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I am a competitive shooter. My friend Bill is an accomplished golfer. We have had numerous discussions about the similarities of our respective sports. Recently, the subject turned to the hassles involved in participating in our pastimes. Bill's major complaint was the hassle involved in flying with golf clubs and the risk of them being stolen. After I finished telling him about the incredible "hassle-factor" in the shooting sports he promised to never complain again. That discussion prompted me to ponder how the golfers of America would feel if golf were like shooting. I think they would be outraged, ...

ELEANOR HALL: Well another key theme of the United States President's Asian tour is thanking the supporters of his war on terrorism and high up on that list is Philippines President, Gloria Arroyo. President Arroyo has controversially invited US forces back to the Philippines to help hunt down the Muslim separatist guerrillas of the Abu Sayyaf, who are allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden, and after weeks of political wrangling, the joint mission has now been launched. From Zamboanga in the Southern Philippines, Geoff Thompson reports. GEOFF THOMPSON: US Green Berets begin Balikatan. It's a Filipino term meaning shoulder-to-shoulder. ...

WHEN HUNTING WAS LOST Dateline USA: 27th August 2009. Reporter: Jim Beers. Hunting by American citizens was officially lost yesterday when US Fish & Wildlife Service Director, Dr. Grandy and Secretary of the Interior Pacelle issued regulations implementing President Hillary Clinton’s Executive Order. The regulations and the Executive Order were issued immediately upon the US Senate vote confirming the President’s signing of the UN Treaty to Treat All Plants, Animals, Humans, and Ecosystems Equally (TAPHEE). The US delegation, consisting of Federal bureaucrats and lobbyists from US conservation and animal rights groups, led the way in drafting the Treaty at the ...

ZIMBABWE’S CAPITAL, HARARE (formerly Salisbury) at this time of the year feels a little like Toowoomba (Queensland, Australia); hot enough in daytime to remind us that we are in summer, and pleasantly cool at night.  The Sydney-Johannesburg direct flight dips far to the south and takes fourteen hours. Four hours wait in Joburg for the connection, and another hour and a half northwards.    It’s been a long trip, and the airport officials seem keen to shut down as we must be the last incoming flight. The Zimbabwe Immigration official sells tourist visas for US$30. The strongly built Customs ladies ...

original article title : Human trafficking link to home murders Two unsolved home invasion robbery murders in Sydney may be linked to an international human-trafficking ring behind the theft of identity documents of Chinese-Australian residents, police say. Detectives investigating the murders of teacher Muhai Huang, 49, and visiting student Yuan Yu, 26, have sought information on the workings of the gang suspected of 500 robberies at the homes of Chinese immigrants over the past three years. Three illegal Chinese immigrants arrested in Cabramatta seven weeks ago were found to have an alleged list of more than 100 names of other ...

MELBOURNE, Australia - In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, a woman in Australia has settled with an abortion practitioner she had sued because he failed to inform her of the research linking abortion with breast cancer. Both pro-life and abortion-rights advocates wonder if similar settlements might not follow suit in the United States. A confidentiality agreement prevents details of the settlement, which was negotiated in September and just recently became public, from being released. But Australian legal precedent, said Australian attorney Charles Francis, requires doctors to inform their patients of any material risks ...

Read the story at msnbc.com A 43-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria, went to the Appalachian School of Law on Wednesday to talk to his dean, L. Anthony Sutin, about Odighizuwa's dismissal for failing grades, officials said. He shot Sutin and professor Thomas Blackwell, who taught Odighizuwa's contracts classes, with a .380-caliber pistol, authorities and students said. Also killed was student Angela Dales, 33..." We at JPFO express our anger at the killer, our sympathy for the survivors of the three persons killed and for those three others who were gravely injured, as well as to all those who grieve ...

THE executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Prega Ramsamy, on Wednesday urged the Commonwealth to give Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe a chance and not to suspend his country. "President Robert Mugabe has made pledges and has to be given a chance to fulfil them," Ramsamy told a press conference in Botswana, two days after a SADC summit where Zimbabwe's March elections and political violence were high on the agenda. Zimbabwe's government policies will be examined at a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) due to take place on January 30, after two years of ...

The Wildlife Legislative Fund of America (WLFA) is reporting thatDaimlerChrysler, maker of the popular Jeep line of vehicles, has launching an advertising campaign that glorifies anti-hunters and vilifies hunters. In Jeep's 'Deer Hunter' commercial, a man drives a Jeep through a wooded site with two deer tied on top of the vehicle.  As the Jeep drives by,hunters in camouflage are shown in the woods, in close proximity to each other and the road, admiring the man's deer.  The driver of the Jeep then crosses the road to a location that shows a "No Hunting" sign.  The Jeep stops, the ...

HUNDREDS of people demonstrated outside the Nigerian embassy in Rome on Wednesday to protest against a sentence of death by stoning passed by an Islamic court in Nigeria against a woman accused of adultery. Safiya Husaini (35) was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery last year in Sokoto in Northern Nigeria. She insists that she never committed adultery, but was in fact raped. Her case is currently pending appeal. "We hope that some good will come out of this affair and we think that the execution will not take place," said Enrico Pianetta, the chairman of the Italian parliamentary ...

