Beyond The Fringe

Lloyds Bank is the target of protests since it has ceased the ability of Interpal to send aid to Gaza. In Bristol, protesters have forced the bank to close its doors. Suspect Paki has the story, and so does Syd Walker, who chronicles protests aimed at the BBC in England and Israelis in New Zealand.

Syd also comments on Obama’s rumoured appointment of Israel Firster Dennis Ross to ambassadorship in the Middle East.

To begin to restore America’s credibility, Obama and Secretary of State Clinton must appoint a genuine honest broker for negotiations over the Middle East. Someone of independence and integrity. If they prefer to appoint a foreign national, how about Bishop Tutu or Mikhail Gorbachev?

Substituting a Zionist A-Team for the Zionist B-Team is not acceptable, except to Israel. What is acceptable only to Israel is no longer acceptable to the world.

With new evidence of Israel’s criminal use of white phosphorus in civilian areas, the Zionist state is contemplating a unilateral cease fire forestalling any negotiations with the democratically elected Hamas government. Before it does so, according to Reuters Israel is bombing Gaza with renewed ferocity.

Ending a night of sporadic gunfire, the roar of jet aircraft around10 p.m. ET was followed by heavy explosions flashing over points to the south and north of the city of Gaza.

The Israeli army said 50 targets here hit, including 16 tunnels, two mosques from which troops were fired on, three bunkers, eight rocket-launching pads and six mined areas including a booby-trapped building.

A spokeswoman had no immediate comment on a report that two civilians were killed near a school. About 45,000 Gazans are sheltering in U.N.-run schools in the enclave.

Tipsy Livni is in the US organising support for Israeli plans.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, hoping to succeed Olmert when Israel votes on February 11, said on Friday that an end to the war “doesn’t have to be in agreement with Hamas but rather in arrangements against Hamas.”

She was in Washington sealing a pact for U.S. help to ensure Hamas no longer smuggles arms to Gaza via Egypt. She said Hamas still holds kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, a cause celebre in Israel, whom Hamas considers a trump card.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Friday called Israel’s ceasefire terms unacceptable. Demanding an end to the punitive Israeli blockade of Gaza, he said Hamas would fight on.

Hamas negotiators, however, were due to meet the Egyptians on Saturday to discuss Israel’s response to their conditions.

Hamas offers a one-year, renewable truce on condition that all Israeli forces withdraw within a week and that all the border crossings with Israel and Egypt are opened.

The Times reports that shells have been found in Gaza with markings identifying them sd white phosphorous shells – shells made in the US.

Remnants of an Israeli white phosphorus shell, identified by the marking on the outer casing — M825A1 — have been found in the village of Sheikh Ajilin in western Gaza.

Witnesses in Gaza said that the shell was fired on January 9 and was taken indoors as evidence. They recalled seeing thick smoke and smelling a strong odour in keeping with the garlic-like smell associated with white phosphorus.

Hebrew writing on the shell casing reads “exploding smoke” — the term the Israeli army uses for white phosphorus. Doctors who examined the shell said that it appeared to include phosphorus residue.

Residents said that they suffered burns on their feet when they walked where the shelling had taken place.

…

A suspected phosphorus victim was taken from Gaza across the border into Egypt yesterday. Abdul Rahman Shaer, 16, was transferred to an Egyptian hospital from Rafah. He was suffering from severe chemical burns to his face and body. Paramedics from Gaza said that doctors at the hospital were sure the chemical agent was phosphorus.

And in the Guardian:

Fresh evidence of the firing of white phosphorus weapons by Israeli forces in Gaza has emerged from witnesses heard by the Guardian and first hand accounts by human rights groups of their use against civilians.

Graphic descriptions of attacks by Israeli forces near the Gaza town of Khan Younis are contained in footage shot by Fida Qishta for the International Solidarity Movement and obtained by the Guardian.

A woman described how on Tuesday Israeli forces “started to fire phosphorus bombs against the people, of course, they are civilians …”

The UN is calling for investigation into this morning’s shelling of a UN school/shelter which killed at least two boys and injured 14 people.

Christopher Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said several rounds hit the UN school at about 6:45am. After a short pause, the third floor of the school took a direct hit, killing the two and injuring another 14 people.

Witnesses said four more people were killed when other shells struck nearby as people tried to escape.

About 1,600 civilians had sought refuge from the fighting inside the building, Gunness said.

“The Israeli army knew exactly our GPS co-ordinates and they would have known that hundreds of people had taken shelter there,” he said.

“When you have a direct hit into the third floor of a UN school, there has to be an investigation to see if a war crime has been committed.”

The latest Jewish Voice for Peace newsletter is inspiring.

One bright spot in the midst of this terrible darkness is the explosion of dissent in all corners of the globe.

The profoundly ignorant statement made by Clare Gatehouse in the UN’s Emergency sitting GA/10809 on Jan 16 saddens me – that our government is still blinded by a cloud of hasbara is a fair indication of the control Israel is exerting on Australian foreign policy.

CLARE GATEHOUSE ( Australia) said Australia was deeply disturbed by the violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and strongly supported the call in Council resolution 1860 (2009) for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire. She supported the resolution’s recognition of the need to address arms smuggling and open border crossings and its call for the unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout the Gaza Strip.

She welcomed the Egyptian French ceasefire proposal and the important role played by Egypt and others, including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. A solution had to be found to end Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel, which had led to the current crisis, and it must also end arms smuggling into Gaza. The crisis had demonstrated the vital need for a two State solution to the Israel Palestine conflict.

Australia was deeply concerned that the conflict had profoundly affected civilians. She condemned any action by Hamas to deliberately endanger civilian lives and called on Israel to do all it could to ensure the safety of United Nations and humanitarian workers. She said Australia had committed $5 million in additional assistance to the people of Gaza on 1 January 2009 to provide emergency food and medical supplies and cash assistance to conflict affected families.

The Australian government has failed to notice that there were no Hamas rockets fired during the truce prior to Israel’s breach of the truce on November 4, 2008. Perhaps Stephen Smith should phone dual Australian Israeli citizen and Olmert spokesperson Mark Regev who confirmed this on Channel 4. Furthermore $5million is a palty amount to offer to Gaza, which has suffered $1.4b in damages at this point.

The President of the General Assembly excoriated Israel for its brutality.

