have all these things to share with her and
maybe ... teach South Australians. By the end of it ... we talked in some
detail, you are years, literally years ahead in planning ... on protection
of critical infrastructure and emergency preparedness than state governments
surely in the United States and even our Federal Government ... when it
comes to being a target I think what we have to think about is that who
would have ever imagined that four aeroplanes would be smashed into
buildings? Who would have ever imagined that 10 aeroplanes would have been
attempted to be hijacked in the Philippines? ... I don't want to say that
everywhere is a target because that's just kind of alarmist but I think it
make sense to take proper precaution, to make sure you minimise risk ... yes
these are trying times ... but really the world is a heck of a lot safer
than it was say 40 years ago ... (Abraham: Did you help ... on Mike Rann's
election campaign in 2002?) Well I guess if you could consider help being
... going out to dinner and chewing the fat and having a glass of wine, I
think that's help. (Abraham: ... I think you're mentioned in dispatches in
Bob Ellis's book.) Well as you know, Mr Ellis is a noted writer of
Australian fiction. He ... I think he referred to me as one of the most
interesting people he'd ever met and a 21st century hero. I pull that book
out at every kind of party I have and do dramatic readings from it ...
Adelaide is a very special place ... I first came here in 2000 and then back
in 2001 ... when Mike was running for office ... first and foremost I've
learned something about Australia that I hold dear is this concept of being
a mate ... being a good friend and ... that transcends politics ... I'd say
Mike is a great mate and that's why I came out. And that's why I'm here
today. I've got two weeks of vacation and I came out for one week here.
(Abraham: Scott Bates, thank you ... )

The main reason for looking is that the Australian Government has just announced its intentions to Federalise control of major ports. The reason given has been to reduce bottlenecks in trade, but it's a timely coincidence given that the winner of the Destroyer contracts will be most likely announced next week.

Making the announcements in reverse order would have given too many people "the wrong idea"
.

My guess is that Adelaide will be chosen is that with it's smaller population to Melbourne, less lives would be lost in a maritime "terrorist attack"

It's a pretty safe bet given that three of the four submissions involve major work being carried out in Port Adeliade, that this city will be signifigantly involved in the project.. As far as the systems integration work goes, BAE is probably the only company able for the the job, and as they are "Adelaide based" it would be perfect for the work to be given to "local business"

Mr Bates' involvement indicates very close ties indeed between Adelaide and the U.S. on maritime security matters. No doubt his opinion will affect the outcome

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Would the United States ever consider faking attacks on itself in order to arouse the support of its citizens? They already did... forty years ago!

Operation Northwood was a planned faked attack on U.S. soil by Cuba, and included the proposal to blame streetside sniiper shootings on "Cuban terrorists".

Substantiation for some dangerous hypotheticals arises in this scenario relating to the possible uses for the date 6/6/6

It's time for a walk in the sunshine.....

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31/5/05

ADELAIDE WINS WARSHIP CONTRACT

In what he described as a "monumental day in the State's history" , South Australian Premier Mike Rann has just announced that Adelaide's Australian Submarine Coporation has won the contract to build the three "Son of Star Wars" Air warfare destroyers.

Premier Rann said that when the news reached his office "we all shook hands and said 'mission accomplished'."

Mr Rann added that the contract had been signifigant in enticing "a whole lot" of defence-related companies to Adelaide's northern suburbs.

Companies involved in the contract include BAE, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon and Halliburton/KBR.

Mr Rann also said that on the strength of the win South Australia would be bidding for the Australian arm of the Global Hawk project. The Unmanned Air Vehicle's first trans-Atlantic flight was from Edwards Air Base in the U.S. to the Edinburgh Air Base in Adelaide.

Defence Minister and Senator for South Australia Robert Hill qualified the announcement by adding that much of the construction work would be carried out in shipyards across Australia.

Mr Hill said that "...up to 70% of the module construction will be subcontracted to other shipyards around Australia, creating around 1000 additional jobs throughout the country."

"It's a very large project, very technically challenging."

South Australian Opposition Leader Mr Rob Kerrin said that the deal would "cement South Australia's defence industry for decades to come", while Australian Workers Union representative Wayne Hanson. said "We've won a generation of work for South Australian workers and their families."
.
Senator Hill said that the Federal Government would provide $455 million to fund the second phase project activites such as design work, infrastructure and facilities construction until mid-2007. Local ship construction recruitment is expected to occur at that time.,

He said it would further reduce the risks of the project in accord with recommendations of the Defence Procurement (Kinnaird) Review

Sources: ABC-891 Adelaide, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, Reuters

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15/6/05

HALLIBURTON TAKES OVER

In a response to an earlier blog TG Kerr made the suggestion that companies such as Halliburton may be creating work for themselves by creating projects and then submitting them for Public Private Partnerships with the Federal Government.

A good example would be KBR's development of the mouth of the Murray River. Plans to create a Twin Lake artifIcial evaporation containment system from S.A.'s Lake Alexandrina which Cheney's Men admit won't keep the Murray mouth open) include construction of a 100 kilometre barrage. The concept is being recommended to councils near the lake by S.A. Premier Mike Rann. The company has proposed it as a PPP... how many other projects are being tendened for by mulitnational companies' under the cloak of "Australian subsidiaries"?

Thanks, John Howard, for such a quick response. Today's announcement of the Roadmap to Water shows the Federal Government's intention to privatise Australia's waterways. Howard is acting on thinktank The Barton Group's advice. The Barton Group tendered for private consultants to facilitate the Roadmap (point #7 here). I wonder who they might be ? Three guesses...

__________________________________________
Second thought for the day: are Adelaide's unnecessary and too expensive new warships being "purpose built" for involvement in a pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea? Given Richard Perle's plans, it's a high possiblity. A Catch-22 arises, especially fpr a believer of Alexander Downer's fears of potential North Korean missile range that if the Koreans get a long enough shot fired off before we finish the ships, the docks of Adelaide will be much higher on an enemy target priority list than they would have been without the presence of "Son Of Star Wars" naval construction

__________________________________________

In the same town, the presence of Halliburton employees in local council offices has been creating conflicts of interest in State planning meetings- scroll down to page 11 where Halliburton is highlighted. Such conflicts are enevitable when you look at lists like this. If you've read the highlighted parts of these two links, you'll see the same name appearing for Halliburton in both local planning and nuclear waste management..."curiouser and curiouser', said Aice "

_______________________________________

Cheney's 2003 Christmas card quoted Benjamin Franklin at the U.S Constitutional Convention

"And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it
probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"

I don't think Mr Franklin would have approved. If you can believe Gore Vidal (and I do) the convenors of U.S. Democracy were working to minimise the impact of those such as Cheney when they drafted their Constitution.. According to Vidal, the possibility of a Cheney was the main reason why Bem and friends didn't want to have an army

You know from my first blog that Cheney set up his Australian activities before he moved back into the White House. Reading Cheney's Christmas message from an Adelaide point of view doesn't exactly inspire sentiments of "Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men"

Australiaa and U.S. As One- letter reprint from Adelaide Advertiser

21/6/05

Assembled by S.A. Minister For Infrastructure, Patrick Conlon, the five member group to plot the state's infrastructure future include former KBR International Vice President for Infrastructure and head of Asia-Pacific Operations, Andrew Fletcher, as its head and the owner of a KBR acquired company, Malcolm Kinnaird, as a participant.

You can sense a possible conflict of interest here... in the same manner that U.S. Vice President Cheny needs to distance himself from his former employer, Kinnaird and Fletcher will need to publically ensure that they are fulfilling their obligations to the state and not the corporation.

At the same time, Defence Minister Robert Hill has announced the tripling of the number of troops based in Port Augusta, in a defence expansion that will allow for "full battle group" exercises and the operational shakedown of "new" M-1 Abrahams tanks.

A proposed new transport hub , and the building of 3,000 new homes, near the R.A.A.F Edinburgh base and the Mawson Lakes development, would be carried out by property development group Delfin. The last time Delfin was prominent on this side of town was in a partnership scheme chaired by the man who was CEO of Kinhill when it was acquired by Halliburton/ KBR, Mr David Klingberg, who is now the Chancellor of the University of South Australia.

Minister Hill has also just announced that he will soon be announcing "which company will work with the rest of the air warfare destroyer team to develope the evolved design of the ship" I'm assuming he means the designers but not too sure. .

This would all be less disconcerting if not for the very close relationship between the Pentagon and KBR. Even the U.S. Congress is having trouble gettiing the facts

In all of this railway-related activity, I hope people remember that the line is not a public amenity for another 48 years... in the meantime the freight charges will be paid to.... do I really have to say it ?

This is just the beginning.... to be continued

-------------------------------------------------------------

It's the middle of July. I've just found this profile of Andrew Fletcher from when he was Halliburton/KBR Vice President for infrastructure. At this time he was hopeful that the corp would be building a new defence HQ in Canberra, adding to the list of the company's contracts in our nation's capital.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday July 23

A new Adelaide-based army battallion would utilise the railway for transport of equipment and vehicles, according to today's Advertiser, On reading this my mind went back to this article for some reason. Remember the bet I made a couple of blogs back? Still haven't changed my mind..

