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Global warming milestone about to be passed and there's no going back
Date May 10, 2016
Peter Hannam
Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
EXCLUSIVE
VIDEO 1:21 Major CO2 milestone reached
Carbon dioxide continues to increase in the atmosphere with a major milestone of 400 parts per
million of CO2 recorded in the Southern Hemisphere according CSIRO's Dr David Etheridge.
* Cutting to core: Ice lab future up in the air
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/cutting-to-the-core-csiro-to-end-longstanding-antarctic-ice-air-research-20160508-gop6tb.html
* Parade of global temperature records
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/april-joins-parade-of-record-global-temperatures-making-it-12-months-in-a-row-20160502-gokkg2.html
Within the next couple of weeks, a remote part of north-western Tasmania is likely to grab headlines around the world as a major climate change marker is passed.
The aptly named Cape Grim monitoring site jointly run by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will witness the first baseline reading of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers predict.
Watching the world at it changes at Cape Grim. Photo: John Woudstra
"Once it's over [400 ppm], it won't go back," said Paul Fraser, dubbed by CSIRO as the Air Man of Cape Grim, and now a retired CSIRO fellow. "It could be within 10 days."
The most recent reading on May 6 was 399.9 ppm, according to readings compiled by the CSIRO team led by Paul Krummel that strip out influences from land, including cities such as Melbourne to the north. (See chart below, with the red line showing the baseline CO2.)
David Etheridge, from CSIRO's Oceans & Atmosphere division, at work in a research
hut near the Antarctic base of Casey. Photo: Colin Cosier
Political heat
The approaching global CO2 threshold comes as climate change looks like becoming one of the key issues in Australia's election campaign.
The Turnbull government has made clear it will oppose Labor's proposals for an emissions trading scheme that will again put a price on carbon pollution.
The Cape Grim greenhouse gas station in Tasmania, run in partnership by CSIRO
and the Bureau of Meteorology, tracks some of the cleanest air in the world.
New data out on Tuesday show that emissions from the country's main electricity grid covering the eastern states have risen 5.7 per cent - or 8.7 million tonnes - in the year to April compared with the final 12 months of the carbon tax that the Abbott government scrapped in July 2014, according to energy consultants Pitt & Sherry.
The share of coal in the National Electricity Market has risen to 76.2 per cent - its highest level since September 2012 - from 72.3 per cent during the period since June 2014, the consultants' latest Cedex report said.
Mark Butler, Labor's shadow environment minister, said the Cape Grim landmark reading was "deeply concerning".
"While the Coalition fights about whether or not the science of climate change is real, pollution is rising. And it's rising on their watch," Mr Butler said.
Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters said the Cape Grim result "should act as a global wake-up call and must shock both Australian big political parties out of their blind coal-obsession which is literally cooking our planet and our Great Barrier Reef".
"Our atmosphere cannot take any new coal mines – both the old parties must stop approving them and revoke their approval of the Adani coal mine [in Queensland] at both the state and federal level," Senator Waters said.
A spokesman for Environment Minister Greg Hunt defended the government's climate policies."There is now absolutely no doubt that we will beat our 2020 target" of cutting 2000-level emissions by 5 per cent by then, the spokesman said. "We are playing our part to tackle climate change and our 2030 target [of cutting 2000-level emissions about 19 per cent] is ambitious and significant," he said. "Labor has nothing more than a plan to bring back the carbon tax and hike electricity prices."
Rising 'pretty much all of the time'
Cape Grim's readings are significant because they capture the most accurate reading of the atmospheric conditions in the southern hemisphere and have records going back 40 years.
With less land in the south, there is also a much smaller fluctuation according to the seasonal cycle than in northern hemisphere sites. That's because the north has more trees and other vegetation, which take up carbon from the atmosphere in the spring and give it back in the autumn.
So while 400 ppm has been temporarily exceeded at the other two main global stations since 2013 - in Hawaii and Alaska - they have dropped back below that level once spring has arrived because of that greater seasonal variation.
David Etheridge, a CSIRO principal research scientist, said atmospheric CO2 levels had fluctuated around 280 ppm until humans' burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests set in process rising levels of greenhouse gases almost without pause since about 1800.
"It's been upwards pretty much all of the time," Dr Etheridge told Fairfax Media. "This is a significant change, and it's the primary greenhouse gas which is leading to the warming of the atmosphere."
The following chart, compiled by CSIRO researchers using atmosphere and ice core readings, show how CO2 levels have risen over the past 2000 years.
While the 400 figure is in itself of no particular note, compared with 399 or 401, it was a marker likely to carry important symbolism. "People react to these things when they see thresholds crossed," Dr Etheridge said.
While the fraction may seem small, it is 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere. By comparison, a similar level of alcohol would be close to the legal driving limit in Australia.
"These things act at low concentrations," he said, noting that ozone-destroying chemicals at levels of parts per trillion were enough to damage that important component of the atmosphere.
CSIRO cuts
The impending 400 ppm reading at Cape Grim comes at an awkward timing for CSIRO, which is the midst of cutting 275 jobs, many of them in climate science.
[INTERACTIVE MAP]
While CSIRO has not confirmed the number of researchers it will cut from the 30 or so involved in analysing CO2 levels in ice and the atmosphere, Fairfax Media understands about one-third will go.
"CSIRO is again producing world-leading climate science, and it's reprehensible that the Turnbull Government is allowing the slashing of CSIRO's capacity to ring the alarm bells the world needs to hear," Greens Senator Waters said.Fairfax Media sought comment from CSIRO on the size of the job cuts.
In justifying the cuts to climate modelling and monitoring programs, CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said that as climate change had been proved, resources could be diverted to climate mitigations and adaptation.
But Dr Etheridge said monitoring would continue to be vital.
"It's like going on a diet and not measuring yourself," he said, noting the world's nations had committed to cut back emissions of greenhouse gases that are helping to drive up global temperatures.
Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the UK's University of Reading, has constructed the following animation showing how the world has warmed in the past 166 years.
Going negative
Dr Etheridge said that while a reduction in emissions could slow the increase of temperatures, it would likely take many years of net-negative emissions - effectively removing the gas from the atmosphere - to push CO2 levels back below 400 ppm.
"It would take a lot of emissions reductions - and probably negative emissions for some period, decades - before we see CO2 reduce in concentration," he said.
Research to be published soon by CSIRO has shown the ocean would act against any drop in atmospheric CO2.
The seas would likely give back some of the extra CO2 it has absorbed - as it did during the "Little Ice Age" during the middle ages - delaying any drop in levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, he said.
Dr Fraser, who helped set up the Tasmanian site in the 1970s, said CO2 levels were rising fast, at about 3 ppm a year. The precise timing of the 400-ppm mark at Cape Grim would probably take some time to confirm.
"On the day it happens, we won't recognise it," he said. "It will take a few weeks to verify."
The Cape Grim data show a steadier rise than at the Alaskan Alert Observatory site and Hawaii's Mauna Loa, as seen in the following chart:
'Cleanest in the world'
Sam Cleland, manager of Cape Grim, said the site was in "the teeth of the Roaring Forties", the band of powerful winds in latitudes of about 40 degrees south of the equator.
"Our job is to find the cleanest air in the world and measure the pollution in it," Mr Cleland said.
The baseline data draws on winds reaching Cape Grim from the south-west. "Three days ago, they were coming from an area not far off the Antarctic coast," he said.
A year ago, Cape Grim's CO2 readings were about 396.7 ppm, implying a jump of more than 3ppm since.
Part of that increase would have been influenced by the El Nino weather event in the Pacific. During such years, ocean take-up of both heat and CO2 from the atmosphere is reduced.
Since Cape Grim was set up in 1976, CO2 readings have increased from 330 ppm to the brink of 400 ppm.
That implies an average increase of less than 2 ppm per year during that period - but quickening in the more recent past towards 3 ppm or more.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-warming-milestone-about-to-be-passed-and-theres-no-going-back-20160509-goqcm0.html
See also:
[Australia] Record temperatures for March a warning of what's to come, say experts
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121324470
S. Kidman and Co enters deal for a foreign takeover of the majority of the iconic Australian cattle company
ABC Rural ABC Rural reporters
Updated 19 Apr 2016, 3:35pm
Photo: One of the company's properties, Anna Creek, is the biggest cattle
station in the world at 23,000 square kilometres. (ABC News: Kerry Staight)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/the-anna-creek-property/6934750
Related Story: Government blocks sale of Australia's largest cattle holdings, S. Kidman & Co to foreign buyers
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/kidman-cattle-sale-to-be-rejected/6934670
Map: Parliament House 2600
http://www.google.com/maps/place/Parliament%20House%202600/@-35.3167,149.1333,5z
S. Kidman and Co has named a new Chinese-Australian consortium as the preferred buyer for most of its iconic cattle station holdings.
The sale cannot proceed without the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and the Treasurer Scott Morrison, who has extended the time available for his consideration of the sale beyond the expected July election.
South Australia's Anna Creek Station, which is adjacent to the rocket testing range at Woomera, is not included in the sale.
The value of the deal is $370.7 million.
In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon, Kidman announced it has entered into an agreement with a consortium lead by Dakang Australia Holdings and the ASX-listed Australian Rural Capital (ARC).
Under the proposal, Dakang would take an 80 per cent stake in the sale, with ARC taking 20 per cent.
Dakang Australia's parent company is Hunan Dakang Pasture Farming, a private Chinese company with no government ownership.
Its major shareholder is Shanghai Pengxin Group, which owns a 55 per cent stake in the company.
Shanghai Pengxin has previously been considered a frontrunner to buy the Kidman properties.
Dakang Pasutre Farming and has interests in pork, beef and sheep, as well as a significant stake in New Zealand's dairy sector.
ARC's executive chairman, James Jackson, is also deputy director of Australian agribusiness Elders, as well as a former chairman of MSF Sugar.
Anna Creek carve-out allows sale to proceed
The ABC can reveal that the prospective buyer of Anna Creek is the South Australian owned and operative, Williams Cattle Company.
It already owns five cattle stations in SA’s north, including one which adjoins Anna Creek.
But that deal will only proceed if and when the FIRB approves the broader sale to the Chinese-led consortium.
Kidman had planned to sell all its assets to a foreign buyer, before that proposal was rejected by the Treasurer in November 2015 .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/kidman-cattle-sale-to-be-rejected/6934670 .
Mr Morrison cited concerns about Anna Creek's size, and its proximity to the weapons testing range at Woomera, in rejecting the deal.
"We welcome foreign investment, but as Treasurer I will always make sure that that investment is done in Australia's national interest," he said at the time, noting the government would consider any "future alternate proposal or set of proposals on its merits".
At more than 23,600 square kilometres, Anna Creek represents a quarter of Kidman's land holding.
The company, surprised by the Treasurer's decision, announced in December that it would take Anna Creek off the table .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-11/kidman-carves-out-anna-creek-in-repackaged-sale/7021262 .. for prospective foreign buyers, offering it for sale only to existing shareholders or other Australian buyers.
Managing director Greg Campbell said at the time that such a division of assets was "undesirable in an operational sense, [but it] was required to address the national security and portfolio land area concerns of the Commonwealth Government".
An iconic cattle station and national defence concerns
Family-owned S. Kidman & Co is Australia's largest private landholder, with properties covering 101,000 square kilometres in Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.
Founded in 1899 by Sir Sidney Kidman, it grew to become one of the country's largest beef producers, with a herd of 185,000 cattle supplying markets in Japan, the United States and South-East Asia.
Anna Creek Station is the largest single property holding in Australia.
--
Foreign investment in Australian agriculture
* Calving it up: who owns Australian food production
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/specials/foreign-ownership/
* A quarter of Northern Territory pastoral lease land held by foreign interests
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-16/foreign-interests-have-a-hand-in-a-quarter-of-nt-cattle-farms/6752400
--
It's not the first time the Australian Government has expressed concerns about foreign ownership in and adjacent to the Woomera Prohibited Area.
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan blocked a Chinese state-owned firm from buying parts of Oz Minerals in 2009, citing proximity of one of the mining company's projects to the test site.
After the deal was rejected in November, Kidman's Greg Campbell said the company had ensured all potential buyers completed due diligence in an attempt to mitigate any issues surrounding national security.
"We certainly were well aware and made potential buyers for the business aware that they had to make applications to the Department of Defence in relation to the purchase of the part of Anna Creek that within the Woomera rocket range," Mr Campbell said at the time.
"So all the shortlisted buyers who made applications, whether domestic or offshore, were of the full understanding that the Department of Defence held the right to veto over who might be considered an owners for portions of land within the Woomera rocket range."
He said he was surprised by the government citing the size of Kidman's holding as another factor in rejecting the sale, saying that Kidman is Australia's largest cattle holding by land size, it was not as big as other companies, which have foreign owners, by herd size.
"For example Consolidated Pastoral Company has a herd twice the size of Kidman and is 90 per cent foreign owned. The Australian Agricultural Company has a cattle herd that's nearly three times the size of Kidman and is majority foreign owned," Mr Campbell said.
"Kidman has become a specialist in arid zone pastoralism, and as a result we've got a big foot of country in the dry part of the interior and that's a large area. It's the large area that's the problem."
Infographic: S. Kidman and Co's cattle stations are spread out over 101,000 square
kilometres of central Australia. (Supplied)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/kidman-property-map/6954786
First posted 19 Apr 2016, 3:12pm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-19/kidman-enters-deal-with-dakang-australian-rural-capital/7129298
---
Open doors for investment dollars: foreign capital in Australian agriculture
ABC Rural ABC Rural Reporters
The debate over foreign investment in Australian agriculture is clouded in politics, ambition and fear. It polarises farmers, political parties,
investors and the community. Yet foreign investment in Australian agriculture has been a reality for decades and in some cases, centuries.
At the heart of the current discussion is our ability to meet future food challenges in Australia and overseas.
[...]
The global share in Australian sugar
* Singapore: 53 per cent
* Thailand: 10 per cent
* Belgium: 5 per cent
* China: 4 per cent
* Australia: 28 per cent
Source: Canegrowers industry statistics based on 2010 tonnages
[...]
Active grain handlers* in the 2009-10 Australian harvest
* Cargill (United States): 18 per cent (approx)
* Glencore (Switzerland): 16 per cent (approx)
* CBH (Australia): 16 per cent (approx)
* GrainCorp (Australia): 9 per cent (approx)
* Emerald/Sumitomo (Australia/Japan): 8 per cent (approx)
* Elders/Toepfer (Australia/Germany): 5 per cent (approx)
* A number of smaller grain storage and marketing companies account for another 28 per cent (approx) of grain purchases in 2009-10.
*Handlers include companies involved in the transport, storage and marketing of Australian grain.
Source: ABARES
[...]
Tasmania's dairy industry is heavily reliant on foreign investment. Its oldest dairy processor, Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL), has been in foreign hands for close to 200 years and the Tamar Valley Dairy recently sold to New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.
While international ownership is nothing new, the story of these two processors highlights the mixed messages sent to some global businesses.
A recent Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL) tender for a multi-million dollar equity investment, sparked community and media concern about a possible Chinese takeover. At least one Chinese company dropped out of the process as a result of the negative press.
Yet last month Tamar Valley Dairy, a wholly-Australian owned dairy processor, was sold to a New Zealand agribusiness giant, without a murmur about foreign takeovers.
Jane Ryan and Rosemary Grant report on the long history of foreign investment in dairying in Tasmania and an apparent contradiction in what the community will and won't accept. Read more .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-08/tas-foreign-investment-feature-dairy/5139758 .
[...]
Foreign investment isn't anything new for Australia's wine industry. From the big brands to family run vineyards, international deals are happening all the time and no one seems too fussed about it.
[...]
Domestic 'capital bucket' falls short for Australian horticulture
The chief executive officer of Australia's largest horticultural production and distribution business says foreign investment has allowed the business to grow and thrive.
Interested in more? .. :) .. ok .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/specials/foreign-ownership/
In light of the foreign investment existing in rural Australia today, and in light of the history of it, it sure looks a case of political consideration
going bonkers in bowing to popular 'Zoooooooenophobia' (have a look at the comments in those two articles) at election time. Or whenever.
[Australia's] Manus Island detention centre to close, Papua New Guinea prime minister says
"Time to tell the truth before I'm gagged: Australia's detention centres ruin lives"
Australian government will be asked to make alternative arrangements after supreme court ruled detention regime was unconstitutional
The Australian-run asylum seeker detention centre on Manus Island will be closed,
PNG’s prime minister has said. Photograph: Ben Doherty for the Guardian
Helen Davidson and Ben Doherty
Wednesday 27 April 2016 16.12 AEST
Last modified on Wednesday 27 April 2016 18.17 AEST
The Manus Island .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/manus-island .. immigration detention will close, and Australia must make new arrangements for the 850 asylum seeker and refugee men held there, the PNG prime minister, Peter O’Neill, has announced.
O’Neill’s announcement follows a ruling by the PNG supreme court on Tuesday that the detention of asylum seekers and refugees was illegal and unconstitutional .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/26/papua-new-guinea-court-rules-detention-asylum-seekers-manus-unconstitutional , and it ordered the governments of Australia and PNG to immediately move to end the practise.
“Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/papua-new-guinea .. will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum seekers currently held at the regional processing centre,” O’Neill said.
--
Peter Dutton indicates Australia won't take back Manus Island asylum seekers
Read more > http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/27/peter-dutton-indicates-australia-wont-take-back-manus-island-asylum-seekers
--
“As I stated recently at the at the Australian Press Club, we did not anticipate the asylum seekers to be kept as long as they have at the Manus centre.”
The Manus Island facility is one of two in Australia’s offshore immigration processing regime. Both it and the one on the Pacific Island nation of Nauru, have been hugely controversial and highly criticised by the international community and human rights organisations. The Australian government provides funding and aid to the governments of PNG and Nauru to operate the centres, which house refugees and asylum seekers who arrived in Australia, or surrounding waters, by boat.
The Nauru centre was the scene of a horrific act of self harm on Wednesday, as a young Iranian man set himself alight .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/27/iranian-asylum-seeker-severely-burnt-after-setting-himself-on-fire-on-nauru .. in front of UN representatives. There have been at least five suicide attempts on the island in the past 24 hours, and two women have been missing since Sunday, feared drowned.
O’Neill’s announcement puts responsibility for the men currently held on Manus on Australia, after the immigration minister, Peter Dutton .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/peter-dutton , sought to distance his government from the supreme court decision, saying it was only binding on PNG.
