Loose Cannons

File management

The June 9 email newsletter of Children Out of Detention (ChilOut) reports that immigration minister Philip Ruddock's email address has recently been disabled. This makes him Australia's only parliamentarian who cannot be contacted by email.

Honesty

"Indeed I am a dictator... the advantage with me is that I am a good dictator who wants to maintain peace and stability in my country" — Malawi's President Bakili Muluzi, quoted in the June 3 Johannesburg Star, on why he has banned demonstrations in his country.

Honesty II

"I cannot think of a time when business over all has been held in less repute" — Henry M Paulson Jr, chairperson and chief executive of accounting firm Goldman Sachs, in the June 6 New York Times.

New era

"The government we have now is legitimate and Islamic and I support it as an elder" — Mohammed Rohanni, the fundamentalist cleric who headed Kabul University under the Taliban, explaining to the May 17 Washington Post why he has joined the US-backed regime of Hamid Karzai.

From Green Left Weekly, June 19, 2002.

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From GLW issue 496