Queensland FOI law: for better or worse?

Queensland Government took delivery of a major report today that recommended 141 changes to the state's Freedom of Information laws. The report has far-reaching reforms and would likely lead to pressure on Kevin Rudd to follow nationally. Premier Anna Bligh immediately called the report "a blueprint which could make Queensland the most open government in Australia" and plans to have a new right to information act before Parliament next year.

FOI is already enshrined both national and state Australian law as the citizens right to ask their government about any matter of public interest. Or so it seems. While the core aim of the law is to improve decision making by removing unnecessary secrecy, the intent is betrayed by the word “unnecessary.” This word enables a raft of exclusion clauses to be built into the legislation in order to stunt and protect information flow. This is why today’s FOI announcement in Queensland has the potential to be a truly democratic event. Tim Dunlop called it an “impressive approach to the problem” and agrees with the authors that a new model is required.

Called “The Right to Information” (pdf) the report is a review of Queensland’s FOI Act. The Queensland Government commissioned it late last year as one of the early initiatives of the Anna Bligh government. The government commissioned a three-person Independent Review Panel headed by Dr David Solomon and assisted by Simone Webb and Dominic McGann. Solomon is a former journalist, barrister, and a member of the Australian Law Reform Commission's national review of FOI laws. Simone Webb is a former Deputy Director-General of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, and Dominic McGann is a partner at law firm McCullough Robertson who specialises in government liaison, the privatisation of government corporations and utilities and native title.

The threesome’s June 2008 report is an important and useful primer in FOI. It begins by calling the public interest the central, unifying feature of freedom of information. It then acknowledges the application of the public interest test was a significant weakness in the current law. The balancing act of opposing interests made the test difficult and it was further hindered by the vagueness of what actually is the “public interest”. And of course the test doesn’t even apply to the “exemptions” lucky documents that are automatically barred by the law, preventing all sorts of nasty cabinet documents, Wheat Board shenanigans, and “commercial in confidence” handshakes from ever seeing the musty light of day.

Solomon, Webb and McGann have proposed three key changes to make FOI decisions easier to approve. First they attempt to define public interest factors to make the law more testable. Secondly the decision will be framed so that access is the default position and putting the onus of proof on the person denying the request. Thirdly and most radically, they propose getting rid of the exemptions. Instead, the authors say, each case would be decided individually on a “harms test” to the public interest. These changes are aimed at simplifying the test by “making it more transparent, understandable and credible”. Heady stuff. But will Bligh accept the recommendations?

As a carrot, the authors say the changes would also “simplify the administration of the test” and therefore save public dollars in application claims. Though that might be swallowed up by the number of individual cases going down to the wire on the results of the “harms test”. The other out-clause the authors gave Bligh was a “small number of true exemptions”. These would not have a public interest test applied, because Parliament decided that it was outweighed by other factors.

Therein lies the political reality according to Matthew Ricketson and Rick Snell. In their in their chapter on FOI in "Journalism: Investigation and Research", they wrote how Sir Humphrey Appleby used the term “courageous” when he really meant “suicidal”. Similarly Freedom of Information has become code for government documents that are neither Free nor Informative. The 1994 Sydney Yellow Pages took this to its obvious limit when it listed the NSW example of the legislation as the Freedom From Information Act. Bligh would have been aware of the double-edged sword nature of the legislation when she announced the move. It was her way of showing open-government credentials in the wake of dodgy dealings during the Beattie era. It was also a way of showing that she learned from the Media Tart to oblige the opinion setters in other ways.

But just like Beattie, it is highly unlikely that Bligh wants to wash her government’s linen in public. The government likes the idea of an informed citizenry more than the reality. No government wants the full scale of its decision-making revealed. As Nicola Roxon (channelling Bismarck) observed, media management is like sausage making - “some things you don't want to see behind the scenes”. And Government distaste for this sort of spotlight is usually matched by their bureaucracy. To quote another Sir Humphreyism “surely you can have openness or you can have government, but to have both is a contradiction in terms”. Therefore it is likely the government will keep the shutters up by trumping the public interest with the national interest. Queensland may enact the letter of Solomon’s report, but not its wisdom.

But even that alone will be useful if they succeed in changing the 1992 FOI Act in two other areas. Firstly if it rids Queensland of “conclusive certifications”. At a federal level Peter Costello was notorious for producing these get-out-of-jail-free cards to avoid make a document public. Secondly, if it fixes the time and costs of making an FOI Application. The report says that the present system is a “disaster.” But they make a fantastic recommendation to make sure the agency provide, “as a first response to a request, a Schedule of Relevant Documents and engage the requester to decide which of the documents in the list are really wanted.” Knowing exactly what to ask for will be a massive boost for those seeking information and making the document a charge by page will simplify the cost of FOI. It may even inspire journalists to use this under-valued tool more often. Truth is a good disinfectant.

Mugabe replaced by junta as Zimbabwe plunges further into despair

A Zimbabwean court has overruled a police move to ban opposition rallies in advance of the forthcoming presidential run-off election between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. The decision came after police denied authorisation last week to Tsvangirai’s MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party to stage rallies in Zimbabwean townships on the specious grounds of ‘assassination threats’. The MDC then filed papers with the High Court in Harare. On Saturday an MDC lawyer announced that the court had ordered the rallies be allowed and that the police should not interrupt them.

This is one of rare pieces of good news for the MDC as it faces massive hurdles to overcome Mugabe’s state apparatus in the 27 June election. Tsvangirai was arrested twice last week; most recently on Friday when he was stopped at a roadblock as he was on his way to a regularly scheduled rally. He was taken to a police station and was released after 2½ hours. In both arrests Tsvangirai was accused by police of threatening public security by addressing a gathering without prior authorisation. This low-level harassment has impacted the entire campaign since Tsvangirai returned to the country three weeks ago. “We've noticed that it's going to be a common trend in this campaign,” said his spokesman George Sibotshiwe. “Obviously the government…are trying to prevent him from going about his campaign freely and peacefully.”

Tsvangirai and his party have been victims of systematic violence since the first election in March. A scathing new report from Human Rights Watch called “Bullets for Each of You” (pdf) now presents compelling evidence to support the obvious conclusion that the campaign is aimed at ensuring Mugabe wins the run-off election. The violence has claimed thousands of victims as both national and local government authorities systematically and methodically targets both MDC activists and the party's perceived supporters.

The violence has been particularly concentrated in former rural strongholds of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). These areas turned their back on their traditional party to vote for the Tsvangirai and the MDC in the parliamentary and first-round presidential elections. In government and top military circles the campaign has been called “Operation Where Did You Put Your Cross?” The administration has been using independence war veterans to beat, torture and mutilate people as well as burn down their homes for “voting incorrectly” in the first election.

HRW now say that if current conditions are maintained, there is no possibility of a credible, free and fair poll. “Time has nearly run out for Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU),” it says, “to make the necessary political interventions to end the violence and ensure a free and fair vote.” They say the violence is orchestrated at the highest levels of government (known as “Joint Operations Command”) which includes senior ZANU-PF officials as well as the heads of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, police, prison services, and the Central Intelligence Organisation.

The report also confirms the report of a “senior western diplomat” that the Joint Operations Command (JOC) has taken de facto power in Zimbabwe reducing Mugabe to a mere figurehead. The unnamed source told Britain’s Daily Telegraph last week that a small circle of "securocrats", who sit atop the JOC committee, are now in day-to-day charge of the country. The most powerful figures in the new junta are General Constantine Chiwenga, the overall military chief; followed by police commissioner Augustine Chihuri and prison service commander General Paradzai Zimondi. The source said Mugabe remains a useful figurehead to parade in front of African leaders but had no real power left. "This is a military coup by stealth," he said. "There are no tanks on people's lawns, but the Joint Operations Command runs this country."