The same day's editorial says that defence construction should not be part of a war participation debate Mr Murdoch is always right.

Speaking of construction, KBR are about to increase their eagerness for Austalian Government awarded foreign aid contracts. Are you the person for the job? There's a week left to apply.

28/8/05

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HALLIBURTON'S ADELAIDE

-Reprinted from Margo Kingston's Webdiary, this piece serves well as an overview of the last few months of blogging

While Australians have sat in their trees like manna-gum-'stoned' koalas, the economic landscape has changed around them dramatically. The new King and Queen of the Southern Defence Colony, affectionately known as Condy and Rummy, will be crowned by Alexander Downer in Adelaide this November, with most of us none the wiser.

As I watched South Australia's Premier Mr Rann tell us that now that a U.S. company had won the design contract for Adelaide's contribution to the US Missile Shield it should set up an office here, I thought "...so that when they've finished ours we can start the work for Taiwan."

I now consider Halliburton to be more middle-men, than boogie-men. True, they've organised protection for Woomera and Pine Gap, transport of fuel and water resources and reservoirs for southern expansion, northern supply and extraplanetary migration, but you won't see their logo on everything not so much as part of what appears at times to be an almost-sinister concealment of their activities, but because they're contractors and subcontractors for other people and projects, like the water meter reading, the council park, mowing, the Warship and Joint Strike Fighter programs.

They've kept their names out of the local media much more successfully than they did in the U.S. and U.K (a pity about the Rolling Stones), but when, in that country and ours, you begin to see the likes of the favourite company of the Bushes and Bin Ladens, Carlyle, begin to show its head at the top of the pecking order, you see two paths leading to the same destination. That's when you begin to wonder how many years of preparation have taken place.

It's difficult when you live here to consider how much of a nexus to southern hemispheric activities our insignificant little city has become, and was possibly planned to be since the end of the Second World War. In 1947, in his novel following his theories of geosynchronous orbit and satellite-based communications, Arthur C. Clark presumed that Britain would be the supreme extraplanetary power because of her control of Woomera. According to U.S. Homeland Security Consultant Scott Bates, Adelaide was mooted as the centre of humanity's nuclear-winter survival outpost at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Back then it wasn't known that the State contained forty per cent of the world's uranium. In front bars around town anyone you have a beer with about what's happening will ask "What's so special about Adelaide?" Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice, White House Secretaries of Defence and State, seem to have a fair idea. In spite of the "humble" reasoning of the aspirant figurehead of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Rumsfeld and "Condy" (Downer's term of endearment, not mine) haven't come to a pow-wow in Adelaide just because the man lives here. They've come to 'inspect the troops'.

From here, troops will rest, train and refurbish while their weapons and supplies run across the continent. From here, liquid natural gas supplies will run north to Asia and south to New Zealand creating a possible reverse supply line when mining begins in Antarctica. Another use of the same pipes would mean that water can be coordinated and distributed to what is left of the globe, with a continually drained and refilled Great Artesian Basin acting as the supply depot... Also useful for 'water downloading' if an extraterrestrial water source is found. While we're waiting, don't forget that the icecaps contain 90 % of the world's fresh water.

From here, Jindaee's radar detection of possible enemies is already carried out. No doubt in the future satellites will feed in global strategic information, if they're not already. The arrival of a National Tsunami Centre suggests that sub-sea activities are also fairly well 'scoped'.

From here, given modern real-time communications, the world could be run quite effectively, at a pinch, with the commanders never being in danger of running out of anything. At the end of the day, with an inexhaustible supply of energy and fresh water, the US Dynasty would be able to outlast any enemy.

To the north of Adelaide, plastic and paper are being imported to landfills and recycled into composites to make lightweight armour for land and air and space vehicles.

In the meantime we can be happy little koalas munching on Manna from America to keep us obliviously content.

URGENT ADDITION Thursday August 11: Our only newspaper, Rupert Murdoch's Advertiser, has today devoted a page on downplaying a terrorist attack on Adelaide.

A good politician exposes a story by denying it. Extrapolating this concept to possible "psy op" techniques, I'm very concerned for this city.

This blog and it's continuance have received an aggregate of 9,000 hits in three months. I'm glad you are watching Adelaide, in case of what might happen next.

.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

September 11 2005

Scary times, in which a man is arrested in for the crime of protesting against Halliburton. I wasn't aware that legislation had been already been proclaimed
.

Six Federal police and immigration officials were needed to arrest Houston histrpry teacher Scott Parkin at a Melbourne cafe. Park was on his way to prevent a workshop about the U.S. peace movement and companies involved in the Iraq war

Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has claimed that orders for Parkins arrest and presumably imminent deportation orignated from the U.S. Government. "The Howard Government will do anything the U.S. Government asks....because he's a thorn in the side of of Dick Cheney, Halliburton, and profit making deals that apply in Iraq"


PARKIN'S REVENGE- REVEALING THE CONCEALED

(Reprinted from Webdiary)

It now seems that a man is to be deported from Australia for inciting resentment of US corporate giant Halliburton's activities in Iraq.

Scott Parkin's aim is to put economic, social and political pressure on Halliburton
so that they withdraw from Iraq. His holiday in this country lead to
participation in recent street protests in Sydney. There he reiterated
his complaint from Australian soil, that Halliburton and subsidiary KBR
are the Poster children of war profiteering.

On Saturday Parkin was leaving a coffee shop, on his way to help present a workshop on nonviolent protest when he was apprehended by four Federal police, assisted by an unmentioned number of immigration officers. BBC News links his arrest to the Sydney Halliburton protest.

Parkin, according to Crikey's Guy Rundle is "not just any old anti-Halliburton activist – he knows more about the company than
pretty much anyone around, and he's been a key organiser of campaigns against their AGMs and HQ in Houston."

What message is sent to Australian activists by Parkin's
incarceration? As someone who has sensed unethicality in the company's
activities both abroad and within Australia I feel vindicated in my beliefs. To remove a person who might promote information implies a desire of the democratic
actor
,
in this case Australia's Federal Government, to obscure and conceal
what this man could portray and reveal, and what he could make us think.

I am beginning to suspect that there is a large financial loophole
being hidden within the activities of the Howard Government, but
unfortunately the key, if flimsy, evidence that I had no longer exists.
It was a job ad in the online version of The Economist, in which
Halliburton KBR touted for a foreign aid specialist to handle its
projects. This ad proclaimed that KBR's clients included the World
Bank, USAid and Ausaid. The successessful applicant would be
'preferrably' based at KBR's offices Greenhill Road, Parkside, South
Australia. If anyone can help me recover a version of this ad it would
be most appreciated.

This ad was 'printed' in the week that the Australian Prime Minister
made a surprise visit to Iraq to announce his country's role as aid
distributor.

Many of us are nervous tonight, after having been told by our leaders
that they don't like what we're doing. Some of us feel a sense of
relief at the ramifications of a problem being finally revealed.


""Well the government owe Australians if not Mr Parkins an immediate
explanation," Mr Brown said, "You can't help but be worried that anti-terror laws are being abused to arrest a peace activist who has been highlighting the extraordinary profit making of Haliburton, which is making a huge amount of money out of the invasion of Iraq."

Parkin's Australian travel visa has been cancelled on the grounds that he is a threat to national security.

Could Parkin's arrest be associated with the release of a purported Al Qaeda statement that Los Angeles and Melbourne are the next targets for terrorism?

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September 14 2005

Quite a card-hand of news will greet Australia in the morning

Deputy PM tales Al Qaeda Photo-Op Where's Costello?

Ruddock's trying to say he's got no idea. Mark Vale, on the other hand, is saying that the tape is more reason to get ready for attack,

"There is no doubt that we will continue to fight the scourge of
terrorism no matter what form it takes across the world."
he said.

In the meantime propoganda terrorist Parkin intends to mount an appeal, which might possibly not be heard in the interests of national security.

Is protesting against Halliburton now considered "not in the national interest?"

FBI says Australian "Al Qaeda Threat" due to Iraq War

AN apparent Al-Qaeda tape threatening a
terrorist strike on Melbourne should not surprise anyone, due to
Australia's support for the US war on terror, according to an FBI
official.

"The bottom line is whether it's this tape or any other tape, we know
there's people out there who wish to strike at the US and our allies,
and that includes Australia," the spokesman said. "It's not something
that would surprise anyone – we know there's a threat out there and we
know it's real
." (Brisbane Courier Mail, 13/11/05

Maybe Prime Minister Howard can change their mind.

Western Australia Jumps The Gun

New counterterrorism legislation allowing area cordons searches and property removal will be introduced into Western Austalian Parliament today.

However W.A . Premier Geoff Gallup draws the line at detaining suspects without charge

" We've yet to agree to taking on board the power to detain people" he said.

(source: Anti-terror laws "nation's toughest", Adelaide Advertiser 14/9/05

South Australia to prevent distribution of "provocative material

The Advertiser was saving its own state's proposed new terror laws for the "on-line front page"

The South Australian laws will include administering restraining orders to prevent the distribution of provocative material.

Source: "Strong arm of the law" Adelaide Advertiser

If a trend of Labor states pre-empting Liberal control by assuming new powers continues, it would be hoped that such political muscle flexing is being applied pro bono (which people assume means "for free" but is actually "for good") in both of its senses of contemporary interpretation.

at 14 September, 2005 - 1:53am

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Our Prime Minister will be making an announcement to the United Nations today:

The Australian Prime Minister Mr Howard will unveil plans to increase aid to $4 billion a year by 2012 from the current level of $2.7 billion.

The increase will take Australia close to the 0.7 per cent of GDP set at the Millennium Summit five years ago.

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun

The main Australian aid provider would possibly be the company in the
process of settling a new foreign aid administrator into its Adelaide
office.

Aid contracts have been given to Halliburton KBR in Adelaide over the last three years under the pretext that they were being given to a local company. But the way, the minister's contact in that media release is now a senior journalist for the Adelaide Advertiser. He is also a former conservative member of Parliament, and led the newspaper's campaign to invoke support for the Adelaide Warship Contract

Question Of The Day. Given that the impending visit of U.S. Cabinet membesr Rumsfeld and Rice to Adelaide in October will be an obvious "terror target", what laws will South Australians be subjected to within weeks?

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 14 2005 - 3:00am |

"I've just read that Halliburton Gives Kickbacks To The Australian Government So They Can Trade There"-Scott Parkin


Sorry about the title lenghth, but this needs to be google-screamed

You can hear the iParkin's Houston Community Radio interview here (MP3 download) I'll transcribe tomorrow. Sorry, but I need to sleep.

Labor counterterrorism spokesman Arch Bevis said in a media release
today "The detention of any citizen for an extended period of time must
be based only on sound intelligence of a credible threat and be
authorised by a judge, not a bureaucrat or politician."

Why weren't The Federal Opposition making more noise about Parkin's detention?

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 20 2005

Australian Greens and Democrats Call Parkin Senate inquiry, Scott Parkin;s Media Release

How to disassociate Parkin from Halliburton? Don't mention the comany's name any more.

As
this story continues to play throught the media, where once you'd see
at least one mention, if not several, of the company Parkin had been
protesting in Australia against. instead we see, at the end of two
weeks of print and airplay, the man but not the cause.

It will be interesting, in the new Howard Government, to see if Bob Brown's motion for a Senate inquiry over the Parkin incident results in any action.

Who will be the sympathetic Liberal who votes with Brown for an
investigation? On the other hand, will Howard use this as an
opportunity to exert control over over his own 'mavericks'?

ASIO historian David McKnight says that if the leak is true it indicates a reversion in ASIO strategy to its tactics in the '70s.

I hope that Brown gets his inquiry. We all knew that a full Liberal
majority was going to create ethical issues. Here's the litmus test on
how they will be dealt with.

In
the meantime, have a look at what Mr Parkin has to say. This release
has been circulated through the nonviolence network, and surfaced on
one of Webdiary's Parkin threads:

MEDIA RELEASE
22 September 2005

Parkin refutes ASIO smear

Houston, Texas: Scott Parkin today spoke from Texas to clear his
name and refute the media claims of an alleged ASIO leak that he was
planning to teach violence in his peace workshop in Melbourne.

Mr Parkin said, "These are false, unfounded and personally Damaging allegations.

"ASIO put me in solitary detention for 5 days and not once made
these allegations to me nor have they provided these stories to my
lawyer, Julian Burnside, QC.

"If I am such a threat why have the FBI not even phoned me since my
return from Australia, to follow up ASIO's silly allegations?

"If ASIO wants the public to trust this process is fair they should
have made these allegations in the proper way and not via some
exclusive supposed leak.

"The Government has a public responsiblity to provide facts and not make smears.

"Osama bin Laden is free, meanwhile Australia‘s peak intelligence agency is running around fretting about peace protestors.

"As I always say and sincerely believe, it is unprincipled to do anything violent at any time, including in a protest situation.

"During my time in Australia I spoke publicly against techniques to
de-arrest a person who has been lawfully detained by the Police because
it is against my principles.

"ASIO should know this if they are doing their job properly.

"Horses suffer from being used as riot control machines and I completely oppose anything that abuses them.

"The media and public are welcome to come to non violent protest
training by me or my colleages, but we can assume ASIO were there
anyway and know these claims are unbelievable," said Mr Parkin.

The Australian Democrats are also demanding action over spy agency leak to a Murdoch journalist.

The
party's Attorney General's spokesperson, Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja
said that "The whole process appears fundamentally flawed" and asked
"Surely any such leak to the media is in itself an issue to national
security?"

Given that the journalist who was supposedly
given information by ASIO is regarded by many as the most right-wing
Murdoch journalist in Australia, questions are being asked about the
leak's authenticity.

Federal Parliament resumes in a week. Life in the Senate will not be dull.

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 24 2005

Halliburton Stuffs Up

When you read this L.A. Times story, think about possible ramifications in an area near you::

[Excerpt]

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

QARMAT ALI, Iraq — The failure to rebuild key components of Iraq's petroleum industry has impeded oil production and may have permanently damaged the largest of the country's vast oil fields, American and Iraqi experts say.

The deficiencies have deprived Iraq of hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue needed for national rebuilding efforts and kept millions of barrels of oil off the world market at a time of growing demand.


Engineering mistakes, poor leadership and shifting
priorities have delayed or led to the cancellation of several projects critical to restoring Iraq's oil industry, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry experts.

The troubles have been compounded in some cases by security issues, poor maintenance and disputes between the U.S. and its main contractor, Houston-based KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., according to the interviews and documents.

Despite the United States' spending more than $1.3 billion, oil production remains below the estimated pre-war level of 2.5 million barrels per day and well below a December
2004 goal of up to 3 million barrels per day.

Interviews and documents from whistle-blowers show problems with at least three projects deemed crucial to Iraq's oil production:

• Qarmat Ali water treatment plant. This massive pumping complex is needed to inject water into Iraq's southern oil fields to aid in oil extraction. Under a no-bid contract, KBR was instructed to repair the complex at a cost of up to $225 million, but not the leaky pipelines carrying water to the fields. As a result, the water cannot be delivered reliably, raising concerns that some of Iraq's oil may not be recoverable.

• Al Fathah pipelines. As part of the same no-bid contract, the U.S. gave KBR a job worth up to $70 million to rebuild a pipeline network in northern Iraq despite concerns that the project was unsound. In the end, KBR built fewer than half the pipelines, and the project was given to another contractor. The delay has aggravated oil transport problems, which have forced Iraq to inject millions of barrels of oil back into
the ground, a harmful practice for the oil fields and the environment.
A government audit is being conducted based on a complaint by a whistle-blower.

• Southern oil well repairs. A $37-million project to boost production at dozens of Iraqi oil wells was canceled after KBR refused to proceed without a U.S. guarantee to protect it from possible lawsuits.

It is striking that although thereconstruction of the northern oil infrastructure has been hampered by security issues, the southern oil fields — which account for most production — have been attacked only a few times since the conflict in Iraq began but still face serious problems.

After the 2003
invasion, U.S. officials and KBR moved swiftly, resuming oil production
only a month after the war began and slowly increasing output. But
after matching the prewar peak of 2.5 million barrels a day in
September 2004, production declined to about 2.2 million barrels daily
last month.

If the U.S. had successfully completed the planned
repairs, Iraq could be producing up to 500,000 additional barrels a
day, according to some estimates.

The difference would add up
to more than $8 billion a year — money that the Iraqi government could
use for new schools and hospitals, to supplant U.S. reconstruction
spending and improve the Iraqi security forces that Washington hopes
will replace American troops.

U.S. reconstruction officials
acknowledged the delays but said the efforts had turned a corner and
that despite the contract disputes, they were satisfied with KBR's
performance. The company avoided a possible cancellation of its
contract this year after addressing problems associated with cost
estimates. The U.S. also has brought in an Australian-American firm to
finish several projects started by KBR that had been delayed (Full version here)

If the hearsay about the railway is "on track" we may see local versions of stories like these.

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 27 200

P.M. Funds National Terror Initiatives

Prime Minister John Howard today announced funding for a new counterterrorsm package.

The funding will support measures agreed upon between the Federal Government and the nations' State Premiers.

Following
today's meeting of the Council of Australian Governments’ meeting
(COAG) to discuss national counter-terrorism arrangements Mr Howard
announced $40 million in additional funding for a range of measures "to
deliver increased safety and security to all Australians."

These
measures are in addition to the Government’s recent commitment of $200
million to further tighten security at Australia’s major airports

Initiatives announced yesterdayinclude:

  • $17.3 million over five years to establish an Australian Chemical,
    Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Data Centre located within the
    Australian Federal Police (AFP);
  • $2.4 million over five years
    to support the establishment of a Chemical Warfare Agents Laboratory
    Network, which will provide a network of laboratories across Australia
    for the analysis of chemical agents;
  • $9.2 million over four
    years for the enhancement of Australia’s national counter-terrorism
    exercise regime - the enhanced programme will provide a greater focus
    on exercising Australia’s ability to manage mass casualty incidents,
    particularly in places such as major city precincts and transport hubs;
  • $1.3 million over four years to support the development of a
    national strategy to explain to the public, through a set of clear,
    concise messages, the arrangements set out in the National
    Counter-Terrorism Plan and improved, centralised communication with the
    media during a crisis;
  • $5.9 million in 2005-06 to support the
    development of a national action plan to build on the principles agreed
    at my recent meeting with Islamic community leaders and to undertake a
    range of related work including Muslim community liaison, community
    partnership projects, a national youth summit and leadership and media
    training;
  • $1 million over three years for Commonwealth
    aspects of the implementation of the National Counter-Terrorism
    Committee’s review of urban mass passenger surface transport security
    arrangements; and
  • $700,000 to assist Commonwealth
    participation in the National Counter-Terrorism Committee review of
    closed circuit television capability and development of a national code
    of practice.
  • Further, the COAG has agreed to establish a
    unified policing model at each of the 11 counter-terrorism first
    response (CTFR) airports including: an Airport Police Commander, a
    dedicated Joint Intelligence Group, a CTFR capability and a permanent
    community policing presence, and at each of the major international
    airports (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide), a Joint
    Airport Investigation Team.

The Australian Government has agreed to fully fund under the unified
model a full-time community policing presence of AFP officers wearing
AFP uniforms and under AFP command at all major Australian airports,
with officers seconded or recruited from State and Territory police
forces. The funding details for this initiative will be settled and
announced shortly.

The COAG communiqué can be found at: www.coag.gov

Australian Lawyers Alliance president Richard Faulks told ABC News that the laws are totalitarian and un-Australian.

"Depending on what the final version is, I think it is a retrograde step, and one that we didn't need," Mr Faulks said.

"Australians value their freedom and even though everyone is concerned
about terrorism and rightly so, there are steps that can be taken that
are still consistent with proper safeguards which are part of our
everyday life."

The
union for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has told the ABC that it
does not have enough officers to take on the new airport security
functions approved today.

Spokesman Jim Torr
said that more than 600 employees have been redeployed to
counter-terrorism functions since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"The AFP has to grow proportionately to the scope of the increase of its role," he said.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann told the Financial Review
he was confident the leaders would convince Mr Howard to include a
sunset clause as part of the package. "I think that a sunset clause
after 10 years would be a smart thing."

He said that terrorism was just another word for mass murder, and the new laws should reflect the seriousness of the crime.

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 28 2005

SA Recruiting In Mumbai For Defence and Research Workers

The S.A. Government is attempting to recruit workers to the State from the commercial centre of India.

Addressing
a seminar on ''Living, Working and Studying in South Australia'' in
Mumbai this week, S.A. Trade and Industry Minister Paul Holloway said
bio-science, automotive, manufacturing, medical research and
hospitality were sectors where his country could employ people from the
developing countries.

Mr
Holloway said that South Australia offers varied job opportunities for
overseas workers across a range of key industries including defence,
healthcare and engineering.

''If
you have skills in these areas, South Australia invites you to be a
part of our cutting-edge defence industry,'' he enthused.

The
Trade Minister referred to S.A. as the high technology centre of
Australia's defence industry, leading the country in shipbuilding,
submarine support, aerospace and defence research and development.

In a statement released last March, S.A. Premier Mike Rann
said his Government had set a target to boost the number of people
employed in the State’s defence industry from 16 000 to 28 000.

Mr
Rann said that" Positioning ourselves to win more contracts will help
us to achieve so many of South Australia’s Strategic Plan targets on
job creation, economic growth, investment, interstate migration,
exports, strategic infrastructure and establishing co-operative
research centres and centres of excellence."

He
said that “To win more defence contracts, we have to demonstrate that
South Australia has the skills, the infrastructure, and the
full-throttle backing of the SA Government."

Mr
Holloway and the South Australian delegation will also travel to
Bangalore and Chennai, with the aim of the mission to promote the South
Australian education, wine, water, toolmaking and information
technology sectors, as well as promoting SA as a migration destination.

Premier Rann will lead a trade delegation to India next month.

The head of the state's peak information and commutications technology lobby group told The Australian the government of "not looking in its own backyard" for skills.

ICT Council for SA chairman David Raffen,
told the newspaper that the Premier was "wasting taxpayer's money" and
should be paying more attention to the state's existing capabilities.

The Council has previously expressed concern
at a suggestion by Administrative and Information Services Minister,
Jay Weatherill, that industry development will not be a dominant factor
in the Government's future ICT services procurement.

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 28 2005

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY COMMUNICATION GLOBALISED

Defence Minister Hill today announced that global
defence giant General Dynamics will co-ordinate creation of the
Australian Defence Force's new communications system.

General Dynamics
claims it " has leading market positions in mission-critical
information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat
systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and
business aviation. It is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, and
employs approximately 70,800 people worldwide

The company is to be assisted by the Adelaide-based international defence corporation Tenix (whose consultants have included former Defence Minister Peter Reith) with ADI, Tenix founders Transfield share ADI in a consortium half-owned by European communications group Thales. The two goups have previously proposed merging aspects of their businesses. Thales acts as recruitment centre for ADI.

It's possible to guess who will look after the subcontracting work, but that would be pure speculation

Here's Minister Hill's medoa release:


Preferred Tenderer FOR BATTLESPACE COMMUNICATIONS PROJECT

General
Dynamics, in partnership with ADI and Tenix, has been selected as the
Phase One Preferred Tenderer for the design, development and
implementation of Defence’s future digital communications system,
Defence Minister Robert Hill announced today.

Senator
Hill said the Battlespace Communications Systems will increase the
efficiency and capacity of the Army and land-based Air Force elements
to rapidly share information on the battlefield.

Phase
One is approved for $97 million, and will focus on the development of
the overall systems design and architecture for future procurements of
communications equipment for the Land Force. This will provide enhanced
Voice and Data communications capabilities and enhanced technology
upgrades to equip a digitised Joint Task Force.

"This project is a key component in the delivery of network centric warfare to the land environment," Senator Hill said.

"This
project will deliver state of the art digital voice and data
communication, including video and multimedia, as well as an upgrade
plan to ensure that the ADF’s equipment remains at the forefront of
technology.

"Equipment will span
the majority of field deployable units in both the Army and Air Force
and is likely to range from small hand held radios to larger vehicle
mounted communications equipment."

Estimated
at up to $800 Million, the project has been broken up into three phases
that are currently programmed over the next 10 years. Under this
project, equipment will be introduced into service from 2007/2008.

"The
preferred Prime Systems Integrator, General Dynamics, has significant
experience in the design and development of complex communications
systems through previous work on similar projects with the Canadian and
British Armies," Senator Hill said.

"General
Dynamics’ involvement in this project will enable the ADF to leverage
this experience to strengthen Australia’s systems integration and
communications expertise and further develop this critical capability."

General
Dynamics has established a new company, General Dynamics Systems
Australia (GDSA), as part of this project and will progressively
transfer management and engineering work from General Dynamics Canada
to GDSA. This will generate new jobs and further enhance the
specialised skills needed in Australia’s Electronic Systems sector.

As
the Prime Systems Integrator, General Dynamics will embed employees
from ADI and Tenix into their team to work on the project and support
system definition and design, speciality engineering, life cycle cost
modelling, and the interface of the new architecture with existing
systems.

"ADI and Tenix involvement will increase
in later stages of the project to include delivery of training and
logistics support," Senator Hill said.

"This will
result in opportunities for Australian industry including,
small-to-medium enterprises, to participate in vehicle installations,
supply of equipment and through life support activities."

ENDS

Other Australian defence companies with signifigant global activity include BAE Australia, Boeing Australia and KBR Australia.

I seem to be
looking for the end of the current globalisation of the resource
"monetisation" process we appear to be undergoing. If you include
military capablility as part of a country's natural resources, you
begin to find a monopolisation of national assets in every country.

The question is what happens when everything's 'bought up?' Is it
like the end of the Parker Bros board game, where everyone trades to
amalgamete their assets in the most effective form? Look at the defence
share trading earlier in the year - in the space of weeks BAE sold its
shares in SAAB to buy United Defense from Carlyle who , as mentioned
above, areabout to 'monetise' their investment in the UK. Defence via
revenue generated in a stock exchange float. This is what I see as the
future of Australian military assets - to be bought and sold to the
highest bidder.

Corporate takeovers and share trading have the potential to become
the new method of warfare, with national boundaries being of little
signifigance. Corporation A, with higher miliatary assets and greater
cash flow, defeats Corporation B by financial assimilation without
(unlike now) a shot being fired.

If evoking the side-effects of warfare without bloodshed is the
result, then how can we not commend this global edition of Monopoly?

Whatever happens, the selling of our military communications
networks to overseas interests is the strongest indication yet that
we're a piece on the board. However, I don't think we're truly a
player in the game. It's time to find out who's moving the pieces.

This continues as part of a piece at Margo Kingston's Webdiary

By Richard Tonkin at Sep 30 2005

Precedence In New Australian Terror Laws

First written as comment to a piece on Margo Kingston's Webdiary,
in which Kerri Browne has placed the Australian Parliamentary Library's
compendium of information regarding the proposed Australian terror
legislatiion. Click here.

When the Commonwealth Heads Of Government meeting was held in Melbourne (late 70's, I think) an Irish friend of our family operated a milk bar somewhere in Victoria, three hundred or so miles from the Big Smoke.

This man's father had affiliations with the Australian branch of Sinn Fein.

The Federal Police came down from Melbourne to conduct a weapons
search, just in case his milk bar was a weapons cache for an armed
action in Melbourne.

I raise this situation as it was not that long ago. There were, and
are, many Australians and Irish who didn't sympathise with the British.
In modern parlance supporters of Irish rebellion would be considered as
criminals, and the literature that was circulated interpretable as
inciting acts of terrorism.

What happens when somebody empowered by the impending Australian
legislation decides that those who supported Irish efforts to reclaim
Ulster may be supporting the terrorists attacking Britain? You can be
sure that the possibily of IRA backers aiding and abetting Jihadists
has been discussed once or twice in Downing Street.

On Easter Sunday last year I had the pleasure of sharing a Guinness
with SA's Atternoy General, Mr Atkinson, at Adelaide's Irish Club. The
occasion was Australian Aid For Ireland's annual commemoration of the
uprising against the British in Easter of 1916. Mick sat in room full
of predominantly middle-aged to elderly Irish, listening attentively to
this annual litany of celebrating a cultural revolution.

Crossing a fine line of definition, Attorney General Mick would be
considered a terrorist sympathiser. I hope his involvement in creating
the legislation ensures that he is not part of a future witch-hunt.

When Mr Howard says that Australia's terrorism laws are a result of the London bombings, he is using as a template a society which has had similar laws to those he would implement for the last thirty years.

See if you find any of this language familiar:
[excerpt]

Conclusion

2.7 In the language of the then Home Secretary introducing the PTA legislation in 1974, the Government believes that there exists now a clear and present terrorist threat to the UK from a number of fronts and that a terrorist threat is likely to continue to exist for the foreseeable future even when a lasting peace in Northern Ireland is achieved.

2.8 Having come to this conclusion, the Government believes that new counter-terrorist legislation is needed to take account of the changes in the nature of terrorism and the methods deployed. It also believes that this new legislation should be permanent - as is the case with the vast majority of criminal law. The annual renewal of current temporary
anti-terrorist legislation, whilst useful in underlining the
exceptional nature of the powers and the connection between their use and the prevailing terrorist threat, and providing an opportunity for annual scrutiny of the use of the powers, does not reflect the current reality that such powers are likely to be needed for the foreseeable future.

This consultation paper on Legislation Against Terrorism was
prepared for the U.K. parliament in 1998, and shows great similarity to
what the Australian Government proposes, arguably to a level of
near-plagiarism.

The one crucial difference has been discussed before. The U.K. has
been an occupying force in many countries for many hundreds of years.

Shouldn't we be "writing our own book" in this situation, instead of
(as it would seem) utilising the timing of events to initiate a
pre-prepared plan?

By Richard Tonkin at Oct 19 2005

Bomb Insurance.


It happened so fast that many didn't see it arrive. As the bannor of Halliburton was raised over Australia's Parliament House, the few protesters who dared to attend were taken away for questioning.

Awaiting the arrival of the bulletproof Cadillac carrying President
Cheney stood a proud Prime Minister, eager as usual to open the door,
while a grinning Cabinet formed a line of honor to mark the
auspiciousness of the occasion.

"Thanks, John," said the President, with a courteous nod and an ill-concealed wink. "i'll take it from here."

As they stood at the hour-long ceremony marking the takeover by
Corporate Military Personel of Australian Defence activites, the small
gallery of approved journalists waited for the response to the
President's command that all non-shareholders of Halliburton resign
from Cabinet
immediately. None of the Ministers were moving, although it was
well-known that at least two rebels hadn't "exercised their stock
options."

Those of the media who were reciting Cheney's script, transmitted to
their earpieces from an implanted microphone, pondered the fact that
the joke that you could tell a politician wasn't lying when his lips
weren't moving was no longer true- Cheney's use of the throat-mike was
as skillful as any ventriloquist's. Years of practice with the former
President had served well.

Locked safely in their litigation-proof TPAs (terrorist-proof
apartments) the people-meters on widescreen TVs recorded that the
public observed the event with mild apathy, keen for normal programming
to resume, eventually switching channels in their never-ending quest to
decide which corporation's food to eat that night.

By Richard Tonkin at Oct 24 2005

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 16, 2005

RUMSFELD CREATES ADELAIDE 'HIGH TERROR' CHANCE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA REFUSED PARLIAMENT HOUSE PROTEST

A
planned Adelaide protest against U.S. Secretary of Defence has been
cancelled by South Australian Authorities, and that those gathering at
Parliament House without permission wil be "moved on" by police.

Protest
spokesman Mr Mike Khizan said in a media release tonight that " “Donald
Rumsfeld, a man whom many millions of people around the world see as an
international war criminal is coming to Adelaide, and in the name of
‘protecting’ him, free speech is being denied and the right to dissent
attacked.�?

Mr. Khizam argued that “it would be a betrayal of our
responsibility to defend civil liberties to simply swallow this
decision. If Parliament steps are barricaded off, we will rally as
close to the site as possible, on the King William Street end of the
barricades.�?

The media release by Rice Rumsfeld Reception
Committee also emphasised the fact that many people had already been
notified of the Thurday 4.30 pm protest. It also claimed that Adelaide
talkback radio participants have been warned on at least two occassions
that if they say anything that may incite protest they will be taken of
air

.Police have declared a "high" terror likelihood, following
media reports that protesters are co nverging on the South Australian
capital from all over the country.

The Adelaide trip was
announced several months ago by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister
Alexander Downer, and was planned to coincide with a visit by U.S.
Secretary of State Condileeza Rice. Downer subsequently revealed that
Dr Rice had cancelled her trip because "Leftists" were planning to
protest.

According to the Adelaide Advertiser, police are
preparing for the possibility of up to 10,000 protesters, and have
stated that they will have little tolerance for unwanted activity. A
police spokesman said today that Adelaide residents should not go near
the blockaded area unless they had specific reason to do so.

Mr
Rumseld and the U.S. Deputy Secratary of State are meeting with Mr
Downer and Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill fo an annual
bi-national meeting of minsters known as Ausmin.

Mr Downer has
previously stated that Adelaide was chosen as the location of the
meeting "because I live there," and that he thought it would be nice to
show off his home city.

Mr Rumsfeld is expected to dine on
Thursday at the Stonyfell Winery Resaurant, situated next to a quarry
at the face of the Adelaide Hills. Prostesters plan to gather at the
location, about 14 minutes from city centre, and to be located along
the roadside.

Adelaide has strong commercial and defence ties
with the U..S. It is the primary location for construction of
Australia's contribution to the U.S. Missile Shield, and is the closest
major city to an extimated 40% of the world's known uranium reserves.
The city is the global headquarters for the Infrastructure Division of
K.B.R, the subidary of Halliburton heavily involved supporting U.S.
soldiers in Iraq and in the reconstruction of that countries oilfields,
as well holding a contract for global support of U.S. military
activities.

South Australia is expected, according to its
Premier, to host Australian participation in the Global Hawk project,
in which Unmanned Air Vehicles for survellance and combat vehicles are
being created.

There is also speculation that the region will be a prime player in the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter Project

A Day In The (Adelaide) Life Of Don Rumsfeld

Interesting day at the Rumsfeld rally (nothing huge, around 600 I'd guess) particularly to watch the level of covert security.

Came into town by train at 4 o'clock... a couple of police on the
platform, fifty people with backpacks heading in different directions.

Up to the main street. Immediately to the right is the Halliburton- constructed barrier blockading the Hyatt from the world, a
few constabulary behind it- nothing major.

Strolling up past the Casino, you see a few more parked at the
outdoor cafe, a couple across the street, three or four at the front of
Parliament House.

Then the proudest moment of my life- helping duct-tape the NO WAR
banner between the pillars of Parliament House, from where it was
banned a day before!

(Note- duct-tape doesn't work very well on stone)

Standing around in the crowd, listening to a conversation a couple
down ("barmaid's ears" it used to be called) in which this bloke in
slacks and white shirt is saying " XXX is up there... where's everybody
else?" a phrase repeated later when there was obviously still not more
than one of the constabulary on the steps, and a couple hundred of
(seated) protesters.

At the mike, the S.A. Democrats Upper House Leader, Sandra Kanck MLC
is telling us how, upon walking near the Hyatt to inspect the blockade,
she was asked for her name, address and date of birth. Earlier in the
day, a man was asked to remove his shoes and socks for a police
inspection while his bag, containing a change of clothes, was also
searched.

Awaiting the 6.15. In the meantime it seemed a good idea to return to
the point of arrival. Another man in white shirt and slacks is talking
to officers and men in orange Transadelaide jackets. As they disperse
I'm watching the boys in blue behind the blockade practicing removing
one section to let the motorcad in and out when I notice the bloke
watching me. Again in a Transadelaide "waistcoat" he's perched at the
boundary between the train station and the Hyatt, and he's describing
me into his phone "He's just standing there watching...dark shoulder length hair, a bit of a beard... Stu's
probably got a picture of him" and I'm thinking it's time to leave. (A big "hello" to "Stu" and by the way, who do you work for

Back down on the platform I'm looking for more corporate logos on
the orange train jackets. So many of them only read "security
contractor". I found this interesting in its anonymity.

Apparently,
during the rally (which the Advertiser says had five hundred protesters
compared to Channel Nine's one thousand.) a single protester was
removed and arrested on a charge of disorderly behaviour after
confronting a lone U.S. protester.

Mr Rumsfeld, I know the
numbers weren't huge, but as the pictures of our protest were broadcast
around the country, many, many people were, you can be sure, quietly
cheering us on. They, like the protesters today, do not like what you
represent, and hope you take it with you when you leave.

I've
been looking along the tracks at the Hyatt and wondering which room
you're in. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to you, unless I
catch a bus to town to stand in the street and bathe in your aura.

I
wonder if the Hyatt tonight is going to be like the end of each episode
of "The Waltons" You remember..."Goodnight John-Boy, goodnight Mom,
goodnight Bobby-JO" etc etc.

As the lights go out I wish you
could hear my voice in your head saying "Good night Donald- now piss
off back to Washington, and take colonels Hill and Downer with you.
YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE !

Orstrayyan Defence Minister Hill has said tonight that the Australian and US views on Iraq were "identical"

Q.E.D.

Do you sleep at the foot of the bed, Robert, or on a rug on the floor?

PS Amid all that secrecy and securtiy, some idiot gave out Rumsfeld's itinerary to his fellow Adelaide denizens! Here's how it appeared on Michael Moore's website.

Adelaide Defence and Research Communications Commence Globalisation

Adelaide, the Australian home of Star Wars, Halliburton, Global Hawk
and the Joint Strike Fighter Project, has begun building a global-standard data transfer system that will allow local activities
to be co-ordinated internationally
.

Today's Adelaide Advertiser
announces the commencement and construction of a major fibreoptic
network, connencting defence, science and educational facilities at
speeds enabling synchronisation with global projects.

[excerpt]

SABRENet will cut the time to transfer a terabyte
of data to just 17 minutes, compared with about three months using
business broadband.

A terabyte is 1 trillion bytes.

Until now such large datasets, saved to portable hard disks, have
been transported by plane or taxi between research institutions here
and overseas.

The new network will enable supercomputer real-time simulations,
multi-screen, high-definition video conferencing, redundant storage and
disaster recovery of massive amounts of data, and will allow South
Australian researchers to participate in bandwidth-enabled experiments
around the globe.

The project is the result of almost three years of collaboration
between the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia,
Flinders University, the State Government and the Defence, Science and
Technology Organisation.

It is not known whether the U.S. Surveillance base at Pine Gap will be connected to the network.

By Richard Tonkin at Nov 22 2005 - 1:09am

Adelaide- US Radar Base

The Federal Minister of Defence, Robert Hill announced yesterday that trials that would enable Adelaide to play a key role in the U.S. MIssile Shield were successfu

Mr Hill said that the trials "might" allow Adelaide to participate.

The news follows announcements earlier this year that Adelaide to
become the location of the construction of three warships equipped to
participate in the "Star Wars" shield.

The trials focused on detection of missiles at early stages of
flight, and showed the Adelaide-based JORN (Jindalee Over-horizon Radar
Network) would aid early interception of incoming missiles

By Richard Tonkinat Dec 6 2005 - 12:40am

Scott Parkin Deportation Justified- Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

Halibucks are fake money (in the style of Halliburton) used by U..S.
protesters to demonstrate the idea of dodgy transactions in street
theatre. If the idea wasn't conceived by Scott Parkin,the concept
originates from his training program..

At a recent anti-Cheney protest in Houston , a protester was ushered behind police lines by alleged Secret Service personel to be asked questions about her use of the Halibucks.

Meanwhile, back at the Southern Ranch, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Ian Carnell,in his review of the role of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in the Parkin deportation, found it had acted within
the law.

ASIO's assessment of Parkin,Mr Carnell claims, was based on "credible and reliable information"

There are two versions of the Parkin Report, one remaining classified.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown finds it amazing that Parkin cannot be told of the reason for his deportation. "
"The report justifies ASIO's action in instigating the deportation of
Mr Parkin but says it can't say why," he told the Senate yesterday
afternoon.

At the time of Parkin's arrest and deportation, an ASIO representative "leaked" information to The Australian's Greg
Sheridan that Parkin was planning to teach Australian protetsters how
to roll marbles under the hooves of police horse. This activity, which
Parkin claims is against his methodology, has been a known practice
since the protests against Australian participation in the Vietnam War.

Parkin
now has to pay approximately A$13,000 in transport and accommodation
costs before he will be allowed to re-enter the country.

I've just thought of a solution to the whole problem- let Parkin pay the bill in Halli-bucks! Wouldn't everyone be happy?

It's
my belief that Parkin's deportation was to avoid the possibility of a
major protest being organised as US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld visited
the Global Halli-headquarters of Infrastructure, Adelaide.

By Richard Tonkin at Dec 7 2005 - 1:0

This Is Style Of Protest Parkin's Deportation Was Intended To Suppress In Australia

Pre-planned,
brilliant "photo-op" creation. I reckon that ASIO didn't think the
Australian protest movement would be able to think like Diane Wilson
unless we went to a Scott Parkin class.

From Houston Indymedia :

Katie Heim reports from inside the Westin Oaks Hotel: This evening, as Republicans gathered in the Galleria to raise money for the GOP Diane WIlson, cofounder of Code Pink and author of An Unreasonable Woman infiltrated their ranks. Photos of the banner and arrest. Wilson, who has done work around issues such as the Bhopal distaster and against the Iraq war, got on Delay's RSVP list by donating $50 to
his campaign.

After speeches by the chairman of the Republican Party and a rousing rendition of "God Bless the USA" Tom Delay himself took the stage. Delay referenced the protesters outside, citing the Socialists and the Progressive Workers parties. Then Cheney himself took the stage. WIlson was about 15 to 20 feet away from the VP when she opened up her black velvet wrap to reveal a banner which read "Corporate Greed Kills-From Bhopal to Bagdad". Conservative moralists nearby grabbed WIlson as she chanted "Corporate Greed Kills, and Iraq kills too!"

One GOP member called Wilson a bitch and a whore. Police dragged Wilson out and she's still detained as of this report.

Imagine
if something like this had happened in front of Rumsfeld in Adelaide?
Maybe such photo-tactical thinking is required for protests against our
Prime Minister?

Clipsal, Halliburton, Old Uncle John Olsen and all.

Costello:"If you have any inquiries into the proceedings of the tax office I
suggest you refer them to the tax office or to the taxation
commissioner."

Searle: " He wouldn't be able to tell you much at all because he
would be subject to the secrecy provisions of the taxation act."

A retired senior tax officer says that the matter should have been
referred to the DPP but that he can say no more as, although retired,
he's still subject to the secrecy provisions of the income tax act. This
is much of a tune as Chris Searle can whistleblow, and it's a strong
and stirring lament.

There was no lamenting on the night of John Howard's re-election at
Gerard's private function room in Bowden, as his guests, members of the
SA Liberal Party, cheered the results, and their signifigance. As a
party insider said at the time, "Every party has eliminated it's Left."

Two weeks ago, former Premier Dean Brown announced he would not
contest the seat of Finnis at the next election. The "capital" of
Finnis is the tourist town of Victor Harbour, and the region has been
booming with development ahead of a speculated new four-lane
highway to the area. Immediately after the announcement, Brown retired.
The rumour for twelve months back was that responsibility for the
road's construction is in the hands of Halliburton.

Former Premier John Olsen had a couple of quiet paragraphs in the Advertiser today, announcing his continual journey promoting South Australia in the US. He's just been appointed Consul-General to New York. Olsen, Premier when Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney visited Australia in '97, was responsible for selling SA's water to supply to SA powerbroker Malcolm Kinnaird, creator of the company that becameHalliburton/KBR Australia, and acting as its consultant when his bid, placed several hours afterclosing time, was accepted amid accusations of government andindustrial expionage. The 'Tiser today notes Olsen's significantcontribution to promoting South Australia to the US. If you're lookingfor Judas, he's out in the olive garden, puckering up.

Have you read Alan Ramsay's SMH piece yet? There's a paragraph here that's ringing my bells:
[excerpt]

"A leaked [internal party] memo from Senator Minchin [to
South Australian party officials] states: 'In my eight years as state director [until elected a senator in 1993] I never knew the existence of, let alone met, Mr Bill Henderson, whom we now know apparently obtained the Moriki and Catch Tim donations for the party. Mr Henderson was named as the conduit for both donations." Yes, but the conduit from
whom?

The question Ramsay raises here is a biggie. Gerard, concentratingon financing the expansion of his empire, was probably beginning toshow the finiancial stretch-marks that lead to his "globalisation". Wasit Gerard's money that flowed through Catch Tim and other fronts, orwas he only pretending?

At any rate, with Kinnaird working the corporate end, and RobertGerard manipulating the Liberal Party, South Australia never stood a chance. Cheney and Rumsfeld's wishes were fulfilled.

The ironic thing about the raising of the supicious nature of
relationships between Gerard and Costello is that what the exercise has ultimately achieved is for John Howard to get into temporal firing-range of the next election. Why has this maintaining the PM's international position, over the past recent months, "suddenly" become a necessity?

The phrase, "Think Global, Act Local," has taken on a whole new meaning in the New American Century


First
Published on the last night of Margo Kingston's Webdiary. For those
who don't know, Margo is also convenor of Your Democracy

By Richard Tonkin at Dec 7 2005 - 8:49pm

Intercepted Project for a New American Century Memo

The personal blog entry was updated.


Memo to the Downer-Under department.

A big Christmas Howdy to all of Alex's boy's! Our little buddies
have been working their butts getting the Apocalypse Headquarters
ready. Little John, with some gentle persuasion, has decided to stay
with the team... thanks, Agent Gerard! You've saved us a bundle yet
again!

Don't forget the date of our next party, on June 6th next year. The
Sexy Six will provide the music, George will be serving the pretzels,
and Osama as always will be running the chook-raffle

Halliburton
Mal has always delivered our every need, and he's lived up to his
reputation. The catering he\s provided for the bash is more than anyone
could ask for. Another fat Christmas bonus of Defence Research stocks
are coming to stuff your stocking, Pally, hand delivered by Director
Dick! Secretary Don says we won't run out of anything, and that the
playground's second to none. He was particularly impressed with the
Liquor Cabinet you supplied after tasting your samples.

The
Most-Improved Employee Award this year goes to Gunner Bob. Alill that
media training is finally paying off, and he's almost as good at Alex
at lying convincingly. Next time we have a PNAC Poker-Face Play-Off
the judges will have a difficult time of it.

Johnny O is proving
to be a pleasure to have around New York.. a man who knows how to give
service, that one! Both John and the Reefer-Man asked us to pass on
Festive greetings and by the way, yes it was worth it. John wants to
know if you've found anything in Central Australia that he maybe missed
that needs selling, but the Reefer-man thinks he's had all the bases
covered.

To close this memo a warning.. there might be a virus in the system..

Last night I had the strangest dream,
I never dreamed before.
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.
I dreamed I saw a mighty room,
The room was filled with men.
And the papers they were signing said
They'd never fight again.

And when the papers were all signed,
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads,
And grateful prayers were made.
And the people in the streets below,
They all danced round and round.
And guns and swords and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground.

Last night I had the strangest dream,
I never dreamed before.
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.
I dreamed I saw a mighty room,
The room was filled with men.
And the papers they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when I woke twas but a dream

and peace a dirty word

Itried to tell them of my dream

but not a word they heard

And then I got me fighting mad

and knew just what to do.

I'd fight nonviolently for peace

until my dream came true.
.

If anyone can find the author of this virus, Ed McKurdy, can they have him jailed as a seditionist or deported or something

at Dec 12 2005

DEPORTED HALLIBURTON ACTIVIST CHALLLENGES AUSTRALIAN INTELLIGENCE

(Proudly reprinted from Halliburton Watch and Houston Indymedia )

Houston-based activist Scott Parkin, deported from Australia after
protesting the activities of global energy and war-industry giant
Halliburton, has mounted a legal challenge against his treatment by
ASIO, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.

On
September 10 this year security and immigration officials detained
Parkin at a Melbourne coffee shop. Parkin was scheduled to co-present
a workshop on non-violent protest techniques that afternoon.

Parkin
had previously assisted co-ordinating a street-theatre protest at
Hallibuton/KBR's Sydney offices, coinciding with an international
business conference at the Sydney Opera House.

Parkin had declined a request to appear at an ASIO interview.

According
to The Australian, security officers were concerned that Parkin would
teach Australian Halliburton protesters how to roll marbles under the
hooves of police horses.. presumably the marbles that ASIO lost years
ago.

Parkin is seeking to overturn the adverse security finding that caused his deportation.

Halliburton's Australian arm is involved in foreign aid activities in
Iraq, and enjoys numerous no-bid defence contracts. It is chief owner
of the Adelaide to Darwin Railway, and calculates the probabity of
missile-strike breaches of Australian nuclear facilitiies. The
possibile sites for the new Australian nuclear dump are all situated
along the railway..

Here's the ABC News version

at Dec 132005

SON OF STAR WARS II: NEOCONS DOWN UNDER

"It’s not Star Wars. It’s basically the capability to defeat ballistic
missiles whilst they are in the air after launch, during cruise or as
they reenter the atmosphere and that defensive capability has developed
enormously in the last few years. A year or so ago it was thought to be
decades away. Now the United States will in fact deploy the first part
of its defence shield next year. So it’s a rapidly advancing technology."

"The need in a very unpredictable world is to beable to defend ourselves, whether it’s troops on the ground or whether it’s strategic assets and what we have is the opportunity to get into this massive project at an early stage, to be able to invest in it, to learn what capabilities might be suitable for us in the future and basically to have that option, the option to be able to develop that form of defence in the future."

"We think that in the science and technology area we will make a contribution from the start. The Americans have been out here looking at our capabilities. They have been most impressed with JORN, for example, and new forms of radar and sensors that are being developed here north of Adelaide. And they willhave the opportunity to promote and invest in their science through this project. This is a massive project, a huge public expenditure by the United States and it gives us the opportunity to get into the project and to play our part and to get a benefit in terms of a more secure Australia."

"We will choose the projects within the massive program that we want to invest in and obviously we will do that to the background of our successes to date, in terms of radars and sensors and the like. And we will get benefit back from that investment in terms of better capability for Australia."

"We have said the Air Warfare System will basically be a US design but the US designers are interested in Australian companies contributing complementary parts of the system. That again will be an opportunity that our companies have never had before at that level of sophistication."

Robert Hill December 5 2003

Now let's take the Tardis to December 6 2005

[extract from the Adelaide Advertiser]

Outlining other strengths of the SA defence industry, Senator Hill said the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) - consisting of two over-the-horizon radars - might be used as part of Australia's contribution to the U.S.'s so-called Star Wars missile shield.

The two over-the-horizon radars are jointly operated from the JORN Coordination Centre at RAAF Base Edinburgh by the No. 1 RadarSurveillance Unit.

Trials of the JORN last year for missile defence proved it was successful in detecting a target.

This involved detecting ballistic missiles during the "early boost phase", allowing earlier interception.

Two days later Minister Hill revealed, while announcing the placement of
the AEGIS order, that unless Australia had taken this action
Lockheed-Martin would have need to shut down its AEGIS production line, telling The Advertiser that

"Placing the order . . . allows the U.S. to continue manufacturing without halting its production line, bringing about greater efficiency and achieving considerable savings," he said. "The purchase will also maximise opportunity for Australian industry to provide sub-systems
such as communications, electronic warfare, sonar, electro-optical sensors and other equipment."

It's good to know that, even though we don't have a final design for the ships yet, we know what we'll shoot from them.

Last Thursday the Pentagon extolled the success of it's Southern Hemispheric Missile Shield trial.

[extract from The Advertiser]







The latest test in the Pacific was designed chiefly to evaluate the
performance of the interceptor missile's rocket motor system and Raytheon Co-built "exoatmospheric kill vehicle", the bit designed to smash into the target warhead and pulverise it in space, MDA said.

It also successfully tested, among other things, silo support equipment, the agency said.

Last February, a ground support arm in the silo malfunctioned because of hinge corrosion caused by what MDA later said had been "salt air fog" that entered the underground silo.

Boeing said in a statement that the interceptor will be flown against a live target in subsequent tests.

The flight test yesterday validated the system's ability to track, acquire and provide the interceptor with the data for a "hit-to-kill" intercept, Chicago-based Boeing said.

All told, the United States is spending roughly $US9 billion ($11.95 billion) a year to develop a layered missile shield, including components based at sea and in space. The shield is designed to knock out the type of ocean-leaping missile that could be tipped with a nuclear, chemical or germ warhead.

In the dramatic public competition for the winning of the AWD contract...
two state governments toe-to-toe in the media, complete with
Adelaide-base journo-terrorists invading Melbourne to present the case
for South Australia. The Advertiser journalists were lead in the charge
by Craig Bildstien, former Liberal Member for Mildura and ex
press-secretary for Chris Gallus, the Parliamentary Secretary for
Foreign Affairs.

I had the privelege of hearing South Australian Premier Mike Rann announcing the AWD cpmtract being awarded to Adelaide, telling everyone how when his office received the news "We
all shook hands and said "mission accomplished' ". The implication to
the South Australian public was that it was the State's Labour
Government that had won the deal. Hill didn't have much to say at the
time.

Nowadays the relationship is a little more tense. When Senator Hill announced on Thursday that Adelaide was to receive a new
1,200 battallion. Deputy Premier Foley was caught unawares, telling
Adelaide ABC's Matthew Abraham and David Bevin that the announcement, though known to be due sometime in the future (nice to know somebody in the Premier's Department has discoverd the internet) was not expected at that time.

As South Australia gears up for an election next March, the job creations Rann's Defence State are going to be loudly
proclaimed as a vote-getter. The question is exactly how much of the
acquisition of defence contracts is directly attributable to the
Federal Liberal Government, the State Labor Government, and the State's former Liberal Government.

It obvious looking at Hill's statements, at a time when Rann had only been in office for six months,
that planning for our involvement in the AEGIS program had been
developing for much longer than that. In fact, it's been years since
the US government requested three ships to participate in the missile
shield program.

Six months ago I wrote an open letter to Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, saying that,

I share your sense of having participated in a foregone conclusion. Victoria tried hard to win the warships, but as long as the plans created by the Bush Administration and relayed by multinational defence and energy corporations to and through the Australian Federal Government continue on a predetermined implementation schedule, the whims of any State's comparitively tiny political muscle will only beconsidered in the form of providing crumbs and scraps left over fromthe main meal.

Nothing that's happened since then has changed my mind. The one thing I was missing is that if i'm right,
a key issue in the next South Australian election consists of an
untrustworthy amount of grandstanding by an actor with a very small
part.

As long as the election result doesn't affect US Foreign
Policy, the Bush Regime wouldn't care who won. However, it's mystifying
that the SA Liberal party, surely able to see what's going on, aren't
opposing Rann's publicity campaign
By Richard Tonkin at 12/17/200

"Armygeddon" Australian Defence Recruitment Campaign

I worry for the minds who created this concept, and hope it's not a
Freudian slip. To get the kids in, or at least the ones who aren't too
fat or stoned, The ADF has prouldy launched ARMYGEDDON, a "street
machine" that that does for Land Rover what Herbie the Love Bug did for
Volksies.

"It's unique capabilities will attract the attention of
those who really know about Street Machines," the blurb proclaims.
Aha... Senator Hill's found a job for "joyriders". !

"I believe this project will raise the profile of some of the technical trades available as
well as promoting the Army as a varied and interesting career to a key target
market - young people,"

said the Chief of Army, Major General Leahy.

The young people
that the Army really seem to be after are the ones at Adelaide
University, who have just joined the US MIssile Shield program. DSTO and the University of Adelaide signed an agreement last week to
establish the centre within the University's School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering.

DO
the Adelaide Uni kids know that their intellectual property will
eventually be sold ('monetised' or whatever) by the very same company
that runs the Adelaide University car park. Tenix aren't just keeping your Holdens dry folks., they're marketing your mindpower .

But what the hell, you might get to work on a really cool car.

at 12/18/2005

Democracy and Gas - Lock, Stock and Hallibarrel

I'm beginning to understand the race to tie up Australia and the
Oceania regions Liquefied Natural Gas sources. From the looks of this
article on Energy Review Net, Unless you own the initial resource
you'll have nothing to work with. You also have a considerable
quantity of political clout, as Russia is currently demonstrating to
Europe.

The
question this piece leaves me with is: how much of a percentage of
control is retained by the suppliers of the technologies used to access
the LNG reserves? The answer to this question will be of importance in
our near future, and I believe the answer will have Halliburton written
all over it. Can anyone advise me where to begin looking?

Here's part of the ERN article


THE world, according to a recent study, has the capacity to 're-gassify' 27.3 billion cubic feet of gas a day – but only has the infrastructure to produce 20.3bcf of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a day. The resulting 7bcf daily gap is a market anomaly that will be converted into profit by someone and has the potential to change expected market behaviour.

The study by North American energy specialist Tristone Capital, and reported by Natural Gas Intelligence, found that the gap between the production of LNG and the re-gasification capacity would not narrow in the immediate future. In fact, by 2010 there will be an 18.2bcf shortfall in the supply of LNG to re-gas projects.

It is the widening gap which explains the boom in LNG production projects around the world, especially in Australia where there is the added appeal of political and economic stability.

More particularly, the gap explains why Woodside Petroleum shares are booming, and likely to continue booming for as long as LNG demand outstrips supply, and re-gasification plants are scouring the world for LNG cargoes.

The Tristone study, encouraging as it is for LNG producers, also contains a warning which could mean trouble for the global LNG industry unless great care is taken. To understand why there could be problems ahead you need to appreciate that market anomalies generally represent
a profit for someone and a loss for someone else.

The profit side of the anomaly is easy to spot. A shortage of LNG means high demand, and high prices. But, those conditions will also, almost certainly, mean that long-term contracts, of the sort which effectively
lock a producer and a consumer into a closed-loop relationship, will remain the mainstay of the LNG industry.

For producers this represents a licence to print money because they have a guaranteed market, and a guaranteed price.

But for the development of a free market in LNG, similar to that which exists for oil, the shortfall in supply could be the kiss of death – as
it could be for a number of re-gasification plants being built (or planned) around the world on the assumption that LNG will become freely traded.

Among the conclusions of Tristone's analysis is that LNG will remain a "seller's market" for the rest of the decade, and that of the 50 proposed re-gasification projects in North America not all will be successful.

Put another way, there is the potential for the surplus of
re-gasification projects to produce a number of expensive failures because these projects have a very high fixed cost structure, and need to operate at a high level of efficiency to make a profit.

Any LNG re-gasification project being built without a long-term supply agreement in place faces a sticky future – as does the belief that LNG is on the road to rival oil as a freely traded commodity.

Tristone, which operates in Canada, the US and Britain, also found that several big LNG projects were carrying large amounts of "geopolitical risk". These are projects located in countries such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

The rising risk profile means that rapid LNG export growth is not assured, simply because the owners of the capital required to build the projects might balk at the risk of putting money into dodgy places.

"Geopolitical Risk" shouldn't be much of an issue to investors in
Australian LNG, you'd reckon. It's far from the same case in Europe,
which gets around a quarter of its gas supplies from Russia, via
pipelines through the Ukraine. So when the neighbours get grumpy...

On Sunday Russia cut off most of its supplies to the Ukraine, after its neighbour refused to pay for an increase to $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, from $50 per 1,000 meters. Ukraine has said it is willing to pay more, but wants the price increase to be made gradually.

Ukraine said the Russian move is a political one to punish the country for adopting a more Western friendly stance since the election of Viktor Yushchenko as president.

The U.S. government said it "regretted" the decision by Russia.

"Such an abrupt step creates insecurity in the energy sector in the region and raises serious questions about the use of energy to exert political pressure. As we have told both Russia and Ukraine, we support a move toward market pricing for energy but believe that such a change
should be introduced over time rather than suddenly and unilaterally," the State Department said in a statement on Sunday.

The Centre for Research on Globalisation's William Engdahl seems to think that control of the Ukraine s as important to US influence on Russia as it is to European Energy supply:

It’s mainly about who influences
the largest neighbor of Russia, Washington or Moscow. A dangerous power
play by Washington is involved, to put it mildly.

A look at the geo-strategic background makes things clearer. Ukraine is historically tied to
Russia, geographically and culturally. It is Slavic, and home of the
first Russian state, Kiev Rus. Its 52 million people are the second
largest
population in eastern Europe, and it is regarded as the strategic buffer between Russia and a string of new US NATO bases from Poland to Bulgaria to Kosovo,
all of which have carefully been built up since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most important, Ukraine is the transit land for most major Russian Siberian gas pipelines to Germany and the rest of Europe.

Yushchenko favors EU membership
and NATO membership for Ukraine. Not surprising, he is backed, and
strongly, by Washington. Zbigniew Brzezinski has been directly involved
on behalf of the Bush Administration in grooming Yushchenko for his new
role.

As far back as November 2001
Yushchenko was reportedly wined and dined in Washington by the Bush
Administration, paid for by the US Congress-funded National Endowment
for Democracy (NED). Martin Foulner in the Glasgow Herald of November 26 reported the details of the meeting. The NED, it’s worth noting, was
set up during the Reagan Administration by the US Congress, to ‘privatize’ certain CIA operations, and allow Washington to claim clean
hands in various foreign meddling. Ukraine is part of a wider US
pattern of active ‘regime change’ in eastern Europe and Central Asia.

At the end of 2003, Papua New Guinea's Oil Search announced an
alliance with Halliburton. They also announced the construction of a
pipeline from PNG to South Australia, to provide fuel for the massively expanding Olympic Dam Mine, (containing a major chunk of the world's future uranium supply) for which Halliburton had conducted the Environmental Impact Statement, while it was laying stormwater pipes for Mawson Lakes, the forthcoming Heart of the Defence State,

If,
at some time in the future, Australia decides to use its uranium and
gas reserves as a method of flexing a political "muscle", in a similar
manner to Moscow, the message might be transmitted by "nerves"
controlled by another "brain".

It\s a small world after all....

By Richard Tonkin at 2 Jan 2006

My Blog Index (you may be interested in other entries here)


Rigged Contracts

RIchard Tonkin:

A crucial refence in the list of investigations accompanying this article is to the U.S. Department Of Justice's March 2005 announcement of a criminal inquiry into rigging foreign contracts, a practice which this story quotes Halliburton admitting it may have been involved in since the mid 80's.

While the comany pre-empted the announcement with its own media release steering focus to Nigeria, it is hoped that the DoJ's attentions might be turned to Halliburton's Australian activites. Hey, if everything's above board than nobody has anything to hide, right?

I can't see our current leadership calling for such a probe, but if such a company were charged and fined in their homeland for activities in Australia., finger-pointing in Canberra would begin very uickly.