climate change 8000 BP

How prehistoric farmers saved us from new Ice Age

Prehistoric farmers who slashed down trees and laid out the first rice paddies and wheatfields triggered major alterations to levels of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, they say.

As a result, global temperatures - which were slowly falling around 8,000 years ago - began to rise. 'Current temperatures would be well on the way toward typical glacial temperatures, had it not been for the greenhouse gas contributions from early farming practices,' says Professor William Ruddiman of Virginia University.

The theory, based on studies of carbon dioxide and methane samples taken from Antarctic ice cores, is highly controversial - a point acknowledged by Ruddiman. 'Global warming sceptics could cite my work as evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases played a beneficial role for several thousand years by keeping the Earth's climate more hospitable than it would otherwise have been,' he states in the current issue of Scientific American.

'However, others might counter that, if so few humans with relatively primitive technologies were able to alter the course of climate so significantly, then we have reason to be concerned about the current rise of greenhouse gases to unparalleled concentrations at unprecedented rates.'

Elaborating on his theory, Ruddiman said: 'Rice paddies flooded by irrigation generate methane for the same reason that natural wetlands do - vegetation decomposes in the stagnant water. Methane is also released as farmers burn grasslands,' Ruddiman points out.

Similarly, the cutting down of forests had a major effect. 'Whether the fallen trees were burnt or left to rot, their carbon would soon have been oxidised and ended up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.'

Climate Change Killed Neandertals, Study Says

Both Neandertals and the first humans to reach Europe struggled with the changing conditions brought by increasingly cold temperatures, according to a study by 30 scientists.

The two species coexisted in Europe from roughly 45,000 to 28,000 years ago when the Neandertals died out. Why humans survived and the Neandertals didn't has puzzled archaeologists for over a century.

Theories have ranged from interspecies genocide to interbreeding to humans' superior communication skills, hunting technology, and social organization.

The new study—a seven-year effort that combined the work of 30 scientists from 11 nations—suggests, however, that the inability to adapt to climate change led to the Neandertals' demise.

"It's not that it got too cold for them; both humans and Neandertals had clothing such as fur mantles," said Jerry van Andel, a geologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom who led the study.

Rather, researchers believe Neandertals failed to adapt their hunting methods when big game species like mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), bison (Bison bonasus), and red deer (Cervus elaphus) fled south and the once-forested landscape of Europe changed into a sparsely vegetated steppe and half desert during the last Ice Age.

Which just goes to show there are swings and roundabouts in every climatic change. I promise the Ruddiman study will get misreported as evidence that global warming does not mean we should do anything to mitigate its effects. I also promise the right lobe of the blogosphere will not draw the obvious linkage between their own refusal to adapt and the sad fate of our Neanderthal cousins.

talk about bred of an airy word...

Stolen bouncy castles could be heading for continent

Police are investigating the theft of 12 'bouncy castles' amid claims they were stolen as part of an illicit international trade in inflatable attractions.

The air-filled plastic structures commonly found at fairgrounds and children's parties belonged to party organiser Darren Latimer.

Mr Latimer, 31, said he believed professional thieves carried out the heist with a view to shipping the stolen goods abroad, and added it was a growing problem in the industry.

'It's an up and coming thing to have bouncy castles in places like Spain and South Africa,' he said. 'They don't have manufacturers there so it's more cost-effective to steal them and take them over.'

Some aspects of globalisation are just to scary to look at closely.

what a lot of cock

Pharyngula has a riveting article on Penis evolution. Delicate souls afflicted with castration anxiety should probably avoid looking at the graphic of transverse sections. At least it's less terrifying than the mythical vagina dentata.

birds of a feather

Females flown in to p-p-p-pick up 'gay' penguins

They are called Charley, Left-Arrow, Diagonal-Line and Six-Point. The four female penguins at Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany are at the centre of debate after being brought in to tempt 'gay' male penguins.

The zoo imported the penguins from Sweden last month after finding through DNA tests that three of their five existing pairs were all male.

The zoo had been mystified why its endangered Humboldt penguins had failed to breed, until they realised the males had paired off, the zoo's director Heike Kück said.

Last year, two of the male pairs spent months sitting on a stone instead of an egg.

But the zoo's decision to introduce females has sparked a furious response from gay and lesbian groups in Germany.

'All sorts of gay and lesbian associations have been emailing and calling in to protest,' a spokesman for Bremerhaven's Zoo on the Sea in north-western Germany said.

Ms Kück defended her decision to bring in the females, which, she said, had had little success in 'turning' the males.

'The central question is, are our penguins really gay or is it simply a lack of opportunity?' she told Der Spiegel. 'So far the males have scarcely thrown the females a single glance. The men have had the opportunity but haven't done it.

'If the penguins really are gay then obviously they can stay gay.'