The absence of tanks on lawns does not disguise the fact that the country is in deep crisis. Zimbabwe is an economic as well as political shambles. The currency has depreciated by about 84 percent since the central bank floated it in early May after years of an official peg. On Thursday the Zimbabwean dollar plunged to a new record low, trading at an average 1 billion to the US dollar. The rapid weakening of the currency was caused by inflation expectations and a huge demand for hard currencies. The latest move triggered further massive price increases. Prices of basic goods, most of which are now imported, have gone up sharply since the disputed March 29 election. A loaf of bread cost Z$15 million before the polls but now costs about Z$600 million. And the army has warned off its population of change occurring any time soon. “If you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election,” said soldiers addressing villagers at one meeting, “you have seen the bullets, we have enough for each one of you, so beware.”

Morocco under pressure over Western Sahara's phosphate mining

A third international shipping company has bowed to pressure in the last week to quit economic activity in ports in occupied Western Sahara. A Hong Kong-based company Jinhui Shipping has followed two Norwegian companies Arnesen Shipbrokers and R-Bulk, which stopped shipping out phosphates from the territory last year. All three have stopped their exports after pressure from Pro-Sahrawi groups and more companies are expected to follow. This sophisticated pressure is being brought to bear worldwide with spokesman Malainan Lakhal currently in Australia to promote the anti-Moroccan phosphate cause.

Western Sahara is a small barren North-African nation on the Atlantic coast, bordered by Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco. It is also the last colony in Africa. The country has been in political limbo since 1976. The independence group Polisario fought a war with Morocco until a 1991 ceasefire. Since then, the country’s Sahrawi population have been waiting for a UN-sponsored referendum to allow them to vote for either independence or continued integration with Morocco. However with Morocco considered an important ally of the US because of its cooperation in fighting terrorism and its generally pro-West policies, the Sahrawis may be waiting a while.

Western Sahara was a former Spanish colony known as Spanish Sahara. After Spain withdrew when Franco died, it was invaded by Morocco with the implicit support of the US in 1976. Today Morocco illegally earns billions of dollars each year from the rich fishing off the coast and as well as inheriting Spain’s interests in phosphate. It also continues to rely on US support to hose down any nasty UN Security Council resolutions forcing them to comply with the referendum request.

Phosphate mining began under the Spanish administration in the 1950s and was responsible for bringing many nomadic Sahrawis into the sedentary life of towns. In 1976 the International Court of Justice found overwhelming support for Polisario and ruled that the people of Western Sahara had a right to determine their own future. But when Morocco invaded despite the ruling, the majority of the population fled across the borders ahead of Moroccan attacks. The local population are called “Ahel es-Sahel” or Sahrawi people and are a mix of Berber, Bedouin and black African tribes.

Almost a quarter of the population (over 80,000 people) still live in refugee camps in neighbouring Algeria. Those that remain in Western Sahara are subject to Moroccan law. In Morocco, both the law and tradition prohibit criticism on three topics: the monarch; the sanctity of Islam; and Morocco's claim to the Western Sahara. Security surveillance is tight and harassment of domestic and foreign human rights workers is common. Police also routinely repress public protest using excessive force against demonstrators, some of whom threw rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Morocco is the world’s leading exporter of phosphates which are used in the fertilising industry. Through internal and Western Saharan mines, it controls an estimated 75 per cent of the world market. Their exporting process was greatly facilitated by a Free Trade Agreement with the US in 2004 (though the US explicitly excluded Western Sahara from the FTA). But with Morocco signing partnerships with several North American mining companies such as Canadian firms PCS and Agrium, and US-based Mosaic, Agrifos and Innophos, there is strong commercial pressure to support the Moroccan presence in the colony.

Last week, an UN envoy for the territory delivered a blow to Polisario supporters when he said that the Moroccan presence would not be ending any time soon. The UN mediator for the territory, Peter van Walsum, told the Security Council that independence was unrealistic. Van Walsum had concluded “there was no pressure on Morocco to abandon its claim of sovereignty over the territory and, therefore, that an independent Western Sahara was not a realistic proposition." Van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat, later said his comments were a "gamble" to break the negotiating logjam. But the only player happy with his gamble was Morocco. As Reuters point out, van Walsum’s gamble was a recognition of a diplomatic reality – “that Rabat can and will reject independence as long as its control has the quiet backing of big powers like the United States and France.”

America and Iran: the lesson of Mohammad Mossadegh

Not for the first time, the White House has refused to clarify its position on a war with Iran. The latest stonewalling came this weekend after Israel threatened to strike Tehran's nuclear facilities. On Friday Israeli deputy prime minister Shaoul Mofaz claimed Israel has no choice but to strike Iran's nuclear sites as 'options are disappearing and sanctions have proven to be ineffective'. Later that day, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel refused to condemn Mofaz and instead accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program. He also evaded questions to clarify what Washington thought about Israel’s 'unavoidable' attack.

This is the latest development in a series of hawkish poses by the Bush Administration against Iran. The US worries that Iran has nuclear capability and appears to be supporting Israel in a pre-emptive strike. The strike could be timed to support Republican candidate John McCain in a bid to wedge Barack Obama. America does not appear to be interested in compromise at the moment. The Tehran Times claims the US has ignored the outcome of technical examinations that show Iran is co-operating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The world waits for a confrontation that if it occurs, would leave Iraq looking like a minor sideshow.

This is far from the first time that Iran is at the centre of world attention. It was of massive interest to two of the three Allied Powers in World War II. By late 1943, it was clear Germany was not going to win the war and the thoughts of the Allies turned to the future. In December that year Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met on a sunny Tehran morning to discuss how to divvy up the post-Nazi world. Both Stalin and Churchill came in military uniform, Roosevelt chose a suit. They had just pledged to work together “in war and the peace that will follow”. After the photographers searched their faces for smiles while seated on the veranda, the three great men retire to a hall for a more private conversation.

Before they discussed weighty matters of empire, Roosevelt asked Churchill whatever became of the ruler of this country, Shah Reza, adding “if I’m pronouncing it correctly”. Churchill tells him he became a Nazi and denied Britain and Russia the use of oil and a supplies railway. Britain and Russia couldn’t stand for this and invaded Iran. Shah Reza was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohamed Reza Pahlavi. The father was removed to a comfortable life in Johannesburg where he died not long after the Tehran conference. The question showed up US ignorance of Iranian affairs.

Yet the choice of Tehran for this meeting of great minds was no accident. Not only had Britain and Russia invaded it in 1941, it had been zone of influence for both since a 1907 treaty shared the country’s spoils between them. The terms of both conquests allowed the natives to rule as long as they did not act against their powerful guests. An officially neutral Iran was of vital strategic importance to both. Roosevelt was happy to let the two fight it out over Iranian oil while the US maintained control of the biggest fields of all in Saudi Arabia.

