Press TV – August 8, 2014 Argentina has attempted to sue the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the UN’s highest court, over a debt dispute. The lawsuit was filed on Thursday after a US judge blocked Argentina from servicing its restructured debt, with Buenos Aires accusing Washington of […]
Righting wrongs. It’s often quite subjective. In the United States it’s the province of fantasy superheroes or government torturers. Elsewhere it took the form of a window decal I was too bashful to photograph, a life-sized bin Laden standing tall with that hebephrenic grin and three airliners zooming toward us over his head, fluffy contrails in perspective.
It has been a long and drawn out affair. For years, Australian environmental activists and political figures have had the Japanese whaling program in their sights. Every year, between 500 to 1000 whales are slain under a permit program ostensibly authorised by the International Whaling Convention. The IWC has been a strange creature. It regulates whale hunting, yet has effectively tried stifling commercial hunting by limiting the catch levels to zero since 1986.
The Australians are the underdressed Viceroys of the pacific, a vestige of past power. They are happy to be retained for various tasks – doing the bidding of the US, most of the time, and playing that rather distasteful game of bullying smaller neighbours when required. In 2013, the East Timorese government found that their cabinet rooms had been bugged by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). The incident itself had happened nine years previously.
