WikiLeaks and Arab Spies

Julian Assange has revealed that top officials in Arab countries have close links with the CIA and visit US embassies voluntarily. "They are spies for the US" he said. It seems Assange believes he will be killed or sent to jail for a long time and has threatened to release this information if this were to happen. And another shocking accusation emerges - that some Arab countries have torture houses where Washington regularly sends suspects for interrigation and torture.

"Washington is projecting me as a terrorist and want to convince the world that I am another Osama Bin Laden" he said. He will be put on trial in a special court in London on from 11th January and this court deals with terror-related cases. "If the UK decides to hand me over to the Swedes, Stockholm will hand me over to the Americans - the pentagon has set up a 'war room' manned with 120 officials whose job it is to disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks", he said.

The problem of Julian Assange has put the UK between a rock and a hard place. Like us, they have a strong alliance with the US but they are also sticklers for justice and fair play. January 11 will soon be upon us when the cold war between allied nations will continue.

Kevin Pietersen pulls a swifty on Ponting

Greg Chappell

Kevin Pietersen

Poor Ricky Ponting, it looks as though his embarrassing rant with umpire Aleem Dar was set up by Englishman Kevin Pietersen. It's been revealed that Pietersen tricked the Aussie captain by pretending he had nicked the ball from Ryan Harris when he knew damn well that he hadn't. Very clever, it cost Ponting $5,400. Ian Chappell and others were outraged and said they wanted him suspended.

They are calling Ponting 'Dead Man Walking' in the papers today but will the selectors drop him - Michael Clarke is also in a terrible slump. Ponting has made it known to friends that he would dearly love to go to England again, even if it's just as a player.

Those too young to remember need to know something about one of our selectors - Greg Chappell. Way back in 1981 there was an incident at the MCG that no Australian will ever forget. It was a one day match against New Zealand and they needed to get 6 runs off the last ball to tie. Captain Greg Chappell ordered his brother Trevor to bowl the last bowl underarm, along the ground. It was a very dark day for Australia, I believe he should have been banned from every cricket ground in the world. Soon afterwards, and on several occasions since, Chappell has apologised and expressed his regret.

So how did a man of this calibre get to be one of the Australian cricket selectors? By being in the right clique of course.

Sir Elton John Father at 63

Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish have become fathers after using a surrogate mother in the US. The baby boy Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John was born on Christmas Day in California. They are both "overwhelmed with happiness and joy at this special moment."

Unlike Australia and the UK, surrogates in American can be paid a fee for their services and sums of $50,000 are common. But the mind boggles at the fee a superstar like Sir Elton would be prepared to pay. The other plus of going to America is that intending parents can get parenthood status automatically. In some states, including California, parents who have used a surrogate can apply for a pre-birth order which means that they - and not the natural mother - will be listed as parents on the original birth certificate, regardless of whose egg or sperm was used.

It is not known who the father is but Natalie Gamble, a specialists in fertility law, said that one or both men will have provided sperm. She said in all Californian cases she knew about, prospective parents must provide the sperm and the egg would not come from the surrogate, but from a second woman. The couple wanted to adopt a 14 month old boy from the Ukraine last year but their plans were thwarted by Ukrainian laws.

Olga van den Akker, professor of health psychology at Middlesex University said the potentially huge sum paid by Sir Elton could cause problems for his son down the line. "Problems could arise if he thinks he has been sold by his mother - the surrogate or the egg donor if one was involved."

I feel sorry for this child already. Whatever way you look at it, little Zachary has been bought and paid for. It just proves that there is nothing in this world that money can't buy.

Ricky Ponting Spits the Dummy

The Barmy Army is a semi-organised group of cricket fans who follow the English cricket team on overseas tours. They are popular with the Aussie fans because they brighten up the game with chants and songs of support for their team. At the moment, they are here in Australia watching their team run the Aussies into the ground and look certain to retain the sacred Ashes.

The iconic Boxing Day Test at the MCG was a disaster - our worst day of cricket in one hundred years. And it didn't improve the next day because England played brilliantly. So brilliantly that captain Ricky Ponting completely lost it and embarrassed himself by challenging the umpires' decisions with a finger pointing episode that went on for far too long. The argument started when an appeal for caught behind was rejected, first by umpire Aleem Dar and then by the TV umpire.

The ICC could have banned Ponting from the fifth and final Sydney test had they found him guilty of a Level Two breach of their code, but instead docked him 40 per cent of his match fee after finding him guilty of a Level One charge of dissent. So referee Nanjan Madugalle was able to set the penalty without the need for a full hearing.

Ponting said "I accept that the discussion went on for too long and I understand the reasons for the dissent charge handed down by the ICC this evening." He added "I was simply trying to seek clarification from the umpires regarding how the decision had been made after being referred to the third umpire.

Aboriginal Living Standards Still too Low

On 27th May 1967, a referendum was held to change the constitution. It wasn't about giving Aboriginal people the vote - they already had that - it meant Aborigines would be counted in the census and to empower the federal government to make laws for the Aboriginal race. The yes vote was a staggering 99.77 per cent which meant that Australians were very serious about wanting to raise the standard of living of Aboriginal people. Barry Cohen was assistant campaign director for the yes vote team in 1967. He writes in The Australian about how the gap in living standards between black and white Australians still exists today but it's not entirely the fault of past and present governments - Aboriginal people must also take some responsibility for it.