But the turmoil of the Russian revolution left Iran almost entirely a Britsh colony. While Russia turned to its own problems, AIOC, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (then nationalised by Churchill, now corporatised as BP) was Britain main supplier of oil. First extracted out of a corrupt 19th century leader as a concession to drill in the wastelands near Abadan, AIOC quickly became one of the world’s leading producers in time to supply Britain in two world wars. The company enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on the production and sale of Iranian oil but its wealth was not fairly distributed. In 1947 it reported on an after tax profit of £40 million and gave the young Shah’s country just seven million. It had reneged on a 1933 deal with his hard-nosed father to provide the workers with better pay, more schools, roads, telephones and job advancement. The young Shah was a playboy and had little interests for his people’s problems. As long as he kept control of the military, it didn’t matter how well or badly his country was performing economically.

Mohammad Mossadegh was less sanguine. He knew the people chafed bitterly about the abject poverty they lived in to support Britain and their puppet leaders. By 1951 he personified the country’s anger at the AIOC. Born in 1882, he was a member of the country’s elite and a parliamentarian for 34 years, implacably opposed to foreign influence. In a wave of fervour, he was elected Prime Minister with a mandate to throw the company out of Iran, reclaim the country’s oil reserves and end the subjection of foreign power. Mossadegh was now in his seventies and in the manner of Proust, did much of his business in bed. But when he nationalised Anglo-Iranian, he became a national hero. Shortly after, Iran took control of the refinery.

The British were outraged. They declared Mossadegh a thief and demanded he be punished by the UN and the World Court. When neither organisation would support Britain, they imposed an embargo that devastated the Iranian economy. Mossadegh was unmoved and said he “would rather be fried in Persian oil than make the slightest concession”. But while Britain fumed, Mossadegh struck a chord elsewhere. He became a third world hero and delighted his admirers further when he ridiculed Britain at the World Court saying it was trying “to persuade world opinion that the lamb had devoured the wolf”.

Even Time made him their man of the year in 1951 saying he “put Scheherazade in the petroleum business and oiled the wheels of chaos”. They called him a “strange old wizard” in a region where, importantly, the US had no policy. Britain, of course did have a policy, and Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee warned President Truman not to interfere with the dealings of “an ally.” The US complied but Attlee also knew that Truman would not support a British military invasion of Iran.

Events were to change dramatically when both Britain and the US turned to the right. In Autumn 1951 the old warhorse Churchill was running for re-election and denounced Attlee in several speeches for failing to confront Mossadegh firmly enough. Churchill said the Prime Minister had betrayed “solemn undertakings” not to abandon Abadan. He knew that the loss of Iranian oil meant the loss of empire and considered Mossadegh “an elderly lunatic bent on wrecking his country and handing it over to the Communists.” Britain’s position suddenly toughened when Churchill defeated Labour in that election.

Truman was also up for re-election in 1952 but decided not to contest. As in Britain, a Second World War hero won the election and Dwight Eisenhower was the new Republican President. The Cold War was Eisenhower’s biggest focus and Iran was one of the first challenges. Britain cleverly played up to the new regime in Washington claiming Iran was in crisis under Mossadegh and could easily fall to the Communist Party backed by Moscow. The new Cold Warriors were ready to step up to the challenge of removing Mossadegh.

Even before Eisenhower was inaugurated, his new team prepared to organise the coup. Eisenhower appointed wartime Chief-of-Staff and former CIA General Walter Bedell Smith as his undersecretary of state. Bedell would seamlessly link the campaign between the White House, State Department and the CIA. At the head of these two latter organisations lay a pair of remarkable brothers. John Foster Dulles was a world-class international lawyer now turned Secretary of State while Allen Dulles now ran the intelligence organisation. The brothers had long developed a special interest in Iran and Allen went to Tehran in 1949 on business where he met both the Shah and Mossadegh. Both Dulles brothers were ideological Cold War warriors determined to prevent Communism in Iran.

Eisenhower gave implicit approval for the action but presented a front of plausible deniability. Behind the scenes the two Dulles and Smith had full authority to proceed with Operation Ajax. They appointed a remarkably gifted secret agent with a fantastic name to bring the coup together. He was the grandly titled Kermit Roosevelt. Kermit was not related to FDR, but was a grandson of fellow president Theodore. He was the prototype of the gentleman spy. Independently wealthy, he was a history professor at Harvard until he joined the newly established Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in WW2. His work in the OSS remains shrouded in mystery but he stayed on in peacetime when it was rebadged as the CIA.

When given charge of the Mossadegh plan, Roosevelt quickly liaised with his British counterparts in the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Iranian tribal leaders on the British payroll softened things up when they launched a short-lived uprising. Roosevelt moved to Tehran where he prepared to gather a rebellion force. He met with anti-Mossadegh politicians and persuaded the Shah to sign the “firman” (a document of doubtful legality sacking the Prime Minister). Mid-August 1953 found Roosevelt and his local agents ready to strike. He paid newspapers and religious leaders to scream for Mossadegh’s head. He organised protests and riots and turned the streets into battlegrounds.

But at the last minute Operation Ajax seemed as if foiled. On 15 August 1953 an officer arrived at Mossadegh’s house to present the “firman”. But he arrived minutes too late, too many people had found about the coup and the Prime Minister was tipped off in advance. The Shah fled the country in disgrace while units loyal to Mossadegh surged through Tehran. Incredibly Roosevelt did not quit and three days later he organised a second attempt. Once again he launched a massive mob in the capital. Crucially Mossadegh did not call out the police to stop them. Armed units loyal to the Shah launched a gunbattle against Mossadegh’s supporters. The following morning Tehran Radio announced “the Government of Mossadegh has been defeated!”

Mossadegh was now under arrest. The Shah flew home from Italy in stunned triumph. The New York Times wrote that "the sudden reversal was nothing more than a mutiny by the lower ranks against pro-Mossadegh officers”. Roosevelt was understandably delighted. Barely a day earlier he had been ordered home by his own superiors, now he would be returning in triumph. Mossadegh was given a three year prison sentence. He served it until 1956 and was confined to home in Ahmad Abad until his death, aged 85 in 1967.

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company tried to return to their old monopoly position after his overthrow. But the US had invested too much in the coup to let that happen. An international consortium was organised to assume control of the oil. AOIC held 40 percent, five American companies held 40 percent and the remainder split between Royal Dutch Shell and Compagnie Francaise de Petroles. The consortium agreed to split the profits fifty-fifty with the Shah but never allowed Iranians to examine the books.

Although the Shah had forbidden his countrymen ever to speak of Mossadegh new enemies emerged within. By the late 1970s the Shah had crushed all legitimate political parties and a new religious force filled the void. When he was forced to flee the country in 1979 as a reviled tyrant, the first government to replace him were determined to invoke Mossadegh’s legacy. Mossadegh had dispatched the new Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan to Abadan after the British fled in 1951. Another Mossadegh admirer Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was elected president. But behind the scenes Ayatollah Khomeini was consolidating his power. Before long he was arresting all his enemies. Mossadegh had been defeated again, this time in death.

The Mossadegh coup had profound impacts on America. Overnight the CIA became a central part of foreign policy apparatus. While Kermit Roosevelt went home in quiet retirement, the Dulles brothers used the new template to overthrow other rulers. President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown a year later in Guatemala. Later they would fail to kill Castro but were more successful with Allende in Chile. The incident also changed how Iranians viewed the US. Before 1953, Britain was the rapacious and greedy enemy. Now the US was the sinister party, manipulating quietly in the background. The 1979 embassy hostage was a direct result of Carter’s decision to allow the Shah into the country. But the reason the crisis last 14 months was the fact that the royalist regime was re-installed in the first place by the US back in 1953.

