Argentina dispatch: the troubled reign of Queen Cristina of Argentina

 

By Philip Sherwell, Buenos Aires

8:00AM GMT 24 Feb 2013

Beset by economic stagnation, Argentines are growing weary of President Cristina Kirchner's obsession with the Falklands, reports Philip Sherwell

The Argentine leader's popularity has flagged dramatically as the economy has floundered Photo: EPA

For a president accustomed to adulation at carefully-orchestrated rallies in the land of Eva Peron, the demonstration broadcast on national television will not have been welcome.

When Cristina Kirchner’s name was mentioned at Friday’s first anniversary ceremonies for families of a fatal Buenos Aires train crash, there were whistles and boos.

Then, from the crowd gathered on the platforms of the capital’s rundown Station 11, where 51 people died in an accident blamed on railway underfunding, came the angry chants of ”daughter of a whore”.

Just 15 months ago, the Argentine leader was basking in the afterglow of a landslide victory, but her popularity has flagged dramatically as the economy has floundered.

And so ahead of mid-term elections that will shape her political future, she has once again turned to her favourite distraction from domestic difficulties — Argentina’s claim to the Falklands.

 

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The islands’ 1,619 registered voters will next month be asked whether they wish to remain a British overseas territory, in a referendum which Downing Street and the Falklands’ inhabitants hope will counter Mrs Kirchner’s demands for negotiations with London on sovereignty.

No-one doubts that the verdict will be a resounding “yes” from the residents of the wind-swept archipelago that sits 300 miles off Argentina but has been part of the British crown since 1833.

There is just as overwhelming agreement in Argentina that Las Malvinas, as the islands are called in Spanish, are occupied territory. That conviction is hardly surprising, given that claim of sovereignty is drilled into the country’s schoolchildren from the age of five, via patriotic songs in classrooms decorated with maps that depict the Falklands in the Argentine flag of blue and white.

Earlier this month, Mrs Kirchner dispatched Hector Timerman, her foreign minister, to London on a quixotic propaganda mission to promote the cause and wrote an open letter to David Cameron, the prime minister, denouncing British “colonialism”.

Her aides curtly dismiss the referendum as a “media stunt”. The islanders “are implanted settlers who do not have the right to define the territory’s status”, noted Daniel Filmus, a senior Kirchner ally who accompanied Mr Timerman to Britain.

This time, though, her attempts to play the nationalist card to shore up domestic support are falling notably flat, as Argentines struggle with a stagnant economy and one of the world’s highest inflation rates.

“The Malvinas are certainly close to the heart of all Argentines, but the government’s attempt to use the islands as a distraction from its domestic problems, particularly the deteriorating economic situation, is failing,” Martin Redrado, the former Central Bank governor, told The Sunday Telegraph in his modern office block in downtown Buenos Aires.

“The Malvinas issue is not going to cover up rising unemployment, lack of investment, high inflation and lacklustre growth.”

If anyone knows about Mrs Kirchner’s handling of the economy, it is Mr Redrado. For he quit his old position after a dispute with the president — a showdown that at one stage saw him locked out of his office by police - over her plans to tap the bank’s reserves to pay down the country’s foreign debt.

Indeed, for all Mrs Kirchner’s efforts to stoke nationalist fervour about the islands, what was so striking last week was how remote the cause seemed on the leafy streets of Buenos Aires in the dog days of the southern hemisphere summer.

In the coffee shops and steakhouses of a city that feels as much like Paris, Madrid and Rome as South America, middle-class locals expressed their exasperation over the government’s stranglehold on the economy and shared tips about where to obtain US dollars for foreign trips in the in the so-called “caves” (dens) for illegal currency exchanges.

“It’s an article of faith for Argentines that the Malvinas are our territory, but nobody is interested in this obsessive and inflammatory approach from Kirchner,” said Daniel Menendez, 41, a management consultant, as he shared a bottle of the country’s Malbec wine with friends in a Buenos Aires restaurant.

“We know that the reality is that the islanders consider themselves British, they are going to vote to remain British and nothing that is going to alter that.

“She is just whipping this up because the economy is a disaster and it’s an election year. The real problem in this country is not who runs the Malvinas, but how each day, she is making us more like Venezuela under Hugo Chavez.”

For working-class Argentines trying to stretch the weekly pay cheque as inflation hits 30 percent, the fate of the islands was also far from their minds.

“Of course, we all support the recovery of the Malvinas, but honestly right now I wish the government would deal with the economy and get prices down rather than all this talk about something we can’t change,” said Isabel Benitez, 47, who was walking to her job as a hotel cleaner past the Recoleta cemetery, where Evita — as Eva Peron is universally known - is buried in a marble family tomb. “I’d rather Cristina focussed on running the 23 provinces we already have.”

Where the president’s Falklands fixation does receive unwavering support is from veterans of the 1982 invasion and her fellow populist Peronist politicians.

A imposing figure with silver hair and a bear-like gait, Carlos Kunkel is an old foe of the junta that launched that war and spent seven years in jail as a political detainee. But the 67-year-old legislator, a Kirchner family ally for four decades, is uncompromising on the status of the islands.

“A century ago, the British flag flew over half the world, but now Britain is just clinging to a few remnants of its empire,” he said from his parliamentary office, its wooden walls lined with pictures of Eva Peron and the Kirchners.

“We will recover the Malvinas peacefully by negotiation, not violence. It is the English who face a strong movement for independence from Scotland and have shed so much bloodshed over Ireland.”

Mr Kunkel and Mr Filmus are, respectively, the grandson and son of European immigrants to Argentina, where the indigenous Indian population was all but wiped out by settlers. Yet they see no hypocrisy in their argument that Falkland islanders whose ancestors moved to an unpopulated territory before Argentina even existed should now have no right to self-determination.

“What was colonised was not a people but a territory and no illegal referendum can change that,” said Mr Filmus.

For President Kirchner, such debate is a welcome diversion. The boos and whistles at Friday’s demonstration about the train crash - which victims’ families blame partly on railway underfunding - were no isolated expression of dissent.

Her left-wing government is also engaged in an acrimonious showdown with their former comrades in public sector unions pursuing wage increases to keep pace with spiralling inflation.

Hugo Moyano, the country’s most powerful union leader, accused the president of “back-stabbing” and described her ministers as “boot lickers” at an angry protest rally last week. And schoolteachers are going on strike this week to push their salary demands.

Mrs Kirchner had a personal taste of the her country’s deepening economic woes last month when she could not take her own presidential jet, a $40 million Boeing 757 known as Tango One, on an overseas trip for fear it might be seized at the request of creditors.

For a famously vain politician dubbed “Queen Cristina” by her critics, that would doubtless have been a mortifying experience. But it would not be a first for a flagship of the Argentine state as the symbol of the country’s Navy, a masted tall-ship, was recently impounded for two months after docking in Ghana.

The vessel was only released after a court ruled that, as a military asset, it was immune from legal action by creditors, although its eventual return to port in Argentina was heralded with rapturous celebrations akin to a great naval victory.

That is indeed as close as Argentina’s much-depleted military will come to any sort of triumph at sea. For despite concerns in some quarters about Britain’s ability to protect the Falklands against a repeat of the 1982 invasion in the wake of defence cuts, the reality is that Argentina’s armed forces are a shadow of their strength in the days of the junta.

