Mood:  sharp

Hanson/Australians Against Further Immigration/white supremacist vote in 1998 caused mayhem for Howard/Abbott Coalition by splitting their vote. In 2001 Howard actually adopted the strategy to get that bigot vote back in the infamous Tampa Affair. Decency gradually shut down Hansonism and the Tampa strategy for being what it was - "dog whistling" and the "race card". So what is going on this time around issues of colour as the Americans call it in 2007?

Consider some apparently disparate facts:

Falung gong in their email broadcasts argue that Chinese Communist Party regime fund the Sudanese civil war (to annexe the oil) creating widespread misery.

Caller to Trioli 702 abc radio (5/10/07) - tension between Africans and the Asian shop owners in the Adelaide market area. Barely contained mutual hatred is the implication.

Eyewitness report from our source in Inner Sydney re Asian Australian Christian outreach folks, run in with African guy who upturns their table. Quite irrational, sad, unacceptable. Atypical contrast with the vast majority of African youth both well behaved and welcome in this diverse coffee coloured area.

Join the dots: The pragmatic Howard Govt need (according to their self interest I mean) to neutralise and shutdown the white supremicist ultra right at their heels in case their vote splits the Coalition again in a 2007 election already looking too tough. It was called One Nation 9 years ago, now its Pauline Hanson Mark II. On the other hand they need to avoid the muck of the racial gutter or be correctly condemned and lose the mainstream too. Their interim partial answer to Hansonism - just stop the flow of colour.

The Africans refugees with their very recognisable (and we say appealing) physical traits are an easy mark for the ultra right bigot/simpletons to the right of the Coalition govt. Ironically it was this same distinctiveness that served a useful real politik for the govt against the left pro refugee groups by demonstrating with symbolic small numbers of African refugees a moral riposte. But the bigots have closed down that Coalition govt angle now too. The govt in real politik terms is walking the tightrope of mainstream decency and ultra right jackals in a very fragile election profile.

To guillotine the African refugee programme is a real sign of electoral weakness by Minister Andrews , not so much appeasing racism as fearful of the 1998 demonstrated effectiveness of their evil ways.

We submit the African refugee potential Australian citizens enriching our society and pool of talent - are just another victim of this long drawn out election season for complex reasons.

Less a case of racist motive by Minister Andrews, more a case of real politik survival.  One hopes post election decency will return on a bipartisan basis. Depressing to know the 5% racist vote are having their pound of flesh if only for a month or two until the vote.

Posted by editor at 11:30 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 8 October 2007 1:05 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  special

Wentworth voters (Waverley, Woollahra Councils' ratepayers) OWNED the dioxin spewing Waterloo Incinerator and SUPPORTED closure of the highly polluting monster sited well outside their councils' area in 1997 after a determined campaign by Greens/ Greenpeace/ Friends of the Earth, South Sydney Council media consultants, resident groups, from at least 1992 onward, at significant asset loss ($40M) mitigated by land sale, and higher waste management costs this last 10 years.

Yet the Wentworth voters gave their real politik support out of public goodwill to Zetland/Waterloo folks at risk of cancer. They did it out of growing environmental consciousness. They did this because it was the right moral thing to do despite the cost.

At one point former ALP council colleague and later Mayor Peter Moscat asked this writer "What have done to those people down there?" meaning Bondi Beach ward, referring to their greater tendency to feral community driven politics. At the time I was flummoxed by the question but on reflection the answer is this: "I gave them 'permission' as their local representative". A permission they didn't really need from anyone but but maybe just wanted a little encouragement from a path finder.

The same will likely apply in terms of Wentworth voters concern for the Launceston folks at risk of dioxin and furan water pollution, and rotten egg gas air pollution too, from the Tamar Valley pulp mill decision this week.

Posted by:

Tom McLoughlin, editor, former Greens Councillor Waverley 95-99 (retired), Chair Environment Committee, member Finance Committee, ex officio co director of Waterloo Process Plant (ie Incinerator), Friends of the Earth 1995-2001.

Posted by editor at 10:36 AM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 6 October 2007 5:30 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  down

Green light for mill

• Labor happy with mill approval
• Gunns welcomes Turnbull's decision
• Cousins says fight against pulp mill not over
• Business group applauds Turnbull decision
• Mill conditions will be a joke: Wilderness Society
• Conditions of approval of pulp mill
• Timeline for the pulp mill project
• PDF: Turnbull's decision
• PDF: Chief Scientist's report
• Video Pulp mill opponents fight on

Certainly the smarties in the gallery are impressed, and the nightly news bulletins are heaping credibility on clever Malcolm the 'Environment Minister', perhaps not realising like most politicians that clever is just another word for loathesome smart arse in the eyes of the vast majority of anti pulp mill voters. Which just happen to be the majority of Tasmanians, Australians, and voters in Wentworth in 'clever' Mal's own electorate.