A relieved world sighs with relief to learn that no member of the House of Windsor is involved in this unsuccessful arranged marriage.

reverberating Habib

Everybody knows that Australia is a close ally of the US and John Howard is a close personal friend of George Bush. That is horseshit of the first water. Neither the alliance nor the friendship stopped the US from deceiving our government and our government are so terrified of having the hollowness of the special relationship exposed they are ready to say and do almost anything in order to maintain the illusion.

Until today the government claimed they did not know if Habib had ever been in Egypt. the fact that he was delivered from US custody into some other mysterious place and then delivered from said mysterious custody back into US custody rather suggests the US government knew where Habib was all along. But not to the likes of Howard, Ruddock and Downer.

14/02/2005 Govt condemns torture

KERRY O'BRIEN: Is it equally believable that when Mr Habib disappeared from Pakistan, Australian officials involved at some stages in the interrogation process were left in the dark as to where he'd gone and couldn't find out, didn't know?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, we asked and we weren't informed.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Isn't that odd, for such a strong ally, that we would be treated with such contempt?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, I simply make the point, in relation to this matter, we were seeking consular access in Pakistan. It was denied.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But your ASIO agents in Pakistan had access.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Yes, they did.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The person they had access to, an Australian citizen, a terrorist suspect, disappears. They ask where he's gone and they're not answered.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Yes, and we continued to press for that information, and when we surmised that he might have been taken to Egypt, because there were some suggestions around that that might have happened, we sought consular access at the highest level in Egypt and Egypt denied at all times that he was there.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And three years later, you still don't know where he was then, the Americans still won't tell you, the Egyptians still won't tell you, the Pakistanis won't tell you?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, I'm simply saying, Kerry, to you, and I've said it in relation to questions put to me by others, that we sought consular access to him, as we would for any Australian, right through this period. We don't always get access, but we sought it and we continued to seek it. We were denied it in Egypt, we were denied it in Pakistan, we were allowed it at Guantanamo Bay.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Are you in a position to deny that the Americans involved with Mr Habib in Pakistan may have worked with Pakistan and the Egyptians to have Mamdouh Habib taken to Egypt for tough off the books interrogations where the niceties of human rights wouldn't have to be observed?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, I'm not able to make observations on matters that I have no personal knowledge, and I have no knowledge...

ASIO confirms Habib was held in Egypt

ASIO has now told the Senate estimates committee that ASIO knew Habib hd been sent to Egypt. I'll post an extract from the transcript when it becomes available.

Today the director-general of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, told a Senate estimates committee the intelligence organisation knew he was there.

"We established to our satisfaction he was definitely there in February of 2002," he said.

Mr Richardson also told the committee when ASIO first interviewed Mr Habib in Pakistan officers did not believe his claims of torture.

"It was dismissed because we had a fairly good idea of what he'd been up to," Mr Richardson said.

"He was actually with people in Afghanistan who have a history of murdering innocent civilians.

"We didn't consider they needed to be considered, nor investigated. We considered they were humbug and we believe they're humbug today if he was to raise them again."

Is the government now saying that ASIO knew but that (as usual) ASIO did not inform the government? This story is falling apart and it is time for a judicial inquiry with the right to compel evidence from ministers and their political apparatchiks.

don't read this post and definitely don't click this link

New Matilda subscription giveaway

I have a subscription to New Matilda worth $55 ($33 concession) to give away. In the absence of any brilliant ideas for entertaining competitions, I've decided to fall back on the trusty raffle.

You prolly wouldn't be able to read all the pleonastic words or want the prize anyway.

God save the Princess Consort

Charles, Prince of Wales, New South Wales, New Zealand, Canada, Belize, PNG, and a number of other unlikely places is going to make an honest woman of Mrs Parker-Bowles. The palace has announced she will be known as the Princess Consort when Charles becomes king. We won't move to a republic any faster and I refuse to get all hot, bothered and censorious about marriage styles of the rich, royal and famous.

Elsewhere, The Road to Surfdom displays a surprisingly wowserish approach to royal marriage and No Right Turn (correctly) couldn't give a rat's arse. For once, Tim is wrong.

Once upon a time Lord Clarendon's daughter Anne shocked her father and consigned him to political oblivion by marrying the future James II and VII and becoming a rock chopper. When the outraged father asked her how she could become a Papist she answered that she thought the lusts of Henry Tudor an unlikely vehicle for the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

Weirdly, the only woman to marry an heir to the British throne since the unfortunate Anne in 1637 was Diana. The vital historical questions remain on everyone's lips. What will His Excellency the Governor-General say? Why does the Church of Henry VIII oppose divorce? Will Camilla be the first Queen known as a Princess Consort? Will Murdoch get the exclusive rights?

detaining Vanstone

Inquiry into Rau detention planned

The federal government would hold an inquiry into the immigration detention of a mentally ill Australian woman for 10 months, Prime Minister John Howard said.

Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old permanent resident who came to Australia when she was 18 months old, was released from South Australia's Baxter immigration centre on Friday.

Refugee advocates say Ms Rau was locked in solitary confinement for up to 20 hours a day for about two months.

Mr Howard said Ms Rau's detention was unsatisfactory.

The Man of Steel apparently thinks Immigration Minister Vanstone the best person to advise him on an inquiry into her own unsatisfactory performance.

Sadly, the one thing the inquiry will not address is what's wrong with the way Vanstone and her advisers run the detention camps. It's not all that hard to find out the facts about an Australian citizen. Immigration did not get it right for month after month. These are the same people who tell us they always get it right when they identify undocumented asylum seekers.

If they can't identify an Australian citizen on the missing persons list, what hope do they have with people with no documentation? It's established fact, beyond any doubt, that Cornelia Rau has a severe and long-standing mental illness. Immigration's doctors could not even find that.

Howard's inquiry is not going to question how immigration can detain an Australian citizen as an unlawful immigrant. That would be questioning Kafka. And the minister has no worries that she won't be detained in office.

verbaling Mamdouh Habib

Australian's Long Path in U.S. Antiterrorism Maze

According to Australian intelligence, he went to Afghanistan and entered Qaeda camps. He completed basic training and an advanced course, including surveillance of urban public buildings, a senior Australian official said.

A few days before Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Habib called his wife from Pakistan, Australian officials said this week. (Her phone was being monitored.) In the conversation, they said, Mr. Habib said something big was going to happen in America in the next few days.

But this phone call, which has not previously been reported, does not support the allegation that Mr. Habib had advance knowledge that planes were going to be flown into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, another Australian official cautioned. Just about everyone in Kandahar and the Qaeda camps knew that something big was coming, he said. 'There was a buzz.'

and:

American officials did not explain why they never brought charges. A Defense Department spokesman said of the release, 'This action allows our Australian allies to ensure that their citizens who previously engaged in or supported terrorist activities do not do so in the future.'

Australian officials declined to discuss what measures they were taking, beyond saying that Mr. Habib's passport would be revoked and that he would be closely monitored.

The circumstances of his release were uncertain until the last. On Wednesday, as Mr. Habib was preparing to leave Guantánamo, guards there terrified him by telling him he was being sent to Egypt, according to his lawyer. Mr. Habib had petitioned a federal judge to keep the United States from sending him back there. Not until Mr. Margulies arrived to accompany him to Australia did Mr. Habib know that he was indeed going home.

He arrived Friday afternoon.

'He's not in custody,' said the Australian attorney general, Philip Ruddock. 'He's at liberty.'

Attorney-General Ruddock has always contended that Habib is a terrorist. it's a new element to the story if the US was relying on Asutralia's intercept for evidence. If that evidence was not good enough for a military commission, where the prosecutor, not the commission, determines evidentiary questions, then it must be fairly slender evidence. If Ruddock was privy to that evidence then he has been consistently lying to parliament and people throughout the course of Habib's detention. It's what happens when you abandon ancient liberties in favour of silly laws justified by the supreme emergency idea. The US even kept Ruddock himself in the dark. When governments cock up in the dark, they tend not to want the lights on.

And there's one small footnote.

Freed Australian Returns From Guantanamo

The 48-year-old Egyptian-born former Sydney coffee shop owner wore an oversized white T-shirt shirt, rolled-up jeans and tennis shoes as he stepped down from a chartered Gulfstream G-550 jet with an American flag on its tail, walking behind his American lawyer Joe Margulies.

The CIA is reported to use a chartered Gulfstream to effect extraordinary renditions. Ruddock says Australia chartered this flight. Perhaps our great and powerful friends recommended the company. The charter company has a fairly dubious history. It looks like Habib may have flown home in the same plane the CIA used to move him to Egypt for torture.

Kim Beazley has a chance to start his long campaign of vigoorous opposition. The opposition and minor parties have a Senate majority until June.

If nominated I will not campaign, if elected I will not serve

I would like to join Tim Dunlop in announcing I will not run for the opposition leadership. Although the party is in a god-awful mess I have decided to do absolutely nothing to try and change that by questioning the approach of the present leadership. It is vital that everyone else not run for anything either so we can unite the party by talking about absolutely nothing. Ideally, no labor candidates should run for parliament at the next election to ensure there is no disunity when no-one gets elected. Audio of my press conference is available here.

quem di vult destruire dementant

Kevin Rudd has decided the best way to prove he has the courage to be opposition leader is to get off at Redfern. Jenny Macklin, despite her contribution to the Latham disaster will quietly continue to do whatever it is she's been doing since she became deputy leader. The factions and the fixers will congratulate themselves on how well they've handled the whole thing. About the only consolation is that it would be politically difficult for the Man of Steel to take advantage of his 67% approval and call an early election.

in the Ruddy light of a new day

At first, i was attracted to the idea of Beazley leading the ALP again. I think Latham fell without being pushed, and obviously his illness exacerbated his tendency to go it alone. Bringing the old warhorse back for a last run, and perhaps even a Howard-style resurrection, would be a great story. Sadly, events have destroyed that idea.