“The government’s position is very clear, and that is we are not going to accept people who have sought to come to our country illegally by boat, they will not settle permanently in our country,” he said on Wednesday afternoon.
“The court decision is binding on the PNG government, but not on the Australian government, so we will work with the PNG government to look at the situation, to provide what assistance we can, but we are not going to allow people smugglers to get back into business.”
O’Neill’s announcement, just hours after Dutton’s press conference, suggests that response was not welcome.
--
Australia's ignorance about Papua New Guinea is a loss for both nations
Sean Dorney
Read more > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/20/australias-ignorance-about-papua-new-guinea-is-a-loss-for-both-nations
--
Late on Wednesday Dutton acknowledged the announcement, and thanked O’Neill for “PNG’s continued support for this effort”.
“As I have said, and as the Australian Government has consistently acted, we will work with our PNG partners to address the issues raised by the Supreme Court of PNG,” he said.
“It is also the case that the Government has not resiled from its position that people who have attempted to come illegally by boat to Australia and who are now in the Manus facility will not be settled in Australia.
We will continue discussions with the PNG Government to resolve these matters.”
More than 800 asylum seeker and refugee men are currently on Manus Island. In recent weeks the PNG government stopped processing refugee claims and began sorting people into compounds, to prepare those with positive determinations for resettlement and those with negative determinations for deportation.
A number of people deemed to be refugees and settled in the PNG community have sought to return to detention for safety and security. Other asylum seekers have refused to submit their claim .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/18/manus-island-detainees-plead-anywhere-but-papua-new-guinea .. in protest.
“For those that have been deemed to be legitimate refugees, we invite them to live in Papua New Guinea .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/papua-new-guinea .. only of they want to be a part of our society and make a contribution to our community,” said O’Neill.
“It is clear that several of these refugees do not want to settle in Papua New Guinea and that is their decision.”
Inside the centre, detainees reported guarded celebrations as the court decision was read out, and news of the closure order filtered through the detention compounds.
Behrouz Bouchani, a Kurdish journalist who has lost 17 kilograms while in detention and battled serious health problems, said he felt like a child at a birthday party.
“We were in systematic torture but now we can see and feel freedom. The hardest days and the dark nightmare will finish soon. There are a lot of happy faces, people were scared to have a celebration but now they are happy. I am very happy.”
Some detainees hugged PNG immigration officers and other local staff, when the news was announced.
“We have seen three prime ministers and three immigration ministers during our journey in Australia but finally, PNG court give freedom to us.”
--
Papua New Guinea lacks resources to resettle all Manus Island refugees, warns PM
Read more > http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/03/papua-new-guinea-lacks-resources-to-resettle-all-manus-island-refugees-warns-pm
--
Another refugee, Imran Mohammad Fazal Hoque, was more guarded. He said detainees on Manus had been deceived by authorities too often to trust them fully.
“The mood is very strange because all the inmates are flipping between happiness and worry,” he said.
“Everyone is shouting, yelling and running around the compound. If they had wings they would fly without stopping.”
PNG will negotiate with Australia over a timeframe for closure of the centre, which O’Neill predicted would have a detrimental effect on the Manus economy. He said he would work with Australia to minimise damage to local businesses.
“A number of local businesses have invested to expand their operations to support the Manus centre, and their businesses will now suffer,” said O’Neill.
“These are many small and medium enterprises and their employees who will now be out of work. Our Government will work with Australia in order to transition these businesses and workers to new opportunities so that their communities do not suffer.”
Manus MP, Ron Knight said regardless of this ruling, the Australian and PNG governments had made promises to the Manus community in return for establishing the centre there, and were obliged to follow through.
“It’s not our fault this happened – we’ve been promised certain things still yet to be fulfilled,” he told Guardian Australia on Tuesday.
“If it has to be closed down it has to be closed down, but we still need our roads fixed.”
--
Refugee left homeless in Papua New Guinea after being resettled from Australian-run detention
Read more > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/19/refugee-left-homeless-in-papua-new-guinea-after-being-resettled-from-australian-run-detention
..
Labor spokesman for immigration, Richard Marles, said offshore processing was the “single most important” policy decision made in immigration, and had “unquestionably saved lives”, but it was never supposed to be indefinite.
A solution “can’t wait for two or three months”, he said when asked what Labor would do if elected in July.
Marles did not outline how a Labor government will handle immigration, but instead attacked Dutton for not going straight to PNG.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the government had run out of options for offshore processing in PNG.
“This camp has killed two men, it has destroyed the lives of thousands of others and now it’s finally closed.The statement from the PNG prime minister is unequivocal.
“The camp will close, Manus Island is over, and Australia is responsible for what will happen to the people who are there.”
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/27/manus-island-detention-centre-to-close-papua-new-guinea-prime-minister-says
.. kudos to the PNG supreme court, Australia's shameful treatment of refugees remains a blight on our
nation's conscience .. we'll see if Australia fulfills it's commitments to Manus Island's community ..
See also:
Canada has rescued 800 times more Syrian refugees than Australia, figures show
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121193414 .. also on
TA here .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121193349
Polish MPs pave way for bill to ban abortion
"Investigation finds Lithuania had secret CIA jails " .. Poland and Romania, too ..
By Adam Easton BBC News, Warsaw
8 April 2016
EPA
On 3 April there was a Warsaw rally against criminalising abortion
Polish MPs have paved the way for a citizens' bill that would ban abortion.
The "Stop Abortion" campaign now has approval to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to submit a bill to MPs. It has three months to do so.
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has a parliamentary majority and promotes traditional Catholic values.
Currently abortions are only allowed in Poland in cases of rape or incest, if the mother's life is in danger, or if the foetus has medical problems.
PiS enjoys the support of many Polish Catholic bishops, and its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, believes most of his party would vote for the bill.
According to the Polish Health Ministry, there were 977 legal abortions in 2014. Before the fall of communism in 1989 abortion was legal.
The citizens' bill proposes up to five years in prison for anyone who knowingly causes the death of an unborn child.
It stipulates that punishment for doctors and mothers can be waived in some cases, such as when the procedure was performed to save the mother's life.
The current law was adopted in 1993 after a very heated debate in parliament and the compromise has largely held since.
With PiS in office there may be room for change, such as tightening the law to outlaw abortions when the foetus has medical complications.
A recent opinion poll by CBOS suggests Poles are becoming less liberal on the issue. In 1992, 88% approved of abortions when the mother's life was threatened. By 2016, it had fallen to 80%. In cases of rape/incest approval fell from 80% to 73%, whereas in cases where the child would be born handicapped, it fell from 71% to 53%.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35996313
If you would like to read more on today's Poland, that's great! .. please read on .. :)
Poles protest over PiS 'breaking constitution'
As protesters rally against the new government, we ask Poles for their views on the mood and challenges ahead
Anti-government protesters outside the Warsaw home of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party in December. Photograph: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty
Tom Stevens
Friday 26 February 2016 23.56 AEDT
Last modified on Saturday 27 February 2016 02.21 AEDT
On Saturday 27 February the Committee for the Defence of Democracy .. http://komitetobronydemokracji.pl/ (KOD) are planning a “We, The People” march in Warsaw. The protest movement was formed in the wake of the Polish parliamentary elections in October 2015, when the rightwing Law and Justice .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/23/poland-election-law-and-justice-party (PiS) party became the first party in post-communist Poland to control an absolute majority of the seats in the Polish parliament and the presidency at the same time.
KOD has taken issue with a number of recent PiS initiatives, with the government recently passing bills curtailing the independence of the judiciary, media and civil service. Many protesters believe the bills are a threat to Polish democracy.
While recent decisions in parliament have caused alarm, there are also other issues facing Polish citizens. There’s a real concern about the country’s education system, the cost of living, the derogatory treatment of minority groups and the rise of youth movements siding with the far-right.
Protest held in Katowice by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy. Photograph: Dominik Gajda/Demotix/Corbis
‘The youth of the country is very rightwing and nationalistic’
Marcin Szymaniak
Marcin Szymaniak has lived in Warsaw all his life. Having worked many years as a news reporter for Zycie Warszawy and the rightwing pro-Law and Justice paper Rzeczpospolita, he now writes for history magazines and actively takes part in the KOD demonstrations. He is frustrated about the protests not having had the desired effect so far.
“Participants of anti-government demonstrations are mainly people from the larger cities, with a higher social and economic status then the average Polish citizen. Because of this I think the KOD demonstrations have been ineffective. Very few working class and young people are taking part. Young Poles are currently very rightwing and nationalistic.”
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The conspiracy theorists who have taken over Poland
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/conspiracy-theorists-who-have-taken-over-poland
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Marcin says it’s hard to avoid the hysteria in the Polish rightwing media about immigration. “PiS is perceived by its voters as the last barrier against the ‘Islamisation’ of Poland. Under the previous government Poland accepted to host 7,000 Syrian refugees. I don’t know what the PiS government plans on doing with that agreement. If they accept this decision, they could be easily attacked by the other far-right parties in parliament, like Kukiz’15. They are proposing a referendum on a complete immigration ban.”
Two of the major issues for people living in Poland are the low wages and job security. “A lot of Polish workers are on ‘trash job contracts’,” he says. “These are temporary jobs with no benefits or social security. Unfortunately, previous governments have been motivated by a neo-liberal ideology, turning a blind eye to some employers’ practices. Trade unions don’t exist in smaller Polish businesses, which means there’s no pressure from workers to change the current situation.”
A protest against a new media law in Warsaw in January. Since returning to power in October, the PiS party has also imposed measures denounced as undermining judicial independence. Photograph: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty
A lot has been made recently about a new government scheme offering families an extra 500 zloty a month (about £90) for their second and every next child. Marcin explains the reasoning behind this scheme, and its possible flaws.
“PiS is very Catholic and closely linked to the church. They are entirely against abortion and contraception, and would ideally like to ban both. But the new 500-zloty scheme is flawed.
“A millionaire with two children will get this benefit, while a single mother with one child will get nothing. The government says it’s not a social-care programme but a family-support scheme. It’s obvious they want to support the old-style Catholic family model of a working man, a stay-at-home wife and a large amount of children.”
‘Their strong religious motivations mean minorities and the LGBT community are dismissed in a derogatory way’
Selia has also actively taken part in KOD demonstrations. She lives in the central Polish city of Kalisz, and recalls the atmosphere of a recent march she attended in Lódz. “It was very civil and easygoing. There were no hateful slogans. Everyone I met was simply unwilling to accept PiS breaking the constitution. The main problem is not the laws themselves, but the way they were passed.”
Leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, right, and the prime minister, Beata Szydlo, congratulate each other after MPs passed a new law on the constitutional court. Photograph: Alik Keplicz/AP
Selia says that when the previous government, Civic Platform (PO), was in power between 2007 and 2015, things were far from perfect, but she is concerned about how PiS is now marginalising minority groups in Poland.
“The main enemy of PiS are supporters of ‘gender ideology’ – basically everyone who is not living in a structured conservative family. The government is not a huge fan of equal rights, and I’m also worried about its association with radical youth organisations like ONR or Mlodziez Wszechpolska.
“These groups despise anyone who is different to them: immigrants, non-Catholics, liberals, the LGBT community and KOD protesters. I’m afraid because I think that’s how wars start.”
Hannah also strongly dislikes the way PiS is marginalising vulnerable minorities and the LGBT community. She recently witnessed the KOD demonstrations in the Sródmiescie district of Warsaw. “The Law and Justice party have won over a majority of voters by promising extra child benefits, free pre-school education and a universal healthcare system. But their strong religious motivations mean vulnerable groups in society and the LGBT community are dismissed in a derogatory way.
“They don’t want to legally recognise homosexuality and are against IVF treatment. They’re even calling for doctors who are involved with IVF to be imprisoned.”
A recent demonstration in Sródmiescie, Warsaw. After winning an absolute majority in the lower house, the Law and Justice party can rule alone.
Hannah and her partner began IVF treatment themselves last November, when Civic Platform had just been voted out of power. Since then they feel the process has become very stressful. “When we started the treatment, the clinic we went to was very busy. Returning in January, at around the same time state-funded IVF cycles were stopped, the clinic was almost empty.
“Many couples were relying solely on state-funded IVF. This will damage Poland in the long run as the country’s birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe. We now have to attend official offices in the city to sign numerous documents stating that we are using IVF and that we are legally the parents. We feel we are being singled out.”
Having already gone through two IVF cycles, the first unsuccessful and the second ending in a miscarriage, Hannah and her partner are hoping it’s third time lucky. “We’re going to try again this April or May and fingers crossed, we get a much-wanted baby.”
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Bernie Sanders' ancestral home in Poland grapples with painful history
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/24/bernie-sanders-poland-family-pride-presidential-run
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‘Most people in Poland are not familiar with their legal rights’
Working as a business lawyer just outside Warsaw, Katarzyna finds the government’s paralysis of the country’s constitutional tribunal terrifying. “It’s the only body that can stop authorities from passing legislation that breaches the constitution. The changes that PiS have made mean people are left without the necessary protection provided by Poland’s laws.
“Police and other agencies can gather informations about citizens’ internet activity without any court order. Most people are not familiar with their legal rights. Eighty per cent of the population don’t know that they can appeal against a court judgment. I’m afraid that the average citizen will only notice a difference when they are faced with it personally.”
Despite her fears about the government’s recent actions in parliament, Katarzyna says living standards in Poland have improved in the last couple of decades. “Low salaries are still a problem, and some important professions are still being undervalued. But I believe Poland is still a developing country.
“When Poland became a democratic country, and implemented capitalism as its economic system 26 years ago, our debt was huge. The infrastructure was outdated, our agriculture was inefficient and most industries were overstaffed.
“Our standard of living was never going to match western standards after only 12 years of EU membership. The ‘older’ EU countries built their economies over a much longer time. Things have improved since the 90s, but it’s obvious that more needs to be done.”
Katarzyna feels there is room for improvement in the education sector. “As a mother of a primary school pupil, I have to say that the standard of teaching isn’t very impressive. Maybe this is a reflection on poor wages and employment conditions.”
An election poster depicting the Law and Justice prime minister, Beata Szydlo, in Leczyca, Poland, in October. Photograph: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
Artur lives in the town of Jelenia Góra near the south-west city of Legnica, and he echoes the concerns over Poland’s education system. “I believe Poland needed fundamental change. But there is plenty for PiS to do to improve living conditions for Polish citizens. Teaching is the most undervalued profession in Poland, all the way up to higher education.
“There isn’t a single Polish university in the top 300 of any serious higher education list. This is due to mismanagement and a reluctance to accept organisational improvements, which is endangering bright young people’s further education and careers. A lot of Poland’s institutions, mechanisms, media and people of influence need to change.”
‘The real problem facing Poland is the cost of living’
Julian Gilbert has lived in Poland for the last 20 years and owns a firm teaching business English to organisations. He too has a child of primary school age, but is much more complimentary regarding the Polish education system. “My eldest son, Alex, is eight and I try to compare my friends’ experiences in the UK with here. Overall I think schools here are better, both academically and in terms of discipline.
“One big difference which might surprise people in the UK is that private schools are considered in Poland to be much worse than state schools. Here private schools are considered places [where], if you have enough money, you send your child if he or she isn’t brilliant academically.”
Julian Gilbert with his wife Kamilla and sons Ben, 2, and Alex, 8
Julian is originally from Southport but has settled in Gdynia with his Polish wife, Kamilla, and their two sons. He follows developments in parliament with interest, but fears that the issue concerning most citizens is being overshadowed by other matters.
“There is currently too much emphasis on issues like immigration, religion and historical events. The real problem Poland is facing is the cost of living. The prices of things like property are extremely high, and most people’s wages are simply too low to be able to afford them.
“Just 10 years ago property prices were within reach for average paid workers, but that isn’t the case any more. Public-sector workers are badly paid here [and] state schoolteachers, nurses, firemen and police. Pensions are also scandalously low. Even people with relatively good jobs find it hard to get by in Poland.”
While the city of Gdynia is generally well-off, Julian points out that there are big differences between the country’s regions. “Gdynia is a maritime city. The ferries to Sweden depart from here and that brings work and money into the region. Generally the eastern parts of Poland are poorer. And like most countries there’s a massive difference between the capital, Warsaw, and the rest of Poland.”
Despite these demographical gaps, Julian believes Poland is catching up with the older EU countries’ economies. “One of my clients in Gdynia is an IT firm that has become so successful it recently opened a branch in Silicon Valley. The young Polish guys who own it now have US workers in their employment.”
‘Wages in Poland are completely inaccurate compared to the personal economical freedom enjoyed by other Europeans’
Thomas Piatek
Thomas Piatek’s family live in a small southern Polish town near Oswiecim (Auschwitz). While he does not support the KOD protests, he too is concerned about the cost of living, and particularly feels the issue of state pensions needs to be addressed.
He says: “Jobs and wages in Poland are completely inaccurate compared to the personal economical freedom enjoyed by other Europeans. One reason being that Polish labour is still an attractive workforce for foreign investors who pay less money. Another reason is the current weak Polish zloty.
“Economical migration from Poland is still large. The largest and most underpaid sector is still healthcare. Doctors and nurses take weekend jobs in hospitals elsewhere in Europe, and earn the same amount of money they would have made working in Poland for a month.”
Pensioners in Poland seem to have been neglected by all previous governments, and are still seen as the biggest losers of the economic transformation that began 26 years ago. “Pensions are appalling,” says Thomas. “My mother, who worked under communist rule for 30 years, receives just 450 zloty a month [£80].”
Law and Justice party supporters campaigning in Warsaw in October. Photograph: Czarek Sokolowski/AP
Despite these concerns, he does not believe that PiS is threatening Poland’s democracy with the new laws. “The new legislations balance out the judicial part of government after the previous government Civic Platform [party] staffed it with their supporters. The Law and Justice party are simply reversing the original unconstitutional process, reinstating the balance and bringing back the democratic process.”
Thomas also suggests that PiS have plans for Poland’s future in the EU. “PiS is for Poland’s continued membership, but they want to level the field in terms of access to Polish labour and industrial infrastructure. They believe foreign companies should pay their fair share of the profits to the national treasury, and give something back to the country where they are becoming successful in business. This issue is not getting the attention it deserves.”
