Lupercalia

Across the world, St Valentine’s Day is taking place in many ways. Greenpeace are sending greetings to whalers, people in Manchester are getting over-the-counter Viagra, the DREF-AB worm is spamming email and so-called “valentine vinegars” are swapping anti-Valentine cards.

And all this because of an ancient Roman festival. According to the legend, Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus who were both suckled by a wolf. Although Rome needed the she-wolf to survive, the citizens were still afraid of wolves. The festival of Lupercalia was named for Lupercus 'the one who wards off the wolf'. The festival was also called “Februatio”. Lupercalia was a festival of purification. Each year on 15 February vestal virgins s brought sacred cakes made from the first ears of last year's grain harvest to the fig tree. Two naked young men, assisted by the Vestals, then sacrificed a dog and a goat at the site. The animal blood was smeared on the foreheads of the young men and then wiped away with wool dipped in milk.

Such a festival was deemed barbaric by Christian times. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius summarily dismissed the festival of Lupercalia, calling it pagan and immoral. Casting the net around, he chose Valentine as the new patron saint of lovers, who would be honoured at the new festival a day earlier on the fourteenth of every February. In 270AD the Roman emperor Claudius II dragged the Empire into many wars and need a “surge” in troops. His solution was to ban marriage. One priest, a Valentine, disobeyed Claudius’s orders and married people anyway. He was imprisoned where he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. On 14 February, 270 AD, Claudius had Valentine beheaded. Before walking to the gallows, Valentine wrote a farewell message to his love. He signed it, “From your Valentine.”

But we really don’t know much about the man who wrote the first Valentine message. At least three martyrs answered to that name in the early days of Christianity. He may have been may have been a bishop in the Umbrian city of Terni or a priest in Rome. Or he may even have lived and died in Africa. Of the three, the Terni bishop has the biggest claim.

Both Ireland and Scotland have rival claims for Terni Valentine’s body. According to the Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, an Irish Carmelite monk named John Sprat took Valentine’s remains back to Ireland in 1836. Meanwhile St Francis' Church, Glasgow claims to have received the bones in 1868 from a French family who collected religious relics.

In medieval times, people in England and France began to believe the middle of the second month was when birds first began to mate after the long winter. The coincidence with Valentine Day’s was picked up by William Chaucer. In his “Parliament of Foules” Chaucer wrote the second famous Valentine message

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make.

What Chaucer called chesing his make, we now call choosing his mate. Like the birds, humans have adapted Valentine’s Day as a signal of intent and love. So given its long history, it's not truly fair to call it a “hallmark holiday” though Valentine’s Day is now big business. Card and chocolate makers do well. The sale of flowers is second only to Mother’s day. Even in China where it was once seen as a symbol of the decadent west, Valentine’s Day is now a day to give extravagant presents such as watches, cruises, and limousine rides to dinner.

By contrast, the Chinese own version of Valentine’s Day is suffering. The festival is on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month in the Chinese calendar (which usually falls in August). The date is based on the legend of the 7th daughter of Emperor of Heaven who fell in love with an orphaned cowherd. They were separated by their own valentine vinegar, the Emperor of Heaven himself who banished his daughter to the star Vega and the cowherd to the star Altair. The 7th day of the 7th month is the only time the two are allowed to be together. For this reason, the festival is also called the Daughter’s Festival.

Meanwhile the Japanese have broken up their love festival into two separate days. On 14 February, only the women give presents and exactly a month later it’s the men’s turn on a so-called “White Day”. The concept is called “giri” and it’s not strictly romantic. Giri is a mutual obligation that is taken very seriously and people bestow their gift (usually chocolate) to bosses, colleagues or friends not necessarily out of love interest, but just for friendship, gratitude or the returning of a favour.

Not everything about 14 February is related to love. In 1929 on that date Chicago exploded to the sound of the Valentine Day’s massacre. Seven of George “Bugs” Moran’s men were shot dead when they were told to meet at a warehouse. Moran himself suspected something fishy was happening and escaped leaving his men to die. He blamed Al Capone for the hit saying “Only Capone kills guys like that”. Capone got away with that but was eventually done for tax evasion. After spending almost 5 years in Alcatraz he died at home, three weeks before Valentine Day, 1947 from complications of syphilis.

Happy lupercalia.

Turkmenistan's questionable poll

Turkmenistan expects to announce the result of its presidential election tomorrow. The Central Asian nation went to the polls on 11 February to elect a successor to the eccentric Sapermurat Niyazov who died in December without leaving an obvious successor. Acting President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is favourite to win, however there are strong claims the election was rigged despite a 98% turnout. The high turnout is at odds with anecdotal evidence of sparse attendance at voting booths in the capital Ashgabat, and in the eastern Labap Province.

The 49-year old Berdymukhammedov is a former deputy prime minister and health minister. He has been de facto president for the last two months. As Niyazov's health minister, he was responsible for carrying out the former dictator’s decision to close all hospitals outside of the capital city. Although he has promised to honour Niyazov’s legacy (which does not bode well for the future of democracy in Turkmenistan) there is also evidence that he may be a progressive. He has also promised a series of reforms including media freedoms, education programs and most importantly opening up the key oil and gas sectors.

With a population of 5 million people, Turkmenistan has massive natural gas reserves and is strategically located in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Uzbekistan. The countries confirmed reserves of natural gas amount to two trillion cubic meters. The country annually produces some 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas, three-quarters of which is exported, mostly to Russia, Ukraine, and Iran.

Under Niyazov, Turkmenistan was an unreliable exporter. He often cut off gas supplies to Russia during price disputes and signed a deal to supply energy-hungry China through a new pipeline due to come online in 2009 despite being currently over-committed to Russia. Whoever wins the election, will have to balance the needs of Moscow with the new contract signed with Beijing.

Khudaiberdy Orazov is a candidate in the presidential elections for the 'Vatan' opposition movement. He is a former central bank president of Turkmenistan who now lives in Sweden. He says the official turnout figure is not correct. He also claimed the elections were “unconstitutional” and accused the group of people around Berdymukhammedov as having organized a “defacto coup d'etat by conducting elections”.

Berdymukhammedov has unsurprisingly rejected these allegations. His most difficult task as president-to-be will be coming out of the shadow of Niyazov. He ruled Turkmenistan for 21 years and was the subject of a powerful personality cult. Known as “Turkmenbashi” (father of the Turkmen), he allowed only one political party, and allowed no press, TV or internet freedom. More bizarrely he shut down all the rural libraries and hospitals as well as renaming a month after himself and another for his mother. He was also accused of sequestering much of the country's wealth in a private bank account while his people starved.

It is likely his less-charismatic successor will keep a lower profile but will want to keep a tight rein on the sources of power and the media. An official announcement on the election result is due Tuesday local time with the inauguration ceremony for the new president scheduled for the following day.

Riots in Guinea aim to topple dictator

Thousands have rioted in cities in Guinea as union leaders vowed to resume a crippling general strike to oust the president and his newly appointed prime minister. Unions say the President Lansana Conté is no longer fit to rule after 23 years in power and want to see an independent leader installed. 14 people were killed on the weekend when protests erupted across the West African country after Conté named a close ally Eugene Camara as premier. "We have decided to restart the strike from Monday," said union negotiator Boubacar Biro Barry. "We demand the departure without preconditions of the prime minister named by the president who absolutely does not meet the profile we outlined."

The days to come promise to be the strongest test yet of Conté’s long-term leadership. In the 50 years since independence, Guinea has had only two men at the helm. Ahmed Sékou Touré led the country out from under the wings of its French colonial past. In 1958, Guinea was the only colony to reject a French referendum to accept a new constitution. Guinea became independent but lost all French assistance. Touré survived an invasion from exiles in neighbouring Portuguese Guinea-Bissau. He took Guinea down a Socialist one-party path. By the time of his death in 1984 life expectancy in Guinea dropped to 40 years, business nearly evaporated and the capital Conakry was in a shambles.

