10 thoughts on “Midweek Message Board

  1. All those DDT proponents who were so concerned about getting mosquito nets to poor people should be aware that – for some strange reason – it also required massive corruption and bribery:

    The country’s anti-corruption czar on Tuesday said the former director of the National Malaria Center (CNM) must pay back the $351,000 in bribes he took in exchange for mosquito net contracts—effectively admitting the ex-director’s guilt—but that he would not be prosecuted.

    Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chairman Om Yentieng said the government could not take Duong Socheat, now an adviser to CPP Senate President Say Chhum, to court because his alleged crimes predated the Anti-Corruption Law. It was at least the third excuse Mr. Yentieng has proffered for the government’s refusal to prosecute the former malaria center chief.

    In 2013, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria released the results of a yearslong investigation, accusing Mr. Socheat of taking the bulk of some $410,000 in bribes to secure $12 million in Global Fund grants for a pair of foreign mosquito net providers over several years. The ACU eventually opened its own investigation and said it was probing Mr. Socheat’s bank accounts as recently as June.

    Looks like a scam, waddles like a scam, quacks like a scam….

  2. Brilliant Clarke & Dawe tonight.

    They manage to have a go at “journalism”, “Grexit” and “privatization” all in just over 2 minutes.

    Grexistentialism.

  3. It has come to light that there were eight Emergency Response Team officers used to spy on Sarah Hanson-Young during her visit to Nauru. Eight is a hell of a lot more than “a lone rogue operative.”

    Remember how the egregious Peter Dutton said this of Sarah Hanson-Young?

    Immigration Minister Peter Dutton also dismissed the claims, saying the senator “makes these allegations which are completely unfounded” and “she gets most of her facts wrong most of the time”.

    “I think Senator Hanson-Young conducts herself in a way which is frankly an embarrassment to our country,” he said.

    If there is an embarrassment to our country, I think we need not look further than the utterer of those words in the first place. I sincerely hope he gives her an apology.

  4. @Megan

    All those DDT proponents who were so concerned about getting mosquito nets to poor people should be aware that – for some strange reason – it also required massive corruption and bribery

    How does DDT come into it? Mosquito nets are an alternative to DDT for malaria control. Cambodia doesn’t use DDT (it’s mainly used in India and parts of Africa).
    Damn shame about the corruption though.

  5. I didn’t put it as clearly as I could have.

    “DDT” is short-hand for the pesticide industry vs. organic prevention (such as mosquito nets).

    But it isn’t “either/or” because the industry will get its way regardless.

    PHNOM PENH, 14 November 2011 (IRIN) – Millions of Cambodians are set to receive insecticide-treated mosquito nets as part of a government-led effort to mitigate the risk of malaria and dengue fever.

    “This is Asia’s largest-ever distribution of mosquito nets. It will cover over 4,000 villages in 20 provinces in Cambodia,” Steven Bjorge, malaria team leader at The World Health Organization (WHO) Cambodia, told IRIN on 14 November. “The goal is to ensure that every person at risk of contracting malaria has a mosquito net by the end of the year.”

    The US$14.5 million project to distribute 2.7 million nets is funded by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The nets will be distributed by the National Malaria Control Centre with technical assistance from WHO.

    In western Cambodia, the combination first-line treatment is dihydroartemisinin-piperaquin (DHA-P) and in the rest of Cambodia Artemisinin-Melfoquine (A+M) is used. “A+M is not used in western Cambodia because the malaria parasites there are resistant to Melfoquine,” Krishnan said.

  6. It would appear that The Australian has lost confidence in Mr. Rabbit. In today’s (Friday’s) Unlinkable we have Dennis Shanahan declaring that the Dyson Heydon Royal Commission is a dud, Greg Sheridan explaining why ramping up the bombing missions against ISIL (as advocated by one Liberal MP) would be more trouble that it would be worth, a spate of articles critical of our fearless leader’s handling of the same-sex marriage issue, and an editorial calling on the Coalition leadership to extract the digit.

  7. Double standards? Sweden interviews 44 in London, but not Julian Assange

    This article has been adapted from the original article which was published on RT on 10 Aug 2015. The fate awaiting Julian Assange should he be extradited to the United States is indicated by the treatment of fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning at the hands of the United States Government. See Chelsea Manning faces indefinite solitary confinement, lawyer says (13/8/15) | RT.

    Australian citizen Julian Assange is believed to have been ‘victimized’ by Swedish prosecutors following revelations that they interviewed 44 people in the UK, but refused to interview the WikiLeaks head in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he has been for over three years.

    A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Hazel Press news organization has revealed that Sweden has granted 44 requests to interview witnesses or suspects in the UK since 2010, the Press Association reports. This has led supporters of the WikiLeaks founder to claim that Assange has been “singled out,” as he has also agreed to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors inside the embassy concerning sex allegations in the Scandinavian country.

  8. Dyson Heydon is the most extreme right-winger ever on the High Court.

    1999:
    He was ordered to repay $7m. for his bad legal advice to the NRMA in 1994 :
    “colleagues say that Heydon, known to have a ferocious temper and a good command of a wide array of swear words, would be furious.” [SMH 14.5.99, p. 9]
    How can Heydon pretend to be unbiased when he got twice as much from one job as a worker could earn in two life-times? He stands to make more out of this Commission than a construction worker could earn in lifetime of wage-slaving till he was seventy.

    1996:
    Howard on the hunt for Big-C Conservatives to stack the High Court.

    30 October 2002: Heydon touts for a spot on the bench with a speech to the ratty right-wing monthly, Quadrant. It had been set up in the 1950s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. With Howard in the audience, Heydon accuses the High Court of destroying ‘the rule of law’. He opposed providing counsel for the accused in murder trials.
    Howard lands a gigantic-R REACTIONARY.

    December 2002:
    Howard unleashes Heydon as the bosses’ latest judicial attack dog on. On the bench, Heydon does everything his masters want. He interprets the ‘rule of law’ to mean that rulers can do whatever they like.

    2005:
    He backs Howard’s WorstChoices attack on workers.

    2011:
    He upholds NSW bikie laws.

    2013:
    He takes the cake for the highest rate of dissent on the Court; always taking the most extreme reactionary line.

    October 2013:
    Retires, pissed off that Howard lost in 2007 and so could not appoint him him Chief Justice.
    He takes out his frustrations in a stream of abuse against his fellow right-wing judges as ‘overbearing’ and ‘The enemy within’. His picture of them as ‘utterly confident of their own ability, pretty sure that no other judge has yet grasped the key point’ is an exact self-portrait.

    March 2014:
    heads Royal Commission into Trade Union governance and corruption.

    April 2014:
    Sucks up to Abbott with a speech to the ultra-right think-tank, the Centre of so-called Independent Studies which is totally dependent on the big end of town. Heydon claims that criticism of Abbott’s religious prejudices is like Nazi attacks on Jews.

    August 2015: Exposed delivering Liberal Party lecture in honour of Barwick who conspired with fellow U.S. spook Kerr to protect CIA assets at Pine Gap by sacking Whitlam.

    June 2016: Queen’s Birthday Honours: Heydon becomes ‘Panto Dame’ Dyson for his services to the arse-licking of Liberal leaders and to the boss-class.

    Question: Is Heydon’s hypocrisy and foul-mouthed arrogance huge enough for his Report to attack workers for using the f-word?
    Answer: You bet.

    Compiled by Humphrey McQueen

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