Oz Updates

[Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

G'day all,

>From Canberra ...

Australia's Foreign Affairs Department today released a package of secret
documents concerning East Timor - from July 1974 to late 1976.  It shows
our secret service knew of a provisional invasion plan in July '74, that Oz
PM Whitlam (the left's hero here) not only condoned but very possibly
encouraged Soeharto to go in (the latter says in the papers that his plans
and resolve 'crystallised' during his September '74 talks with Whitlam),
and that the Department knew three days in advance of the Indonesian battle
plan - including the rather important bit about how the town of Balibo was
a focus for the assault - which is where we had our journalists ensconced,
and which is where they duly died three days later.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne ...

Bill Gates got his turn at the WEF - assuring everyone that IT was closing
the gap between the poor and the rich.  He got into the casino thanks to a
mounted police charge on the front door that injured several dozen
protesters.  The unions (well, the two best of 'em) duly joined in after
the aggro was past.  One interesting moment was when the crowd parted like
the biblical sea when its Moses, Vandana Shiva, wanted to get in.  She's
been getting a lot of coverage, too - and her possie within the trenches
and fortifications has lent much credence to the
'I-know!-Let's-have-some-democratic-content-in-globalisation!' case.

For the rest of the suits (bar our ACTU boss, the only other woman,
incidentally), it was all just a problem in public relations, and they
smugly said so.  The protesters didn't understand, and the message merely
needed better 'selling'.

David Hale was probably the most appallingly arrogant of an appallingly
arrogant bunch of suits - but that's hardly news,I s'pose (he spoke for the
less diplomatic half of the convocation, to the effect that all outside
were thugs who 'just didn't like life').  Fortunately, he was so
sumptuously reclined, exquisitely dressed and smugly smiled that the
majority of viewers could not help but detest him on sight.

Cheers,
Rob.