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, president of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (GA), went on with opening the special session despite Israel’s effort to block it, saying that “it’s ironic that Israel is trying to silence the General Assembly.”

“The relentless assault continues,” the GA president said. “Gaza is ablaze.”

“During this assault, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, one-third of them children. More bodies remain buried under the rubble, out of reach of humanitarian workers because the shelling is too intense — the living would be killed trying to reach the dead,” he said. “If this onslaught in Gaza is indeed a war, it is a war against a helpless, defenseless, imprisoned population.”

“It seems to me ironic that Israel, a state that more than any other owes its very existence to a (1948) General Assembly resolution, should be so disdainful of United Nations resolutions,” the GA president said.

More than 1,150 Palestinians have been killed and 5,100 wounded, many of them civilians since Israel commenced its unprovoked attack on Gaza.

The latest reports from the UN are alarming to say the least.

Mr. Ging said UNRWA, which aids 750,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza, about half the population, is establishing alternative warehouses and is “up and running again” after Israeli shells destroyed the warehouse in its main compound yesterday, sending hundreds of tons of food and medicine up in flames. The fire continued to burn today. “Massive devastation and destruction” was reported in the area of the compound, he added.

The Agency is getting to most of those in need but there are still areas in the north of the Gaza Strip that are cut off. “It is an issue of major concern to us,” he said.

Describing the situation on the ground, Mr. Ging stressed that it was “really terrible” that patients in hospitals come under fire, adding that innumerable numbers of people are living in shock. UNRWA is preparing to help traumatized children when they return to school.

“People are in mortal danger here in the Gaza Strip, and have been for the last 21 days and nights and the casualty figures bear that out. At the moment there is a glimmer of hope. They are bewildered, shell-shocked and in real fear but they are grasping at this latest round of diplomatic efforts in the hope that this might end,” he said.

“I myself would never have predicted what has happened in full view of the whole world over these past 21 days and nights, but it has happened and continues right now, but I am hopeful, not least because of the efforts of our Secretary-General, which is there for all to see, and I wish others would join him in the degree of commitment and pro-activity that he is bringing to bear.”

Asked what was the most outrageous scene he had witnessed, Mr. Ging replied: “Of course, it’s always the dead children and it’s very traumatic to see that, and it’s equally traumatic to see children who are still alive but whose lives have been ruined, multiple amputees. The most traumatic sight of this conflict is visible in the morgues and in the hospitals.

“And each and every one of those cases is of course for the individuals and their families massively traumatic and life-altering, in most of them because of the horrific nature of the injuries, they’re not just a flesh wound.”

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory Max Gaylard said the situation for hospitals, medical workers and the injured was alarming and deteriorating, stressing that hospitals must be protected and remain neutral areas under any circumstances. In a statement, he noted that 13 health workers had been killed and 22 injured, and 16 health facilities and 16 ambulances damaged or destroyed since the start of the Israeli military operation.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) reported that 69 truckloads of goods were allowed entry into Gaza from Israel today, including 26 trucks for UNRWA with flour, blankets, rice and bread, and one truck of medical supplies for the UN World Health Organization (WHO). At the Rafah crossing with Egypt, nearly 15 truckloads of food and medical and relief supplies passed through and 18 medical cases were evacuated.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported that, in addition to its regular caseload of some 250,000 Gazans, it delivered canned meat and high energy biscuits to 13 Gaza hospitals, enough for 6,000 patients and staff for up to one month. WFP is also distributing ready-to-eat food to overcome the scarcity of cooking gas.

And here’s the latest report from the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

FIELD UPDATE ON GAZA FROM THE HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR

16 January 2009, 1700 hours

“The Red Cross is not managing to coordinate evacuation of wounded people. There are people right next to the Red Crescent hospital bleeding to death. We cannot get to them as the Israelis shoot at us.” (Palestinian medic)

“Today the UN compound in Gaza has been shelled again. I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the Defense Minister and to the Foreign Minister… The time has come for the violence to stop and for us to change fundamentally the dynamics in Gaza.” (United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon)

January the fifteenth witnessed the most intense fighting to date, with Israeli ground forces advancing deeper into densely populated areas, particularly Gaza City with an estimated population of 500,000 people. Since the morning of 15 January, relentless shelling of the Gaza Strip has struck a number of buildings, among them the main UNRWA compound in Gaza City and three hospitals.

Large numbers of civilians are trapped in their homes while thousands more are seeking refuge with host families and in UNRWA emergency shelters. There are no safe places or bomb shelters within the Gaza Strip and the borders remain closed. Security for medical personnel and access to medical facilities remains extremely difficult.

Following a year and a half of blockade and almost three weeks of intense bombardment by land, sea and air, the Gaza Strip is witnessing a devastating humanitarian crisis. The casualty rate is rapidly rising; extensive damage has been incurred to public infrastructure and homes; and water, sanitation and electricity services are barely functioning. Supplies of essential commodities such as food, cooking gas, water and fuel are diminishing and increasingly hard to obtain. Children, who make up 56 percent of the Gaza population, continue to bear the brunt of the violence and account for a significant proportion of the dead and severely maimed.

PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS

The Israeli army remains present in the north, east and Rafah border areas. Aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and naval firing continued throughout 14 January, in particular in the Zaitoun, Tuffah, eastern Gaza and other suburbs of Gaza City. The Al-Arqam private school in Gaza City was shelled, as was the Sheikh Radwan cemetery, destroying many of the graves.

The fighting intensified in the morning of 15 January, with Israeli forces advancing deeper into Gaza City from all sides. Residential buildings, high rise buildings, three hospitals and the UNRWA compound were among the buildings hit.

As of 14 January, UNRWA was hosting 39,669 displaced Palestinians in 41 emergency shelters in Gaza, most of them in the Gaza Governorate (17 shelters with 13,884 IDPs) and in North Gaza (13 shelters with 16,282 IDPs).

MEDICAL FACILITIES

The Al Wafa Hospital east of Gaza City (the only rehabilitation hospital in the Gaza Strip), Al Fata Hospital west of Gaza City, and Al Quds Hospital were directly hit by the Israeli army. One Al Fata Hospital ambulance and two Al Quds Hospital ambulances were hit.