‘Presenting their own truth and possessing genes of betrayal’
Zbigniew Janik
One of the protesters’ primary concerns is the apparent curbing of Polish media by the government. Zbigniew Janik, who lives in Warsaw, argues that taking over public media is not uncommon among new Polish governments.
“This has become common practice in Poland after a new government is elected. The public broadcasting corporation Telewizja Polska has a large reach, therefore they also have the capacity to shape opinions. For this reason it’s an attractive target for any political party in power.
“The public media under previous governments were certainly biased, presenting just the one view on Polish politics. But commercial TV stations like Polsat offer an alternative view. Commercial media stations are usually still aligned with the previous governments’ views, whereas public stations reflect the views of the ruling party. They both present their own truth.”
Thomas Piatek agrees that government influence over public media is not a new phenomenon in Poland. “Every government in the past appointed key people in key positions within state-controlled media who supported the current establishment. This has never been an issue for the western media in the past, even when opposition parties have constantly raised the question.”
About 2,000 people protest outside a local public radio station over the new government’s curbs on media freedoms. Photograph: Beata Zawrzel/Demotix/Corbis
Katarzyna also points out that private broadcasters such as Polsat and TVN balance out public state media. Nevertheless, she is concerned about the state of public service broadcasting in Poland.
“Every Polish citizen who owns a television set is obliged to pay a fee that supports the public television broadcaster. That is one of the reasons why public TV and radio should be politically neutral. Instead it presents government propaganda to the public. New public television authorities, appointed by PiS, have already removed around 60 journalists across the board.
“And according to PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, corresponding with foreign press proves that I have ‘a gene of betrayal’. I guess I have that gene.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/26/poland-views-current-mood-constitution-challenges
Australia set for 2 July election after Senate rejects ABCC bill
"As Malcolm Turnbull's popularity subsides it's increasingly looking like an early federal election for Australia. Possibly in July."
.. imagine, an 11 week election campaign!! .. horrors, lol .. remember the Australian Liberal Party is the conservative party up here
.. dodgy party funding to avoid donor disclosure .. attacks on unions .. much ol' similar conservative positions as in the USA ..
Defeat of bill to establish a construction industry watchdog means government is likely to request early election, but comes amid poor polling for Coalition
Malcolm Turnbull (centre) leaves the Senate on Monday after the recall of parliament.
Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
Lenore Taylor and Paul Karp
Monday 18 April 2016 20.01 AEST
Last modified on Monday 18 April 2016 23.54 AEST
The Turnbull government is likely to call a double-dissolution election for 2 July after the Senate defied it and defeated legislation establishing a construction industry watchdog, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
However, the Senate backed a seperate bill to abolish the tribunal which set minimum pay rates for truck owner-drivers, which the government had been strongly backing over the last week.
The defeat of the ABCC legislation marks the start of a unofficial election campaign and comes as Malcolm Turnbull’s own approval rating is sliding.
The government’s lead has evaporated in the major opinion polls, with Newspoll putting Labor ahead in two-party preferred terms (49% to 51%) and Ipsos putting each of the major parties at 50%.
The government had refused to countenance any of the substantive changes proposed by the Senate crossbench to its bill to re-establish the ABCC and Turnbull had prorogued parliament on the basis that if did not pass the industrial bills he would call an election for the House of Representatives and the full Senate after the 3 May budget, to be held on 2 July.
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ABCC legislation rejected, giving Coalition double dissolution trigger – politics live
Senate rejects Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation for a second time, giving government trigger to request governor general dissolve both houses of parliament – all the developments from Canberra
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/apr/18/polls-on-a-knife-edge-as-parliament-resumes-for-a-special-sitting-politics-live
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The bill to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal passed the Senate 36 votes to 32 with the support of seven of eight crossbench senators .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/13/coalition-clinches-crossbench-support-in-battle-over-truckies-pay-rates .
The government had claimed independent contractors would lose jobs, and their businesses would collapse, due to the requirement of higher minimum rates.
Only Motoring Enthusiast senator Ricky Muir opposed the abolition of minimum pay rates intended to reduce road deaths by removing financial incentives to skip breaks or speed.
The vote came on the first day of the proposed three weeks of special sittings the government had allowed for its consideration and after a rancorous day in parliament.
Labor moved to set up a snap Senate inquiry into federal Liberal fundraising foundations and to force Turnbull’s cabinet secretary, Arthur Sinodinos .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/arthur-sinodinos , to give evidence, and the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, was forced to rebuke his deputy Senate leader, Stephen Conroy, over an attack he had made earlier in the day against the governor general, Sir Peter Cosgrove.
The Turnbull government also accused Labor of “reckless, crass populism” because of its pledge to hold a banking royal commission, while considering its own response to the string of banking scandals to counter the Labor policy, a response which is likely to be announced on Tuesday.
The ABCC bill was defeated 34 votes to 36, with four crossbenchers – senators Bob Day, Nick Xenophon, Dio Wang and David Leyonhjelm – voting with the government at the second reading stage and four against, after the workplace relations minister, Michaelia Cash, challenged the parliament to “choose if it stands for thuggery or fairness”. With Labor and the Greens opposed, the government needed six of the eight crossbench votes.
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) welcomed the defeat of the ABCC bill, saying it was “a win for workers’ and basic human rights and freedoms”.
“We congratulate those crossbench senators who have taken a principled stance in rejecting this bill, which discriminates against 1 million Australians whose sweat and skill built this nation”, the CFMEU national construction secretary, Dave Noonan, said.
Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, said the defeat of the ABCC bill showed “the prime minister and his Liberal team thought they could bluff and bully the parliament into passing the bill, [but] they were wrong”.
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Bill Shorten rebukes Stephen Conroy over attack on governor general
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/18/bill-shorten-rebukes-stephen-conroy-over-attack-on-governor-general
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The Australian Industry Group’s head of workplace relations policy, Stephen Smith, told Guardian Australia “we’re very disappointed that that legislation has not been passed”.
“The government has said it intends to proceed with a double dissolution in those circumstances. If the government is re-elected we hope that the bill can be passed at the earliest possible time.”
The Senate is yet to consider another industrial relations bill that could form a double-dissolution trigger, as well as the abolition of a trucking remuneration tribunal, which the government also forced through the lower house on Monday night. Even after they are passed, the government will bring down its budget on 3 May, pass the supply bills and allow Shorten to make his budget speech in reply before starting the formal election campaign.
Labor and some of the crossbench are also seeking to use the final sittings before the budget and the election to make political points and embarrass the government.
Labor is likely to win the backing of the Greens to set up an inquiry into the powers of the Australian Electoral Commission to oversee so-called “associated entities” used for fundraising purposes.
In the Senate, Labor asked Sinodinos about his role as NSW finance director .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/24/arthur-sinodinos-threatens-legal-action-against-nsw-electoral-commission .. during the time that the NSW party is accused by the NSW Electoral Commission of “washing” property industry donations – prohibited at state level – through the federal “associated entity, the Free Enterprise Foundation”.
In evidence before the Icac, and in public statements, Sinodinos has said he did not know about the banned donations.
In the House of Representatives, Labor asked the treasurer, Scott Morrison .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/scott-morrison , about donations possibly made to another fundraising body, the Millennium Forum, during his time as NSW Liberal party director.
Morrison responded furiously, saying there wasn’t “a hole dark enough that the NSW Labor party .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/labor-party .. hasn’t been in it”.
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Lawyers back union claims that building watchdog will cut workers' legal rights
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/18/lawyers-back-union-claims-that-building-watchdog-will-cut-workers-legal-rights
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“This is a party in New South Wales that wrote the book on corruption in New South Wales .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/new-south-wales .. under Labor ... They have the gall to come into this place and throw this sort of muck around,” he said.
Labor has moved a notice of motion in the Senate to set up an inquiry by the Senate finance and public administration references committee to report by 4 May – the day after the federal budget – about “commonwealth legislative provisions relating to oversight of associated entities of political parties, with particular reference to the adequacy of the funding and disclosure regime relating to annual returns; the powers of the Australian Electoral Commission with respect to supervision of the conduct of and reporting by associated entities of political parties; and … (that) Senator Sinodinos appear before the committee to answer questions”.
The NSW Electoral Commission insists the Liberal party is obliged to declare the donations .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/02/a-tale-of-two-charitable-foundations-and-a-flood-of-donations-to-the-liberals .. it directed through the federal party at a state level also and it is withholding $4.38m from the NSW Liberal party – money the party needs to fight the imminent federal election – to focus the party’s mind on that question. And it is standing its ground regarding criticisms against the party and former party office holders, including Sinodinos, who has had his lawyers draft an angry letter to the commission .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/31/electoral-commission-stands-firm-despite-arthur-sinodinoss-threat-to-sue .
With all major published opinion polls showing the main parties neck and neck, or the Labor party .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/labor-party .. slightly ahead of the government, the final weeks of parliament are descending into bitter debate about the ABCC, the banking industry and the claims regarding electoral funding.
The parliamentary session began with acrimony on Monday when Conroy attacked Sir Peter Cosgrove for acceding to the prime minister’s request to prorogue parliament.
“What we saw is a blight on our democracy today,” he said. “We’ve seen a democratically elected decision overturned by the Queen’s representative ... We’ve seen today a governor general overturn the will of this chamber, a democratically elected chamber. That’s what we have seen, a tawdry political stunt and the governor general has demeaned his office. Never has the need for a republic been more evident than today.”
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The government says there's no need for a federal corruption body. They would
John Madigan
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/the-government-says-theres-no-need-for-a-federal-corruption-body-they-would
..
Turnbull said Conroy had disgraced himself.
“Well, not for the first time, Senator Conroy has disgraced himself and I look forward to the leader of the opposition publicly disassociating himself from those appalling remarks reflecting, as Senator Conroy did, on the integrity and the office of the governor general,” he told reporters on Monday.
Shorten later rebuked Conroy, saying in a written statement: “The governor general has one of the most important roles in our democracy and that should be respected by everyone. Senator Conroy should confine his remarks to the government.”
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/18/australia-set-for-double-dissolution-poll-on-2-july-after-senate-rejects-abcc-bill
Rodrigo Duterte: Philippines presidential candidate hits back as rape remark sparks fury
"Philippines Has The Highest Use of Shabu in the World"
no, i am not suggesting anyone in particular is on shabu
Posted about an hour ago
[sorry, is not reproducing for me]
Photo: The video clip appeared online over the weekend and spread quickly on social media. (AFP: Noel Celis)
Related Story: Philippines presidential candidate jokes about Australian missionary's rape
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-17/philippines-presidential-candidate-condemned-for-joke-about-rape/7333300
Map: Philippines .. http://www.google.com/maps/place/Philippines/@13,122,5z
Philippine presidential hopeful Rodrigo Duterte has stuck to his guns amid outrage over a remark he made about a murdered Australian rape victim, saying he regretted his "gutter language" but would not apologise for being misinterpreted.
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Key points:
* Video shows Duterte saying inmates lined up to rape victim and that as mayor he should have been first
* Duterte says he "said it in the heat of anger" and "it's my style, it's my mouth"
* Duterte tops the latest opinion polls ahead of next month's presidential election
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A YouTube video appeared over the weekend showing Mr Duterte speaking at a recent rally .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-17/philippines-presidential-candidate-condemned-for-joke-about-rape/7333300 .. where he recalled his experience of being a local mayor during a 1989 prison riot in which an Australian missionary visiting the jail was taken hostage, raped and killed.
The video clip showed 71-year-old Mr Duterte telling supporters he was angry that a "beautiful" woman had been murdered.
He said inmates had lined up to rape her and it was a "waste" because as mayor, he should have been first.
"They raped all of the women ... There was this Australian lay minister ... when they took them out ... I saw her face and I thought, 'Son of a bitch. What a pity ... they raped her, they all lined up," Mr Duterte was shown telling a crowd of laughing supporters at a campaign rally.
"I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first."
Reports from the period, backed by Philippines media, name the Australian missionary as 36-year-old Jacqueline Hamill. Four other hostages were killed in the incident.
The clip spread quickly on social media and prompted outrage from women's groups and politicians.
'It's my style, it's my mouth, I said it in anger'
Mr Duterte, who has been mayor of the southern Davao City on and off since 1986, tops the latest opinion polls ahead of the May 9 presidential election, helped largely by his anti-crime platform.
Mr Duterte on Sunday told television reporters he would not say sorry — even if it cost him the presidency — for what he had said.
"I said it in the heat of anger," he said.
"I'm sorry in general. I'm sorry to the Filipino people, it's my style, it's my mouth, I said it in anger — listen to the story behind it."
He added: "It was not a joke. I said it in a narrative. I wasn't smiling."
Political rivals denounce Duterte: 'Distasteful and unacceptable'
Mr Duterte's presidential rivals were quick to denounce him.
Grace Poe, a senator seen as his biggest challenger, said his words were "distasteful and unacceptable".
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Transcript of speech
All the women were raped so during the first assault, because they retreated, the bodies they used as a cover, one of them was the corpse of the Australian woman lay minister.
Tsk, this is a problem. When the bodies were brought out, they were wrapped. I looked at her face, son of a bitch, she looks like a beautiful American actress. Son of a bitch, what a waste.
What came to mind was, they raped her, they lined up. I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste.
- Translated by Rappler.com .. http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/129784-viral-video-duterte-joke-australian-woman-rape
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"No-one, whoever she is and whatever her looks may be, deserves to be raped and abused. Rape is a crime and no laughing matter," she said in a statement.
Manuel Roxas, who is backed by President Benigno Aquino, said Mr Duterte had a "bestial attitude" towards women.
"Anyone who laughs at the ultimate assault on the dignity of women should not be allowed to wield power," Mr Roxas said.
But Duterte's tough, no-nonsense rhetoric has struck a chord with many Filipinos, with the country's two biggest opinion polls last week seeing him replace Ms Poe in the lead.
Mr Duterte has promised to end crime and graft within six months if elected and has spoken of his support for vigilantism and the extra-judicial killing of criminals in his city.
Reuters
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-18/rodrigo-duterte-hits-back-back-as-rape-remark-sparks-fury/7333532
Since when is rationalization when used an excuse for very unpleasant thought a hit back? A reply, ok, but a hit back?
Myanmar court frees student activists after Aung San Suu Kyi pledge
Updated Fri at 11:08pm
Photo: A student protester is reunited with family after his release in Tharrawaddy town.
(AFP: Ye Aung Thu)
Related Story: Myanmar's Suu Kyi presses for political prisoner release
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-08/myanmar's-suu-kyi-vows-to-press-for-political-prisoner-release/7309462
Related Story: Why is Aung San Suu Kyi barred from becoming president of Myanmar?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-10/myanmar-election-explained/6928542
Map: Burma .. http://www.google.com/maps/place/Burma/@22,98,5z
A Myanmar court has freed dozens of jailed students, in the first wave of detainee releases after Aung San Suu Kyi pledged that the release of activists .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-08/myanmar's-suu-kyi-vows-to-press-for-political-prisoner-release/7309462 .. and political prisoners would be the first priority of her new government.
Key points:
* Prosecution of students who participated in education protest has been ended
* Anxious families of detained activists rush to Myanmar prisons
* Aung San Suu Kyi has not set timeline for releasing imprisoned activists
There were jubilant scenes at the central Myanmar courthouse in Tharrawaddy, as a judge told activists they could go home more than a year after they were arrested over their education protest that was crushed in a violent police crackdown .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-11/myanmar-police-clash-students-protest-letpadan/6298176 .. in March 2015.
"You 69 are all freed now (from this case) without charge," township judge Chit Myat said.
Two other student protesters were deemed too young to be prosecuted, however three of the 69 face further hearings in other courts.
Ms Suu Kyi said Thursday her government would prioritise freeing activists, without giving a timeline for their release.
The statement was not followed by an official amnesty notice from President Htin Kyaw, but families still crowded at prison gates around the country hoping to reunite with their loved ones.
Those gathered in Tharrawaddy's dusty courtroom erupted into cheers and song after the judge delivered his statement, while dozens of police looked on.
Tearful parents gripped their children in emotional scenes before hurrying to the nearby prison to collect the detainees' belongings.
Some students stopped at a cemetery to pay their respects to the graves of other activists who died in the country's decades-long democracy struggle.
"Our release showed that we didn't commit any crime, we suffered in prison for more than one year," Ei Thinzar Maung, 20, said after her release.
"We are happy but we want the new government to release all political prisoners immediately," she added.
Photo: Political student protesters and family members shout and cheer after their release.
(AFP: Ye Aung Thu)
Hundreds of detained activists await trial
Myanmar has scores of political prisoners languishing in its jails and hundreds of detained activists awaiting trial, despite reforms in recent years as the military loosened its grip on power after half a century of repressive junta rule.
Court officials said they began preparing to release the students shortly after Ms Suu Kyi's statement, which said her government would try to free detainees still on trial by asking the state prosecutor to drop the charges.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed the students' release, but urged Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to amend the laws used to imprison peaceful protesters.
"They have to release political prisoners but they also have to do away with these rights-abusing laws," HRW's deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said.
The NLD has an absolute majority in both houses of the national assembly, they can do this."
The routine jailing of dissidents by the former junta stirred international outcry and support for Ms Suu Kyi's pro-democracy movement.
Ms Suu Kyi herself spent about 15 years under house arrest and more than 100 current National League for Democracy MPs served time in the country's notorious prisons.
While the quasi-civilian government that replaced the junta in 2011 freed hundreds of political detainees, it also oversaw the detention of many more, particularly those involved in land and education protests.
Photo: Relatives check lists of prisoners due for release at Insein prison in Yangon.
(AFP: Romeo Gacad)
AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-08/families-flock-to-myanmar-jails-after-amnesty-plan/7312444
Myanmar’s moment of truth
The country’s military rulers claim to have embraced democracy – and will soon transfer formal power to the party led by
Aung San Suu Kyi. But an unsolved double murder may suggest the Burmese army is not yet ready to surrender control
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi takes part in talks with Myanmar’s military leaders in April 2015. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters
Nick Davies
Wednesday 9 March 2016 17.00 AEDT
Last modified on Thursday 10 March 2016 23.25 AEDT
T here is an old video clip that is famous in Myanmar .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/myanmar . It shows a comedian on stage gesticulating with effervescent energy as his straight man challenges him to dance in different styles: first, Indian; then, Chinese; and then in the style of Myanmar’s hated military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Suddenly, the comedian is all slippery slime, his hands reaching out to steal, picking imaginary pockets, grasping and grabbing and smirking at his own greed.
