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A peacemaker walks up to the left side of a line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker introduces himself. The terrorist kills him. A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks, "why did you kill my friend?" The terrorist kills him and rapes his wife. A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "Stop that!" The terrorist kills him,...

The Muslims refused to assimilate. They were expelled. This was the story in Europe 400 years ago. We are watching the sequel today. Europeans are rarely welcoming to outsiders, even when the outsiders are blond and blue-eyed and come from the country next door. When the outsiders are un-European, swarthy and Muslim, they are tolerated at best. When some Muslims also insist that Europeans stop acting like Europeans, on pain of death, European tolerance comes to an end. In the clash of cultures between secular Europeans and extremist Muslims, there can ultimately be no compatibility or compromise, only loss by...

The appointment of a Muslim student as head girl of St Mary's College has raised eyebrows among some who feel the top spot should be reserved for a Catholic. Aysser Aljanabi, an Iraqi student and one of the 10 per cent of non-Catholics at the state integrated Wellington city school has been selected as head girl for 2006. Head students are usually chosen after a student vote and discussions between senior staff and the principal. Old Girls Association president Vonnie Nunns said the appointment had been controversial and admitted to being surprised at a Muslim being made head girl. She...

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life. To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months. To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to...

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lost his diplomatic cool with a reporter today, calling him an "overgrown schoolboy" in a show of anger at questions over his part in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. The normally unruffled Annan responded calmly at an end-of-year news conference to several questions on the $US64 billion ($NZ95 billion) programme, which he said had sometimes been covered through "deliberate leaks" that were "fed by people with agendas." Journalists, he said, often missed the story, such as oil smuggling outside of the UN programme, recently documented by a UN-established inquiry headed by former US Federal Reserve...

Let me begin by stating that I am in favor of capital punishment. I don’t view it as a deterrent, understand, I consider it the only appropriate punishment for cold-blooded murder. Actually, I have only two objections to it. The first is that the killer with more than one murder to his credit can only be executed the one time. Next, I resent the fact that no matter how much he may have tortured his victims, society has seen fit to send him off as painlessly as possible. I find it bizarre that in a country where mercy killings are...

The piece is available by subscription only. Given its importance, I have taken the liberty of publishing it in full: Just over a year ago Charles Duelfer was almost murdered by a suicide bomber in Baghdad. He was saved by the Kansas National Guardsmen in his security detail, who sacrificed their lives for his. The incident provides an allegory for what is happening in Iraq — a struggle, in Duelfer’s words, between ‘the worst of humanity and the best of humanity’, a war between the forces of destruction and creation. It is a struggle in which there can be no...

Key points • Galloway off to the USA to face accusers • Fresh accusations and allegations have been levelled at the MP • Lawyer of former Iraqi foreign minister is said to deny truth of allegations Key quote "...Mr Galloway will be brought to justice" - Senator Norm Coleman GEORGE Galloway will mount a crusade to clear his name in the United States after American prosecutors confirmed they were considering a criminal investigation into allegations over his role in Iraq's oil-for-food scandal. Yesterday the US Justice Department appeared to have taken up the Respect MP's call to "bring on" a...

HIS DENIAL was carefully worded from the first. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, never bought one, never sold one and neither has anyone on my behalf." But this, as George Galloway should have known, was never the accusation. The bribery system set up by Saddam Hussein - and run with the connivance of United Nations officials overseeing the $64bn oil-for-food programme - was never so crude as to require its beneficiaries to trade oil, or ask anyone to do so. It offered vouchers which were handled through trusted local intermediaries and easily converted into cleanly-laundered money. For...

The police officer who outed convicted paedophile Barry Grant Brown has told Wellington District Court he did so because a visit to Brown's flat caused him grave concern. "I was very concerned that his location was totally inappropriate and I could not understand why he had been put there," Inspector Peter Cowan said yesterday. There were schools, playgrounds and reasonably dense shrubbery nearby. Mr Brown, 39, is suing police for $80,000. He was identified in 2001 when police circulated leaflets including his photograph, physical description and information about his criminal past to residents of Strathmore, Wellington. He has convictions for...

WHEN George Galloway was last in America, the New York Post marked the occasion with the headline, “Brit fries senators in oil”. Tonight he will attempt the same culinary feat with Christopher Hitchens, the British-born columnist. In a sold-out debate in New York, the erstwhile guest of Saddam Hussein will try to persuade Mr Hitchens, a born-again supporter of the Iraq war, that the war is a disaster. Mr Galloway said that he hopes things do not get personal, but they already have. He told The Times that if Mr Hitchens chose to get “down and dirty” he would find...