Lansana Conté had the task of fixing up the mess. A former French Army volunteer and a hero in repelling the Portuguese invasion, he rose through the ranks of the Guinea military to become army chief-of-staff. After Touré died, he launched a military coup to take control of the country. Conté launched a series of economic reforms which attracted foreign investment back into the country. In the 1990s, the country started a slow move towards democracy. Conté won a presidential election in 1993 with 51% of the vote despite allegations of fraud. He survived a military coup three years later and won two more elections in 1998 and 2003, the latter with 95% of the vote after an opposition boycott.

Guinea has the world’s largest concentration of bauxite (aluminium ore) with 30% of the world’s reserves. The largest bauxite mine in the world belong to Cie des Bauxites de Guinée's (CBG) whose operations are located in the west of Guinea, close to the border with Guinea-Bissau. The company is now run by Alcoa through a venture with Canada's Alca. Yet despite the foreign exchange generated by CBG the country remains an economic basket case.

In 2000 Guinea was overwhelmed by almost half a million refugees fleeing fighting in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The country could not cope with the influx and Guinea’s economy went into freefall. The diabetic and chain smoking Conté was hospitalised in Morocco and many thought his reign was over. But he returned to face dissatisfaction when riots broke out over the price of rice and fuel. At least 20 people died as the armed forces crushed the dissent. In 2006, the German NGO Transparency International judged Guinea to be among the most corrupt countries in the world along with Iraq, Myanmar and Haiti.

At the start of this year, the country erupted in strikes and riots once more. Unions claimed that Conté was now too old and erratic to govern. Once again, the army retaliated and killed three people. On 22 January 22, troops under the command of President Conté 's son ransacked the strike headquarters and beat up union leaders. In response tens of thousands marched in the streets of Conakry and at least 17 people were killed and 100 injured by police.

Now people in Conakry are stocking up on supplies in anticipation of another strike. Union and opposition leaders say the Prime Minister-elect Camara is too cosy with the ailing president, and too weak to lift Guinea out of corruption and poverty. It is likely the army will support Camara and launch another bloody repression of the unrest. The streets are now empty as the country prepares for the worst.

The Sandline crisis: 10 years on

Last week, the citizens of Edmonton, Alberta had the opportunity to see a film about faraway Bougainville. On the tenth anniversary of the Sandline Crisis, “Bougainville Sky” is a timely reminder about that Pacific islander country-in-the-making's turbulent recent history. For most of its recent history, Bougainville was a Solomon province of Papua New Guinea that has long sought its independence. Since the turn of this century it is autonomous and is now firmly on its way to statehood.

Ten years ago this month the Australian newspaper broke the story to the world about Papua New Guinea's shock decision to outsource its war against then-rebel province of Bougainville. It was supposedly a top-secret operation that Australian Government was horrified about. Under Hawke’s Government Australia had supplied Iroquois helicopter to PNG. But the condition of sale was that PNG wouldn’t use the choppers to fight the rebel army. In February 1997, the PNG Government were getting no better change out of the new Howard Government. So they tried to buy their way out of the war with a multi-million dollar contract with a British military private company.

The cat got out of the bag. Mary-Louise O’Callaghan is a journalist based in Honiara, the capital of the Solomons. Employed as the Pacific Affairs reporter for “the Australian” newspaper, she won Australia’s most prestigious annual journalism award, the 1997 Gold Walkley for her scoop on how the PNG Government hired a mercenary group in a last desperate effort to crush a rebellion. Her reports about the covert operation precipitated a crisis which led to a military coup in PNG. The consequence was the dismissal of the Government and the mercenaries and eventually brought freedom for Bougainville.

Two years later O’Callaghan wrote a book about this extraordinary crisis. The book is called “Enemies Within: Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Sandline Crisis”. In the book O’Callaghan dramatised a complex story that weaved a path between events in Port Moresby, Canberra, Cairns, Bougainville and London. The book exposed Australia’s paternalistic attitude and inability to deal with its former colony PNG and its troublesome province Bougainville.

Bougainville is ecologically, ethnologically and geographically part of the Solomon Islands but is politically part of PNG. The island was named for Louise Antoine de Bougainville, the French navigator and military commander. Bougainville fought in the Canadian campaign in the Seven Years War and was charged by King Louis XV to circumnavigate the globe. Bougainville went to Tahiti before sailing through the Solomons. In 1767 he named Bougainville for himself before returning to France via the East Indies. A good sailor he lost only 7 of his 200 men on the circumnavigation. But he also lost Bougainville for France and left without claiming the island.

While the Dutch established their influence on the western side of New Guinea, the east was partitioned between Britain and Germany in 1884. As part of the agreement Bougainville was included in the north-east part of PNG under German influence which they called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. This twist of fate meant that Bougainville, the largest and richest island in the Solomons chain was excluded from the British protectorate of the Solomon Islands and annexed with the rest of the German territories to Australia after Germany’s defeat in World War I.

Bougainville remained in Australian hands until 1942. Then the Japanese took the island in their relentless march south. They stationed 25,000 troops on the island. In early November 1943, the US 3rd Marine Division and the 37th Infantry Division invaded Bougainville to build an airstrip. The Battle of Bougainville went on for two years until Hirohito surrendered.

Australia regained control of PNG and Bougainville under a UN mandate in 1945. On the one hand Australia was preparing PNG for eventual independence, on the other they were keen to exploit the colony. Bougainville was the richest of the islands with gold and most of all, copper. The Menzies Liberal Government allowed CRA, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc to begin exploring the possibility of mining in Bougainville.

At Panguna, they started building the world’s largest open cast copper mine in 1964. Despite local protest, copper production commenced eight years later. After another three years PNG was independent, but retained control of Bougainville. The secessionist movement was formed, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. The BRA attempted to seek independence for the island. But they were persuaded to go with PNG on when Australia left in 1975 by the country’s first Prime Minister, Michael Somare.

The BRA’s distrust with PNG bubbled under until 1990 when the rebels declared all out war against the mainland, frustrated by the vast profits of Panguna leaving their shores. PNG launched a military offensive against the island. Hundreds died but neither side gained a decisive advantage. Julius Chan was elected Prime Minister of PNG in 1994 with a mandate to settle the conflict peacefully. He attempted to negotiate with the rebels but was rebuffed. He changed tack and appointed Jerry Singirok to lead the PNG defence forces to crush the rebels. But a military operation ended in disastrous failure. By 1996, the situation was still at an impasse, with the rebels in de facto command of the island and the Panguna mine closed, too dangerous to operate.

With an election looming, Chan decided to gamble. To solve the rebel problem once and for all, Chan decided to outsource the operation. Australia refused to help so they turned to Sandline International. Based in London, Sandline was established in the early 1990s to provide consultancy services to ‘established governments’. It was run by former British lieutenant-colonel Tim Spicer. Chan signed a $36 million contract with Sandline to provide heavy arms and men (mostly Africans subcontracted from mercenary group Executive Outcomes) to take back Bougainville and Panguna mine from the BRA.

Spicer arrived with the Sandline operatives in February 1997. That same month O’Callaghan wrote her exclusive in the Australian newspaper. Although PNGDF leader Singirok initially supported Chan, behind the scenes he was working against the Sandline proposal. He did not want a private army on the loose in his patch. Neither did Australia, the former colonial power. While Australia diverted the heavy arms flight to Cairns, Singirok launched operation “Rausim Kwik” on 17 March 1997. In pidgin, rausim kwik means “kick them out quickly”. Singirok moved quickly. He arrested Spicer, deported the Sandline troops and surrounded the parliament building demanding Chan and his government resign due to corruption. Trapped inside, an outraged Chan tried in vain to countermand his orders.

Chan sacked Jerry Singirok but the army remained loyal to the ousted man. There followed a tense 10 day stand-off. The situation worsened with the capital Port Moresby coming to a halt as student groups protested and crowds of civilians gathered in support of Singirok’s actions. Finally the city’s governor Bill Skate called on Chan to resign. After a bitter parliamentary debate Chan finally realised his position was hopeless and quit. Skate was installed as Prime Minister and Singirok was re-instated as head of the PNGDF. Spicer was eventually released and left the country. Sandline later successfully sued PNG for breach of contract. Singirok was finally cleared of sedition in 2004.