Around 0530 hours, at least 500 people living in Tel el Hawa sought refuge at the Al Quds Palestinian Red Crescent Society Hospital. From 1030 hours, shelling struck the administrative building and damaged the second floor of the hospital. A fire broke out, putting at risk the patients, staff and displaced persons in the hospital. The fire was eventually extinguished at around 1400 hours. As people were leaving the hospital, one fatality and four injuries were reported due to fighting in the area. At about 1800 hours, the 500 displaced people were evacuated to an UNRWA emergency shelter.

UNRWA Main Compound

At approximately 1000 hours, Israeli shells struck the main UNRWA compound, injuring three persons. The shells caused a fire that destroyed a workshop and the main warehouse which housed hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including those due to be distributed today, 15 January. Approximately 700 Palestinians were taking refuge in the compound at the time of the incident; they were eventually evacuated to a nearby emergency shelter.

Media Building

At approximately 0900 hours on 15 January, following intensification of shelling in the neighbourhood, journalists in Gaza City took refuge in the Al Shurouq Tower which houses the main offices and studios of various local and international media outlets. Despite assurances by the Israeli army that the building was not a target, the 13th storey of the building was struck by a shell at approximately 1115 hours. Two journalists from Abu Dhabi TV were injured. The explosion caused a fire which damaged transmission facilities.

Casualties

Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) figures as of 1600 hours 15 January are 1,086 Palestinians dead, of whom 346 are children and 79 are women. The number of injured stands at 4,900, of whom 1,709 are children and 724 are women. The danger to medical staff and the difficulty of extracting the injured from collapsed buildings makes proper evacuation and estimation of casualties difficult, including the determination of the number of Palestinian male civilian casualties.

From 1600 hours on 14 January until 1600 hours on 15 January, a total of 73 Palestinians were killed, of whom 24 were children, and 340 were injured, of whom 109 were children.

Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed since 27 December. Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into Israel. According to the Magen David Adom, the national society of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, Israeli civilian casualties stand at four dead and 78 injured since 27 December.

OCHA’s casualty figures do not include the number of Palestinians or Israelis treated for shock.

Priority Needs

Ceasefire: While any mechanism that facilitates humanitarian assistance is welcome, only an immediate ceasefire will be able to address the severe humanitarian and protection crisis that the population of Gaza is faced with.

Protection of Civilians: Civilians, notably children who form 56 percent of Gaza’s population, are bearing the brunt of the violence. As one of the most densely populated places in the world, more civilians risk being killed or injured if the conflict continues. The parties to conflict must respect the norms of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), in particular the principles of distinction and proportionality.

Access for ambulance and rescue teams: An unknown number of dead, injured and trapped people remain in houses which have been shelled and in areas where hostilities are ongoing. Due to attacks on ambulances, medical staff are fearful of reaching these places. The evacuation of wounded and safe passage of ambulances and health workers are fundamental tenants of IHL, and should be facilitated at all times. This includes the safe passage for evacuation of injured through Rafah crossing.

Speaking of unilateral action, Syria is calling for a full Arab boycott of Israel.

Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, told like-minded leaders meeting in the Gulf state of Qatar that the 2002 Arab peace initiative, backed by the entire 22-member Arab League, was no longer valid. Syria had already announced an end to its own talks with Israel, brokered by Turkey and focusing on the Golan Heights.

The Arab initiative promises recognition of Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 borders and a just settlement of the Palestinian problem. It is widely considered to be the only basis on which a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement could be reached and has already attracted the attention of US president-elect Barack Obama.

Assad’s unilateral announcement does not mean the plan has been formally withdrawn – that would require a full Arab summit. But his statement illustrates just how difficult it will be to rescue hopes for progress towards a wider regional peace once the immediate Gaza crisis is over.

The Syrian demand to cut links with Israel was directed primarily at Egypt and Jordan, both of which have had peace treaties and full diplomatic ties with Israel since 1979 and 1994 respectively.

Protest in the UK amongst academics is continuing to mount with terse letters in major newspapers.

The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.

Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.

We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Will the TV celebrity of Palestinian doctor Abu al-Aish who lost three daughters to an Israeli tank shell bursting into their home impact upon the self-righteous, hypnotised Israeli public? or is he just another inferior Gazan slave like the rest for them?

“Everyone knew we were home. Suddenly we were bombed. How can we talk to Olmert and (Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni after this?” Abu al-Aish told television reporters at the border crossing.

“Suddenly, today when there was hope for a cease-fire, on the last day … I was speaking with my children, suddenly they bombed us. The doctor who treats Israeli patients.”

This is an excellent animation which illustrates the fallacy of Zionist claims to Israel’s current terrortory.

There’s a new book out challenging the fallacious Zionist narrative of Israel.

What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same “children of Israel” described in the Old Testament?

And what if most modern Israelis aren’t descended from the ancient Israelites at all, but are actually a mix of Europeans, North Africans and others who didn’t “return” to the scrap of land we now call Israel and establish a new state following the attempt to exterminate them during World War II, but came in and forcefully displaced people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia?

What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora — the story recounted at Passover tables by Jews around the world every year detailing the ancient Jews’ exile from Judea, the years spent wandering through the desert, their escape from the Pharaoh’s clutches — is all wrong?

That’s the explosive thesis of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand (or Sand) that sent shockwaves across Israeli society when it was published last year. After 19 weeks on the Israeli best-seller list, the book is being translated into a dozen languages and will be published in the United States this year by Verso.

….

Zand’s central argument is that the Romans didn’t expel whole nations from their territories. Zand estimates that perhaps 10,000 ancient Judeans were vanquished during the Roman wars, and the remaining inhabitants of ancient Judea remained, converting to Islam and assimilating with their conquerors when Arabs subjugated the area. They became the progenitors of today’s Palestinian Arabs, many of whom now live as refugees who were exiled from their homeland during the 20th century.

…

This narrative has huge significance in terms of Israel’s national identity. If Judaism is a religion, rather than “a people” descended from a dispersed nation, then it brings into question the central justification for the state of Israel remaining a “Jewish state.”

And that brings us to Zand’s second assertion. He argues that the story of the Jewish nation — the transformation of the Jewish people from a group with a shared cultural identity and religious faith into a vanquished “people” — was a relatively recent invention, hatched in the 19th century by Zionist scholars and advanced by the Israeli academic establishment. It was, argues Zand, an intellectual conspiracy of sorts. Segev says, “It’s all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel.”

The book has very important ramifications for the development of a future one state solution.

