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To say nothing of two circular, two stone, and five swinging ones - benches, that is! You have to believe in something; I believe in plenty of benches to sit down on, as I walk across "Riverbend", cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other.
Whether I'm looking for a shady nook or a place in the sun, whether I want to watch the boats on the river, the ducks on the pond, or the pelicans in the lagoon, there's always the right spot for every mood.
It's time for my first cup of tea - Bushells, of course! - while wonder-ing how to fill in the rest of this sparkling-bright and sunny morning.
Washing-up in the kitchen is no longer necessary because of my very effective one-plate-one-cup-one-spoon-one-knife strategy; making up the bed is a thing of the past because I sleep on a mattress on the floor in front of the fireplace; grass-cutting is out because I busted the drive belt on the ride-on yesterday; and there's no need to drive into town for any shopping because the freezer is still full of TV-dinners.
I think I make myself another cup of tea and relax and read a book. This is as good as it gets!
I think I've said it before that I'm sick and tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and that I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?
So when I heard about Luke Davies – poet, novelist and screenwriter of the hit movie Lion - who had pulled himself from the depths of heroin addiction at the beginning of 1990 to write a semi-autobiographical account of his relationship with Megan Bannister and their years of addiction, I didn't rush out to buy his book.
Nor did I rush out to buy the later film adaptation on DVD but since it is now freely available on YouTube, I struggled through the 108 minutes of this druggie movie which changed nothing for me: I'm still sick and tired of drug addicts; however, I shall make an effort and go and watch his latest movie, "Lion".
The world is going to hell in a handbasket without passing "Go", and what focuses our minds? The web of lies of a stupid girl in a Bogota jail, the homecoming of a convicted drug smuggler, and the cocaine-sniffing habits of muscle-bound footballers whose IQs are displayed on the back of their jerseys.
They say that every country has the government it deserves which presupposes that our votes count. Which they don't because by the time we cast our votes, the powers that be have already decided who the “legitimate” nominees are going to be. They weed out candidates who are unacceptable to the existing powerbrokers. Those who are left are then “democratically” elected by us.
By this process of elimination we finish up with politicians who waste their time bickering about same-sex marriage, decriminalising drugs, anti-doping regimes in sports, and racial vilification laws, while the world is staring into the abyss.
If voting really made any difference, they’d have made it illegal a long time ago. Q.E.D., I think.
With the growing threat of home-grown Muslim jihadist terrorist attacks and the ominous cataclysm of a global holy war, there's no doubt Islam has become a burden-some issue in the Western world.
Stick your head in the sand or read this book by J. K. Sheindlin - the choice is yours:
Click on the image to go to Booktopia Also available here as ebook at a lower price
Is Islam a "religion of peace"? Was Muhammad the true and final prophet of God? Is the Quran the fulfilment of the Bible, and legitimately continuing the traditions of the Judeo-Christian scriptures? Perhaps one of the most audacious, shocking, unthinkable and highly controversial ideas to ever be conceived, "The People vs Muhammad" places the founding father of Islam on trial for crimes against humanity, and to challenge his self-proclaimed authority.
'The Muslim Agenda' is the shocking documentary which exposes the Islamic plan for worldwide takeover. Seen by over half a million people, the film has polarized audiences with the confronting facts which cannot be denied. Entirely backed up by Islamic sources, no Muslim has yet been able to refute the filmmakers' claims.
But I don't want to spoil your weekend completely, so here are a few laughs on the way out ...
Filmed in and around the Park Hotel in Vitznau on Lake Lucerne in scenic Switzerland, this somewhat Jane-Austen-ish movie suits the autumnish mood of morning here at "Riverbend".
Just the sort of movie to watch and the sort of dialogue to listen to while dawdling over the first cup of coffee for the day and munching on some Swiss chocolate. Are you reading this, Chris Mellen in bucolic Bussy-sur-Moudon? (population 198, but Chris is working on it ☺)
Many years go, I bought this DVD at great expense from the USA. Now the full-length movie is freely avaialble on the internet
Still travelling - mentally, of course - I watched last night once again "In A Savage Land" and enjoyed every one of the 106 minutes of it. It's a stunning and visually breathtaking movie filmed on location in New Guinea's Trobriand Islands.
Watching this movie was like opening the cover of an adventure book and being immediately transported to another world. Although there were shades of Malinowski and "Sex and Repression in Savage Society", the story line, a kind of English Patient in the South Pacific, didn't really engage me; it's the superb cinematography that at times feels as though I was watching a candid documentary on a wild and exotic remote island where the mud and the heat and the smells are as real as the autumn leaves that cover my lawn down here in wintry New South Wales.
And what about those haunting closing lines? "You look back on a life. What do you hold? What do you take with you into death? .... The thing I'll remember on the day I die is the smell of a pearl shell, freshly opened. Yes, that's what I'll take with me into the dark."
Why did I leave Burma after only one year? I mean, I had it all: I was chief accountant for the French national oil company TOTAL before I had even turned 30, earned a big salary, lived in one of those big ex-British colonial houses with a circular driveway and servants' quarters, and was chauffeured around in a big car - and they had begged me to sign on again for another year! Too much hubris and the promise of another job in my favourite town in my former stamping grounds of Papua New Guinea had something to do with it.
The job had been advertised by the consulting firm W.D.Scott in all the Australian newspapers which I regularly read at the Australian embassy in Rangoon. I applied and was hired sight unseen! Maybe that should've set off alarm bells but in those days I felt indestructible and the job of "adviser" to John Kaputin, one of the 'young turks' in the new nation of Papua New Guinea, seemed like a challenge too good to miss.