The Sandline affair had one other major outcome. PNG was forced to come to the bargaining table. New Zealand brokered a peace agreement between the PNG Government and the BRA. They agreed on a ceasefire. A truce monitoring group was followed by an Australian-led Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) in 1998. The parties signed a comprehensive Bougainville Peace Agreement in the Bougainville capital Arawa on 30 August 2001. The agreement provided for the establishment of an Autonomous Bougainville Government, and a referendum in 10 to 15 years on whether the island should become politically independent. The first election took place in 2005 and the first Bougainville President, Joseph Kabui was sworn into office on 15 June that year. Meanwhile PNG has turned to its first PM, Somare to lead once more. The Panguna mine remains closed.

Brigitte awaits verdict

The trial of Willie Brigitte finished overnight in Paris with the defendant proclaiming his innocence. According to his defence lawyer Jean-Claude Durimel there's no proof he was involved in any terrorist plots in Australia. Brigitte is charged under French law of "associating with criminals in relation to a terrorist enterprise" and could face ten years if convicted.

Brigitte has been held in a French prison since he was deported from Australia in 2003. At the time authorities accused him of being the most dangerous Al Qaeda link so far uncovered in Australia. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock accused Brigitte of coming to Australia with a purpose to cause harm. Brigitte was suspected of plotting terror against a variety of targets including the electricity grid and the Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor.

Brigitte was born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. His parents are middle-class. His father is an engineer; his mother works in a pharmacy, his brother is a philosophy teacher. Willie Brigitte was not brought up a Muslim. Brigitte travelled to Paris for his final year of schooling, living here with his aunt, but did not sit the baccalaureate. Instead he joined the navy, where he stayed three years, and was twice found guilty of deserting. Aged 30 he converted to Islam and adopted the name Abderrahman and rented a butcher’s shop where he sold halal meat.

Brigitte attended a mosque in Paris where he studied the Koran and learned Arabic. Here he forged links with a radical Algerian faction, the Salafist Group to Call and Combat (GSPC). French security services had the GPSC under surveillance since the 1995 Paris Metro bombing which claimed 11 lives. Brigitte was trained with what were called 'the camper group' as they did strenuous camping trips to assess their fitness as jihadi fighters.

After 9/11 the French realised that several members of the camper group were reappearing as Taliban fighters. Brigitte also attempted to go to Afghanistan but couldn’t cross the closed border from Pakistan. Instead he spent four months in a Lashkar-e-Toiba training camp in the mountains of the Punjab. Here Brigitte did explosives training and made new contacts including Sajid Mir, the LeT operative responsible for managing foreigners. After returning to France, Sajid paid 3,500 euros for Brigitte to go to Australia.

He arrived in Australia in May 2003. Brigitte’s lawyers claim it was to start a new life. Sajid gave him a letter of introduction to Sydney man Abu Hamzu (aka Faheem Lodhi). Brigitte lodged with Hamzu and found work at a Sydney halal restaurant. Brigitte met Melanie Brown, a recent convert to Islam. Keen to stay in the country, he married her at Lakemba mosque just ten days after they first met. She was unaware this was his third marriage. Meanwhile the French were tracking him down. They were aware of “Mohammed Abderrahman” from the camping group, but had only just found out Abderrahman was Brigitte. They sent a request to ASIO for information about his current whereabouts.

ASIO did not act until they got a second request 10 days later. They arrested Brigitte at work and held at Villawood Detention Centre for working in breach of his tourist visa. They quickly and quietly deported Brigitte and sent a bill for $15,000 to his wife for the cost of his detention and deportation. They then turned their attentions to Hamzu. They filmed Hamzu dumping material in a bin which turned out to be the layout of various Sydney military facilities. When the news of Brigitte’s deporting leaked from France, Australian police were forced to move.

Hamzu was charged with terrorist offences in October 2003. Authorities discovered he had made discreet inquiries under an assumed name for large quantities of fertiliser which could be used to make explosives. Hamzu was found guilty of three out of four charges of terrorism. He was the first person to be charged under the new Anti-Terror laws and in 2006 he was sentenced to maximum 20 years, with a minimum 15 years to be served.

However Hamzu’s sentence is now called into doubt by current developments with Brigitte. The former French intelligence security Chief Alain Chouet, has called the charges against Willie Brigitte "weak" and that Brigitte is a "person without importance whom the Australian authorities continue to play on to create fear.” Hamzu’s conviction was partly based on his association with Brigitte. Buoyed by the Chouet statement, Brigitte’s team are now confident of victory. Brigitte’s lawyer said “The Australians have nothing against him. If the Australians wanted him, they would've kept him. They sent him here because he had the wrong visa”.

Brigitte’s verdict will be handed down on 15 March.

Murray-Darling's empty basin

The Murray-Darling summit ended yesterday in deadlock with the States failing to agree with the Federal Government's $10 billion plan to take control of Australia’s largest river system. Prime Minister John Howard and the premiers of NSW, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia met in Canberra to discuss the proposal. The parties claimed they had made progress and plan to meet again on 23 February in order to reach a compromise.

The Prime Minister's water plan includes $3 billion to help farmers in unviable areas get out of the industry. It will also buy back water licences and return that water to the environment. The Government has also allocated $6 billion for improving irrigation technology, with the water saved being shared equally between growers and the environment. A new Murray-Darling basin authority would be created to oversee the river systems and the aquifers that lie beneath it. The authority would have five full-time Government-appointed commissioners who would report to the Federal Environment Minister. But the plan is contingent on the four Murray-Darling basin states (Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia) agreeing to transfer most of their powers to the commonwealth.

Only NSW Premier Morris Iemma is ready to cede his state's constitutional rights over water. The other states have serious reservations and said the scheme was underfunded as the irrigation plan may include areas outside the basin. Howard said the states were stalling in order to inflict pain on his government and the public would lose patience with them. The PM offered concessions in yesterday’s meeting including guaranteeing existing water volumes and leaving some aspects of catchment management under state control.

Even prior to Federation in 1901, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia had problems managing the Murray. The boundary was the top of the bank on the Victorian side and the river was an important means of transport. When irrigation first started taking water from the river in the 1880s, it caused conflict with users of the river for navigation. The parochialism of the states meant they reached no agreements on use until a severe drought in the early 1900s. They signed the River Murray Waters Agreement to regulate the main stream to ensure that each of the states received their agreed shares of the Murray's water.

The agreement was finally superseded by the 1992 Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. The new agreement recognised the fact the river system was too big to be managed by state governments. The commission contained representatives from each of the partner governments. Ultimate control remained with each state. Just as the 1902-05 drought and irrigation problems were the catalyst for the earlier agreement, the current drought and over-irrigation has finally brought the parties together in an effort to once again beef up the commissions powers over one of the world’s great river systems.

The Murray-Darling has a million square kilometres drainage basin, 14% of Australia’s land mass. The basin drains three-quarters of New South Wales, half of Victoria, much of southern Queensland, and a small part of eastern South Australia. Although it gets a mere 6% of Australia's annual rainfall, over 70% of Australia's irrigation resources are concentrated there. Both the Murray and Darling Rivers have lengths greater than 2,500 km making the Basin one of the world’s major river systems. The Basin is in a semi-arid zone, and its ratio of discharge to precipitation is extremely low (less than 0.05) due to the evaporation rate double the rainfall rate. The situation is complicated by the large annual climate variability due to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on south-eastern Australia.

The basin is also important for its bio-diversity. Prior to 19th century European settlement,a third of Australia’s mammal species, half of its birds and a fifth of its reptiles were found there. Many of these species are now extinct or endangered. The basin has 30,000 wetlands, 12 of which are listed under the international Convention on Wetlands. Like the fauna, many wetlands are suffering due to human activities and some have lost half of their area.

Efforts are concentrating on understanding how to stop the river system from slowly dying. Massive demand has dramatically reduced its flow, led to the occasional closure of the South Australian ocean entrance, and added to its choking salinity. Climate change will add to the long-term problem with the elimination of Alpine snow and increasing bushfires. The University of NSW Laboratory for Ecosystem Science and Sustainability have launched a $1.7 million study into the interaction between water, soils, trees and fires in the high country. According to project lead Professor Mark Adams, unchecked bushfires create large-scale forest regeneration that uses more water than the mature forests they replace, "Research shows that the 2003 fires, for example, will likely reduce flows by more than 20 per cent for the next 20 years in the Kiewa River, a major tributary of the Murray," he said.