Arriving at Collarenabri in February 1970, we were taken by a local doctor to a settlement on the banks of the Barwon River where humpies made of corrugated iron, hesian and scraps of linoleum housed the local Aboriginal community. The doctor told us "The children are fine while being breast fed but when that ceases, mothers, knowing little about nutrition, feed them rubbish. They get sick with a range of illnesses that have them in and out of hospital so often, that by the time they are five, they are a couple of years behind their white contemporaries, physically and mentally. Their parents are invariably unemployed, heavy drinkers and gamblers, with a limited vocabulary. This cultural backwardness flows on to the next generation. When the children go to school, they can't compete. When at home, they don't have electricity to enable them to study. We have to break the cycle of poverty."

That was forty years ago and despite considerable improvement, too many still live like this. We would never permit this if they were non-indigenous children. But there have been improvements. In 1965 the first two Aborigines to graduate from university were Charles Perkins and Margaret Valadian. Now there are more than 20,000 with university degrees and tertiary qualifications. That's little consolation to the tens of thousands who live in abject poverty today with appalling accommodation, poor health and no jobs. It's worse if they suffer from physical and sexual abuse and are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

While governments must bear the responsibility for that, the Aboriginal community must also recognise that it too has contributed to the big gap in their standard of living. They must cease living in a mythical paradise that they imagine existed before the arrival of the Europeans. They are angry that their life span is 20 years less than non-Aborigines, but in their nirvana, it would be 50 years less. They have the right to choose any lifestyle they desire but they cannot expect governments to provide the essential facilities to hundreds of tiny remote communities. They must decide their own future. If they want a semi-nomadic life in a netherworld then they will have to do it with minimal government help. We are fooling ourselves if we pretend otherwise. Opportunities are opening up for employment of Aborigines, particularly in northern Australia, in mining, cattle raising and tourism, but not enough. Aborigines must relocate to areas where they can obtain employment and where they can also find accommodation and adequate health care. We must provide them with the best education possible. There are schools in remote areas but they vary from ordinary to awful.

We must stop pretending that Aborigines can live in two widely diverse cultures. They must choose between a modern Western lifestyle or a primitive subsistence similar to that which they enjoyed before the arrival of Europeans. Some will argue that it will destroy their culture, but it doesn't have to. They can preserve both while advancing their education in a range of areas. That's what's happening to the rest of the world and it has been happening to the 20,000 plus Aborigines who now have tertiary qualifications.

Jobs count, not noble gestures.
Barry Cohen
From: The Australian
27 December 2010

Saving Private Bradley Manning

Private First Class Bradley Manning is the person being held in detention at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia for allegedly releasing 260,000 confidential US government cables to WikiLeaks. It's been confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, only allowed out of his cell for one hour a day and is on suicide watch. Will they offer him a deal too good to refuse - a lighter sentence or even aquittal - if he will implicate Julian Assange?

The New York Times has already noted that "By bringing a case against Assange, as a conspirator, the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it was not prosecuting traditional news organisations or journalists who also disclosed information the government said should be kept secret....."

Assange has already been hurt badly by US financial corporations when they cut off his money supply and he can't continue for long without it. American values of fairness and truth are being sorely tested while the world waits and watches to see what happens to Private Manning. He's already been in custody for six months so will he make a full confession implicating Assange. If he does and Assange is arrested, will the world stand for it?

Boxing Day Test Cricket at MCG

Ricky Ponting checks the finger

The Boxing Day Test at the MCG is one of Australia's most popular sporting events. After the hectic Christmas Day festivities, lazing around and watching the cricket is a great way to unwind. But the Aussies are being routed by the Poms and are all out for 98 runs by mid-afternoon. After all the speculation about Ponting's finger, he only made 10 runs and the highest score for the day went to Michael Clark with 20 runs - it's a total nightmare.

WikiLeaks Low on Funds

Julian Assange thinks there will be an attempt to influence UK political opinion about him and that the final word on his fate will be up to Prime Minister, David Cameron. Although there is no evidence that the US is ready to indict him, he thinks the Obama administration is "trying to strike a plea deal" with 23 year old Bradley Manning, who is in jail and believed to be the source of the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables. The US attorney general Eric Holder wants to indict Assange as a co-conspirator.

WikiLeaks does not have enough money to pay its legal bills. Even though a lot of generous lawyers have donated their time, legal costs for WikiLeaks and Assange's own defence were approaching $1,000,000. The decision of Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to stop processing donations has really hurt and cost the website around $100,000 which would have kept them going for another six months. At one stage, the website was receiving donations of $200,000 a day.

A $500,000 advance on a book about his life story will pay off his personal defence fund which is currently "paralysed". The book will be published in the spring by Knopf in the US and Canongate in the UK. He said that if US were successful in removing him from the UK or Sweden, there was a good chance he would be killed "Jack-Ruby style" in the US prison system.

Terrorist Attack Planned for Sydney Army Base

Three Victorian men have been found guilty of planning a raid on Holdsworthy Army Barracks in Sydney. They intended to kill as many people as possible in retaliation for Australia's involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Wissam Mahmoud Fattal 34, Staney Edow Aweys 27, and Nayef El Sayed 26, were found guilty of conspiring to plan a terrorist attack. Two other men were aquitted and released from prison yesterday.

Once they decided on their target - the Sydney Army Base - they needed a fatwa, or religious decree, to justify the attack but they didn't trust the Australian religious scholars so they went to Somalia and had no trouble getting one there. The court heard that the men planned to continue firing until they had - used up all their ammunition - were overwhelmed - or killed.

Hundreds of inercepted telephone conversations, many translated from Arabic or Somali, formed the basis for the prosecution's case. The Australian Federal Police taped more than 2000 conversations over 10 months leading up to their arrests. Fattal told his parents he wanted to be the best martyr on earth and believed he would be rewarded in paradise if he sacrificed his life for Islam. "I am trusting my cause to Allah, God the Almighty" he said.