All I knew about John Kaputin was that his had been the first marriage between a New Guinean and a white woman and that he was regarded as a troublemaker by certain people. As soon as I had arrived in Rabaul in early 1976, I found that, while he was involved in many commercial activities, he hadn't complied with statutory requirements and was chased by the Registrar of Companies for outstanding annual reports and by the Chief Collector of Taxes for outstanding tax returns. With an almost total lack of record-keeping, how was I to create something out of nothing?
Today the area sports the Kabaira Beach Hideaway which was then a stopover for local plantation owners when they transported their cocoa and copra produce to Rabaul
Then he took me some 50km along the North Coast Road (a dirt track at the best of times) to show me my accommodation, a very beautiful bungalow in a picturesque oceanfront location, but without telephone connection and on remote Kabaira Plantation, the exact spot where in 1971 District Commissioner Jack Emanuel had been speared to death.
Pacific Islands Monthly, September 1971 Click on image to read in larger print
Not that I was concerned for myself - I mentioned that in those days I felt indestructible, didn't I? - but I had to think of my wife who was to come out from Burma to join me. And so John and I parted company.
Forty years later, what I know about John Kaputin is still no more than what I read in old issues of the Pacific Islands Monthly - click here - including his jailing in 1979 for failing to produce an annual report for New Guinea Development Corporation, of which he was the chairman.
Pacific Islands Monthly, November 1979, page 11
Seems like no one picked up the slack after I had left!
I was reminded of this quote from "Out of Africa" after I'd been so absorbed watching "Walk into Paradise" last night that I skipped both my usual dinner and my usual bedtime.
The plot is simple enough: Steve McAllister is an Australian Patrol Officer ordered to lead an expedition up the Sepik River to Paradise Valley into ‘uncontrolled territory’, where Sharkeye Kelly has discovered oil. Accompanying them on the expedition is glamorous French United Nations doctor Louise Demarcet, who is reminded by Sharkeye that she’s on the Sepik River not the Riviera. Anxious to reach the highlands before the start of the wet season, McAllister’s initial suspicion of the doctor evaporates when her skills are required to save the children of a tribal leader to avert massacre.
The film was shot on location in New Guinea in 1955 which makes it both classic and timeless as it reflects the ethos of the colonial fifties when adventurers confronted one of the last unexplored and dramatic cultures on earth. And to make it a true collector's item, it stars "the [then] living symbol of the typical Australian", Chips Rafferty (who didn't know a puk puk from a pek pek), as the Australian District Officer Steve MacAllister.
They don’t make films like this any more, and nor could they in today's New Guinea with its political instability, endemic corruption, and breakdown of law and order.
And I don't travel much any more either. There's no need to travel to New Guinea and suffer the prickly heat, the tropical ulcers, and the malaria-carrying mosquitoes, when I can relive my time there by simply skipping both my usual dinner and bedtime and watching this movie.
We are who we are because of our past, so let's seize the past with the help of Ted Egan who made this video of the Torres Strait where I lived and worked on TI in 1977 under the dick-tatorship of Cec Burgess.
Cec was a former missionary-type who, having discovered the difference between a debit and a credit, passed himself off as an accountant to become manager of what was then the Island Industries Board. Had it not been for Cec's reign of terror, I might have stayed forever, as, according to 'Banjo' Paterson's "Thirsty Island", 'the heat, the thirst, the beer, and the Islanders may be trusted to do the rest.'
Of course, professionally speaking, I would have signed my own death warrant because Thursday Island was a dead-end, whereas I went on to bigger and better jobs in the Solomons (again!), Samoa, Malaysia, Australia, New Guinea (again and again!), Saudi Arabia, Greece ...
It was a case of Thursday Island versus the World, and the world won!
Perhaps it is the result of having read Coral Island and too much Somerset Maugham at an impressionable age, but the South Pacific islands have always evoked a powerfully romantic image with me.
Mention the South Seas and I conjure up a vision of waving coconut palms and a dusky maiden strumming her ukelele. Silhouetted against the setting sun, Trader Pete (that's me!) sits in a deck-chair in front of his hut sipping a long gin and tonic while a steamboat chugs into the lagoon, bringing mail from home.
This is the story of how I got to New Guinea:
After my 'compulsory' two years in Australia from 1965 to 1967 as an 'assisted migrant', I was free to leave again - and leave I did as it seemed impossible to live on what was initially a youth wage and later became the salary of a junior bank officer with the ANZ Bank.
I had booked a passage back to Europe aboard the Greek ship 'PATRIS' operated by Chandris Line (or, as we came to call it, Chunder Line - but that is yet another story!) which had been scheduled to leave Sydney and call at Port Moresby on its way through the Suez Canal. But history and the Eqypt-Israeli war of 1967 [the so-called 6-Day War which began on June 5, 1967] intervened and the Suez Canal was closed to all shipping.
So the 'PATRIS' never got to Port Moresby but sailed through the Great Australian Bight and around the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town) instead. However, a good number of 'Territorians' from the then Territory of Papua & New Guinea had already booked a passage and the shipping line at great expense flew them down to Sydney to join the ship. And so it came that I spent some four weeks aboard the 'PATRIS' in the company of a whole bunch of hard-drinking and boisterous 'Territorians'.
Having barely scraped together the fare, I had no money to spend on drinks but I did mix with the 'Territorians' night after night in the ship's Midnight Club to listen to Graham Bell and his Allstars. I was spell-bound by the stories those 'larger-than-life' 'Territorians' told about the Territory and my mind was made up that I would go there one day.
One of the 'Territorians' whom I befriended was Noel Butler who then lived in Wewak in the Sepik District. If New Guinea seemed remote and exotic, then the mystical Sepik District was even more remove and more exotic! It sounded all very Conrad-esque and straight out of "Heart of Darkness"!