Flashpoint at the Al Aqsa mosque

Israeli soldiers have blocked the entrance to East Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site. Security forces manning barricades are now checking Palestinians' identification, allowing only men over 45 years of age and women near the site. The action is an attempt to prevent wide access to the site and demonstrations against a hill demolition near one of the mosque’s entrances in order to build a road for Jewish settlers and pilgrims.

The problem is that the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques sit above the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site and the only surviving part of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Israel Antiquities Authority has now authorised a bridge to connect the Dung Gate in Jerusalem's Old City to the Mugrabi Gate, located next to the Western Wall and leading to the Temple Mount itself.

Archeologists working on the site claim the work does not directly touch the Al-Aqsa mosque. Yural Baruch, the Archaeologist in charge of the works said “you can see all the ruins. This is the continuation of this excavation in this area. This is nothing connected to the political.” However the Arab states community sees it differently.
Palestinians are concerned it is part of a plan to demolish their religious identity. Qatar’s Peninsula reported that the Islamic Scholars Union (ISU) has warned any attack on the mosque will be a spark which will inflame the whole Islamic world. "It is high time Muslims performed Jihad in the light of the crisis of the mosque and the internal fighting among the Palestinians," a statement published by the union said.

Al Aqsa is the second oldest mosque in the world. Only the Kaaba in Mecca is older. It was built in the 7th century after the completion of the nearby Dome of the Rock. Caliph Al-Walid built a mosque to the south of Dome and called it al-masjid al-aqsa, which means "the farthest mosque".

While the Dome of the Rock was constructed as a mosque to commemorate the Prophet's Night Journey, the building known as Al-Aqsa Mosque became a centre of worship and learning, attracting great teachers from all over the world. The building was damaged many times over by earthquakes and rebuilt and re-enforced each time. When the First Crusaders invaded they set up the Kingdom of Jerusalem and turned the mosque into the Royal Palace of Solomon which served as the palace of the Kings of Jerusalem and then the home of the Knights Templars.

Jerusalem would have many different rulers over the centuries. Saladin took the city back from the Crusaders. It passed into the hands of Egyptian Ayyubids, then the slave dynasty of the Mamelukes before finally falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. It would remain in Ottoman hands until the Turkish defeat in World War I. Under the British mandate, the Balfour Declaration gave in principle support for a Zionist state in Palestine. But they also promised the country to the Arabs for their support in the war. The British withdrew in 1948 and left problem to the newly formed UN to resolve. They proposed two separate states in Palestine.

But the two sides could not agree and the situation deteriorated into what Israel called the War of Independence. Five Arab countries Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt all sent troops to crush the Jews. But aided by Jewish volunteers from around the world (called the Machal) the young country fought back strongly. Arab forces also laid siege on Jerusalem but it was lifted before the UN negotiated a ceasefire. The ceasefire line established through the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Jordan cut through the centre of the city.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and asserted sovereignty over the entire city. But worse was to follow for the Al Asqa mosque two years later. A deranged Australian tourist deliberately set fire to the mosque. The fire caused $9 million worth of damage and gutted the south-eastern wing of the mosque and destroyed a priceless one-thousand-year-old wood and ivory pulpit that was a gift from Saladin. Israeli firemen put out the fire despite attacks by Muslim bystanders, who also cut some of the fire hoses. Two days later Dennis Michael Rohan was arrested for arson. Rohan was a follower of a Christian evangelical sect known as the Church of God. He “hoped to hasten the coming of the Messiah” by his act of arson. To this day, Palestinian authorities still blame Israel for the fire.

The mosque remains a highly contentious symbol in the world’s most politically, culturally and religiously divided city. The current excavations have the power to create a major international incident. Ten years ago an Israeli Government decision to dig open a tunnel beside the Al-Aqsa Mosque led to rioting and the deaths of 100 people. The man in charge of archaeological works around the mosque at the time Meir Ben-Dov, advised against the current work proceeding saying Jerusalem has "three religions so you have to respect everyone and every religion in this city.”

Whitaker outlasts the King of Scotland

After a clean sweep of the all the lead-up awards, Forrest Whitaker is odds on favourite to claim the Best Actor Oscar for his bravura performance as former Uganda dictator Idi Amin in Kevin McDonald’s film “The Last King of Scotland”. It would be a highly deserved victory. For the role Whitaker spent many months learning to speak Swahili, studying the East African accent and immersing himself in recordings, books, tapes and documentaries about one of Africa's most infamous and bloody tyrants.

And yet despite his astonishingly accurate and virtuoso performance, played with verve and conviction as a cross between Othello and Titus Andronicus, the Last King of Scotland remains a curiously dissatisfying film. And although it strays considerably from the Giles Foden book of the same name, it is probably the book’s fault that the movie fails to totally convince. The problem is that Foden tells the story of Amin through the eyes of a fictional young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (played by James McAvoy in the movie) whose becomes Amin’s personal physician by chance. Although the Garrigan is partially based on a real character and Amin definitely played favourites, the doctor’s story only serves to distract attention from the real meat of the tale – Amin’s complex personality and despotic rule.

Amin was born in either 1924 or 1925 in Koboko in the north west of Uganda. His father was a Muslim convert and Idi was sent to an Islamic school where he excelled in reciting the Koran from memory. Uganda was still a British colony in these times and Idi joined the British colonial army towards the end of World War II. He first saw action in 1949 in Somalia where troops were deployed to stop Ethiopian bandits from stealing cattle. He also served against the Kenyan Mau-Mau insurgency in 1952 where he gained his bloodthirsty reputation. Amin was good at sport, became heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda and rose slowly through the colour-biased ranks to become one of the army’s first two black lieutenants in 1961.

Uganda became an independent nation in 1962 and Milton Obote was appointed the country’s first Prime Minister. Although Obote distrusted Amin, he could not afford to antagonise the powerful military man. Obote sent Amin to Zaire to help the rebels fighting against President Mobutu. In return the rebels gave Amin gold and ivory, riches that Amin and the Premier shared, and their friendship blossomed. Amin was appointed army chief. The Ugandan President Mutesa found out about the deal, he tried to sack Obote and institute a parliamentary inquiry. Obote responded by suspending the constitution and giving himself unlimited powers. He promoted Amin to general and commander of the Ugandan army.

Despite this apparent friendship, the two men still heavily distrusted each other. In 1971, Obote planned to arrest Amin on a charge of misappropriating millions of dollars of army funds. Amin found out about the plan. While Obote was out of the country attending the Commonwealth conference in Singapore, Amin staged a military coup.

Obote took refuge in Tanzania where he led a resistance movement and was still considered head of Uganda. Meanwhile, Amin moved to shore up his power going a killing rampage of enemies, real and perceived. Despite the killing spree, most Ugandans initially support the coup, with the charismatic Amin promising to abolish Obote's secret police, free all political prisoners, introduce economic reforms, and return the country to civilian rule.

In 1972, Amin gave the country's 80,000 Asians (mostly Indians and Pakistanis) 90 days to leave the country after receiving a message from God during a dream. According to Amin he was determined to make Uganda "a black man's country". Amin distributed the wealth they left behind to his military favourites. Britain was appalled by his move and immediately stopped aid. Amin looked to Gaddafy’s Libya for help by claiming to turn Uganda into an Islamic state.

The Asian expulsion and lack of aid caused the Ugandan economy to collapse. By 1975 he had killed up to 500,000 people whose misfortune was to belong to the wrong tribe or supported Obote. Amin personally ordered the execution of the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, the chief justice, the chancellor of Makerere College, governor of the Bank of Uganda, and several of his own parliamentary ministers. He launched a huge personality cult around himself and pronounced himself King of Scotland.

Back in the real world, things were starting to get ugly. In 1976, the PLO hijacked an Air France flight that originated in Tel-Aviv. Amin was sympathetic and personally invited them to bring their cargo to Uganda. They landed at Entebbe international airport where the hijackers and hostages were addressed by Amin and where they had the co-operation of the Ugandan army. After negotiations broke down to release the Israeli hostages, the Israelis launched an airborne assault on the airport to free the hostages as well as killing the hijackers and 27 Ugandan troops at the cost of one dead Israeli. This successful attack on home soil was a serious embarrassment to Amin.

