Coalition failing its Geneva duty: Minister
A British Cabinet Minister says the coalition forces in Iraq have failed their Geneva Convention obligations to maintain order and keep civil administration running.
Clair Short almost resigned as Britain's Secretary of State for International Development over the war.
She says the coalition clearly was not sufficiently prepared and should have done better in managing Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Ms Short says the humanitarian situation in Iraq is worrying and urgent.
"The coalition has a duty to provide for the immediate humanitarian needs of the people, to keep order and to keep civil administration running," Ms Short said. "Of course, order isn't there and civil administration isn't running."
Ms. Short said that she would resign immediately as a matter of principle. Later Ms. Short said that she had been grossly misquoted by herself and that resignation had never been an option. Clarifying her position to her constituents Ms. Short was allegedly automisquoted again, "My resignation is in the mail. I'm a member of the Government and I'm here to help
Later in the House Ms. Short, flanked by her personal astrologer and a Section 651:11-a, further clarified her position, "I'm a little teapot short and stout and as such Henny Penny has my total support. Ying tong ying tong Ying tong ying tong Ying tong iddle I po. Hello Sailor."
Spam canned under new laws
The Commonwealth Government will introduce new laws to ban unsolicited email, known as spam, in Australia.
A report into the problem showed that spam accounts for 20 per cent of all email traffic and usually has a commercial focus, promoting or selling services that are sometimes illegal.
Federal Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston, says the problem is escalating and steps need to be taken to stop the deluge of junk email.
"It's the clogging up of the system as much as the nature of the content, but clearly there is a lot of stuff there that is offensive to a lot of people," Senator Alston said.
"So the combination of the two means that people whatever solutions can be put in place should be put in place."
Wotdafark does that last sentence mean?! (Yes, from our Australian Minister for Communications!)
Any-bloody-how only 2% of spam heading to Oz email boxes is home grown. AND guess what? Following up on this is a campaign offering Anti SPAM $oftware. Yep, sent as unsolicited emails. Yep, SPAM!