Noel had been sent up to the Territory as a soldier during the war and had never left it! After leaving the army, he tried his hand at coffee and tea in the Highlands and had held numerous positions of one kind or another ever since. He epitomised the typical 'Territorian' with his Devil-may-care attitude and his unconcern about the future, about money, and about a career. Somehow, for those people, the Territory provided everything they wanted from life and the rest of the world was a place that they visited once every other year during their three-month leave.
Our love of chess made Noel and me shipboard mates and we spent many hours hunched over the chess board as the ship ploughed its way towards Europe. And as we played game after game, I learnt about the Territory and listened to stories of some of the Territory's 'old-timers', including one Errol Flynn of whom I had never heard before (but whose autobiography 'My Wicked, Wicked Ways' I was to read many years later.) It seemed the Territory attracted three types of people: missionaries, moneymakers, and misfits. Which category would I fit?
Eventually the ship docked at Piraeus in Greece where Noel saw me off at the railway station as I was bound for Hamburg in Germany. I had been promised a job there and my thin wallet was in urgent need of some fattening-up! There was no time or money left for sightseeing as I boarded the train on a wintry Athens morning to spent several days transiting through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Austria before reaching Germany.
I spent the next few miserable winter months in Hamburg and then in Frankfurt before finding a way out again: I got a job in southern Africa which, as I saw it, was almost halfway back to where I eventually wanted to go: New Guinea. That is not to say that my career was a planned one. Although I have not been an out-and-out drifter, circumstance usually played a larger role than choice in what I did with my life - or perhaps I should say what life did to me (but that's probably true of most people's lives).
With no money in my pocket, I had to rely on employers to get me back to the other side of the world. My destination was South West Africa, or Namibia as it is called now, which stretches north from South Africa's Orange River along 1280 kilometres of the loneliest, yet in parts most hauntingly beautiful coastlines touched by the Atlantic Ocean. The Namib desert, whose desolate sands have trapped and killed thousands of men and women of every race as they sought to unlock its secrets or merely to survive, runs right to the sea. The local Ovambo people call Namibia "the land God made in anger" and as the sun mercilessly bakes deserts, plains and mountains alike, it is a close cousin to hell. I spent some time in Lüderitz where I worked as a book-keeper for Metje & Ziegler Ltd. to earn the necessary money for a passage from Cape Town back to Australia where the ANZ Bank re-employed me immediately.
But the die was cast and I knew I would find a way to get to the Territory. From Noel, with whom I had stayed in contact during all this time, I had heard about PIM, the Pacific Island Monthly which was read by one and all in the Territory. I bought a copy and decided to place in it a tiny classified ad which from memory ran something like this: "Young Accountant (still studying) seeks position in the Islands." The response was hardly overwhelming but the two letters I did receive were enough. One was from a Tom Hepworth of Pigeon Island Traders in the Outer Reef Islands in the then British Solomon Islands Protectorate who described to me in glowing terms the leisurely life on a small atoll in one of the remotest part of the South Pacific. It all sounded terribly tempting but his closing remarks that "of course, we couldn't pay you much at all..." stopped that particular day-dream as I had to think of my future and what future was there after several years spent on a tiny island away from anywhere and with no money in my pocket? (As it happened, I made contact with the Hepworths again almost 35 years later (but thereby hangs yet another tale).
This is a beautifully produced book; click here or here for a preview
The other letter was from a Mr. Barry Weir, resident manager of the firm of chartered accountants Hancock, Woodward & Neill in Rabaul on the island of New Britain in the Territory of Papua & New Guinea who, subject to a satisfactory interview with their representative in Australia, offered me the position of audit clerk. That was it!!! I passed muster at the interview and in the dying days of the year 1969 I left Australia for New Guinea. I was on my way!!!
Rabaul was everything I had expected of the Territory: it was a small community settled around picturesque Simpson Harbour. The climate was tropical with blazing sunshine and regular tropical downpours, the vegetation strange and exotic, and the social life a complete change from anything I had ever experienced before! Rabaul Harbour And to top it all, I loved the work which offered challenges only available in a small setting such as Rabaul where expatriate labour was at a premium.
The firm was small: the resident manager, his wife as secretary, and two accountants (both still studying) plus myself. One of the accountants was a real character who was destined never to leave the Territory. For him the old aphorism came true that "if you spend more than five years in New Guinea you were done for, you'd never be able to get out, your energy would be gone, and you'd rot there like an aged palm." He and an accountant from another chartered firm and myself shared a company house (which was really an old Chinese tradestore) in Vulcan Street and a 'hausboi' who answered to the name of Getup. "Getup!!!" "Yes, masta!"
The Palm Theatre was the social hub on Saturday nights; the town would dress in their finery and gather to see great epics like 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Ben Hur'
Each of us took a turn in doing the weekly shopping. I always dreaded when it was their turn as they merely bought a leg of lamb and spent the rest of the kitty to stock up on beer! We spent Saturday nights at the Palm Theatre sprawled in our banana chairs with an esky full of stubbies beside us. The others rarely spent a night at home; their nocturnal activities ranged from the Ambonese Club to the Ralum Club to the RSL. When they were well into their beers, mosquitoes would bite them and then fly straight into the wall! Then, next morning, they were like snails on Valium. How they managed to stay awake during office hours has always been a mystery to me!
