Mood:  sharp

We received this forlorn email today from an environmental friend which is a message from the global version of Get Up called Avaaz.org:

Burma is ruled by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world. For decades the Burmese regime has fought off pressure--imprisoning elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy activists, wiping out thousands of villages, imposing forced labour, creating refugees-

But last Tuesday Buddhist monks and nuns, revered in Burma, began marching and chanting prayers. The protests spread as hundreds of thousands of ordinary people and public figures joined in, finding the hope they’d lost. Now they’re facing crackdown – so please, show your solidarity to this movement towards reconciliation and democracy and sign the emergency petition supporting the Burmese people -- it'll be delivered to United Nations Security Council members and international media all week:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/tf.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

In the past, Burma's military rulers have massacred the demonstrators and crushed democracy. The world must stand with the Burmese people at this time, to show the military rulers that the world will not tolerate repression and violence.

Right now, global leaders are gathering in New York for the annual United Nations summit. In speeches, press interviews but also in real actions, we need them to show Burma's military junta that the global community is willing to act in solidarity with the protesters.

Show your solidarity to this movement for peace and democracy and sign the emergency petition supporting the Burmese people. It'll be delivered to UN Security Council members and the UN press corps all week:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/tf.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

Thank you for your help!

Our reply is a bit more lateral:

We need to target Singapore which provides cover for the illegal drug trade there in Burma by providing money laundering, while hanging their own odd drug trafficker and user, to sanitise organised crime at senior govt levels of Singapore. We should also target India as a big customer of Burma's Junta. China another big customer for raw materials is probably retreating from active influence in the lead up to Beijing Olympics to sanatise its own tragic record on human rights. Normally China props up several dictators e.g. North Korea and Burma as a buffer from western norms of transparency, just as it abuses its own internal diversity:

 

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Should the world boycott the Beijing Olympics for Chinese human rights abuse?
Mood:  sad
Topic: human rights

 

My impression the fate of the Burmese and North Koreans, is the fate of 70M Falung gong inside China's border. That is extreme fatal violence.

Alot of the world's media are targetting the evil crazy Junta in Burma specifically, but the geopolitiks looks alot more sordid and corrupt than just the internal dictators of Burma. They are a prop as best I can tell. Just like Saddam was for the USA versus Iran, and the pathetic Saudi Wahabist royals vis a vis the rest of the Arabs.

 

One reason I would guess Burma's people are stirring right now is because China is retreating from the Junta with the approach of the Olympics given pressure on human rights in China itself to be sanitised. So Burmese dictators have to make do on their own to manage geo political pressure for change. Without as much Chinese support we see more economic unravel like rising petrol prices. We see less effectively organised state power against democratic opposition. What hope the little folks in this evil power mongering in the shadow of the next Olympics?

 

One hopes greater democracy for the Burmese might be a consolation prize to the world for giving Beijing the Olympics?

Posted by editor at 3:36 PM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 27 September 2007 4:26 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  sad

On August 3, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, the Ranking Member on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, introduced a House Resolution to boycott the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

He explained, "The Olympics represent the noblest elements of humanity and the Chinese regime represents the opposite. The Olympic torch is supposed to be a beacon of light shining upon mankind's higher aspirations in the world and it's a travesty to have that torch hosted by a regime that is the world's worst human rights abuser."

	Because she practiced Falun Gong, Ms. Wei Fengju was tortured to near death in the Heizuizi Forced labor Camp. Unable to recover, she passed away on July 11, 2007.

On March 28, 2007, actress Mia Farrow, a good-will ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund, drew the world's attention to the Beijing Olympics when she and her son Ronan wrote an op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal [1]. In the article, Farrow launched a campaign to label the 2008 Olympics the "Genocide Olympics." Her forthright candor gave voice to the world's awakening shock at Communist China's ever-burgeoning atrocities, its total disregard for human values and its severe human rights violations.

Not only is China bankrolling Darfur's Genocide [2]; for more than eight years it has sought to eliminate Falun Gong, which in 1999 had an estimated 70 million practitioners in China; it has likewise abused democracy activists, lawyers, human rights defenders, religious leaders, journalists, trade unionists, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighurs, ''unofficial'' church members, and political dissidents.

In 2004, Asma Jahangir the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions stated, "The Special Rapporteur continues to be alarmed by deaths in custody in China. Reports describe harrowing scenes in which detainees, many of whom are followers of the Falun Gong movement, die as a result of severe ill treatment, neglect or medical inattention. The cruelty and brutality of these alleged acts of torture defy description."

... full story continues here

Posted by editor at 2:59 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  irritated

Great Australian land clearing Hoax

Compiled by David Paull [Sept 2007]

02 68424940

·        Land clearing laws have not stopped Australian land clearing as all efforts at compliance have been ineffective.

