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.

Ivan Milat's Relative Charged With Murder

Ivan Milat was convicted for seven murders but police think he is responsible for many more. The Backpacker Murders is the name given to serial killings that occurred in the Belanglo State Forest, 2 hours south of Sydney. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partly buried there. Five of the victims were young backpackers on holiday in Australia and included 3 Germans, 2 British and 2 Australians. Croatian-Australian Milat was convicted of the murders and is serving seven consecutive life sentences plus 18 years. But he wouldn't be in gaol today if it wasn't for an Englishman called Paul Onions.

Police received a call from Paul Onions in Britain. He had been backpacking in Australia several years before and had accepted a ride from a man named "Bill" on 25th January 1990. Bill pulled a gun on Onions and tried to tie him up but he managed to escape and ran for his life along the busy highway pleading for someone to stop and help him. Cars screamed passed ignoring him but finally Joanne Berry went against her better judgement, and stopped. He went straight to the police and reported what happened. As the years passed, he wondered why he hadn't heard anything more about it. The reason was that the police investigation was so hopelessly incompetent, they had lost his report.


On 5th May 1994, Onions positively identified Milat as the man who had picked him up. As a result, Milat was arrested at his house in outer Sydney and a search revealed a .22 rifle that matched the type used in the murders plus clothing, camping equipment, and cameras belonging to the young victims.


Last week, an 18 year old relative of Milat (who can't be named), smiled as he appeared before Campbelltown's Childrens Court via video link charged with the axe murder of 17 year old family friend and schoolmate David Auchterlonie. And he chose Ivan Milat's killing grounds - the Belanglo Forest - to do it. It seems that he and two other friends went to the forest on the pretext of celebrating David's birthday which occured on that day. He'd spent a week planning the killing and how he would entice his victim to the forest. After he drove an axe into the back of his head and partly covered up his body, he drove his two terrified companions home and said he was going to dispose of the axe and their clothes which were covered in blood.


Although he has had no contact with Ivan Milat, and the murder is no way connected to the Backpacker murders - the killing made the headlines because he is a relative of Milat and he chose to kill his victim in the Belanglo forest. There were 14 siblings in the Milat family. Some of the children had run-ins with police when they were teenagers but straightened out and led clean lives. But the father of the murdered boy said yesterday "Obviously the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in that family, it must be in the bloodstream."

The sign says "Please be Careful" but doesn't say what of.

Aboriginal Income Mangement

Noel Pearson

Willie Allan 11 (left) and Kenny Bloomfield 9 at Mossman Gorge, Queensland

What is Income Management? It means that a percentage of a person's welfare payments is set aside for essentials, namely food and clothing and other needs for their children. The reason - to stop welfare recipients blowing all their money on drugs and alcohol.

Noel Pearson is keeping his fingers crossed. He's come up with a welfare reform trial in Cape York that's looking positive but it's too early to get excited. Queensland have introduced the scheme after consultation with Pearson's Cape York Institute. It's called Family Relationship Commission or FRC. It brings welfare recipients before a hearing and it's showing an attendance rate of 90 per cent. The trial also seems to be okay with the troubled Aboriginal clients and beats Centrelink's approach hands down. A report finds that only one third of clients attended their initial Job Search Training interview with Centrelink compared with two-third of Aboriginals attending a FRC conference.

One of the most distressing problems is parents' failure to send their children to school and another generation grow up with kindergarten skills in reading and writing. Now under the trial in Cape York, communities in Arukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge, the FRC now has the authority to make parents accountable. Parents of children at risk, who don't attend school, who are involved domestic abuse and other abusive behaviour will no longer be tolerated. If they do not attend their FRC interview and continue to do the wrong thing, they will be placed on income management.

Jenny Macklin said "There is growing awareness that the FRC are operational and will hold people accountable for certain behaviour, although this understanding is not yet broad or deep". Improvements were found in school attendance and the incidence of alcohol and violence in two communities - Mossman Gorge and Arukurun.

Mossman Gorge, 77 kms north of Cairns, the community is home to 170 people, 20 of whom are school-age children. FRC local Co-Ordinator Karen Gibson said the change in the community since the commission came into force was palpable. "For the first time in a long time, I'm hearing the birds sing at night" she said. "The norm always was alcohol and drugs.... every day party...... every night party".

Ban the Burqa Mural Back in the News

Marrickville/Newtown has a diverse multi-cultural community and migrant population. In the mid 20th century, it was a major centre for Sydney's large Greek community and to some extent, still is. Today the Vietnamese are now slightly more prominent but many Greek businesses still thrive in the area and Greek flags fly in the main street. In recent years, Newtown/Marrickville has attracted young professionals for its close proximity to the Sydney Business District, the vast array of restaurants and inner-city multicultural lifestyle.

Different cultures have managed to live here happily together for decades but now the Muslim community are causing some angst. They are very quick to point out the shortcomings of our Australian culture, but refuse to accept any criticism of their own. And it's all about a mural painted on a wall. Cigdem Aydemir 27, a Muslim artist and high school art teacher said she felt "completely offended and insulted" when she saw the "Ban the Burqa" mural in Newtown. "My sister-in-law wears the burqa.... my mother wears the veil" she said. "I wore a veil for 10 years of my life. I think everyone has the right to wear whatever they want on their body and that kind of diversity needs to be protected".

So when she saw the mural on the wall facing the busy street and rail line she was so outraged she went straight to the council but was told that because it was painted on private property, they couldn't do anything about it. Not to be put off, she then went to the Anti-Discrimination Board who this week notified the artist Sergio Redegalli and he's not a happy man. Be believes his right to freedom of expression is on the line. "There's a problem about the right to free expression, the loss of the ability to say something without being instantly being branded a "racist" he said. He mentioned a few reasons why he opposes the burqa, including concerns about security and the rise of Islamic extremism in Australia.

The mural has been defaced at least 20 times, but keeps miraculously returning to its original state. Former Marrickville Mayor said in September "The mural goes against the values which the Marrickville community has believed in for generations". No help there.

No decision has been made but I suspect the Anti-Discrimination Board will insist that Sergio paints over his mural and we will have yet another example of how the Muslim community keep getting their own way.

Aboriginal Singer's Hit In Europe

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an Australian Aboriginal musician who sings in the Yolngu language. He was born on Elcho Island off the coast of Arnhem Land in Northern Australia, about 350 miles from Darwin. He was born blind and has never been taught Braille, does not have a guide dog or use a cane. He only speaks a few words of English and is acutely shy. When he was asked what he would do with all the money when he becomes rich and famous he replied that he would give it to his mother and aunts which follows the Aboriginal tradition of sharing wealth. He plays many musical instruments but it's the quality of his voice that has been responsible for his rising star.

Now the iconic superstar has a song flying up the charts in Europe, following the remix of some of his songs. The Loverush UK version of Wukun cracked the top twenty in one of the UK's charts. It entered the Music Week Club chart at number 35, jumped to number 24 the following week, and went to 19 this week. The song was lifted from his multi award-winning debut double platinum album.

Most Australians living in cities around the country have never heard of him.