But the idea of a single, binational state has more recently been marginalized — dismissed as an attempt to destroy Israel literally and physically, rather than as an ethnic and religious-based political entity with a population of second-class Arab citizens and the legacy of responsibility for world’s longest-standing refugee population.

A logical conclusion of Zand’s work exposing Israel’s founding mythology may be the restoration of the idea of a one-state solution to a legitimate place in the debate over this contentious region. After all, while it muddies the waters in one sense — raising ancient, biblical questions about just who the “children of Israel” really are — in another sense, it hints at the commonalities that exist between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Both groups lay claim to the same crust of earth, both have faced historic repression and displacement and both hold dear the idea that they should have a “right of return.”

And if both groups in fact share common biblical ties, then it begs the question of why the entirety of what was Palestine under the British mandate should remain a refuge for people of one religion instead of being a country in which Jews and Arabs are guaranteed equal protection — equal protection under the laws of a state whose legitimacy would never again be open to question.

We have boycotted Israeli products as far as practicable for all our lives – for the oppressive Occupation and brutality perpetrated by the apartheid pariah state has been going on that long. Perhaps at this point we should make it clear that we regard all people as deserving of human rights and justice, regardless of race, religion and culture. The justice we’d prefer for Israel’s arch mass murderers would be long prison terms.

Barghouti illuminates for us how academic freedom in Israel includes the freedom to call for killing of others including mass murder despite declarations of genocide being a war crime, let alone just the illegality of inciting of violence and racial hatred in most western countries.

Despite its substantial Arab-Palestinian student population, Haifa University harbors, or at least tolerates, a culture of racism — against Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular — which manifests itself in the fact that members of its faculty espouse racist “theories,” publish bigoted research papers, and advocate ethnic cleansing with impunity. The university has consistently and systematically failed to censure such academics or to properly investigate accusations of racism raised against them.

It provides institutional support to racist academics and their research activities. The most notorious of these academics is Arnon Sofer, chair of geo-strategy at Haifa University and vice-chair of its Center for National Security Studies. He is also known in Israel as the prophet of the “Arab demographic threat.” He takes credit for the route of the Israeli apartheid wall — declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, on July 9, 2004 — saying, “This is exactly my map.”

Prof. Sofer, who views the high birth rate of the Bedouin Palestinian citizens of Israel as a “tragedy,” and has no patience for “democracy and pretty words,” [6] has for many years openly advocated “voluntary transfer” — or soft ethnic cleansing — of Palestinians in the occupied territories as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel, in order to guarantee “a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews.” In one particularly telling prediction, Sofer says, “When 2.5 million [Palestinians] live in a closed-off Gaza, those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the [Jewish] boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.” [7]

According to Barghouti there are however taboos within academia:

“The Zionist ideology which stipulates that Israel must retain its Jewish majority is a non-debatable given in the country — and the bedrock of opposition to allowing the return of Palestinian refugees. The very few intellectuals who dare to question this sacred cow are labeled ‘extremists’.” Ben-Dor attacks those in the Israeli “left” who opposed the boycott as “sophisticated accomplices to the smothering of debate .”

That antisocial, dysfunctional, racist behaviour is tolerated amongst academic leaders may explain in some way how Israeli politicians have made calls to violence so frequently throughout the short, violent existence of Israel without censure, committal to psychiatric institutions or jail. When leaders express sociopathic murderous intent, they can engender it amongst the populace as well. This promotion of violence as a public ethic may also explain the feelings of Israel’s neighbours toward it. Israel – paranoid, sociopathic and suffering from a bad case of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.

Boycott calls renewed after Israel bombs University Teachers Assn.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott learned today from its Steering Committee member Dr. Haidar Eid that the headquarters of the University Teachers Association-Palestine, in Gaza, was bombed by the Israeli occupation forces during their indiscriminate, willful destruction campaign in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City on Friday.

This latest wanton attack on an academic organization is far from being an exception. It is only the latest episode in what Oxford University academic Karma Nabulsi has termed “scholasticide,” or Israel’s systematic and intentional destruction of Palestinian education centers. In its current war on Gaza alone, Israel has bombed the ministry of education, the Islamic University of Gaza, and tens of schools, including at least four UNRWA [the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees] schools, after having largely destroyed the infrastructure of teaching throughout the year and a half of its illegal and criminal siege of the densely populated Gaza Strip.

…

Specifically, and as a minimal response to these Israeli atrocities and grave violations of international law and the most basic human rights, PACBI calls on academics, academic unions, intellectuals, cultural workers and institutions the world over to intensify the boycott of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions due to their complicity in the Israeli occupation and other forms of oppression against the Palestinian people. Putting an end to Israel’s impunity and holding it accountable is the moral responsibility of every conscientious human being today.

Here’s some links to assist you to support Palestinian rights when next you go shopping.

Palestinian Mothers

Boycott Israel Campaign

Israel’s attack on Gaza demonstrated clearly the need for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS)

Israel’s bar code prefix is 729. More information here.

Israeli fruit and veg leave a bitter aftertaste

Finally, in case a hasbaranik tries to convince you to rip out the Intel chip in your computer – Intel has 3 manufacturing plants in China, the US and Israel.

For those who try to tell you cell phones were invented in Israel

Veolia looses 3,5 billion EUR contract in Sweden – this is a significant loss for Israeli industry brought about by concerned citizens in Stockholm.

Oxford City Council boycotts Israel

This is clearly another sign of the importance for commercial actors not to have their brand associated to unethical behaviour, in the case of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory we can already see a trend of international companies who are moving out their operations from settlements, says Joakim Wohlfeil at the Swedish development organization Diakonia.

Get involved with the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Program to help Palestine and stop Israeli apartheid.

BOYCOTT ISRAEL! Launched in Marawi City – Philippines

A Moral Choice – Divesting from the Israeli Occupation

International Writers and Scholars Endorse Academic Boycott of Israel

We reject as false Israel’s characterization of its military attacks on Gaza as retaliation. Israel’s latest assault on Gaza is part of its longtime racist jurisprudence against its indigenous Palestinian population, during which the Israeli state has systematically dispossessed, starved, tortured, and economically exploited the Palestinian people.

We reject as untrue the Israeli government’s claims that the Palestinians use civilians as human shields, and that Hamas is an irredeemable terrorist organization. Without endorsing its platforms or philosophy, we recognize Hamas as a democratically elected ruling party. We do not endorse the regime of any existing Arab state, and call for the upholding of internationally mandated human rights and democratic elections in all Arab states.