It's all about the scientific advice says Mal. Only speaking as a science graduate myself this is the same expert adviser Jim Peacock who barracks for a nuke reactor in every city ignoring duel use weapons proliferation agenda and waste and terrorism. Just incredible: PM - Scientists call for action on climate change. Dated 3rd October 2007 yet other scientists say ....

Nuclear no cure for climate change, scientists warn - National ...

not to mention Prof Ian Lowe of ACF also anti nuke.

But don't expect such insight from the Canberra Press Gallery, or indeed our political dunderhead 'leaders'. This is how they are reporting it:

Barry Cassidy on ABC 702 gave Turnbull a rap in effect for neutralising this issue as preface to Insiders on abc radio earlier this arvo by analysing it entirely within the two party framework with the ALP aligned. Says the science has now spoken - as if.

Mal Farr of the Daily Telegraph on journo forum 30 minutes later same channel echoes Cassidy. Doogue is surprised no deal done with John Gay to move it, David Marr waffles on about pity for Turnbull's predicament, marginal gay Wentworth blah blah. Nothing like the predicament of the ecosystem yer think?

Laurie Oakes on 9 similarly notes lack of contest from the ALP with Garrett transformation from "activist to mainstream politician complete". Good footage of Bondi beach protest banner. Lead story too. Garrett looked really lame grinning bean pole, brazen, totally compromised, marionet, camera dwelled on him twice.

Mark Riley 7 does a competent package but only 4th in the line up after localised focus on other traumatic stories chasing the superficial ratings rather than long term weight.

SBS Karen Middleton, 2nd lead story, quite a bit of Geof Cousins all day saying Turnbull was gutless for "squibing it" when he could have been a hero, and the fight goes on 'with plenty more to happen yet' like the Franklin River in 1982-3. (Historically accurate, stopped a year after approval.) SBS very good on narrow aspect of the scientific advice of the 'chief scientist' wanker.

Lead story abc tv 7 pm news.

Turnbull has flattering interview with Kerry Obrien on 7.30 just now. "Belt and braces" to the pollution controls and monitoring. But its still a disaster for forests and greenhouse and a bloody disgrace: Democracy is broken folks, vast majority don't want it and it gets approved with both major parties supporting it.

Here are some prime quotes:

200K ha per year logged, quote Senator Nettle

4M tonnes a year mostly native forest, quote Geof Law TWS on World Today: 'Turnbull announces Tasmanian pulp mill go ahead'                   TRANSCRIPT          

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

10M tonnes a year greenbouse gas impact, quote Senator Bob Brown.

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

This writer spent the middle of the day casing Turnbull campaign office next to Bar Colluzi in Victoria Rd Darlinghurst (nothing on street level). Also Greenpeace anti logging images on exhibition at Redfern rail workshops called Carriageworks:

 

We also picked up the last two weeks of Wentworth Courier from the Bondi Junction office (now News Ltd owned) after Trioli on ABC 702 interviewed their editor at about 9.15 am. 3rd Oct 07, who says 'the issue will definitely kick on'.

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

 

Sad stuff. Never been a better time to promote the 'woodchipping sux' message outside supermarkets in the Wentworth electorate.

 

Posted by editor at 10:11 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 5 October 2007 10:01 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  d'oh

Picture: SMH advert running today 3rd October 2007 on this climate change story here

Picture: Bushfire in Ku-ring-gai National Park taken from the hill above Watson's Bay in Sydney Monday 1st October 07 by this writer.

One could be excused for getting tetchy in the hot sunny weather this early Spring causing creeping dehydration, unexpected sunburn and heat stress.

But we submit the vision on the ABC and other news last night showed cranky Ministers Tony Abbott, and a pale Joe Hockey on 7.30 Report for another reason altogether.

The Newspoll early this week showed the ALP firming in its landslide ascendancy despite a massive overkill in government advertising: One of these ads called Climate Clever has become a laughing stock by way of a spoof on free to air tv and elsewhere by Get Up kindling the ever present irreverent humour of Aussie folk. The big free media have picked up the vibe widely reporting the exploitation of public revenue for election gain and echoing the cutting satire.