With their devotion to radical Islam, Iran’s revolutionary leaders have become heroes to fanatics in many countries. They inspired the Taliban to take control of neighbouring Afghanistan. Their strength so worried Saddam Hussein he fought a ten-year war with them which led to a disastrous quarter century for Iraq. It is not too strong a view to say that the CIA’s overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh has led to the US being involved in two concurrent wars in the region. Mossadegh would be outraged if he could see the state of his country today, but he might afford a smile at the way the coup has bitten the hand that fed it.

Sayyid Qutb: the father of Islamism

The name Sayyid Qutb is little known outside the Muslim world but he is a significant voice of the 20th century. Although dead for over 40 years, he and his movement the Muslim Brotherhood remain a giant influence on Islamic politics and a guiding light for radical Islamists. In the last month, Qutb's name has been all over the news. The International Herald Tribune's HDS Greenway said Al Qaeda drew their inspiration from him. The Pakistan Christian Post gives an interpretation of Sufism drawn from Qutb’s writings. The American Family Security Matters said Islamic youths were rebelling “in the footsteps of Qutb". Indian Muslims calls him a pioneer of contemporary Muslimism and British theological think-tank Ekklesia calls him “the father of modern Islamism”.

Born in Egypt in 1906, Sayyid Qutb is now also considered the guide of the modern jihadi movement. Hia book Milestones (written in an Egyptian prison) is now a standard in Islamic education and is an honoured text of jihadi groups. Yet in many respects, Qutb was quite ordinary. He worked for the Egyptian ministry of education as an inspector of schools where he gained a reputation as an intellectual. In 1948 he did a scholarship at Colorado State College of Education to study the US educational system. He didn't like what he saw in America. A conservative Egyptian, he loathed the licentiousness he saw around him. He opposed Western imperialism and materialism and was appalled by the immorality and corruption of the Christian West.

Qutb was influenced by the ideas of Maududi, the man who founded Jamaat-e-Islami in British India (now Pakistan) in 1940. Maududi in turn, was inspired by Ibn Wahhib whose 18th century conquest of the Arabian peninsula was based on the idea of a purer Islam. Maududi was translated into Arabic and his ideas spread across the Muslim world. Qutb acknowledged his influence saying the freedoms of Western women were an illusion. In his view a woman is better protected by the paternal Islamic state rather than be a sex object for by any random passer-by. Qutb's ideas spread through the Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood (Jamiat al-Ikhwan Muslimum) began after the collapse of the Istanbul caliphate in 1924. In Egypt, Hasan al-Banna was upset by his country’s new secular constitution. Al-Banna was a schoolteacher who hated the evils of modernity. Like Maududi in India, he wanted his new state to become Wahhabist. Al-Banna found the Brotherhood in 1928 with a manifesto which read: “God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Koran our constitution, Jihad our way and dying for God our supreme objective”.

But the short-term objective was to survive. In its first 10 years, the Brotherhood was preoccupied with recruitment and propaganda against modernisers and communists. Critically Al-Banna kept his organisation aloof from the growing Egyptian pro-Nazi movement. Under the front of a social movement, he developed the Brotherhood’s political credentials. After World War II, he collaborated with the British against the Communist Party by unleashing a terror campaign against left wing leaders. They also bombed theatres and attacked Jewish interests.

In 1948 the Brotherhood killed the head of police, which was one step too far in their extra-judicial campaign. The Farouk Government responded by banning them. In retaliation, they assassinated Prime Minister Nuqrashi Pasha. In a tit for tat,a government agent killed al-Banna. His loyal deputy Sayyid Qutb was appointed Supreme Guide. Qutb was highly respected for his resistance to compromise, his honesty, integrity and his austere lifestyle.

By then, the movement had grown to 250,000 members and was a significant threat to state power. In 1952, the Free Officers led by Gamal Abdul Nasser launched a coup against British interests and forced Farouk to abdicate. Four of the 18 Free officers were Brotherhood members. Nasser turned on the Communists and took over in a de facto alliance with Qutb who had one third of the power.

But when the Brotherhood demanded Shari’a Law in Egypt, Nasser turned on them. They were banned again in 1954 and Qutb and others were arrested. In prison he wrote Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq ('Sign-posts on the Road'), usually translated as Milestones). It became an international bestseller and an inspiration for global jihad after his death in 1966. Some scholars called the book turgid, repetitive and uninspiring, but it had massive impact on later generations of Muslims.

The core of Qutb’s ideas is a return to ths supposed purity of the earliest Muslims. This is jihad in the name of Allah and his prophet Muhammad and social justice according to the laws of God. Qutb said Islam abandoned its purity in the generation that followed Muhammad and only a return to the “true faith” could save it. A two-phase jihad was needed. Preaching and persuasion would be followed by physical power to abolish an oppressive state apparatus. His bleak message was a direct challenge to Nasser’s secular regime.

The Brotherhood remained active despite Qutb’s arrest and launched several attempts on Nasser’s life. Three attempts in 1964 were the last straw. Mass arrests followed. Already in jail, Qutb was charged with treason and plotting a Marxist coup. After a show trial he was executed in 1966.

His legacy was preserved by his brother Muhammad who fled to Saudi Arabia where he became an influential professor of Islamic studies. Among those to study under Muhammad Qutb was Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network borrowed directly from Sayyid Qutb’s ideas of jihad. More importantly, Qutb shows the US and Israel are not Al-Qaeda’s targets. What they want is the abolition of the corrupt Saudi regime and the liberation of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the name of a purer Islam.

Talks hope to end Guinea army revolt

Talks are progressing in the Western African republic of Guinea in an effort to end a military revolt by junior army officers. It was the second time in 12 months, the army has revolted for the second time in 12 months over pay. Guinean soldiers claiming years of unpaid wages captured their own chief-of-staff and took to the streets of the capital Conakry in a repeat of their May 2007 protest over the same issue. While the government has agreed to their pay demands, the sticking point now is over rebel demands for the removal of senior officers they accused of theft and corruption.

The revolt began late last month when paratroops and special forces in the country’s largest military base of Alfa Yaya Diallo, near Conakry international airport, unloaded their weapons before seizing the army's second-in-command General Mamadou Sampil after he came to try to negotiate with them. Locals also heard gunfire at Kindia army garrison 130km inland. Civilians took cover in their homes to avoid stray bullets. The precautions were warranted as several civilians were killed and dozens more wounded by stray bullets shot into the air. The mutineers looted shops and homes of military commanders, but made no serious attempt to take over government installations.

After an emergency meeting on Monday last week at the presidential palace, Guinean president Lansana Conté issued a statement which was read out on state television. Conté, whose own background is military, called for calm and asked for the soldiers to open dialogue and negotiations. When that statement had no effect, a panicking Conté fired his defence minister in an effort to appease his mutinying troops. The dismissal of Bailo Diallo was one of their demands but it is not clear if that satisfied the rebels. Shortly after the decision to sack Diallo, an unnamed military official said shots were at the army’s central HQ at Camp Samory where President Conté and his wife were in hiding.

Conté said he would refuse to deal with the rebels until they released the hostages they were holding at Alfa Yaya Diallo including General Sampil. On Sunday they met with military commanders and made some progress in talks on a pay deal. The 15-member regional Economic Community of West African States said the Guinea crisis "put at risk the safety and security of the civilian population and poses a grave threat to the fragile peace" in the region. The crisis also threatens the long-term rule of Conté himself.