Beazley has vetoed the idea of Julia Gillard as deputy leader. jenny Macklin refuses to stand aside and Beazley has said he is very happy with her as deputy leader. Beazley is looking to the NSW machine for support. Crean refuses to go away and is up to his armpits in the campaign for the leadership. The reason we keep getting nothing campaigns and nothing platforms is the dominance of the party by its factions. The Democratic Audit of Australia has just released a detailed analysis of the way Australian parties operate. They find:

The Labor Party can claim that its formal structures and processes include powerful representative and responsible components. The Platform is written and amended by a Conference of delegates from the grass-roots organisation. The caucus, the cabinet and the leader are bound by the Conference and the Platform. Each level of the party is formally responsible to a wider sector of the party. In practice, however, three features question the efficacy of this. First, the union base has, for over a century, been able to dominate the numbers at the Conferences. Second, there has been some ‘seepage of authority’ to the top levels of the party. Third, the factions have become allpowerful.

That has to change and, despite Beazley's avowal that he's learnt his lessons, there's no sign he actually has. keeping Macklin and swanning around with the NSW Right and is not going to challenge factional dominance or get the ALP open to the force of ideas again. Rudd would be a better choice. And at least he can utter a sentence without 14 subclauses.

Meanwhile, the ALP rank and file, let alone the ALP's wider supporters in the electorate, are sick of the insider game. As we heard on the 7:30 report:

DR PETER BOTSMAN: No-one doubts Kim's abilities, but this is an insider fallacy, that all we need to do is have a one-horse race and everything's gonna be okay. The truth is that the rank and file are very angry when they hear people on the radio saying that it's just a matter of being, again, loyal to a leader. That's not what people want. People want to be able to participate in the Labor Party and know that their voices count. They want to be able to actually elect a leader themselves, and really, this should be the last time that Labor allows a caucus to simply elect a leader. It really should be a rank-and-file vote for a leader, and the new leader needs to be about advocating those kinds of changes in the party.

MAXINE McKEW: But as Kim Beazley said the other day, it's not a US-style primary system. In the meantime, we're stuck with the caucus system as it is; they elect the leader. Who is the most viable alternative, then, do you think, to Kim Beazley?

There's a better question then if this is a caucus election or a primary election. The question is what kind of eleciton should it be. Most progressive parties elect their leader by direct ballot, or by a wider electoral college. The caucus system has not produced a successful leader since Keating. That's getting to be a long time.

Labor needs a new deputy

We will probably never know why Latham chose not to issue a tsunami statement. Clearly the guy is gravely ill and perhaps that effected his judgement. Deputy Opposition Leader Jenny Macklin does not have the pancreatitis defence. US Vice-president Charles Dawes said his job was 'to look at newspapers every morning to see how the president's health is.'

A competent deputy would have been banging on Latham's door 24 hours or so after Latham looked like staying silent on the tsunami. Macklin didn't and the ALP should find a new deputy leader who will. The Beazley unity ticket looks inevitable. That does not mean Labor cannot or should not find a more energetic deputy. It would also be a fine chance to signal that the faction system is on the way out.

Andrew Bartlett's comments are worth reading.

PS Somehow I resisted the temptation to call this 'For the congaline is over...'

This is Tuesday, it must be Iran

The Coming Wars

George W. Bush's re-election was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control - against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism - during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as "facilitators" of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush's re-ection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing.

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah - we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

Bush is on record as claiming the election ratified his Iraq policy:

"We had an accountability moment and that's called the 2004 elections," he told the Washington Post.

"The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq and they looked at the two candidates and chose me."

Meanwhile, This is Rumor Control scores 5 out of 10 for the rumour that:

Speechwriters for George Bush are aghast at the President's insistence that his inaugural address contain an explicit military pledge to strike Iran militarily unless they announce an end to their nuclear program.

Iran has around 3 times Iraq's population, and over 4 times Iraq's area. The terrain is more varied, including some of the highest mountain ranges in the region. Broadly the population is better educated and national unity is much greater. Iraq, while nowhere near a democracy, is not an eccentric personal dictatorship wrecked by 12 years of economic sanctions. The US cannot sustain its occupation of Iraq. How the hell can they think about taking on a nation at least 4 times stronger?