·        Official satellite monitoring figures are suspect, as monitoring systems underestimate all vegetation clearing.

·        Official clearing approvals continue at rates similar to that before the introduction of new Native Vegetation legislation

·        Any real decrease in deforestation are more likely due to the fact that natural vegetation systems are fast disappearing and are becoming more endangered

·        This is all in the context of global warming.

Every year since 2002, the Federal Environment Minister has put out a press release to accompany the publication of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory stating that Australia is “on track” to meet the target set under the Kyoto Protocol of an average of 108 per cent of 1990 emission levels over the period 2008-12.

Because of good agricultural conditions, the late 1980s and early 1990s happened to be bumper years for land clearing, particularly in Queensland. This raised Australia’s emissions in the Kyoto base year of 1990 by about 30 per cent, making the 108 per cent target far cheaper and easier to achieve. Due to the Australia clause, any reduction in land clearing could offset emission increases from burning fossil fuels.

This is precisely what has occurred. Between 1990 and 2004, emissions from most sectors have sky-rocketed. For example, stationary energy and transport emissions increased by 43 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. However, these increases have been offset by a 73 per cent decline in emissions from land use change, providing an apparently respectable 2.3 per cent increase in overall emissions.

But has land clearing really stopped?

Posted by editor at 1:59 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 1 January 2008 6:33 PM EADT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  special

We have been doing our best to catch up the press after the frenzy of political wonkiness during the APEC week earlier this month of Sept 07. Our fat file is in the high draw of the filing cabinet on top of another cabinet.

But we had to seek out and link these two unusual contributions, one by Phil Burgess a US expatriate high level Telstra executive with some embarrassing things to say about security protocols, at least apparently because we don't necessarily agree with second guessing the effectiveness of their covert ways. Did they already know it was Phil Burgess, a very distinctive chap in the first place. Here is his piece in The Australian main opinion page and its quite a lark:

Chaser cut to the charade Phil Burgess | September 10, 2007

The other whimsical article well worth clipping was poor Mr Paul O'Sullivan. Not just any citizen but chief of ASIO, possibly offline at page 9 Monday Sept 10 2007 by Sian Powell:

Osama gets in, but not the ASIO chief

"ASIO chief Paul O'Sullivan was refused entry into two venues during APEC leaders' week in Sydney, but an Osama bin Laden lookalike in a fake Canadian motorcade was waved through two police checkpoints.

APEC security was a bizarre combination of the laughably incompetent and the overzealous, critics say.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation said Mr O'Sullivan was not inconvenienced by the suspicious officers who blocked his entry into the venues. "It was a minor administrative detail, quickly worked out," a spokesman said yesterday."

We don't second guess effectiveness of what covert operational activities the security agencies are involved in, because we don't by definition know. But we note this book published with the help of our grandfather Eric McLoughlin as a senior journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald back in the mid 1950ies which according to the key spy who brought Petrov over from Stalin's Soviet was none too impressed with the ASIO forerunner called ASO back then.

Reading between the lines fluent Russian speaker Michael Bialoguski thought ASO were thick, culturally unsophisticated, arrogant pseudo Brits, and he was on the same side given demise of his Polish family under the communist heal in the 1940ies. On the ASO side they thought he was a double agent. Tricky stuff.

Posted by editor at 8:58 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 September 2007 10:11 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  quizzical

The trouble with drought relief is that it props up unviable farms. The Australian recognises the terrible pressure a drought puts on individuals, families and communities, but drought assistance is a government intervention and as with any government intervention, it distorts the market. So long as farmers in marginal agricultural enterprises know that the Government will bail them out, they defer the difficult decision to cut their losses and leave the land. Whereas other unviable industries go to the wall in the face of changing conditions, there is an assumption that farmers should not be allowed to go broke, and if they do, they should be given assistance to exit the industry. When droughts break, as the always do, new entrants go in, enjoying the good times and then expecting a handout when the next drought hits.

Sadly, the lead up to a federal election is no time to expect rational economic decisions, but this is what is required. Handouts to unviable farms are a drain on the public purse and on scarce resources such as water, and by putting subsidised products in the market, they make it harder for viable farms to survive. [bold added]

Posted by editor at 8:15 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 1 January 2008 5:22 PM EADT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  incredulous

Picture: p1 Australian Financial Review 24th Sept 07. There go the civil liberties online?