But it didn’t stop his expansionist aims. In October 1978 Amin attempted to annex Kagera, the northern province of neighbouring Tanzania. Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere mobilised his army reserves and counterattacked. They were helped by a united Ugandan opposition group in exile called the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). Despite aid and 3,000 troops from Gaddafy’s Libya, Amin’s troops were beaten back. The Ugandan army finally fled leaving the Libyans ward off the attack. Tanzanian and UNLA forces met little resistance, and invaded Uganda, taking Kampala in April 1979. Amin fled to Libya leaving the UNLA to unravel as it fought among themselves to take control of the country. In 1980 the new leaders held an election and Milton Obote was returned to power.

Meanwhile Amin stayed as a guest of Gaddafy for almost ten years, before finally relocating to Saudi Arabia. On 16 August 2003 Idi Amin died in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The cause of death was 'multiple organ failure'. Although the Ugandan government gave permission for burial in Uganda, he was quickly and quietly buried in Saudi Arabia. He was never tried for gross abuse of human rights.

In the Last King of Scotland, the story ends well before Amin’s death and the climax is more about the escape of Dr Garrigan. The closest thing Amin had to a real British friend and adviser was Bob Astles. Astles was English and about the same age as Amin. Like Amin, he served in the British army. Aged 21, he came to Uganda seeking adventure and wealth. He set up the first airline to employ Ugandans and married twice, the second time to local royalty. Although initially an Obote supporter, he changed allegiances to Amin after he was arrested and tortured. In 1975 Bob Astles formally joined Amin's service, becoming the head of the anti-corruption squad and an advisor on British affairs. Known as “the white rat” he was a feared man until the Tanzanian invasion. The invaders charged him with murder and corruption and he served six years jail. He returned to Britain in 1985 and now lives in the genteel surrounds of Wimbledon.

Giles Foden interviewed Astles for the book of the Last King of Scotland and used much of his back-story to fill in the details of the fictional Garrigan. But the decision to turn Astles into a young Scottish doctor is not entirely successful. As Kam Williams says “the novel is narrated by a fictitious character purely a creation of Foden’s imagination, a naive Scottish doctor with an uncanny, Forrest Gump-like knack for appearing at memorable moments in Ugandan history.”

Thatcher faces the music

Following in the footsteps of such unlikely musical superstars as Jerry Springer and Roy Keane, the life and times of Margaret Thatcher has finally been set to music. The theatres of regional Britain are currently packing them in with a tour of “Thatcher – The Musical!” the life and times of the country’s most controversial 20th century Prime Minister set to music and comedy. It features an all-singing, all-dancing cast of ten women who croon their way to such standards as The Cabinet Shuffle, The Grocers Daughter and The Thatcher Anthem.

The idea is the brainchild of the Wolverhampton-based women's company Foursight Theatre. The show documents her rise from grocer's daughter to international stateswoman. The cast play eight different Maggies; the Grocer's Daughter, Twinset Maggie, Power Suit Maggie, Military Maggie, Britannia Maggie, Sacrificial Maggie, Broken Maggie and Diva Maggie, and also take turns as the men in her life husband Dennis, Ronald Reagan, Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine. The musical ends with the line of Diva Maggie “"I am the iron in your bloodstream, I'm in your DNA!".

The last comment refers to Thatcher’s most well-known nickname; The Iron Lady. The moniker dates back to 1976. Then leader of the Opposition, she made her famous “Britain Awake” speech at Kensington Town Hall where she attacked the Soviet Union. In the speech she said “The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet politburo don't have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.” The Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Red Star picked up the speech and called her the “Iron Lady”. The label was popularised by Radio Moscow and Thatcher herself quickly saw its advantages.

Thatcher was always steeped in politics. Born in 1925, she was the daughter of a grocer and Methodist lay preacher Alfred Roberts who was a local independent councillor of Liberal sympathies. She was educated at Oxford where she graduated in chemistry in 1947. She was elected president of the student Conservative Association at Oxford and made herself known to the leadership of her party at the time of its General Election defeat of 1945. She worked as a research chemist at J Lyons and co where she was a member of the team that developed the first soft frozen ice cream.

In the early 1950s she ran and lost elections in the strong Labour seat of Dartford though she did considerably cut the majority both times. She also won national publicity as the youngest female candidate in the country. There she met a local businessman Denis Thatcher. They married in 1951 and had twins, Mark and Carol, two years later. Denis went on to a successful career in the oil industry and became a director of Castrol. He funded his wife’s training as a lawyer, specialising in taxation. Finally she found a safe Tory seat and was elected to Parliament in 1959 as MP for the London seat of Finchley.

Two years after election Margaret was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Pensions, a position she held until Labour won the 1964 election. In opposition, she was a Ted Heath supporter and was eventually rewarded with a role in the shadow cabinet in 1967. When Heath won power in 1970, Thatcher was appointed Education secretary and was charged with reducing the budget. Her immediate decision to abolish free milk for 7 to 11 year olds in state schools led to the cry of “Mrs. Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”. Despite protests from Labour councils, Thatcher got her way and the cuts saved £14m a year.

Heath lost to Harold Wilson again in 1974 and Thatcher was named shadow environment secretary. After he lost a second election later that year, the party held a leadership ballot. Thatcher surprisingly pipped Heath’s preferred successor William Whitelaw to become Britain’s first female party leader. Thatcher slowly won over the party to her views and sat back and watched as the Labour government unravelled, finally collapsing after the widespread strikes in the 1978-9 Winter of Discontent.

The Conservative Party won the 1979 election with a margin of 44 seats. Thatcher had a mandate for change but her first two years in office weren’t easy with unemployment remaining stubbornly high and economic improvement slow. Bobby Sands led an IRA hunger strike in the Maze Prison in 1981 in which he and 9 others starved to death. Despite criticism by the European Commission of Human Rights and the Irish Government, Thatcher maintained a public hardline attitude saying "Crime is crime is crime. It is not political." Behind the scenes however, Ulster Secretary James Prior did manage to negotiate a package of concessions with the surviving Maze prisoners.

Domestically, Thatcher increased interest rates and VAT. But with an election looming and defeat likely, salvation came for Thatcher with the Falklands War. The Argentinean junta, looking to deflect attention from their own domestic woes invaded the South Atlantic islands in April 1982. Riding a wave of nationalist sentiment, Thatcher launched a naval task force to reclaim the islands. After the sinking of the light cruiser General Belgrano, the Argentinean fleet retired to port and left the islands open for re-capture. British forces stormed the islands in May and took three weeks to take the capital Port Stanley. Despite the deaths of 255 British troops, Thatcher’s popularity was boosted and she romped home in the 1983 election.

Aided by a Labour split, Thatcher won that election in a landslide increasing her majority by 100 seats. Her next term was marked by battles against the union movement. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) launched a massive strike in 1984 to protest proposals to close a large number of mines. Thatcher was ready for them. She insisted that coal stocks were built up to avoid politically sensitive electricity cuts. She increased Police powers and rushed anti-union laws through parliament. Former political commentator Brian Walden described the miners' strike as "a civil war without guns". Eventually she wore down the miners, split their leadership and forced them to concede defeat after a year of picketing.

The IRA came back to haunt Thatcher in October 1984. The Prime Minister was staying at the Brighton Grand Hotel on the eve of both her 59th birthday and the annual Conservative Party conference. The IRA detonated two large bombs in the hotel at 3am, one of which tore through her bathroom barely two minutes after she had used it. She and husband Denis escaped injury, but five others including a Tory MP were killed and many were injured. The following day the IRA responsibility with the chilling message “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.” Thatcher meanwhile spoke to the conference as scheduled at 9:30am that morning.

Economically, Thatcher maintained her fervent belief in the power of the markets. She started to sell off the large state utilities and council homes to their residents. She abolished the large city councils including the Greater London Council as these were all controlled by Labour. With the country in the middle of an economic boom, she had another comfortable election victory in 1987 with a slightly reduced majority. Towards the end of her regime, the chemist in her returned as she started to champion environmental issues. She began to discuss the issues of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. At the 1988 conference she told the party "No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy- with full repairing lease. This Government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full".