Indeed, the Navy destroyer that led the 1982 attack sank at its moorings last month, a demise emblematic of the declining fortunes of a once-proud fleet. Of 70 Navy ships, only 16 are said to be in sailing condition.

With neither the capability nor the desire to mount a fresh military incursion against the islands, the Argentine government has instead resorted to bullying and cajoling to push its claim for the Falklands. Most recently, cruise ship operators that included a stop in Port Stanley on their South Atlantic itineraries were told that they would not be allowed to make calls in Argentine ports.

The Kirchner administration has not just upped tensions with Britain. It has also annoyed America and Israel with overtures to Iran, which already enjoys good relations with Mrs Kirchner’s Latin left-wing allies in Venezuela and Ecuador.

Her government is now reacting to the economic travails by seeking to manipulate the market and massage the numbers. The International Monetary Fund recently censured it for cooking the economic books by delivering distorted data, most notably insisting that inflation is running at about 11 per cent when independent analysts put the figure at nearly three times that rate.

Britain this month joined the US and some other European states in announcing it would vote against loans to Argentina for non-poverty projects at the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank because of the country’s financial malfeasance.

The government printing presses are already working overtime as the money supply increases by an inflation-stoking 40 per cent a year. And the Kirchner administration is expected to embark on a fresh spending spree ahead of legislative elections in October, with increased state subsidies, pensions and government salaries targeted at its key voting blocs — the poor, the public sector and students.

The stakes are high for that autumn vote. Kirchner loyalists, who have the unofficial motto of “Cristina forever”, are hoping that a triumph at the polls for her Front for Victory party will allow them to push for a constitutional amendment to let her run for a third term in 2015.

But those prospects have recently dimmed. A year ago, at the height of her popularity, 69 per cent of voters saw her in a positive light and only 14 per cent negatively. Today those figures have narrowed to a 42 per cent positive rating and 33 per cent negative, according to research by the polling company Poliarquia.

“The president’s Malvinas policy is driven by her domestic agenda as she seeks an issue that it is difficult for a rival to oppose, but it is really just political rhetoric rather than meaningful strategy,” said Poliarquia’s Sergio Berenstein. “What did Timerman’s visit to London achieve? It was gesture politics, but a missed opportunity for any real negotiation and diplomacy.”

For Mrs Kirchner, who used to be one half of Latin America’s most powerful husband and wife team, it has been a dramatic fall to earth. Her husband Nestor, who died in 2010, first won the presidency in 2003, and she followed with victories in both 2007 and then 2011, when the sympathy vote from his death helped sweep her back into the Casa Rosada (Pink House), Argentina’s presidential palace.

Indeed, when a confidante suggested recently that the she add a dash of colour to her designer wardrobe of “widow’s black”, her response was simple.

“Black brings me luck”, she is reported to have declared, saying she had no intention of changing the look. Instead, Mrs Kirchner, who turned 60 last week and whose looks are widely believed to have benefited from cosmetic surgery, appears to be cultivating comparisons with an earlier widowed populist leader — Eva Peron, better known as Evita.

At fiery rallies, she delivers similar nationalist rhetoric in front of images of Evita. But according to a former Kirchner insider, she now also suffers the same delusions of grandeur and power.

“She is a paranoid, arrogant person which in turn hides a deep insecurity,” he said. “She’s also a very mistrustful person who surrounds herself with a small cadre of yes men and yes women.” “The Casa Rosada operates like a court. She’s the queen surrounded by courtesans who only want to deliver good news.” The president is now said to be grooming her son Maximo, a Peronist youth leader, for a future in politics. But she has no immediate heir for office. And thus while the outcome of next month’s referendum on the Falklands is a foregone conclusion, the same cannot be said for the future of the House of Kirchner.

Argentina dispatch: the troubled reign of Queen Cristina of Argentina - Telegraph

A Cuba beyond the Castros?

By Anya Landau French, Guest blogger / February 25, 2013 

News from Cuba this week that Raul Castro will step down in 2018 is offering fodder for critics of US policy towards Cuba who say Washington is stuck in the Cold War.

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuban President Raul Castro talk during the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. /Ismael Francisco/AP

This past week was uncommonly full of Cuba news.

At the top of the list has to be this weekend's selection of a new First Vice President in Cuba, Manuel Diaz Canel, age 52, the first person to occupy that post that did not fight in the Revolution. The outgoing First Vice President apparently stepped aside to make room for the next generation of Cuban leaders. Diaz Canel is presumed to be Raul Castro’s successor, a prospect made all the more clear by Raul Castro’s reiteration that this will indeed be his final term in office, as he promised in 2008 when he began his first full term as president.

Castro also endorsed term (and age!) limits for top government officials, and insisted that he will press ahead with his reform agenda. Two of the country’s five vice presidents are now women, and just one leader of the Revolution, Ramiro Valdes, remains.

Interestingly, Fidel Castro, who made a rare appearance at the National Assembly session yesterday and gave a wide-ranging interview to Cuba's Communist Party daily Granma earlier this month, does not exactly seem bowled over by his brother’s big change agenda, referring to the Revolution as the “change” that matters most. While the elder Castro assures this is all just a bit of fine-tuning, the consistent message to the Cuban people from the younger Castro now in charge is clear: Cuba is changing, it is (slowly) modernizing, and perhaps most important of all, that Raul Castro himself can be trusted to follow through – however slowly at times – with the reformist policies he endorses.

While there will no doubt be ingrained skepticism among many Cubans - and Raul Castro himself makes sure not to take it too far, promising no return to capitalism in Cuba, for example – many Cubans will see the leadership changes that took place this week as a sign that more changes still are on the way.

It’s thus jarring to see how disconnected US policy is from the changes afoot in Cuba today. As one of the Cuban government’s most vocal critics, blogging sensation Yoani Sanchez (who is now traveling in Brazil, thanks to Raul Castro’s migration reforms), put it: The US embargo of Cuba is “a fossil of the Cold War that does not have any sense in the modern world in which we live."

Talking about terrorism

This week in Washington, sparks flew around one of those fossilized elements of US Cuba policy, designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Cuba has been on the list since 1982, originally for its support of armed leftist groups in the Americas. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago, whose patronage made such Cuban adventures abroad possible, the State Department has repeatedly admitted that Cuba was no longer providing such support. While many analysts have repeatedly called for its removal, no administration has dared take that step. And then there was this story out last week, which suggested the Obama administration might actually be preparing to take that step soon:

“There is a pretty clear case ... that they don’t really meet the standard anymore,” said a senior administration official with direct knowledge regarding US-Cuba policy who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They have neither the wherewithal nor are they doing much.”

The Boston Globe, which cited “top US diplomats” in breaking the story, emphasized that no formal decision had been taken, and noted that Kerry was reviewing US policy toward Cuba.

But State wasn’t ready to be outed, and spokeswoman Victoria Nuland tried to shut down the story. “I saw that report. Let me say firmly here it is incorrect. This department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list.”

“We review this every year, and at the current moment we – when the last review was done in 2012 – didn’t see cause to remove them. We’ll obviously look at it again this year, but as I said, we don’t have any plans at the moment,” she added.