A short clip from the film "Flight Into Yesterday", a promotional film about PNG produced by Dept Civil Aviation in 1967, which features Rabaul
Easter 1970 gave me the chance to visit my old mate Noel Butler when the Rabaul tennis club chartered a DC3 to fly to Wewak for some sort of tournament. I got a seat aboard and visited Noel who lived on his own little estate along the Hawain River some ten miles outside Wewak. It was a wonderful place! Tilly lamps at night and a shower gravity-fed from a rooftop holding tank which was refilled by the 'haus boi' with a handpump. A native village was just down the road and far into the night small bands of villagers would pass the house strumming their ukeleles. An alcoholic beachcomber by the name of McKenzie (who was said to be an excellent carpenter on the few occasions when he was off the grog) lived even farther out than Noel. He had no transport which however did not stop him from walking all the way into Wewak to quench his ever-present thirst at the Sepik Club. On his return late at night he would stagger in to Noel's for a few more noggins to propel him on his way. In later years some friendly people in town fixed him up with a donkey which used to carry him home safely. The Territory was full of characters like McKenzie.
When the local newspaper, the POST-COURIER, began carrying ads for audit personnel on the Bougainville Copper Project, I applied and was invited to fly across for an interview in October 1970. They hired me on the spot and I returned to Rabaul to give notice and get my things and within a few weeks I was back on Bougainville - but that's a story for another day.
Over the years I repeatedly ran into "ex-Territorians" in Australia and elsewhere. We would swap yarns which always ended in a great deal of nostalgia and a hankering for a way of life that would never come again. Like myself, many had found it difficult to settle back into an "ordinary" life and, like myself, had moved from place to place in an attempt to recapture some of the old lifestyle.
The Invisible Man is a good book to read again on a slow day because the story moves at a snail's pace which makes it the perfect book to read at "Riverbend" where every day is a slow day - and thank goodness for that.
As a moral tale, The Invisible Man harks back to Plato's "Ring of Gyges" and poses the interesting question whether man would be moral if he didn't have to fear being caught and punished for doing injustices.
And, of course, being invisible makes it easy to get things but hard to enjoy them. And it gets kind of lonely and also cold because you can only be totally invisible by being starkers. And it becomes impossible to sleep because the eyelids also become invisible. As H. G. Wells points out, the only really good use for invisibility is murder.
It's a good read, and you can read it here, but don't expect much of a chuckle until you get to chapter XVI, "This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw him."
So if you were invisble for a day, what's the first thing you would do? Just be careful what you wish for!
Behind the lavish praise heaped on his hosts, President Trump used this speech to deliver a tough message to Arab and Muslim governments: deal with the ideology that fuels terrorism now or live with it for generations to come.
"I want to thank King Salman for his extraordinary words, and the magnificent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting today’s summit. I am honored to be received by such gracious hosts. I have always heard about the splendor of your country and the kindness of your citizens, but words do not do justice to the grandeur of this remarkable place and the incredible hospitality you have shown us from the moment we arrived.
You also hosted me in the treasured home of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the Kingdom who united your great people. Working alongside another beloved leader – American President Franklin Roosevelt – King Abdulaziz began the enduring partnership between our two countries. King Salman: your father would be so proud to see that you are continuing his legacy – and just as he opened the first chapter in our partnership, today we begin a new chapter that will bring lasting benefits to our citizens.
Let me now also extend my deep and heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of the distinguished heads of state who made this journey here today. You greatly honor us with your presence, and I send the warmest regards from my country to yours. I know that our time together will bring many blessings to both your people and mine.
I stand before you as a representative of the American People, to deliver a message of friendship and hope. That is why I chose to make my first foreign visit a trip to the heart of the Muslim world, to the nation that serves as custodian of the two holiest sites in the Islamic Faith.
In my inaugural address to the American People, I pledged to strengthen America’s oldest friendships, and to build new partnerships in pursuit of peace. I also promised that America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but to outstretch our hands in the spirit of cooperation and trust.
Our vision is one of peace, security, and prosperity—in this region, and in the world.
Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God.
And so this historic and unprecedented gathering of leaders—unique in the history of nations—is a symbol to the world of our shared resolve and our mutual respect. To the leaders and citizens of every country assembled here today, I want you to know that the United States is eager to form closer bonds of friendship, security, culture and commerce.
For Americans, this is an exciting time. A new spirit of optimism is sweeping our country: in just a few months, we have created almost a million new jobs, added over 3 trillion dollars of new value, lifted the burdens on American industry, and made record investments in our military that will protect the safety of our people and enhance the security of our wonderful friends and allies – many of whom are here today.
Now, there is even more blessed news I am pleased to share with you. My meetings with King Salman, the Crown Prince, and the Deputy Crown Prince, have been filled with great warmth, good will, and tremendous cooperation. Yesterday, we signed historic agreements with the Kingdom that will invest almost $400 billion in our two countries and create many thousands of jobs in America and Saudi Arabia.
This landmark agreement includes the announcement of a $110 billion Saudi-funded defense purchase – and we will be sure to help our Saudi friends to get a good deal from our great American defense companies. This agreement will help the Saudi military to take a greater role in security operations.
We have also started discussions with many of the countries present today on strengthening partnerships, and forming new ones, to advance security and stability across the Middle East and beyond.
Later today, we will make history again with the opening of a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology – located right here, in this central part of the Islamic World.
This groundbreaking new center represents a clear declaration that Muslim-majority countries must take the lead in combatting radicalization, and I want to express our gratitude to King Salman for this strong demonstration of leadership.
I have had the pleasure of welcoming several of the leaders present today to the White House, and I look forward to working with all of you.
America is a sovereign nation and our first priority is always the safety and security of our citizens. We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.
Here at this summit we will discuss many interests we share together. But above all we must be united in pursuing the one goal that transcends every other consideration. That goal is to meet history’s great test—to conquer extremism and vanquish the forces of terrorism.
Young Muslim boys and girls should be able to grow up free from fear, safe from violence, and innocent of hatred. And young Muslim men and women should have the chance to build a new era of prosperity for themselves and their peoples.
With God’s help, this summit will mark the beginning of the end for those who practice terror and spread its vile creed. At the same time, we pray this special gathering may someday be remembered as the beginning of peace in the Middle East – and maybe, even all over the world.
