Magic Infirmary

*

So, scavenged from the heart, he could hear the news going down like a lead balloon, I have new boy now, he take good care of me, when Baw rang from Phuket. I miss you, he said; and yes in their own strange way, the flashes of intimacy between men, yes he missed him too. Should I call the bad influence? he asked a group of friends, well acquaintances, the previous night as they sat under the glistening tree at the Jazz Restaurant around the corner from the Park Hotel in Nana, and they looked at him like: you've got to ask us? You just finished telling us what a merry dance you had been lead. How much money you spent. What a desolate, crazy ending it was. So the calls kept coming through the meeting and he didn't answer them; and didn't answer them that night. But when the phone went off in the morning at 9am - what the heck was Baw doing awake at 9am? - he took the call and could hear them laughing together. Good times and bad. Got very crazy in the end. I think you should stay there, get a normal job, meet some nice girl, have children, that is my advice as an older man, he said, although how much of this English was crossing the language divide he was not quite sure.

Be a good boy, a good Buddhist, not a bad boy in Bangkok, he said, and that, he thought got through, he could hear the silence echoing in the subdued tone of voice I come back to Bangkok in two weeks and could almost see the palm trees and the sands and the dirt poor farm and the shadows and the wild ways that had passed between them; upraised points, shadows that danced, crazy days that were uplifted, times that were never there, contrasts that came and went, handsome boys that gestured from the sides of statues, Jean Genet and the rivers of regret, and so when the call came, in the morning of all things, the time when when they were together the boy was never awake, and he would keep drinking himself into lost time because there was nothing else left to do, and shadows flickered across their past and he woke up sandwiched between sex workers who were more like friends, they spent so much time together, well yes: he took the call. Everyone had told him: ditch the twink, you're being taken advantage of, we can understand what he says on the telephone, you can't, we know what's happening. But he forgave him everything. As he said: when I was a boy I did exactly the same, made sure they paid and paid and paid; that was motto number one, ruling principle number one.

Now the same was being done to me and I didn't care, he said; and as this was Bangkok and there was craziness all around and it was so easy to get lost and there were so many stories of Westerners coming unstuck and blind benders that never ended, sex tours that in themselves became addictions; wasn't that a shadow? wasn't that a flicker of the past. But here, washed clean, reborn, he could hear the sound of the choir practicing and everything going wrong, everything that had gone wrong, correcting itself in the firm passage of altered consciousness; because there was more than one way to resolve these issues; to end the flight, to confront, to become, a singleness of purpose, a single person, not to hide out behind multiple screens, not to be a walking shadow of a different time, not to surrender to an amazingly dark past but to triumph here in the tropical heat. The woman had ostentatiously taken her plastic legs off, begging with her stumps fully visible. If they were to be remembered it would be in a different way, in an anti-climactic sense, in an array of garbage and has beens and thoughts that kept flying, flying, because he didn't care what happened in the future. There was no future. Calcutta when diagnosed, that was all he could think.

They lauded those who died sober; spoke of a good death; and he just looked at them like they were crazy. I have no intention of dying sober, he declared. If I was diagnosed with cancer I would head straight to Calcutta and get myself a massive heroin habit; and die there. I couldn't think of anything worse than being a junkie on the streets of Calcutta Nora, a Bangkok legend who had lived in Asia for decades, burning down the houses of her neighbours and generally creating havoc until she sobered up, responded. I wasn't thinking of being on the streets, he declared; I was thinking of living in colonial splendour in some fading hotel, perhaps the Fairlawn, and venturing out rarely as he pottered and creaked across the old carpets and wistfully declared it to be all at an end; when boys like Baw and Aek and Kia were all just distant memories and heroin, the true love of his life, took up where every tender embrace left off and fulfilled every need to be a coherent whole, a single person, triumphant at best, lauded at worst, coming through a single break in the clouds to a glorious end. When every street corner, every distant embrace, was already history in a different place and the times he had bought and paid for: they too were just drifts in history; times passed, and he raised up his arms and exposed his veins and declared in an abruptly loud, strange voice: bless me.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/01/2941912.htm

British-born author Christopher Hitchens has cut short a book tour to undergo chemotherapy.

Media outlets including America's CBS News reported that Hitchens, known to be a heavy smoker and drinker, has been diagnosed with cancer.
"I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus," the 61-year-old said in a statement released through his publishers Twelve.
"This advice seems persuasive to me.
"I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice," he added.
A representative for Twelve offered no details beyond the statement.
Hitchens launched a book tour last month to promote his memoir Hitch-22, which tackles subjects ranging from the Middle East and Zimbabwe to his friendships with prominent writers including Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis.
As a journalist, critic and war correspondent, Hitchens has carved out a reputation for barbed repartee, scathing critiques of public figures, and a fierce intelligence.
In his 2008 book God Is Not Great, Hitchens put himself on a collision course with major religions with his trenchant atheist views.
Hitchens was born in Britain but lives in Washington DC.
He retained his British citizenship when he also became an American citizen in 2007.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/julia-gillard-will-be-judged-on-policy-john-howard/story-e6frgczf-1225886583535

JULIA Gillard cannot escape responsibility for the policies of the Rudd government and will be judged on her performance, according to John Howard.
The former prime minister also said the fall of Kevin Rudd could be attributed to Tony Abbott's efforts as opposition leader.
“It was Tony Abbott who began the descent of Kevin Rudd and it was Tony Abbott taking him on over emissions trading and forcing a reversal of that policy. It was a very courageous thing to do,” he told Sky News.
“He stood his ground on a policy issue whereas the leadership of the Labor party has changed on a personality issue. And I think in the long run the Australian people want their governments standing or falling on policy rather than personality.”
Mr Howard said it was only a matter of time before Australia had its first female prime minister.
“I think very quickly the Australian public will say `OK. It's good that we have a female prime minister. But I want to know what she's doing for the country',” Mr Howard said.
“She has come to the job, she is coincidentally a woman. I'm sure she doesn't want to be judged just on the fact that she is a woman. And she won't be.
“The Australian public will mark her according to her performance and that is how the Australian public should.”
Mr Howard warned Ms Gillard she would have to bear responsibility for her part in the policies of the Rudd government.
“She can't escape responsibility for all of the policies of the Rudd government because the concentration of power, even more so than in my government, was in a cabal of four people of which she was the number two,” he said.
“Julia Gillard has to bear her full share of responsibility for the policies that brought Kevin Rudd undone.”
Mr Howard also indicated he bore no ill will towards Mr Rudd but said he would be going through a lot of anguish.
“It's a tough game,” he said.
“Clearly judgments were made about him within his own party. But the key thing is now the contest between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.”

http://www.sliabh.net/images/stuff/my_bangkok.jpg

Bangkok Burning

*

Triumphant tinkling. Rivers coursing through veins. Shadows flickering. Entering a hyper-real world. He watched the tiny frogs jump across the green green grass. He watched the monitor lizards, or whatever they were called, primitive, moving at the edge of the lake in Limpini Park in the heart of Bangkok. He walked past boys town and thought of nothing but the pleasures of release. Come hither, come sit with me. There wasn't any easy answer. The citadels of capitalism, those giant glistening malls, were coming awake again. He was shadowed by a past he had entirely eschewed; and if he tried to make sense of anything it was a voice crying on the phone: dad, come home, come home, I've got no one to talk to. But shadows were everywhere and nowhere. We will help you. You have proven yourself; you have been here every morning; and each watch, each trial; pain is temporary like life itself; each adventure into a different realm, different heavens in different skies, meant the journey beyond the border of the real had taken on an entirely separate dimension; not what had been, the pallid has-been living in an inverse world, sickening with its yellow colours, frightening in its bilious intent; all of that was gone now and he couldn't have felt more at home; listening to the boy utter those magic words, condo, Si Lom. DVD player.

There were skies and slender faces and every day, as the past vanished and the last few months came into some sort of perspective, you ripped me off at every opportunity and I put up with it for God knows what reason, loneliness, obsession, a past where he had done exactly the same; where the deaths of so many of his lovers was shrugged off; fancy expecting anything from anyone so young, how ridiculous. The flash cars the flash apartments, the infinitely dismissive shrug, he had done it all, just as it was being done to him. He couldn't say; I understand. He couldn't do the things he did to anyone else. He couldn't wake up sandwiched between sex workers and reach for the bottle while the indolent Thais slept through the day; he couldn't sleep and while they stopped drinking during the day, being entirely nocturnal animals, he drank around the clock. Promise me, the new boy said, don't have another cigarette. I love you. Promise me. He coughed the cancer cough and made the promise. It was ten days now since he had had a cigarette. Perhaps I can explain. There is a boy in every port. There are handsome young men wherever you look. Money talks and money buys everything, anything. He had no intention of ever sleeping alone again while ever he had two cents to rub together. It had been too long.