That technically accurate statement obscures the fact that there is in fact such "cause" to consider with the upcoming review.  And by "cause," we really mean an action-forcing event that provides a timely justification for Cuba’s removal, rather than just admitting that we’ve had nothing on them for years.  That timely justification is the leading role Cuba is playing in new peace talks between the Colombian government and the leftist FARC rebel group Cuba offered training and support to decades ago and has since called on to lay down its arms. That group has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, and Cuba’s connection to it has been a key pillar of the US case for continuing to consider Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism.

Was this week’s admission by more than one (unnamed) administration official a trial balloon? A message to Cuban authorities holding Alan Gross? Whatever it was, it seems to have been oddly managed, but nonetheless, the toothpaste may well be out of the tube. In a bit of particularly good timing, the Washington-based Latin America Group has just launched a Signon.org petition to the White House seeking the removal of Cuba from the list. If they reach the number of signatures to expect a response, what will the White House say? If there truly is a real push from the State Department to finally de-list Cuba, whether as a means of getting Alan Gross back or simply because Secretary Kerry can’t abide signing off on something he doesn’t believe to be true, a White House petition coming at this precise moment might just be a handy way to continue to roll out infinitesimally nuanced statements that will pave the way for the real pivot in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, made his second trip to Cuba in as many years, and this time brought several colleagues with him. News reports suggested the delegation lobbied for the release of American Alan Gross, who has spent more than 3 years in jail in Cuba for his involvement in a USAID program to set up wifi networks that could be hidden from the Cuban government. Leahy's bicameral delegation came home "empty-handed" but was the trip really such a bust?

Surely they knew – and Senator Leahy's comments after the trip seem to confirm this – they wouldn’t be bringing Alan Gross home with them. It is crystal clear that Cuba’s leaders are not going to respond to entreaties (or threats) on Gross’s behalf, without there being some kind of negotiation behind it. That reality is unfortunate, as it shoulders one man with the burden of 50 years' worth of government-to-government mistrust, missteps and recrimination. Of course, it also strains credulity that one country should send in paid agents of change into hostile territory and expect to pay no price for its meddling; it seems foolish to expect US laws and principles to hold sway over another government, especially one which we admittedly seek to topple.

The members of the delegation warned their Cuban hosts that the bilateral relationship hinges on the fate of Mr. Gross, something they surely felt they both wanted and had to do. But it mattered that they showed up and did it in person. The US may not be ready to make what it considers a forced swap (of Cuban prisoners in the US) for Mr. Gross’s freedom, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t show up. It’s a sign of respect for another country’s sovereignty (though not necessarily its policies), and in the tortured US-Cuban relationship, that makes a great deal of difference. Face to face talks will be the best chance Mr. Gross has at coming home.

Though we may not see tangible signs of it, the Leahy delegation was valuable step toward re-opening lines of communications with the Cubans, even if the two sides continue to largely disagree. And, given the substantial and sustained changes underway in Cuba, it’s important for US policymakers to get a firsthand look at today’s changing Cuba and our policies toward it. While our policy remains stuck in a Cold War morass, Cuba itself is undergoing meaningful changes. No longer are we talking about the 50 year old embargo reinforcing the recalcitrant Castro regime’s messaging. Now the conversation turns to how embarrassingly absent the United States is from the slow but historic metamorphosis we’ve long called for. The more Members of Congress who come to grips with both of those realities, the better for a more honest debate in Washington.

– Anya Landau French is the editor of and a frequent contributor to the blog The Havana Note.

A Cuba beyond the Castros? - CSMonitor.com

Fears of new generation of terrorists who found the 'heart of the beast' of al-Qaeda

 

By Tom Whitehead, and Duncan Gardham

10:00PM GMT 21 Feb 2013

Britain faces a new generation of self-starting “Nike terrorists”, the security services fear, amid alarm over the speed with which a gang of home grown extremists were able to find and gain support for a 9/11-style plot from the “heart of the beast” of al-Qaeda.

The terror cell hoped to kill hundreds of people with eight suicide bombers, armed with guns, in what would have been the worst terrorist outrage on UK soil.

The ringleaders now face life behind bars after being convicted on Thursday of planning a terror campaign.

But the security and intelligence services are concerned how two of them, with no apparent previous links to al-Qaeda, were able to quickly make contact with the terror group’s international arm in northern Pakistan to learn how to make bombs and poisons.

The plot – which The Daily Telegraph can also reveal was personally blessed by al-Qaeda’s number five, Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, who was killed in a drone strike last year – was the most serious since plans to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs in 2006.

But it also marked a sea change in the influence of al-Qaeda and the growing threat of self-motivated fanatics nicknamed in the intelligence world as the “Nike terrorists” because of the sports brand motto “just do it”.

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There are fears a second wave of suicide bombers was already being planned by the Birmingham group.

It raises the prospect of a new generation of British extremists with a desire to kill their fellow citizens using al-Qaeda’s expertise for their own ends.

A senior Whitehall source said: “This was a very significant investigation. It shows in a different direction how terrorism is affecting the UK.

“This was the most significant plot since the liquid bomb pot in 2006 and demonstrates the continued threat from self-organised networks.”

Security and intelligence sources were “shocked” at how quickly the men were able to make contact with the “heart of the beast” – the international arm of al-Qaeda in northern Pakistan that has been behind other terror plots, The Daily Telegraph understands.

Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, were found guilty of planning a terror campaign after a four and a half month trial at Woolwich Crown Court.

They were the ringleaders of a group that planned to cause “mass death” and “carnage in the name of Allah” on the streets of Britain.

Although no target was settled on, the 2012 Olympics and soldiers may have been in their sights. They even criticised the 7/7 London bombers, who killed 52 innocent people, for not doing “enough damage”.

The gang were also guilty of raising money for terrorism, after fraudulently raising at least £20,000 in the name of Muslim Aid, and recruiting others for a terror act.

Six other men pleaded guilty to terror offences at earlier hearings and three others await future trials.

Naseer and Khalid were also convicted of travelling to Pakistan for terror training, where they made martyrdom videos to be released by al-Qaeda after they had blown themselves up.

The case calls into question the government’s Prevent strategy to counter the home grown extremist threat. The Theresa May-backed plan relies on Muslim communities to report suspicious behaviour to the authorities. Yet although family members and other Birmingham residents knew they had travelled abroad for training, no alarm was raised.

The plot was foiled after the cell was secretly recorded by MI5 and police for two months in the summer of 2011. The security services realised they were just months, if not weeks, away from carrying out their atrocity.

They also considered other forms of attack such as putting poison in hand cream to rub on car and door handles or even putting blades on the front of a vehicle and driving it in to a crowd of people.

Detective Inspector Adam Gough, of the West Midlands counter terrorism unit, said: “They were the real deal. They were committed, passionate extremists hell bent on pursuing their intention of killing as many people as they could in coordinated suicide bomb attacks.”

In Naseer's martyrdom video, he vowed: “Suicide bombers on your streets spilling so much blood that you will remember, you will have nightmares for the rest of your lives.”

In a first for the UK, bomb maker Naseer, a pharmacy graduate, planned to extract ammonium nitrate – used as a main explosive – from sports injury cold packs.

The men were heavily influenced by the al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki whose English language lectures encouraging people to launch attacks however they could spawned the “just do it” motto.

Al-Awlaki was killed by a missile from an unmanned drone at his hideout in Yemen, 12 days after the Birmingham cell was arrested.

But in secretly recorded conversations they also boasted the backing of al-Kuwaiti, who was once seen as a possible successor to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current al-Qaeda leader.