Lansana Conté has ruled Guinea for 24 years. Incredibly he is one of only two men to have led the country in the 50 years since independence from France in 1958. Conté has survived several coups and assassination attempts. The biggest threat to his stranglehold on power was a general strike nationwide strike in January 2007. Conté was forced to appoint an independent Prime Minister, Lansana Kouyaté, to end the strike. Last month, Conté sacked Kouyaté to end an uneasy power-sharing arrangement.

While Kouyaté had been a disappointing PM, news of his dismissal triggered some disturbances and protests. But matters really took a turn for the worse when the soldiers intervened. They claimed Kouyaté promised them back pay and began to threaten their superiors. When the replacement prime minister Ahmed Tidiane Souaré, (a former Conté aide) paid the first instalment on their arrears, it merely emboldened junior military officers to sack all the top brass. The initial violence was followed by a four day stand-off with gunfire resuming again on the weekend.

Aid agencies in Guinea have reduced their operations to a minimum as they await the outcome of the ongoing military dispute. UN resident representative Gasarabwe Mbaranga said they were monitoring the situation and have advised staff to stay at home. "We already have tight security levels in place in the city and have not changed them," she said. But medical staff from Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) remain on duty bringing medicine and equipment to Conakry’s hospitals to help hospital staff treat the wounded. Many people in Guinea now fear the worst: an all-out civil war between troops led by emboldened junior officers and forces loyal to the aging Conté.

The case of Binyam Mohamed: US charges the last Brit in Gitmo

The US have announced they have charged the last British citizen held in Guantánamo Bay. The Pentagon has arraigned Binyam Mohamed, 30, for plotting with al-Qaeda to bomb apartment buildings in the US. His defence lawyers argue that the only evidence for these charges was extorted from him under torture. His lawyers wrote a letter to the Pentagon official overseeing the tribunal system to dismiss the charges stating that all the evidence against him appears to have been "derived from coercive interrogation and torture.” Binyam is the 20th detainee selected to face the military tribunals at Guantánamo, and the fifth in the last week.


Binyam Mohamed al-Habashi, was born in Ethiopia in 1979 and came to the UK with his father in 1995. He worked as a janitor at a mosque in west London. After seven years he applied for political asylum and was allowed to remain while his case was resolved. Binyam travelled to South Asia in 2002 and was arrested in Pakistan on a visa violation. Pakistan, then doing a lucrative trade in extraordinary rendition, turned him over to the US authorities for $5,000. Binyam asked what crime he had committed, and insisted on having a lawyer if he was going to be interrogated. The FBI told him: ‘The rules have changed. You don’t get a lawyer.”

US authorities flew him to Morocco where he underwent 18 months of regular torture including having a scalpel used to make incisions on his chest and penis. He was then transferred to the notorious “Dark Prison” in Kabul, Afghanistan. In operation between 2002 and 2004, it inmates called this top secret facility the “dark prison” or “prison of darkness,” where they were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks at a time.

Binyam would later describe his experiences at the Dark Prison to his attorney:
“It was pitch black no lights on in the rooms for most of the time.... They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.... There was loud music, [Eminem’s] “Slim Shady” and Dr. Dre for 20 days.... [Then] they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds. [At one point, I was] chained to the rails for a fortnight.... The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night.... Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off.”

Despite being held there for several months Binyam did not lose his sanity. However, his hopes of release were dashed when was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September 2004. Binyam has been there ever since. In November 2005, the Pentagon used the evidence they gained under torture in Morocco to charge him with conspiring to plot attacks against the US. The court papers alleged that he was an accomplice of Jose Padilla in Pakistan where they allegedly proposed a fanciful plan to al Qaeda leaders that they travel to the US to detonate a "uranium-enhanced" explosive device. Although he faced a preliminary hearing, he was never fully tried. Britain sought his release along with another four other British residents in August 2007. While the others were released by Christmas, US refused requests to release Binyam. Last week, he was charged with terrorism-related offences and is due to be brought before a military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay.

In 2003 one of Britain’s top law lords described Gitmo military tribunals as “kangaroo courts”. Lord Steyn, one of the most senior judges in Britain's highest court, said the term implied "a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgement by an irregular tribunal, which makes a mockery of justice". Yet mockery or no, Binyam now faces the very real prospect of the death penalty. Binyam is being represented by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and his Reprieve team who specialise in representing “prisoners facing execution at the hands of the state in the conventional criminal justice system, or those subject to imprisonment outside the reach of the law in the ‘war on terror.’”

Smith says Binyam is in a very fragile mental and emotional state. Binyam is suffering from depression and has taken to smearing the walls of his cell with his own faeces. On Friday 30 May, Reprieve delivered a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown from Binyam that castigated British intelligence services for supplying evidence to his Moroccan torturers. The letter gave a graphic account of the pain inflicted including the cuts to his penis. "I felt like I was being stung by a million bees at once,” he wrote. “The floor was full of blood.” Binyam also spoke of a desire to commit suicide as “that would be one way to end, it I suppose”. A saner way to end it would be for the US to end this obscene charade and release Binyam from baseless and immoral charges.

Queensland budget shows little long-term vision

Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser released his first budget today that showed a disappointing lack of vision for the future. With Labor well ahead in the state polls, Fraser and his boss Anna Bligh could have used the $36 billion budget as a blueprint for change. Instead, their package pandered to the usual vested fossil fuel interests, perpetuated the subsidisation of car drivers, and contained substantial smatterings of politically conscious middle class welfare.

Introducing the budget this morning, Fraser boasted that the budget delivered “massive injections of funding” to public hospitals and healthcare system and would fund “the biggest capital works program in the State's history”. But with the state’s net worth of $123 billion and a forecast of an $800 million operating surplus for the 2008-2009 financial year, Fraser did little for the environment or the promotion of alternative energy use. Instead, he dispensed his largesse on motorists, the coal industry and wealthier first time home buyers.

A whopping 40 percent of $17 billion capital works will be frittered away on an expanded road network. This includes the duplication of the Centenary Highway between Darra and Springfield (an area poorly serviced by public transport), a new highway bridge between Brighton and Redcliffe (while the long promised Redcliffe rail link plan gathers dust), the Gateway bridge duplication, the Airport link tunnel (while the perfectly good railway is underused and overpriced). Meanwhile the Government “Travelsmart” plan pays lip service to the idea of “successfully balancing growth with a quality of life and a healthy environment” with expansions to the northern busway and $700 million towards new rolling stock in Queensland Rail’s Brisbane network.

Fraser wasted $870 million on the continued bribery of the 8.354 cents fuel subsidy. Intriguingly however, he is introducing a new scheme whereby drivers can apparently have the discount applied at point-of-sale by presenting a driver’s licence “with a new barcode attached”. Presented as a scheme to ensure the bribe is paid “straight into motorists’ pockets”, it is not immediately apparent how this scheme will operate. Premier Anna Bligh said the government would consult with industry figures and other motoring bodies to ensure the proposal went ahead smoothly. In any case, this scheme is an unwarranted subsidisation of car drivers at the taxpayer’s expense and needs to be scrapped.

It was obvious in other ways this budget was made with more than an eye to the next state election. Queensland Labor were keen not to repeat the mistakes of its federal counterparts with a big blurb about “looking after seniors” on the first page of the budget highlights paper. The government increased the electricity rebate scheme from $145 to $165 a year and started a new reticulated natural gas scheme which will give a $60 a year discount to 50,000 pensioners and concession card holders. Pensioners will also be given a subsidy to protect them from the big hikes expected in water charges in South East Queensland.