The United States has let New Zealand take part in a multi-national military exercise off Singapore, but is refusing to say whether it signals a wider thaw in the Anzus defence standoff. New Zealand and United States forces are taking part in the exercise this week, which is based around the simulated interception of ships carrying weapons of mass destruction. Australia and Japan are among other nations also taking part. New Zealand has been blocked since the mid-1980s from taking part in joint exercises with the US, due to our anti-nuclear policy. There have been exceptions when the two countries...

British MP (member of parliament) George Galloway told Al Bawaba on Wednesday that the Americans are losing the war in Iraq as he also warned that the forerunners of a civil war are peeking in on Lebanon.He also called on the Lebanese opposition not to transform Lebanon into “a knife in Syria’s back". Galloway also criticized British Premier Tony Blair vehemently for denying the connection between his country’s participation in the invasion of Iraq and the London explosions. Galloway, who arrived in Amman on a leg of his Middle East tour, said “the Americans are losing the war,” pointing out...

As former hostage Douglas Wood meets Prime Minister John Howard, PAUL KENT travels to Iraq to meet the man who saved the Australian's life ON THE night they brought in 35 more Australian troops to do Australia's fighting, the little man with the eternal light was out in the Iraqi suburbs, weaving whatever it is that makes the legend grow. He is not Australian, yet he senses the place he holds in Australian hearts. He is not a big man, and yet with every new conquest he seems to grow. "Big power," he calls it, and he couldn't be more...

A 1999 graduate of Heritage High School in Littleton was one of two commandos found dead in Afghanistan after disappearing June 28, the Navy announced Wednesday. The body of Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Danny Philip Dietz, 25, a SEAL who joined the Navy three months after graduating from high school, was recovered on the Fourth of July, the military said. Dietz and three other Navy SEALs were searching for Taliban-led rebels and al-Qaida fighters when they were surrounded in rugged mountains at dusk, setting in motion a tragic chain of events. A Special Forces helicopter sent to rescue the four...

JUDGES in Bali have agreed to reopen the drug-smuggling case against Schapelle Corby to hear new evidence from up to thirty witnesses. The chief judge of Bali's High Court, Made Lingga, said he would allow Corby's lawyers to present new witnesses backing the former beauty therapy student's claims she did not know about 4.1 kilograms of marijuana found in her luggage at Bali airport last year. One of the witnesses was said to be a person already in custody who had admitted owning the marijuana stash. "The possibility of freedom is there if the alibi is true," Lingga said....

A HOSTAGE held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one. Swede Ulf Hjertstrom, who was held for several weeks with Mr Wood in Baghdad, was released by his kidnappers on May 30. Mr Hjertstrom has since claimed he shared information with US and Iraqi troops about Mr Wood which led to the release of the 63-year-old Australian engineers two weeks ago, after 47 days in captivity. Now, he wants to find those responsible. "I have now put some people to work to find these...

SCHAPELLE Corby's mother last night called on her jailed daughter's self-appointed white knight, Gold Coast mobile phone entrepreneur Ron Bakir, to get out of her daughter's life. Rosleigh Rose said Mr Bakir's "meddling" was partly to blame for her daughter's 20-year sentence for drug-smuggling and was angry at demands for $500,000 in expenses he has claimed to have made. "We didn't ask him to come on board, we didn't know him from a bar of soap, and now it seems like he's trying to profit from Schapelle's misery," Ms Rose said. She spoke on the eve of a Bulletin magazine...

Seizing on public embarrassment as a deterrent, the Chicago Police Department has begun posting on its website the names, addresses and photos of people arrested for soliciting prostitutes. "We're telling everyone who sets foot in Chicago, if you solicit a prostitute, you'll be arrested," Mayor Richard Daley said. "And when you are arrested, people will know. Your spouse, your children, your families, your neighbours and your employers." Some newspapers already print the names of those arrested for soliciting sex for money. Cities have tried broadcasting mug shots on community access TV channels. And in Oakland, California, officials began a "shaming...

Not sure if this is a Vanity post or what but my GoogleAlert on this traitorous weasel notified me thusly: "TheyWorkForYou.com is the best place to get the unadulterated lowdown on what your MP has said and done in your name. At the bottom of each MP's page, you can now see how much money your MP has claimed in allowances over the past three years." Its hard to explain really, you need to have a look around, especially at the expenses of "george" and also a comments section which no-one has used to send one to the man we...