There were dark reaches where he remembered the streets that had been his home. But here the streets were never dark. There was always a throng, or a possibility, somewhere that was open. Now he slept and the doors walked; growing legs, an army of opportunities, doorways to step through marching marching in sequence down Si Lom Road, beneath the concrete flanks of the BTS, the Bangkok Sky Train, past Patpong, the fading red light district which had been so much a part of everything that was seedy about Bangkok, past the crying shame and the woman pulling on her legs, past the blind man being led by his children, past the boy brothel and the boy massage parlour, into the park and the sunrise gathering up the sky, spreading colour into every domain. They were nesting, that was all there was to it. Plants appeared on the balcony, what fun he had had negotiating with the vendor, three flowering trees for 600 baht, $25, and somewhere he could reach down and touch, I love you, I love you, the voices said, and his old heart had prickled with a kind of possessive love. Everyone knows Baw is too crazy, drinks too much whiskey, to have a relationship with, his sister had told him, there on the veranda of the Bangkok Hotel, but he hadn't known, not even then, when it was obvious to everybody else that the merry dance was destroying him, utterly.

So he grinned and embraced every opportunity. He made sure he had money in his pocket, just in case. You never know, in this city of dreams, in this place where everything was gone and he struggled to explain that he couldn't go back to his place because his friend was there and he didn't want to upset him; where loyalty was overshadowed; where every mistake he had ever made, the handsomest boy in the village, I am very sorry not sleep with you tonight, to the Chiang Mai guard: I am honoured, happy to sleep with you tonight. To the times when his heart was destroyed and he had some of the worst days of his life. To the days when the cheap, poor quality yabba sent him instantly crazy; to the times when everything was saved and everything was lost; when the dawn opened up outside the dance club and the final remnants, the never say die party goers, spilled out into the open air, shocked at the cold, the light gathering above, the ancient buildings that spelt a history of desire and conflict and peace and erotic love, I want to come back with you, we want to come back with you, we have nowhere to sleep, we've lost our keys. As if. As if everything was ever going to make sense. As if love in any western sense ever existed here amongst the sex workers and paid for flesh of Thailand. As if he could truly seek redemption in the flesh. A heroin habit would have been cheaper; more true to form; but it was only the welcoming, sickening, universal despair that he felt after wards that was keeping him in check. These were the days. A path to a better life.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Rudd's downfall: he never really got it

By Barrie Cassidy

Extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. Kevin Rudd, who won the heart of a nation with an apology to the stolen generations, is no more.

Kevin Rudd, who achieved the highest approval rating of any prime minister ever, is history.

Gone in the blink of an eye.

Yet as one dramatic minute after another unfolded in Canberra, few observers were left wondering about why it had happened.

The contrasting news conferences after the party room showdown said it all.

Understandably, Rudd was emotionally drained, still in shock and hardly in the mood for generosity towards the victor; and there was none.

But even so, he presented as a politician who couldn't for the life of him, figure out what had gone wrong; why somebody who had achieved so much according to his own near-endless list, could possibly have been rejected by his own party.

Did he really think it was all about an ungrateful party that didn't appreciate how much he cared? And that it all went pear-shaped only in one crazy and frenzied day in Canberra?

It helps to cast the mind back four months to the end of February when he went on Insiders and said he would never walk away from climate change.

He said this: "When our kids look back in 20 years and ask the question of this generation, 'were they fair dinkum or did they walk away from it?', I'd rather say that I threw everything at it, threw absolutely everything at it, to try and make it work, and to try and deliver an outcome at home and abroad.

"We think we've got to act, and act appropriately. That's why we don't walk away from this one bit."

Then two months later, he walked away.

And when he did, according to Newspoll on May 4, Labor lost a million supporters in a fortnight. Every measure was disastrous. On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition led the government for the first time since Rudd took control of the Labor Party. The primary vote slumped to 35 per cent and Rudd's own popularity took a hammering.

Peter Hartcher wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald: "Australians will never see Rudd in the same light again. Every policy will now be seen as just another piece of clever politics. What's the point of Kevin Rudd? Australians don't know anymore."

What's the point of Kevin Rudd anymore? It was a devastating critique, one that would have caused more than a few marginal members to think of Julia Gillard.

Yet Rudd never got it and never respected the response that such a collapse demanded; right to the end.

On Friday of last week, the party's national secretary, Karl Bitar, went to Rudd's Parliament House office with internal party polling that showed just how bad the situation had become in marginal Queensland seats. He wanted to present the material to the prime minister himself. Remarkably, Rudd's 31-year-old chief of staff, Alistair Jordan, didn't allow that to happen.

He told Bitar to lock the polling away and show it to nobody.

An astonished Bitar told Jordan the polling didn't belong to the prime minister; it belonged to the Labor Party, and he left the office.

I suspect that was the same polling that showed up on Andrew Bolt's Herald Sun blog last weekend.

Jordan then made phone calls and walked Parliament House trying to get a sounding on the support within caucus for Rudd, a task that would ordinarily fall to MPs, and experienced ones at that. And ordinarily, it would not have happened unless there was at least a sniff of a challenge from somewhere.

Then the fires were stoked when his efforts turned up as a front page story in the Sydney Morning Herald. Gillard was particularly affronted by that development, seeing it as loyalty rewarded by treachery. The episode was compounded just before Question Time when Rudd walked around to Gillard's office and confronted her personally on her own patch. Apparently, the words that were exchanged left Gillard upset but nevertheless determined to revisit the subject much later in the day.

What followed was a torrid three hours in the prime minister's office, with the Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, particularly robust in his condemnation of Gillard.

Now to Gillard's news conference.

Former power broker extraordinaire, Graham Richardson, said on Network Nine that she had gone from zero to 100 in seconds.

And she did tick all the boxes. She:

* held out the prospect of quickly resolving the super profits row with the miners and dramatically offered to call off the advertising war.
* talked of a commitment to a price on carbon and the need for community consensus on climate change.
* spoke of Kevin Rudd's apology moment: "... a man of remarkable achievement, who made wonderful history."
* acknowledged past players from Hawke and Keating through to Howard and Costello, and ultimately Rudd.
* tackled the mandate question by saying she would go to the Governor-General and ask for an election in months; and eschew the lodge until she did.
* and she cut the ground from under the Coalition by conceding "a good government had lost its way."

In other words, she put out a plan to rid the party of some messy issues and quickly move on to her own agenda.

Still, Tony Abbott is not without material and no doubt he will try and portray Gillard as a puppet of the factions. It is true that the Rudd experiment is over; that which allowed him and his office to run the country. The factions - and the unions - are back in control of the Labor Party - and that is the way that it had always operated up until Kevin07.

Rudd's only faction was the Newspoll faction. While it soared, he thrived. When it dived, he was all alone.

Barrie Cassidy hosts Insiders and Offsiders on ABC1.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293992

Former Thai Prime Minister denies funding 'Red Shirt' protesters

Lawyers for the Thaksin family denied accusations made by Thai authorities that they funded the recent bloody confrontations between the government and the "Red Shirt' protesters.
Yahoo news reports:

Thaksin, his ex-wife Pojaman, and two of their three grown children are among 83 people and companies suspected by the government of funding the so-called Red Shirt protests. The 10-week rally crippled parts of central Bangkok and left 89 dead, mostly protesters, and some 1,400 injured. The rally was dispersed by an army crackdown on May 19.

The Department of Special Investigations, Thailand's equivalent of the FBI, has not yet pressed charges against any of the 83 suspects but has frozen their bank accounts and summoned all to report for questioning.

The government says Thaksin was a key instigator and financier of the protests.
Thaksin' s lawyers specifically denied the accusations saying the funds of the former prime minister has been frozen by the present government.
"How could my clients fund anything when their accounts were frozen since June 2006," said lawyer Kittiporn Aroonrat.

The lawyers for the exiled former prime ministers claims that the charges against their clients are politically motivated.

Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup but has wide support among the Red Shirt protesters whose rallies in the capital began peacefully in March but disintegrated into deadly street clashes.