But with the economy starting to stall again, her popularity declined. She fell out with her foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe and Chancellor Nigel Lawson over EU monetary union. In 1990, her new system to replace local government rates by the deeply unpopular “poll tax” proved to be her biggest mistake. With interest rates running at 15%, Howe resigned and precipitated a party leadership ballot. Michael Heseltine ran against her but the first ballot was inconclusive. Before the second ballot, Thatcher decided to resign. She supported John Major as her successor who went on to retain power in 1992.

That same year, she was appointed to the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher. She continued to have a high public profile and spoke out on many issues of the day. She famously supported Pinochet during his incarceration in London in 1998. By then Labour had finally ended the Tory stranglehold on power by moving to the middle of the political spectrum. When Margaret Thatcher celebrated her 80th birthday in 2005, her old colleague Geoffrey Howe said "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible". But there was nothing left to do for Thatcher herself – except, of course, to make the musical.

Jakarta Drowning

The Indonesian capital Jakarta has been inundated by rains and flooding that have so far killed at least 20 (the BBC is reporting 33 deaths) and made 350,000 people homeless. With rain forecast in Jakarta for the next two weeks, the situation is likely to get worse before it improves. A health ministry official said 20 people in Jakarta and suburbs have died as of Sunday afternoon, mostly either by drowning or electrocution. Homes, schools and hospitals have been flooded out paralysing transport networks and forcing authorities to cut off electricity and water supplies.

The rain started on Friday and has since been incessant on Jakarta and nearby hills. Government agencies are struggling to deal with the scale of the homeless. Some are staying with family and friends on higher ground and others are sheltering in mosques and government buildings. Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso has declared the “highest alert” after heavy rains in the upper areas around the city of Bogor (60km south) caused more rivers to burst their banks, sending three meter deep torrents of muddy water into residential and commercial areas of the city.

Flooding in Jakarta is not unusual, especially during the wet season of October to February. Forty percent of Jakarta, or 24,000 square meters, is on low land, and 78 areas are prone to flooding due to poor drainage. This time around, the floods have inundated not only the slums but also many middle-class residential complexes. The worst-hit areas are still submerged in three metres of water and in East Jakarta, water levels were recorded at six metres. In South Jakarta, flood victims tried to open the Manggarai floodgate to drain the water but city authorise refused. If the gate was opened half of Jakarta, including exclusive Central Jakarta, where ex-president Suharto lives, would be severely affected.

The state-run Antara news agency reported the flood water had reached close to the presidential palace and business centres in downtown Jakarta. Sutiyoso blamed massive development of luxurious villas and residential complexes in Bogor and Puncak, accusing the local government administration of sacrificing water-catchment areas for economic reasons. "The floods in Jakarta are partly due to environmental damage in Bogor," Governor Sutiyoso said. "The Puncak area is a water catchment but there are now many villas there, causing the downpour to run straight into the river." Antara is now reporting that Indonesian President Yudhoyono has instructed Sutiyoso to open the Manggarai sluice claiming there were no worries about floods reaching the State Palace. "For the sake of the people, the Jakarta governor is expected to open the sluice no matter if floods inundate the Palace," said Yudhoyono through a spokesman.

Water is not a new problem in Jakarta. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) arrived in Java in the 16th century. They built a walled city they called Batavia, near Jakarta Bay. It was to serve as the VOC capital for the next three centuries. The Dutch altered the cultural make-up of the city by bringing in non-Javanese slaves from present day Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Japan, supplemented by migrants from Europe, Arabia, India, and China. The Dutch built up their city with a series of canals and railways.

The current piped system of drinking water is ineffective being swamped by the continual growth of the city. 80% of Jakartans supplement their supply with underground water which has become steadily depleted. In low-lying North Jakarta, groundwater depletion has caused serious land subsidence, making the area more vulnerable to flooding. It also allows saltwater from the Java Sea to contaminate the coastal aquifers.

More than 2,000 millimeters of rain falls on Jakarta every year and there is rarely a year without floods. Jakarta's canals and rivers are now the major focus of the government's attention to control escalating environmental pollution levels. The Dutch made sure Batavia had a comprehensive and engineered network of rivers, drains and canals. But their canal system never fully managed to cope with the drainage problems and by 1846, almost a century before Indonesian independence, they were resorting to doing what they still do today - sorting out the problems only when floods occurred.

Old Batavia was built on marshland and much of the capital remains below sea level with weak drainage and major tides resulting in the outflow of rainwater slowing down. But environmentalists blamed the flooding on modern causes: years of bad city planning, which has led to building-work on green-field sites. This is the worst flooding in Jakarta since 1996 when at least 30 people were killed. The wet weather has also caused extensive flooding damage in the Borneo province of West Kalimantan, as well as large parts of East Java, including Indonesia’s second city, Surabaya.

GoMA Pile

The fifth Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT5) exhibition is the highlight of Brisbane’s newest attraction, the sparkling Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). There have been more than half a million visitors to Southbank’s Cultural Centre is since the $300m GoMA and the adjacent State Library of Queensland opened on 2 December last year.

Wayne Goss, Chairman of the Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees said in a media release that GoMA was a major new contemporary art museum for Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and a cultural triumph for Brisbane. “With the addition of GoMA, Queensland Art Gallery remains a single institution with two magnificent sites: the celebrated Robin Gibson-designed Gallery, which opened in 1982, and the Architectus-designed Gallery of Modern Art at Kurilpa Point, the last reach of the Brisbane River overlooking the city," he said. The two galleries are only 150m apart.

APT4 drew 220,000 during its 20-week exhibition in the old art gallery in 2002. This year's APT has reached almost half that in its first three weeks. The attendances and the architectural brilliance have been attracting envious glances from other gallery. GoMA director Doug Hall is due to leave his role in April and National Gallery of Victoria acting director Frances Lindsay said that whoever gets the job next would have “big shoes” to fill. National Gallery of New South Wales chief curator Tony Bond said "We can't get anything like that in NSW. Queensland…have managed to build something to die for”.

Although APT5 has been criticised for not having enough local exhibits, it does contain a stunning range of modern art. The beautiful high ceilings and spacious rooms of the gallery with river and city views complement the artwork. One of the first exhibits as you climb to the first floor, and one of the most popular, is a montage of 29 sequences from Jackie Chan movies. Chan leaps operatically at the viewer from all angles on a bank of TV screens, big and small. GoMA's head of cinema Kathryn Weir describes Chan as a "complex local-global phenomenon". She says his presence in APT "explores how someone who is out of Hong Kong is possibly one of the best-known actor-directors today, working in Hollywood but also maintaining a very strong local identity. And also with a strong and complex relationship with a traditional Chinese art form."

Next to the Chan exhibit is a striking picture from Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang. His oil on canvas picture “Three Comrades” is from his Bloodlines: The Big Family series. His three comrades are deliberately androgynous figures. Born in 1958, Xiaogang grew up during Mao’s Cultural Revolution when the fervour of disowning the past meant that many photos were destroyed or lost. The painting “Three Comrades” is inspired by a rare surviving photo of his mentally-ill mother during younger, happier times. It conjures up the three Chinese ‘big families’ of blood, social and cultural ties.

The Chinese influence on APT5 is massive. Near the river end of the gallery, lie the beautiful porcelain sculptures of Ah Xian and the photographs of Australian born William Yang. Yang tells a poignant story “about my mother” in 24 family photographs. Like Yang, his mother was also born in Australia, in Dimboola in Far North Queensland. She is a Cantonese who marries a Mandarin speaking Hukka. The family grows up speaking English only. The 24 photos show the life of a graceful westernised woman (the christmas dinner was turkey and ham). She dies but not before having to cope with the shock of finding out her artist son William is gay.

There is a queue to see the exhibit of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Kusama was responsible for the beautiful “Narcissus Garden” in APT4. This time, her piece is called “Soul under the Moon”. It is a playful installation set in a closed dark room. Kusama uses mirrors, lights, water, plastic, nylon thread, timber, synthetic polymers and paint to create a disconcerting illusion of never-ending space. Its themes are reflection, infinity and repetition.