Wealthier first time home buyers did well out of the budget. Fraser announced an increase in the first home buyer transfer duty exemption threshold from the current level of $320,000 to $350,000 from 1 July 2008, with a further increase to half a million dollars from 1 September 2008. This will take the threshold well beyond the median Queensland house price which to June 2007 varied from $370,000 in Brisbane to $420,000 on the Gold Coast and $450,000 in Noosa. This will bring 90 per cent of all first time home buyers into the scheme. While in theory it is laudable to support those starting out with a mortgage, it seems over the top that governments should be subsiding wealthier entrants to the tune of $10,000.

The “at a glance” graphs released by the government reveal how they can pay for all this pork barrelling. Queensland has the strongest balance sheet of all the states and the state economy is predicted to grow 4 percent in the next year despite the world downturn. Tax rates are $275 lower than the average for other states and territories. But Queensland success is tainted in that it is driven off fossil fuels. The state is effectively living off the back of its massive coal exports.

And despite Australia now signing up for Kyoto, Queensland shows no sign of winding down the coal industry. On the contrary, the budget has promised $575 million for additional track works on the coal network in Central Queensland, $70 million to increase the capacity of Abbot Point Coal Terminal near Bowen, $45 million to improve road networks in the Bowen Basin region and another $23 million for infrastructure works in the Gladstone area at Tanna in and Wiggan Island coal terminals.

One of the few good things that came out of the budget was the royalty tax rise on North West Shelf and Queensland coal miners. The previous 7 per cent Queensland royalty has risen to 10 per cent for all coal sold at more than $100 a tonne. The increase will add an additional $1.1 billion to state coffers. This list compiled by Stephen Mayne tracks the ownership and tax arrangements for Australia’s biggest resource projects and it shows that most states under-tax the multi-national companies that quarry the nation. So while Queensland should be applauded for keeping at least some of the resource boom profits in public hands, it desperately needs to consider the significant environmental challenges ahead. With the most recent Newspoll showing a 20 point lead to Labor over the disunited coalition, the Queensland Government can easily afford to look beyond next electoral cycle. Queensland deserves nothing less.

Japan and China: dangerous cracks appear under the polite surface

On the weekend, the Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a defence conference that the Chinese needed be more transparent about their military capability. Ishiba said Japan did not regard China as a security threat despite China’s increase in military spending but doubted all the money was spent purely on defence. In 2008, China’s military budget is $59 billion up 18 percent from last year. Ishiba said China must be willing to give details of its military arsenal, including ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. “[A] country has to be transparent on what sort of military capabilities it has and for what purpose,” he said. “Japan tries to be transparent in this sense, and I want to see the same transparency in China.”

But China is unlikely to offer an explicit outline of its national security strategy any time soon. According to the US based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), hina prefers to characterise its foreign policy and security goals in a series of principles and slogans. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping said China pursued an “independent foreign policy of peace”. Since then its official goals are “to preserve Chinese independence” and to “create a favourable international environment for China’s reform”. Since the early 1990s China has been busy modernising its military. Beijing has implemented double-digit increases to its defence budget every year since 1991.

CSIC cites what Hu Jintao called China’s “century of humiliation” between the mid 19th century (when European powers first subjugated the country) and 1945 (when the Japanese were finally expelled) as the touchstone for the commitment to preserving the nation’s territorial integrity. And as Communism declined as a credible unifying force in the events that led to Tiananmen Square, party leaders turned to nationalism and the return of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to the motherland as a means of restoring the regime’s prestige and the country’ stature.

With Hong Kong and Macao back in the fold, China has redoubled its strategy aimed addressing a possible Taiwan scenario. Beijing has consistently warned it would take military action if Taipei took steps to declare outright independence. The situation has become increasingly hostile in the last decade as more Anti-Chinese voices emerge in Taiwan. But tensions have eased slightly with the recent return to power in Taiwan of the KuoMinTang (KMT) who are opposed to the foreclosure of unification. Yesterday KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung used his Pro-China to appeal to Beijing to remove its bulk of missiles targeting Taiwan as a "concrete gesture of good will" in the upcoming cross-strait negotiations. While the Taiwanese opposition have accused Wu of being complacent about China’s threat, his call shows he may be able to astutely manage this precarious relationship. The two parties meet in Beijing on 11 June to discuss tourism and charter flights.

But while matters with Taiwan are on the mend, the relationship with Japan remains fraught with hazard. Last week Japan scrapped a plan for military aircraft to deliver earthquake relief to China over fears that it would revive painful memories of World War II. Japanese troops have not been back in the country since 1945 but sixty years is still considered too soon for most Chinese. Yet Japan sent in a rescue and medical team in the immediate aftermath without controversy. Meanwhile economic and trade relations between the two countries have reached unprecedented levels with bi-lateral trade reaching $190 billion in 2005. Japan is now China’s second largest trade partner behind the US while China is now Japan’s leading trade partner.

Yet relations in the political, military and public arenas have deteriorated in recent years as heightened pride, self-confidence and a sense of historical grievance fuels nationalism in both countries. China points to the Japanese textbooks that whitewash their aggression in the 1930s and 40s while successive Japanese Prime Ministers make an annual pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine which commemorates the country’s warrior culture (including the 14 “Class A” World War II war criminals). On the other side, the Chinese Communist Party has promoted anti-Japanese sentiment and propaganda in its own education system. Meanwhile both countries are at loggerheads over disputed territory in the East China Sea which contain gas and oil fields.

The East China Sea dispute occurs in an area where their exclusive economic zones overlap. But it is not just a fight about energy needs. The core issue is territory and sovereignty. The situation is a dangerous, increasingly militarised flashpoint which is vulnerable to miscalculation, accident and escalation. CSIC warns gloomily that both China and Japan are engaged in a “potentially destructive action-reaction cycle fuelled by deep populist antipathy and historical resentment towards one another”. While relations with Taiwan have thawed, this ice-cold conflict with Japan remains East Asia’s most potent problem and possibly the 21st century’s biggest political issue.

Being Digital: Internet growing pains

Bell Canada has awkwardly defended its practice of deliberately throttling Internet traffic, in a results of a regulatory audit released today. The phone company argues is necessary to relieve congestion on its network but substantial portions of the audit documents have been blacked out for "competitive reasons". This is a convenient way of avoiding scrutiny of the reasons why they slow down bandwidth-intensive peer-to-peer file-sharing protocols. Bell admits there is congestion, mostly caused by P2P transactions but argues that additional capacity would be "uneconomical since much of it would go unused during non-peak periods".

The report shows that the internet is straining. But while P2P goes under the microscope, the vast acres of blogs and social media go unchecked. The early 21st century appears to be the glory age for the democratisation of news on the Internet. With a rich repository of material online, optimists see the Internet as heralding in a new digital age in which citizens both generate and consume news while the big players no longer control political communication. On the cusp of the Internet age in the mid 1990s, one of those optimists (MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte) said that being digital allows the content provider to deliver a signal with information added to correct errors such as “telephone static, radio hiss or television snow”. This is true, and the quality of digital reproduction is one of its major selling points. But digital transmission doesn’t fix errors of fact, provide newsworthy content, or make dull writing good. The age-old journalistic skills apply as much as ever in the Internet age and may, in the end, be the only way of judging good content in an era when participatory publishing has exploded.