The jury saw video footage of Fattal taking a train to the Holdsworthy Army Base, walking along a perimeter fence and towards the blockhouse at the front gate. He had a good look around and then walked back to the railway station. As jurors left the court after the verdict Fattal said "Islam is truth religion - thank you very much".

Weapons of Mass Destruction

More WikiLeak cables say that in March 2008, the U.S. pressured Australia to place one of Saddam Hussein's former top biological weapons scientists at a Victorian University. The State Department devised a plan to find employment for Iraqi experts in weapons of mass destructiion but Australia rejected the request. Professor Ali al-Za-ag is a microbiologist and genetic engineering expert.

You have to hand it to the Americans. They have given elite scientists with sensitive expertise employment. Why? To reduce the possibility that they may take their knowledge to other countries, like Syria, Iran and North Korea. Since 2006, Professor Za-ag has been working in the US government's Iraq Scientist Engagement Program which promotes the safe and responsible use of biological materials. He has also established a new forensic DNA training centre in Iraq.

The embassy cables which are classified secret and not to be disclosed outside the US government, show that despite Australia's refusal to accept Professor Za-ag in 2008, he reapplied last year for a visiting academic visa to work at Victoria University. People are wondering if the US was behind the move because the result of the application is unknown and the Department of Foreign Affairs refuses to tell. But they did release this statement.

"In mid-2007 Australia was invited by the US to participate in a program relocating former WMD scientists from Iraq. The Australian government was sympathetic to the intent of the program but for a range of compelling, immigration and legal reasons, the Australian government concluded that it was unable to participate in the program".

The cable shows that Professor Za-ag applied separately for a refugee visa with the help of his son, an Australian resident.

Julian Assange's Sex Allegations

Julian Asange is angry about incriminating police files that were published in the Guardian over the weekend - the same paper that used him as its source for hundreds of leaked UK Embassy cables. So why did they decide to publish this sensitive material? They said they had a duty to present a "brief summary" of the sex allegations against Assange. "The argument that papers involved with the WikiLeaks cables should not report criticism of him is one all journalists would find ridiculous" a Guardian spokesman said.

Having unprotected sex without consent is not only irresponsible, it's illegal and it seems Julian Assange has a fetish for it. One of the Swedish women involved said Assange ripped the condom on purpose during sex. The other said they had protected sex at her flat in the evening but in the morning he forced himself on her and had sex without a condom - something she had never done before. Both women were terrified that he might be HIV positive and implored him to be tested but he refused, saying he wasn't going to be dictated to. When they finally went to police, as soon as they heard that he had unprotected sex with both women, it was taken out of their hands, it became an official crime and they could not take back their testimony. In Sweden, having consensual sex without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape.

So I've changed my mind about Assange. If this is true, it gives us an insight into his true character, and it's not very nice. He must actually believe his own publicity - that he's a legend in his own lunchtime - and needs a huge reality check. Being Australian, it's something he should already know only too well.

People Smugglers in Iraq

Madian El Ibrahimi

Madian El Ibrahimi collapsed when he heard that his young family had drowned. His tearful older brother Oday El Ibrahimi, who lives in Sydney, said Madian had been taken to the Detention Centre's hospital where he was kept under obervation. He pleaded that he be allowed to join him in Sydey because he fears he could take his own life.

Mr El Ibrahimi said his younger brother was happy but terrified when he found out his 23 year old wife, 4 year old son and 8 month old daughter were headed to Christmas Island because he knew how treacherous the journey was. Desperate to be together, his wife decided she couldn't wait any longer and decided to follow the same dangerous route from Iraq to Australia. The brothers' cousin Hussein joined the young family on the boat and he was the one who rang his uncle in Sydney and told him the terrible news.

Oday El Ibrahimi and his aunt were the first members of the family to make the trip to Australia eight years ago. They fled the Shiite holy city of Najaf after their father and other family members were executed by Saddam Hussein's regime. They now have permanent residency and Madian had decided to join his brother rather than wait for a family reunion application to be approved.

There are so many Iraqis determined to get to Australia that people smugglers are setting up business in the street, advertising their rates which are now very affordable. Prices have dropped significantly because so many more smuggling syndicates have sprung up. It used to cost $10000 but the average cost today is around $1000-$2000.

Mr El Ibrihimi doesn't believe this terrible tragedy will stop people from coming. He said "They know how dangerous it is, but they will still come". He said people smuggling was more obvious in Iraq because there was no effective central government. It was easy for Iraqi passport holders to get visas into Indonesia and Malaysia and the smugglers took the people by plane to those countries. From there, they waited for a boat to take them to Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/smuggers-blatently-tout-in-iraq-20101218-191bk.html

Asylum Seekers Drown at Christmas Island

Nearly 100 Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian asylum seekers were on board a wooden Indonesian fishing boat when it drifted onto jagged cliffs in rough seas and broke up near Christmas Island on Wednesday morning. Thirty people drowned and forty-two were rescued and searches continue for bodies. Indonesian police said yesterday there was no criminal element to the boat wreck and it was not Indonesia's concern. A police spokesman said "The accident occurred in Australian territory so it's not the responsibility of Indonesia to investigate". He added "This was a disaster, not a crime".

Australia has provided funds and expertise to help Indonesia crack down on people smuggling networks but it's obviously not working. During Julia Gillard's recent visit to Indonesia, the President promised her he would get tough with people smugglers. But Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said Indonesia had no comment on the loss of life.

Indonesia still has no law to deal with people smugglers. The Indonesian president promised to introduce tough new laws by the end of this year but their parliament has shelved the bill until next year.

The Australian government spends millions of dollars every year and provides personnel in Indonesia to prevent the boats from leaving but Kevin Rudd upset them badly when he threw his weight around and lumbered them with a boatload of Tamils - a debacle that went on for months earlier this year. They didn't like the image of their president dancing to the tune of the Australian Prime Minister over the asylum seeker issue and that opinion still exists today.