Also impressive is Jitish Kallat’s “public notice” (2003). Kallat was born in Mumbai in 1974 where he was also trained as an artist. He has gained a reputation for bold figurative paintings. “Public notice” is a five-panelled work using acrylic mirrors. The letters are rubber adhesive cement which are ignited and melted. The text is from the speech delivered by Jawaharlal Nehru at midnight on the occasion of Indian independence from British rule on 15 August 1947. Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech remains a important historical milestone for India.

Back on the ground floor the highlight is another Chinese sculpture. It is Wang Wenhai’s “Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong”. These are two giant fibreglass sculptures of Mao; one as the familiar chairman, the other in the guise of emperor Qin Shi Huang who united China in 221 BC. Wenhai is a staff member at the Yan'an Revolutionary Museum in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province. He has been making clay sculptures of Mao for 20 years and believes he has made over 1,000. The two that grace APT5 are imposing as befits one of the 20th century's most successful leaders.

The Asia Pacific Triennial 5 expo continues until 27 May 2007. The Queensland Gallery of Modern Art is at Southbank, a short walk from the city across Victoria Bridge and close to South Brisbane station. It is open 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 5pm Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.

IPCC issues damning global warming report

The planet’s leading international network of climate change scientists have issued a new and damning report of the impact of human activity on global warming. The study concluded that global warming is unequivocally real and that human activity is the main driver causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950. The report said global warming is contributing to rising sea levels and unpredictable weather. The report is another cold, factual document which demands the worlds' governments take urgent action to address the problem.

Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their summary report about the human impact on climate change from their meeting in Paris. The report stated that global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased greatly as a result of human activity since the start of the Industrial Age in 1750. Based on measurements from ice cores spanning many thousands of years, these concentrations now far exceed pre-industrial values.

Carbon dioxide is the predominant greenhouse gas and global concentrations have increased from 280 parts per million (ppm – the ratio of greenhouse gas molecules to the total number of molecules of dry air) in 1750 to 379 ppm in 2005. The report says the primary cause of this increase is the use of fossil fuels with land use also a contributing factor. Though there is year on year variability, annual carbon dioxide emissions are now increasing at a rate of 1.9 ppm in the last ten years compared to a growth rate of 1.45 ppm in the 45 years since measurements started in 1960.

The growth rate in methane concentration is also startling. Its pre-industrial average was 715 parts per billion (ppb) and was recorded as 1774 ppb in 2005. This latter figure is far greater than the natural range of methane measured in ice cores over the last 650,000 years which was 320 to 790 ppb. The scientists rated it a greater than 90% chance that this increase was the result of human agriculture and fossil fuel use. Meanwhile nitrous oxide has increased from 270 ppb in 1750 to 319 ppb in 2005, with a constant growth rate since in 1980.

The report also noted that eleven of the past 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years since records began in 1850. The warming trend over the past 50 years is twice that of the past 100 years. Meanwhile ocean temperatures have also increased and the oceans have absorbed 80% of the heat added to the climate system. This causes seawater to expand and sea levels to rise. This rise is exacerbated by retreating mountain glaciers and decreasing snow cover. New data suggests that ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica have contributed to the sea level rise between 1993 and 2003. During this decade sea levels rose about 3.1 mm a year though it is not clear if this is an anomaly or an increase in the longer-term trend.

The report states that climate change has been observed in many indicators such as the Arctic ice flow, rainfall, ocean salinity, wind patterns, and the incidence of extreme weather such as droughts, deluges, heatwaves and cyclones. Arctic temperatures increased at twice the global average in the last century while sea ice shrank by 2.7% per decade. Rainfall has increased dramatically in the eastern part of both Americas, northern Europe and central Asia but has decreased in the African Sahel, the Mediterranean and the south of Africa and Asia. These patterns are affected by the increasing salinity of low latitude waters and the lower salinity of mid and high latitude waters.

The report included a paleoclimatic perspective which has historical and applied scientific objectives. These supported the contention that the warming is unusual in the last 1,300 years. The last time polar regions were significantly warmer than the present was 125,000 years ago when the lack of polar ice caused a 4 to 6 metre rise in sea levels.

The report concluded while it was unlikely that climate change of the 7 centuries prior to 1950 were caused by human actions, it was extremely unlikely that the atmospheric and ocean warming and ice loss of the last 55 years were caused by natural forces. The report predicted a rise of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade for the next 20 years. Continued gas emissions at or above present levels would increase it further and cause warming larger than any observed in the 20th century.

The report predicts snow cover will contract, polar sea ice will shrink and extreme weather such as heatwaves, heavy rain and tropical cyclones will become more frequent. If the entire Greenland ice sheet is lost (which could occur after 2100) it would contribute to sea level rises of about 7 metres. The scientists predict Antarctica will remain too cold for widespread surface melting.

If carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reach twice their pre-industrial levels, the global climate will probably warm by 3.5 to 8 degrees. But there would be more than a 1-in-10 chance of much greater warming; a situation many earth scientists say poses an unacceptable risk. With these almost irrefutable scientific conclusions, the report is a call to action for the world’s governments. The recent Stern Report detailed how the cost of reducing emissions to reduce the extent of these climate changes may well be much less than the cost of not reducing emissions and having these impacts.

Sarko-Sego campaign hots up

In a new opinion poll published yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy stretched his lead to eight percentage points ahead of his French presidential rival Segolene Royal. It is an increase of two points since the previous poll a fortnight ago. The first round of the presidential election is due on 22 April with the likely run-off two weeks later.

As things stand, the pollsters Ipsos predict that Sarkozy, the official candidate of the ruling centre-Right UMP party, would end up with 35% of the vote in the multi-candidate first election. He would need 50% to win the election outright on the first vote. On the current polls, the Socialist Party candidate Royal would finish second with 26% allowing her to contest the May runoff election against Sarkozy. This would at least avoid the disaster of 2002 when the far-right candidate Jean Marie Le Pen edged out the Socialist candidate and then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin by one percentage point in the first round. Le Pen was unsurprisingly trounced by incumbent president Chirac who won 82% of the vote in the run-off election.

Although Le Pen is running again in 2007, the left, which represents over 40% of the French electorate, are determined not to repeat the same mistake this time round. In 2002 their votes were diluted across a number of candidates none of whom were particularly strong with Jospin being an unpopular Prime Minister. This time round, Royal is the clear favourite to lead from the left and remains a good chance to become France’s first ever female president despite dropping behind Sarkozy in recent polls.

In September 2006, Segolene’s brother Antoine told the Parisien newspaper that another brother Gerard was a member of the French intelligence squad who planted the bombs that killed a crew member on the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in 1985. "At the time Gerard was a lieutenant and agent of the DGSE [intelligence agency] in Asia” said Antoine.

Nonetheless the news has not affected the family's political daughter. Segolene Royal was born in 1953 in Dakar, Senegal. She was one of eight children of Helene Dehaye and Jacques Royal, who was a former artillery officer and aide to the mayor of Chamagne in Vosges. Segolene had a troubled relationship with her sexist father and had to cajole him to allow her to attend high school. Aged 19, she sued him because he refused to divorce her mother and pay alimony and child support to finance the children's education.

Royal eventually graduated from the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA), France’s leading school for political appointees. In the late 1970s she met fellow Socialist politician Francois Hollande who also qualified from the ENA. They settled together and had four children. Segolene initially worked as a judge of an administrative court before working on the staff of then president Mitterand’s special adviser Jacques Attali. She won a seat in the national assembly in 1988 and was promoted to Environment Minister in Pierre Beregovoy’s administration in 1992. Under Lionel Jospin, she served in the education and family ministries in the early 2000s. In 2004 she was appointed regional premier of Poitou-Charentes province which she used as a platform for the presidency.

Her opponent Nicholas Sarkozy is the obvious successor to Jacques Chirac. Although Chirac hasn’t formally ruled out an unprecedented third attempt at the presidency, the UMP party they both belong to has formally endorsed the interior minister Sarkozy as their candidate. The son of a Hungarian refugee, Sarkozy was born in Paris in 1955 and is 2 years younger than Royal. Nicholas’s father Pal fled Hungary in 1944 ahead of the Red Army and ended up in the German city of Baden Baden then under French control. He was recruited into the French foreign legion and served in Algeria before settling in France where he met Andrée Mallah, Nicolas Sarkozy's mother. Nicholas was the second of their three sons. He was educated in Catholic schools and gained a degree in law from the Université Paris X Nanterre. Unlike most of the French ruling class including Royal, Sarkozy did not go to the ENA but trained as a lawyer. Unlike most of the French ruling class including Royal, Sarkozy did not go to the ENA but trained as a lawyer.