The fugitive Prime Minister had openly criticized the Thai government led by Abhisit Vejajjiva of mishandling the political unrest which resulted in the death of close to a hundred people and injury to thousands who have participated in the violent confrontation.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/15/xin_542040614001920307011.jpg

The Old Woman Pulled On Her Plastic Legs

*

The old woman pulled on her plastic legs as he passed her in the street. The armless beggar looked up optimistically. The blind man played the accordion as his son led him through the early morning throngs. A handsome boy stood beside the monument at the front of Limpini Park and; and catching his sly glance as he walked rapidly by gave a big grin and opened up his arms. I'm available, it won't cost you more than 500 baht, and I guarantee I'll make you very happy, the grin said; but as he barely had enough money on him for a morning coffee and there just aren't many frustrated Western males in Bangkok, he just kept walking. A hundred meters on he glanced back, and again the boy opened up his arms in a gesturing, warm embrace. I promise I'll be fun. Well no doubt dear boy; as he listened to the tinkling of the sky and the sound of the orchestra as it drifted through the park, and the hum of the traffic as a policeman gestured him and other pedestrians across the road. He felt entirely at home here. In fact he loved it; and he had never loved anything, anywhere; except disparate states of mind and stunning landscapes and strange places in strange bars in the eternity that is the moment before dawn, the moment when you realise you've been up all night yet again and the day world is about to replace the night; with you plastered against it, plastered against the sky and the ground, triumphant, dissolute. Moi moi moi many days.

Nine days without a cigarette and he was jumping out of his skin. Alex S, an American writer of teenage novels he had met, clearly had an encyclopedic knowledge of the massage parlours of Bangkok, when they decided after a midday meeting that they would flit by his apartment to collect some money and go out for a boy massage; and they debated over whether or not a happy ending should be included. If they get frisky you just tell them no, they all want that extra tip, he advised. And at the end of being thoroughly, masterfully yanked around at one of the parlors near Salan Deng, they grinned. You always go for the boy massage? he asked. I prefer their touch, he said, and they both laughed. His books explored the issues of young gay men coming to terms with their sexuality; teenage girls love it, he explained. Handsome, sensitive, gay boys have feelings like they do. There was triumph in a wide, wild pastiche, as that other night, on the way to release his companion from his obligations, his debt to the bar, he couldn't help but look at the collection of handsome young men arrayed outside yet another massage parlour; and Aek laughed at him. You like?

They were all spread out in the most alarming array. He thought back. I am bad every day, Baw had said, and while he denied the obvious truth, there was no going back there. You ripped me off, you little prick, you got commissions at every end, you made me feel like an idiot and some of the worst days of my life were spent with you, there, haunted; and although he could have easily loved him it was no wonder his relatives were no longer talking to him, pissed off at what he had done, and everyone had warned him: if you like yourself don't go, if you love yourself ditch the boy. As Gary had so repeatedly advised: ditch the twink, ditch the twink. Well things had happened rapidly but he had one thing to be grateful for: one thing led to another, one event to another; he would never be here if he hadn't been there; he would never think, how splendid the day, how astonishing the moment, how gorgeous his lover: that elaborate letter: I love you John, I hope you love me, I want to be with you every day, I love you John. Well of course love meant an entirely different thing in Thailand than it did in the west, where it focused on obsessive passion and lifetime commitment. And so every day passed in a triumphant glaze. And just as he would pick out a rickshaw driver in India, he picked a live-in lover out of the crowd.

Everything was placed out ready to be loved. Everything was tidy. Some things could never be said, some triumphs never made, but here, there, everywhere, he walked past the morning stalls, he paid 30 cents for cut up papaya, he struggled with the pronunciation of "friend"; puhn-yen, and he caught these stray filaments from the past; grim inner-city streets and speed wracked havens in the 1980s, when mountains of amphetamines poured through their veins and he went to work without any sleep day after day; and wracked, wracked through the long nights and the infinite delight, infinite craziness that had become their ordinary state of mind; they could become tired beyond measure when the drugs ran out and ecstatic beyond everything when the kilos of white powder walked through the door, and submissive when smacked across the face by the dealer he had robbed; and devious when he walked through saunas in the early hours of every day, with water dripping and bodies gasping and crazy girls talking through the night; and here, here they just grinned at you as if nothing mattered and everything was fun and everything was for pleasure; and hey, if I can do you for 500 baht I will, the boys expression said; and he thought: just as well I didn't bring any money with me; or maybe it was just another stupid gesture and he should be up for anything. You can have a ridiculous amount of sex for not much money in Bangkok, he advised his sometimes grumpy old friend Pete: come and stay; do you good. Well they laughed, because everyone was laughing here.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/29/2939797.htm

Gillard's trashing of Kevin07 has only just begun

By Annabel Crabb

Julia Gillard will encourage public awareness of Kevin07's failings, to deflect attention from her own. (ABC News: Jeremy Thompson)

It's probably for the best that Julia Gillard has opted to keep Kevin Rudd out of the Cabinet room for now.

In fact, it's probably advisable, for the immediate future, for Ms Gillard to ensure she is not in any room at the same time as her immediate predecessor.

This is a man who is reported to have freaked out when confronted by an inferior sandwich at 30,000 feet.

How will he be taking the sight of his former deputy calmly, charmingly, deliberately - and with significant apparent success - dancing on his grave?

Thursday's press conference by the new PM must have been bad enough.

In it, Ms Gillard - her tresses redone in a particularly murderous shade of claret - made repeated reference to the Rudd government as "a good government that had lost its way".

If you listen to the polls, and Julia Gillard does, you can assume the abandonment of the emissions trading scheme - effected back in April, when Newspoll went south at the angle of a Himalayan goat-track - was a significant instance of way-losing.

And where did the relevant players stand, on the trashing of the ETS?

Gillard: For.

Rudd: Against.

Ms Gillard has never denied this, but she has done little to dispel the popular perception that identifies the dithering on climate change as Kevin Rudd's.

If the victory press conference was tough for Kevin Rudd, one wonders what he might have felt on Sunday morning, when he unrolled the papers to find wall-to-wall coverage of Julia Gillard's renunciation of "his" population views.

Mr Rudd has argued at length that his comments embracing a "big Australia" were not an active endorsement of a 36 or 40 million population target.

Those figures, he explained umpteen times, were departmental projections, not an objective.

For months, Tony Abbott has joyously capitalised on the opportunity offered by Rudd's "big Australia", suggesting that the Government's plan was for 16 million extra newcomers to be personally escorted into your job and mine by an obsessively expansionist Kevin07.

Which is fine, because verballing Kevin Rudd is - or was - Tony Abbott's job.

How must Kevin Rudd be feeling, now that it is clear that Julia Gillard also considers it her job?

The new PM's weekend interviews deliberately plant Kevin Rudd in the "increase immigration" camp, and herself several hundred kilometres away, which makes perfect sense if you happen to be Julia Gillard but cannot, one imagines, feel anything other than utter outrage if you happen to be her luckless predecessor.

The weeks ahead will include many such examples, as Julia Gillard tacitly encourages a public awareness of Kevin07's failings, so as to deflect attention from her own.

It's a brutal job they're doing on him.

Under these circumstances, including Kevin Rudd in the Cabinet would amount to an invitation for him to join in.

And that - after a week of indignity - would be the cruellest cut of all.

Annabelle Crabb is ABC Online's chief political writer.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/1077629/asia-urged-to-adopt-aust-drug-reforms

Asian governments, police and judiciary need to adopt Australia's reforms in dealing with injecting drug users rather than maintain present harsh penalties that have led to soaring AIDs cases among injecting drug users, experts say.

Asian countries, including China, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, all have long prison sentences for drug users and the death penalty, especially for traffickers.

But analysts and the medical fraternity say such harsh sentencing forces injecting drug users underground leaving them vulnerable to becoming infected by the AIDS virus HIV.

In Thailand HIV rates among injecting drug users (IDUs) is at 30 to 50 per cent, despite progress in reducing HIV rates among the general population over the past two decades.

Australian doctor Nicholas Thomson, from the John Hopkins School of Public Health, says Asian governments are resisting legal and other reforms that would lower HIV rates and reduce overcrowded prison populations.

Harm reduction policies adapted in Australia include needle exchange programs as well as methadone and other medical support to users.

"Obviously the Australian model is a successful model because you've kept prevalence of HIV amongst IDU users under one per cent, so clearly it's successful," Dr Thomson told AAP.

"The reason it's so successful is because it's government endorsed.

"I think it's one of the prime differences working in this region.

"You have government sanctioned, government funded comprehensive good coverage services in Australia," he said.

The Australian Overseas Aid Program (AusAID) along with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, have been backing projects supporting harm reduction in injecting drug communities across the region.

A report by the Thailand-based Asian Harm Reduction Network found that as a result of shortages in supply of heroin there was a growing trend of injecting methamphetamines, which was seen as particularly worrisome.

The Thai prison population doubled between 1996 and 2004 due to the criminalisation of methamphetamine in 1996 and a heavy handed law enforcement approach to drug issues, peaking with the War on Drugs in 2003.

The crackdown on drugs left more than 2500 people dead during the premiership of Thaksin Shinawatra.