The camera cuts to the audience, beaming with delight, and then to a woman with long black hair who rocks forward in her seat laughing, politely raising her fingers to cover her mouth. In spite of the passing of 20 years since that video was shot in January 1996, the face is immediately recognisable. It is Aung San Suu Kyi .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/08/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-president-positive-talks , the leader of the country’s democracy movement, at whose house the comedy show took place.
For daring to make a laughing stock of the military elite (and for giving succour to Aung San Suu Kyi), that comedian was arrested at dawn four days later by officers of the military intelligence agency, the DDSI, run by the notorious general Khin Nyunt. So too were his straight man, two dancers and four musicians who had shared the stage with him. They spent two weeks under interrogation – being forced to stand all night without sleep, then to squat in painful stress positions and then to face endless questions under a bright light, with an officer standing behind them slapping their ears whenever they failed to deliver the required reply.
The comedian was Par Par Lay, one of the few Burmese whose name became known outside his isolated country. He was the founder and leading light of a trio of vaudeville comedians – the Moustache Brothers – who had been playing regularly for tiny audiences that often consisted only of foreigners, particularly young backpackers, who spread the word about them, with a special boost from the Lonely Planet guide. On a makeshift stage in the garage at the front of their house in Mandalay, Par Par, his cousin Lu Zaw (the straight man who was arrested with him) and his younger brother Lu Maw relentlessly challenged the power of the ruling generals simply by making people laugh at them, often attracting police warnings, never going quiet.
The Moustache Brothers used to boast that they could deliver 300 jokes in two hours. There was the one about the man who goes to the doctor with a terrible headache. He turns out to be a military intelligence officer. “Ah, that explains it,” says the doctor. “You have no brain.” Or the one about the Burmese man who travels abroad to get his bad teeth treated. The foreign dentist asks him: “Don’t you have dentists in your country?” “Of course we do. But we’re not allowed to open our mouths.” As George Orwell said: “Every joke is a tiny revolution.”
The other reason for Par Par’s fame was that following their arrest in January 1996, while the musicians and dancers were released, he and his cousin were sentenced to seven years’ hard labour for their jokey dancing. When their case was taken up by Amnesty International, with two million signatures on a petition organised by the Body Shop, the two Moustache Brothers .. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/13/world.burma .. became an international symbol for the thousands of men and women who were incarcerated by a dictatorship that was typical among tyrannies for its corruption and cruelty but outstanding for its pompous self-regard. After more than five years in the generals’ jails, they were released, in July 2001.
--
" For daring to make a laughing stock of the military elite the comedian was arrested at dawn four days later "
--
Par Par died in 2013, aged 66, from kidney failure, possibly as a result of his treatment in jail. But his cousin and his younger brother, Lu Maw, are still alive and still performing in the garage in Mandalay. In machine-gun bursts of self-taught English, Lu Maw recalled the prison life to which Par Par and his cousin were subjected: the days spent breaking stones with their ankles clamped apart with a metal bar; their nights on a mat on the ground; their bodies succumbing to malnutrition, malaria, dysentery, scabies; infractions punished by being forced to crawl like a crocodile across a plateau of jagged stones whose razor edges shredded the skin that touched them. Par Par’s wife, Ma Win Ma, would travel four days by train for a 15-minute visit through a tight wire mesh, sometimes only to be met by the news that her visit had been cancelled. “This very cruel,” as Lu Maw succinctly put it.
Now Lu Maw and all those who fought or hated the junta find themselves in a world in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a thumping majority .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/aung-san-suu-kyi-wins-myanmar-landmark-election .. in national elections last November, and the generals are apparently ready to cede power. Lu Maw does not trust them. He looks at the current president, Thein Sein .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/15/myanmar-president-thein-sein-handover-of-power , who claims to back democracy, and notes that he is a general who now wears a civilian suit, and says: “Snake can shed skin. Is still snake.”
His suspicion has deep roots. In 1962, when the military seized power, they created a machinery of surveillance, designed to suppress not only people, but even ideas that challenged them. In the name of restoring stability, the junta banned all rival parties and all trade unions and took total control of the police and the courts, routinely using the notorious Section Five of the Emergency Provisions Act, a law so vaguely worded that it was known as the “Don’t Like the Look of You” law, because that was all it took to jail a person. The two Moustache Brothers were among some 10,000 men and women who were sent to the generals’ gulag. Some of them were tortured and crammed into tiny kennel-like cages. Aung San Suu Kyi was famously held under house arrest for years. From time to time, with extraordinary bravery, opponents would take to the streets. And soldiers would shoot them down .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/30/burma.justinmccurry – thousands of them.
--
Aung San Suu Kyi wins outright majority in Myanmar election
Read more >> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/aung-san-suu-kyi-wins-myanmar-landmark-election
--
Attacking the freedom to speak or even to think, Khin Nyunt’s military intelligence had informers in every neighbourhood. There are countless stories of citizens seized for an off-colour remark or even a reference to democracy. Every household had to submit a “family list” of all who lived there and to report any visitors, so that everybody’s movements could be tracked. There were no religious rites nor public meetings without official permission. Not even a Buddhist monk could be ordained without official blessing. The Department of Press Registration and Scrutiny filleted every word that was published or broadcast. The Committee for Propaganda and Agitation pumped out official messages.
And all the while, the people became poorer. At worst, they were commandeered at gunpoint as slave labour to build new roads and bridges. At best, they worked for wages so meagre that they found their GDP per head eventually falling below that of their war-torn neighbours in Cambodia or Laos. Meanwhile, the generals became richer, creating two military holding companies that exploited lucrative monopolies in car imports and petrol, beer and whisky, cigarettes and edible oils. At every level, the military hierarchy rented out its power, demanding official consents for every conceivable activity and then charging fees to grant them. While their people still live in bamboo huts, the generals enjoy splendid detached mansions in the Golden Valley area of Yangon. When the daughter of one of the dictators, Than Shwe, got married in 2006, a leaked video revealed her wearing rows of diamonds wrapped around her neck like a shawl.
Yes dominus..please do not drown!~
lol, feeling like cracking one, but going for a swim instead .. grin
.yeah..yeah ..less of the wine please and get on with it! lol~
:) .. what better than a student for life, always exploring and learning, after
our working for dollars life subsides .. so lucky as you say to be able to .. :)
We all tend to drift into that. Is good to be more aware.
I take my good life for granted each day..not smart~
Nagorno-Karabakh: Azeri-Armenian ceasefire agreed in disputed region
Sides declare truce as deadly clashes in breakaway region threaten to escalate into full-blown war
Armenian volunteers receive uniforms and weapons to join the self-defense army
of Nagorno-Karabakh in Yerevan, Armenia. Photograph: EPA
Shaun Walker
Wednesday 6 April 2016 01.58 AEST
Last modified on Thursday 7 April 2016 05.29 AEST
A ceasefire has been announced in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after four days of intense fighting that has left dozens dead and threatened to degenerate into full-blown war between Armenia and Azerbaijan .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/azerbaijan .
Karabakh is technically part of Azerbaijan but has been run by an ethnic Armenian government ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Azerbaijan said 16 servicemen were killed in the past 48 hours, while the separatist Karabakh authorities said 20 of its troops had died and also reported civilian casualties.
The ceasefire announcement on Tuesday came amid diplomatic pressure to stop the fighting, with fears the localised clashes could spiral into a wider conflict between Armenia .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/armenia .. and Azerbaijan, and possibly even a proxy war involving Russia and Turkey.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Karabakh as both became independent countries when the Soviet Union collapsed. There was widespread violence as Armenians living in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, were driven out and ethnic Azeris in Karabakh were forced to flee.
[ Comment: forget it folks, do ALL a favor by throwing the bigotry of ethnic sectarianism into the trash can of history where it belongs. ]
By the time a ceasefire was agreed in 1994 at least 25,000 people were believed to have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. Since then, the two countries have no diplomatic links and strained relations.
An Armenian tank, which Azerbaijani forces say they destroyed, is ablaze
in Nagorno-Karabakh. Photograph: AP
Since 1994, an uneasy truce has held, with Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers facing off against each other from muddy trenches a few hundred metres apart. There are frequent minor skirmishes along the line of control but the recent violence has been the worst since the war ended. Armenia has stopped short of recognising Karabakh as independent, but provides military and financial support to the territory. A comprehensive settlement has proved elusive as both countries’ presidents fear losing face in any deal.
Azerbaijan, buoyed until recently by windfall profits from oil sales, has spent billions of pounds on modern weapons systems, mainly purchased from Russia, and has refused to rule out a military solution to the conflict. Armenia has also bolstered its military capacity.
This week, Azerbaijan’s defence minister, Zakir Hasanov, said his troops had been instructed to target Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert, if the separatist forces continued to shell Azerbaijani settlements, while Karabakh authorities promised a “crushing response” if this happened.
Though a ceasefire has been declared, it is too early to say whether it will hold on the ground. Thomas de Waal, senior associate at Carnegie Europe .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news .. and author of a book on Karabakh, said: “The problem with the geography of this conflict is that if the ceasefire breaks down there are no peacekeepers and even if you don’t have a full-scale war there could be low-intensity fighting which completely destroys the peace process.”
An Armenian man walks past a destroyed house during clashes in Martakert province,
Nagorno-Karabakh. Photograph: Vahan Stepanyan/AP
The danger of escalation is real, with both societies having been fed militaristic propaganda for the past two decades, said De Waal, but added that international pressure may be enough to stop the conflict from escalating into a full-blown war.
“The Azeris know that if they go for all-out war it will be tossing all the oil profits of the past decade on to the roulette wheel, and in the last six months they have been seeking international loans due to the drop in oil prices, so there is leverage there,” he added.
A further complication is the potential for the regional dispute to spill into a proxy conflict between Russia and Turkey, whose relations have deteriorated since Turkish fighter jets shot down .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/turkey-shoots-down-jet-near-border-with-syria .. a Russian plane it said infringed on its airspace last November.
Russia has treaty obligations to Armenia and would be required to defend it if it were attacked, while Turkey has traditionally supported Azerbaijan. While president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has usually been measured on the Karabakh issue, in recent days he and other top officials have made a number of strong statements of support for Azerbaijan.
Protesters in Vienna, Austria, call for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Photograph: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
On Tuesday, Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, reaffirmed his country’s support for Baku. “Let the whole world know that Turkey will be shoulder to shoulder with Azerbaijan until the end of time,” he said. “We will continue supporting Azerbaijan on all issues, including Nagorno-Karabakh, until all its lands are liberated.”
Envoys from Russia, France and the USwere planning a trip to the region to attempt to begin negotiations. Minsk Group, which mediates in the conflict, said: “The deterioration of the situation on the ground demonstrates the need for an immediate negotiation … on a comprehensive settlement.”
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will travel to Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Thursday while the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, is due in Armenia’s Yerevan, in a further attempt to allay the tensions.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/nagorno-karabakh-azeri-armenian-ceasefire-agreed
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Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict is a reminder of Europe's instability
Sudden eruption of violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region has come as a nasty shock and must be addressed
Armenian soldiers prepare to make their way to the Nagorno-Karabakh region where
clashes with Azeri forces are taking place. Photograph: Reuters
Simon Tisdall
Monday 4 April 2016 00.13 AEST
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/03/azerbaijan-armenia-conflict-europe-instability-nagorno-karabakh
SPARK, as always, thank you for visiting.
So nasty..and so easy to ignore..thanks for posting~
Dozens dead in worst Nagorno-Karabakh violence for decades
5 hours ago
VIDEO: The BBC's Rayhan Demytrie in Tbilisi, Georgia, says that people in Nagorno-Karabakh live under "daily threat of war"
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia said 18 ethnic-Armenian soldiers had died in the fighting, among the worst in two decades.
Azerbaijan said it had lost 12 troops and there were unconfirmed reports of civilian deaths on both sides.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the hands of ethnic-Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994.
Frozen conflict threatens to reignite
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32202426
Azeris dream of return
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30718551
Nagorno-Karabakh profile
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18270325
Russia, which has sold arms to both sides, called for an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to exercise restraint.
Azerbaijan said its armed forces had come under fire first from large-calibre artillery and grenade-launchers, and that it had taken over two strategic hills and a village.
AFP
Nagorno-Karabakh's military had images on its website reportedly showing a downed Azerbaijani helicopter
AFP
Both sides reported civilian casualties in the fighting
EPA
The fighting prompted a rush of potential recruits to Nagorno-Karabakh's military
The Armenian government said Azerbaijan had launched a "massive attack" with tanks, artillery and helicopters.
The Armenian-backed defence ministry in Karabakh said a 12-year-old boy had been killed and two other children injured.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has spoken with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts - Seyran Ohanyan and Zakir Hasanov - by phone, Interfax reported, in an effort to calm the situation.
Fighting between the two sides began in the late 1980s and escalated into full-scale war in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, killing about 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994.
The region, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has since run its own affairs with Armenian military and financial backing, but clashes break out on a regular basis.
Analysis: Konul Khalilova, BBC Azeri
The fighting that erupted on Friday night is some of the worst since a 1994 ceasefire between the two sides. Azerbaijan says it has taken back two strategically important villages from the Armenian army, a claim denied by Armenia. As usual, both sides say the other pulled the trigger first.
There are reports of civilian casualties on both sides. Witnesses told the BBC's Azeri service that people were being evacuated from villages near to the conflict zone and that others were hiding in basements.
Both President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenia's President Sargsyan are on their way back from the international nuclear summit in Washington.
Azerbaijan has purchased at least $4bn worth of arms from Russia. Armenia, an important strategic partner of Russia in the Caucasus, also buys weapons from Russia. There are concerns that the fighting could lead to a more wide-scale military conflict.
Leaders on both sides have been blamed for not making enough effort to achieve peace and instead using the conflict as a tool
to stay in power. Nationalist sentiment boosted by pro-government media in both societies has been at its height in recent years.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has expressed "grave concern" over the reported large-scale ceasefire violations.
The co-chairmen of the body's Minsk Group - ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, James Warlick of the US, and Pierre Andrieu of France - issued a joint statement saying: "We strongly condemn the use of force and regret the senseless loss of life, including civilians.
"The co-chairs call upon the sides to stop shooting and take all necessary measures to stabilise the situation on the ground. They reiterate that there is no alternative to a peaceful negotiated solution of the conflict and that war is not an option."
Frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
* The conflict has roots dating back over a century to competition between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences
* Frictions exploded into violence when the region's parliament voted to join Armenia in the late 1980s
* The ethnic Azeri population - about 25% of the total before the war - fled Karabakh and Armenia while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan
* Russian-brokered ceasefire signed in 1994, leaving Karabakh and swathes of Azeri territory around the enclave in Armenian hands
* Progress on a peace process stalled after talks between Armenian and Azeri leaders in 2009. Serious ceasefire violations have followed
* Karabakh is a word of Turkic and Persian origin meaning "black garden", while "Nagorno" is a Russian word meaning "mountain"
Nagorno-Karabakh profile
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18270325
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35949991
---
Russia Offers Another Concession to Armenia: Advanced Ballistic Missiles
By Joshua Kucera Jul. 05 2015 19:13
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-offers-another-concession-to-armenia-advanced-ballistic-missiles/525056.html
" Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60027182&txt2find=exxon "
See also
The Countries with the Biggest 'Shadow Economies' [ #3 Azerbaijan ]
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110271758
""But Turkey, and Iraq, need to make the very tough decision to create
an autonomous Kurdish state including territory in both of their countries.""
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110673372
No, American Weakness Didn't Encourage Putin to Invade Ukraine
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=98661219
State of Fear
By Linton Besser, Jaya Balendra, Elise Worthington
Updated March 28, 2016 20:34:00
[ VIDEO not loaded yet. Hopefully will be when it has finished going live which it is now .. if you are interested in possibly
one of the biggest corruption cases ever (including more than one murder), you will be interested in watching the video ]
Monday 28 March 2016
State of Fear
State of Fear: Murder and Money in Malaysia.
"I think there is an atmosphere of total terror."
It's a story of intrigue, corruption and multiple murders, stretching from the streets of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, to Switzerland, France and the US as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, all the way to Australia's doorstep.
"He said 'You know I can't talk much, he said, because my phone might be bugged'".
The money involved is astonishing.
"The person who made the gift must be extremely rich to be able to just give away US$681 million."
"The fact that it's going to the personal account of the Prime Minister is unprecedented."
And the escalating scandal is threatening to bring down Malaysia's Prime Minister.
"This charge sheet was the smoking gun."
Four Corners reporter Linton Besser investigates two sets of extraordinary allegations of bribery and corruption: one involving a massive arms deal; the other, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. It's a story that's made headlines around the world.
"Hello Mr Prime Minister, ABC Australia. I'm wondering if you can explain the hundreds of millions of dollars in your account?"
Linton Besser's pointed questions landed him and cameraman Louie Eroglu in serious trouble.
"I've been placed under arrest ...we are waiting for some legal advice but at the moment it looks like they intend to charge us."
On Monday night Four Corners will reveal new allegations about the staggering sums of money that have flowed into the bank accounts of Najib Razak.
And as the scandal grows, so does the crackdown on the Malaysian Government's political opponents.
"They're just threatening people now and it's very effective."
State of Fear, reported by Linton Besser and presented by Sarah Ferguson, goes to air on Monday 28th March at 8.30pm EDT. It is replayed on Tuesday 29th March at 10.00am and Wednesday 30th at 11pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/03/28/4431284.htm
.. also posted Tornado Alley .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121484558
Australian journalists detained then released in Malaysia.
.. this has tinges of serious corruption, a former attorney-general who
had planned to file criminal charges against Najib Razak was sacked ..
Four Corners crew Linton Besser and Louie Eroglu leave Malaysia for Singapore
By South East Asia correspondent Adam Harvey in Kuching, staff
Updated 15 Mar 2016, 7:25pm
Video: Linton Besser and Louie Eroglu talk about being detained in Malaysia (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/linton-besser-and-louie-eroglu-talk-about-being/7248944
Photo: Reporter Linton Besser and cameraman Louie Eroglu at the airport before leaving Malaysia. (Twitter: Adam Harvey)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/abc-journalists-linton-besser-and-louie-eroglu-leaving-malaysia/7248226
Related Story: 'If you go quietly it's OK': ABC reporter describes frightening detention in Malaysia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/four-corners-reporter-describes-arrest,-detention-in-malaysia/7249174
Map: [ a good map, worth a peek ] Malaysia
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Malaysia/@2.5,112.5,5z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x3034d3975f6730af:0x745969328211cd8
The Four Corners team detained in Malaysia after trying to question Prime Minister Najib Razak have
left the country and flown to Singapore after authorities decided not to press charges against them.
