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A son has just been born to me but I am in Afghanistan, when I was born my father fought the Viet-Cong in Vietnam.   My grandpa blazed Kokoda’s trail and stalled the ruthless Japanese, his father fell in World War I; a martyr in the Pyrenees.   His father fought the Afrikaans, I think in 1899, his father stopped the Chinese throngs from claiming gold in Daylesford’s mines.   We first came to Van Diemen’s Land way back in 1834, our forebear stole a block of cheese and thus was shipped to southern shores.   I’ll teach my son to hate them all:

On August 19, a Taliban suicide squad attacked the Kabul offices of the British Council, a government-funded institution that “promotes educational and cultural relations” between Britain and other countries. The August 20 Guardian said at least 12 people were killed, including a New Zealand SAS soldier and three “security contractors” working for multinational security outfit G4S. The company was contracted to guard the offices. Six G4S employees were wounded, including three Nepalese, veterans of the British Army’s Gurkha regiments.

With much fanfare, the AFL Peace Team (an Australian rules football team made up of Palestinian and Israeli players) has once again come to Australia to compete in the AFL International Cup running from August 12 to 27. Indeed, what can be more appealing for those of us who are passionate about peace in Israel-Palestine than to welcome this team of Palestinian and Israeli youth who have learned to play and interact not as enemies but as teammates?

In a move that will provide important savings for low-income families, the Venezuelan government unveiled a plan on August 15 to distribute 12 million new textbooks to primary school students around the country in the coming scholastic year. Education minister Maryann Hanson said: “The objective of this program is to ensure that those with less economic resources can count on having textbooks in order to guarantee education as an inalienable human right.” The new textbooks represent an investment of more than US$45 million.

United States officials led a far-reaching international campaign aimed at keeping former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide exiled in South Africa, secret US State Department cables show. Aristide, who won the 2000 presidential elections, was rendered a virtual prisoner for the past seven years. Aristide was overthrown in a bloody February 2004 coup supported by Washington and fomented by right-wing paramilitary forces and the Haitian elite.