Ton Smits, executive director Asian Harm Reduction Network, says all Asian countries are struggling to accept a policy of harm reduction into their laws and judiciary.

"What is happening is basically too little, too slow and too late," Mr Smits said.

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/thaiclub/Images/AboutThailand/Bangkok2.jpg

Self Seeking Will Disappear

*

There had been so much trouble. And yet now he walked past the dahling, dahrling, good night dahrling bars and went home cheap comfort; watched the English German match at the local English puib, The Duke of Windsor, sitting on iced water and wondering: where did it all go, how did it happened. He loved being out all night and suddenly he was sleeping an unheard of five hours a night and not getting up till 5am. It was all too crazy these chiming times, when he had shown up drunk as a skunk at AA meetings and could hear the weather men chanting: I'm coming for you, I'm coming for you. You are no longer protected. The divine hand has ruled you out. You are a very funny man and you destroyed yourself. Those will kill you faster than anything, James had said in Chiang Mai, pointing at the cigarettes. It was eight days since he had had one. Sometimes he didn't think about having one for an hour or more. Sometimes he could barely resist the pull. Sometimes, if he wasn't getting enough sex in the morning, he thought about popping down the boy massage parlour down the road, where the handsomest things would get you off for an extra 500 baht - $20 - and press their phone numbers on you as you left. Was anyone monogamous in this giant, transcendent place?

Not that he'd noticed but he wouldn't know. There was no catch, really. Shy, determined, things fractured overnight as he ran his hands across Aek's tight stomach, watched him dress for university in the morning; took the news that he had passed the mama test: "Mama telephone say John good", he said, grinning with some kind of relief. There didn't seem to be any way out; and for once he didn't want a way out. He was happily trapped in the physical world, disinclined to cavort in the heavens, even as the Falun Gong stretched not the truth but the sense of the possible; as clouds now and then echoed through the church at Richard Meale's funeral, the last of the men he had so revered, gone, John Bygate, Ian Farr, Harry Godolphin, these figures he had thought were the beginning and the end of everything; but their passing had opened up a different future; and he was no longer trapped in the ideologies of the past. I really did a number on myself this time, he said to someone and they replied: sounds like it. You can really f... yourself up in Bangkok, you can get truly messed up and nobody cares; the Thais don't care, you're just another crazy falung - foreigner - getting too drunk and making a fool of themselves. The Westerners don't care, they only cling here, to this difference place, by the grace of God and convenience.

I know you not happy, I don't know why, the previous boy had said. The Buddha will help you. I cannot. I am just a boy. A baby. And so he had watched as the handsome boy kicked a soccer ball along the beach, played cheerfully with his fellows, while he made mistake after mistake and recovered from a period of lost time, his body aching with the assault. Now, when he did not smoke or drink or stay up all night, time shadows were cavorting at the edges as he struggled to heal himself. The old woman on the street pulled on her plastic legs as he passed her each morning in the early dawn, on his way to Limpini Park. Catch as catch can was the old cry, now it was more: self seeking will slip away. They come, or they come back, only when they are in serious trouble: he could hear them think at the practice site. And none of that mattered because it was all in the day. The heavens were infinite in numbers and multitudes. We were a flash in a very giant pan. No matter how giant your troubles; these times were but echoes; shadows stalking the summit, and against these infinitely giant things his only troubles, anybody's troubles, were nothing but tiny inconveniences flickering on the surface of some remote planet. Lke life itself, pain was fleeting, only temporary, passing quickly. Once again he listened to the melodic tones of the Thai choir practising behind them: Do, a dear, a female deer, the only English he had heard all day, outside his own head.

The old woman put her legs on and the armless beggar looked up optimistically. Shadows cavorted at the edges. Being Monday morning, even the boy brothel seemed quiet after the handsome little crowd that would gather outside at 6am on the weekend, giving him the determined eye as he walked past on his way to and from the park. Everything was out of mind. Everyone could take care. Henrietta, his daughter, burst into tears when he spoke to her on the phone. Dad, it's time to come home. I'm happy here, he replied. What, with a Thai prostitute? she sneered. I hate Asians. They smell and take your money. That's ridiculous, he snapped, see, you should have come to Bangkok, not Pnom Penh, last time. This city has everything. Well maybe not... Well maybe yes. He saw the coollies on the building sites. He saw the workers streaming out of the crowded factories. He saw the quiet places that were everywhere, the go go bars with no customers, for there were still almost no tourists, even though the red shirts had now been cleared from the streets and without prior knowledge, without the embassy warnings, every thing would have seemed normal. Shoot to kill, the Prime Minister Abhisit had ordered, making himself a murderer despised by much of the country as he clung to power for his own ends; for the power; for power and presitge and money always won; and in winning got to rewrite history; to dismiss the red shirts as terrorists. The burnt out buildings still disfigured Bangkok. And he loved it here, despite or because of the many contradictions; the stories of the people applauding the soldiers and bringing them gifts at the same time as they followed out their orders: shoot to kill; shoot to kill your own citizens.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2938574.htm

A lot of the discussion of what happened on Thursday morning has been speculation about the kind of prime ministership we're likely to see from Julia Gillard.

I think one thing needs to be made clear from the outset. While it's wonderful that Australia now has a woman PM - and being the author of the only published biography of her has made me even happier to join in the celebrations - we can forget any women's-mag sentimentality about it.

Gillard herself rejects anything of the kind. She has said, 'Five or ten years ago people would have had the view, if only there were more women in politics somehow it would be a less adversarial, more caring and sharing environment. I have always thought that was bloody nonsense. … I am proof that a woman can thrive in an adversarial environment.'

In contrast to Kevin Rudd, she really understands the party and government she is leading. This is not just a matter of getting on well with her colleagues, which she mostly does, although that's part of it. Anybody who gets where she is - anybody who makes any headway at all within the ALP, come to that - bears the scars of a pretty tough political education, and hers was tougher than some.

Julia Gillard was a student activist and became a successful industrial lawyer, who became a partner in her firm after only three years. She was obviously bright and focused, she had learned about persuasion and making alliances, and she knew her way around the union movement. She decided she needed practical experience in politics, however, and left Slater and Gordon to become chief of staff to John Brumby, then Victoria's Leader of the Opposition. She successfully held that job for two years.

A high flyer, then - and someone who you would think would be an asset to any political party. Yet it took Julia Gillard five years to be preselected for a federal ALP seat - something that still bemuses many of her former colleagues.

That five years in limbo developed her qualities of persistence and determination. She kept turning up to branch meetings, she didn't give up, though she must have been tempted. And finally she got there, and there she has continued to stay.

Gillard lives, eats and breathes politics. The ALP is part of her political DNA, and she knows it as Rudd never did. She understands negotiation, and consultation, and compromise, and deal making, and all the other things that go with being a successful politician. Rudd dealt with the factional culture of his party by ignoring it, with the results we have now seen. Gillard would never have made that mistake.

At the same time, she is no factional puppet. While understanding the essential tribal nature of her party, she has achieved her successes by making alliances and networks of influence across the whole area, from Left to Right. She is too secure, both in herself and now in her position, to be anyone's creature.

The word often applied to her is 'pragmatic', as if this is a bad quality. But realism in politics is surely desirable. Gillard's focus has always been practical. She's a trained lawyer, she understands precedent, and analysis, and working for results. In her first speech as prime minister she specifically allied herself with the country's blue-collar and salaried workers, and as minister for education and industrial relations - running two huge and many-faceted programs -- her focus has been on using whatever practical tools are available to improve conditions for Australian workers and their families.

When she told Tony Abbott in Parliament on Thursday that it was game on, she meant it. For the first time in years, it looks as if we may see a genuine battle between two opposing views of this country, its possibilities and its future.

Julia Gillard is probably not into the 'vision thing', or not in so many words. But we have never been very kind to our political visionaries. Political survival depends on many qualities, not least flexibility and hard-headedness. Gillard has said that what excites her in politics is a sense of possibility. Perhaps, like John F. Kennedy, she would describe herself as an idealist without illusions.

Jacqueline Kent is the author of The Making of Julia Gillard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10427064.stm

Some 40 people have been injured after two speedboats carrying tourists collided in the Gulf of Thailand.

They overturned a few kilometres out to sea while ferrying people to and from a party on Koh Pha Ngan island beach, throwing many revellers into the water.

At least two other people were said to be missing in the collision, which happened close to Koh Samui island.

The monthly event held on full-moon nights is well-known among party-goers, attracting thousands of tourists.
Koh Pha Ngan map Rough waters

One passenger, Ellie Hocken, 19, from Bristol in the UK, survived the crash after being thrown off deck into the sea.