Aged 22, Sarkozy entered politics and became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy Paris suburb. He joined the Gaullist party and rose to become mayor of his town. In 1988 he was elected into the National Assembly and was promoted to Minister of the Budget in the Edouard Balladur administration of 1993. In his early days he was seen as a protégé of Jacques Chirac but supported Balladur in the 1995 presidential election. Sarkozy was ostracised after Chirac’s victory and spent a few years in the wilderness. Chirac eventually forgave Sarkozy and appointed him Interior Minister after his second presidential win in 2002.

In November 2004 Sarkozy was appointed leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. Since then he has become a major political figure as he became the increasingly obvious choice to replace Chirac. Sarkozy sharply divided opinion in France by adopting a tough stance on immigration. In 2005 he described young delinquents in the Paris suburbs as "racaille" (rabble). However he has also advocated positive discrimination to help reduce youth unemployment.


Both Sarkozy and Royal are big admirers of Tony Blair’s so-called Third Way. Accordoing to his biographer Nicolas Domenach, He admires the British PM because “Blair was able to seduce the media, in the way Sarkozy does. And Sarkozy looks at how Tony Blair was able to sell his political ideology." The English-speaking Sarkozy has managed to charm the British media and has sought yesterday to woo the tens of thousands of French voters living in Britain receiving a rapturous welcome from a crowd of young exiles. In front of a crowd of 2,000 exiles he said "I want to be president of a France that will once again astonish the world," he said. "I want to be president of a France that isn't timid and which has no fear of others nor of the future.

Sarkozy's campaign for presidency has supposedly been helped by Royal’s gaffes. These mistakes include praising the speed of the Chinese justice system and approving the independence of Quebec. Until Royal gets beyond the impression she is a novice in the sphere of foreign affairs she is destined to sustain a heavy defeat at the hands of her right wing opponent. In the absence of a new bete noir between now and May, Nicholas Sarkozy will be the next president of France.

Sierra Leone's RUF diamonds

The diamond industry Rapaport Group, in conjunction with movie maker Ed Zwick, have announced they will be holding a media conference in New York’s Hilton Hotel next Monday to address issues related to the sale of so-called "conflict diamonds". In the conference, Zwick will examine what the industry should do to eliminate conflict diamonds. Also, Martin Rapaport will announce the establishment of the Fair Trade Diamond and Jewellery Association. This will be a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting ethical and fair trade sourcing and production of diamonds and other gems in Africa and elsewhere. Rapaport will also announce the launch of an educational fund for children at risk in Sierra Leone.

The media conference is taking place now to take advantage of the international publicity on the issue generated by Zwick’s current movie release “Blood Diamond”. The film is based on a book called “Blood Diamonds” by Greg Campbell. The book and the film are set in the war torn West African nation of Sierra Leone in 1999. Sierra Leone is a major diamond producer but its exports were banned during the civil war to stop profits funding military arms. Campbell’s thesis was that although Sierra Leonean diamonds had been banned from the legitimate market, trading continued as exporting from non-diamond producing nearby nations such as Liberia and The Gambia rose dramatically during the war.

Sierra Leone was a former British colony which gained independence in 1961. Like most African countries, it has had a troubled subsequent post-colonial existence. The architect of independence was Milton Margai. Still regarded as Sierra Leone's greatest statesman, Margai merged the two British political entities (the coastal colony and the inland protectorate), became the country’s first prime minister, and oversaw the creation of a new constitution. He was idolised by his people but died in office in 1964 and was replaced by his brother Albert. The country then steadily deteriorated under weaker leaders leading to political violence and military coups. In the 1970s, Siaka Stevens consolidated power through the military and eventually declared a one-party state.

In 1991, a new opposition movement emerged called the Revolutionary United Front. The RUF's aim was to overthrow the government but it had no clear platform on what to replace it with. Its leader Foday Sankoh was bankrolled by neighbouring Liberian president Charles Taylor. In March 1991, Sankoh began to attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone from their base across the Liberian border. The RUF soon gained control of the mines in the Kono district which produces two-thirds of Sierra Leone’s diamonds. Armed with the profits from these mines, they pushed the army back towards the capital Freetown. The official government was overthrown in a coup and the RUF used the power vacuum to take over more of the country. By 1995 they were at the gates of Freetown itself with a victory seemingly inevitable.

But the increasingly desperate government turned to a mercenary army, a South African private military company called Executive Outcomes (EO). EO was a powerful paramilitary organisation founded from the nucleus of the shadowy South African Special Forces which were being disbanded as the apartheid era came to an end. Within a month of deployment in Sierra Leone, EO had successfully repulsed the rebels and recaptured the Kono mines.

With international pressure mounting, the central government agreed to hand over power to a civilian government via presidential and parliamentary elections, held in April 1996. The new government was led by an experienced UN diplomat Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Kabbah wanted to end the war which had already killed thousands, created a humanitarian crisis and ruined the country’s economy. He met Sankoh in Cote d’Ivoire where the two men signed the Abidjan peace accord in November 2006. But Sankoh was overthrown as leader of the RUF in May 1997 and the new leaders reneged on the agreement. Around the same time, a new military group in Freetown called the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council carried out a successful coup against Kabbah.

The AFRC then joined forces with the RUF to take united control of the country. But within nine months, the exiled Kabbah won back power with the aid of a Nigerian-led multi-lateral force called ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group). Kabbah signed a second peace agreement in Togo with Sankoh, restored as leader of the RUF, in 1999 called the Lomé Peace Accord. Once again, the RUF broke the peace. Finally an international force of British and Guinean troops entered the country in 2001 and routed the last remnants of the RUF. In 2003, Sankoh died in prison awaiting trial. The chief prosecutor said Sankoh's death granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".

The war claimed tens of thousands of deaths and two million (one third of the population) were made refugees. It was a war characterised by child soldiers, killings and amputations. By 2001, Sierra Leone was officially the poorest country in the world. Yet a 2002 report ranked Sierra Leone 11th of the world’s diamond producing nations with a total value of $70 million and 0.2% of the world’s market (Australia and Botswana are the world’s leading diamond producers with 50% of the market between them). Most of Sierra Leone’s diamond trade in the 1990s went overseas illegally to finance the RUF armed resistance against the government.

Half of the world’s trade in diamonds is controlled by the South African company De Beers. They control a cartel to keep the price of diamonds artificially high in order to maintain the precious status of the gem. Because of their status in the market, they were under pressure to lead the fight against the sale of conflict diamonds. Haunted by the obvious failure to stop Sierra Leonean diamonds reaching the market, De Beers and the New York based World Diamond Council, launched a certification scheme in 2002 known as the Kimberley Process (named for the South African city where the parties first met to discuss the issue). Countries signing up to the process guarantee that a) their diamonds do not finance rebel groups seeking to overthrow a UN-recognized government b) their diamonds are accompanied by a Kimberley Process certificate and c) they do not export or import diamonds to non-members of the scheme.

45 diamond producing nations (including Sierra Leone) have signed up to the Kimberley Process. But it is not without its flaws. A UK-based pressure group Global Witness criticised the process as lacking proper oversight of national registration schemes. It cited the Central African Republic as having has recently suffered a coup which gave rebel forces control over its diamond mines and yet is still part of the Process.

Meanwhile Sierra Leone is finally beginning to recover from the ravages of a decade-long war. The RUF metamorphosised into a political party. In the most recent election in 2002 they gained just 2.2% of the popular vote and no seats in the parliament. Kabbah was re-elected president in the same election with a landslide 70% of the vote. Sierra Leone will go to the polls again this year when his term expires and the constitution forbids him to stand for re-election. Many in the country are concerned that Charles Margai (nephew of the country’s founder Milton and son of second PM Albert) is about to set himself up a potential dictator when Kabbah finally calls it a day.