Despite all the talk of co-operation, an anonymous Indonesian Naval Officer said the Tamal incident reinforced a long held belief that as far as he and his peers are concerned, they must avoid people smuggling boats at all costs and if they do come across one, they offer them fuel and rice, and send them south.

Assange Free at Last

Yesterday at the high court, Mr Justice Ouseley rejected the CPS argument that there were no conditions a judge could impose that would stop Assange from fleeing justice. He ordered the CPS to pay costs and imposed tough new conditions on his bail release. But there are now no restrictions on his access to the internet.

It looks like the Swedish warrant will be upheld and Assange will be extradicted to Sweden to face trial over the sexual attacks even though he's been interviewed by Swedish police and granted permission by the Swedish authorities to leave the country.

There is a growing feeling among US lawyers that Assange will be indicted by Washington. After his release Assange said that even if this were to happen, the release of state secrets would continue. He said WikiLeaks was a "resilient organisation" that could "withstand decapitation attacks". On Channel 4 news last night Assange maintained he was the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by the US with the assistance of the Swedish intelligence service.

"There is an ongoing attempt by the US to extradict me and that extradiciton is much more likely if I am in Sweden" he said.

Julian Assange Pleads for Privacy

How ironic. The champion of leaked secret documents has asked for privacy. His lawyers argued that his bail location, Captain Vaughn Smith's Ellingham Hall on the Suffolk/Norfolk border should not be disclosed on the grounds of privacy. But the irony wasn't missed by District Judge Howard Riddle, he dismissed the move and said it would conflict with Assange's commitment to open justice.

And it's now been revealed that he's being kept in prison because of the British authorities and not the Swedish prosecuters. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will go to the high court today to seek the reversal of the decision to free Assange on bail, made on Tuesday. It was previously thought that it was Sweden who had opposed his bail but now we know it came from the British. Assange's lawyers were shocked, it is an unexpected development. The Swedes said they are not allowed to make decisions in Britain, it's up to the British to handle it and said they won't be submitting any new evidence or arguments to the high court hearing today.

Geoffrey Robertson QC was born in Sydney and is a human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster. His assured presence clearly provided his client with an edge on Tuesday. Robertson argued that sex allegations against Assange by two Swedish women should not be taken seriously. "This is not an extremely serious offence. It is arguably not even a rape offence" he said. He reiterated the case had been initially thrown out by a Swedish chief prosecutor in Stockholm and that Assange had been "fully interviewed by Swedish police on August 30 and "denied firmly and fully all the accusations."

The CPS's formal grounds of appeal for the hearing today, will say that Assange must be kept in prison until a decision is made whether to extradite him, which could take months.

Michael Moore Posts Bail for Julian Assange

Yesterday, Michael Moore put up $25,000 towards Julian Assange's bail. Furthermore, he is publicly offering the assistance of his website, his servers, his domain names and anything else he can do to help.

It looks like we were taken to a war in Iraq on a lie and thousands of people are dead because of it. If there had been a WikiLeaks back then, we probably wouldn't be bogged down in a war no body wants or have our Australian soldiers risking their lives over there today. There must be powerful men in the American government who are shaking in their boots, and not only the American government, but all governments, including our own. It's time for us - the dumb public - who believed everything they told us, to find out what really happened.

Michael Moore said:

What if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were in fact no weapons of mass destruction - do you think the war would have been launched or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's been held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please, never ever believe the "official story". And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence, he has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with film makers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Gemima Khan in putting up the bail money.

Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and US interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn all the lights on in the room so that we can see what you are up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next big lie if they know they may be exposed.

The world will never be quite the same again.

Keli Lane Found Guilty

Keli Lane screamed and collapsed in the dock yesterday as the "guilty" verdict was read out. She screamed "Oh no" and fell to the floor. The court was temporarily adjourned while she was treated by paramedics. Her mother sobbed loudly. As well as the conviction for murder she was found guilty of three counts of making a false statement under oath regarding documents about two other children who were adopted. The jury of 6 men and 6 women were out for one week. They said they struggled to come to a verdict but finally came to an 11-1 majority decision.

I was shocked by the decision because there was no real evidence - Tegan could be alive somewhere because there is no body, no witnesses, no clothing, no DNA - just assumptions that she must have done it. There was just one piece of solid evidence - sometime beween lunchtime and dinnertime on the 14th September 1996, when Lane left Auburn hospital with her baby, Tegan went missing. She attended a friend's wedding in Manly that afternoon and no one was any the wiser.

Police say they have searched the country looking for the man Keli said she gave her baby to with no result. It seems that conversations between Keli and her mother swayed the jury. Her mother asks about what really happened to the baby and gives Keli the chance to tell the truth but she continued to insist that she gave the baby away to her father.

Being guilty of telling lies is one thing but killing a new baby is quite another. This bizarre case reminds me of the Lindy Chamberlain's trial - Keli was scruitenized by the media. Her clothes, her demeanour, her composure - in fact her serene self-confidence annoyed some people. I saw her as a confident young woman who believed there wasn't a chance in the world that she could possibly be found guilty of murder.


Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi is good at his job. He was also the prosecutor of Gordon West and Des Campbell, both found guilty of murdering their wives. The guilty verdict was 11-1 and obviously Mr Tedeschi somehow convinced the jury that there was no reasonable doubt when it seems there was quite a lot.

