Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths. Elizabeth Cook's artist impression of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court in London, where he was denied bail after appearing on an extradition warrant.
Source: AP WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks. IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win. " His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public. I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. These things have stayed with me. It is neither. Raging floods bear down on Brisbane. Updated Tue 11 Jan 2011, 4:40pm AEDT The Brisbane River has broken its banks amid dire predictions of the biggest floods to hit Queensland's capital since 1974.
The weather bureau says the river is expected to reach major flood levels tomorrow afternoon and rise further on Thursday. It is believed 9,000 homes will be inundated as floodwaters race towards the city. Some areas have received up to 150 millimetres of rain in three hours. Water is also rising quickly in the Bremer River at Ipswich, west of Brisbane, where it is expected to peak close to 19 metres. Police are preparing residents and business owners in the inner-city suburb of West End for the possibility of evacuations later today. The Brisbane City Council says more than 200 homes and businesses along the river are at risk, most at Rocklea, Albion, Milton and Auchenflower.
Police are advising all residents in low-lying parts of Strathpine and Dayboro to the north of Brisbane to evacuate to higher ground immediately. Staying dry. Australian floods: Why were we so surprised? What's going on in Australia is rain.
British people might think that they're rain experts. Truth is that they hardly know what rain is. The kind of cold angel sweat that wets British windscreens isn't proper rain. For weeks now rain has been drumming in my ears, leaping off my corrugated steel roof, frothing through the rocks, spouting off the trees, and running, running, running past my house and down into the gully, into the little creek, into the bigger creek, and on to the Nerang river and out to sea at Southport.
We've had more than 350mm in the last four days. The rain comes in pulses. So, yeah, as Australians say, the problem is rain. The meteorologists will tell you that the current deluge is a product of La Niña. It takes La Niña to bring rain to the inland, in such quantities that it can hardly be managed. The phenomenon is anything but momentary; the not-so-exceptional rainfall will continue, probably until the end of March.