761

Former PM John Howard’s blandly named Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) remains under PM Kevin Rudd. It is prosecuting Victorian vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Noel Washington, who faces six months’ jail for not answering questions about a union meeting.
A French court has denied a woman citizenship because she wears a burqa — a veil covering the entire body — according to a July 11 Reuters report.
While some, including US presidential hopeful Barack Obama and the Australian government of PM Kevin Rudd, attempt to present the US-led occupation of Afghanistan as a “good war” counterposed to the disastrous occupation of Iraq — seen as a distraction from the “war on terrorism” — the bloodshed and repression in the service of the US-installed warlords in Kabul continues.
Desert Queen: The Many Lives and Loves of Daisy Bates
By Susana de Vries
HarperCollins, 2008
294 pages, $33 (pb) Daisy Baites: Grand Dame of the Desert
By Bob Reece
National Library of Australia, 2007
205 pages, $24.95 (pb)
The Terror Dream: Fear & Fantasy in Post-9/11 America
By Susan Faludi
Scribe Melbourne, 2007
351 pages, $35
Charlie Wilson’s War
Directed by Mike Nichols
Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
With Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman
On video & DVD