There is no denying there is a sense of power of being able to publish your own news site. An Nguyen defines Participatory Publishing (PP) as the act of the citizen or citizens playing an active role in collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information. PP is attracting people in ever larger numbers. In April 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking upwards of 70 million blogs, which represented a doubling in size since 2006 with 1.4 blogs being created every second of the day. The social networking sites also have blogging capability. By October 2007, Facebook had more than 42 million active users worldwide each potentially with their own ability to publish information online. What blogging and the social networks have exposed is the ease of entry to the publishing industry. They are inexpensive to set up and no longer require access to a printing press and retail distribution system. The users of these tools are the people formerly known as the audience as Jay Rosen calls them, or the “passengers on your ship that got a boat of their own”.

Those that remained aboard as readers have also become fractured. Wired’s Chris Anderson used the metaphor of the ‘long tail’ to describe the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream. The key towards successful publication in the long tail is delivering regular content to a niche audience. The 2007 Australian federal election saw many online sites actively promoting local political activism. Most prominent was youdecide2007.org at Queensland University of Technology, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with SBS, Online Opinion and the Brisbane Institute. Site co-editor Graham Young said the site’s aim was to use citizen journalists to report on their own electorates to fill the gap left by fewer journalists on the ground, especially in less populated areas. The site is modelled on the successful Korean citizen journalism service OhMyNews which mixes professional and large-scale amateur journalism with strong editorial oversight and professional site management. The key is “strong editorial oversight” which is the part most lacking in the unregulated stream of consciousness that emerges from the blogosphere.

There are also the questions of who reads all this information and for what purpose. In 2005, the researchers Nguyen, Ferrier, Western and McKay performed the first national "uses and gratification" survey of online news consumption in Australia. While they found that the Internet has reached mainstream status in terms of audience size, it tended to be more prevalent among the higher socio-economic segments of society. The study also found that immediacy was the most important feature for readers of online news. Two content-richness related elements also rated highly: the permanent availability of background information and the plethora of news choices available. The study confirms that the Internet is changing our definition of news and how people seek and use it. The most popular websites in Australia are not established news sites but search engines, predominately Google. Google makes money not by trying to keep its audiences but by sending them elsewhere. While most news organisations are wary of outgoing links without an editorial justification, the lesson to learn from Google is that online website owners should not be afraid to add value by including relevant links to other sites in their content.

Nonetheless, as a result of all these innovations, there is a profound groundshift in the way news is generally understood. In 2004, Associated Press CEO Tom Curley said “we [journalists] have to free their content from the expensive containers known as newspapers and broadcast bulletins. It means a change from the news as a lecture to news as conversation”. By this he means that no-one owns the news any more. This takes news back full circle to the turn of the 20th century when modern journalism emerged from the limited public sphere of the era and was directly accountable to its readers. That sense of direct accountability and conversation is built into the blogging platform. But the Internet is suffering growing pains, as the problem with P2P shows. Lets hope it will fit into its new bandwidth.

Gujjars seek to downgrade their caste status

The Rajastani capital of Jaipur remains tense today as thousands of members of one of India’s lowest caste fight a seemingly bizarre battle to have their status lowered still. But the traditionally nomadic Gujjar people are taking this battle very seriously with a deathtoll that has reached 39 in fighting with authorities in the last seven days. In the Byzantine world of the Indian caste system, the Gujjars are fighting to be downgraded. The mostly Muslim Gujjars are considered as Other Backward Classes (OBC) which entitles them to access to 27 per cent of government jobs and university places but they want Scheduled Tribe (ST) status which would open the door to even further grants and positive discrimination entitlements. The protests began after the state government refused calls for their re-classification.

The violence began when Gujjar protesters lynched a policeman and police responded by opening fire on the demonstrators, killing 38 of them. Since then, the Government and the Gujjar community have been using the bodies of the slain protesters as bargaining chips in the dispute. At least 37 bodies are awaiting cremation, with the Gujjars holding 18 bodies at Bayana and Sikandara, while the state holds another 19 bodies inside morgues in Jaipur and Bharatpur. The government say the Gujjars have not permitted autopsies on the Bayana and Sikandara bodies. They are now hesitant to release the morgues bodies because they might be used as bargaining chips in the agitation for ST status. One man said he has been waiting for five days to collect his cousin's body. “Nobody is telling me anything and the condition of others at our home is really pathetic,” he said. “This is absolute cruelty as they first shot our brothers dead and are now refusing to even give back their bodies.”

The violence has spread to New Delhi where 500 people squatted on a major road in a seventh day of agitation associated with Gujjar demands. The state government has been forced to deploy 35,000 police and invoke the National Security Act as railway services were cancelled and major roads blocked in and out of the capital. The government of Rajasthan has told the Gujjars to take the appeal to the federal Government in Delhi but the federal coalition Government, led by the Congress Party has been trying to wash its hands of the matter saying it should be handled by the authorities in Rajasthan.

However, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that Gujjars are treated differently from state to state. The only states where the two million Gujjars are recognised as having ST status are Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Gujjars form a significant part of the populations of Rajasthan and Delhi where they are still considered OBCs. State governments there say that although Gujjars were originally nomadic, they have since become more settled on the land and more involved in agriculture and therefore not as deserving of special consideration.

Scheduled Tribes are recognised by the Indian constitution. It refers to indigenous groups living in forests and hills whose status is enshrined by national legislation. These groups are explicitly recognised as requiring support to overcome entrenched discrimination. The constitution provides three means of supporting STs. They are protective arrangements (laws which ban discrimination and enforce equality), compensatory discrimination (affirmative action to allocate job and higher education quotas to STs) and development (resources and monetary benefits).

But even ST status does not help prevent the oppression of Gujjar women. In the border province of Jammu and Kashmir, a study found that 89 percent of all Gujjar women are illiterate. The researcher, Dr Javid Rahi said early marriage, illiteracy, extreme poverty and nomadic way of life were all casting dark shadows over the future of hundreds of thousands of nomadic Gujjar women in the region. The women (who make up 10 percent of the state’s population) were being exploited and became the victim of superstitions. Because of early marriage and social status, only 12 per cent of Gujjar girls were admitted to primary school and most of these leave early. Rahi said there was not a single Gujjar woman officer in the civil service, parliament, banks, universities or in journalism. Scheduled or not, life remains a grind for the tribes of Gujjar women.

Perfidious Albion: the tale of the TOD and the Mill

At the Global Retail Real Estate Convention last week organised by the International Council of Shopping Centres in Las Vegas, urban strategist Chris Leinberger kicked off a discussion by talking about the industry’s new buzzword: the TOD. The TOD is an acronym for Transit Oriented Development. TODs are mixed-use, high density, pedestrian and cycling “lifestyle centres” situated on vacant land near railway stations. The idea has been around for at least five years but is suddenly big in American planning circles. Leinberger, a visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, described them as the biggest structural change in urban development since the 1950s. “[The TOD is] one of the most important trends of our time,” he told the Vegas conference. “It is a structural shift in development”.

This structural shift is looking an increasingly attractive option in the era of high petrol prices and TODs are taking off rapidly in the US. City planners in Washington DC, Portland, Seattle, Austin and Denver all have TOD projects in various phases of planning or completion. The idea of living, working and shopping within walking distance of public transport is clearly an attractive idea whose time has come. And now, slowly but surely, the idea is crossing the Pacific.

