Prostate Cancer

By the time the guitarist-songwriter-tattooist was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, it was inoperable.

Last October Wells told The Age that all Australian men should have regular check-ups for the disease.

"If they find it early, they can fix it.

If I had gone in earlier, it would have saved me from a whole lot of pain and misery." His Rose Tattoo bandmate Angry Anderson said Wells was the greatest male influence on his life.

"He was the genuine article.

On guitar, he was like a trapeze artist, he just pushed and pushed and pushed." Triple R's Neil Rogers, who interviewed Wells many times on his music show The Australian Mood, said Wells was Australia's greatest slide guitarist.

"Pete mattered because he was not only a key part of Australian rock'n'roll history, he was in fact Australian rock'n'roll personified." A posting on Rose Tattoo's official website read: "Pete's music will live on for the inspiration of generations to come." In October a who's who of Australian rock artists, including Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, Tex, Don & Charlie, Ian Rilen and the Beasts of Bourbon paid tribute to the guitarist in a concert at the Palace in St Kilda.

Wells was too weak to play with Rose Tattoo, but he joined them on their song Bad Boy for Love and sang AC/DC's defiant anthem Ride On with the Beasts of Bourbon.

Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revol...

“You can’t sit and feel sorry for yourself.

Life is too short.”Cancer, he said, has made him stronger.

“It makes you look at life differently.

You learn to stop and smell the roses.”Another piece of advice Glaz gives is to be savvy about the disease.In 1992, while he was still living in Erie, his annual PSA test indicated the likely presence of Doctors couldn’t find a tumor and told him just “to go to Florida and have fun.”Glaz knew better than to ignore what the tests were saying, so he did some research.

When he was able to tell his Florida doctors to look behind the bladder for the hidden cancer, the cancer was located and treated.“Usually after five years, “It’s been over 10.”Glaz takes a daily vitamin to keep his immune system strong.

Otherwise, he maintains a positive outlook, stays active and does as much volunteer work as he can to help others.Monika Arnold, 28 yearsGerman-born Monika Arnold was a 32-year-old military wife when a routine Pap smear came back abnormal.

She received a call to return for a second test.When the second test confirmed the first, she and her husband went together...

Just look at the mess in Afghanistan or Iraq and see how the violence has flourished under US occupation.

In Afghanistan the administration has made no effort to establish security beyond the capital of Kabul and Iraq is in the throes of civil war.

The scenario is bound to be repeated in Sudan.

The military may dispatch a few F-16s to Darfur to blast-away at fleeing tribesmen, but the situation on the ground would remain unchanged.

Neither the US nor the UN will do anything to stop the bloodshed in the hinterland.

The eagerness of the UN, and particularly Ambassador John Bolton, appears to be aimed at putting boots on the ground to secure Sudan's lavish oil and natural gas reserves.

If that’s not the case, then why hasn’t the UN intervened in nearby Congo where millions of civilians have been butchered in the last decade?

It’s astonishing how the United Nations plays along with the Bush administration by pandering to their smallest whim.

Humanitarian intervention is a shabby rationale for invasion and does nothing to conceal the self-serving interests of the main players.

Last week’s balloting in the General Assembly illustrates America’s threadbare credibility on a similar issue.

Bolton’s attempt to revamp the UN Human Rights Commission was shot-down by a vo...