Then today feeding that vibe are an avalanche of credible stories quite negative to the federal government

- a poll by a University of Sydney (USYD) think tank showing Australians are quite anti GW Bush rather than the United States as such

- a big IR/WorkChoices study covering the health, community, finance sector from another respected USYD thinktank, with the added edge of a transparently cheap defamatory attack by spooked govt ministers Hockey and Costello of the academic authors. Indeed Costello on Trioli ABC 702 (2nd Oct) dived willingly into his own version of 'Hewson's 1993 GST cake debacle', by wasting precious interview time on an ideological rant enthusiastically attacking union "contamination" of academics where none was proven. It was nothing more than an egregious "slur" to quote respected Michelle Grattan on ABC radio national today 3rd Oct at about 7.40 am.

- Churches signing up to protect God's creation from dangerous climate change (DCC)

- Climate change conference this week in Sydney jointly sponsored by the CSIRO predicting same DCC from an academic and governance perspective

- Polling suggesting climate worries Australians as much or more than terrorism

- to add the political reality of DCC in our daily lives despite predictions still some 40 years hence, we have the early onset fire season  (pictured above), no doubt more serious because of unseasonal hot weather: Academics last week agreed mega fire is likely to be alot more prevalent with evidence these conditions are already here. The new 38 year old NSW Fire Commissioner looking more like Minister Phil Koperberg's political understudy warns of a long hot fire season (p20 Sept 30 Sun Tele, p90-91 profile same paper). Matt Price has a cutting piece in the latest Sunday Telegraph too about 'Captain Howard misses the boat' at p93 (offline?)

- polling in the electorates of Bass and Braddon, says The Wilderness Society, is highly adverse to the pulp mill proposal for Tasmania's Tamar Valley reports ABC AM this morning 3rd October 07 at this archive in due course.

And still the Howard govt refuses to name an election date, which just compounds the impression of the political community - like Sky News man on ABC radio recently - and increasingly the general community that this vain aged PM is being 'a smart arse' over the schedule.

There's one thing Australians, voting or not, always reject and that is a 'smart arse'. And that's the subliminal message the govt is at risk of promoting with its so called 'climate clever' slogan. Clever = smartarse.

In January 1994 when this writer represented The Wilderness Society and there were literally hundreds of bushfires raging in NSW, we wrote 'a letter of the week' reproduced in The Land newspaper calling for unified purpose and a rejection of divisive politiking, green baiting or whatever. We quoted chapter and verse the well known rural ethic of diverse country peoplepulling their weight against the common threat of bushfire, with greenies in local bushfire brigades as listed there, one with the firetruck in his driveway as he took my call at home in North East NSW.

We quoted statistics in an unemotional way about more fires going into than out of wilderness areas etc and our traditional enemies at The Land agri press gave us a fair go on their letters page. In the Inquiries of that fire season we learned that the greatest factor in those fires was adverse climate. Sure there is plenty one can do about ignition, fire trail maintenance, planning, asset protection and fuel load, but in the end it comes down to climate with even a hazard reduced area burning again a year later if the conditions are bad.

In 2007 there is a broad understanding of that changed bushfire risk profile around climate which was only a suspicion in 1994. And that's why bushfire politics - usually the friend of conservatives - will not deliver any change in polling for the Howard Govt, just as the big bang budget,  smear attacks on leader Rudd, govt adverts swamping the airwaves or the election campaign is likely to change the polling. We think the politically expert ministers in the Howard Govt seem to know it and understandably are unhappy with the certain downturn in their election prospects.

It appears to our eye only John Howard still has faith in himself and will continue to believe right up to the concession speech. The curious aspect of Howard's ego is that he loves the attention win or lose. His colleagues would do well to remember that. Win or lose he is still enjoying the game just as long as he has the spotlight. And that's where they have miscalculated his scant loyalty either to them or to the sustainable future of this country.

This Prime Minister won't be missed.

Posted by editor at 10:58 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 4 October 2007 10:44 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  chatty

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

Indeed it’s the tv version monitoring task similar to what Nelson Mandela refers to here in his book Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Abacus) written in Robben Island prison (where he was meant to die like other African resister chiefs of history in the 19C), at page 208

“..newspapers are only a shadow of reality; their information is important to a freedom fighter not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it.”

Just substitute ‘Sunday tv political talkie shows’ for "newspapers" in the quote above.

For actual transcripts go to web sites quoted below except with Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounder

- WS FM runs Tommy Rodonikis attacking adverts using tax dollars for playing politics, should be playing football, ALP's Tim Gartrell authorisation at 10.30 am.

