Severe flooding in some Australian states

While the situation in Australia is nowhere as disastrous as the parts of the U.S. hit by tornadoes, there is bad weather in parts of the country with severe flooding.

Thousands of residents in the state of New South Wales have been ordered to evacuate their homes and one person died due to the floods. 70 per cent of New South Wales has been affected by days of heavy rains. Several communities are inundated by flood waters as can be seen in the appended video.

Water is spilling over several dams and threatening communities downstream. A number of towns are cut off from the outside as roads are washed out. Flooding is taking place in Victoria state as well as New South Wales. For more see this article.

A View from New South Wales

This is from a newspaper in New South Wales (Australia). Many Australians disapprove of the close ties between John Howard the prime minister and Bush. The ABC is the Australian Broadcasting System


Iraq heartache is all about oil
“IF Iraq had been exporting cumquats instead of oil this war would not have happened.”

Former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix made this statement during an interview on ABC Radio National.

It is now well known how intelligence reports were “adjusted” to justify the reasons given for the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was eliminated, but the alleged weapons of mass destruction did not exist.

Anarchy and chaos now reign supreme in the rampant power struggle under way.

And yet the three leaders of democratic nations, Bush, Blair and Howard, still insist they are delivering democracy to Iraq.

Instead they have delivered destruction, disruption, death and displacement to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Our Prime Minister Mr John Howard claimed he was misinformed by the best intelligence available at the time of his decision.

Now he asks for more patience until the job is done.

Does he mean until another despot takes control? Or perhaps until the Iraqi oil wells are corporatised, as it was suggested in a recent forum on the Iraq war.

In four years we have seen this particular corporatised, militarised action as morally bankrupt.

During the past 11 years we have seen an “Honest John” transform to an “artful dodger”, evading accountability.

A re-election of the Howard Government would be construed as an endorsement of John Howard’s policy on Iraq, thus giving permit for a similar debacle to occur again.

Accountability is vital to maintain a healthy and vibrant democracy.

— BEVERLEY WARD,

Albury