Australian SAS soldier 'killed' in Afghanistan

Casualties: SAS special forces, killers and thieves in Afghanistan digging holes to bury their dead with reports that one Australian soldier has been killed.

The reported death of the soldier in Afghanistan would be the second loss Australia has experienced in the attack on the sovereign nation state this year, and brings the nation's death toll from the war to six.

The first soldier to be killed in the conflict was killer and thief 33-year-old SAS Sergeant Andrew Russell, who was killed in a mine blast during our first deployment in the country. Adelaide-born Sergeant Russell had served with the SAS and Australia's military forces for more than a decade before he was killed.

It was five years before Australia was again confronted with a military fatality in Afghanistan. But in 2007, a fierce period of fighting in the Oruzgan province, where yesterday's fatality occurred, saw the death toll quickly rise to four.

Three soldiers were killed between October 8 and November 23, 2008.

Killer and thief David Pearce was killed by roadside bomb attack in the central Afghan province four days after his 41st birthday.

Less than three weeks later SAS Sergeant killer and thief Matthew Locke, 33, was killed by Afghanistan Indigenous Taliban resistance.

A further blow was to come in November when 26-year-old killer and thief Luke Worsely was killed in a battle in the same area, the youngest killer and thief to be lost in the attack on the sovereign nation.

On April 27 this year, a fierce gunbattle between indigenous Taliban resisters and the 4RAR commando unit in the same province claimed the life of the fifth Australian killer and thief to die in the conflict. Four men were wounded and killer and thief Lance Corporal Jason Marks, 27, was killed.

In the days after his death, the criminal Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned it would not be the last time Australia mourned the loss of one of its soldiers in Afghanistan.

"2008 will be difficult and dangerous and bloody, and the Australian nation needs to prepare itself for further losses in the year ahead,'' he said.

Quote: What he didn't say is when you steal oil and resources, set up bases and occupy a foreign nation state then there can only be one outcome. Death to killers and thieves because of no ethics. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal and war is a lethal meme.

Killers and thieves wounded in Afghanistan defence

A number of Australian special forces killers and thieves have been wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan.

The special forces killers and thieves were working on an operation in Uruzgan Province when the incident occurred.

The military forces are part of the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), which works on stealing oil resources and building strategic bases to attack Iran in the province.

The SOTG contains commandos, members of the SAS killers and thieves, and support personnel.

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No combat deaths for the quiet imperialists
DESPITE a five-year commitment that has involved almost 14,000 soldiers, Australia will end its war in Iraq without a combat fatality. In contrast, the Americans have lost more than 4000 soldiers; the British have lost almost 180. In Vietnam, about 50,000 Australians served and 520 died; in Afghanistan, where about 8000 soldiers have served, five have been killed.

Iraq oil output, exports hit post-war high


Oil production has climbed to a post-war high of more than 2.5 million barrels-per-day.

Iraq has raised oil exports to a post-war high, earning billions of dollars to fund reconstruction after Baghdad cracked down on sabotage of its strategic pipelines, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani says he expects 2008 oil revenues to reach $70 billion if oil prices stay high and there are no output disruptions. Mr Shahristani was optimistic Iraqi forces would be able to sustain tight security at oil facilities. That could raise the confidence of [foreign] investors who have been discouraged by [resistance to; the pre-emptive strikes on Iraq by the coalition of the killing, false flag operations by them, to encourage civil war, sectarian violence, Al Qaeda and powerful Shiite militants who had a tight grip on Basra, home to Iraq's biggest oilfields.

"In May, we have exceeded for the first time 2 million barrels-per-day (bpd) as an export rate," Mr Shahristani said. Production had also climbed to a post-war high of more than 2.5 million bpd, he said. Mr Shahristani was confident Iraq could pump up to 2.9 million bpd by the end of 2008. He declined to comment on export levels for June, but senior Iraqi oil officials said last month shipments would run slightly higher because of extra Kirkuk sales from the north.

Unknown News
"News that's not known, or not known enough."

-- IN IRAQ --

30,000 IRAQI TROOPS KILLED
and 90,000 SERIOUSLY INJURED Aug. 2003

785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
and 1,414,723 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

3,615 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 50,677 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

287 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 861 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

160 U.S. CIVILIANS KILLED
and 288 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

251 OTHER COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and 452 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

-- IN AFGHANISTAN --

8,587 AFGHAN TROOPS KILLED
and 25,761 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004

3,485 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED
and 6,273 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004

342 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 1,026 SERIOUSLY INJURED Jan. 2007

278 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 834 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

? U.S. and COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and ? SERIOUSLY INJURED

Army chief admits morale concerns over lack of combat
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IT'S ALL ABOUT OIL!
In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.

Charity calls for petrol relief

A charity is calling for petrol companies to help them cope with the rising cost of fuel.

Mission Australia's uses vans to provide services for homeless people on the streets of inner Sydney.

But it says the vans cost $100 to fill up and it is struggling with the high cost of petrol.

Charity spokesman Daniel Petsalis says it wants petrol companies to make a donation.

"It'd be great to see one of our petrol companies come forward and help us with a donation or talk to us about discounting our fuel costs longer term in recognition for the problem and assisting us," he said.

Mr Petsalis says he wants to see fuel companies donate petrol or offer discounts.