- Ramsey Saturday Herald slam dunk of sad sorry Heiner affair as a political strategy versus Rudd, as Sunday Tele runs Akerman tub thump on same thing on shadow even numbered opinion page. Ramsey has the provenance re Sankey Liberal legal trickery too. BUT the Heiner shredding is really a symptom ofthis: the Fitzgerald Inquiry wanted to put the salts through the ALP after doing the Nats over in the 1980ies, but Fitz was prevented from doing so by incoming ALP Goss govt to avoid “a lawyers picnic”. This is the story that hasn’t been written – that Joh’s deep corruption had tainted the ALP too, even if the Heiner matter is a blind alley, echoes of Beattie wheeling Joh’s wheelchair?

- Megalogenis at The Australian, and Hartcher et al Fairfax slam dunk the boondoggle agrarian socialists  in the National Party guilty of disastrous land clearing,and lying (Vaile: $100B economic contribution, only $25B, disjunction of export to food security etc) as to their economic importance. They only exist to prop Howard prime ministership but they are easily on the wrong side of ecological history.

- Laughable hypocrisy of sneering News Ltd on the one hand distributing Climate Clever booklet, and advert page 21 in Sunday Telegraph but calling it “Greenhouse mania” in their editorial in The Australian weekend copy AND $2 Will Bailey …err Tim Blair in Sat Tele calling everyone else hyprocrites for caring about climate with dirt in both papers recently on Dr Karl (Strewth column in the Oz Sept 28, p3 of Saturday Telegraph) for getting involved in the Climate Change Coalition electioneering. Notice the shift in emphasis – yeah DCC is real but its techno fixes and our Coalition side that’s got it covered. Only they haven’t, and it won’t be techno, but cultural, well both really.

- Onya Ziggy, confirms Howard very pro nuclear energy in The Oz.

- Here comes (reports Chris Merritt) the bogus tort of privacy  to enbale big corporates to reassert legal ascendancy after asbestos/Hardies inspired reform of defamation law to really debate the corrupt multinationals and smaller wannabes.

- Tas pulp mill not an economic goer in fact - just all boondoggle corruption really - per Oz p6 28/9/07, repeat of p2 8/9/07. And John Lyons suggests its increasingly as unpopular as equine flu

- Big profile one page profile for media tart Mick Kelty and his 'AFP family' re police remembrance day but as much special pleading on Haneef, elsewhere stories of Chaser possibly to get off with wrist slap major embarrassment, and Mamdouh Habib scandal of forged evidence in The Oz.

- Meanwhile the Climate Change Coalition and Greens (pictured above) are vying for full page adverts in SMH monthly glossy Sydney Mag, and Good Weekend respectively on populist DCC. Greens have the machine for my money.

- 2 page advertorial by GHD promoting Al Gore visit and business sustainability in The Oz, Thursday or so (advert offline)

- Perhaps the most uplifting aspect of the weekend press is Kessing getting a $40K handshake from the big media for doing his public duty only to cop a conviction and 3 year legal merry go round and lose his job.

- Another uplift - NSW govt contradicts its own nature by saving a few red gums for now, say till the federal election?

 

 

- Idealistic media run images of caged reality 'installation' on Bondi Beach in Fairfax, Australian and ABC tv news etc, so naturally Saturday Telegraph runs a 2 pages 25, 26 spoiler about : 'Beirut' Bondi with repeat pics of same Mekano digger, repeat pics of same high rise renovation, and repeat of same story we ran here on SAM ie allusion to 'battle ground Bondi' ...oh was it April or May 07? Having voted as councillor 10 years ago for the west side of Campbell Pde upgrade the real story is why the Federal Govt continue to spend next to nothing on Bondi Beach maintenance when tens of millions visit per year. That's a real story.

- WWF report damns Howard Govt strategy: Fri 28th Sept Sept p3 SMH by Marian Wilkinson, seriously smart new 'environment editor', next to

- We noticed page 5 of The Oz 3 picture splitting story (show above)about Not Happy John team getting a chill from charmer Maxine McKew in The Oz, who doesn't want the abrasive aspect to her outreach. This writer felt a twinge of criticism, but agree with the notion Howard Hating is no way forward for previous supporters of Howard because it provides no room for dishonourable disengagement from the Rodent. And the real point is as Silas once of NHJ and now of Get Up will tell you, Maxine has her own new 'NHJ' run by Brett Solomon/Evan Thorley et al. So dear John Valder it is time to focus on Wentworth where they enjoy a bit more biffo compared to Epping. Mind you Darling Point and Double Bay are very Epping too even if the white picket is more deck and balustrade than fence paling.

- Interesting splitting angle by Howard's office promoting ex ALP PM Hawke as the current PM's confidant, probably on yellowcake, as Hawke does ALP tub thump tour in WA to great effect. A prime ministerial warning to silver bodgie to back off or the rep get's it? All leveraging Hawke/Keating hostility with sledge of latter woven into the story, where else but p1 Australian 28/9/07

- Bloggers are newspapers 'best friend' for effectively promoting their online adverts by links

- Errol Simper blows the whistle on axing of the Natural History Unit at the ABC who 'coincidentally' broadcast the anti logging The Last Valley. You join the dots. Similarly Amanda Meade notes Kim Dalton not welcome at Eureke awards.

- 'Rangoon detains activist over rally' - August 27 2007, The Australian p12. That is the tragedy there was brewing at least 5 weeks ago.

- Hans Blix plea for nuclear disarmament was lost in all the APEC palaver, 28/8/07 p13 SMH

- nice to hear Cats win the AFL grand final, because we didn't bother watching after the 3rd quarter in disgust at the mismatch, and the surly 'play the man not the ball' mediocrity of the Port Adelaide defence. You have to be hungry for the ball and that's the real joy of the game, not the other side. Port were psychologically misdirected.

- oldie but a goodie, battery charged bicycles for the hills in Sydney. 28/8/07 SMH p14.

Meet the Press

Drought climate nexus Vaile is talent. Press roundup re Cats win afl grandfinal. Union slush fund story, Telstra to target Howard Coalition, poll Nov 24 last Saturday in November?

Voter drought? Vaile smirks re date no confirmation. Vaile doesn’t discount dangerous climate change (DCC) causes drought at least in tone while quoting history of previous “cyclical droughts”. True but sounds like he is scared too. As he might be.

Vaile admits agri welfare like auto and TCF sector. “Survival mechanism” ironic ie of National Party [that will only have pro mining economic support after farm shrinks]

My space question ‘kid’ from Toowoomba Qld student. Ans re full employment stay in regional Australia.  Outtake scratchy my space questions.

1^st advert Get Up spoof of govt climate change PR strong on sleaze aspect of hypocritical govt record re Kyoto spoiling etc. As per 1st quarter of AFL yesterday.

Annabel Crabb Fairfax, Glenn Milne in News Ltd. Rudd footage on positive agendas.

How many Nationals in Cabinet if they win? Depends on the vote. To and fro

Question on $1B road election promise leak in Daily Telegraph. AC tries to flush out extra to budget $22B to 2014, old money or not? Vaile fudges. Still negotiating.

Nuclear – over the next 10 years turn to this? AC bouncer again. AC steel in velvet glove with her pinny dress. Again Vaile fudges.

‘Same sex marriage’, my space question – traditional line, keep word as it meant. Moved along way on property, super etc discrimination rights.

Animation from The Australian – laugh out loud, dream runner stops for another bloody inquiry on anything [but post Fitzgerald ALP which gives some logic misdirected Heiner business]

2^nd adbreak – IR advert bonuses for corporate board, strong impact.

Kortlang moonlighting from abc spin doctos with Trioli, Liberal Party provenance but acute open amusing all the same. Lib leadership polling dynamics. Pretty “amazing” Turnbull is no.4 after Howard Costello Downer. It’s time? No – Affair with Kevin Rudd,everyweekend goes home to Howard. Over next 5 weeks Rudd is going to say have to live with me.

Long campaign like Hawke in 1984? Peacock got closer when had nothing. Howard longer campaign to close Rudd down. Only differences really Kyoto, Work Choices, troops out of Iraq, rest is campaign he implies re stumbles and bumbles.

www. Myspace.com/meetthepeople

Transcript in due course www.ten.com.au/meetthepress

Myspace web address:

7 Weekend Sunrise, 8.35-40 am Riley Diary  -

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

Insiders 2

Indy edition with Bob Katter and Tony Windsor. Latter torpedo re PM ad hocery in face of Rudd, and supports renewable energy too. IR sleeper issue.

Paul Kelly soliliquy - missed a fair bit, and every person segment.

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

Sunday 9

Goes the TWU follow up with Tony Sheldon. Using discreet fund to run election related campaign on IR which is what unions do, just like business. Get out your egg beater eh 9? As Ray said off transcript last week - won't the coalition love that story. Well der it was their story.

Adbreak with pro IR WorkPlace Authority of Govt - straight electioneering ad we paid for. Corrupt.

TWU gets badgered by Ross Coulthard. Ray says "I'm sure Mr Howard and Mr Costello will love those non answers."

Next story is electioneering - young voters enrollment issue. Angus from Sydney Uni SRC with Albanese all over the issue. Token balancer story from conservative ch9?

Feature is Iraq war troops thesis both sides very similar. Weird referral of foreign policy to troops on the ground. Since when?

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

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

Posted by editor at 10:31 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 3 October 2007 9:57 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

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