His real name is Khalid Abdurrahman al-Husainan and he was killed, while eating his breakfast, in a drone attack in December.

Khalid was recorded telling others: “Well you know the sheikh we’re on about the Kuwaiti guy, you know about the top five.

“Bro, there is no more proof than him saying it, that, 'do it.’ He’s the one who’s blessed this whole thing and he’s the one who saying people are doing dawah [praying] for you.”

Referred to as “Chubbs” or “Big Irfan,” Naseer was the religious leader of the cell and also its bomb-maker.

But he had reached the age of 30 without leaving home and was, by his own barrister’s admission an “overweight, lazy mummy’s boy” who weighed 21 stones.

Anas Zein Al-Abdeen a school friend of Naseer, said he had been the school joker but “he couldn’t adapt to working life. This, I think, is the start of his downfall”.

Trial judge Mr Justice Henriques told the trio that they will all face life in prison when they are sentenced in April or May.

He told Naseer to expect a “a very long minimum term”, adding: “The scale and extent of your ambition was similarly manifest. You were seeking to recruit a team of somewhere between six and eight suicide bombers to carry out a spectacular bombing campaign, one which would create an anniversary along the lines of 7/7 or 9/11.”

Rahin Ahmed, 28, the cell’s chief fundraiser, has already pleaded guilty to fundraising and helping other travel to Pakistan for terror training.

Four other men, Naweed Ali, 24; Ishaaq Hussain, 20; Khobaib Hussain, 20 and Shahid Khan, 20, have pleaded guilty to travelling to Pakistan in August 2011 for terrorist training.

Mujahid Hussain, 21, who was heavily involved in raising money for terrorism, has pleaded guilty to a charge of fundraising.

Fears of new generation of terrorists who found the 'heart of the beast' of al-Qaeda - Telegraph

Prisoner X Ben Zygier

 Ben Saul February 20, 2013

The case of Ben Zygier illustrates the dangers of divided loyalties, writes Ben Saul.

The case of Prisoner X, Australian Jew Ben Zygier, gets ever stranger. It appears that his crime may have been confirming to Australian spooks that Israel was indeed misusing Australian passports to run security operations.

From afar Israelis may not have appreciated the fury of the Australian government and people after Mossad used fake Australian passports in the operation to kill a Hamas man in Dubai. At the time an Israeli intelligence agent was expelled from the Israeli embassy in Canberra.

If the reports are true, Ben Zygier was not a mortal threat to Israel because he was passing secrets to enemies such as Iran. Rather, he would embarrass Israel because he would corroborate an illegal, hostile, and shameful act by Israel against a supposed friend, Australia.

The problem is not that average Australians are especially precious about their passports. Rather, if foreign security agencies routinely abuse Australian passports, it puts the integrity of those documents in doubt, with serious consequences. The ability of Australians to travel freely may be impeded because other countries may begin to view our passports with suspicion.

More worryingly, if other countries suspect that Australian passport-holders might be Mossad spies or assassins, it could cause a great deal of trouble for innocent Australians, many of whom have Jewish or Middle Eastern heritage. Israel is some friend to do this.

The case of Prisoner X has divided Australians. The prevailing sentiment is that whatever Zygier did, Israel must show that it respected his rights in detention and in the criminal process. There is also a strong belief that Australia too must prove that it did everything to ensure his rights were protected. In recent years, Australians have been concerned that their governments have not protected citizens at risk strongly enough, from David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

There is, however, a minority view that those who live by the sword must expect to die by it, particularly if a person betrays one country (Australia) to help another (Israel). After all, Zygier was under investigation in Australia for illegally misusing his passport to help Israel. That Zygier may have had a change of heart - by planning to speak out about Israel's passport infractions - complicates that view. No doubt there are other Australian-Jewish-Israelis who play for both sides in the dangerous security game.

The case raises the broader problem of divided loyalties among Australians with multiple national identities, in this case some in the Jewish community. Australia permits dual citizenship. It becomes a problem where people put themselves in the position of having to choose between competing obligations of different countries, whether by spying or through military service.

Israel and Australia are indeed good friends, but they are not always on the same page. For a start, there is a gulf in values. Australian security services do not assassinate people, including civilian scientists driving to work in nearby countries. Australia does not torture prisoners. Australia has not militarily occupied a foreign people's land for more than 40 years, or built illegal colonies on their lands. Australia does not believe in nuclear weapons or hide their existence.

When it comes to the crunch, most Australians would expect Australian Jews to choose loyalty to Australia over Israel, or even hope that the Australians in Mossad are our double agents. Undoubtedly Israelis would wish them to side with Israel. Spying will continue because every country has an interest in it. The trick is to be better at it than others, and better at catching others' spies than they are at catching yours.

But the case of Ben Zygier shows that it is not easy to have it both ways. Conscience can get in the way. There comes a point where a Jewish person cannot faithfully be both Australian and Israeli. One has to choose. The same goes for Australians who are also Americans or Chinese.

Israel's apparent willingness to abuse the trust and confidence of Australia also suggests that no country can take its friends for granted. All countries understandably put themselves first. But Israel might question whether its long-term security interests are best served by alienating its closest friends.

Ben Saul is professor of international law at the University of Sydney and a barrister who has worked on human rights cases in Israel and national security cases in Australia.

Prisoner X Ben Zygier

Prisoner X Not Interviewed By ASIO

Ruth Pollard in Jerusalem February 20, 2013 - 11:39AM

Ben Zygier ... was found dead in his Israeli jail cell.

Seeking to put an end to speculation that the Australian suspected of spying for Mossad was arrested for also passing information to ASIO, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Ben Zygier had any contact with Australia's intelligence agency.

In a statement released overnight, Mr Netanyahu's office stressed ''the late Mr Zygier had no contact with the Australian security agencies''.

Some media reports suggested that 34-year-old Ben Zygier, a dual Australian-Israeli citizen, was arrested by Israeli security services for giving intelligence to ASIO officials about Mossad's practice of using Australian passports to spy in countries hostile to Israel.

Mr Netanyahu also moved to hose down any possibility of a rift between Australia and Israel, with his office stating there is ''excellent co-operation, full co-ordination and complete transparency in dealing with current issues'' between the two countries.

It is the first time the Israeli government has mentioned Mr Zygier by name since the ABC's Foreign Correspondent report identified him as ''Prisoner X'' in a report last Tuesday.

Fairfax Media revealed that Mr Zygier, who had immigrated to Israel in 2000 and regularly travelled back to Australia to change his name and passport at least three times, was under ASIO surveillance at the time of his arrest in February 2010 and was suspected, along with two other dual Australian-Israeli citizens, of spying for Mossad.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel's Ministry of Justice also partially released a report on Mr Zygier's death by Judge Daphna Blatman Kedrai.

On the day he died, he ate breakfast in his cell as usual, then removed the sheet from his bed and went to the shower where he believed he would be out of the gaze of his prison guards.

It was here he was found hanged at 8.19am on December 15, 2010 – the bed sheet attached to the cell's window, according to the report.

The New York Times reported there was a hint of a sedative in his stomach, and a wound on his left hand, but neither contributed to his death, which was caused by asphyxiation.

The partial release – published in repose to a media application to the Supreme Court to further lift the gag order on the details of Mr Zygier's arrest, detention and death – shed more light on the final minutes of his life, but left many unanswered questions.