She is in hospital with a fractured back. Her father, Dr David Hocken told the BBC she was "still terrified even now".

"When the crash happened, she was on the top deck of the boat. The sea was very rough. Suddenly someone screamed 'They're going to hit us'," he said.

"They tried to alert the captain but there was no time. There was a huge smash and everyone was thrown overboard. Ellie blacked out and when she woke up, she was alone in the water.

"She saw a boat and managed to swim to it and climb aboard. There were people being resuscitated and someone with an arm torn off. She was put on a stretcher and taken to hospital. Scans show she has a fractured back."

The boats collided late on Saturday, throwing passengers into rough waters just off the island, The Nation newspaper website said.

At least one other Briton and four Australians were said to be among the injured, as well as other foreign tourists.

Every month, it is estimated up to 25,000 revellers descend on Koh Pha Ngan for the all-night beach rave.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/4/13/1239653219171/Thailand-clashes--Bangkok-004.jpg

One More Cup Of Coffee

*

The call came and he did not return it; that one he had dared to love so much and forgave so much; for no other reason perhaps than that he too once roamed the streets and put up with the mauling of men two or three times of his age; I can do, I can do, he would say bravely; this time by a boy who didn't smoke, drink or take drugs and who, instead of being entirely nocturnal, as the other boys he had known had been, but just as no Thai ever comes alone; nor did this one. It's a classic Thailand thing; being dragged home to meet the family by rent boys and working girls; and many a western male has found themselves shaking hands with mother and father. Oh by the way I'm screwing your son/daughter for money. It never seems to come up, so to speak; they are embraced whole heartedly; as if they are relieved you don't have two heads and they can share in your money. The Buddha shines upon them in so many original ways.

This time it was a tiny house on the edge of a river 115 kilometres from the heart of Bangkok, where what seemed like half the village but was in reality only the extended family, brothers, sisters, cousins, mother, father, came to stare at the falang. They all relaxed when he took a bite to eat and declared everything "arroy", delicious. They had all been expressing concern at their boy working in the bar; he is too young, they said, although he was 22, or said he was 22, and obviously, here where he had grown up, a cute little kid no doubt running running along the river bank, so dearly loved, so dearly loved, and he looked up at the little sea of moon faces watching him and laughed at one of the shy kids; and soon enough everybody decided they liked each other and all was well and he was being invited back for a big family celebration the following month when another son was leaving the monastery after having had his head shaved and been at the wat for his internship, or whatever it is called.

The last of the sunset glimmered across the river and his companions, another very camp bar boy who was declared a brother but did not seem to have any relationship to this family, a softly spoken cousin drafted to take care of their beloved son; and a lady boy who remained quietly cheerful in the packed taxi as they made their escape from Bangkok late in the afternoon. Come back early next time, we will show you everything, the mother, a wiry, almost grandmotherly figure, Aek was clearly one of the youngest sons, watched him closely with those big eyes that showed she remembered everything about her beloved son. He tried, as they departed in the city taxi none of them could have afforded without him, to say: dee mak mak your son is very good, study hard, you should be proud; but God only knows what she thought he was saying: your son is very handsome and I love to f... him and you should be proud to have produced such a charming offspring, prey for foreigners, bait for money. Too young to work in the bar, they said, when talk came up of drafting another of the families handsome boys into the service. Only 15.

There were times when he still puzzled over what had happened, why he had done such a total job on himself; why it was taking so long to recover; why love had disintegrated every notion of common sense and the Baw wave, when he woke up with two Baws in his hotel room, were shaking apart any notion he might have had of being sane, sensible, a grown person; on the roam, as one might be, but careful, your heart, mysterious and dark, as Dylan had put it, one more cup of coffee, before the road, one more cup of coffee, before I go, to the valley below; it had been, for whatever reason, their theme song; as if every relationship had to have a theme song; and this one, which had been cemented so beautifully with four shots of vodka before breakfast on the following morning; collapsed, aching, the best and the worst, the most ridiculous things, ignominy, joy, savage recollection; now it was all being washed away in a different life, in a different place, in an upmarket condo he could not afford which marked forever the difference between the past and the future, which told him that even if he died tomorrow; he had given it a damn good shot. One happy year in Bangkok, that's all I ask, he told himself. I haven't had that happy a life and this is the last shot; and so as they travelled the river later in the night, watching the fire flies blinking in the trees along the river's edge rather than the bar flies blinking in the dark along the edge of the bar, that was where the difference lay. They sent him up: all day, morning to night, anything I do he just says: good, good. Anything that happens, he just says: good, good. And so they all laughed; as the taxi took them back to Bangkok, back into the heart of things. Back to where he was eternally happy to be.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/27/2938009.htm?section=justin

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is breaking free from one of her predecessor's main policy stances by announcing she is not interested in a "big Australia".

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was in favour of population growth, with his government predicting it to hit around 36 million by 2050, largely through immigration.

But Ms Gillard has indicated she will be putting the brakes on immigration in order to develop a more sustainable nation.

"Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population," she told Fairfax.

"I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say, a 40 million-strong Australia or a 36 million-strong Australia. We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia.

"I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain."

But Ms Gillard says that does not mean putting a stop to immigration all together.

"I don't want business to be held back because they couldn't find the right workers," she said.

"That's why skilled migration is so important. But also I don't want areas of Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment because there are no jobs," she said.

Mr Rudd installed Tony Burke as the Minister for Population, but in one of her first moves as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard has changed his job description to Minister for Sustainable Population.

Mr Burke will continue to develop a national population strategy which is due to be released next year.

Ms Gillard says the change sends a clear message about the new direction the Government is taking.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin told Channel Ten that Australia's population growth has to reflect the country's economic needs.

"When we have areas in Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment we should be getting in there doing everything possible to get those young people skilled up and into the jobs that are available," she said.

"Making sure that where we have serious congestion in our cities that we do something about it."

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told ABC1's Insiders that Ms Gillard cannot be believed.

"When the Coalition said a few months ago that the population had to be sustainable we were pilloried up hill and down dale by Julia Gillard," he said.

"I think what we're also going to see from Julia Gillard is an attempt on all the controversial issues where the Opposition is making the running, to adopt a kind of 'me too' strategy."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxeAVUun6rjQdqvd9GwawhwCxwOQ

BANGKOK — Thailand is set to lift emergency rule, imposed during mass opposition protests in the capital, in many provinces next month, but extend the strict laws in Bangkok, officials said Thursday.

The emergency decree, in place across about a third of the country, is due to expire on July 7. The cabinet will decide whether to extend it based on the advice of security officials.

"I believe that the state of emergency is likely to be lifted in many areas," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters.

The government unit set up to oversee security during the unrest has decided to ask the cabinet to keep the emergency laws in the capital but revoke them in some other provinces, said spokesman Colonel Sunsern Kaewkumnerd.

The opposition has called for the law to be revoked for a parliamentary by-election in Bangkok on July 25.

"For Bangkok the state of emergency will remain despite the by-election," Sunsern said.

Two months of mass anti-government protests by the "Red Shirt" movement, pushing for immediate elections, sparked outbreaks of violence that left 90 people dead, mostly civilians, and nearly 1,900 injured.

"There are still some elements involved in the movement and we don't want that (new violence) to happen," Abhisit said.

Abhisit invoked emergency rule in Bangkok on April 7, banning public gatherings of more than five people and giving broad powers to the police and military.

Enraged protesters went on a rampage of arson after a deadly army crackdown ended their rally on May 19. The unrest also spread outside the capital, particularly in the Reds' stronghold in the impoverished northeast.

A Red Shirt leader who faces charges of terrorism is being fielded by the opposition Puea Thai Party to stand in the Bangkok by-election.

A Thai court agreed Thursday to temporarily free Korkaew Pikulthong from detention early next week so he could file his candidacy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Bangkok_sunset_burning_sky.jpg

Here At The End Of Days

*

That languidly handsome boy who's haircut he had paid for only a fortnight before accosted him in the street; and promptly, holding his hand insistently, followed them to the go go bar where they were going to watch a show; Bangkok Boys, the biggest, as they claim, go go boy bar in Thailand. Baw, the second Baw, whispered in his ear: I can get ice, nahm keng, big packet, 2,000 baht, I bring my girlfriend, we can smoke, we can all sleep together, I f... my new girlfriend, you can watch, us all four, we can sleep together. And in another life; only a short time ago, he would have been defenseless against the promise of heightened joy and things he never thought possible. But the new boy was having none of it; shaking his head as if the mere thought of an orgy on ice was too ridiculous, crazy and insane for words and why would any sane person want to do such a thing. The go go boys paraded their wares; there was only one amongst the dozens he might have picked; with the tatoos curling across and down his back and across his stomach, almost touching his pubic hair.