The inaugural should make interesting listening. So should the Man of Steel's reaction.

Gay bombs: US secret weapon plan OR Planet Pentagon Bombards Earth with Sex Rays!

Gay bombs: US secret weapon plan

A US plan to develop a bad breath bomb and a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other has been revealed in newly declassified documents.

New Scientist's web site reports that the documents show the Pentagon considered a range of non-lethal chemical weapons aimed at disrupting enemy discipline and morale.

Bush the Imperious meets Wang the Perverted! I doubt this project succeeded or the sex bomb would certainly be available at a number of outlets in Newtown. Presumably the projected weapon would have been carefully designed to ensure the enemy soldiers only developed ungovernable lust and not a desire to marry.

Update
A couple of people assumed I was making this up. That is untrue and here is the proof.

and the other Hickup

Excuses, excuses from a regime too ready to throw away the key

So what now for Hicks? According to the US Department of Defence website, he is one of four Guantanamo enemy combatants who have been charged. There are more than 500 detainees at the US base in Cuba. Most have been there almost three years, since the invasion of Afghanistan. The US military says a quarter are of 'intelligence value' and all remaining detainees are being 'reviewed' to see how dangerous a threat they really pose to the US. We know that close to 200 soon are to be released to their home countries.

The charges against Hicks are quite a way off from being 'tried' by a military commission. Hundreds of writs of habeas corpus are flying around the US court system. The US Supreme Court in June said the detainees do have access to the civil courts and now all eyes are on the case of Osama bin Laden's alleged chauffeur, Samil Ahmed Hamdan. The Bush Administration is appealing a decision of the US District Court last November that the prisoner was entitled to a hearing to determine whether he was a prisoner of war and therefore subject to the Geneva Convention, rather than the Gonzales/Bush convention.

Hicks's lawyers have made an identical application to that of Hamdan's. It is all heading to the US Supreme Court but it may take years to get there.

The Gonzales/Bush plan for the quick railroading of anyone rounded-up by their forces is coming unstuck, and like most else with that spooky regime, there is no fall-back plan.

Major Mori, Hicks' US military lawyer, has made the point that Hicks faces charges much less than anything alleged against Habib. Why then does he remain at Guantánamo facing a military commission? And how long before the Hicks case reaches a court and it, like Habib's, comes unstuck?

the wordiest case of sour grapes on record?

Mamdouh Habib remains a person of security concern: Ruddock

[Attorney-General]PHILIP RUDDOCK: Look, the important point, I think, that needs to be understood is that we looked very closely at information that was known to us as to whether or not he could be charged here in Australia, and the Americans had always taken the view that if we were in a position to charge him - and I might say, for that matter, Mr Hicks - that they would have released them to us for the purposes of pursuing those matters. We looked at our laws in relation to these matters and found our laws were deficient.

HEATHER EWART: Is there any prospect of charges being laid against him in Australia?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, there is no prospect under Australian law, on the information that is now before us. But if further information were to become known which suggests that offences have occurred, then charges will be brought.

HEATHER EWART: So you will keep him under surveillance?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, I've not said that. What I've said is that he remains a person of security concern and that, in accordance with our law, competent authorities will do what is appropriate in relation to him, and we don't talk about those matters; it's not helpful to talk about them...

HEATHER EWART: But why not, because in effect you're forcing this man to live in some sort of twilight zone.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, it's not. It's a situation in which competent authorities have certain lawful entitlements where they can pursue certain matters. Decisions have to be taken in relation to those matters. We do not detail those measures, and it's not appropriate to put that sort of information into the public arena. It only compromises its effectiveness.

HEATHER EWART: But in a democracy like ours, if charges are not laid, isn't a person entitled to live normally with the presumption of innocence?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, they're entitled to live a normal life, subject to Australian law, and...

HEATHER EWART: Do you see what I mean? What sort of precedent are you setting here?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, no, I'm simply saying that under Australian law, there are certain authorities that have - with appropriate consents to undertake a range of activities in relation to any Australians.

What did our Government know?

Habib has not been charged with any offence. It is clear that he has not committed any offence against Australian law: the legislation that might apply was not passed until nine months after his arrest. We can assume that he has not committed any offence against the law of Pakistan or Afghanistan, since those countries have not sought to extradite or charge him. It seems that he has not committed any offence against American law: if he had, he could have been taken to America for trial, but that has not happened.

The decision to send Habib home is the result of two US court decisions in 2004, which appear to have upset American plans. In US courts, evidence illegally obtained must be excluded, because the state should not break the law. Both in American and Australian courts, confessions obtained under duress must be excluded, because of their inherent unreliability. Confessions obtained by use of torture are excluded on both grounds.