--
Key points:
* Four Corners team has arrived in Singapore
* They were escorted out of Malaysia after a case against them was dropped
* They initially faced charge of obstructing a public servant in the discharge of their duties
--
Reporter Linton Besser and cameraman Louie Eroglu arrived in Singapore this afternoon on a Malaysia Airlines flight.
"It's been something of a rollercoaster," Besser said before leaving.
"We came to Sarawak expecting to be here only a matter of hours really. And so it's been pretty eventful being arrested."
"I expected the worst. I basically prepared for the worst case scenario," Eroglu added.
The pair were due to be charged over Besser's questioning of Mr Najib, but prosecutors changed their minds early on Tuesday morning ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/four-corners-crew-will-not-be-charged-in-malaysia/7246618 .
Police claimed the pair crossed a police line and ignored their instructions while trying to question Mr Najib.
The ABC journalists deny the claim.
The pair were told by authorities to leave Malaysia this morning and were escorted through Kuching's international airport.
"When we got the news that last night we're going to be charged, that was very disappointing and alarming," Besser said.
--
Putting a spotlight on Malaysia, again
The arrest and eventual release of a Four Corners crew in Malaysia reminds Catherine
McGrath of her own arrest while reporting for the ABC there, 20 years ago.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/mcgrath-four-corners-arrest/7244938
--
"And then in the middle of the night, getting a knock on the door from Louie, that there's been a sudden change of plan again.
"Our lawyer came to the hotel and said he's received written confirmation from the chief of police that the charges were now going to be dropped. So that's a great relief."
In a statement, ABC News director Gaven Morris said he was "very glad and relieved" at the outcome, saying the corporation stood by its journalists.
"They did nothing wrong in Kuching. They were doing journalism. This incident has demonstrated again why it is vital to defend media freedom, including the right to question authority," he said.
"Linton and Louie are continuing their work, investigating the story they are working on for Four Corners. We look forward to seeing their full report in coming weeks."
'There was no police line'
Video: Linton Besser and Louie Eroglu arrested by Malaysian police at PM's press conference (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/4-corners-crew-arrested-while-attempting-to/7248934
On Saturday night, Besser questioned Mr Najib as he walked into a mosque, asking him why hundreds of millions of dollars had been deposited into his bank account.
"We landed about 8 o'clock and we went to the public event, the event the Prime Minister Najib Razak had put out a media call for," Besser said.
--
Never crossed a police line. There was no police line.
Four Corners reporter Linton Besser
--
"He invited journalists, it was a public event. Louie and I had barely any time to communicate about where we were going to be. We walked in and saw a bunch of journalists, tripods and cameras, so we joined up with them and suddenly the PM arrived.
"As soon as I tried to ask a question to the Prime Minister I was a bundled away by police, and that led to a chain of events that brings us to now."
The pair were surrounded by Mr Najib's security team and then allowed to leave, before later being arrested and questioned for six hours in a police station.
Their passports were taken and later returned, but they were told not to leave the country while their case was investigated.
"Never crossed a police line. There was no police line," Besser said.
"The first time I got an instruction was after I threw a couple of questions for the Prime Minister to answer and the police told me to stop and step away, and that's exactly what I did.
"Louie stopped filming and we cooperated at all times with the police. There was no obstruction at all."
Pair were under threat of two years imprisonment
On Monday night, Besser and Eroglu were told they would likely be charged with obstructing a public servant in the discharge of their duties ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/four-corners-crew-to-be-charged-over-questioning-of-malaysian-pm/7246580 .
If they were found guilty of the charge they could have faced two years in prison.
[ a tweet photo ]
The lawyer for the ABC pair, Albert Tang, said he received a call from Ng Ahlek, the superintendent of police for Malaysia's Padawan District, telling him to bring his clients to court at 8:30am Tuesday (local time) so they could be charged.
"When asked who made the decision to institute the charge against my clients, he said it was the Attorney-General who made the decision," Mr Tang said on Monday.
He said that normally those decisions were made by a local deputy public prosecutor.
But three hours after the pair were given the order to appear in court on Tuesday morning, their lawyer was called by police and told no charges would be filed and they may be able to leave the country after some paperwork.
The pair travelled to Kuching police station this morning to finalise documents to have their bail cancelled.
It was not clear why authorities had not followed through with the case after Mr Tang was contacted and told the court appearance was not warranted.
.. with links to the story from other news sites .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/four-corners-crew-leave-malaysia/7247448
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir sues PM Najib over 'abuse of power'
Mahathir Mohamad’s lawsuit demands Najib pay damages over missing millions and accuses him of trying to obstruct investigations into the case
Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak has denied any wrongdoing.
Photograph: Olivia Harris/Reuters
Oliver Holmes in Bangkok
Wednesday 23 March 2016 18.34 AEDT
Last modified on Wednesday 23 March 2016 18.36 AEDT
Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is suing the current premier Najib Razak for corruption and misfeasance in public office, according to a statement from his law firm.
Mahathir, 90, who served for more than two decades, has led the charge against his former protégé who has faced corruption allegations
that are linked to the debt-laden state fund 1 Malaysia .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/malaysia .. Development Bhd (1MDB).
--
Malaysia's Mahathir: strongman turns activist to unseat former protégé
Read more > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/23/malaysia-mahathir-strongman-turns-activist-unseat-former-protege-najib
--
Mahathir and two of his allies, former members of the ruling United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) party that Najib now heads, are seeking a high court order for the country’s leader to pay millions of pounds in damages.
The lawsuit on Wednesday accused Najib of “carrying out various steps that were actively and deliberately taken in bad faith.”
Mahathir also accused Najib of trying to “obstruct, interfere, impede and derail the various investigations and inquiries which were being conducted by various legal enforcement agencies”.
Najib has vigorously denied that he pocketed $681m (£479m) from 1MDB. This year, Malaysia’s attorney general cleared him of any criminal offences, saying the millions transferred into Najib personal bank account was a gift from the royal family in Saudi Arabia .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/saudiarabia .. and not from 1MDB.
Known as the “Father of modern Malaysia”, Mahathir has also criticised Najib’s government for arbitrary arrests and a media crackdown, similar to accusations that where lobbied against him during his time in office from 1981 to 2003.
Mahathir has called for a vote of no confidence against Najib in parliament, which has not materialised, and also attended in person an anti-government rally last year in downtown Kuala Lumpur.
Last month, in protest of Najib’s rule, Mahathir resigned from the UMNO party, a political body that he made extremely powerful in Malaysian governance. He also accused Najib of buying politicians .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/malaysias-mahathir-calls-for-parliament-to-sack-prime-minister-najib-razak .
In response, Najib has sidelined Mahathir and Malaysian police investigated and questioned .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/malaysian-police-question-mahathir-anti-government-rally-bersih .. him for “criminal defamation” after the comments he made during the rally in the capital last year.
Malaysia’s minister of communications Salleh Said Keruak told the Guardian in a statement on Wednesday that the lawsuit shows Mahathir “ is clutching at straws.”
“Tun Mahathir tried to topple the prime minister through UMNO. He failed,” he said, using the honorific title. “Tun Mahathir tried a parliamentary vote of no confidence. He failed. Now Tun Mahathir is trying to sue. His accusations are false, so he will fail yet again.”
“Tun Mahathir has run out of options. This action shows that he has no political channels left.”
1MDB was launched in 2009 by Najib, who still chairs its advisory board. Critics say it has been opaque in explaining its dealings. Several international investigation are investigating 1MDB.
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/23/former-malaysian-premier-mahathir-sues-pm-najib-over-abuse-of-power
---
1MDB: The case that's riveting Malaysia
26 January 2016
Mr Najib has denied all wrongdoing after reports that almost $700m (£450m) were
transfered into his personal account
Malaysians are no strangers to money politics but the high-profile players and the amount
of funds allegedly involved in the so-called "1MDB scandal" have gripped the nation.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33447456
---
‘I will resolve 1MDB issue’
by cecilia kok
Thursday, 24 March 2016
[VIDEO:] : 15:44
More in News .. if interested all worth a quick peek ..
Stop trying to be like Arabs, Ruler advises Malays
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/stop-trying-to-be-like-arabs-ruler-advises-malays/
Mayhem ends in ejection
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/mayhem-ends-in-ejection-guan-eng-gets-the-boot-while-rahman-makes-fresh-claims/
Chaos as students rush for book vouchers
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/chaos-as-students-rush-for-book-vouchers/
Mozambique debris ‘almost certainly from MH370’
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/mozambique-debris-almost-certainly-from-mh370/
Federal Court: Only Muslims can be Syariah lawyers
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/federal-court-only-muslims-can-be-syariah-lawyers/
KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara’s outgoing governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz has promised to use her remaining 38 days in office to resolve the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) issue before handing over the reins to her successor.
“I want closure on the 1MDB case, as I want the new governor to start with a clean slate ... and not have to deal with the matter that happened during my time,” Zeti said.
The central bank has commenced administrative enforcement actions against 1MDB for failure to submit documentary evidence pertaining to the state fund’s inability to repatriate the US$1.83bil (RM7.16bil) it had used abroad.
In relation to the central bank’s action against 1MDB, Dr Zeti said the Federal Government-owned fund had not fully complied with the central bank’s directive on repatriating the funds.
“So we are pursuing appropriate administrative enforcement action as allowed to us by the laws under which Bank Negara operates,” Dr Zeti told reporters after her last presentation of Bank Negara’s annual report here yesterday.
1MDB, in an immediate response, reiterated that it had fully cooperated with the central bank in the past 12 months.
“We highlight that 1MDB has fully cooperated to the extent possible with Bank Negara’s investigations, including providing documentary evidence where available.”
Bank Negara had, in August 2015, revoked three permissions granted to 1MDB under the Exchange Control Act 1953 (ECA) for investments abroad totalling US$1.83bil (RM7.3bil) and issued a directive under the Financial Services Act 2013 to 1MDB to repatriate the sum to Malaysia.
The central bank also recommended criminal action against 1MDB.
But in September last year, the Attorney-General (A-G) cleared 1MDB of any wrongdoing, and said no further action should be taken against the debt-ridden fund.
Zeti conceded that the proposed administrative enforcement actions, which could result in either a penalty or compound against 1MDB, would still require the A-G’s endorsement.
Zeti, who officially retires at the end of April after 35 years with the central bank, also outlined the qualities of her successor.
She said the next central bank chief would need to command the respect of the people and the markets besides having to manage monetary and financial stability at a volatile time for the global economy.
“Not anybody can be appointed to the position,” she said, adding that candidates must have extensive knowledge, especially in the current volatile economic environment.
Several names have emerged as possible successors, with Bank Negara’s most senior deputy governor Datuk Muhammad Ibrahim, a career central banker, reckoned as the internal candidate of choice.
Besides him, the names of three others have been speculated as possible successors – the Minister in charge of economic planning in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar, Malaysian ambassador to the United States Datuk Awang Adek Hussin, and the secretary-general of the Treasury at the Finance Ministry Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/03/24/i-will-resolve-1mdb-issue/
Canada has rescued 800 times more Syrian refugees than Australia, figures show
.. one Australian disgrace ..
Date February 17, 2016
Nicole Hasham
Environment and immigration correspondent
VIDEO 1:17 - Canadian PM welcomes first Syrian refugees
Justin Trudeau tells crowds waiting to welcome Syrian refugees that it's a wonderful
night where Canada gets to show the world how to open their hearts to people in need.
Syrian refugees just want a fresh start
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/syrian-refugees-just-want-a-fresh-start-20160215-gmuyto
Canada has resettled 800 times more Syrian refugees in three months than Australia has in almost twice the time, fuelling concern the delay is pushing desperate families in the Middle East into a perilous crossing to Europe.
Labor has called on Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to explain why Australia has resettled just 26 Syrian refugees five months after former Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced an emergency intake of 12,000 "as quickly as possible".
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is under fire for the
slow processing of Syrian refugees. Photo: Andrew Meares
In just three months, the Canadian government has flown in 20,490 Syrian refugees.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says families sheltering in nations such as Lebanon and Jordan are struggling to find shelter, food, education and work, prompting them to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean.
Refugee settlement agencies in Australia that readied for an influx of Syrians, including renting homes and amassing staff, have reportedly been forced to put their plans on hold.
But a spokesman for Mr Dutton said the government is conducting rigorous security and other checks that cannot be rushed.
At a Senate estimates hearing last week, immigration officials revealed just 26 Syrian refugees had arrived since the 12,000 intake was announced in September.
In contrast, official Canadian Government figures on Wednesday showed 20,490 Syrian refugees had landed in that country since November 4. A total of 25,000 are due to arrive by the end of February.
A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, a government agency, said the nation was "getting refugees here as quickly as we can, and we're doing it in a way that is correct and appropriate and takes due concern for security, medical and other issues".
This included in-depth family interviews, the collection of biographical information and biometrics such as fingerprints and digital photos, checked against databases.
All refugees also underwent full medical examinations and criminal and security checks.
Canada's progressive Trudeau government was reportedly forced to defend its refugee screening last month after it was scrutinised by a Republican-controlled United States Senate committee.
Asked why the Turnbull government was lagging so far behind Canada, a spokeswoman for Mr Dutton said his government "takes our national security extremely seriously".
"Rigorous security checks are being conducted by Australian government agencies at a number of key points during visa processing, including the checking of biometric data," she said.
"Processing time varies according to the circumstances of individual applicants … we will not rush this process and it will take whatever time it takes."
Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said appropriate health and security checks were needed but "this is a pitifully small number" of refugees.
"The government made it pretty clear they would seek to relocate the people as quickly as possible. Mr Dutton needs to explain why the go-slow," he said.
Refugee Council of Australia chief executive Paul Power, who travelled to Lebanon in December to assess the refugee situation, said many were desperate.
"The fact that Australia's offer is happening so slowly is certainly not helping an incredibly difficult situation," he said.
Mr Power said refugee resettlement organisations in Australia had been left in the lurch after gearing up to deal with the emergency intake
"[Some] are paying for ... on-arrival accommodation for refugees who were expected to arrive a month ago [or] are paying the wages of staff to greet people as they arrive," he said.
One such organisation Fairfax Media spoke to confirmed they had been forced to find other uses for homes they rented for Syrian refugees.
Greens immigration spokeswoman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused the government of "trying to wriggle out of its commitment on the Syrian intake".
"The experience in Canada shows us that this can be done fairly, efficiently and safely. I urge the Australian Government to get on with it and start to protect these men, women and children who simply want to integrate into our community and rebuild their lives," she said
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/canada-has-rescued-800-times-more-syrian-refugees-than-australia-figures-show-20160217-gmw7dz.html
-- .. remember the Liberal party in Australia are the conservatives, whereas in Canada they are on the other side ..
25,000 Syrian refugees in four months: How did Canada do it?
9 March 2016 8:27AM
Prior to Canada's federal election late last year, Canada had a modest target of accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016
and few of them had arrived by election day. This was 2,000 less than Australia's target of 12,000, despite Canada's larger population.
All this changed one morning last September when the world awoke to pictures of the corpse of a three-year-old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, lying face down on a Turkish beach. Little Alan had an aunt in Vancouver and the family was hoping to join her there. The picture of Alan struck most Canadians the way they had by pictures of the Hai Hong, in 1978, overloaded with Vietnamese refugees, lying off Malaysia where the ship had been refused landing. A spontaneous outcry across the country demanded that Canada do more for the Syrians, so little Alan might not have died in vain.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was deaf to the outcry and urged caution in processing so many people from an area rife with terrorists. However, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, campaigning on a platform of 'real change' was not. He declared that the refugees are not terrorists but rather the victims of terrorists. He committed, if elected, to bring to Canada 25,000 Syrian Government-sponsored refugees by the end of the year. This number was to be in addition to Syrian refugees arriving under Canada's Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program that allows groups of five or more to sponsor refugees.
Justin Trudeau and the Liberals won a majority on 19 October and the Liberal Government took office on 4 November 2015. The goal of bringing 25,000 refugees to Canada in less than two months was extremely ambitious. But the Liberals also campaigned on the promise of making evidence-based decisions. The original Liberal plan involved bringing the Syrians to Canada as temporary residents, housing them on military bases and processing them for admissibility, health, security and criminality in Canada. The new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, John McCallum quickly realised the difficulties involved in this approach, not the least of which would be trying to deport stateless people should they not qualify. So he changed gears.
The revised Liberal plan involved sending large processing teams to refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The Canadian Armed Forces would establish the processing centres and provide Medical Corps staff to conduct physical examinations of the refugees. Immigration officers, agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police worked hand in hand in the camps to process the refugees. They were referred to Canada by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the basis of vulnerability. Therefore, single mothers with children and families received priority. In all, over 600 military and public service personnel were deployed to the Middle East to carry out the operation and they were supported by thousands more in Canada.
The target date for reaching 25,000 was pushed back to February 29, 2016. The new plan was announced on 24 November, less than three weeks after the Liberals took office. There was little more than three months to meet the target.
The first refugee flights to Canada were provided by the Royal Canadian Air Force and then, as the operations became almost routine, charters arranged by the International Organization for Migration carried most of the refugees. The very first flight of Government-sponsored refugees arrived in Toronto on 10 December and was met by Prime Minister Trudeau, Immigration Minister McCallum and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. The refugees were admitted to Canada and given winter clothing and the children were given bags of toys. Then they were hustled off to temporary accommodation prior to going to their final destinations.
Canada takes in about 7500 Government-sponsored refugees each year and in all major cities there is at least one refugee reception centre, operated by a non-governmental organisation but funded by the Government. These reception centres provide interim housing and offer classes to help orient the refugees to Canada. So, in large measure, the capacity to receive a large refugee movement is in place. The Government-sponsored refugees have been sent to about 40 different cities and the privately sponsored refugees, who will go to where their sponsors live in more than 260 communities across Canada.
