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All-star paragraphs

Amnesty International does some spectacular name-dropping in the following paragraph from the foreword to their 2007 Annual Report, released yesterday:

The Howard government portrayed desperate asylum-seekers in leaky boats as a threat to Australia’s national security and raised a false alarm of a refugee invasion. This contributed to its election victory in 2001. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, US President George W Bush invoked the fear of terrorism to enhance his executive power, without Congressional oversight or judicial scrutiny. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan whipped up fear among his supporters and in the Arab world that the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur would be a pretext for an Iraq-style, US-led invasion. Meanwhile, his armed forces and militia allies continued to kill, rape and plunder with impunity. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe played on racial fears to push his own political agenda of grabbing land for his supporters.

- (source, Amnesty International)

The full 2007 report can be downloaded here, while the country report on Australia can be seen on the website here. Hopefully next year's report will note a new and more humane Australian government.