politics:

latham challenging howard  - here's the story thanks to abcnews

 

Latham challenges Howard to debates

Federal Opposition leader Mark Latham has challenged Prime Minister John Howard to a series of debates at community forums.

But Mr Howard has rejected the challenge.

Mr Latham has held 14 community forums this year and today in Parliament, he threw down the gauntlet to Mr Howard to join him.

"Will the Prime Minister now accept my challenge to a series of community forum debates during the election campaign in the second half of this year," he said.

Mr Howard fired back with an attack on Labor's policies.

"How can you debate a bloke about policy when he doesn't have one," he said.

Mr Howard told Parliament he looks forward to "interacting" with the Opposition leader in a variety of ways in the lead-up to the election, but would not say if that would include any debates at Mr Latham's community forums.

good old bob brown - guatanamo bay treatment is too harsh. pic and report courtesy of abcnews (link @ top of above report)

Brown urges PM to condemn interrogation techniques

Greens leader Bob Brown has called on the Prime Minister to condemn official "interrogation" techniques used by US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The Pentagon has declassified a number of memos about interrogation procedures used at the prison camp.

Among them is a directive signed by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorising a technique called "water boarding", in which prisoners are strapped down, immersed in water, and made to feel as if they are going to drown.

The Bush administration has denied that any of the memos amounted to approving mistreatment or torture, but Senator Brown says they breach the Geneva Convention.

"There's no way Australia can stand by and not react to that," he said.

"The Prime Minister has got to contact the President of the United States and say Australia will not stand for that, the ramifications for the rule of law around the world are too gross."