English Defence League

Jeff Marsh

Jeff Marsh was a football thug in the 70s and 80s whose trademark was a stab wound or two in the legs of opposition football fans. He's proud of his past and has published his 'memoirs' on internet. "As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a hooligan" he recalls. He wasn't even interested in football but it gave him the opportunity to get involved in the ultimate gang war. "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven" he said. He's served three jail terms for violence including a two year sentence for stabbing two Manchester United fans. He's now 44 and a family man, but he hasn't mellowed or settled down, he's as dangerous as ever and he's a senior member of the English Defence League.

They say the aim of the EDL is to counter what it perceives as the Islamification of Britain. Although they have no formal membership, they now have nearly 40,000 supporters on their Facebook page. A year ago, they had 1500.

The last time the EDL marched through Luton, 250 men went on a rampage and smashed shop widows, overturned cars and a number of people were attacked. On the weekend, they visited Peterborough and 1,000 police officers from 18 forces had to be called in. In October it was Leicester, before that Blackburn, Dudley Bolton, Stoke and Nottingham. In all the EDL have held around 16 marches since being formed in 2009 and most have ended in violence with huge police costs.

Luton is again in the headlines with news that the Swedish suicide bomber lived there with his wife and children for about ten years.

"What has started cannot be stopped now. It has begun...." they said.

Swedish Suicide Bomber Linked to UK

Iraqi-born Taimour-Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly 28, blew up his car, then himself, in Stockholm. He spent most of the last ten years living in Luton where he studied for a degree and lived with his wife a children. Two days ago he set his car on fire then walked 200 metres and blew himself up. But it didn't go to plan, he expected to kill many more people - he had five more pipe bombs on his body that failed to go off. Just minutes before, he sent an email to police and a news agency warning of deadly reprisals for having Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan. He was also upset about caricatures of Mohammed drawn three years ago by Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks.

Luton has a Muslim population of around 20,000 and is linked to many high profile extremists - last year they disrupted a homecoming march of soldiers returning from Afghanistan. Here is yet another incident of a terrorist studying at a UK university. Last year Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, tried to blow up an aeroplane with explosive hidden in his underwear on Boxing Day.

So why did he pick on Sweden? He moved there with his parents when he was 11 until 2001 when he went to Luton university. He moved back to Sweden recently and is believed to have separated from his wife. In Luton, a taxi driver employee who worked across the road from where the bomber lived said "We used to see him all the time, he lived across the road with his wife, a chubby lady who wore a full veil that covered everything apart from her eyes". He added "She was really quiet and never said anything. I haven't seen him around lately but she's still there with her two little kids."

He put this photo of himself on a Muslim website - he said he was looking for a devout wife to add to his family and hoped to return to a Muslim country one day to settle down.

Julian Assange's Childhood

A friend of Julian Assange who knew him in the early days said he was a brilliant, socially awkward crusader who wanted to change the world - a hard core geek who would rather spend time on his computer than interact with people. He is disillusioned by both sides of politics but is more closely aligned to the liberation values of the right. Ironic, isn't it, because it's the extreme right in America who want to catch him and send him to jail.

Back in 1991, Assange was arrested and charged with more than 30 counts of computer hacking offences. The court case dragged on for five years and he pleaded guilty to 24 charges. County Court Judge Lesley Ross obviousy had a soft spot for Assange and felt that he hacked into systems only to "empower himself". He said that had he sought any personal gain and not had such a disruptive childhood, he would have been jaied for up to ten years. Addressing him in court, the judge acknowledged the "unstable personal background that you had to endure... and the rather nomadic existence that your mother and yourself were forced to follow and also the personal disruption that occurred within your household".

The judge who initially thought that a jail term was warranted noted that Assange had not been able to obtain formal educational qualifications but said he could have put his intelligence to better use and hoped that the court case would set him on a better path. "These offences could only have been commited by intelligent individuals and you now have a black mark against your name and if there is any repetition of this behaviour, your chances of avoiding a jail sentence would be very slim" Judge Ross said. Although he was lucky to get off with a fine and a good behaviour bond, Assange still challenged the judge by saying "Your honour, I feel a great injustice has been done here and I would like to record the fact that you have been misled by the prosecution".

Born in tropical Townsville in July 1971, his childhood was idyllic. He grew up on beautiful Magnetic Island, just off the coast of north Queensland. He describes his childhood as Tom Sawyer like - he had his own horse and built his own raft and went exploring down mine shafts and tunnels. Magnetic Island resident Royce Dalliston 49, remembers a young Assange and his "reclusive" mother Christine. "She used to do drawings in the shade of the banyan trees at Picnic Bay" Dalliston recalls. "She wore green bikinis and one of those hats made out of coconut palm leaves. He was a pretty quiet kid..... a scrawny little blond haired kid, pretty withdrawn". There is no record of Julian Assange attending the island's only school.

In the early 1980s Julian was living in Lismore where locals still remember how his "alternative lifestyle" mother and step-father ran a puppet theatre. He attended a tiny school in the nearby village of Goolmangar where he appears to have struggled to fit in with his fellow students, mostly children of dairy farmers. "Jules wasn't a ratbag or anything" classmate Sharon Graham says "He just kept to himself". Another former pupil Peter Graham remembers Assange mostly for his compassion. "He was the sort of kid that moved a spider and let it go free when others wanted to kill it" Graham said. "He was always a nurturing sort of fellow". Christine Assange broke up with her husband in 1982 and during the custody struggle for Julian's half brother that followed, she took the children into hiding and Julian moved house 37 times by the time he was 14. Christine said her son was taught not to blindly respect authority figures and was often home-schooled because she did not want to see her children's spirits broken by the school system.

When Julian was 18 years old, he was living with his girlfriend and they had a son together but after the hacking trials she left him and disappeared, taking Daniel with her. Julian descended into a dark depression. His mother said her son was hospitalised for several days. "I wouldn't call it a breakdown, he was highly stressed and needed a rest and break from it all" she said.