''I have found evidence allegedly suggesting the fault of elements in the Israel Prison Service,'' Judge Blatman Kedrai wrote in her report that was completed on December 19, 2012.

''The duties placed on the [Israel Prison Service] in connection to the deceased were particularly complex given the cloak of secrecy, gaps in information and compartmentalisation,'' she wrote.

Justice Kedrai concluded that the prisoner's death was a suicide and not ''caused by a criminal act,'' according to The New York Times.

''There was no disagreement that a willing act of the deceased is what brought about his suicide,'' wrote the judge.

''Nevertheless, orders to prevent suicide were given and the elements entrusted with guarding the prisoner were aware of them. These orders were not upheld and a 'window of opportunity' was used by the deceased to commit suicide.''

The cause of death, according to the report of a doctor, Ricardo Nachman, mentioned in the judge's report, was the result of asphyxiation caused by a noose being tightened around his neck.

After attempting to supress the story of the months-long solitary confinement and death of Mr Zygier, firstly by a court issued gag order and then via pressure from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the editors of Israel's media, the government appears to have accepted it can no longer stay silent on the issue.

Some senior ministers, such as the Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz have publicly criticised the decision to withhold information about Mr Zygier's case from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, however, Mr Netanyahu continues to defend the decision.

There are now two further inquiries into matter – the State Attorney's office is looking into the allegations of negligence on behalf of the Prison Service, while a sub-committee of the Knesset is conducting its own inquiry.

Prisoner X Not Interviewed By ASIO

Ben Zygier: The great Prisoner X conspiracy theory

By Richard Spencer 7:59PM GMT 18 Feb 2013

 

A suspected Mossad spy, once known only as Prisoner X, was found hanged in his cell. What secrets did Ben Zygier take to his grave?

Ben Zygier had dual Israeli and Australian nationality. His incarceration outside Tel Aviv was so top secret his jailors weren’t allowed to know his name Photo: AFP/Getty Images

We all love conspiracy theories, particularly when there actually is a conspiracy. The odd thing is that when offered competing conspiracy theories, we often plump for the dullest – it’s the bankers, or the CIA, or Zionists. If you’re going to speculate, why not come up with something original?

Here’s a practical example. Israel and Australia and all countries in between have been buzzing for days over the fantastic case of Prisoner X, a once nameless inmate of a solitary confinement wing in Israel’s most secure jail. I say nameless: he was so top secret, his jailors weren’t allowed to know his name(s).

So who was this modern-day Man in the Iron Mask? Australian television discovered he was a Mossad agent originally from Melbourne called Ben Zygier, scion of a prominent Jewish family who emigrated to Israel; and who later acquired a number of Australian passports in names other than his own.

Moreover, in December 2010 he was found hanging in his cell’s bathroom, a death ascribed to suicide despite his being under 24-hour surveillance. Cue the theories: it is not hard to see the possibilities in a story involving Mossad, the Middle East, mysteriously dead nameless prisoners and double identities.

But there we have my point: what is the explanation that the media have come to accept? According to most accounts, Zygier was involved with the Mossad intelligence service in faking and cloning Australian passports, and had informed Australian intelligence services of this. Such accounts add – correctly – that Mossad has had a long reputation for cloning passports, which has drawn the wrath of many otherwise friendly governments, including Britain. Case closed.

But is that it? Are we supposed to believe that Prisoner X was seized and interrogated, threatened, as his lawyer subsequently said, with life imprisonment and with being ostracised from his family, and that maybe (according to innuendo) he was killed, all because he was about to reveal a passport scam that the world already knew about? It doesn’t make much sense, and it’s dull to boot.

In the absence of solid answers, which we are unlikely to receive, I propose something more imaginative. But that does not mean we shouldn’t start with the known facts.

The existence of Prisoner X was originally revealed by the US-based blogger Richard Silverstein, who suggested he might be a missing Iranian general; he was obviously wrong on that point, which he now believes was a plant to divert him from the truth. In fact, according to the Australian network ABC, which must have been leaked information by the intelligence services, Prisoner X was Zygier, and he was arrested in February 2010. Australian intelligence was notified by its Israeli counterpart on February 24 (remember that date). He was, according to his lawyer, indicted for “grave crimes”, which he denied, was held incommunicado, and then was found hanged on December 15.

The timing is important. First, his name as a Mossad agent had previously been given to an Australian journalist, who “fronted him up”, saying he had been questioned for repeatedly applying for passports in different names. He denied it. Second, around the time of his arrest, Mossad killed the Hamas gun-runner, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai; the agents responsible used 27 Western passports, including four Australian, mostly clones with the original bearers’ names but the agents’ photographs.

The world learned all this when Dubai showed passport pictures to a press conference on February 15, three weeks after the killing, and that is what leads us to the theory for Zygier’s arrest. It’s easy to make that assumption, and say Zygier was arrested “after the use of cloned Australian passports was revealed by Dubai police”. The only question left to interpretation is whether he informed Australian intelligence, Dubai police, or both.

But in key aspects, the statement beginning “after” is wrong. The use of three of the Australian passports was revealed not on February 15 but nine days later, in a press conference on February 24, the very day the Australians were informed of Zygier’s arrest. (The fourth was revealed later still.) The first batch shown off by Dubai police included British and Irish passports but not Australian.

Moreover, the use of cloned passports was not “revealed by Dubai police”: when they made their amazing announcement, they were unaware that the passports weren’t genuine. This was only discovered when the owners were tracked down. So the timeline disappears – he was already arrested when the Australian involvement became known; and he didn’t tell Dubai, because they seemed not to know.

Also, of course, the more obvious question: since everyone knew even before this that Mossad cloned passports, why would he need to reveal it? Would revealing such a well-known fact to a friendly intelligence agency be counted a “grave crime”? Would he have to be kept so incommunicado for knowing something everyone knew?

More “revelations” emerged yesterday: that his spilling the beans perhaps went further than the passports, to the whole Mossad mission. Now, at least, we are making progress. According to reports, among the places Zygier went to was Iran, where he was in contact with agents that Mossad used in operations against Israel’s most feared adversary. Celebrated coups attributed to Mossad there range from killing nuclear scientists to the sabotage of weapons and computer systems. Perhaps this is the game Zygier gave away, and Israel was determined he should not have the chance to give it away more widely. (Curiously, holders of two Australian passports used in planning the Mabhouh hit afterwards boarded a ferry from Dubai to Iran.)

Richard Silverstein, the blogger, wonders whether Zygier was “turned” by Australian intelligence, who made him feel bad about using dodgy Australian passports to help kill people, thus bringing disrepute to the country of his birth. And so the theory completes the circle – a motive for his betrayal of Israel, a motive for Israel to respond, and a motive for outraged Aussie intelligence to leak the whole thing to the media.

Does it wash, though? Could Zygier have been unaware before he joined that Mossad cloned passports and killed people? If he found the job not to his taste, why not just return to Australia? If he betrayed Israel to Australia, would he go back to Israel? Even if Australian intelligence practises moral blackmail on dual nationals working for other intelligence agencies, which doesn’t sound likely, what secrets would they have gained? That Mossad cloned passports? That it killed people?