The Americans planned to try Guantanamo prisoners in military commissions that would not be bound by the ordinary rules of evidence. Specifically, the commissions were to be able to receive evidence of confessions obtained by use of torture. The overwhelming inference is that the Australian Government knew or suspected that Habib had been tortured.

However, last July the US Supreme Court ruled that it had jurisdiction to review the circumstances of detention in Guantanamo. In November, the Federal Court for the District of Columbia held that the military commissions violated the standards required for fair trials. It ordered that the commissions be halted until America complied with the Geneva Convention relating to prisoners of war.

That ruling spelt the end of the military commissions. The conditions under which detainees in Guantanamo have been held and interrogated practically guarantee that any confession obtained would be excluded from evidence in any trial that could be described as fair.

At Guantanamo, detainees were forbidden to speak; they were permitted two minutes a week for a shower; they were regularly subjected to body searches, including cavity searches; they were frequently held short-shackled for hours on end: this involves squatting on the floor, the hands shackled between the legs and attached to the floor by a chain so short that the detainee can scarcely move. Detainees were held in cells in which the air-conditioning was set to freezing temperatures. They were interrogated while chained to the floor; they were not allowed to go to the toilet during interrogations and would have to urinate in their clothes. Detainees were threatened with electric shocks; they were threatened with the prospect of being sent to Egypt or Morocco to be tortured.

It is not hard to see why Habib is now to be released. After his arrest in October 2001, he was sent to Egypt for six months, where he was tortured. He was then taken to Guantanamo and interrogated for three years. No American (or Australian) court would admit confessions obtained by these methods.

What is really significant is the timing of his release. The November court decision means, in substance, that evidence obtained by use of torture would not be allowed. The Americans must then have realised that they could never make a case against Habib. Only then did the Australian Government ask that he be returned to Australia.

This sequence of events raises some very disturbing questions: How much did Australia know about the treatment of Habib? Why did Australia not ask for his return before this - why did we wait until evidence obtained by torture was ruled out? Why has Attorney-General Philip Ruddock been so guarded in his comments about the treatment to which Habib has been subjected?

The overwhelming inference is that the Australian Government knew or suspected that Habib had been tortured, but believed that a military commission could use evidence obtained this way. Conditions in Guantanamo have been the subject of many reliable reports over the past two years. From late 2002, Major-General Geoffrey Miller was in charge at Guantanamo. In April last year, he was exposed as the person responsible for the outrages at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The Australian Government knew of those events months earlier. It must have known of the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo; it must have known that the mistreatment was designed to obtain evidence that could only be admissible in a trial that lacked the basic requirements of fairness. And it certainly knew that the victims of this mistreatment included two Australian citizens. The alternative, only slightly less disturbing, is that our Government simply did not care how the Americans treated Australian citizens.

Detainee Says U.S. Handed Him Over for Torture

Habib, a 48-year-old Australian citizen who grew up in Egypt, was about to disappear for six months into an Egyptian prison. There, he says, his Egyptian captors shocked him with high-voltage wires, hung him from metal hooks on the wall, nearly drowned him and mercilessly beat and kicked him.

The former coffee shop owner soon confessed to a litany of terrorism-related crimes, including teaching martial arts to several of the Sept. 11 hijackers and planning a hijacking himself. Habib later insisted that his confessions were false and given under "duress and torture."

Habib's more than three years of incarceration came into sharp focus this week, when the Bush administration agreed not to charge him with any crime and to repatriate him to Australia. Once home, he will be free, Australian officials said Wednesday.

"When he returns to Australia, he will not be detained or charged," said Matt Francis, a spokesman for the Australian Embassy in Washington. "He is a person of security interest, but we do not have any laws under which he can be charged."

Habib's vivid account of his secret delivery by U.S. forces to an Egyptian prison and his torture before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in May 2002 is the most detailed to surface of a CIA-run operation that has played a growing role in the war on terrorism. The operation, the controversial "extraordinary renditions" program, is run by a secret unit in the CIA's counter-terrorism center.

Habib's U.S. lawyer, Joseph Margulies, said he planned to inform his client of his impending freedom when he visited him at Guantanamo on Saturday.

"If the U.S. government believes he's done something wrong, they wouldn't let him go," he said.

In a statement, the Defense Department said the Australian government had "made a number of security assurances … that were important to the transfer decision."

The CIA declined to comment on the case.

News accounts, congressional testimony and independent investigations suggest the spy agency has covertly delivered at least 18 terrorism suspects since 1998 to Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Middle Eastern nations where, according to State Department reports, torture has been widely used on prisoners.

Impunity in breaking the law is a bad thing. No-one, including the US and Australian governments, contends that the Torture Convention is not part of the domestic law of Australia and the US. Why then are both governments violating it directly (the US) or winking at such violations (Australia's competent authorities)?