Assange and US Attorney General Eric Holder

The latest rumour in the Julian Assange camp is that his lawyers are preparing for a possible indictment from the US. Washington wants to prosecute him under the 1917 act which was used unsuccessfully to try and gag the New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. They do not believe the Espionage Act applies to Assange - if they try to use it, all other media outlets in America would be under threat and presumably, all hell would break lose.

Earlier this week the US Attorney General Eric Holden said "The lives of people who work for the American people has been put at risk, the American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions which are I believe arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way." He added "We have a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature."

Holder is looking at cyber attacks on companies who have ceased doing business with WikiLeaks. Assange has distanced himself from them and said he didn't order them and they had nothing to do with him.

The drama continues.

Inside Julian Assange's London Prison

Just like any other prisoner in Wandsworth Prison, Julian Assange has had his laptop taken away. But as part of a scheme called "access to justice", prison authorities are arranging for him to be given a computer so he can work on his case but he will have limited access to it. He will stay here until his court appearance next Tuesday. The old prison which was opened in 1851, holds 1,100 more than it was intended to house and as a result, cells designed for one prisoner now holds two. But Assange has been transferered to the "segregation unit".

The prison doesn't have a very good reputation. Wandsworth guards have been accused of using unnecessary high levels of force when restraining prisoners and suicides are on the increase. Wandsworth also failed cleanliness standards - many toilets and sinks in the gaol's "first night" remand cells were badly stained, showers were filthy and there were large cockroach infestations.

Remand prisoners like Assange spend around 23 hours a day in their cells with one hour free time. Yesterday he was visited by officials from the Australian High Commission.

Meanwhile the Russian President praised Assange saying "Public and non-governmental organizations should think of how to help him" and added "Maybe he should be nominated for the Nobel peace prize." Obviously a shot at the Americans who said that Russia was a "corrupt mafia state".

Julian Assange's Bunker

So where do you store thousands of confidential emails and documents that have set the world on its ear? In a secret Cold War bunker in Sweden. The Pionen Data Centre is 30m underground - a huge cave drilled into granite under the Vita Berg Park in Stockholm, Sweden.

And it has German U-boat engines as back-up generators. The bunker was re-opened in 2008 and is the work of Swedish architects Albert France-Lanord who were inspired by James Bond movie sets.

Sweden's laws are some of the best in the world for protecting the work of freedom of speech campaigners. Under Swedish law, WikiLeaks cannot be prosecuted, nor can the people who pass information to it.

Julian Assange not to blame says John Howard

Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard doesn't blame Julian Assange. "Any journalist will publish confidential material if he or she gets hold of it, subject only to compelling national security interests. The issue is whether any of this material and the publication of it will endanger people's lives or endanger individual countries. The bad people in this little exercise are the people who gave the information to him because they're the ones who breached the trust. They deserve to be chased and prosecuted."


He went on "And I would expect the Australian government would ask for him to be dealt with like any other foreigner in that situation and that he be given the assistance he's entitled to." But he said claims that Assange had been abandoned by the Australian government weren't entirely true. "Any Australian citizen who leaves this country can't expect to carry any special protection under Australian law in another country. We are all subject to the laws of the country in which we operate."

Yesterday humiliating comments were released about how the Americans thought Kevin Rudd was an abrasive, impulsive contrl freak when he was Prime Minister. Now as Foreign Minister, he vowed to give consular support to Assange, despite heavy criticism from his Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

"I'm the Foreign Minister of Australia and I'm responsible for the consular wellbeing of all Australians and therefore I just want to make it perfectly clear first of all that Julian Assange has contacted the Australian Consul-General in London and asked for conular support" Mr Rudd said. "We have confirmed that we will provide that as we would do for all Australian citizens. What we do for Australians in strife anywhere in the world is that we take the view that our responsibility is to ensure that consular rights and legal rights of all Australians abroad are protected. And that includes Mr Assange."

Julia Gillard is now between a rock and a hard place. For years we've been falling over ourselves to please the Americans but now it's crunch time and she has to decide one way or the other. This man, Julian Assange, has changed the world forever.

Julian Assange's New Lawyer

After reading Assange's 'Don't Shoot the Messenger' plea, I've changed my thinking about WikiLeaks. When he says our Australian troops were not compromised in any way when the Afghan cables were leaked, I now choose to believe him and he better be telling the truth. And it looks like public opinion is swinging his way, the few opinion polls I've seen are definitely on his side.

When he gave himself up, he was denied bail which may have come as a shock - it's a bit hard to defend your extradition to Sweden from behind bars. Six people quickly came forward and offered 20,000 pounds each to get him out but the judge wasn't moved, hinting that he could be in danger. A second bail application is being drafted.


But the cavalry are coming over the hill. Well known and much respected Australian-born human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC has cut short his annual summer holiday in Sydney and flew back to the UK last night to represent Assange. He's a regular visitor to Australia with his popular 'Hypothetical' debates. He has specialised experience in fighting legal attempts to extradite people to Scandanavian countries.

I'm hoping the Swedish sex charges turn out to be false. One of the charges is by a woman, a Miss W, who said that on 17 August Asssange had sex with her while she was asleep. She must be a very heavy sleeper.

Julian Assange's Plea - Don't Shoot the Messenger

Julian Assange was arrested last night. He writes an article called 'Don't Shoot the Messenger' this morning in The Australian:

In 1958, a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and the truth, it seems inevitable that the truth will always win."

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Nearly and century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald enruiry are testimony to what happens when politicians gag the media from reporting the truth. These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

WikiLeaks coined and new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click on line to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?

Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep governments honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars and broken stories about corporate corruption.

People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.