I suspect the secret that Israel is trying to hide is more sensitive than even its operations in Iran (which in Israel would be covered by censorship, and outside would come as no great surprise). The Mabhouh connection reminds me of Mossad’s known cooperation with Gulf intelligence agencies, including state security in the United Arab Emirates, on areas of “mutual interest” (including Iran). Many people were puzzled that Dubai police were so swiftly able to identify what happened in the Mabhouh hit, including showing off the 27 passports. Dubai’s police are of variable quality.

Emirati state security is a different matter, omnipresent, Western-trained and employing the latest Western technology. Many people pointed to their potential involvement in the investigation. State security, a federal organisation, is run from the big brother emirate of Abu Dhabi, and Abu Dhabi far more than Dubai hates Iran, hates Hamas, and hates Dubai’s reputation as a freewheeling place for money-launderers and gun-runners, particularly after the financial crisis during which it bailed out its flashier neighbour.

Living there at the time, I always wondered whether state security might have known about the hit all along, even tipped the wink.

There are other possible Dubai/Mossad links: Israelis are not totally absent from the emirate, which works closely with Tel Aviv and Antwerp in the diamond trade, of which the three cities are international hubs. Dubai meanwhile is also Iran’s closest trading partner, a convenient base for shipping goods (and spies and bombs?) across the Gulf.

There are a lot of secrets to be revealed there, and while we don’t know what Zygier knew, it’s quite possible he knew a lot of them. I’m speculating, but no more than anyone else. Am I right? Well, let’s see if I disappear any time soon, either in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Tel Aviv.

Ben Zygier: The great Prisoner X conspiracy theory - Telegraph

Muslim preacher urges followers to claim 'Jihad Seeker's Allowance'

By Melanie Hall 3:21PM GMT 17 Feb 2013

A Muslim preacher is secretly filmed urging followers to take benefits from the state to fund a holy war.

Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary. Photo: RAY TANG/REX FEATURES

Anjem Choudary was secretly filmed mocking non-Muslims for working in 9-5 jobs their whole lives, and told followers that some revered Islamic figures had only ever worked one or two days a year.

“The rest of the year they were busy with jihad [holy war] and things like that,” he said. “People will say, ‘Ah, but you are not working’.

“But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar [non-believers].

“So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance. You need to get support.”

He went on to tell a 30-strong crowd: “We are going to take England — the Muslims are coming.”

 

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Ridiculing the daily lives of UK workers, Choudary said: “You find people are busy working the whole of their life. They wake up at 7 o’clock. They go to work at 9 o’clock.

“They work for eight, nine hours a day. They come home at 7 o’clock, watch EastEnders, sleep, and they do that for 40 years of their life. That is called slavery.”

Choudary, a father-of-four, claims more than £25,000 a year in benefits, £8,000 more than the take-home pay of some soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to the Sun, which covertly filmed the preacher at three meetings.

At another meeting in Slough infiltrated by the Sun, Choudary was filmed proclaiming that Islam was taking over Europe.

“Now we are taking over Birmingham and populating it,” he said.

“Brussels is 30 per cent, 40 per cent Muslim and Amsterdam. Bradford is 17 per cent Muslim.

“These people are like a tsunami going across Europe. And over here we’re just relaxing, taking over Bradford brother. The reality is changing.”

Choudary, who has been banned twice from running organisations under the Terrorism Act, told an audience at a community centre in Bethnal Green, East London, that David Cameron, Barack Obama and the leaders of Pakistan and Egypt were the devil (shaitan) and should be killed.

“What ultimately do we want to happen to them?” asked Choudary. “Maybe I’m the only one who wants the shaitan to be killed. The shaitan should be finished. There should be no shaitan.

“Democracy, freedom, secularism, the parliament, all the MPs and the Presidents, all the kuffar’s ideas, everything the people worship, we have to believe that they are bad and we have got to reject them.”

When later confronted about his filmed speeches, Choudary said: “Many people in the Muslim community are on Jobseeker’s Allowance and welfare benefits. As a joke I may say something about Jihad Seeker’s Allowance. Clearly it is not a Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.

“The word jihad means struggle. It does not necessarily mean fighting. I have never said to anyone to kill anyone in this country.”

Muslim preacher urges followers to claim 'Jihad Seeker's Allowance' - Telegraph

Israel's Prisoner X 'identified as Australian Jew who worked for Mossad'

By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney

5:12PM GMT 12 Feb 2013

A mysterious prisoner who died in Israel after being held in total isolation in a maximum-security jail – dubbed Prisoner X – has been identified by the Australian media as a 34-year-old Australian citizen, Ben Zygier, who moved to Israel from Melbourne.

Prisoner X has been identified by the Australian media as a 34-year-old Australian citizen, Ben Zygier, who moved to Israel from Melbourne Photo: ALAMY

The existence of the prisoner became known in 2010 after a story about him briefly appeared on Israel's Ynet news website, which said he was being held in a private wing of the Ayalon prison for unspecified crimes.

The report, which said he was placed in "utter isolation from the outside world" and had no contact with other prisoners and received no visitors, quickly disappeared from the website.

Israel's domestic intelligence services had reportedly obtained a court order banning any reporting of the affair on national security grounds – though the gag order itself was not allowed to be reported.

A separate report in December 2010 said the man had died in his cell, but the report was again swiftly removed.

Now, Australia's public broadcaster, ABC, has reported that the man who died was Ben Zygier, an Australian Jewish lawyer who was recruited by Israel's spy agency, Mossad, and also used the name Ben Alon. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs also confirmed that Mr Zygier carried an Australian passport with the name Ben Allen.

 

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Mr Zygier was married to an Israeli woman and had two young children. They lived in Ra'anana, a town north of Tel Aviv which has a large population of immigrants from Western countries.

The investigation by ABC's Foreign Correspondent programme said he was found hanging in a cell in the prison in December 2010 – apparently after committing suicide. His body was apparently flown to Melbourne and he was buried a week later.

He was reportedly held in the prison from early 2010 and none of the guards knew his identity. He was buried in a Jewish cemetery in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale on December 22 2010, seven days after his death.

The affair still cannot be reported within Israel, where there has been intense interest in the case on social media.

Israeli media on Tuesday reported that the prime minister's office asked the local media to avoid reporting a particularly sensitive story; the story was not named but was presumably the case of Mr X.

Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, said he was concerned about the allegations but the affair had not previously been raised with him. Israel did not notify Australia that it was holding Mr Zygier in prison or that he died, he said.

"The difficulty is I'm advised we've had no contact with his family [and] there's been no request for consular assistance during the period it's alleged he was in prison," Mr Carr said.

The incarceration of Mr X – who was held in a cell especially built for Yigal Amir, the assassin who killed Israeli prime minister in 1995 – led to various conspiracy theories about his possible identities. Some bloggers speculated that he must be held on espionage-related charges, other claimed he was an Iranian top-ranking security official.

The Israeli embassy in Australia would not comment on the case. Officials in Israel would not discuss the case either on or off the record.

Israel's Prisoner X 'identified as Australian Jew who worked for Mossad' - Telegraph

Israel gripped by identity of 'Prisoner X'

By Richard Spencer and Adrian Blomfield

9:45PM BST 21 Jun 2010

Israel has been gripped by a guessing game over the identity of a mysterious prisoner being held in such secrecy that even his guards do not know his name.