Why I’m Boycotting Israeli Produce:

Fruit and vegetable exports are crucial to the Israeli economy. A consumer boycott of agricultural produce exerts direct economic pressure where it matters

…

Israel’s agricultural exporting company, Carmel Agrexco, is one of the biggest suppliers of fresh produce to the UK.

…

We can use the same tactic against Israel that was so effective in showing up South Africa as the apartheid state it once was. The parallels with South Africa are striking. Writing in the Guardian, Naomi Klein recently reminded us of the words of Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, who said in 2007 that the segregation he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was “infinitely worse than apartheid”.

…

So what, exactly, is he talking about? While we have been munching our way through its avocadoes, Israel has demolished Palestinian homes, evicted their occupants and expropriated their land and water resources. It has illegally colonised productive Palestinian land with waves of settlers. A boycott of Israeli fruit and vegetables, as opposed to other sorts of boycott (academic, sporting), is particularly apt because horticulture has been a major plank of Israeli expansion. Medjoul dates in the Jordan Valley, for example, base their operations on confiscated Palestinian land, in contravention of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

As if that wasn’t enough, Israel has effectively imprisoned Palestinians with checkpoints, an illegal wall and an oppressive system of travel permits and colour-coded identity cards, so scuppering Palestinian economic development. As OXFAM told the House of Commons International Development Committee (pdf), costs for Palestinians who want to export products are up to 70% higher than for Israelis. Settlers in the West Bank get direct access to markets in and through Israel without the disruptive road blocks and transfers faced by the Palestinians who are obliged to rely on Israeli intermediaries. The revenue from taxes and customs goes to Israel, which costs the Palestinian economy 3% of its GDP a year.

…

By refusing to buy Israeli produce, ethically-minded consumers can be part of the wider Boycott Israeli Goods campaign (BIG) and add to the international condemnation of Israel’s tactics in Palestine. The reasons for a boycott precede the most recent open conflict and are ever-more important. Even if the current shaky ceasefire holds, Gaza will still be an open prison and Palestine will still be a country whose food economy is actively sabotaged by its powerful neighbour. Just at the moment, many people don’t have any appetite for Israeli produce. A boycott gives us something to do about it.

Keith Ellison, a US congressman for the state of Minnesota and the only Muslim to be elected to US congress, talks to Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi about the Israeli offensive in Gaza and why he feels so few US politicians understand the Middle East.

Ellison also draws attention to possible US complicity in war crimes through the use of US supplied weaponry by Israel.

In further updates, Hugo Chavez has expelled the Israeli Ambassador.

Israel will halt its bombardment of Gaza for three hours daily to allow residents of the Gaza to obtain much-needed supplies.

However, Israel insists it has already allowed enough supplies into Gaza during the conflict, although the UN says there is a humanitarian crisis because of shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

Heba, a Gaza resident and mother of two, told Al Jazeera there was no place left in Gaza that can be considered safe.

“What happened in the school was a hugely offensive and inhumane thing. We never expected that people who sought refuge in a UN building would be attacked and killed,” she said.

Randa Seniora, from the Independent Commission on Human Rights, told Al Jazeera: “What is happening in Gaza are crimes against humanity.

“Israel cannot claim, as an occupying authority, that it is acting in self defence because simply it is considered a war crime to create harm and damage among civilian populations.”

@AJGaza Hamas says it will not fire rockets into Israel during the same period of time, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports.

@AJGaza Shelling heard in #Gaza during Israel’s three hour ceasefire to allow Palestinians access to aid, Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros reports.

@AJGaza Five houses in #Gaza hit by Israeli air attacks ten minutes into Israel’s three-hour pause in hostilities, Al Jazeera’s correspondent says.

@AJGaza One rocket and two mortars fired from #Gaza by Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, thirty minutes into hostility pause.

@AJGaza Israeli apache helicopters open fire in Beit Lahiya, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports.

@AJGaza Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, says Israel and the Palestinian Authority had accepted a truce plan for #Gaza announced by Egypt.

Are Hamas being marginalised in this pseudo-truce? – Israel and the PA are already in cahoots, there hasn’t needed to be a truce between them. Has Abbas received the nod from the big boys?

Has Al Qaeda been taking lessons from neocons? or from Israel and their “proportionate responses”?

(CNN) — An audio message reportedly from al Qaeda’s deputy chief vows revenge for Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state’s actions against Hamas militants “a gift” from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri is said to address Muslims in Gaza in an audio message released Tuesday.

The speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, addresses Muslims in Gaza. He said the violence “is one part of a series of a crusade war against Islam and these air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak, that traitor, is the main partner in your siege and killing.”

The message, posted Tuesday on various Islamist Web sites with a picture of al-Zawahiri next to an image of a wounded child, urges militants to rally against Israel.

“My Muslim brothers and mujahedeens in Gaza and all over Palestine, with the help of God we are with you in the battle, we will direct our strikes against the crusader Jewish coalition wherever we can.”

@AJGaza Osama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon, says Franco-Egyptian peace initiative “still being discussed”.

@AJGaza Israel’s pause in hostilities to allow Palestinians access to aid only applied to #Gaza City in the #Gaza strip, Israel says.

Even to say Hamas is the cause of this is to blame the rape victim for what she was wearing.

@rafahkid Binational state? Not a chance because Israel has to be Jewish. Two states? Not a chance because Palestine has the resources. So, we die.

The UNHRC is holding a special session on Friday on Gaza

at the request of Islamic and developing countries as well as Russia.

The formal request — from 29 members of the 47-nation body — says the session should discuss “the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including the recent aggression in the Occupied Gaza Strip.”

Resolutions issued by the Council are not binding.

Still, a resolution now might add to the weight of proceedings at Le Hague later on when the war criminals are tried.

@AJGaza Israel’s halt in fire agreement applies to whole of #Gaza and not just #Gaza City, correcting earlier statement, Israeli military says.

FURTHER UPDATES

Hamas will not accept a permanent truce without an end to the occupation and opening of the crossings i.e. end to the terrible blockade which Israel has inflicted on its less than model concentration camp for nearly 2 years. Sounds reasonable. Perhaps Hamas feels the world is paying attention, and now is as good a time as any to make a stand?