The fall of the rand by DUNCAN DU BOIS For weeks we have been treated to an egg dance around the shrine of political correctness as to why the rand is in freefall. Then last week, despite the urgency of the situation, we were told that a special strategy meeting would be convened in January to determine measures to rescue the rand. The tragedy of the fiasco, however, is that the ANC government is the cause of it, not the solution. As this column remarked on December 14, international political mistrust of the Mbeki government lies at the root of ...

Scimitar Society (reader's letter to the Australian conservative magazine Quadrant, December 2001) Sir: I am writing to add my voice to yours in respect of the editorial "Compassion, Illegal immigration and Hypocrisy" (October 2001). But I would also like to say that I take umbrage with the terms elite and intellectual that recur so frequently throughout the editorial. Journalists and schoolteachers, together with a few academics in disciplines like sociology, education, anthropology and political science, do not constitute an intellectual elite, so much as a coterie of reciprocating collaborators of narrow dogma, used to repress the thoughts of those who ...

The resilient Top End folk of Pine Creek (Northern Territory, Australia) are taking a novel stand against marauding feral pigs that are ravaging their gardens. The gold mining town of 400 has posted a $1,300 reward of cash and prizes for the biggest porker bagged during a four-day wild pig shoot. Competition ends with a New Zealand-style hangi (pit barbecue) and a live band on New Year's Day. The worst pig problem the town, 200km south of Darwin, can remember began with the start of the wet season last month as the pests ventured from the scrub to feed on ...

US President George W. Bush is sceptical about American Airlines' claim that it removed an Arab-American agent in Bush's security team from a plane for being "hostile". "I know the man, I am most appreciative of his service to me and my wife. He is an honorable fellow," Bush said. "I would be surprised if he was hostile." The US Secret Service, which is responsible for presidential security, said in late December it had launched an inquiry into why the agent, headed to Texas to protect a holidaying Bush, was removed from the aircraft. The agent, speaking through his lawyers, ...

SOUTH Africa's largest business chamber is calling on the government to investigate the reasons for the recent sharp fall of the country's currency, its top official said on Friday. Kevin Wakeford, South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) chief executive, said a commission was needed to investigate why the rand has last some 40% of its value since the start of 2001. "We call on the relevant authorities to establish a commission to investigate the rapid demise in recent times of the rand," Wakeford said. Last month the currency hit a new record low against the greenback, trading at over 13 ...

"I'm going to King-Land, King-Land; in Atlanta, G-A, I'm going to King-Land..." - with apologies to singer Paul Simon. It appears that the family of slain civil rights giant Martin Luther King, Jr. is looking for more ways to milk the King name for as much money as humanly possible. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if a theme park in Atlanta is in the offing. The King family would be able to charge as much as an admission to Disney World, and be able to pocket the majority of it. The federal government has authorized the construction ...

Air marshals are no safeguard against hijackings and may cost the public dearly in ticket prices, writes Christopher Kremmer. The dispute between the (Australian) Federal Government and (domestic airline) Virgin Blue over who should pay for putting air marshals on passenger planes is like two brutes fighting for the hand of a maiden. Whoever wins, it's the bride - in this case the public - who pays, either through their taxes or travel costs. Writing as someone who survived an airline hijacking, I'd suggest the debate is a dangerous distraction from the real issue, which is whether the Government's response ...

The Queen, in solemn mood for her 50th Christmas message, reflected on the evil of the September 11 terrorist outrages in America. In a downbeat television, radio and internet broadcast, she acknowledged that the past year had brought trials and disasters for many people. The UK had been hit by floods as well as the foot-and-mouth epidemic, with devastating consequences. "But whilst many of these events were of natural origin, it was the human conflicts and the wanton acts of crime and terror against fellow human beings which have so appalled us all," she said. "The terrorist outrages in ...

Moving beyond the stereotype of Islam is essential to stem a century of decline, writes Tanveer Ahmed. There has been much coverage about the dinner parties of our "elite" and our "chattering classes", but the thoughts and debates of Muslim households are coming to light only recently. Theirs is a voice that has been sparingly heard, and often poorly articulated by their cleric representatives. America is searching its soul and has found flags to wave and soundtracks to sing. Any shreds of self-doubt have soon turned to apple-pie triumphalism. Their confidence is simultaneously awe-inspiring and frightening. Surely there has ...

A high-level investigation into a mysterious mass stranding of whales may offer an insight into why they so regularly beach themselves, and may force changes to way ships use sonar. For years scientists and conservationists have tried to prove a link between the death of whales and noise pollution - military sonar, explosions, seismic tests for the oil industry and other man-made noises, which may be inaudible to us but deafening to sea creatures. The United States Navy has now admitted that sonar emitted from its warships in the Bahamas in March last year contributed to the death of ...