Howard's bitter medicine.

IN A STEP DESCRIBED AS "MOMENTous," Australian PM John Howard has announced that the federal government will seize control of the country's aboriginal Northern Territory and implement tough emergency measures there. A report released June 15 by special investigators revealed that child sexual abuse is open and ubiquitous throughout the territory, so Howard, rejecting soft recommendations for more "education" of drunken rapists, is banning alcohol entirely in the NT for at least six months, will link family welfare payments to school attendance, has banned printed pornography, and is taking direct control of crumbling, hellish aboriginal townships. The Labor opposition supports the measures, but Canadians won't need help guessing who's opposed: aboriginal interest groups, human rights bureaucrats and activists, and the territorial police union.