Is the nadir yet to come in our feverish bourse? The AllOrds has caught a severe case of pneumonia from the ailing US economy – yet we think a large part of this malaise may be due to perception rather than reality, apart from our banks who stupidly spread their assets into US home loan Ponzi schemes.

The demands on our minerals and other resources by China and India may keep us from too much pain as the Dow Jones slides into a coma, and perhaps our perceptions haven’t caught up yet with reality. Meanwhile the swarming sharks gobble our treasure at bargain basement prices. We hope Australians see the opportunities also, otherwise the farm will end up just about totally overseas owned at the rate it’s going.

Of interest, we see that alternative energy stocks are doing quite well despite the plunge – CXY and COZ may well do superbly with the inevitable recovery. Novera on the AIM market has just had a takeover offer for twice what we paid for it – this company reclaims methane from landfills in Europe. BPO has slid just 1 cent since our last purchase and the future looks rosy with proposed production of organic termicide Termilone to begin in 2010.

As we are counter-cyclical by nature, we reckon 2009 is the time to buy, buy, buy – wisely, with a view to the sort of world which may emerge after the current depression subsides.

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

In an atypical idle moment, we throw the net tarot for our particular card – it is most suitable for the yearly stockmarket tax loss slump period.

While a couple of our delightful speccies are taking somewhat of an uncharacteristic walloping, other have remained satisfactorily firm, which with luck means that during the recovery to come they should do remarkably well. Still others have zoomed due to great news – CXY and BPH stand out. NAV is consolidating above the $1 mark which augurs well. Not being able to restrain our glee, we’ve picked up more EVZ, BLR, SNU, INL and APG during their current, respective weaknesses.

We expect THX and BPO to prosper shortly – THX has bounced nicely already. The overall standout with *very* interesting potential is OCO, which today announces a large offshore shark wants to gobble 75% of the company and closes up .001 at 6.8c – we’re at a nice premium to our last buy price of 4c.

Under the terms of the Proposal, FCP will take a significant shareholder stake in Oriel,
following execution of a subscription agreement, for FCP to invest and secure a 75%
equity interest in the Company, at a share value to be agreed, subject to shareholder and
regulatory approval. Oriel shall also seek shareholder approval to change its name to
“FCPB Investments Limited”.

At what price, one wonders? Our feeling is we may well receive a buyout or buyout/new shares offer well in excess of today’s close

Subsequent to the strategic investment, FCPB Investments Limited shall act as a primary
investment vehicle for FCP Brencorp and associated ventures in Australia. Its investment
strategy shall focus on investments in China and Asia in the following areas:
1) Financial Services
2) Logistics and Transportation
3) Retail and Leisure
4) Other high growth opportunities in China and Asia

In order to execute such strategy, FCP will assist FCPB Investments Limited to raise funds
of approximately AUD $100 million to AUD $200 million for its investment pipeline in
China, Asia and Australia.

Regarding Oriel’s subsidiary in China, BilltoBill: FCP will bring strategic benefits through its network and a number of related
investments in the payment sector, such as Oncard (ASX:ONC) and Customers
(ASX:CUS); FCP shall provide additional funding to BilltoBill through FCPB Investments Limited
to further accelerate its dynamic growth; and FCP intends to continue with the current executive management team.

So it might be very very good, or of course, very very bad if all is not as it seems. That is the nature of the wheel of fortune with speculative small stocks where generally we do amazingly well. Thus if the fortune cookie crumbles into a pile of excrement, as with AWS (cursed be its code), we would be insulting the goddess and inviting hubris if we did not simply accept our comparatively minor losses and soldier onward and upward.

So we’ve been busy. Working. Building. Dealing with immense toothache – why is it the pain stops after one makes the dreaded appointment? Blogging out at Blogshares (which is partially work-related as we survey the machinations and constructions of the blogiverse in all its manifestations). We must have checked out a couple of thousand or more twaddly, whining, dorky blogs now to help clean the rather useful Blogshares index of rotting blog corpses. At this point we’ve collected a truckload of literary and stockmarket blogs.

As the Aussie stock market enters its usual tax loss doldrums, we desultorily survey the real market for some superduper bargains. APG, with BHP now holding an interest, has fallen as the profit-taking traders maul the share price. We are waiting to feast with the other remoras near what we suspect may be the bottom. Our banquet on EVZ a couple of days ago was most satisfactory as was our BPO gulp at 4.6c. EVZ actually breached our projected bottom at 55c yet we are happy with our haul. We now have our beady eyes fixed on BLR and SNU, our little U beauties, for some more accumulation opportunities.

We’re cashed up for the TRF Ironclad float, though with the drop in TRF’s sp, we might do better picking up some more TRF rather than waiting for the Ironclad floaties. Another attractive possibilities is LRL – trading below 60c at the moment.

For some idle fun and relaxation, here’s an amazing site, Flickrvision where one can watch the depressingly plebby drones of the internet upload their mostly ghastly photos to Flickr in real time.

Last week, our little water recycling star performer Envirozel (EVZ), which we recommended in September last year as a solid buy at 19c, revealed its latest acquisition – Young steel construction private company, National Engineering – yet another stable, thriving business with an attractive operational record. National’s revenue contributions will bring EVZ to within $30m of its projected target of $100m per year revenue.

Following the announcement, EVZ Executive Chairman, Gordon McKern gave a most encouraging, almost fatherly presentation on Boardroom Radio.

Some of the points he made were:

• National Engineering is different from the previous two acquisitions as the vendors were not running the business. Positively, there’s a very competent general manager at National Engineering who is staying on.
• National doesn’t compete with existing EVZ businesses – and other EVZ businesses have a need for structural steel which National can provide.
• National’s location in Young, NSW now gives EVZ a geographic reach as far as Queensland.
• EVZ is maintaining its performance. 3.5 average adjusted EBIT purchase price will be paid for National – more or less on par with the other two. The purchase will be made with a combination of debt and cash – and there’s room for more leverage on the balance sheet. Commonwealth Bank is very supportive.
• Revenue is on track for $70m – 75m – Gordon suggested they will achieve $100m well before the end of 2007.
• At Young for ASX ann, Gordon addressed the National employees, offered employment, explained the deal to the workers – employees were very buoyant about the new owner.
• Gordon highlighted that one of EVZ’s main assets is now 370 employees, every one of them a skilled operator, – to him, the crux of the whole game.