Palestinian prisoners jailed in the Israeli Ayalon prison in the city of Ramla Photo: CORBIS

The elusive "Mr X" is being held for unspecified crimes and confined in total seclusion within a private wing of the maximum-security Ayalon prison.

No one knew of his existence until the shroud of secrecy was briefly lifted after a story appeared on the Ynet news website, owned by Israel's leading Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

Quoting unidentified officials within the Israeli penitentiary service, it disclosed that Mr X was being held in Unit 15, a wing of Ayalon prison that contains a single cell.

He is not though to receive any visitors and his wing is cut off from the rest of the prison by double iron doors. So hermetic are the conditions in which he is held that other prisoners can neither see nor hear him.

"He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world," a prison official was quoted as saying.

Within hours, the story had vanished from the newspaper's website, allegedly after Israel's domestic intelligence service won a gagging order banning all media coverage of the case.

The attempt to redraw the veil has had only limited success, however, with the disappearance of the story serving only to whet the interests of human rights activists in Israel, who have now launched a campaign to force the state to unmask Mr X and disclose his crimes.

Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the country's oldest human rights group, said: "There is no information on whether this person has been charged, whether he has been tried or whether he has been convicted."

In a letter to the Israeli attorney general last week which has yet to receive a response, Mr Yakir protested the secrecy surrounding Mr X's detention.

"It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place," he wrote.

Amid the intrigue and the silence of the domestic press, Mr X's cause has also been taken up by influential Jewish bloggers, most notably Richard Silverstein, a US-based commentator who has played a leading role in forcing Israel to drop gagging orders in recent months.

While there has been little but speculation as to what Mr X may have done, there can be little doubt about the importance attached to him by the state for he is being held in the cell specially built to house Yigal Amir, the Israeli extremist who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister, in 1995.

But one Israeli security expert said that the secrecy suggested espionage rather than terrorism is likely to lie at the heart of the mystery.

In 1983, Marcus Klingberg, a leading Israeli scientist, was jailed for 20 years for passing secrets about the country's biological warfare programme to the Soviets. But it was only after he had been in prison for a decade that Israelis heard for the first time about Klingberg's existence, arrest and conviction.

Mr X is being held in the same prison as Mordechai Vanunu, the whistle-blower who revealed Israeli nuclear secrets before he was lured out of Britain by a Mossad honeytrap in 1986 and jailed for 18 years.

Vanunu was sent back to prison last month for talking to foreigners, in violation of his parole.

Israel's prison service has declined to confirm or deny the existence of Mr X on security grounds.

Israel gripped by identity of 'Prisoner X' - Telegraph

Seeking a home away from home - and away from racism

Anita Sethi February 15, 2013

For a brown-skinned Brit, Melbourne is a very welcoming city - most of the time.

'Strolling along Swanston Street, the diversity is unmissable.' Photo: Justin McManus

When I flew 17,000 kilometres from my place of birth and landed in Melbourne, I felt strangely at home. Some cities allow international visitors that feeling.

I was born in Manchester, Britain's second largest city, and there's something about the atmosphere in Melbourne that is strangely akin to Manchester. Perhaps it's the curious charm of ''second cities''. Like second siblings, there's none of the weight of expectations that is on the first, everything to learn from mistakes, and a sense of cultural vibrancy and activism. Think of other so-called ''second cities'' the world over, and this seems to ring true.

I first landed when the last leaves of autumn were falling and stayed for the beginning of winter. I was tempted to return for Melbourne's summer, escaping the bitter cold winter of Britain. I was reminded, in my seasonal migrations, of Pico Iyer's essay in the book Falling off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World in which he points out how Australia is an upside-down reflection: the seasons, for example, inverted from those of Britain. I have certainly experienced in my travels through Australia that vast, awesome sense of emptiness; when strolling on the beaches of Jervis Bay where it was only me and my shadow, or in the forests of Chewton, Victoria, where I stayed alone in an eco-shack with only the kangaroos for company.

But far from being the loneliest place in the world, a stroll through Melbourne's CBD took me right into the beating heart of humanity.

Strolling along Swanston Street, the diversity is unmissable, from the oldest Chinatown in the world, to the shop ''OM'' selling vegetarian Indian food. It's not only in the gastronomic sense that diversity is tasted, but it's also to be heard in the music that filters from the streets.

During my first day, as is the norm when I'm rushing through central London, I had my ear-plugs fastened in to block out the blare of traffic and screech of sirens. But music far sweeter caught my attention: the streets were alive with the sound of music from all over the world: pipes and lutes and flutes and drums and strings all spinning out their global origins thanks to the many buskers. I saw contortionists twisting their bodies into strange shapes, those spreading their paintings over the pavements; real live humans set into high relief against the statues that stand along Swanston Street, a reminder of the past that has shaped the city in the midst of the vibrant present moment.

The sounds, smells, sights, and tastes of many cultures intermingled show how so-called outsiders have been integrated into the city, although I have noticed a discrepancy between the diversity to be found on the streets and the cultural mix off those streets, inside various institutions, some of which had no non-white faces at all.

A visit to the Immigration Museum was an educative and emotional journey through the city and country's history. The British passport in my handbag took on a new light as I learnt of the history of Britain in the country's formation. It was also palpable how many have arrived in Melbourne from elsewhere, seeking to find that elusive sense of ''home'' in a place far from their birth.

I read of the White Australia policy, the story of the Stolen Generation, and news archives of the more recent spate of violence against Indian students. Then I walked back out onto the streets full of the weight of history and - as someone with brown skin - the fact that no one so much as blinked an eye at me was to be noted.

Then came the week of the incident on the bus in Melbourne of a French girl being racially taunted. I was thinking how lucky I have been in experiencing no racism when the words ''Indian housewife'' were shot in my ear from a complete stranger. Having my skin colour pointed out along with comically incorrect prejudice (neither do I own a house nor am I a wife) showed how racism still lurks on our streets to be dispensed in broad daylight by the casual passerby.

This is not to let a single incident taint my entire experience of a city: most of the days I have spent here have been racism-free. Indeed, the city has been overwhelmingly welcoming.

I suggest that the ignorant bigot who shot those words in my ear pay a visit to the Immigration Museum for the day.

There's still further to go in eradicating prejudice from both on and off the streets the world over, so that both those who were born in a place as well as those who arrive to make a new life - or just for a short visit - can find a home from home however temporary, and feel comfortable not only in the city but inside their own skins.

Anita Sethi is a British writer who is currently International Writer-in-Residence at the Emerging Writers' Festival and a writing fellow at the Wheeler Centre.

SBS Reporter Subjected To Racis Taunts on Sydney Bus

'I watched him take his last breaths': US SEAL describes how he killed bin Laden

Peter Foster in Washington February 12, 2013 - 7:46AM

Osama bin Laden ... shot dead in 2011. Photo: AP

A US Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden has described for the first time the moment he shot the al-Qaeda leader twice in the head.

However, the anonymous shooter also told how his wife and family now lived in constant fear of their lives, and had taught their children to hide in the bathtub at the first sign of a revenge attack.

I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he's going down. He crumpled on to the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place.

In a 15,000-word account, the unnamed member of SEAL Team 6 describes the huge elation - but also the deep personal cost - that came with being the man who killed bin Laden during the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011.

Zero Dark Thirty ... the movie tells the story of the hunt for bin Laden.