If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US Embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely. WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US Embassy cables. Other media outlets including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables. Yet it is WikiLeaks as the Co-Ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most viscious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be hunted down like Osama Bin Laden, a Republican bill sits before the US senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20 year old son here in Australia to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.

And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentimets by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US government as to whether to cancel my Australian passport or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help the US investigation clearly directed at framing Australia citizens and shipping them to the US.

Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small. We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.

Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Governor General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.

Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses commited by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department "You'll risk lives! National Security! You'll endanger troops! Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?

It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone. The US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.

But our publications have been far from unimportant.

The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and inforamation from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted too.

King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.

Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.

Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".

Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.

The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectly expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.

Julian Assange is Editor-In-Chief of WikiLeaks

Julian Assange's Plans to Sue Julia Gillard

Julian Assange's lawyers are looking at ways to sue Prime Minister Julia Gillard for defamation after she accused him of "illegal" conduct without specifying what he has done. Her comments, made outside parliament and therefore not subject to parliamentary privilege, are now being examined by his legal team. Yesterday he chose to release non-military assets that would be targets for terrorists - if they didn't know before, they do now.

The Australian list includes crucial pipelines, factories, medical products and mineral resources. But there is no mention of the effect on the US economy if there was a major disruption of Australian iron ore and coal exports to China. If that happened, it would severely disrupt the Chinese economy which in turn would seriously affect the US economy.

The list contains hundreds of assets around the world ranging from dam turbines in Japan to tin mines in Peru and oil pipelines in Poland. What is this man thinking, he's completely lost the plot!

WikiLeaks Dumps on Australia

Why can't someone shut WikiLeaks down? It's getting very embarrassing, especially for our Mandarin-speaking former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. According to the leaks

He made a secret offer to the US to send Australian troops into Pakistan and that success in Afghanistan would be unravelled if Pakistan were to fall apart".

He warned the US that there might be a need to "deploy force" against China.

He urged China to make a deal with exiled Dalai Lama.

He described China as being "paranoid" about Taiwan and Tibet.

He described himself as a "brutal realist on China" and argued strongly for the need to integrate China into the international community and allow it to demonstrate greater responsibility while also being prepared to deploy force if anything goes wrong.

He said Australia was building up our navy in response to China's growing ability to project force.

He said the Australian intelligence community keeps a close watch of China's military modernization.

Surely Assange has ruined any creditibility we may have had with China and puts us in a very embarrassing position. I wonder if he saved Australia until last because he was hoping we would help him out. Well bad luck, we're not going to. But he's still got an Australian passport and he's free to come home if he dares. I don't think he's got the guts because he knows what will happen - America will serve up extradition papers and I suspect our government will be happy to turn him over.

Julian Assange's Son

Julian Assange's son Daniel is a 20 year old software designer from Melbourne. He hasn't had much to do with his famous father for the past three years. Daniel was born to a 16 year old mother when Julian was 19 years old. A year later, his mother disappeared with the boy.

When Julian was 16 and living in Melbourne, he joined a computer hacking group called International Subversiveness and called himself Mendax which means "nobly untruthful". Then in 1999, the same year Julian registered a website leaks.org, he worked out a custody agreement with his former wife for Daniel, then 9. When Daniel was 16, Julian asked him to join him on WikiLeaks but he was sceptical and not being on the best terms with his father, he declined. "I never thought he was going to succeed" he said. But Daniel seems to have warmed to WikiLeaks. On his website he wrote:

"I have much respect for my father and his cause and these ridiculously ill-handled allegations of sexual abuse only serve to distract from the awesomeness of what he has actually done".

Australian Insider Trader Jailed

John Hartman

John Hartman was raised in Mosman, schooled at St Ignatius College, went straight onto a salary of $250,000 one year after graduating, ripped his father off and made $1.9 million on illegal tips.

The judge said it was his love of the high life that led to his demise. At the age of 21 he was earning far in excess of many of his elders and living the life of Riley - fast cars, beautiful women, and trips to casinos around the world, including Las Vagas. But it all ended in tears last week when he was jailed for a minimum of three years for insider trading. Son of respected obstetrician to the stars Dr Keith Hartman he and his five siblings were once the 'perfect family'.

Dr Keith Hartman

The young Hartman got a job as a share dealer with Orion Asset Management and soon learned that large-volume trading could raise or lower the price of stock very quickly. His father said that the world his son had entered was "plastic". Justice McClellan agreed and said the financial industry should consider the repercussions of handing young men such large salaries. "The temptations are so great and the potential rewards so significant, that the fall into criminality of individuals is a significant risk". He netted $1.9 million from his activity and has repaid $1.59 million. He also stole $70,000 from his father.

Hartman's defence team said he development depression and gambling problems when his brother Alex developed bipolar disorder but it didn't impress the judge. Alex was the winner of Young Australian of the Year award in 2001.

The nineteen counts of front-running between June 2007 and January 2009 included Oxiana, Transpacific Industries, Alumina and OZ Minerals. He received more sentences for six counts of the insider trading offence of "tipping". He passed inside information to his childhood friend Oliver Peter Curtis 25. Hartman received a 25 per cent discount to one of his sentences because he informed on his friend Curtis and his defence team made an application for him to be placed under the care of special management area protection - a special unit for informers

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin says he has a strong faith in God and carries a Christian cross with him wherever he goes. He once told George W Bush about it in a private meeting they once had and George W said that he had the opportunity to look into Putin's soul.

Wikileaks has now turned its attention to Russia and the question is being asked - did Putin know about the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.

The Kremlin has adamantly denied any involvement of the murder in 2006 but a new batch of diplomatic cables released this week say that an American diplomat (US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Friedhat) said that Putin would almost certainly have known about it. He also said that Russia was awash in corruption with government officials, politicians and gangsters working hand-in-hand to create a 'virtual mafia state'.