We love his attitude, and his thoughtful, pragmatic approach to EVZ’s strategic acquisitions. Will the next acquisition be in Queensland?

EVZ closed on Friday at 59.5c – the new floor may become 56c. With bipartisan support for water efficiency measures, EVZ is in an excellent position to benefit from additional infrastructure investment. Wise Owl has an 80c price target in 2007 – it may even do better after its half yearly in our opinion, if it can increase the number of contracts it presently enjoys. We don’t see why it won’t, and will be watching it closely for more accumulation during the imminent tax loss scramble season.

Countless times during our long and profitable investment career, our political judgment has been invaluable in helping us make accurate market predictions, enabling us to pick trends well before they are common knowledge and every man and his dog is on the gravy train. A current example is the certainty we had that the ALP conference would lift the no new mines ban yet not back nuclear power stations. We lined up our U investments accordingly, choosing only shares with interests in South Australia, the Northern Territory and overseas. Our knowledge of the loosening of political control in China and subsequent market relaxation encouraged us to lash out with our investment in OCO, now paying off. Likewise with that goldie of goldies, LRL and the enticing LYC.

Without a political perspective refined and polished in debate with others, one flies in a fog.

(more…)

Another lovely day chained to the computer, reading through a staggering plethora of quarterly reports as they hit the bourse and watching for the market response we predicted to the ALP’s loosening of the reins on U mining.

SNU begins a rally up to 42c and then is squeezed back down to close at its opening price of 38c. Someone is definitely accumulating in our opinion – the pattern is clear – place a sell order a few cents higher than the current ask in order to scare the market to sell beneath and keep the buy orders off the screen. The share float gave most folks only 12000 shares – yet the capping parcels are much larger than this – the first significant cap at 41.5c is an average parcel size of 41,500 shares. So it’s either someone who has accumulated a lot more since the float or possibly the large existing holders angling for even more of the cake. The next substantial holders notice will be *very* interesting.

STOP PRESS: Just heard on ABC News, Mike Rann intends to fasttrack a hundred U projects in South Australia. Woohooo!

Similar games have been played with INL for months. Today, the game was exposed by a very positive quarterly report which showed that there had been no sell downs from the top 20 shareholders and several had increased their holdings since December. During the quarter, the vituperative flak directed at the company by disgruntled shareholders played straight into the hands of accumulators (including us) and whoever was doing the manipulation. We’re extremely pleased with this quarterly, which demonstrates the company is on track, is profitable and is preparing to ramp up its processing operations smoothly. 40c may not be too far off once the sentiment under which it has languished dissipates sufficiently and the company produces according to its projections.

Narrow range capping has also been evident of late with BLR, which looks like it has potential to be the best runner this week. Its announcement of a very pleasing significant increase in U JORC resource didn’t hit the market till 3.30pm so the market reaction will doubtless flourish tomorrow. Open over 30c possible?

With a large part of its goodies in the Northern Territory, NTU climbed, closing 7c up at $1.50. The incipient options issue may not affect its price much at all. Its quarterly revealed the company is cashed up with $7.6m in kitty with a projected $2.7m exploration expenditure on the Gardiner-Tanami Super project for 2007.

TRF finished the day at $1.42, recouping most of the ground lost last week after its Wilcherry U and Ironclad float announcement. We’re eagerly awaiting more information about the Ironclad float, which may provide some handsome profits to priority holders like ourselves.

And that’s not all folks!

Next we have THX, which really shone today, breaking out on decent volume from its previous narrow range in the low 50s to close at 61c – up 11%, with its delicious oppies at 40c. Multibagger coming up! Was the enthusiasm due to the promise of its NT U tenements or the vaunted nickel production at Copernicus starting May 08? Or the Lamboo platinum? THX has a swag of attractions, and one can’t help feeling management well and truly know what they are doing with its prospects. Of all our resource holdings, THX feels like a super winner and has since we began to accumulate in the middle of last year.

NAV is looking terrific too – closing at 77c on its way to the dollar mark sooner than one might have expected on a very positive quarterly. Who would think NAV would outperform CQT, which made only a 1.5c gain today, closing at 74.5c. Our sleeper goldie, NWR, is still snoozing at 34c. We’ll wait for the Blue Spec JORC increase mid year. Blue Spec East results are expected mid May too. The company is cashed up with $6.9m in kitty. For some reason NWR seems to be counter-cyclical – performing when all else sleeps. Our little vampire share bearing Lassiter’s lost gold teeth?

APG released a fairly low key quarterly. All appears to be going to plan with BHP and APG is to proceed to build a medium size demo plant at Newcastle which should pull in interest as it proves up its process to scale. One Steel – tick – China Gold – tick – and Horsham – tick. With any luck there’ll be a steady stream of news to sustain the share price during the traditional low period of the year. If there is any weakness, this is one share we will have no hesitation in accumulating.

Phew! tomorrow will be exciting too – waiting for revelations from EVZ – capital raising, rights, options, divvy or another acquisition? the company should be pretty well cashed up through its current workload earnings so it’s all good.

As we forecast, Kevvie won the day by a handful of votes to allow U mining in states that want to permit it, while maintaining a ban on nuclear power stations. Perfect for us and our SA and NT U investments, and not so pleasant for all those holding shares with U interests in any other state perhaps. Monday’s stockmarket opening will be very interesting indeed!

Lady Downer pranced out with his rodent master’s logical wedgie, moaning that

The Labor Party’s position on uranium is a classic case of hypocritical opportunism in politics and cynical opportunism.

As a past master of both the above, Lady Downer would of course know. The posturing twit went on to bleat piously that

We think that nuclear power makes a very valuable contribution to reducing greenhouse emissions and climate change is a serious issue, we have to find serious solutions to that problem.

Lady Downer promised to take Rudd and Rann on a junket to vist a Chinese nuclear power station so they can see where Whorestralian U ends up.

At the ALP conference, Rudd floated the generous idea of loans to Joe Blow to introduce water and energy efficiency solutions into their homes – this could be good news also for EVZ. Clean coal was on the agenda as well, with the ALP promising large sums for investment in tech. Will CXY benefit as it should?

The numbers have lined up for Kevvie to remove the Labor no new mines policy at the National ALP Conference this weekend. A rodent wedgie over the issue seems unlikely now – the prime miniature will have to focus on bribing families in the budget and attacking Labor’s IR and economic policies.