The 25,000th Syrian refugee arrived in Montreal on 27 February, meeting the target two days early. In all, 95 chartered flights arrived in a space of 80 days. However, the Government commitment was to bring in 25,000 Government-sponsored refugees, and only about 60% of the first group were Government-sponsored. The goal now is to bring in another 10,000 in the coming months and private sponsorships continue to flow in as well. As of 1 March, a total of 26,166 Syrian refugees have arrived, another 2382 applications have been finalised and are pending travel to Canada, and over 12,000 further applications are in process. About 3500 have gone to Toronto and about 3300 to Montreal with smaller numbers going to other cities.
While the Settlement Service Organisations across Canada are experienced in welcoming large numbers every year, the fast arrival of so many Syrian refugees is putting stress on the system. The most immediate challenge is housing. About two-thirds of the arrivals have been placed but the other third is still in refugee reception centres or hotels while the search for housing continues. The school system, especially in larger cities, is straining to take in thousands of new students, most of whom do not speak English or French and it will take some time before all adults are placed in language classes as well.
How did Canada manage to meet such an ambitious goal? Ironically, it was the ambitious goal itself that galvanised the Public Service and the Armed Forces to develop innovative approaches. A smaller goal would have resulted in 'more of the same' and disappointing results. As Minister McCallum said: 'One definition of real change is you're doing something you've never done before.'
Melissa Renwick/Toronto Star via Getty Images
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2016/03/09/25000-Syrian-refugees-in-four-months-How-did-Canada-do-it.aspx
See also:
Why Putin's surprise move to withdraw from Syria makes sense
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121193078
Shorten’s great ‘election risk’ is worth taking
March 12, 2016 Written by: Michael Taylor 63 Replies
Image from theguardian.com
Michael Taylor
The headline in The Age today, ‘Battle lines: Shorten’s great election risk’ linked to the article ‘I can win’: Bill Shorten draws election battle lines .. http://i1.wp.com/theaimn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/4308.jpg?w=460.
‘Great election risk’ is good click bait. I’m glad it was, otherwise I might not have bothered to read the article. The mainstream media has a habit of giving us blazing, enticing headlines that, when read, reveal stories far removed from what the headline suggested.
After reading this particular article I would have been more satisfied if the headline was ‘Shorten is addressing the issues that Turnbull ignores: issues vital to the future of Australia’. Because that was the crux of the article.
It is unlikely that the Murdoch media will pay any attention to Shorten’s important statements (nope, just checked, they are nowhere on news.com) so it is up to social and independent media to help spread the message. Perhaps the reason the Murdoch media will ignore his statements is because they might win Labor some votes.
Many, many readers of the social and independent media sites don’t read anything published in the mainstream media. For good reason, of course. However, this is one article worth reading. Here are the main points:
---
Bill Shorten says he will put climate change at the centre of his campaign to become prime minister despite the political risks as he seeks to draw the election battle lines against the “underwhelming” Malcolm Turnbull.
As Mr Turnbull prepares to mark six months in power on Monday – and with early-budget and double-dissolution election speculation now at fever pitch – Mr Shorten says the Prime Minister has been a huge letdown for many Australians.
As Mr Shorten prepares to give a major set-piece speech outlining his election priorities to the National Press Club on Tuesday, he has declared he will not run a “small target” election campaign by avoiding tough issues.
Rather, Labor will continue to put out detailed and potentially contentious policy proposals, as it did on negative gearing.
And he won’t be shying away from the issue that did so much damage to Labor under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
“We’re going to fight the election with climate change as one of our big issues,” he said. “Climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity for Australia if we respond to it correctly.”
Labor has already proposed ambitious emissions reduction and renewable energy targets and has promised to take a new emissions trading scheme to the election.
Asked about the political risk of taking an ETS to the people so soon after the bruising carbon tax debate, Mr Shorten said: “We’re risking the future if we don’t show leadership.”
“I’m not going to go down Mr Turnbull’s low road of just wanting the job for the sake of having the job. There’s no point being in politics – or seeking to form a government – if you’re not going to do anything to improve this country,” he said.
While the election is still considered Mr Turnbull’s to lose, there is a growing sense that Mr Shorten and his team cannot be written off.
He believes the election will ultimately be less about personalities and more about ideas – and he doesn’t believe the government has many ideas.
“My prediction is they’re going to have a couple of positive announcements and then they’re going to go negative,” he said.
The election will also be about unity, conviction and authenticity.
“I run my party, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t run his,” Mr Shorten said.
“My party’s united, Malcolm Turnbull’s party is divided. I don’t have to pretend to be what I’m not – Malcolm Turnbull does.”
---
Bingo! Bill Shorten wants to do something about climate change and Malcolm Turnbull is a leader of a divided party.
But this article began with the suggestion that Bill Shorten is taking a risk in making climate change mitigation an election issue. I disagree with this suggestion. I believe we are taking a risk if we don’t address climate change. This is, and should be, one of the major issues this country faces. Bill Shorten wants to talk about it, but meanwhile elsewhere we’ll be reading we should be having discussions whether or not climate change is real, or they’ll keep promoting the opinion of deniers, or this suggestion from Lenore Taylor that much about this election is unknown.
Well this is known: Bill Shorten and Labor want to do something about climate change. One of the reasons they lost the 2013 election was because of their climate change strategies. I commend Bill Shorten for having the guts not to be deterred, and for putting issues and policy at the centre of the table.
If that’s a risk, then it’s one worth taking. The electorate deserve to know that he’s prepared to take it.
Help Support The AIMN
Please consider making a donation to support The AIMN and independent journalism.
http://theaimn.com/shortens-great-election-risk/
It has just come to light the Turnbull government is making cuts to Kids Dental.
Medicare dental scheme: millions of children to benefit
Dan Harrison Health and Indigenous Affairs Correspondent
Date January 1, 2014
More than 3 million children will be eligible for Medicare-funded dental care under a scheme starting on Wednesday.
The $2.7 billion scheme is the final element of a dental package negotiated by the Greens with Julia Gillard in return for their support for her minority government.
Under the scheme, families who receive Family Tax Benefit Part A will be eligible for $1000 worth of Medicare-funded
treatment over a two-year period. About 3.4 million children between the ages of two and 17 are expected to benefit.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/medicare-dental-scheme-millions-of-children-to-benefit-20131231-304n7.html
Some one million children have benefitted from that scheme meaning
some two million could suffer from the new cuts exposed today.
Also further Americanization of Australia's health system means further erosion of a wider erosion of all patient benefit.
Radical reforms to health insurance flagged by Turnbull Government
Julia Medew Health Editor Date November 9, 2015 Comments 263
VIDEO
How much personal information would you be willing to give away to health insurers, on the promise of cheaper premiums?
Private health insurers would be allowed to cover GP visits and common tests such as X-rays under radical reforms
being canvassed by the Turnbull government that would shift Australia towards a more US-style health system.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/radical-reforms-to-health-insurance-flagged-by-turnbull-government-20151108-gktobi.html
Turnbull looked markedly better than Abbott BEFORE the adjustments required for him to depose Abbott and become leader of the Australia Liberal party.
As Malcolm Turnbull's popularity subsides it's increasingly looking like an early federal election for Australia. Possibly in July.
Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population.
By James Traub
Narendra Modi flashes the victory sign while driving through the streets on May 8, 2014 in Varanasi, India. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
This past March, a group of community activists in Aurangabad, an industrial city in central India, convened a morcha — a demonstration — to protest a series of blatantly anti-Muslim measures taken by the state government in Mumbai, which is controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The morcha operated according to a well-worn protocol: A colorful tent was erected in a vacant lot across the street from the office of the district commissioner, and 250 or so Muslim men sat in the shade while a succession of speakers — a very long succession of speakers — denounced the state government and called for civil disobedience, in the spirit of Gandhi’s famed Salt March against the British, should their demands not be met.
The leaders of the demonstration then walked up a long driveway to formally present their demands to the district commissioner, who promised to relay them to the Maharashtra state authorities. The humble folk stayed back in the tent so as not to block traffic. Quite a few of them were qureish — cattle butchers — who had lost their jobs when the government had banned the consumption of beef the week before. They were trying to figure out how they were going to feed their families or send their kids to school. And they were wondering who, if anyone, would protect their interests amid India’s new politics of Hindu chauvinism.
Over the last year, since Modi became prime minister, the news out of India has focused almost entirely on his struggle to open up India’s economy and attract foreign investment. That has been reassuring both for many Indians and for economic partners abroad. But Modi is himself a product of the militant, trident-shaking ideological parent of the BJP known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He was chief minister of Gujarat state in 2002 when Hindu mobs killed more than 1,000 Muslims, and he was blamed for failing to stem the violence. The RSS chauvinists, who dream of a Hindu-dominant India, adore him as their champion. That is precisely what India’s Muslims fear.
India’s Muslims have noted every apparent straw in the wind. And there have been many of late. In March alone: Subramanian Swamy, a senior BJP leader from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, declared in a speech .. http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mosque-is-not-a-religious-place-it-s-just-a-building-bjp-leader-subramanian-swamy/article1-1326405.aspx .. that mosques, unlike temples, are not holy places and thus can be demolished. Two days later, the BJP chief minister of the northern state of Haryana announced .. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Teaching-of-Bhagavad-Gita-to-be-introduced-in-schools-Khattar/articleshow/46573794.cms .. that the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu holy text, would become mandatory throughout the state. A number of churches were vandalized. A 71-year-old nun in the eastern state of West Bengal was gang-raped. And the beef-ban movement was spreading to new states.
India, of course, contains multitudes, and these incidents could be dismissed as the usual turbulence. Modi has conducted himself with remarkable circumspection, reassuring Muslims and other minorities about their place in Indian society, avoiding loaded or ambivalent language, and building bridges with Pakistan. He has not, however, tried to stop BJP state governments from pursuing a more nationalist agenda or has done much to curb inflammatory rhetoric. India has survived, and thrived, as a multiconfessional, multicultural nation because of a shared faith in secular principles enshrined in the country’s constitution. But India’s Muslims, who have worn that secular identity as a suit of armor in Hindu India, now feel more vulnerable than they have in many years.
An evening view in Aurangabad, known as the city of gates. (Photo by Sami Siva for FP)
A Homecoming
I lived and taught at the Maulana Azad College .. http://maca.ac.in/ .. in Aurangabad almost 40 years ago. Aurangabad then was a dusty backwater with a majestic history. The city owes its name to Aurangzeb, the last of the Muslim rulers known as the Great Mughals,
[ INSERT: .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire .. and video ..
The Mughal Empire (Documentary on India's Great Mughals)
Pig manure could help grow feed for piggeries, cut greenhouse gas emissions, research shows
Landline By Sean Murphy
Updated Fri at 4:24pm
Photo: The pork industry is at the forefront of research into carbon abatement
and finding other profitable uses for effluent. (ABC News: Sean Murphy)
Related Story: Farmers the big winners in $550 million carbon auction
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/landholders-biggest-winners-in-carbon-abatement-auction/6935968
Map: Young 2594 - http://www.google.com/maps/place/Young%202594/@-34.315,148.2999,5z
Pig effluent could be used to grow algae or seaweed that is fed back to pigs as part of a closed-loop system for intensive piggeries.
--
Key points:
* Researchers prove pig poo can be used to help grow algae
* Algae can be fed back to pigs or help to produce methane to generate electricity
* Pig manure can also help reduce use of costly fertiliser
--
Researchers at Murdoch University's Algae Research and Development Centre have proven they can grow some aquatic species on untreated pig waste, despite the high concentration of ammonium.
Centre director Dr Navid Moheimani said algae grew naturally in harsh conditions and was a potentially protein-rich source of food for pigs and other animals.
"The algae normally contains one third carbohydrate or sugar, one third protein and one third lipid [fat]," Dr Moheimani said.
"A lot of algae do not produce a lot of cellulose, which means they are very easily digestible.
"The other very important thing for us is to find out what sort of other bacteria like pathogens are coming in with the feed and so we're also testing that."
Even if the algae was too contaminated to use as a feedstock, Dr Moheimani said it would greatly increase the production of methane in on-farm biogas systems.
Biogas systems capture methane from manure, turn it into electricity and export it to the national grid.
At Blantyre Farms near Young in New South Wales, they paid $1 million three years ago for such a system.
Edwina Beveridge, who runs the 25,000 pig operation, said her investment paid for itself in two and a half years.
"It used to cost us about $15,000 a month for electricity and gas and now we get paid about $5,000 a month for selling excess electricity," she said.
The farm is one of seven piggeries sharing $7 million a year from the Commonwealth's Emissions Reduction Fund for its greenhouse gas abatement through methane capture.
"So not only did the biogas project have good economical sense, it's good for the environment as well," she said.
"Who would think a pig farmer could also be a renewable energy supplier?"
Refined manure helping to reduce fertiliser use
Photo: Edwina Beveridge, from Blantyre Farms, says her biogas system paid for itself in two
and a half years. (ABC News: Gregory Heap)
Despite producing just 0.4 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, the pork industry has been at the forefront of research into carbon abatement and finding other profitable uses for effluent.
Investments by Australian Pork Limited and the Co-operative Research Centre for Pork are yielding benefits for small and large piggeries and potentially for Australia's broad acre crop producers.
--
It used to cost us about $15,000 a month for electricity and gas and
now we get paid about $5,000 a month for selling excess electricity.
Edwina Beveridge
--
In the West Australian wheat belt, early field trials showed crops grown with a combination of manure and synthetic fertilisers performed better than those using only fertilisers.
Dr Sasha Jenkins said wheat was grown with pellets of refined pig manure applied with varying rates of fertilisers in a conventional air seeder.
"Basically I think about 25 per cent of their costs are going into synthetic fertilisers, so if they utilise the manure, the refined manure product, we're hoping to reduce the amount of synthetic fertiliser they use," she said.
"That's obviously going to reduce the operation costs of the industry and increase their productivity."
The field trials found big differences in the amount of greenhouse gases released by the treated soil to what would occur in Europe.
According to Australian Pork Limited's manager for environmental research and development, Janine Price, those findings have been groundbreaking for Australia, which has until now relied on European models.
"That's extremely significant because that base-line data that's been generated from that project and other projects goes into the Australian accounts inventory," she said.
"So we can now actually say this is what's going on in Australian feedlots, in piggeries, on broiler farms, on egg layer farms. That's now going into the national accounts.
"It's also being upgraded in all our industry models so when we run our greenhouse calculators and our nutrient balance calculators we have up to date data into that."
Sean Murphy's report will [was] be on Landline on ABC TV on Sunday from midday.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-26/pig-poo-could-help-grow-feed-for-piggeries,-cut-emissions:-study/7203288
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There’s another way to combat climate change — but let’s not call it geoengineering
August 25, 2015 12.19am EDT
Geoengineering the climate may be more palatable if it supports natural processes.
No matter how much we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will not be enough to keep global warming below 2C – the internationally agreed
“safe” limit. This fact has been implied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and confirmed again recently by international research.
Does this mean we should give up? Not at all. There is a plan B to keep warming below dangerous levels: helping the planet to take more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
In his new book Atmosphere of Hope, Tim Flannery, Climate Councillor and Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (and co-author
of this article), argues that these strategies will be necessary to combat climate change, but cannot substitute completely for reducing emissions.
Plan B .. https://theconversation.com/theres-another-way-to-combat-climate-change-but-lets-not-call-it-geoengineering-46519
---
Emissions Reduction Fund - Australia
Displaying 1 - 20 of 37 articles
https://theconversation.com/au/topics/emissions-reduction-fund
See also:
The Political History of Cap and Trade
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110010207
If Kevin Swanson's Son Got Gay Married, 'I'd Sit In Cow Manure And I'd Spread It All Over My Body'
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118573619
Battling ISIS in Indonesia
"Indonesia turns to China as ethnic Uighurs join would-be jihadis"
By SIDNEY JONESJAN. 18, 2016
The attacks in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday are believed to have been organized and funded by Bahrun Naim,
an Indonesian computer expert said to be in Syria. Credit Romeo Gacad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
SINGAPORE — The attack that killed four civilians and four terrorists in central Jakarta last Thursday may be a harbinger of more violence to come. It certainly suggests that ISIS .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org , which claimed responsibility, has already transformed the terrorism threat in Indonesia .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/indonesia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo , after years of mostly foiled plots.
Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, has a tiny jihadist movement relative to its size. Many factors have kept radicalism in check: a stable, democratic government, little internal conflict, peaceful neighbors and tolerance for advocates of Islamic law. It also has an effective counterterrorism police unit, set up after the 2002 Bali bombings.
--
Related Coverage
At Least 20 Killed in Siege by Militants in Burkina Faso JAN. 15, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/world/africa/gunmen-attack-hotel-in-burkina-fasos-capital.html
Many in Jakarta Seem to Shrug Off Terrorist Attack JAN. 15, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/world/asia/jakarta-bomb-attacks.html
Jakarta Attack Raises Fears of ISIS’ Spread in Southeast Asia JAN. 13, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/world/asia/jakarta-explosion.html
--
The Bali bombings, which killed more than 200 people, marked the high point of terrorist capacity in Indonesia. The bombers were from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), trained on the Afghan-Pakistani border and funded by Al Qaeda. Although those attacks were carried out in the name of the global jihad, most JI members — like many other local extremist groups — were focused on avenging the deaths of Muslims in Christian-Muslim fighting in two areas of eastern Indonesia, Maluku and Poso. The groups involved in that struggle in the late 1990s and early 2000s laid the basis for the extensive network of jihadist cells that exists in Indonesia today.
With the arrests that followed the Bali attacks and the end of local wars, the jihadist movement weakened and fragmented. But it did not disappear. By the mid-2000s, JI decided violence was largely counterproductive and redirected its efforts toward rebuilding its membership through religious outreach and education. Other extremist groups, some of them splinters from JI, remained committed to jihad, but they lacked JI’s training regimen, indoctrination process and discipline. From 2010 until last week, out of dozens of attempted bomb attacks in Indonesia, not one bomb worked as intended, and three suicide attacks killed only the attackers themselves.
But then ISIS emerged, and suddenly there was the potential for Indonesian extremists to go to Syria and get military training, combat experience, ideological indoctrination and international contacts. What had become a low-level threat became more serious again.
Thursday’s attacks were reportedly organized and funded by Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian computer expert said to be in Syria. Last August, three men were arrested in Solo, in central Java, for planning to bomb a police post, a church and a Chinese temple on Mr. Naim’s instructions. (The temple was targeted as retaliation for Buddhist violence against Muslims in Myanmar.) In December, four more of Mr. Naim’s men were picked up for plotting attacks against senior police officials and Shiite institutions.