It was surreal as dawn events often can be. Seven am Phillip St Sydney. 10th floor of the Supreme Court Building. Missing my sleep.  Lawyers badge on in case of wire cage barriers. Blinking at the sombre procession of barristers, protesters, media, the Beak, senior coppers. Far below on the steps we saw banners, face paint, police on bicycles, and plain clothes Australian Federal Police, one of whom gave me a card by way of sussing this community media practitioner out.

We gave the card to David Marr of the SMH later on that day as he nipped around gleaning here, gleaning there for his sketch pieces.

 It was early September and still cold.

So this was democracy.

And then there was Mr X. Quite chatty and enthusiastic He was an interested onlooker in the gallery sticky beaking at proceedings on the way to somewhere else in the Court building perhaps. Many people wanted to know if the Stop Bush Rally was going to be allowed during this super security conscious APEC week.

"What's your role in all this?" X asked. "Community media" I slouched. We got to chatting. He trusted me a bit. Gave me his card too. Then he shared this little gem as we moved away from Big Ears who gave me the other card:

Seems about 2 years ago AFP chief Mick Kelty had allegedly been at a conference of legal big wigs and gave a speech. He talked about the age of errorism and he let it out that he had been having informal chats with judges along the lines

- you don't understand, these people are capable of things you wouldn't believe

- you don't know what these people are really like

- you are going to have to adjust your thinking and make decisions appropriate to the times of much greater security.

At least that was the gist of it as I understood the allegation. Which is very interesting. Because if it is true it suggests an old boy/girl network of extra judicial lobbying outside the well worn processes of evidence in the legal system, complete with upcoming anti terrorism cases. To save the village by autocractically changing the village, openly or otherwise. The power behind the facade of the ballot box? The old Ken Livingstone book comes to mind: "If voting changed anything they'd abolish it"

It also resonates with some speeches the sainted Mick Kelty is reported today about yet more changes to our legal system needed to ensure (perfect?) security in what has always been an uncertain world:

Prevention is better than crime

Mick is a clever CEO all the same. While pushing the conservative buttons on the Coalition side, on the other hand he is spruiking the risks of climate change to security in the 21C which would be music to the ears of the ALP, as reported here on ABC AM this morning:

Police Commissioner enters climate change debate/ The Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has labelled climate change the biggest security issue of the century and he's detailed the problems he sees caused by global warming.

Yep Kelty is a contemporary man, but is he too contemporary to stick to good legal process and norms of democracy? Is he indeed a very political figure in a police uniform playing both sides of the street, and was it ever thus anyway?

Posted by editor at 3:13 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 25 September 2007 4:10 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  surprised

....Mr Abbott said the election campaign would be about Mr Rudd's political character, not his personal character, and that he was not interested in news that the Labor leader had had a heart valve replaced 14 years ago.

"It's his credibility, not his heart, that's the issue," he said.

"It's his political character that's in question, not his health."

The clash came after Sydney's The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that a Howard government minister was a homosexual who visited gay bath houses and was married to a woman as a front to hide his true sexuality.

Veteran Nine Network television reporter Laurie Oakes told The Sunday Program that he had heard the same claim, but from a Liberal Party source.

The source who last week told The Australian about Mr Rudd's heart operation 14 years ago has denied doing so as part of a political conspiracy to hobble Labor's election hopes.

The Queensland health professional - who passed information about Mr Rudd's medical history to one of this newspaper's journalists on Monday - yesterday admitted being a Liberal Party member, but denied acting at the behest of anyone else.

In particular, the source denied discussing the matter with any party official or MP - despite Opposition claims that the surfacing of the rumours in a Nine Network news bulletin was the work of a Liberal Party dirty tricks machine.

"There's no Liberal Party plot here as far as I'm aware," the source said yesterday. "It's an absolute nonsense."

.............

Postscript #1

We have just noticed this subdued headline the day before in The Australian at page 21 of the Saturday issue by Franklin's superior on the food chain there, Dennis Shanahan, which reveals similarly the real Liberal Party member fingerprint, but 'no conspiracy': "At the heart of a conspiracy theory" possibly offline.

Posted by editor at 2:46 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 September 2007 8:57 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  lyrical

Marrickville film festival last weekend 14th and 15th September at Addison Rd Centre was a goer by the looks of things. We missed the Friday night event too tired after 7 hours solid digging, sawing, composting etc. The programme sheet indicates 18 movies about 5 min each. On the next night we noticed about 150 people for the outdoor screening of ‘They’re a Weird Mob’. Mmmm. We  recognised the large projector screen, if not mistaken, from a certain giant Qantas dumpster near Wolli Creek railway in late 2002 rescued by moi. That’s the spirit of The Composter alive and well.

Apparently the film nights reflect a WW2 tradition of out door screenings on the same grounds.

Posted by editor at 7:25 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 24 September 2007 10:55 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink