hung over there (and here)

cut and paste

(the lazy mans opinion on the world)

A LEAKED email from Communications Minister Helen Coonan shows the government's $1.9 billion broadband plan is targeted at marginal seats held by coalition MPs, Labor says.

Lawyers are to make fresh moves to overturn the conviction of a Libyan jailed for the Lockerbie bombing after new evidence emerged. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is widely expected to announce later this month that it has serious concerns about the conviction of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, jailed for life in 2001 for the murder of 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie.

Legal concerns about the conviction centre on the reliability of testimony from the Maltese shopkeeper who played a key role in identifying the Libyan as a suspect, and the quality of the forensic evidence about a fragment of circuit board allegedly found at the crash site. The commission, which has been reviewing the case for nearly four years, is ready to return the case to an appeal court in Edinburgh. Many legal observers believe Megrahi's conviction will be quashed, in effect clearing Libya of responsibility and increasing pressure for a fresh investigation into the identity of the terrorists behind the atrocity.

ISRAELI tanks moved into northern Gaza last night as the military drew up a plan for a large-scale incursion into the Strip

Gaza residents "are in a cage, and the door is closed," wailed Samira Abou Khanazsh, 47, who makes a living buying cheap goods in Egypt and selling them back home in Gaza

The word didn't crop up when a second wave ushered in the Christians, whose clergy organized them into a vocal, cohesive bloc. Nor did it come into play with the villagers who were simply absorbed into remote desert communities because their tribes straddle the Syrian-Iraqi border.
But the word definitely applies now, as shell-shocked Iraqis of all backgrounds pour into Syria at the rate of nearly 1,000 a day. In fact, "crisis" may not be strong enough, as the flow of Iraqis becomes a torrent. At least 1.4 million are already here, according to the United Nations, each with a story of terror and trauma and a need for services that is stretching Syrians' patience. Many believe the number may be higher.
"What's their future, the 2 million Iraqis here? They can't work, they have to renew their residency cards, they live in poverty. It's an explosive situation," said Lourance Kamle, 32, a Syrian relief worker whose agency focuses on Iraqi refugees. "Make a war? Fine. And what comes after? The Americans should come here and see all these poor people because that's the result of their war."
Bush administration officials have long accused Syria of not doing enough to stop al-Qaida sympathizers from slipping into Iraq, but they barely mention the far larger number of Iraqis who cross the border in the other direction. The United States remains at the bottom of the list of countries that have accepted Iraqi refugees, though the State Department has promised to admit as many as 7,000 this year. Syrian schools and hospitals are overrun with Iraqis. Housing prices have soared, sowing resentment and anger in Syrians who can no longer afford to live in their neighborhoods.

Chinese police have detained 168 people accused of involvement in slavery that trapped victims in scorching brick kilns, as outrage over official complicity rippled through the usually tame nation's news media. Of those held, 48 were caught in Shanxi province and the rest in neighbouring Henan, where hundreds of teenagers and poor farmers, and even some children, were trapped or cheated into kilns, mines and foundries, the China Daily reported.

The Justice Department recently put the 2005 US prison population at 2.19 million, or one inmate for every 136 inhabitants. In France, by contrast, the prison population is one inmate per 1,000 inhabitants.

In Florida, Richard Paey, wheelchair-bound after a traffic accident, was given 25 years in jail for buying more pain medication than his doctor had prescribed. Even if Paey, in jail, is legally getting more morphine pumped into his body every day than the amount found on him at the time of arrest, the minimum sentence was upheld by an appeals court in December.

In Georgia, 21-year-old Genarlow Wilson has served two years of a 10-year prison sentence for child molestation -- for getting oral sex from a 15-year-old girl and schoolfriend during a party, even though he was 17 at the time. A judge ordered Wilson released from jail, but a prosecutor appealed the decision, arguing that in Georgia the minimum sentence for such sex crimes was 10 years behind bars.

Elisa Kelly and her ex-husband George Robinson began purging a 27-month prison sentence in a Virginia jail for serving beer and wine at their son Ryan's 16th birthday party. The parents said they feared Ryan and his friends would drink behind their backs, so they chose to buy the drinks and supervise the party themselves. But in Virginia, where you can drive a car at 16 and vote, buy a gun or join the military at 18, it is against the law to drink alcohol before 21.

Recent months have seen a spate of insurgent attacks damaging bridges and disrupting transportation routes, but this week insurgents managed to bomb at least four, starting first with a bridge near Mahmoudiya on Sunday, which collapsed, killing three soldiers. A suicide car bomber struck a major bridge in Iraq's volatile Diyala province on Monday, reportedly cutting the span that links Baquba to northern villages. Insurgents bombed a bridge over a major highway for the third consecutive day on Tuesday, and on Wednesday a bridge on the main road between Tikrit and Kirkuk was destroyed.

Findings of the investigation suggest that at least some of the Iraqi Police the Americans were training ultimately turned on them prior to the attack and perhaps cooperated in it. And many of the soldiers who were there definitely feel betrayed by Iraqi Police they had grown to trust to some degree. U.S. troops who fought the attackers Jan. 20 say many of the Iraqi Police on hand did nothing to help them during the fight and seemed indifferent afterward. None of the Iraqi security forces on hand sustained any injuries, according to the report. The attackers fired only on the Americans.

"No one was shot," says Sgt. Michael King, describing the Iraqi Police immediately after the attack. "No one twisted an ankle. No one jammed a thumb. Nothing." The investigation report adds that one senior Iraqi Police official even seemed happy after the attack as he talked into a cell phone and walked among the wreckage of the aftermath laughing.

Turkey is considering setting up a narrow security zone inside Iraqi territory to stop Kurdish PKK rebels who have been given safe harbor in Iraqi Kurdistan from raiding into Turkish territory and killing and blowing things up. The United States has signalled its coolness to the bruited plan.

Seven children were killed in a US-led coalition air strike against a suspected al-Qaeda safehouse in eastern Afghanistan that also left several militants dead, the force said today. Its forces "confirmed the presence of nefarious activity" at the site before getting approval to attack.

Official Versions of the Pledge of allegiance:

1892:"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

1892 to 1923:"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

1923 to 1954:"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

1954 to Present:"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."