I would have thought the most basic sign of competence in the competent authorities dashing about with their lawful pursuits of certain undefined matters would be to understand the presumption of innocence and the right to liberty. Evidently that particular hurdle is too high a leap for Australia's first law officer.

Mamdouh Habib a free man

11 January 2005 US to release Habib without charge.

Australian Mamdouh Habib will be released from the United States's prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charge.

The US has told the Australian Government it does not intend to bring charges against Mr Habib, who has been at Guantanamo Bay since 2002.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says there is no timetable for his repatriation.

Mr Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper has told Sky News he was surprised by the announcement.

'It's a great day for justice. This proves we were right all along,' he said.

The US Government continues to assert that Mr Habib had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Mr Ruddock says it is unlikely he will face charges when he returns to Australia because counter-terrorism laws are not retrospective.

But he says Mr Habib will remain of interest to Australian security agencies.

Mr Hopper has called on the Attorney-General to concede that Mr Habib is innocent.

'This sounds like the Attorney-General is full of sour grapes,' he said.

'Why can't he clear this man?'

Mr Habib's release means that David Hicks, from Adelaide, is the only Australian still detained at Guantanamo Bay.

On Monday, a Pentagon spokesman said only about 25 per cent of the 550 detainees at Guantanamo Bay had intelligence value.

More than 200 other detainees have been returned to their home countries to be detained or released.

11 January 2005 Government must explain: Labor

Opposition attorney-general spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said the release raised serious questions about the Australian government's credibility.

"It does seem extraordinary that for three years the government has been describing Mr Habib as a terrorist, really from day one, and now the US is going to release him I think we're entitled to an explanation as to the reasons for the release and the reasons that the government was already accusing him from day one," Ms Roxon said.

"Is it really fair to spend three years telling the public that (Hicks and Mr Habib) are terrorists?

"To then find that (one of) these men isn't going to be charged, let alone convicted, certainly raises questions over both of them."

Mr Ruddock said Hicks would not be repatriated because he faced three terrorism-related chargers under American law, for which he is due to face trial by a military commission in early March.

The sudden decision to request the release of Mr Habib may have been prompted by allegations last week that the men had been tortured while in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Ms Roxon said.

"You have to query why he's now suddenly being released and we'd like the government to explain whether it's related in any way to the recent allegations of treatment in custody, torture in custody," she said.

8 December 2004 Ruddock Doorstop Interview, Canberra

JOURNALIST:  Just on another topic, there’s been some reports from foreign wire services, concerns about unfair practises at Guantanamo Bay. There’s a human rights lawyer, one of the first British non-government people to visit Guantanamo Bay, said he had serious concerns about the situation there. Do you have any sort of updated information on the, where does the Government stand on?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well look, our interest is of course in relation to Australians who are within that system and to ensure that they are humanely treated and we’ve taken those matters up as matters specific to them are raised and they are being investigated. There’ve been some preliminary comments, we’ve received assurances that they have not been the subject of abuse and there are further enquiries that have yet to report. Look, I know that there are people who want to focus on every statement made in relation to these issues whether people have been there, whether they haven’t, whether they have any first hand knowledge or whether they don’t. The only point I’d make is that the only context in which these matters become relevant are legitimate complaints to those who are in authority that can do something about it and that means that people who have information, first hand information, that warrants enquiry they should take it to the United States authorities. If it relates to the Australians, we will follow it up as we have before. But there’s no new information that’s come to us relating to either Hicks or Habib. Finally, if these matters are relevant to any trial process in which they’re engaged, whatever form of process is used, evidence that is obtained inappropriately, that issue will be raised before the competent authorities, and it’s unhelpful I think if people have substantive issues they want to see raised at a trial, to have them canvassed in a way which is prejudicial to a proper consideration of those issues by people who are competent to determine them in a proper process, whether it’s the military commission or whether it’s any other trial process. I don’t comment on those issues here at home and it’s unreasonable to expect that I should comment on every remark made by people who may or may not have first hand information and published abroad.

JOURNALIST:  Are you confident you’re getting information regarding some of these tribunals, there’s been some concerns about combatant status review tribunal not being sort of being open and accountable and providing enough information publicly?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Look, there are people who are going to mount critiques, who don’t like the results, and

JOURNALIST:  But do they see the results?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well, I have seen results published, I think they said today that 33 people have been [inaudible] combatant review tribunals, their matters have been considered and

JOURNALIST:  [inaudible] reasons been given?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well, I think that again is a matter for the Americans as to what degree they will publish material that may have broader security implications. I mean the question of holding people and reviewing their status as combatants is one, a serious one, and if you have material that goes to national security, you may not publish it. It’s the same issue that we are debating in the Parliament now as to our own courts where you have national security information the extent to which it is appropriate to put it in the public domain. So, if the United States formed a view that information that might go to sources, might go to the techniques that they use, may compromise foreign agencies who provide information, they may well have the same view that we have that that information needs to be handled sensitively and not necessarily in the public domain. I don’t think it tends to be a major question to me.

