It was just a joke

FEDERAL Labor MP Peter Garrett is under pressure to take a drug test after Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns said the two smoked joints with U2 singer Bono.
A spokeswoman for Mr Garrett yesterday said: “We confirm Daniel Johns’ statement saying that it was a joke.” Kate Pasterfield later quoted her boss Mr Garrett as saying: “I tried a bit of dope in my 20s but I haven’t since.”
Yeah – right Peter. Mind you, the anti-drug campaigners suggestion that Peter undergoes drug testing is pointless. Garrett’s pretty thick but even he wouldn’t turn up to a drug test with residue in his veins. It was just a joke. Oh well, that’s OK then.

Crime does pay

CONFIDENTIAL documents filed in a Queensland court lift the lid on the secretive world of celebrity book negotiations, revealing that Pan Macmillan paid $350,000 for the rights to drug-smuggler Schapelle Corby’s story.
The Australian Women’s Weekly paid a further $110,000 to publish an extract from My Story, the memoir Corby co-wrote with Kathryn Bonella. The publishing contract shows that Schapelle’s sister, Mercedes Corby, is entitled to 85 per cent of the $350,000 publisher’s advance and any future royalties earned from the book, which has sold more than 100,000 copies.
That should buy a lot of marijuana for the ‘Corby Drug Collective’.

Six of the Bali Nine now headed for the bullet

Downer on six of the Bali Nine drug trafficers being set for the death sentence after an appeal raised their life sentences to death by firing squad. Downer said he was surprised that the convicts’ lawyers were not the first to be advised and that the Supreme Court had opted for more serious sentences than the prosecutors requested.
“In terms of the procedures, I must say they have been, to say the least, a little unusual in that the first we heard about this was through the media,” Downer said. “The Indonesian Supreme Court’s clearly taken the view that trafficking in heroin is a profoundly grave offense,” he added.
I have no great problems with that but I would just like them to take the view that mass murdering innocents a la Bali is likewise a profoundly grave offence.

Another drug conviction imminent

INDONESIAN prosecutors have demanded an 18-month jail term for an Australian mine worker accused of using methamphetamine.
John Michael Kelly, 45, from Warwick on Queensland’s Darling Downs, was arrested in September in Sangatta, East Kalimantan on Borneo, after a tip-off by hotel security guards.
Mmmm…Middle aged… working…. anglo sounding name and most probably not as pretty as Michelle or Schappele but we will have another press frenzy tomorrow with demands from Beasely, Rudd, Brown and Nettle etc to have his case taken on by the Government. Won’t we?

Afghan opium plan not feasible: drugs board

An oversupply of opium used for medical purposes around the world means plans to use Afghanistan’s illicit crops for such purposes cannot get off the ground, the world’s independent drug monitoring body says.
The Senlis Council, a think tank specialising in drug policy, said on Monday that Western countries were wasting millions of dollars trying to stamp out the illegal opium trade in Afghanistan.
Millions? What’s wrong…have we run out of Napalm?

Bestiality charges dropped

PROSECUTORS have dropped a charge of bestiality against a Sydney financier who is accused of aggravated cruelty against rabbits and a guinea pig.
The dead or dying animals were found in and around his York Street office between July and early August this year, police documents previously tendered to the court allege. Mr McMahon had also been accused of committing an act of bestiality against one rabbit in the early hours of August 1.
Mr McMahon’s lawyer, Douglas Marr, had previously told a court his client had been suffering serious mental health problems brought on by the use of the illegal amphetamine ice The devil made me do it, your Honour. Douglas Marr might think that’s a reasonable defence but I don’t. Sick bastard.

Nguyen court bid ‘questionable’

HISTORY was against the latest bid to save condemned Australian Van Tuong Nguyen, a Singapore-based human rights campaigner said today.

…campaigner Sinapan Samydorai said the application to the court would require the approval of Singapore’s Government, and history showed this appeared unlikely.

Interestingly Singapore News has no original articles on Nguyen but links only to the Australian and Voice of America

The Straits Times doesn’t carry any mention of Nguyen at all on its front page nor does the local language Berita Harian (Daily News)

I’m not sure how this is going to pan out – I fear Nguyen’s days are truely numbered and all that is left to debate is the extent of the diplomatic fall-out between Singapore and Australia and will trade suffer.

If/When the Indonesians pass the death sentence on the Bali Nine then the debate is going to get louder and when it does it need rules. It is about the death sentence, not drugs. Nguyen and the Bali Nine are drug traffickers and will get little symapthy from mainstream Australia if they are sentenced to life in a rotten Asian goal, but the death sentence?

That is something different altogether.

McIlveen hits superlative overload

DRUG offender Michelle Leslie is heading home to a storm of outrage after the Australian model ditched her Muslim garb for a skimpy top and moved to sell her story to the highest bidder. Storm of outrage…mmmm If one swallow doesn’t make it summer one Muslim whinging doesn’t make it a storm unless you’re McIlveen. From mobs of Muslims…
And Muslim groups condemned her conversion to Islam as a sham set up to elicit sympathy from Indonesian judges.
we wind back to one.
“We’ve got no time for these pseudo-Muslims,” Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said yesterday.
If it was a sham, and there is no clear evidence it was, then good on her. Possession of two ecstacy tablets hardly constitutes a serious crime. Ecstacy is a problem but if we locked our youth up for possession of a tablet or two we would totally alter the social structure of Australian Night Club scene and fill prisons to overload. She might be an intellectual lightweight but she’s a pretty one and I’d rather see her in tank top than anything from a devoted mulsim’s wardrobe. She’s had her 15 minutes of fame. Now let’s forget her and move on. Correction. Her 15 minutes of fame is now immortalized in Wikipedai. How frivolous.

Nguyen execution date set as 2 Dec

POPE John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict XVI both made direct but unsuccessful appeals to Singapore to spare the life of convicted Australian drug courier Nguyen Tuong Van. Who ever thought Singapore would listen to the Pope. Singapore’s Prime Minister didn’t listen to Howard either as it would appear that when Howard raised the issue the Singaporeans had already classed the decision as irreversible. Later, Loong proves he understands diplomatic protocol but not compassion
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has apologised to Prime Minister John Howard for not personally informing him of the date for an Australian man’s execution in Singapore. And the Singapore government has revealed that the letter it sent to Nguyen Tuong Van’s family, informing them of his December 2 execution date, had been delivered a day earlier than planned. An investigation will be held into how this happened.
Altogether a sad case. I have no time at all for drug trafficking but the death penalty is far to severe and as the Singaporeans say, it is irreversible. In a year or two when Singapore commutes death to life for such crimes it will be to late for Nguyen. Big price to pay for a stupid mistake.

Nguyen still headed for the long drop

GEORGE Pell will urge the Pope to intervene in a desperate bid to spare drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van from the gallows as the Howard Government yesterday also promised a last-ditch appeal to spare the Melbourne man’s life. Desparate bid is right with only 19 percent of locals claiming to be Christian and the remainder claiming Asian based religions or no religion I can’t see Singapore’s President and Prime Minister worrying about a backlash at the next polls. I doubt whether they will jump to any request from the leader of the Catholic world and as it is their country they have the right to say – tell your citizens not to traffic drugs through our country – we don’t drugs or drug couriers here. Phillip Adams condemns Australia and calls us racist. I think Phillip has the ‘racist’ problem, not us. I agree with some of what Phillip says and I don’t support capital punishment but all of that is irrelevant if you commit a capital crime in a country that does support it. Sad but inevitable. Phillip can debate drug prohibition all he likes but unfortunately he has no sway in Singapore. Actually he has no sway in Australia either but that’s another issue
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