Led by Anthony Albanese, the left estimated yesterday it would only muster votes from 180 of the 397 delegates.

“Rudd will get up and that will be good because Albo will get to run his line and Rudd gets to come in and show what a strong leader he is by spearing the left in the ribs,” a left faction source told Fairfax newspapers.

“Everyone goes away happy.”

A senior Labor frontbencher who will vote to abolish the policy was similarly resigned.

“There will be a stage-managed debate on a couple of issues and the leader will get everything he wants,” the source said.

The Northern Territory looks somewhat more tenuous than South Australia, with Northern Territory’s Federal Member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon arguing against lifting the ban, at odds with Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin who is backing Kevvie’s stance.

Thus, tomorrow we’ll look at grabbing even more SNU, positioned as it is in South Australia where Mike Rann backs more U mining adamantly. Could SNU do an NTU? Drilling starts in July. Another 8 bagger would be very pleasant.

Following our premonition on Tuesday, at last INL seems like it’s on the turn. The quarterly report will probably come out early next week. However this report may not contain all the earnings from shipments, so it is possible there may be a dip again. We’ll hold on and watch closely, as a brief dip to 14.5c may not be out of the question if there’s nervousness following the quarterly’s release.

The powers that be at what was once Australia’s best stock forum, HotCopper, have now decided that no posts on politics, terrorism or war are to be permitted in their General section. One wonders immediately why religion wasn’t included amongst the banned topics, as of the four, it would seem religion has the least relationship to stocks. Perhaps some have an irrational belief in the success of praying for stock gains similar to the rodent’s exhortation to pray for rain as all else has failed. Other mischievous posters quickly noted that sex discussion was still allowed.

Contemporaneously, a General post revealing the use of HotCopper archives for research by a team from the University of Queensland Business School in their paper “Market reaction to takeover rumour in Internet Discussion Sites” published in the March 06 Accounting and Finance journal on the noticeable effect of takeover rumours percolating in the forum was removed almost immediately after it was posted.

The UQ Business School HotCopper research abstract states

The authors acknowledge the assistance of the management of Hotcopper, who made available to us their archives …

We examine the market reaction to takeover rumour postings in the Hotcopper Internet Discussion Site (IDS). Results from the interday analysis show abnormal returns and trading volumes on the day before and the day of the posting. Results of the intraday analysis show abnormal returns and trading volumes during the 10 min posting interval and abnormal trading volume during the 10 min interval immediately preceding it. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are robust to concerns regarding potential confounds, credibility and bid–ask spread bias. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the market reacting to the posting of takeover rumours in IDS.

Participants on the HotCopper site are informed in the site’s Privacy Policy that information may be used

for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.

Have the HC admin has decided the banned topics might unduly influence the market fortunes of the vying parties in the forthcoming Australian federal elections? Political censorship and wowserism at such times is of necessity suspect. Just who is being ‘protected’ by the limits on debate? After all, despite the management attitude, this is not a children’s forum site.

Note to self: must remember to email all Political Science and Political Economy departments of Australian universities to inform them of the limited nature of their areas of study.

This is the week Kevvie’s fortunes will be decided. If he can’t swing the National Conference in favour of whacking the no new mines policy, the rodent will be in like Flynn with a walloping wedgie. While Garrett and Albanese continue to fight the good, if completely misguided, fight, Kevvie is confident.

Why aren’t these well-meaning twits discussing and extolling Synroc as a means of safe waste disposal? Whorestralia has a sublime opportunity to value add to U exports by insisting that waste be returned to sender for a non-negotiable fee, for processing and safe burial.

Perhaps Garrett and co would prefer we all choke – there’s no way solar and wind can fill the vast energy needs of China and India, particularly considering the number of reactors already under construction and those projected to come online in the next few years. And fat chance of stopping dirty brown coal exports with Beattie’s gungho attitude. Thirty years ago solar and wind might have been a realistic mass alternative, but that chance has long lapsed. Do Midnight Oil use biodiesel/solar/wind to power their amps? Noooooooo ….

We bunker down with our safe Wyoming BLR holding while sweating on the South Australian SNU and TRF, and Northern Territorian NTU and THX. Today we drop KOR in disgust after they announce they are rescinding their 2 for 1 in specie floaties for shareholders – the carrot turned into a turnip. In effect, the company misled the market. Will they be disciplined? Pigs would fly sooner. Them’s the breaks.

INL drops to 15c. Someone is still pushing them lower, so we’ll wait to pounce on more if the opportunity presents. At least the rabid greenies can’t object to a company that’s cleaning up tailings dams.

With the water crisis worsening, and EVZ commensurately prospering, the rodent gives us a preview of his next fear campaign – we’re all gonna starve, folks, if the rains don’t come. Git down on yer knees and pray, says the fat rat. Luckily, we have enough pumpkins and bananas to trade with our veggie growing friends – and since our shire has kept its trees, we still have plenty of rain. We were well aware many years ago the Australian environment was incapable of supporting its existing gobbling, guzzling, land-ravaging population in the long term. The long term has turned out to be the short term. Another year of drought and the country will really have to think hard about sustainable population. Death to economic rationalism and its sick worship of perpetual economic growth fuelled by taxpayer-funded breeding frenzies!

Definitely in South Australia, the Saudia of uranium.

Anticipation of change in ALP uranium policy grips the investors of the nation today as SA Premier Rann signals he will be pushing hard at the National ALP Conference next week to liberalise U mining, whilst opposing the use of nuclear power in SA.

Mr Rann will fly to Melbourne and Sydney tomorrow to begin lobbying Labor delegates to overturn the party’s “no new uranium mine” policy, ahead of next week’s national ALP conference.

Mr Rann says the policy is outdated and illogical and he believes the potential of South Australia’s uranium would be huge if the policy could be overturned.

“Sixty companies in South Australia are now holding exploration licences for uranium,” he said on Radio 5AA.

“To put it into perspective, if uranium is the fuel for the future, we’re not the Texas, we’re the Saudi Arabia of it in our state.”

We snapped up more Southern Uranium today at 41c. With the Chinese Citic and Talbot Holdings soaking up 20m of the shares offered since the float and probably more by now, the future for SNU with its large, promising tenements looks pretty much assured.

It is possible SNU will do an NTU, sit round 40c for a month or so before going ballistic, yet if the U spot price continues to climb, it may surprise earlier.