I like girl show, Baw said, and he replied: I know, I know. And they laughed; because they had shared such an insane time together; not so long ago, in the Plaza Hotel, when every night saw them out at the clubs and kareoke bars until dawn and bottles of Black Label, along with many thousands of baht, disappeared like water. He noticed another European, they were so rare in Bangkok at the moment, watching him: the boy with his hand possessively on his leg and the other, astonishingly handsome boy, whispering in his ear as they laughed together at all the things they had done. He relayed the story of how the other Baw had bought him a go go girl; and he knew, of course, that the money he handed over would have been fritted away, at least to some fair degree, on whiskey and girls. It didn't matter. It was the rightthing to do. Time stood out of mind but he could see, circling far above, the wings of the dispossessed circling as the night storms gathered. It might be the rainy season, but it only rained briefly at night; here in the far reaches.

One of the only other Europeans in the bar, a man who could easily pass for an overweight Philip Seymour Hoffman, sat in the far corner of the bar, pushing out his enormous belly as the go go boys played to him, and the performers, when they came on, flashed their erect cocks in his face. But he never seemed to be with anyone; just watching, watching, and he wondered: what's the story man, just pick one, or two. They will take good care of you; even if you are an overweight pig who needs to do something about himself. There were too many occasions when the past was etched on his face. Moi moi moi many days, they had said, losing respect; and now, they say, every time he stumbled: moi. But he was not drunk. I can see it in your face, they would say, you drink too much. Before, before, he would say, not now. And the boy helped him, smiling with approval as every day passed without a cigarette, without so much as a beer, certainly not smoking ice in wild alcohol soaked orgies which left him exhausted for days. Now he was learning Thai, he noticed the words which had already been marked: moody, strange, difficult, troublesome, disturbing, untrustworthy, insincere; as if all those crazy days which passed in a blur had disturbed them all; left them all wondering why, why, why do it to yourself?

So they came home and went to sleep happily enough in each others arms and the pressure of everything seemed to consolidate in a short package of requirements; the need to be loved, the need for company, the pressure to conform, the loneliness of strangers, the desire to be different, unaccustomed as we are... He went to a gay meeting and just as one might expect, there was the kindness of strangers and t he compassion of people who had seen and done everything; and support for the new. If you want what we have, said one, and for a girl like me I knew I wanted this Italian stud's cock and so I kept coming back. And they all laughed. You never heard anything like that at the straight meetings. An old priest told an outrageous story of arriving at a hotel in Venice and the boy asking him what he wanted? A shower, he said. And so the boy took both his and his own clothes off and gave him a shower. And then got dressed again. They all laughed. And he spoke movingly of his crisis with the Catholic church, of his double life, going home to his Buddhist lover, while during the day preaching compassion and understanding.

I know I helped a few gay people die more peacefully in the hospice, and for that I am proud, he said. I told them Jesus loved them, even if they were gay, although I don't know if that is true it helped them. In the end I didn't want anything to do with a church that said to the dying, you are going to hell if you are gay, I didn't want to be a part of any of that, and I wrote a letter to the monsignor, and I quit. And now I don't live a double life, I live a single life. And I've been happier ever since. He made his way through the morning crowds, back from Limpini Park where he had been since the early hours, following the strict meditation practices of the Falun Gong and hearing in the clouds, in the ancient rhymes, in the traditions passed down in isolated monasteries for centuries, for literally millennia, revealed now publicly for the first time, here at the end of days, with the giant centipedes crawling across the rich green of the grass, the water spraying, the children playing, the old people doing their Tai Chi. There wasn't anything like this anywhere else on earth; as the tinkling melodies of the people practising their chorus came from behind and the teachers patiently showed him every move. And he made his way back to the swishy boy in the cafe; and back to the young man in his bed; and how long you stay; when you go home, what you do here? All questions he had no answer to except: I don't want to go home. They looked at him puzzled. But that was the truth. I don't want to go home. Wherever home might be. Home now is a condo in Bangkok, and for him, that was as good as it got.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/25/2937066.htm

The idea had long burned in the minds of some but the final operation was so tightly controlled that its denouement utterly shocked most members of the Labor Party.

Just before the first shot rang out at 7:00pm on ABC News and ABC Online one of the party's elder statesmen Defence Minister John Faulkner was in the middle of a pre-recorded interview for The 7:30 Report.

KERRY O'BRIEN: As we've been sitting here recording this interview, I'm told that ABC News is about to go to air, from Canberra, with a story that there are leadership rumblings, as they put it, in Canberra right now as we speak, that factional leaders are in discussion and counting numbers, as I understand it, with regard to a possible leadership challenge. Are you aware of any potential moves on the leadership of Kevin Rudd tonight, not the moves tonight, but the moves?

JOHN FAULKNER: Well, Kerry, I don't know what's on ABC News. All I know is I've been sitting here talking to you and so it might be on the ABC News, well it's also news to me.

It was news to everyone. In the minutes after 7:00pm, in the offices and restaurants and cafes around the Parliamentary Triangle, the mobile phones of Labor MPs and Senators lit up. In the early stages ministers and MPs rolled out the usual denials, because they honestly believed it was another beat up.

The Member for Reid, Laurie Ferguson said, "I don't know who they are, the ABC knows more than Caucus."

The prime minister was at a function in Parliament House celebrating the 20th year in Parliament for Senator Nick Sherry. Just after 7:00pm many people who were there report that everyone's mobile rang. The prime minister left.

A few tiny flaws in the execution of the assassination plot exposed the final hours of the operation to the arc-lights of the media. Because of the ABC stories, shortly after 7:00pm the halls around the prime minister's office were swarming with journalists and cameras and Julia Gillard's every public movement was being recorded.

There is a novel in this but what follows is one small shard of the plot.

For weeks there had been speculation that the prime minister might be replaced with his deputy. But as long as Julia Gillard remained loyal then without a challenger there could be no challenge.

So there was no genuine threat to Mr Rudd in any real sense until Wednesday. That morning two right-wing powerbrokers, Mark Arbib from NSW and David Feeney from Victoria, went to see Ms Gillard. They were sent away to count.

They returned at noon to say they could deliver a majority of the Right in every state. Ms Gillard was in the game and the challenge was on. But they fretted that the entire plot could come unstuck if word leaked that it was on. So they intended to make their final moves late, to stay under the electronic media radar.

But there are few perfect operations. There are always fingerprints.

Exactly 12 months ago the tip that Godwin Grech might be something more than just a hapless Treasury official came from a scrap dropped during a casual conversation at Aussies Cafe on the ground floor of Parliament House.

The scent of the Gillard challenge came during a chance afternoon encounter with a Labor powerbroker at the same table.

In the midst of an otherwise harmless chat he dropped his voice, scanned the tables for familiar faces and said with an unusual urgency. "Could we win with Julia?"

Pressed to explain, the conversation ended abruptly, "I gotta go thanks for the coffee."

Something was up. Calls to the likely suspects went unanswered until one picked up at 5.30pm.

"What's happening?" I said?

"What do you know?" he replied.

"I know something's going on. What do you know?"

"Wait until after 8:00pm and I'll give you an exclusive."

"But the news goes to air at seven."

"Wait," he said and hung up.

It was an infuriating conversation because it confirmed a serious push against the prime minister by serious players. But there was every chance it could evaporate because everything depended on how Ms Gillard had responded to their advances.

Comparing notes, it emerged that the ABC's Chief Political Correspondent Mark Simkin was also on to the story.

By 6.50pm we had enough to broadcast that there were moves afoot but that it wasn't clear at all whether they were being supported by Ms Gillard. We made it clear in the stories that we were uncertain of her position and deliberately erred on the side of caution.

But it was still an enormous risk. If she had rebuffed the advances then the conspirators would melt back into the shadows and the next day everyone would, again, furiously deny there was anything going on. And, unlike some other operations, there are serious consequences for being seriously wrong in the ABC.

We knew that the first sign that we were wide of the mark would come by way of be an outraged phone call from the prime minister's office to the ABC's bureau chief, Greg Jennett.

That call never came.

Greg and the ABC's tireless chief of staff Simon Johnson began furiously organising resources and dispatching them to the halls and restaurant districts.

In ABC Radio Louise Yaxley was powering through calls and stories and marshalling her team.

ABC TV's Hayden Cooper was trawling the corridors down near the prime minister's office and Lateline's Dana Robertson was tracking down backbenchers.

In Radio Current Affairs Sabra Lane and Samantha Hawley were working the phones and Chief Political Correspondent Lyndal Curtis returned to work from her sick bed.

