AN Australian flag was ripped, stomped and spat on in an attack which is believed to have sparked an alcohol-fuelled mob rampage that destroyed Australia Day celebrations at the seaside Adelaide suburb of Semaphore.

About 60 police officers descended on the Semaphore foreshore after a mass brawl broke out among 150 drunken revellers about 10.30pm on Friday.

Bottles were thrown and shopfronts were trashed in the all-in-brawl that some witnesses say was racially motivated.

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Freshman Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, D-Tenn., is not joining the Congressional Black Caucus after several current and former members made it clear that a white lawmaker was not welcome.

“I think they’re real happy I’m not going to join,” said Cohen, who succeeded Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., in a majority-black Memphis district. “It’s their caucus and they do things their way. You don’t force your way in. You need to be invited.”

Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be “a social faux pas” after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was “critical” that the group remain “exclusively African- American.”

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http://www.komotv.com/home/video/5001856.html

AMSTERDAM — Asylum seekers are far more likely to be suspected of committing crimes than Dutch citizens, a police investigation has indicated.

The investigation also indicated that boredom is one of the main reasons for criminal activity among asylum seekers, Radio Netherlands reported.

But lingering problems from traumas that asylum seekers have not yet come to terms with are also thought to be reason for the higher criminality rate.

While awaiting a decision from the immigration service IND on their application to stay in the country, asylum seekers are confined to refugee centres.

The police report says that 5.4 percent of asylum seekers are suspected of having committed a crime compared with 1.5 percent of Dutch citizens aged over 12.

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Man thrown off jet for Bush T-shirt

A man was removed from a Qantas flight to London because he would not take off a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the slogan “World’s 1 terrorist.”
Allen Jasson said Monday he was turned away last Friday at a Qantas departure gate in Melbourne.

Jasson said he wore the shirt unchallenged through official security checks, then approached a Qantas staff member at the gate to draw attention to it because he had been asked to remove it before boarding a domestic flight days earlier.

Full story…

Gollnisch Fined for Words
Against the law to ask questions

January 18th, 2007

LYON, France (Reuters) - A French court handed a leading far-right French politician a three-month suspended jail sentence and fined him 5,000 euros ($6,500) on Thursday for questioning the Holocaust.

The Lyon court found Bruno Gollnisch, No. 2 in the far-right National Front party, had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the eastern French city on October 11, 2004.

The judge also ordered Gollnisch to pay 55,000 euros in damages to the plaintiffs, and to pay for the judgment to be published in the newspapers that originally printed his remarks.

Gollnisch was not in court for the verdict because he was attending a session of the European Parliament, where he recently became the leader of a new far-right political group called Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty.

In its ruling the court said Gollnisch had called into question the number of Jews killed during World War Two and whether gas chambers had been used to kill them.

“Historians have the right to discuss the number of deaths and the way that they died. Fifty years after the facts we can discuss the real number of deaths,” Gollnisch was quoted as saying at the time.

He also said that the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss.” (….Full Article Here)

Listen Below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ans053uCsFM

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian military troops have shot down a spy plane of the US army during the last few days, an Iranian MP said here on Tuesday.

Representative of Dasht-e Azadegan at the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Seyed Nezam Mola Hoveizeh also told FNA that the aircraft has been a spy drone of the US army and that it has been shot down when trying to cross the borders.

“Americans send such spy drones to the region every now and then,” the lawmaker further pointed out.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8510260294

Washington has warned that it will not tolerate Iran supporting armed groups fighting in Iraq, but in the far northeast of the country Al Jazeera discovered armed Iranian exiles training to overthrow the government in Tehran.

From their base the fighters cross the porous border into Iran to carry out attacks. Al Jazeera witnessed a group of highly motivated men carry out a mock attack on Iranian forces.

Komala, otherwise known as the Revolutionary Toilers of Iran, was founded in 1969, and is affiliated to the Communist party of Iran but has softened its left-wing stance in recent years.

The United States has become interested in working with the group and last year Abdullah Muhtadi, a senior representative of the party, travelled to Washington for a conference of Iranian minority groups.

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KUWAIT CITY: Washington will launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, say sources. The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add. Recent statements emanating from the United States indicate the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq doesn’t include any proposal to make a compromise or negotiate with Syria or Iran. A reliable source said President Bush recently held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.

According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney highlighted the threat posed by Iran to not only Saudi Arabia but the whole region. “Tehran is not playing politics. Iranian leaders are using their country’s religious influence to support the aggressive regime’s ambition to expand,” the source quoted Dick Cheney as saying. Indicating participants of the meeting agreed to impose restrictions on the ambitions of Iranian regime before April 2007 without exposing other countries in the region to any danger, the source said “they have chosen April as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will be the last month in office for him. The United States has to take action against Iran and Syria before April 2007.”

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