He told Esquire magazine that it was him alone that fired the fatal shots. The SEAL said he was through the doorway of a third-floor bedroom when he saw bin Laden move across the room clutching one of his wives and advancing towards an AK74 rifle on a shelf.

"He looked confused. And way taller than I was expecting," said the SEAL. "He was holding her in front of him. Maybe as a shield, I don't know. For me, it was a snapshot of a target ID, definitely him. Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory. That's him, boom, done.

"I thought in that first instant how skinny he was, how tall and how short his beard was, all at once. He was wearing one of those white hats, but he had, like, an almost shaved head. Like a crew cut. I remember all that registering.

"In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he's going down. He crumpled on to the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place.

"That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath."

The entire episode was over in 15 seconds, he said.

After the shooting, the SEAL admitted feeling "stunned", but he was swiftly jolted back to reality as he and the team cleared out the house.

In training the SEAL said most of his team had presumed that they would die on the mission, writing tearful farewell letters to their families.

On returning, the soldier handed the magazine from his rifle - minus three bullets - as a souvenir to the female CIA officer who had been responsible for tracking down bin Laden.

The interview highlighted the psychological price paid by elite special forces and the surprising lack of support they and their families received after leaving the force.

After the raid, the SEAL said he was offered a place in a witness protection programme - delivering beer in Milwaukee. He decided against the offer because "like Mafia snitches" he would lose contact with all his friends and family.

Afraid of reprisals, the SEAL said he had taught his family how to defend themselves should they be attacked. He told his children to hide in the bathtub - the most fortified place in the house - and taught his wife how to use a shotgun. The family also had clothes and provisions meant to last them two weeks in hiding.

Her husband gave the interview only after leaving the service after 16 years, without a pension or health care.

The Daily Telegraph, London

'I watched him take his last breaths': US SEAL describes how he killed bin Laden

A sign from above? Lightning strikes Vatican after Pope Benedict resigns

 

Megan Levy Breaking news reporter

February 12, 2013 - 10:05AM

Pope Benedict XVI's resignation came like a bolt from the blue overnight

And the weather around the Vatican was eerily appropriate, with lightning striking St Peter's Basilica, one of the holiest Catholic sites, on the same day that Pope Benedict announced he would be stepping down.

A message from above? ... lightning strikes St Peter's dome at the Vatican hours after Pope Benedict XVI resigned. Photo: AFP

Global news agency Agence France-Presse published an image of lightning striking the basilica's dome, which it said was taken "on the day the Pope" announced his resignation.

AFP said the striking image was captured by photographer Filippo Monteforte, who works for Italian national news and photo agency ANSA.

Monteforte's website shows that he has photographed the Pope extensively for for more than a decade. He is also listed as a AFP photographer, with a portfolio of his work on the news agency's website.

Stepping down ... Pope Benedict XVI. Photo: AP

The image was doing the rounds on social media overnight, with some people questioning its authenticity.

Fairfax Media photographer Nick Moir said the image looked genuine.

"It's probably not that rare for St Peter's to get hit," he said.

"The bolt is hitting a lightning rod to the side of the cross, it seems."

Although Moir said there was no way to verify when the photograph was taken.

Pope Benedict's resignation is the first by a pontiff for almost 600 years, and his decision stunned the Roman Catholic church.

In an address read out in Latin letter to his Catholic brethren,the 85-year-old said his advanced age and the pace of change in the modern world had left him unable to “adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me”.

He will step down as head of the Catholic church on February 28.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said he had made up his mind nearly a year ago after trips to Mexico and Cuba tired him out.

His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, said: "Age is weighing on him. My brother would like more rest at this age."

Once he stands down, Benedict will be taken to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat near Rome, and will subsequently live in a cloistered monastery.

Previous Popes have stayed in the role until their death, despite physical and mental decay, in the belief that their prayer and suffering as they approach the end are a part of their role.

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII in 1415, to help resolve a dispute between the three people who claimed to be the Pope.

Facebook Updates Boring

Joanna Weiss February 11, 2013

This is a milestone in our growing relationship with social media.

Forget about the privacy concerns, the onslaught of ads, the annoying design of your profile page. If people are slowly turning away from Facebook, it's not because the company has overreached or gone over to the dark side. It's because we've come to realise that people are boring.

Surely you've noticed this, as you've scrolled through updates about holidays and restaurant meals, plus notices about how many of your friends are playing Candy Crush Saga.

A survey released last week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 61 per cent of Facebook users have taken a ''Facebook vacation'', for reasons that had little to do with how the company behaves. ''Too busy'' was the most common complaint, followed by ''just wasn't interested'' and ''it was a waste of time''.

''It's a reckoning moment,'' said Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew project. ''People are making little mental calculations about how much time do I want to devote to this, what's the quality of the material I get from my friends?''

This is, in some ways, a milestone in our growing relationship with social media. Early complaints about Facebook centred on the fact that interactions were fake: hand-picked, over glossed, idealised personal statements that were bound to make your friends feel insecure, and vice versa. But now that we're all familiar with the Facebook mask, the problem might be that our posts are too real, and that reality isn't worth our time.

Earnest efforts to promote unplugging, such as the annual Screen Free Week, are gaining traction, and Facebook's policies have done their part to diminish our trust, but it turns out that our own inanity is also a powerful force.

Not that it's time to fear for Mark Zuckerberg's welfare. Facebook is used by a mind-boggling number of people around the globe, including your mother, your father, your great-aunt Hilda, and your long-lost friend from high school with a political vendetta. The fact we're now settling into a mature routine is actually a sign of how intertwined our lives are with our feeds - and how much we feel obliged to take part.

As much as I grumble, after all, I still feel compelled to dip into the Facebook universe every few days, posting photos of depressingly minor life events - Attention, world! My child went to the dentist! - or scrolling down the news feed and ''liking'' 15 items in one sitting. I'm marking my presence, like a dog. If I lay off the site for a few days, I invariably miss six birthdays and feel like a jerk. If I stay away for longer, I worry I'll miss big news.

Every new medium eventually finds its purpose. Twitter works well as a news aggregator and wisecrack-sharing platform. Pinterest is a gallery for home decor ideas. Facebook has become the accepted repository for information about births, deaths and traumatic family events. It's also reasonably good for mobilising social movements and conducting virtual garage sales.

For photos of children and holidays? Well, there's this nifty thing called paper. A few weeks ago, we finally took down our display of holiday cards, those cheery family photos that Facebook should have rendered obsolete. They still feel more valuable than the average digital post, precisely because they're worth the cost of bulk printing and a stamp, and because they require the physical act of opening an envelope.

Holiday cards are one of the last remaining things that we still instinctively send by mail, along with thank-you notes and the occasional party invitation.

Right after the Pew Facebook study came out, the US Postal Service announced that it was dropping Saturday delivery, prompting a flood of lamentations - on social media, of course - from people who may not have written a letter by hand in years.

I'm an American and I, too, will miss the weekend mail, but it's hard to argue with reality. The other day, the sum total of my mail was an electricity bill and a flyer from Costco.

If someone sent you a snail-mail photo of his kids every day or every week, you'd think he suffered from a personality disorder. But holiday cards can be an annual thrill, precisely because they come once a year. Looking for a new, Facebook 2.0 standard for how much we ought to share? It turns out, we might have had it all along.

Joanna Weiss is a columnist with The Boston Globe.

Facebook Updates Boring