Car dependent Australian cities face many of the same problems encountered by US urban areas and local authorities here are starting to look at Transit Oriented Development solutions. The urban sprawl of the South East Queensland corridor from Coolangatta to Noosa in particular, is straining at the edges as it copes with large internal immigration from the southern states. Authorities are now looking to TODs to play a key role in achieving social, economic and environmental sustainability in the region. In 2005, the State Government released its South East Queensland regional plan (pdf) for the 21 year period 2005-2026 and it identified several planned TODs which would be located in existing public transport hubs of Milton, Bowen Hills, Buranda, Woolloongabba, Cleveland and Albion.

The plan called for a taskforce to implement the TODs. Each development will incorporate high density housing, commercial development to encourage employment opportunities, open spaces, and seamless integration between the transit node (railway or bus station) and the community. However the taskforce will face some considerable difficulties to make their plans a reality. They need to bring the community with them. While professionals have been exposed to this fairly new concept, it has not yet gelled in the larger community. Yet TOD has the potential to significantly change the lifestyle for the whole community. A number of the TOD sites such as Milton, Woolloongabba and Albion contain a substantial number of character houses. These low density Queenslander style houses are protected from local development, making it difficult to implement TOD-style development.

The TOD closest to where I live is at Albion, about 6km north of Brisbane city. Albion is an older suburb, somewhat disconnected from its nearby inner-city suburbs of The Valley and Bowen Hills by the vast expanse of the Mayne railyards and the natural geographical boundary of Breakfast Creek. In recent years, property values have skyrocketed as younger buyers are attracted to its proximity to the city and its railway station. The suburb’s population grew by five percent in 2006. Over five years, the proportion of residents between 25 and 39 years of age has increased by almost six per cent. Because of its changing demographic and infrastructure, the area around Albion station has been identified for a TOD. Surprisingly then, Brisbane City Council’s 2005 draft Albion Neighbourhood Plan does not discuss the TOD in any detail.

The proposal was devised to make sure that Albion’s heritage and unique characteristics are protected. It promoted the area on Sandgate Road known as “Albion Village” as the core retail, restaurant and entertainment precinct. It spoke about protecting the character and heritage values of Albion and providing easy access for pedestrians and cyclists to public transport, parks, Breakfast Creek and Brisbane River. But the only reference to the TOD states a goal that “development in the Station Precinct, be in keeping with the precinct's role as a transit oriented development”. While the plan does not define what the TOD is, it does mention that “future opportunities for land…to support mixed use, high density residential development…may occur in the medium term when the flour mill redevelopment is substantially occupied.” The flour mill development is the key phrase here, and is at the heart of Albion’s TOD.

The flour mill is Albion’s dominant landmark. Situated next to the station, it is a large derelict six storey building with two massive nearby silos. The Flour Mill was built in 1930 and was constructed by the Stuart Brothers for the princely sum of £8,500 just as the depression was about to bite. The original five-storey brick structure housed the mill in the eastern section and storage and parking was located in the western part. Additional buildings were added after World War II including a laboratory and boiler house. In 1957 the mill began to package self-raising flour under the retail name “white wings” which was the first Australian brand to introduce cake mix to the local market. The two iconic silos were added in the 1960s.

In 1983 the mill was bought out by Defiance Milling who ran it until 2002 when they were taken over by Allied Mills a conglomerate controlled by the multinational food group Cargill. Allied quickly bought out many of Australia’s old milling companies including Defiance, Geo. Fielder Co Pty Ltd, Gillespie Brothers Holdings Ltd, Mungo Scott, Bunge Australia, White Rose Flour Mills, Sunshine Mills, Murrumbidgee Milling Co-operative, McLeod’s Milling and Great Southern Flour Mills. The market was ripe for consolidation. Predictably the Albion Mill closed within two years and has been derelict since 2004. Once Albion was identified for a TOD, negotiations began in earnest for the site.

Property developers FKP began public consultation on development of the flour mill site in April 2006. FKP Property Group, founded 30 years ago in Queensland, describe themselves as a “top ASX200 performer” with offices in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. For the half-year to 31 December 2007, FKP reported a 33 per cent increase in net profit to $73m. In 2006, they agreed on a $7.5 million purchase of the site. They submitted a development application to the Brisbane City Council for the site in August 2006. The plan, according to FKP’s Queensland commercial development manager Angus Campbell, was to turn the site into “an urban hub”.

In November 2007 the State Government confirmed to the Brisbane City Council that agreement had been reached with FKP to build a multimillion-dollar footbridge to the railway station; the final component needed for the development to proceed. The 1.3 hectare site would be transformed. The ground floor retail space would include cafes and restaurants, a major supermarket, medical centre, newsagency, deli, bakery and grocers. Announcing the plan at Albion station, State Premier Anna Bligh hinted at its TOD possibilities when she said: "It will transform what is not a particularly attractive area into a first-class precinct providing a vibrant place where people can live, work and socialise only eight minutes’ train ride from the City”.

In January 2008, FKP Properties formally announced a $280 million mixed-use development on the site. The plan would keep the heritage listed mill and its silos which would be a focal point for a mix of buildings linked by public plazas and community spaces. It also called for twenty thousand square metres of office space to be spread over two commercial buildings, one 12-storey and the other a five-storey campus style building.

Then deputy mayor David Hinchliffe hailed the project as “the key to Brisbane’s future”. He told the ABC that if “we keep building out further and further into the suburbs, it's going to lead to congestion of our arteries.” He said all Brisbane’s roadways would be clogged up. “That's why smart growth like the Albion Mill project has to be the way of the future,” he said. Project architect Richard Kirk was similarly enthusiastic. He said the Mill redevelopment was a great opportunity to re-work one of Brisbane’s much loved landmarks. “Historically the site began as a part of the Albion Village," he said. “And it was the main intent of the project to re-connect the site back into the Village”.

But not everyone is impressed by the redevelopment. Town planner Tristan Peach was disappointed the residential component was aimed at the luxury market and thought it would be difficult for the small shops to compete with the planned supermarket. However he conceded the development would improve what he called Albion station's "desolate feel". Sociologist and writer Mark Bahnisch was more scathing. He described the project as “the victim of a tussle between the Council and developers, eventually to be resolved mostly in the latter’s favour - with the token addition of a modicum of public housing.” Bahnisch disputes the architect’s blurb that the development is “soulful”. At Larvatus Prodeo last month, Bahnisch wrote: “We can only imagine what the mill might have looked like if someone with the same vision which transformed the Powerhouse had cast an eye over it.” He continued: “Sundering the link between developers’ donations to political parties and the planning process can’t come quick enough, but it will have already been too late for Albion’s heritage”.

Albion's heritage was sealed when the council approved the application this year as a “mixed use” TOD. A marathon sitting of Brisbane City Council on 29 January recognised that the proposal presented significant issues. It was noted that the new 12 storey building will dwarf the sense of history of the old mill and therefore failed to adhere to the TOD principle of “development of a place through design”. There were also issues raised about the volume of traffic, noise levels, the lack of open space and bikeways, all of which were also contrary to TOD principles. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the plan was approved.

Albion upholsterer John Ward believes the changes are for the better. Ward has been a businessman in the area for more than 20 years. He said Albion was developing into a destination for more than local residents, with the Albion Village restaurant strip proving a major drawcard. "In the early days you could walk down the street and run into people you knew, but now you don't," he said. "The traffic has gotten a lot heavier and there has been a lot of changes". Ward said the changing face of Albion had resulted in many of the older houses being restored and a noticeable surge of new development occurring. "There could be a few changes around the area but what people have done around the area is a huge improvement to what it was yesteryear,” he said. People had better get used to the changes and a new word. A TOD, however imperfect, is coming to Albion.