Even as terrorist activity has picked up in the last year, Indonesia has been shielded from its effects by the incompetence of would-be attackers, as well as police vigilance. In 2015, the total death toll from terrorism was just eight people; in 2014, it was four. The terrorists of the Solo plot, for example, apparently couldn’t figure out the right chemicals to make explosives. Last Thursday’s attacks could have been much deadlier had the perpetrators been better trained.
This weakness could lead Mr. Naim or other terrorists in the Middle East to send operatives back to Indonesia to instruct local extremists. And if the Jakarta attack did not cause the mass casualties its organizers were hoping for, the saturation news coverage it generated may turn that near-failure into a success of sorts, and encourage more attacks. Other ISIS sympathizers in Indonesia may want to strike in the hope of attracting similar attention. The rivalry between the two men who are said to be vying for the leadership of Indonesian fighters in Syria, Bahrumsyah and Abu Jandal, could blow back to Indonesia in the form of lethal competition among their supporters.
The need for more preventive measures has therefore become pressing. One necessity is plugging the holes in Indonesia’s anti-terrorism law, which at present does not ban membership in ISIS or similar organizations, or participation in terrorist-training camps abroad. Even when the Indonesian police know that individuals are actively recruiting for ISIS, they have few legal tools to stop them.
Another necessary step is to improve supervision and post-release monitoring of convicted terrorists. Pro-ISIS networks are able to disseminate information and contacts in Indonesian prisons, in part because almost every inmate has ready access to a smartphone. At any one time, some 300 individuals are either in prison or police custody awaiting trial on terrorism charges — many of them still in regular communication with peers on the outside. Dozens are released every year after serving their sentences, and the state authorities do not monitor them afterward.
The government must also develop a program for deportees who have been returned to Indonesia. So far some 200 Indonesians who tried to join ISIS have been sent back by Turkish authorities, some 60 percent of them women and minors, and if there ever was a target population for a deradicalization program, this is it. These people, often especially the women, have proved their determination to go to Syria or Iraq, and they may try to do so again. Their whereabouts are known, at least for the moment, and many need assistance because they sold everything before leaving. The Ministry of Social Affairs provides them temporary shelter, but no structured program assists them beyond that. The Indonesian government must work with local civil society organizations to draw these people into new social networks.
Finally, Indonesia needs to engage young, computer-savvy Indonesians to develop anti-ISIS messaging on social media and online, where Mr. Naim and other radical groups are actively spreading ISIS propaganda.
So far, the combination of Indonesia’s moderate majority, good police work and the incompetence of Indonesian extremists has kept the death toll from terrorist attacks low. But with ISIS now clearly present as a new threat, the government must urgently develop more programs to prevent its appeal from spreading.
Sidney Jones is director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/opinion/battling-isis-in-indonesia.html
===
What the Jakarta attack tells us about the fight against terrorism
By John Blaxland
Updated January 15, 2016 08:54:49
Photo: "The response from the Indonesian police and security authorities
appears to be as professional as one could expect." (Reuters: Beawiharta)
The explosions and killings in downtown Jakarta yesterday are a grim and depressing reminder of the determination of violent
extremists. But they also show how much has changed - for the better - in the fight against them. John Blaxland writes.
The explosions and killings in downtown Jakarta on Thursday January 14, 2016 have captured the headlines, raising fresh concerns about the reach of the so-called Islamic State, or Daesh. Choosing to attack at a Starbucks café popular with wealthy Indonesians and expats, and striking close to embassies, UN offices and government buildings, the attackers appear deliberately to have intended to spread fear amongst local authorities and those associated with the West. Similarly, the targeting of Indonesian police officers - who have proven so effective in cracking down on violent extremism in Indonesia in recent months and years - appears also to have been a deliberate part of the plan. Undermining the effectiveness and resolve of the police would have to be a high priority for any emergent extremist group seeking to expand its influence and reach.
This all seems so grim and depressing. But contrasting recent events with those of the last decade or more point to a number of relatively positive developments. First, there has been a dearth of such incidents in Indonesia for some time now. There have been tip offs and hints of such attacks often enough, but they have tended to be pre-empted or otherwise neutralised. In addition, the terrorist attacks of the past tended to focus on major hotels, embassies or crowded and larger venues. Back then, unconstrained by effective surveillance, dramatic and devastating acts of barbarity were relatively easy to accomplish. This time, major institutions were not attacked directly. It appears such plotters now find it harder to gain ready access to such places without being screened out.
Earlier terrorist attacks also tended to involve massive explosions. With easier access to the right ingredients, more substantial blasts could be generated and more ostentatious targets could be attacked with relative impunity. The Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, for instance, as well as the various hotel and Australian embassy bombings in Jakarta involved large explosives intended to kill and maim large numbers. The ones reported on Thursday seem relatively light, resulting in more deaths among the perpetrators of these violent acts than anyone else.
The response from the Indonesian police and security authorities appears to be as professional as one could expect under the circumstances, too. Their conduct demonstrates how they have made significant progress in the last decade and a half. Close collaboration with Australian police, notably through the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC), which was established with close Australian involvement, has undoubtedly played a constructive role in this regard.
The Indonesian authorities also have been proactive in banning extremist groups like Daesh and arresting those identified as being involved. Similarly, Indonesian Government efforts to monitor and contain travel to and from the Daeshist heartland in Syria have been of a high order.
The Snowden revelations, which exposed sophisticated eavesdropping techniques, undoubtedly harmed bilateral Indonesian-Australian relations. But perhaps the gravest damage was the way they made it much harder for security authorities in either country to detect and monitor the terrorists' chatter in the lead up to the launching of attacks. In recent years, until Snowden's revelations, collaboration enabled relatively prompt and effective responses which led to the arrest and incarceration of scores of would-be violent extremists and the spoiling of numerous other plots. While Snowden's fans may protest, the fact remains that, since his revelations, violent extremists have been far more security savvy. The job of detecting them has become considerably more difficult.
On the other hand, for such would-be terrorists to conduct their planning, they have had to act with far greater discretion. In turn, this discretion, arising from concern about monitoring, has constrained their ability, it appears, to act on a grander scale.
So while we should commiserate with those affected and empathise with our neighbours and friends in Indonesia, we should also take heart that the efforts of the Indonesian authorities are paying dividends – as are Australia's efforts at the working level to foster greater collaboration.
That said, the terrible events on Thursday remind us of the need for vigilance and for continuing to press in to Indonesia to collaborate closely with them, as well as other neighbouring countries. That collaboration is necessary to mitigate the risks associated with those who go to fight with groups such as IS and seek to return home, fired up with a bloodthirsty zeal. This also applies to the growing number of home-grown extremists, often at the margins of society who are fired up by the wild rants of the zealots of death.
In considering how to respond, Australia should remember that megaphone preaching is invariably unwelcome. A quiet and respectful engagement will help foster greater capability and enhance collaboration for the mutual security benefit of us all. Australia still has much to offer to assist in honing police and intelligence capabilities. After all, Australia and Indonesia have common concerns and security challenges.
Conversely, we Australians sometimes find it hard to think we have much to learn from Indonesia. Yet on the matter of how to respond to and handle the growth of such extremist behaviour, we should closely and respectfully consult with our neighbours and friends. They understand the nature of the challenge and how to respond as well as anyone. In fact, it is worth remembering that Indonesia is the largest predominantly Muslim country in the world and a remarkably bustling and relatively successful democracy. Yet Indonesian Islam is distinct from and more accommodating of otherness than the violent jihadist Islam associated with groups such as Daesh. Understanding how Indonesia differentiates between legitimate expression of faith and the toxic manifestations embraced by fringe elements in society is an area where we could all learn more.
John Blaxland is a senior fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in the Bell School of Asia pacific Affairs,
College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnBlaxland1.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-15/blaxland-what-the-jakarta-attacks-tells-us-about-terrorism-today/7090290
UpFront - How can ISIL be defeated?
Malcolm Turnbull asks for investigation into minister Stuart Robert's China trip
"Kevin Andrews skips Parliament to address conservative lobby group in Washington on defence"
PM asks his department to investigate whether Robert breached ministerial standards by attending event to mark mining deal involving party donor
Stuart Robert at a signing ceremony with a mining company in China. Photograph:
China Minmetals Corporation
Daniel Hurst Political correspondent
@danielhurstbne
Monday 8 February 2016 00.56 EST
Last modified on Monday 8 February 2016 04.06 EST
Malcolm Turnbull .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/malcolm-turnbull .. has sought advice on whether the frontbencher Stuart Robert breached ministerial standards when he attended an event in China to celebrate a mining deal involving a major Liberal party donor.
The prime minister said while he had confidence in all of his ministers, he had asked his top bureaucrat to investigate the matter – a move that casts a shadow on Robert’s future as Turnbull considers a long-awaited reshuffle.
Robert, the minister for human services and veterans’ affairs, faces questions over a trip to Beijing in August 2014 when the then assistant defence minister took part in a ceremony marking a deal between two mining companies.
--
Minister faces questions over private Beijing visit for donor's mining deal
Read more .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/08/minister-faces-questions-over-private-beijing-visit-for-donors-mining-deal
--
The Australian company in question, Nimrod Resources, is headed by Paul Marks, who donated $340,000 .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/01/australian-political-donations-2014-15-resource-tycoons-and-unions-among-top-donors .. to the Liberal party in 2014-15.
Robert’s office has told News Corp he attended the event in a private capacity .. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/secret-china-deal-puts-federal-mp-stuart-robert-under-pressure/news-story/93814fd0d2349fc64be07565cfac7992 , but a press release issued by China Minmetals Corporation .. http://www.minmetals.com/english/News/201505/t20150528_68729.html .. said he had extended his congratulations “on behalf of the Australian Department of Defence”.
The company said the minister had presented Minmetals chairman Zhou Zhongshu “a medal bestowed to him by Australian prime minister in honor of remembrance and blessing” and also “awarded the letter of appointment” of an exploration technical committee. Robert argued the press release was inaccurate.
Labor pursued the issue in parliamentary question time on Monday, suggesting Robert’s visit might have breached ministerial standards .. https://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/statement_ministerial_standards.pdf .
Section 2.20 of the statement on standards says a minister “shall not act as a consultant or adviser to any company, business, or other interests, whether paid or unpaid, or provide assistance to any such body, except as may be appropriate in their official capacity as minister”.
Turnbull said: “I can confirm that I have confidence in all of my ministers, including the minister for human services.”
But the prime minister left himself room to move when the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet responded to his request for advice.
“The minister travelled to China in August 2014 while on personal leave,” Turnbull said.
“His personal leave was approved on behalf of the prime minister at the time [Tony Abbott] in accordance with the usual procedures. In relation to those media reports, I can confirm that I have asked the secretary of my department for advice in relation to the statement of ministerial standards.”
Labor tried to ask Robert directly what he had declared on his Chinese visa application form to be the purpose of the visit: official visit, tourism, non-business visit, business and trade, or work.
But the Speaker, Tony Smith, ruled the question out of order on the basis that questions about ministerial standards were a matter for the prime minister.
The leader of the house, Christopher Pyne, argued against allowing the question to Robert, saying the minister was travelling privately on a personal trip and there was no cost to the commonwealth of his travel.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said Turnbull should ask Robert to explain the visa declaration and “report back at the earliest possible moment”.
Turnbull implied this would be part of the investigation. “I note the inquiry the honourable minister has made and no doubt the secretary will too,” the prime minister said.
“I deal with these matters very thoroughly and very seriously and in accordance with the code. That’s what will be done.”
Labor’s defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, said Robert had been invited to the event because he was a minister. “Every minister knows you are not allowed to use your office for your personal benefit,” Conroy said.
“Ultimately, if all of the facts are that Stuart Robert has used his position as a minister to promote a company that has made major donations to the Liberal party .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/liberal-party , that he’s a personal investor in, then he has to go. Malcolm Turnbull should show leadership and uphold the ministerial code of conduct.”
The current statement of ministerial standards says in section 2.1: “Although their public lives encroach upon their private lives, it is critical that ministers do not use public office for private purposes.”
Robert’s office told News Corp: “Mr Robert was on leave and attended in a private capacity. Mr Robert is not responsible for what is published by private companies such as Minmetals. As part of Mr Robert’s visit, he and Chairman Zhou exchanged lapel pins.”
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, defended his friend.
“He was there at his own expense, paid his own way, he was actually on leave and he gave the bloke a pin because he was given one,” Morrison told 2GB.
“So, he took the pin off his own lapel – which was something he paid for. So, it was his own property and he gave it to him. This is a ridiculous beat-up.”
Turnbull is due to reshuffle his frontbench when the leader of the Nationals, Warren Truss, announces a decision on his political future .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/02/warren-truss-tells-nationals-he-will-reveal-plans-for-his-future-in-march . Mal Brough stood aside .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/29/mal-brough-steps-aside-as-minister-while-police-investigate-slipper-affair .. as special minister of state and Jamie Briggs resigned as the minister for cities and the built environment late last year.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/08/malcolm-turnbull-investigation-minister-stuart-robert-china-trip
.. could Robert be three ..
UPDATE: Frontbencher Stuart Robert under pressure
Updated February 09, 2016 19:02:00
The hold of the Federal Human Services Minister Stuart Robert on his frontbench position is looking more precarious by the day. For the second day in a row, the Turnbull Government
faced sustained questions in Parliament about Mr Robert's trip to China in 2014, where he attended a signing ceremony supporting a friend who is a major Liberal Party donor.
More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-09/frontbencher-stuart-robert-under-pressure/7153768
and more Australian news updated daily here
ABC News Programs .. http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/transcripts/
Indian Women Seeking Jobs Confront Taboos and Threats
Geeta led a group of women in her village in northern India who defied an order to quit working in nearby factories.
The Indian Constitution guarantees equality under the law. But for women facing a patriarchal social order, strict caste rules and centuries of traditions, that guarantee means little.
By ELLEN BARRY; Photographs by ANDREA BRUCEJAN. 30, 2016
On a humid, sweaty, honking afternoon last summer, two women were making their way through the court complex in the north Indian city of Meerut, searching for the office of the subdivisional magistrate.
They walked past the purveyors of stamp papers and affidavits, typists clickety-clacking on stools, barristers-at-law in flapping gowns, pillars of wadded files bound in twine.
It is fair to say that these two did not belong. They had the swaying walk of village women — half-duck, half-ballerina — who have spent their lives balancing bundles of firewood on their heads. When they entered the office of a criminal defense lawyer, in the sweat-stained broom closet where he receives clients, they were at first so conscious of their low status that they tried to sit on the floor.
Related Coverage
‘We Will Not Apologize’: Chronicling the Defiant Women of India JAN. 30, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/insider/we-will-not-apologize-encountering-the-defiant-women-of-india.html
They were engaging his services because they wanted to work. They lived 10 miles away, in a small settlement where, for generations, begging had been the main source of income. A few weeks earlier, the male elders of their caste had decreed that village women working at nearby meat-processing factories should leave their jobs. The reason they gave was that women at home would be better protected from the sexual advances of outside men. A bigger issue lay beneath the surface: The women’s earnings had begun to undermine the old order.
---
India’s Missing Women
Articles in this series will explore why women in India are
struggling to enter the work force, despite a prolonged economic
expansion, rising education and declining fertility.
---
It came as a surprise when seven of the women, who had come to rely on the daily wage of 200 rupees, about $3, refused to stop. The women would have to, the men said, blocking the lane with their bodies. They did not expect the women to go to the police.
It would have been impossible — this appeal to the distant, abstract power of the Indian state — if the women had not been so angry.
Geeta, the younger of the two, was born angry. Even as a child, if her siblings took her portion of food, she was apt to throw everyone’s dinner into the dirt. “A real bastard-woman,” one neighbor called her, eyes widening with admiration.
“Let their ladies sit and cook for them,” Geeta would hiss to her friend Premwati, as they walked together past their neighbors. “Our husbands are with us.”
Premwati was a more cautious sort. In the tradition of their caste, the Nats, a person challenging a community punishment could offer a defense at trial by picking up a red-hot piece of iron and walking five steps toward the temple. If her hands burned, she was guilty, and would be placed in a hole in the ground until she confessed.
The Nat settlement of Peepli Khera lies at the edge of the north Indian city of Meerut, home to more than one million people. But it is far from
the modern world.
They had wandered into dangerous territory, she and Geeta. She knew that. When evening fell in the village of Peepli Khera, Premwati would crouch over her clay stove, rolling chapatis in and out of the embers, and survey the forces arrayed against them. Too poor to afford a house with a door, she lay at night under a thatched roof, listening for the footsteps of people she could not see.
Last summer, as they fought to remain in the work force, Geeta and Premwati made up a small part of a big economic puzzle.
In India, women’s participation in the labor force stands at around 27 percent, lower than any other country in the G-20, except for Saudi Arabia. Standard models suggest that a lucky confluence of factors — economic expansion, rising education levels and plummeting fertility — would draw women swiftly into India’s economy.
Instead, the opposite is happening: From 2005 to 2012, women’s participation rates slid .. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS .. to 27 percent from 37 percent, largely because rural women were dropping out of the work force. Of 189 countries studied by the International Labour Organization, India ranks 17th from the bottom .. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@asia/@ro-bangkok/@sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_324621.pdf .
This is terrible news for India .. http://tinyurl.com/zxdmolj , as it strains to become a competitive producer for world markets. Economists have put forward two theories .. http://www.ideasforindia.in/article.aspx?article_id=1566 .. to explain the decline. The first is that India’s boom has created jobs in segments that are generally not accessible to women, like construction. The second has to do with culture: Unless their choices are dictated by destitute poverty, Indian families seek the status that comes from keeping women at home.
The Nat families were just crossing that threshold, and many things were changing. Premwati and Geeta could feel the grip of the local moneylenders loosening; the taste of independence made them bold. In this way, over five months last spring and summer, the unstoppable force of economic need met the immovable object of social control.
The cost of remaining in the work force, they discovered, was very high.
Water buffalo are slaughtered and processed in Al-Faheem Meatex plant in Meerut. Some women from the village of Peepli Khera found work at such plants.
The Bossiest Woman in the Village
At 10 o’clock on a morning in May, Geeta and Premwati wrapped fried bread in plastic bags and set off on foot toward the meat-processing factories. It was blindingly hot, and stray dogs and buffaloes lay in strips of shade on either side of the road.