But this future can only be achieved through defeating terrorism and the ideology that drives it.
Few nations have been spared its violent reach.
America has suffered repeated barbaric attacks – from the atrocities of September 11th to the devastation of the Boston Bombing, to the horrible killings in San Bernardino and Orlando.
The nations of Europe have also endured unspeakable horror. So too have the nations of Africa and even South America. India, Russia, China and Australia have been victims.
But, in sheer numbers, the deadliest toll has been exacted on the innocent people of Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern nations. They have borne the brunt of the killings and the worst of the destruction in this wave of fanatical violence.
Some estimates hold that more than 95 percent of the victims of terrorism are themselves Muslim.
We now face a humanitarian and security disaster in this region that is spreading across the planet. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. No description of the suffering and depravity can begin to capture its full measure.
The true toll of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and so many others, must be counted not only in the number of dead. It must also be counted in generations of vanished dreams.
The Middle East is rich with natural beauty, vibrant cultures, and massive amounts of historic treasures. It should increasingly become one of the great global centers of commerce and opportunity.
This region should not be a place from which refugees flee, but to which newcomers flock.
Saudi Arabia is home to the holiest sites in one of the world’s great faiths. Each year millions of Muslims come from around the world to Saudi Arabia to take part in the Hajj. In addition to ancient wonders, this country is also home to modern ones—including soaring achievements in architecture.
Egypt was a thriving center of learning and achievement thousands of years before other parts of the world. The wonders of Giza, Luxor and Alexandria are proud monuments to that ancient heritage.
All over the world, people dream of walking through the ruins of Petra in Jordan. Iraq was the cradle of civilization and is a land of natural beauty. And the United Arab Emirates has reached incredible heights with glass and steel, and turned earth and water into spectacular works of art.
The entire region is at the center of the key shipping lanes of the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Straits of Hormuz. The potential of this region has never been greater. 65 percent of its population is under the age of 30. Like all young men and women, they seek great futures to build, great national projects to join, and a place for their families to call home.
But this untapped potential, this tremendous cause for optimism, is held at bay by bloodshed and terror. There can be no coexistence with this violence. There can be no tolerating it, no accepting it, no excusing it, and no ignoring it.
Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person, and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be an insult to every person of faith.
Terrorists do not worship God, they worship death.
If we do not act against this organized terror, then we know what will happen. Terrorism’s devastation of life will continue to spread. Peaceful societies will become engulfed by violence. And the futures of many generations will be sadly squandered.
If we do not stand in uniform condemnation of this killing—then not only will we be judged by our people, not only will we be judged by history, but we will be judged by God.
This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations.
This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.
This is a battle between Good and Evil.
When we see the scenes of destruction in the wake of terror, we see no signs that those murdered were Jewish or Christian, Shia or Sunni. When we look upon the streams of innocent blood soaked into the ancient ground, we cannot see the faith or sect or tribe of the victims – we see only that they were Children of God whose deaths are an insult to all that is holy.
But we can only overcome this evil if the forces of good are united and strong – and if everyone in this room does their fair share and fulfills their part of the burden.
Terrorism has spread across the world. But the path to peace begins right here, on this ancient soil, in this sacred land.
America is prepared to stand with you – in pursuit of shared interests and common security.
But the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves, for their countries, and for their children.
It is a choice between two futures – and it is a choice America CANNOT make for you.
A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out.
DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship.
DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities.
DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and
DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.
For our part, America is committed to adjusting our strategies to meet evolving threats and new facts. We will discard those strategies that have not worked—and will apply new approaches informed by experience and judgment. We are adopting a Principled Realism, rooted in common values and shared interests.
Our friends will never question our support, and our enemies will never doubt our determination. Our partnerships will advance security through stability, not through radical disruption. We will make decisions based on real-world outcomes – not inflexible ideology. We will be guided by the lessons of experience, not the confines of rigid thinking. And, wherever possible, we will seek gradual reforms – not sudden intervention.
We must seek partners, not perfection—and to make allies of all who share our goals.
Above all, America seeks peace – not war.
Muslim nations must be willing to take on the burden, if we are going to defeat terrorism and send its wicked ideology into oblivion.
The first task in this joint effort is for your nations to deny all territory to the foot soldiers of evil. Every country in the region has an absolute duty to ensure that terrorists find no sanctuary on their soil.
Many are already making significant contributions to regional security: Jordanian pilots are crucial partners against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and a regional coalition have taken strong action against Houthi militants in Yemen. The Lebanese Army is hunting ISIS operatives who try to infiltrate their territory. Emirati troops are supporting our Afghan partners. In Mosul, American troops are supporting Kurds, Sunnis and Shias fighting together for their homeland. Qatar, which hosts the U.S. Central Command, is a crucial strategic partner. Our longstanding partnership with Kuwait and Bahrain continue to enhance security in the region. And courageous Afghan soldiers are making tremendous sacrifices in the fight against the Taliban, and others, in the fight for their country.
As we deny terrorist organizations control of territory and populations, we must also strip them of their access to funds. We must cut off the financial channels that let ISIS sell oil, let extremists pay their fighters, and help terrorists smuggle their reinforcements.
I am proud to announce that the nations here today will be signing an agreement to prevent the financing of terrorism, called the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center – co-chaired by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and joined by every member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is another historic step in a day that will be long remembered.
I also applaud the Gulf Cooperation Council for blocking funders from using their countries as a financial base for terror, and designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization last year. Saudi Arabia also joined us this week in placing sanctions on one of the most senior leaders of Hezbollah.
Of course, there is still much work to do.
That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires. And it means standing together against the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews, and the slaughter of Christians.
Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: Barbarism will deliver you no glory – piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and YOUR SOUL WILL BE CONDEMNED.