The new producer for ABC News 24, Michelle Ainsworth, left her children with her husband and returned to work and ABC News Breakfast's Melissa Clarke (who gets to work at 4.30am) was on the phone asking if she should come in.

The rest really is history.

I write all this for two reasons. First, it is a great yarn. Second because the ABC doesn't plaster "exclusive" on every lame rumour and, frankly, does a really poor job banging its own drum.

And I know that in the wash up of this, the story will have 1,000 fathers, as some of the self-basting outlets drown themselves in their own acclaim. That's fine too but I write because I'm bored by reading bile covered tripe in same outlets claiming the ABC doesn't break stories.

The ABC radio news breaks stories almost every hour. AM is the jewel in the crown of a Radio Current Affairs operation that is unique in this country. The ABC Online site is second to none. ABC Local Radio gives a voice to every community on this continent. And ABC TV News and Current Affairs is the most trusted brand in television broadcasting.

I'm proud of my colleagues and the job they do in the large and small parts of the ABC. And, in the end, the proof of the pudding is in the quality of the ingredients.

As one minister told Mark Simkin, "I didn't know about it. But the fact that the ABC was running it meant it had credibility".

Chris Uhlmann is the 7.30 Report's Political Editor.

Considerable Patience

*

Still he puzzled over how it had happened, these moments of idiocy, and yet in his heart he knew the answers all too well, and did not want to commit them to paper or to memory, or to public view, those fragile moments when he and the dog were the only people awake on the planet; well in Sydney, or so it seemed, as he walked the Redfern streets and Wilson Street in particular, passing, passing, by the sleeping cars and the nodding junkies and time out of mind, when he stopped going to the clubs and stopped sleeping with people - any people - and when a man not meant to be alone tossed restlessly for two hours before giving the idea of sleep away as a bad toss; as no way he could function. Now God had sent him a boy who slept eight or twelve hours a night, they love their sleep Thai men, and the boy looked at him askance when he realised he had been out since 5am and only come home to wake him up for college; still he was sleeping more than was his due, more than he ever had; and everyting was delicious, everything.

He still had his coffee in the same place with the same swishy boy - coffee - kahboom - yes - he replies - looking as if he should be waltzing around in the Fresh Beach Boys go go bar rather than working in a cafe - and the delight with which they greeted everything - fun - face - don't be serious - was something that had moved very fast - he couldn't be free of the slather - haunted by moments, mistakes, he'd rather forget - well everything was in the day and today was glorious - he could hear the radio in Thai over the Limpini Park sound system announcing the change of leadership in Australia - mixing as it did with the not quite melancholic, cosmic perhaps was a better word, ping of the Falun Gong and the sounds of the choir practicing behind them - as people stepped out to help him every inch of the way. The Buddha will help you, Baw had said, and perhaps he was right. Stay south, stay south, he had advised, Bangkok is no good for you. Street rat. Hustler. Handsome boy. Moments of intimacy that pass between men. You are a very funny man, they kept telling him, and he grinned, because it was true in a ridiculous sense; and he saw them waiting patiently outside the fold.

There was much to be gained and much to be lost by the present course of action. It was as if he had decided if he wasn't going to live long he was going to live well; or if he was going to live well he better start generating some cash; and that exercise in itself might not be such a bad thing, forcing him back to work. It was too early to give up. Too early to say die. Too early to surrender to an old age pension and a frigid life in a terrible suburb, lonely to the core, or a tiny town with nothing but practicing alcoholics, or a place where he was not himself, did not belong; could not make it through the night; where everything seethed and curdled and he could not have been lonelier, more out of step, if he spent years planning to achieve the worst state of mind possible. So he marched onwards, each morning he went down the park, dodging the people as they set up their food stalls for the day, seething in the most charming way, exhausted, happy, panting. Good, good, the boy would say; and everything was fine, nothing could be better; and the combination of the park and the meetings were working, much to his surprise; and suddenly, just like that, the desperate days were over.

Don't make me laugh. Don't make me do it. Don't tell me what's possible and what's not. In all the dark forces there had been no escape; and yet, in that ancient tradition, walkabout, everything had been revealed. He had wizened up fast. I love you I want to stay with you every day forever meant I like you, I like your apartment, I like your money, I like the fact that you pay me without action and that you think I'm handsome. He heard him, though the boy thought he did not know enough Thai to understand, telling the mamasam that no, he was not coming to work that night, and no, he was not going to work tomorrow night either, and no, that was that, he would call him when he was ready; and like a typical Thai, simply refused to do something he did not want to do. The baht all disappeared just like that; it always would, he might not drink, he might not smoke yabba in the morning, but in the ancient communal ways of the village, of this place, all the money went straight to friends and family; and he didn't care. It allowed moments of pride; it allowed moments of forgiveness. He heard the boy to stop worrying, the foreigner's name was John and he had been with him many times; and he was a good man who was not going to harm him and who treated him well. So stop worrying mum.

Such a conversation would never happen in Australia. Much of what he saw every day, from the street stalls to the casual embraces to the handsome men doing exercises in the park who instantly returned his glance with a big big grin; because they knew he was perving at them and the sunshine was free. You are very handsome, he felt like shouting, but the Thai sentence for you are very handsome was almost identical to You are a very bad man, just as the sentence I have two children arranged in what would seem like an orderly sensible Western manner meant F... You and could lget him punched in the face. He showed up at the meetings and said nothing. He waltzed through the corridors and shouted out in praise. He dodged street workers and smiled at everybody. He tipped the security guards well so there would be no arguments about who came and who went. But they always took the boys identity cards anyway. They went shopping together at Tesco's, like any newly married couple, although they had only known each other a few days; and each sentence was a punch in the dark, and each new wave of pleasure a mounting bridge from a terrible past; and he smiled and waved as if royalty, and snuck along back streets as if invisible; and shouldered the blame; because everything was different now. He had been saved from a fate worse than death, the living death; and knew, the exercises would help him make the jump, into a different form, a different life, a different body, in those twinkling times between lives.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/24/2935900.htm

Julia Gillard has been sworn in as Australia's 27th Prime Minister after ousting Kevin Rudd in an unopposed Labor leadership spill this morning.

The ceremony at Yarralumla set the seal on a tumultous 24 hours which culminated with Ms Gillard becoming the nation's first female Prime Minister.

Earlier Ms Gillard had told a packed Parliament House press conference that she was "truly honoured" to be given the chance to lead the country.

"I asked my colleagues to make a leadership change because I believed that a good Government was losing its way," she said. "My values and beliefs have driven me to step forward to take this position as Prime Minister. I will lead a strong and responsible Government that will take control of our future."

Ms Gillard announced that the Government will scrap its mining tax advertising campaign and called on the industry to do the same in a bid to bring the bitter fight between the two to an end.

And she promised to call an election in the "coming months" to give the Australian people the chance to deliver their verdict on her ascension.

"Can I say, Australians one and all, it's with the greatest, humility, resolve and enthusiasm that I sought the endorsement of my colleagues to be the Labor leader and to be the prime minister for this country," she said.

"I have accepted that endorsement.

"There will be some days I delight you, some days I disappoint you. On every day I will be working my absolute hardest for you," she added.

Ms Gillard acknowledged that she was responsible for the Government's mistakes but praised her predecessor for leading the country in difficult times.

Indicating that there could be a role for Mr Rudd on the front bench, she said she would be speaking to him about his future in Government.

Newly elected Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan said the Government would move forward with Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard's press conference came minutes after an appearance by an emotional Mr Rudd, who fought back tears as he bowed out as Prime Minister.

"I will be dedicating my every effort to assure the re-election of this Labor Government," he said. "They are a good team led by a good Prime Minister."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/rudds-tears-as-loss-to-gillard-sinks-in/story-e6frgczf-1225883699195

AN emotional Kevin Rudd declared today that he had "given it my all" and indicated he is interested in retaining a key position in the Gillard government.

Julia Gillard would be a “good PM”, Mr Rudd said, as he committed to working in “any manner in which I can be of assistance” and recontesting his Queensland seat of Griffith.

"I will be dedicating my every effort to ensure the re-election of this Australian Labor government. It is a good government with a good program,” he said.

“As for serving this government in the future, I will of course serve it in any manner in which I can be of assistance,” Mr Rudd said.

He deliberately and carefully repeated this phrase “any manner in which I can be of assistance,” in a clear indication he is interested in a key position.

Mr Rudd, flanked by wife Therese Rein and children Nicholas, Marcus and Jessica, took the unusual step of addressing a media conference before his successor Ms Gillard was scheduled to do so.

In an extraordinary and rare display of emotion, the outgoing Prime Minister fought back tears as he gave a thorough rundown of what he believed to be his key achievements.

"I have given it my absolute best; I have given it my all," he said.