Litvinenko swore on his deathbed that Putin was behind his radiation poisoning because he exposed the Russian Secret Service's violent activities in helping Putin's rise to power. US diplomats say political bribery is rampant in Russia. More serious leaks emerged yesterday with the accusation that Putin accumulated 'illicit proceeds' from his time in office and has hidden them overseas.

I'm surprised that Julian Assange is still breathing.

Oprah Comes to Sydney

To show Oprah just how much we care, there will be a big "O" on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the 14th December, when she arrives to do a series of shows at the Opera House. And it's all down to our Premier Kristina Keneally - it was her idea to adorn Oprah's personal logo on one of our famous Sydney landmarks.

But there will be some whingers, there always is - whining about how they have been inconvenienced by the road closures. Well tough luck, just imagine how much publicity this is bringing to our country and it couldn't come at a better time, our tourist industry is at an all time low.

Good on you Oprah, welcome and hope your stay is a happy one.

Wikileaks and Julian Assange

Julian Assange has become a problem for Australia. He has an Australian passport and the Gillard government is under pressure to cancel it. But it's tricky, you have to have a good reason - you can't just strip him of his passport simply because he's an embarrassment to an ally. His mother Christine Assange, who still lives in Queensland, said today "Please don't hunt my son". But it's a bit too late for that now, Interpol have put out an alert for his arrest on suspicion of rape and the Americans say that he's commited a serious crime and now they want him too.

Yesterday Attorney-General Robert McClelland asked the federal police to see if any criminal laws have been breached but the reality is that they can't do anything about an Australian citizen who is running a website out of Sweden unless a criminal offence has been commited and it looks like they can't find one.

So has this man done the world a service and given us an insight into what our governments really think about each other or has he inflamed an already stained relationship between countries and made things worse?


Yesterday Equador offered Assange residency with no questions asked. "We are ready to give him residence in Equador with no problems and no conditions" Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas said.

London Mini Cab Driver Fighting with Taliban

At least two of their fellow Taliban fighters live in the UK outside the fighting season. One man with a hint of a London accent said he lived in East London and came to Afghanistan three months of the year to fight. And get this - he was a mullah and had the rank of mid-level Taliban commander.

"I'm a mini cab driver in London" he said "I make good money you know. But these people are my friends and family and it's my duty to come to fight the jihad with them. There are many people like me in London" he added. "We collect money for the jihad all year and come to fight if we can".

The fighting season is coming to a close they said and four of them were getting ready to return to their civilian lives abroad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/24/the-taliban-troop-london-jihadists

Could Schizophrenia be caused by a virus?

The story of Steven and his twin David reflects the mystery of schizophrenia. For a long time it was blamed on cold mothers then on bad genes. Now a group of scientists are exploring the theory that schizophrenia does not start as a psychological disease, it begins with an infection.

Steven and David Elmore were born identical twins but they were very different. David came home at the normal time with his mother but Steven stayed in the hospital for a month hovering between life and death in an incubator. He had a high fever and a dangerous viral infection. Later the mother noticed a difference in her babies, Steven would lay awake and rarely cried and when his mother smiled at him, he didn't smile back at her the way David did. But Steven caught up and the twins shared the same friends, were both B+ students and basically had a happy childhood.

Then at the age of 17, Steven began hearing voices. Three voices called through the windows of his house: two angry men and one woman who begged the men to stop arguing. Other voices came through his car stereo system. He finally broke down and within weeks was in a psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus/article_view?b_startint=0&-C

Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal George Pell is the Archbishop of Sydney and a self-confessed liar. Chrissie Foster has written a book about her family's ordeal at the hands of the Catholic Church and priest Kevin O'Donnell. Her eldest daughter is now dead and another daughter is a vegetable because she sent both girls to a Catholic school. An ever-vigilant mother, Chrissie couldn't believe it when told that Emma, her eldest child, was exhibiting classic symptoms of child abuse and O'Donnell was the suspect. How could this be, he had never been to her home and she had never left either girls alone with him. Then they discovered that she was being abused by her spiritual protector in a shower room at their primary school.

Then younger sister Katie was singled out for abuse and fell into depression. When her mother discovered a suicide note declaring her hatred of O'Donnell who was by this time dead, Chrissie realised that both her daughters had been his victims. In 1999, a drunk Katie ran out into a busy main road and was struck by a car. She was in a coma for four months and woke to a ruined life, unable to walk, feed or toilet herself. Their historic out-of-court settlement in 2006 could not save Emma, by now a heroin addict. She died 6 months before the Pope's visit to Australia.

Now we turn to the pillar of the church Cardinal George Pell. He now says he was mistaken when he denied on national television that he had ever seen a picture of Emma with her wrists slashed. Just imagine the distressing image in your own mind. Chrissie Foster maintains that Pell peered at the photo which was blown up to A4 size and said "Mmmmm, she's changed isn't she?"

The Foster's were prepared to co-operate with the church until they had a meeting with Melbourne Archbishop George Pell, now the Archbishop of Sydney. He exhausted the couple with a "handfull of trusted verbal tools". Basically the church treated the abuse as gossip and thought the girls were lying and repeatedly told the couple to "take your evidence to court". The church knew about O'Donnell as far back as 1949 and again in 1958. Both times he was relocated.

In 2002 Pell told Sixty Minutes journalist Richard Carlton that he did not recall having ever seen the photograph. Responding to questions today, Pell said his "lack of recall was an honest mistake". Then added "I cannot remember what I said when I saw the photo but no disrespect was intended and I apologise wholeheartedly to them".

Hell rhymes with Pell and that's where this man is going.