And political leaders must speak out to affirm the same idea: heroes don’t kill innocents; they save them. Many nations here today have taken important steps to raise up that message. Saudi Arabia’s Vision for 2030 is an important and encouraging statement of tolerance, respect, empowering women, and economic development.
The United Arab Emirates has also engaged in the battle for hearts and souls—and with the U.S., launched a center to counter the online spread of hate. Bahrain too is working to undermine recruitment and radicalism.
I also applaud Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon for their role in hosting refugees. The surge of migrants and refugees leaving the Middle East depletes the human capital needed to build stable societies and economies. Instead of depriving this region of so much human potential, Middle Eastern countries can give young people hope for a brighter future in their home nations and regions.
That means promoting the aspirations and dreams of all citizens who seek a better life – including women, children, and followers of all faiths. Numerous Arab and Islamic scholars have eloquently argued that protecting equality strengthens Arab and Muslim communities.
For many centuries the Middle East has been home to Christians, Muslims and Jews living side-by-side. We must practice tolerance and respect for each other once again—and make this region a place where every man and woman, no matter their faith or ethnicity, can enjoy a life of dignity and hope.
In that spirit, after concluding my visit in Riyadh, I will travel to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and then to the Vatican – visiting many of the holiest places in the three Abrahamic Faiths. If these three faiths can join together in cooperation, then peace in this world is possible – including peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I will be meeting with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Starving terrorists of their territory, their funding, and the false allure of their craven ideology, will be the basis for defeating them.
But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three—safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of course of Iran.
From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.
It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.
Among Iran’s most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria. Bolstered by Iran, Assad has committed unspeakable crimes, and the United States has taken firm action in response to the use of banned chemical weapons by the Assad Regime – launching 59 tomahawk missiles at the Syrian air base from where that murderous attack originated.
Responsible nations must work together to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria, eradicate ISIS, and restore stability to the region. The Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims are its own people. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders’ reckless pursuit of conflict and terror.
Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.
The decisions we make will affect countless lives.
King Salman, I thank you for the creation of this great moment in history, and for your massive investment in America, its industry and its jobs. I also thank you for investing in the future of this part of the world.
This fertile region has all the ingredients for extraordinary success – a rich history and culture, a young and vibrant people, a thriving spirit of enterprise. But you can only unlock this future if the citizens of the Middle East are freed from extremism, terror and violence.
We in this room are the leaders of our peoples. They look to us for answers, and for action. And when we look back at their faces, behind every pair of eyes is a soul that yearns for justice.
Today, billions of faces are now looking at us, waiting for us to act on the great question of our time.
Will we be indifferent in the presence of evil? Will we protect our citizens from its violent ideology? Will we let its venom spread through our societies? Will we let it destroy the most holy sites on earth? If we do not confront this deadly terror, we know what the future will bring—more suffering and despair. But if we act—if we leave this magnificent room unified and determined to do what it takes to destroy the terror that threatens the world—then there is no limit to the great future our citizens will have.
The birthplace of civilization is waiting to begin a new renaissance. Just imagine what tomorrow could bring.
Glorious wonders of science, art, medicine and commerce to inspire humankind. Great cities built on the ruins of shattered towns. New jobs and industries that will lift up millions of people. Parents who no longer worry for their children, families who no longer mourn for their loved ones, and the faithful who finally worship without fear.
These are the blessings of prosperity and peace. These are the desires that burn with a righteous flame in every human heart. And these are the just demands of our beloved peoples.
I ask you to join me, to join together, to work together, and to FIGHT together— BECAUSE UNITED, WE WILL NOT FAIL.
Thank you. God Bless You. God Bless Your Countries. And God Bless the United States of America."
Analysts said the speech was a change for Mr Trump, who is trying to redefine his relationship with the Muslim world after several controversial remarks, including an interview last year in which he famously said: "I think Islam hates us."
Trump the Peacemaker: centuries-old enmities are instantly forgotten; Arab loves Jew, Jew loves Arab, Israeli loves Palestinian, Palestinian loves Israeli, Shi'ite loves Sunni, Sunni loves Shi'ite, and above all, everyone loves Trump! Let's all kiss and make up! Thanks, Donald!
I love the art of illustrator Wendy MacNaughton and the writing of author Courtney Martin, and I love their manifesto for our often confused and troubled times:
"This is your assignment.
Feel all the things. Feel the hard things. The inexplicable things, the things that make you disavow humanity’s capacity for redemption. Feel all the maddening paradoxes. Feel overwhelmed, crazy. Feel uncertain. Feel angry. Feel afraid. Feel powerless. Feel frozen. And then FOCUS.
Pick up your pen. Pick up your paintbrush. Pick up your damn chin. Put your two calloused hands on the turntables, in the clay, on the strings. Get behind the camera. Look for that pinprick of light. Look for the truth (yes, it is a thing—it still exists.)
Focus on that light. Enlarge it. Reveal the fierce urgency of now. Reveal how shattered we are, how capable of being repaired. But don’t lament the break. Nothing new would be built if things were never broken. A wise man once said: there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. Get after that light.
This is your assignment."
As Courtney Martin explains, "While creating it, we imagined people hanging this poster on their office and studio wall as a reminder that they are not alone in their sadness and fear, and that they must keep doing the work. It matters."
During my two years as auditor on the Bougainville Copper Project in the early 70s, the construction company Hornibrook employed a Filipino accountant by the name of Leon Ortega who was in charge of their large payroll.
He came up with the clever idea of reducing the stated tax deductions on each employee's tax certificate by a small amount and adding the lot to his own certificate to give himself a whopper of a tax refund. It must have been quite a whopper because, even though he didn't diddle PNG's Chief Collector of Taxes but 'only' the tax refunds of hundreds of employees, he ended up as Her Majesty's guest at Bomana Prison.