"I am proud of the achievements that we have delivered to make this country fairer."

In a speech punctuated by long pauses, he listed keeping Australia out of the global financial crisis, getting rid of Work Choices, health reform, infrastructure delivery such as the national broadband network and education reform as his successes.

Son Sam at a shooting gallery outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Circa 2010.

Exultant Days

*

There wasn't anywhere else he wanted to be; and although he fretted about the cost the truth was he had spent the equivalent of a months rent in an upmarket apartment in a matter of days, during those lost days, lost time, when anyone who saw him later expressed concern and would say: oh my God, I didn't realise, I didn't know that about you. You seem so normal, so happy, most of the time. So he sat in the cafe down the road having his one morning coffee, now his only chemical extravagance, where Thai pop blared out its catchy melodies and the swishy boy with diamonds in his ears served him with a pleasure that made all the customers laugh; and walk away beaming, while the handsome boys making the coffee also looked entirely adapted, entirely a part of their own world, and he, as always, was the only falang. The only foreigner.

He met up with James from the Epoch Times in Sydney, who had met an American Thai woman and was now living in Bangkok with their two year old son, and it was strange to be suddenly talking to a native English speaker, as if everything was normal and as if they were just two strange tourists sharing a pineapple shake at the Bug and Bee near Salen Dang; but in fact the only thing strange about this place was how much they loved life; how clairvoyant they were as part of their daily practice, the emphasis on fun, on the day, on life in the moment, exultant moments that shimmered through his glacial heart and shattered everything, changed everything for the better. You have a cool heart, the Thais would say, making a gesture that indicated his head was somewhere out beyond Mars. But they didn't seem to say that anymore.

The advantage of picking one out of the crowd, just as he would always pick one tuk tuk driver or one boy out of the crowd in Tangiers or Calcutta or New Delhi or wherever he was, was that they fought off all the others; and paying one a fair days pay was a damn sight easier than fighting off dozens of touts wherever you went. He would watch the backpackers fighting with the ceaseless crowds of beggars and hustlers and shake his head; the solution was just so easy, and ultimately so cheap. And so it was, he thought, with the boys of Bangkok. There were many bad boys who could take him for wild rides around the country and through the night clubs, through extreme binging on everything known to man and thorugh wild sexual escapades the like of which he had never even dreamed.

But then God sent him the healing heart; a boy who put 50 bahts worth of credit on his phone with the same sense of guilty extravagance that the previous one had ordered up bottles of Black Label and spreads of the most expensive dishes on offer in whatever club they happened to be in. A boy who was not entirely nocturnal, as the others had been. They had looked so out of place if ever caught in daylight, and even if awake before night fall lay indolently around the hotel room watching TV and getting in a few early drinks before the evening well and truly set in; plotting the extravagant adventures of the night. This one slept eight hours a night and was keen to get off to his university classes in the morning. And so when he read the love letter which must have taken quite some time to write, and when he commented Aek mimed himself looking up the dictionary at every word, and so when he read it he thought: why not?

There are many bad boys in Bangkok, swishy boys and yabba disoriented crazies, and so, because he did not like to sleep alone and because he liked this one, he thought: it's the same principle. Pick one. He'll fight off all the rest. He'll take care and make sure no one else moves on to his patch, and fight off all the others with the ferocity of a tiger protecting its cubs if he had to. Sometimes you had to surrender to fate. Sometimes he was determined to make things work. Sometimes every day, every moment, seemed extraordinary; and he would be pleased or embarrassed by the nasty displays of temper; and everything would be crowded in and he would chat cheerfully, he had learnt so much; icebreaker, heart breaker, surrender to obsession, make do make do, and common sequence, common fall, time immemorial and time out of mind, consequence, collapse, crowds coming and going. They were going shopping that afternoon to buy things for the apartment, just like a newly married couple. He laughed in his heart.

THE BIGGER STORY:

BARACK Obama says his top military commander in Afghanistan "showed poor judgment" in a magazine interview highly critical of the White House.

But the US President said he would wait until he speaks to General Stanley McChrystal in person before making a decision whether to fire the man he put in charge of US and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

“I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions,” Mr Obama said in comments in Washington after a cabinet meeting.

General McChrystal has already issued a public apology for an interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine that detailed friction between himself and the White House in the lead-up to President Obama's decision in December to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.

In the interview, the general said he felt “betrayed” by Mr Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, for sending a diplomatic cable to Washington that warned about the unreliability of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

But General McChrystal also made derogatory remarks that showed his contempt for Vice President Joe Biden and top White House envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke. An aide to the general dismissed national security adviser James Jines as a “clown”.

Mr Obama was told about General McChrystal's interview overnight and reacted angrily, according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

The President's immediate response was to summon General McChrystal to personally attend a White House planned meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan tomorrow to explain himself, rather than appearing via a teleconference from Kabul.

Mr Gibbs said that all options were on the table when it came to General McChrystal's future.

“I gave him the article last night and he was angry,” he said of Mr Obama's reaction.

The White House spokesman said the President was most concerned about how the comments distracted from the main purpose of the “extremely important” military operation in Afghanistan.

The scathing article brought to the surface lingering tensions between General McChrystal and the White House, just as the US deploys 30,000 more troops to the bloody war now in its ninth year.

Mr Gibbs refused to rule out that the commander-in-chief would sack the general.

“General McChrystal has fought bravely on behalf of this country for a long time. Nobody could or should take that away from him, and nobody will,” Mr Gibbs said.

“But there has clearly been an enormous mistake in judgment to which he's going to have to answer to.”

While General McChrystal has apologised for his remarks and one of his media officers, a civilian, has already resigned over the episode, the fallout is unlikely to stop there.

“The magnitude and graveness of this mistake are profound,” said Mr Gibbs.

General McChrystal's comments were widely perceived as insubordination and a bizarre lapse for a four-star general with a long military record who has given other interviews to journalists in the past and showed more discretion.

But sacking the top commander now could present Mr Obama with potentially more difficulties than keeping him.

The President would be forced to find an alternative with the experience to lead US and allied troops at a crucial phase of the military operation in Afghanistan, as troops try to win control of Kandahar, the past spiritual home of the Taliban.

Mr Obama is caught in a political bind after saying he will keep a promise to start a military withdrawal from Afghanistan by mid-next year.

In recent weeks, the progress of a military surge has slowed considerably in Kandahar and General McChrystal is among those readily admitting the operation will take longer than planned.

General McChrystal had already received a dressing down from Mr Obama last year over his remarks at a London conference in which he appeared to reject Mr Biden's argument in favour of fewer troops in Afghanistan.

In one passage in the Rolling Stone interview that caused dismay at the White House and the Pentagon, an unnamed McChrystal adviser says the general came away unimpressed after meeting with Mr Obama in the Oval Office a year ago.

“It was a 10-minute photo op,” the general's adviser says. “Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged.”

Lawmakers in Congress condemned the general's remarks, though some key Democrats stopped short of calling for General McChrystal's removal, saying too much was at stake in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, said the article pointed to personality differences and “do not reflect differences in policy on prosecuting the war.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai endorsed the embattled commander and voiced hope the general would not be sacked, while NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also backed General McChrystal.

“The Rolling Stone article is rather unfortunate, but it is just an article,” Mr Rasmussen's spokesman said.

“We are in the middle of a very real conflict, and the Secretary General has full confidence in General McChrystal as the NATO commander, and in his strategy.”

Additional reporting: AFP/AP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/23/2934590.htm

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says there is nothing unusual about his chief of staff sounding out Labor MPs over a "whole range of things", amid continuing speculation over his leadership.

It is believed Mr Rudd's chief of staff Alistair Jordan has been speaking to a number of MPs in an effort to gauge the mood of the electorate and get their opinion on how the Government is faring.

The move comes after a series of bad poll results which have seen the ALP's primary vote tracking as low as 33 per cent.

Mr Rudd says Mr Jordan's actions are just "situation normal".

"There's nothing particularly knew in what 'AJ' would be doing," he said.

"Alistair's job, I think since I became Leader of the Opposition, is to be in constant contact with members of the party and with ministers.

"I don't think anything's really changed much in the last four years."

When asked by reporters to detail what feedback had been received Mr Rudd replied: "Frankly I don't know much of the content of his most recent conversations. They usually cover a whole range of things."

Senior ministers have today rallied behind Mr Rudd and are voicing their full support for his leadership.

The Opposition has seized on the revelation to attack the Government, but its MPs are facing their own questions over what exactly Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told his own party room about their chances of electoral victory yesterday.

Some Labor MPs are remaining tightlipped over whether they were contacted by Mr Jordan, but all are maintaining Mr Rudd has their full support.