Australian Grand Mufti Taj El-Din Hilaly thus recently described his adopted country.

Speaking in Arabic on Egyptian television Sheik al-Hilali said, according to a Seven Network translation, that white Australians arrived in the country shackled as convicts.

“We (Muslims) came as free people. We bought our own tickets. We are entitled to Australia more than they are,’’ he said.

The mufti was on the Egyptian chat show explaining the controversy last year over his comments likening immodestly-dressed women to uncovered meat.

But according to the translation, he said the controversy was a white conspiracy aimed at terrorising Australian Muslims…

But while the convict jibes might be forgiven by some, as they are when levelled by English cricket fans, the sheik’s comments are expected to cause outrage in some quarters – especially the claim that white Australians “are the biggest liars’‘.

The mufti told Egytpian television that outrage over his controversial meat sermon was “a calculated conspiracy’‘, that started with him, “in order to bring the Islamic community to its knees’‘.

He also said “Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level’‘, when reportedly referring to anti-Muslim courts and the harsh sentencing of a Muslim gang rapist in Sydney.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that if Australia fails to knuckle under, the PNG regime will accept less aid from Australia (!).

PAPUA New Guinea is threatening to dramatically reduce the money it receives from Canberra, suspend all official visits by Australians or impose onerous travel restrictions, and recall its high commissioner.

Whether it does so, the Herald understands, depends on what response it receives to a strongly worded aide-memoire delivered to the deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, David Ritchie, yesterday afternoon.

The diplomatic note demands an explanation for the bans Australia put on visits by PNG’s Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, and its Defence Minister, Mathew Gubag, as well as its decision to cancel the next ministerial forum between the two countries. The letter also expresses disappointment at the “unilateral” actions taken by Australia.

The bans were announced by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, a fortnight ago, after the escape of the Australian fugitive and Solomon Islands attorney-general designate Julian Moti on a PNG military aircraft.

The aide-memoire gives the Australian Government a week to respond. If no satisfactory response is forthcoming, PNG will retaliate, instituting a range of measures that promise to create havoc for Australia’s $300 million annual aid program to PNG.

The most serious step being contemplated is the suspension of significant elements of Australian aid deemed not essential to PNG, the Herald understands.

Holy mackerel! Do you suppose if tensions increase, Papua New Guinea will escalate and proceed to devastate its adversary by actually sending money back to Australia?
——————
Hat tip to Memeorandum.

The Herald Sun reports that the spiritual leader of Australia’s Muslims, Imam of the Lakemba mosque in southwest Sydney and Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric, Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali, in a Ramadan sermon, argued that Western mores justified rape by Muslims.

Sheik Alhilali reportedly likened women who wore make-up and dressed immodestly to meat that attracted cats.

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?” the sheik reportedly said.

The Royal Australian Navy suffered one of its worse losses in WWII on 19 November 1941, when the light cruiser HMAS Sydney II with all 645 men on board went down in action against the German auxiliary cruiser/raider Kormoran off the west coast of Australia. The Komoran was also sunk in the same action.

In August of 2005, the Australian Government approved a $1.3 million grant to fund a search for the sunken cruiser.

Reuters reports the latest strange plot twist in the search.

Australian defense officials said a navy team had this month exhumed the remains of an unknown sailor buried in an unmarked grave on Christmas Island, remains long thought to be those of a Sydney crewman.

Islanders have said the unmarked grave contained the remains of a man dressed in a blue boilersuit which washed up in a navy liferaft in February 1942.

A complete skeleton of what appeared to be a relatively young Caucasian male has been recovered along with other items and been sent for analysis.

“The most interesting find to date has been what appears to be a bullet wound in the skull and a small caliber round that is currently undergoing detailed analysis,” team leader Captain Jim Parsons said in a statement.

“This round appears to be from a low-velocity weapon, possibly a handgun,” he said.

The Telegraph reports:

A British tourist has shocked Australians by twice getting lost in the Outback in the same place, in the same circumstances, in a bungle which nearly cost him his life.

Martin Lake, 50, “the bumbling Brit”, first went missing last week when he strayed from a well-worn path at a historical telegraph station on the outskirts of Alice Springs.

Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt and carrying three litres of water, he spent three days lost in the wilderness, despite being only a few miles from the edge of town.

He made a desperate call to police on his mobile phone, starting a huge search involving officers on foot, three helicopters, Aboriginal trackers and rangers.

When Mr Lake was found in the desert on Sept 5 he was badly dehydrated and so burnt from the 86F (30C) heat that he looked like “a freshly-cooked lobster”.

Police said he was less than three miles from the town and almost within shouting distance of outlying houses.

He was flown to hospital, but not content with having survived one near-death experience, he returned to the area on Friday, apparently to recover belongings. Again he struck out into the desert and became disorientated in a landscape of baking red rock and parched scrub that looks very much the same in every direction.

He made another panicked call to police but was unable to tell them where he was. After a while his phone went dead.

He had, for a second time, broken the cardinal rules of Outback survival — he had no hat or sunscreen, not enough water and had failed to tell anyone where he was going.

“He told me he was somewhere north of Alice Springs and that’s about it,” said Sgt Graeme Farquharson, the search co-ordinator. “He didn’t have a clue where he was.”

Mr Lake, a divorcee and former trainee policeman, from Birkenhead, Merseyside, was found by a helicopter crew on Tuesday after spending another four nights in the bush. Again, he was only three miles from Alice Springs.

On April 25, 1915, soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Australia: 18.500 wounded and missing – 7,594 killed.
New Zealand : 5,150 wounded and missing – 2,431 killed.

Lest we forget.

George Lambert, Anzac the Landing, 1915