However, his 'salami trick', while similar, pales into insignificance when compared to Australia’s largest alleged payroll tax scam - click here.
Here's how this latest scam is alleged to have worked:
■ Plutus Payroll Australia provided a payroll administration service for a large number of corporate companies.
■ The companies made regular payments to Plutus on the understanding those funds would be used to pay the wages and superannuation of employees and also to pay the ATO their required pay-as-you-go tax.
■ The syndicate allegedly recruited “straw directors” to act as directors of a series of “second tier” or “straw” companies.
■ Plutus allegedly transferred the payroll funds and a percentage of the PAYG tax to the second-tier companies.
■ However not all of the PAYG commitments were paid to the ATO.
■ Instead, police allege remaining funds were transferred to the syndicate members through false invoices and the bank accounts of front companies.
■ The straw companies would keep logs on the differences between what the ATO was paid and what the syndicate took.
■ The scheme allegedly raked in $165 million.
"I brought my son into work today - I hope you don't mind." "No worries, Deputy Commissioner ..."
The mastermind behind the scheme is the son of a prominent Deputy Commissioner of Taxation - who seems to have had no knowledge of the scheme - as well as his daughter and a raft of other people. Maybe they thought having a father in high places made them bullet-proof. Perhaps they ought to have taken advice from good ol' Leon Ortega.
Ecclesiastes was right: there is nothing new under the sun.
My friend Tony lives on our favourite Moreton Bay island, beautiful Karragarra Island, whose residents are the lucky readers of the free "Friendly Bay Islander".
A recent issue extolled the virtues of canoeing but was quickly taken out of circulation when it was discovered that the depicted paddler did not hold the paddle in the approved manner. Here's the revised issue:
Here the paddle is much better balanced, don't you think? Which reminds me of the old paddler's motto: "Paddle solo, sleep tandem."
Reading old copies of the Pacific Islands Monthly, I found this story about Christine Bertaut who had been Pigeon Island's schoolteacher at the time when I had almost gone there myself in 1969 - see here.
Lucy Irvine (of Castaway fame) tells of Christine's return from a watery grave in her book "Faraway", and I'm sure she won't mind if I quote her:
[page 202 ...]
"... the rainbow was without doubt encircling the whole [Hepworth] family the day Christine, a twenty-two-year-old teacher with a passion for challenges and total commitment to all-round childcare, walked into their lives ... and it wasn't long before the bikini'd figured of the pretty young New Zealander was constantly surrounded by worshipful piccaninnis of all ages ... Under Christine's hands, a garden of scented flowers sprang up outside the leaf schoolhouse ... and exotic collages of land- and seascapes soon covered the classroom walls ... In the course of that time she made learning such a pleasure that Bressin, in particular, often stayed in the schoolhouse studying long after hours, and she transformed even days of lashing rain into something to look forward to, by making a cosy corner and reading Tolkien out loud.
One night when Christine was floating under the stars she loved to study, her small dugout drifted away. And the Debbil tortured her for five days and nights before what was left of her was washed up and found, by other islanders, seventy miles away.
This time, Tom [Hepworth] wasn't away on a trading trip when the horror happened, but in Honiara sorting out paperwork that would allow Christine to stay a third year. For once he was making promising progress with bureaucracy, when a garbled message reached him that this girl of whom they'd all grown so fond was missing, believed drowned. Frantically he tried to contact Diana, but radio communications were down and air-sea rescue services would divulge little beyond the fact they understood the young woman had been missing a full night already, so had conducted only a brief search during the morning then given up, as survival was deemed impossible. It had been a blowy night, there was a swell on, and if those hadn't tipped her to the sharks, her dugout would have been smashed on the reef. What was she doing out in it at night anyway? Hardly sensible.
'Where exactly did you search?' Tom demanded, containing his irritation at their admonitory manner. He may have looked to the neat, disapproving officers like a scruffy Outer Island oddity, but he knew the waters around Reefs like the back of his hand. His was coral-head-and-tiny-landing-channel knowledge, not guesswork based on an old Admiralty chart.
'We followed the course of wind and current - naturally, Mr Hepworth.'
'Captain Hepworth,' Tom snapped. 'Are you aware that the current patterns in that district are unique - that the drift may have been anticlockwise, despite what your books say? That's certainly the local belief.'
They didn't give him much of their time - a captain who'd lost his ship and gave credit to 'local beliefs'. But while he was in their offices, another message came in. It was second-hand but originated, Tom knew at once, from Diana. 'Don't believe dead. No dugout found.'
'There!' said Tom. 'A broader search should be conducted at once.'
But as far as the officers were concerned, it would be pointless. Not unkindly, because they realised sentiment was involved, they explained to Tom that scores of dugouts had gone missing between Reef Islands and the larger groups over the years, and the vast majority had never been traced. It was impossible; not so much a needle in a haystack as a matchstick in the ocean. Sorry, Captain.
... [Tom] knew Christine was very able in a dugout, a strong swimmer, and - most important - not someone to give up. If she were out there still, she'd be fighting for her life, singing to keep up her spirits at night, dousing her head with water to prevent sunstroke in the day ... Tom sat down with a whisky in the G Club, an expatriate hangout where he was rarely seen, and Diana never. There he was befriended by a government architect who pulled a few strings, but it was still ten days before Tom learned properly what had happened ...
In 1947, English couple Tom and Diana Hepworth purchased the ketch Arthur Rogers, previously the Falmouth pilot boat, and sailed to New Zealand via Panama and Tahiti with various crews. Always elegant, Diana was a former London fashion model. They arrived in the New Hebrides in 1957 as traders, and then moved to the Solomon Islands, opened a trade store at Santa Cruz and leased small Pigeon Island (274 by 91 metres) in the Reef Islands. For a long time their Santa Cruz store was the only trade store in the Eastern Outer Islands. They lived an idyllic life as traders, until Tom died in 1994 and Diana died in 2003. They had three children, Natasha, and twin boys Bressin (Ben) and Ross.