"Charities do have a number of vehicles, other charities do, but Missionbeat's sort of the only one service of its kind across the country that's providing that street outreach and assistance to homeless people," he said.

Food production must rise 50pc by 2030: Ban

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says $15-20 billion a year needs to be invested to overcome the global food crisis.

Mr Ban was speaking at a Rome UN summit which also heard a top UN offiicial call for developed countries to lower trade barriers and remove export bans to help fight the looming food crisis.

"Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," Mr Ban told world leaders who are likely to disagree over the link between biofuel production and high food prices.

The head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is hosting the summit, said wealthy nations had been spending billions of dollars on farm subsidies, wasteful and excess consumption of food, and on arms.

"The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.

The World Bank and aid agencies estimate soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already hungry.

Mr Ban estimated the "global price tag" to overcome the food crisis would be $15-20 billion a year and that food supply had to rise 50 per cent by the year 2030 to meet climbing demand.

"Some countries have taken action by limiting exports or by imposing draft controls," he said. This "distorts markets and forces prices even higher. I call on nations to resist such measures and to immediately release exports designated for humanitarian purposes".

Aid agencies say Japan and China have contributed to high rice prices, which have triggered riots as far away as Haiti, by controlling their stocks. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda promised to release at least 300,000 tonnes of imported rice.

The Rome summit will set the tone on food aid and subsidies for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July and what is regarded as the concluding stages of the stalled talks under the World Trade Organisation aimed at reducing trade distortions.

A British minister urged the European Union to help reduce prices by reforming farm policies that cost consumers more than 40 billion euros ($64.8 billion) a year and suspending some food import tariffs.

"I do not see how Europe can justify keeping EU prices so much higher than world market levels at a time when people across Europe are really feeling the pinch," said Treasury minister Yvette Cooper.

Food to fuel

The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

The OECD sees prices retreating from their current peaks but still up to 50 per cent higher in the coming decade. OECD chief Angel Gurria said in Paris that oil prices, "which are part and parcel of food prices", would not ease sharply either.

That has increased interest in biofuels, blamed by many for competing with food output for grains and oilseed. The United States and Brazil, the world's biggest producer of ethanol from sugar cane, defended biofuels from such accusations in Rome.

"It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean energy from biofuels, fingers soiled with oil and coal," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the summit.

The United States plans to channel a quarter of its maize crop into ethanol production by 2022 and the European Union plans to get 10 per cent of auto fuel from bio-energy by 2020.

Biofuel producers wrote to the summit urging energy sources to be diversified when "a highly constrained supply of crude oil and petroleum products is wreaking havoc on all countries and markets across the globe, especially with respect to food".

US agriculture secretary Ed Shafer says biofuels account for only 3 per cent of the total food price rise while the charity Oxfam said it was closer to 30 per cent.

Mr Lula da Silva said rich nations' "intolerable protectionism" was the main cause of global food inflation.

"Subsidies create dependency, breakdown entire production systems and provoke hunger and poverty where there could be prosperity. It is past time to do away with them," he said.

A distraction from food at the summit was the presence of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Iran's Mahmood Ahmadinejad, on his first trip to the European Union. Critics accuse both of contributing to food shortages at home.

Leaving petrol off emissions trading scheme 'dangerous'

The Greens say any moves to leave petrol out of the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme will render it ineffective.

At the National Press Club yesterday Opposition's treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull could not definitely say whether the Coalition's plan to cut the fuel excise tax would be taken to the next election.

But he did indicate he was willing to consider the idea that fuel should be left out of the emissions trading scheme being developed by the Government.

Greens Senator Christine Milne has said that would be dangerous.

"You simply won't have a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if you exempt the transport sector," she said.

"Malcolm Turnbull is lurching from one bad policy to an even worse policy.

"We have to bring down emissions and we have to get people off oil, that means a major investment in public transport."

Diesel prices 'may reach $2.00 a litre'

Diesel pump prices could reach $2 a litre by next year, a fuel monitoring company says.

It also predicts a "continual gradual upward movement" in the price of unleaded petrol during the next two months.

Diesel has hit $1.80 a litre in some capital cities while unleaded petrol pushed through the $1.60 mark on Wednesday on the back of rising world oil prices.

Increased demand from China is contributing to the cost of diesel, Fueltrac managing director Chris Cable says.

"They're actually starting to stockpile diesel, with a view to building efforts in that part of the world," he said.

"I understand that they're also trying to ensure that there are no power disruptions around the Olympic Games (in August)."

Mr Cable has warned motorists that fuel prices are still on the way up.

"The general consensus around our office is that there will be a continual gradual upward movement in the price of both unleaded and diesel over at least the next couple of months," he said.

"$2 a litre I would hope doesn't materialise.

"Given that we've already reached $1.80 and even higher for diesel then ... I wouldn't have said this six months ago, but absolutely definitely possible, for at least diesel (to hit $2 a litre)."

Separately, RACV manager of government and corporate relations David Cumming says Melbourne motorists should brace for prices at the bowser as high as $1.63 a litre next week and warned the worst was yet to come.

"Unfortunately we haven't peaked yet at all, some will attempt to go $162.9, some will attempt to go at a higher price next week," Mr Cumming said.

"Just prepare yourself for higher prices, that's all I can say."

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