What a difference a month makes. The reason, as Ruddock should know, for the traditional rights that protect civil liberties, is that uncontrolled executive power makes mistakes. In this case the Bush administration, backed by a supine Ruddock and a supine Man of Steel, has inflicted catastrophic harm on this man and his family. The US now says it cannot charge him. He must be very innocent indeed for the US military tribunal system, with its disregard for the rules of evidence and the independence of the courts, cannot convict.

Perhaps what we are seeing is not so much a new form of warfare as an old form of bungling with impunity.

One wonders if the Autralian government will offer an apology or any form of compensation. I would not not hold my breath waiting.

rendering unto Bush

UN Convention Against Torture

Article 3
No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Terror Suspect Alleges Torture: Detainee Says U.S. Sent Him to Egypt Before Guantanamo

U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.

Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back.

Habib's case is only the second to describe a secret practice called "rendition," under which the CIA has sent suspected terrorists to be interrogated in countries where torture has been well documented. It is unclear which U.S. agency transferred Habib to Egypt.

Habib's is the first case to challenge the legality of the practice and could have implications for U.S. plans to send large numbers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries with poor human rights records.

The CIA has acknowledged that it conducts renditions, but the agency and Bush administration officials who have publicly addressed the matter say they never intend for the captives to be tortured and, in fact, seek pledges from foreign governments that they will treat the captives humanely

The Habib case is getting closer and closer to the Maher Arar case in Canada. Australia has consistently defended the US violation of Article 3. Canada held a judicial inquiry. Australia relies on press releases from Philip Ruddock.

torturing the truth

UN Convention against Torture

Article 2
Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

US Department of Justice Memo Re: Legal Standards Applicable Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A (PDF)

Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms. This universal repudiation of torture is reflected in our criminal law, for example, 18 U.S.C. §§ 23402340A; international agreements, exemplified by the United Nations Convention Against Torture (the "CAT")'; customary international law2; centuries of Anglo-American law3; and the longstanding policy of the United States, repeatedly and recently reaffirmed by the President.4

This Office interpreted the federal criminal prohibition against torture—codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A—in Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 23402340A (Aug. 1, 2002) ("August 2002 Memorandum"). The August 2002 Memorandum also addressed a number of issues beyond interpretation of those statutory provisions, including the President's Commander-in-Chief power, and various defenses that might be asserted to avoid potential liability under sections 2340-2340A. See id. at 31 -46.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 2(e)
"Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ACT 2002 - SECT 3

Principal object of Act
(1) The principal object of this Act is to facilitate compliance with Australia's obligations under the Statute.

(2) Accordingly, this Act does not affect the primacy of Australia's right to exercise its jurisdiction with respect to crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Note: The crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC are set out as crimes in Australia in Division 268 of the Criminal Code .

Australia signed the Rome Statute on 9 Dec 1998. Australia ratified the Rome Statute on 1 Jul 2002.

That is all very comforting. Except that the lawyers for Mamdou Habib say otherwise.

Documents reveal Habib torture allegations

New detail has emerged about the alleged torture inflicted on Australian terrorism suspect Mamdouh Habib while he was in Egypt.

Mr Habib was captured by US forces in Pakistan in 2001 and was moved to Egypt before being taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The ABC has obtained previously sealed court documents in which Mr Habib's lawyers outline allegations of routine torture and beatings while he was in Egypt.

The Sydney man says he was left in rooms filled with water up to his chin, tortured with electrodes during questioning and threatened with dogs.

He says the torture made him give some false confessions.

Mr Habib relayed the claims to his lawyers several weeks ago and they plan to use the information if the US tries to have him returned to Egypt.

Mr Habib's Australia-based lawyer, Stephen Hopper, says the new evidence implicates the Australian Government.

Mr Hopper says the most serious allegation in the documents concerns the involvement of an Australian official in his client's alleged abuse before he was taken to Egypt.

"The Australian officials stood by while what we believe were CIA officials engaged in the type of abuses we've seen at Abu Graib, where Mamdouh Habib's clothes were cut off, he's handcuffed, held down with women around him," he said.

The Bush administration is an enthusiastic practitioner of extraordinary rendition, by which a prisoner is sent to a country whch practices torture. Habib claims he was sent to Egypt and tortured there before his transfer to Guantánamo. The Australian government denied all knowledge of torture in Egypt or elsewhere before the last hearings of the Senate Foreign Affairs estimates committee on 24 May 2003. If Habib's lawyers can substantiate that he was subjected to torture with the knowledge of the Australian government then those responsible are guilty of crimes against humanity and, if not prosecuted in Australia, can be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court.