[Christine] had fallen asleep looking at the stars, but when she woke they'd receded, and she knew at once, by the swell and silence, she'd drifted beyond the Edge of the Reef, and could be anywhere within a hundred miles, depending on speed of wind and current, of Pigeon. She fought back panic and decided to try to rest while the sea was calm enough to allow her, without risk of capsize. She'd need all her strength to get herself to land, once she saw where it was, when dawn came. But before dawn she heard surf and knew she'd drifted near an island. Which island, though? And there was no comfort in the sound of the surf in the dark, for if it was pounding over coral, she'd be better off staying in deep sea. By first light she was paddling with long, strong, determined strokes away from land, whatever land it was, for the particular crash of the waves was familiar to her. Christine, in her journeyings around the islands, had seen many a shoreline where not even the hardiest islander would attempt to land, and this sounded like one of them. Midday found her far out on the deep, and exhausted. But she didn't dare stop paddling for fear of being driven back towards the coral, so she paddled on, hoping to see, each time she lifted her head, a kinder shore where she could rest. No shore appeared before the sun went down, and she allowed herself a few minutes' rest from the paddle which had blistered her hands, to put them together.
'Dear Lord, look after me, please. There's still much I have to do.' A simple plea, uttered with conviction, for Christine trusted God and his knowledge of her. She closed her eyes, and may have dozed for moments or hours. When she opened them again, the stars were out, and so were the sharks. 'Dear God,' she whispered, and lay rigid, arms clamped to her sides, feet folded in on one another, in the slender dugout swaying carelessly over the waves. But her rigidity in the little scoop of wood made it tip about. She knew about breathing and the art of balance, and knew she must try. That's when she began to sing again, but softly, not to hurt her voice, on the second night, when she also collected a little rainwater. The singing forced her to breathe deeply, so the more easily laden dugout floated gently between its consort of fins. Christine knew a shark's anatomy precisely, having inspected those landed near Pigeon: the skin like a rasp; the inbent teeth that ripped. Sometimes they came so close she could have touched one; sometimes vanished, then zoomed at her, only to swerve off course, as though teasing, at the last minute. No sound came from her mouth by midnight, and the moonlight was so thin its revelations only added to terror. She counted eight fins, dreading one would bump under her and pour her out to the rest. She shivered uncontrollably for minutes on end, then took deep breaths, went limp and poured sweat. Repeatedly.
Twelve hours later - another midday - her face was blistered, and she'd tied her bikini on head and shoulders against the sun. The shark had left in the morning, and she'd sighted land - a dark bouffant of green, promising more than coral - and begun paddling frantically. But it was as though for every twenty paddle strokes made, she was flung back nineteen, because the wind had risen now, and there was a scattering of white over the waves that pushed her easily, like little rippling fingers, back, and always back, to what she now knew, when the sun went down, would become her nightmare zone again. And it came, again and again, for three more nights, until she no longer knew what time it was, or which was the worst horror, the grinning sun, under which her tongue swelled when her water supply evaporated and the tops of her feet bubbled like lava, or the black night, bringing the grotesquely beautiful arrival of the fins, trailing streamers of phosphorescence.
... But she never totally gave up, and when an Islander on Utupua's remotest shore found her, she was curled around her dugout, holding it to her like a man, on her side. He carried her light body, and her paddle, which he couldn't wrest from her fingers, to his village, and the women laid her gently in the shade, on their newest leaf mat.
... on distant Utupua the first news Christine heard, when she came to, was that she'd been reported dead. And she realised her parents, in New Zealand, would be thinking this too. It was three weeks before Tom was able to reach her, and bring her back to Pigeon. Her body was much recovered by then, with little-and-often feeding by the Islanders, who'd pushed mashed pawpaw - the babyfood of the islands - carefully between her cracked lips when at first she couldn't eat, and applied coconut cream to her sun-shredded skin. But she was to re-experience her living nightmare whenever she tried to sleep, over the next month, and even though Diana moved another bed into the schoolhouse to be with her, and sponged her face when she cried out and shook, Christine could find no way of escaping the memories of the shark, and the sharklike sun, and the particular horror of the announcement of her own death, with her parents mourning prematurely. Mercifully, Tom believed, a coma broke this pattern. When , after thirty-six hours of being unrousable, Christine opened her eyes once more, she was calmer, but her paddling arm was paralysed, and she couldn't write a line home with her other hand without weeping. Although she half protested she was all right and couldn't leave the children, there was no alternative but for her to return to New Zealand."
The above account of Christine's ordeal was drawn from Tom's notes, Diana's memories, and discussions with Islanders and with Christine herself, who would like it known that, despite her terrors adrift, her main memories of her time on Pigeon are highly positive.
I sometimes wonder what mine would have been, had I gone to Pigeon Island in the Solomon Islands instead of Rabaul in New Guinea.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien war der Anfang und auch das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
Notice to North American readers:
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
Zzzzzz
Disclaimer
This blog has no particular axe to grind, apart from that of having no particular axe to grind. It is written by a bloke who was born in Germany at the end of the war (that is, for younger readers, the Second World War, the one the Americans think they won single-handedly). He left for Australia when most Germans had not yet visited any foreign countries, except to invade them. He lived and worked all over the world, and even managed a couple of visits back to the (c)old country whose inhabitants he found very efficient, especially when it came to totting up what he had consumed from the hotels' minibars. In retirement, he lives (again) in Australia, but is yet to grow up anywhere.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.
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