I'm not a terrorist, I'm just training for a spot of jihad with surface-to-air missiles

At last Hicks answers the tough questions, claims Eamon Duff in Sunday's Sun-Herald:

HICKS: We did not fire upon Indian soldiers or any other people. We only participated in the symbolic exchange of fire.

Hicks in a letter home on August 10, 2000:

I GOT to fire hundreds of bullets. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally.

More answers to tough questions:

HICKS: I attended the open mainstream camp, not terrorist camps. I would not have been there if there was any suggestion of terrorist activity or the targeting of civilians. The camps I attended were not al-Qa'ida. I did not hear about such an organisation until my arrival in Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks in a letter home in 2000:

I LEARNT about weapons such as ballistic missiles, surface-to-surface and shoulder-fired missiles, anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets, rapid fire heavy and light machineguns, pistols, AK47s, mines and explosives. After three months everybody leaves capable and war-ready, being able to use all of these weapons capably and responsibly. I am now very well trained for jihad in weapons, some serious like anti-aircraft missiles.

More tough answers:

HICKS: These were situations very far removed from acts of terrorism such as bomb-making, hijacking . . .

Hicks in a letter to his mother in 2000:

IT is not just war, it is jihad. We are all going to die one day, so why not be martyred?

Last tough Q&A

CRITICS say the book tries to erase Hicks's involvement with al-Qa'ida and that it contradicts the letters he sent home to his family.

Hicks: I believe the issue [for critics] is that they spent close to eight years painting a particular picture of me and now I have given them a painting different to their own.

Hicks in letter home in 2000:

THERE are a lot of Muslims who want to meet Osama bin Laden but after being a Muslim for 16 months I get to meet him.

Adele Ferguson in The Age on December 2 with a dud scoop:

WAYNE Swan is poised to unveil controversial measures to create a fifth pillar of the banking system using the muscle of the $73 billion credit union and building society industry. The moves are expected to target the cost of funding, including reopening the government guarantee scheme on a limited basis to the credit unions, building societies and regional banks.

You cannot be serious. Ferguson in The Age yesterday:

TREASURER Wayne Swan's bag of banking reforms aimed at creating a fifth pillar in the banking sector is long on rhetoric and short on solutions. If he [were] really serious about stimulating competition he would have re-introduced the government guarantee on wholesale funding for a limited period to enable them to access wholesale funds at a similar rate to the big banks.

Sydney Morning Herald happiness, er, economics editor Ross Gittins on December 8:

I RECKON I've had only about half a dozen job interviews in my life and only one, with the Financial Review, where I wasn't offered a job.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? Gittins continues:

THE golden age ended in the mid-1970s with the first OPEC oil shock (just after I'd landed a job at the Herald).

Thought bubble diplomacy. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on Saturday in Egypt:

FOR those of you who think that the function of ministers is simply to agree to a statement which has already been produced, let me say that the idea of this Egypt-Australia economic forum was something we developed in the course of the last hour.

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