To save the 5-rupee, or 7-cent, fare for an auto-rickshaw, they walked the whole dusty distance, nearly an hour from their small community of Nats, who are Hindus, through the Muslim neighborhoods that surround the factories. They kept their dupattas pulled all the way down over their faces, following the medieval tradition of purdah, or veiling, but men in skullcaps lingered in the doorways anyway, gawking.
“What is your name?” one of the men yelled, breaking the silence.
“Geeta,” came the reply, bell-clear.
The two met as young wives, taken away from their home villages and deposited among strangers in Peepli Khera. Geeta, who had barely hit puberty, landed in the grip of a mother-in-law who believed that drinking tea made a girl greedy for extra helpings of food.
So Geeta would sneak over to see Premwati, who made buckets of tea, watery and sweet. Geeta was scrawny and mouthy. She tended to alienate women — maybe it was the way she called them fat buffaloes — but Premwati calmly allowed Geeta’s insults to bubble over her. Geeta returned the favor by stomping over and intervening whenever Premwati’s husband beat her.
“It has become a habit to take a beating,” Geeta said one day, scowling.
In this way, Geeta had carved out a role for herself as the bossiest woman in the village. No one beat her. “Her husband is like a chicken — if she tells him to get up, he will get up!” chuckled the chief in the town where she grew up.
---
Changing Face of Labor
Percent of women participating in each country’s work force.
Source: International Labour Organization
By The New York Times
IMAGE inside ..http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/world/asia/indian-women-labor-work-force.html
---
As the women approached the factories that morning, they pulled their scarves over their faces against the smell, a stomach-turning odor that wafts off tallow-rendering vats and suggests rotting meat. Over the last five years, with the market for flash-frozen buffalo meat booming in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China, India had quietly become the world’s largest meat exporter. The factories outside Meerut were expanding.
For this reason, about five years earlier, Geeta and her friends had been drawn into the labor force, supplementing their husbands’ seasonal earnings as wedding-band musicians. Inside the boundary walls of the factories, they broke rocks into rubble and carried cement mix in shallow pans, balanced on the crowns of their heads, to stonemasons building interior walls. Some washed meat pans; some assembled cartons; some carried bricks.
Geeta and Premwati found the work boring, and also terrifying. The women of their community live by rules: If an older man approaches, they cannot sit on any surface above the ground, so it is not unusual to see them suddenly slither down off cots and chairs. They are forbidden to have physical contact with men from outside the community, with the exception of physicians or bangle sellers.
At first they went to work with their stomachs knotted with fear that a strange man might grab their hand. At this prospect, even Geeta’s nerve collapsed. Once, while carrying a load of mud at a factory that crushes bones for animal feed, she slipped and fell into a 10-foot trench, her leg buckling beneath her. But when the factory’s clerk, a Muslim, reached a hand down to help her up, she jerked away, as if his touch would scald her.
She lay there in the mud, at the bottom of the ditch, until Premwati arrived to help her clamber out.
As the weeks passed, though, their fears ebbed. At the construction sites, they watched migrant workers from Nepal and Bangladesh, buyers who flew in from China, and the sons of the factory owners, roaring in and out in BMWs and Audis.
A woman working at the construction site of a new meat-processing plant, breaking up bricks from demolished construction. For generations in
Peepli Khera, begging had been the main source of income for the Nat community.
At night, returning home, they withdrew sweaty, folded bills from their blouses. A hollow-eyed woman named Pooja announced, with some surprise, that her husband and mother-in-law had stopped beating her. “When you earn money,” she said, “you are of some use to them.” As for Geeta, it became clear to her that the men swarming around the factory grounds were not making sexual advances.
“When you start working, your heart opens up,” she said. “Then you’re not scared anymore.”
At this point, the women began to make changes to their appearance. Geeta took note when the other workers recoiled from her, and began to wash twice a day, with soap. She bought seven-foot lengths of cotton, the brighter the better, and paid tailors to stitch it into billowing pants.
Premwati, whose husband spent most days stretched out drunk on his rope cot, felt, for the first time in years, that she was standing on solid ground. With her earnings she married off three children. One last son needed settling. Then she could exhale.
Geeta’s plans were wilder, more improbable. Though she had never been taught letters or numbers, she worked her cellphone constantly, using a system of vigorous trial and error. In the financial cooperative that the village women had formed, pooling their resources and extending loans, she proved to be an excellent, if frightening, debt-collector. She began making payments into a life insurance policy with such a generous payout that she sometimes daydreamed, a little wistfully, about her husband’s untimely death.
She took advances on her salary, which were interest-free, rather than patronizing the local moneylenders.
Then, last spring, she attracted attention by building a second house for herself, of rosy, freshly kilned brick, abutting the compound of Roshan, the village’s most powerful man.
Geeta, after having been ostracized for refusing to stop work, walked past the homes of neighbors who are shunning her.
Far From the Modern World
When Roshan, the Nat chief in Peepli Khera, is ready to perform an exorcism, he starts out by asking a coy question: “Do you want to see the real drama?”
Then he trembles. His eyes roll back, he arches his tongue against his teeth like the goddess Kali, who communicates to him through a string of wooden beads that he holds up to his ear, as if it were a cellphone. Nat families who are mistrustful of hospitals — that is, nearly all of them — come from miles away to see Roshan, who claims to be able to evict the jinns that have inhabited their bodies.
Asked how many of his patients survive, he barks laughter. “How do I know that? If they survive, they survive.”
In the half-light of evening, Roshan surveys the settlement, his chest thrown out. He has the high cheekbones of his nomadic ancestors, who made a living walking tightropes to entertain the Mughal courts. His lips are speckled and plump as cuts of liver. This is his dominion — about 40 miles northeast from Delhi as the crow flies, but far from the modern world.
Villagers live in a few dozen houses arranged around a whitewashed temple. A plaque notes that the temple was built by Roshan’s family, though no one needs to be reminded, and anyway, only two adults here know how to read. No one uses a surname or knows his or her age. One man, asked how old he thought he was, responded, “I don’t have any teeth left, and I am about to go.”
Roshan, an elder of the Nat caste in the village of Peepli Khera. He and other men
on the village council decided that their female relatives should stop working.
On a recent morning, a woman named Usha, her leg shrunken from polio, held a 4-month-old baby who was suffering from vomiting and diarrhea. His limbs were wasted, and he looked up with the slow, narcotic gaze of a very old man. His vertebrae pressed sharply out of the parchment skin of his back. He was too weak to cry.
Three of Usha’s children had already died. The three who had survived infancy were sitting on the ground near her, eating dry toast from a plastic bag. One was so hungry that he grabbed a raw, half-peeled potato, speckled with rot, out of her hand, and bit into it. When a passing neighbor asked why they were so dirty, she grimaced.
“We are poor people,” she said hoarsely. “We were born in dirt, we live in dirt, we will die in dirt.”
Roshan’s proudest moment occurred decades ago, when a police officer, sniffing for bribes, made the mistake of venturing into the square and grabbing his cousin by the neck. Roshan, then a young man, picked up an ax handle and hit the officer hard in the face. Since then, he likes to say, the police have not found occasion to come here. A boundary had been demarcated: This is a place beyond the reach of the state.
With the arrival of the factories, that boundary had begun to disappear. Roshan’s village was being swallowed by an expanding city. He forbade the women in his own family to work at the factories, but watched with distaste as his neighbors left in the morning. He looked back with nostalgia at the time when the Nats supported themselves by begging.
“Life was much better 20 years back,” he said. “It was a nice society. Now women are going out and meeting strange men.”
[ Longing for the good ol' days of male privilege extremism ]
In the spring of last year, after Geeta built her new house, Roshan’s son Dharmender began observing her with special interest. He noted her new outfits, the way she came home “with the crease in her clothes still visible.” He scanned her friends’ faces for traces of makeup. He shared his suspicion that they worked at an air-conditioned site.
Their work, he said, had a whiff of immorality.
“They have everything: Clothes to wear. Enough to eat,” he said. “Why would they need to work? They still have husbands. It’s not just insulting to them, it’s insulting to the whole village.”
Sharda, another of the village women who were ostracized for continuing to work.
Money and Respect
It was difficult to say where the rumor started. It concerned Geeta’s neighbor Pinki, who had fair skin and a little girl’s high, fluting voice. She was married with one child and worked at one of the new construction sites, breaking rocks with a hammer. Some reported that Pinki had been seen riding on a strange man’s motorcycle, others that a man from the construction site had shown up at her family home.
In May, Roshan vanished into the temple to present the matter to his most trusted authority: the goddess Kali. After a long conversation over the magic necklace, he emerged saying that the goddess had shared a piece of disturbing news. Women in the village, he said, were engaged in prostitution.
“If Kali tells us this person is wrong,” he said, “this person is wrong.”
[ Fair enough, GWB didn't have a magic necklace, God told him he should go to war ]
Roshan wrapped his head in the stained turban that marked him as the chief, and for more than an hour, as the smell of heat and dung filled the square, the men of the village debated what to do. The problem, Roshan said, went beyond Pinki, to the general question of what went on when their women disappeared into the factories.
His younger brother was in full agreement: Female employment, he said, “has spread like wildfire” and was hurting the reputation of the village. A third elder, their cousin, observed that his own wife worked at a factory, adding 5,000 rupees a month to the 1,800 he earned in a wedding band, but that there was an important difference between these income flows. “My money,” he said, “is the money that is earned with respect.”
It was decided: The village’s women would stop working.
Geeta working in the garden of a meat-processing plant, which is used to help feed the factory workers.
Geeta gathered a war council on the floor of her house. They were a party of seven, including Premwati, Pinki and another neighbor, Rekha. Geeta’s proposal was to ignore Roshan’s ban. If their female neighbors were willing to quit their jobs, it was only out of fear. The fear would fade, maybe in a month, maybe in two. In the meantime, she told her friends, they had the full support of the Indian government.
The government she had in mind was a Muslim politician named Jahiruddin Mewati, who had served as chief of the village of Peepli Khera until a few years earlier, and who was running again in the fall.
Mr. Mewati’s furred belly peeks out of the bottom of his dress shirt, and he has Tourette’s syndrome, so he emits a stream of grunts and tics. In the middle of a conversation, he slammed his hand with great force on the table, exclaiming, “I am on the side of the truth! I am not worried about votes! I am the true servant of the people, because injustice has been done!”
Mr. Mewati’s study of politics, especially the tactics of the British Raj, had persuaded him that there was much to be gained — specifically, votes — by inserting himself into local controversies. With all adult men and women counted, there are about 150 votes in the Nat community, nothing to sneeze at in a district where elections are won by a margin of 20 or 30. When Geeta appeared in his reception area, a collection of plastic chairs arranged under a tree, he smelled opportunity.
“Nobody can stop them from going to work,” he said staunchly. “We don’t have a Taliban here. It’s a democracy.”
Heartened, the women decided they would simply leave for work in the morning. Except, when they did, their neighbors were standing there, telling them to stop.
Premwati, another woman ostracized, carrying water from a government hand pump. For a while, the village blocked her access to the communal well.
‘These People Can Beat Me’
“On 18.05.2015 at 9:00 A.M. I was going for work,” reads the report filed at the police station in Kharkhauda, signed with Pinki’s thumbprint and written in the hand of their sponsor, Mr. Mewati.
“These people started saying that we were told not to go to the factory, because bad things are happening at the factory. These people became angry and started abusing me and they threatened to kill me. I request you to lodge my report and take legal action.”
She added, for good measure, “these people can beat me at any time.”
The station officer, Manoj Kumar Singh, took her complaint with a grain of salt. He had seen versions of this drama playing out in other hamlets where young women were leaving for work. The old, patriarchal order was dying in rural India, dying slowly, and releasing toxic bursts as it did.
“That may be the cause of this whole trouble, that they are losing control,” he shrugged. “These old practices are going away.”
When word got out that the women had gone to the police, Roshan’s son Dharmender was the one sent to tell them how they would be punished. He stood in the lane and yelled it over the wall, using the old phrase “Hookah-pani bandh,” a sanction that dates back to medieval times, when sharing a water-pipe packed with tobacco was the prerogative of adult men in rural India. From this point forward all seven women would be outcasts — symbolically denied the hookah, as well as pani, water, from a shared pump.
static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/24/world/24workforce-web10/workforce-slide-5-master1050.jpg
Geeta and Premwati at the courthouse in Meerut, where they took their legal battle to continue working.
Geeta, Premwati and their friends tried to wrap their heads around it. As children they had heard of the rite of ostracism — it was used to frighten them into obedience — but they had never seen it imposed. At first they found ways to adjust, avoiding a confrontation with their neighbors by sticking to the lanes and handpumps that had been constructed with government money.
A few days passed before the finger of the punishment touched them. Geeta’s teenage niece greeted the girl next door and watched her glide by wordlessly, like a ghost. Rekha dialed the numbers of relatives, one after the other, and when she told them what had happened to her and spoke the phrase “hookah-pani,” they hung up.
Then a wedding was held at the home of a neighbor of Geeta’s. There was a bus full of well-wishers, rice and dal for families who converged from a constellation of villages. The outcasts could hear the music from their homes.
A delegation had come from Geeta’s home village, and it included her mother, Anguri. Geeta remembered her tenderly massaging her legs before sending her away to be married. She thought she was around 10. She had seen her on rare occasions since then.
Geeta offered her mother a glass of water. She refused. Geeta offered her tea. She refused. Geeta invited her in. She refused.
“I feared that if I drank it they would declare me an outcast,” her mother said later. “We have no outcasts here. In our community, the elders are supreme.”
Geeta’s mother began to weep, right there in the road. Then she turned her back and returned to the neighbor’s house.
Geeta liked to think of herself as hardened, but this took her by surprise. “She always loved me before this dispute,” she said.
Unwilling to cry in front of the neighbors, Geeta turned, walked into her own house, closed the door, and wept.
Puja tending to goats in her home village, hours from Peepli Khera. She married Premwati’s son last year, but her family took her home from her husband after Premwati was ostracized.
Living as Outcasts
Dharmender was astounded that the seven women persisted in going to work. The rest of the village’s women spent their days collecting firewood, and by mid-July, the piles had grown into towering, tangled masses that threatened to topple over. In the mornings, when Geeta and her friends left for the factories, men lined the roadway and jeered. “Are you going to star in a pornographic movie?” one of them called out.
The whole thing was strange, Dharmender said. The women had been offered a deal, allowing them back in the community if they confessed to “immoral acts” and paid a fine, but they had refused it. Ostracism was such a severe punishment that dissenters usually relented within 24 hours, paying whatever fine the elders demanded. Geeta and her friends had already lived as outcasts for three months. “Who,” he wondered aloud, “would be willing to suffer so much?”
The women, too, were in uncharted territory. Every two weeks, they made a trip to the magistrate’s court in Meerut to renew a restraining order that the police had recommended, which would impose a 50,000-rupee fine on anyone who resorted to violence.
Their lawyer, Mohammed Yusuf Siddiqui, had rarely sat across his desk from such nervous clients. In his practice, it was not unusual to see state justice conflict with caste justice. One of his clients, who had appealed to court in order to obtain a divorce, had been assigned a punishment by his village council, to spit on the ground and then lick the spit.
Still, there was something unusual about these women, who signed each document with a thumbprint. Mr. Siddiqui watched them curiously.
“They know nothing about court procedure,” he said. “They never ask me questions. They just say one thing: ‘We are not wrong. We are not wrong. We are not wrong.’”
Puja cooking breakfast in Peepli Khera, weeks before she returned to her home village. After her mother-in-law was ostracized,
Puja’s marriage began to sour.
Premwati, it turned out, had not fully reckoned how much she had to lose. Earlier in the year, she had managed to arrange a marriage for the second of her sons, a muscular teenager named Bhima. She had found a way to secure a bride without going deeper into debt, enrolling him in a mass wedding sponsored by the government to ease the financial burden on poor families.
Under the circumstances, Bhima was braced for disappointment, but the girl Premwati had found was, improbably, a beauty: her eyes large and luminous, brows arched like a film star. Bhima was boggled with love.
By late July, two months after Premwati was ostracized, that small victory had curdled. The girl, Puja, now an outcast by virtue of her marriage, was not allowed to attend her brother’s wedding, and she was wild with anger, crouching on the ground and murmuring to herself. She glowered at Bhima if he so much as put his arm around her. In the evenings, he began to beat her, energetically enough that the neighbors heard.
One hot night, Puja’s father swaggered into the family’s courtyard, a flask of Besto whiskey and a toy revolver tucked into his waistband, and announced that he was going to take his daughter back to her home village. He lifted one foot and kicked a chunk out of the mud wall that marked the edge of Premwati’s homestead.
“All these problems are caused by one woman. I don’t want to say her name right now,” he said, and turned his bleary gaze to Premwati.
Just like that, the young bride was gone. Puja dressed up on the morning of her departure, putting on the rhinestone-studded kitten-heeled sandals she had worn at her wedding. They kicked up a cloud of dust as she disappeared down the road.
Premwati seemed deflated. The monsoon rains had brought down the wall of her hut in a lumpy mass, and when night fell, clouds of mosquitoes moved in. Now her son, withdrawn into a lovesick funk, blamed her for the breakup of his marriage. She looked exhausted. “I have worked so hard,” she said. “But still there is always trouble in the house.”
Roshan had followed the sequence of events with satisfaction. These women, he said, were trying to show that they could exist without the community. When he heard that the girl was gone, he smiled.
“Slowly, slowly, they will understand our power,” he said.
Geeta and her son outside her home, which she built with money from her job. It attracted the attention and suspicion of the men who lived nearby.
A Return to Begging
Around the hearths of the Nat women, the ones who had agreed to resign their jobs, pressure was building. They wanted to be loyal to the community elders but by September, stripped of the 200 rupees a day that had been supporting their families, they were running out of money.
Geeta’s neighbor, an imposing woman known as Big Suman, surveyed the homesteads one by one with the experienced eye of a general. She had disapproved of Geeta’s rebellion, but she grumbled about having to give up her income. One morning, a moneylender stormed down the lane, bellowing, “Give me my money or I will take your bicycle!”
On one of her rounds, Big Suman spotted something peculiar: A widow with grown children was trudging back from the nearest town with a sack of flour balanced on her head. Big Suman did a double-take. She knew what begging looked like. This was an activity — “spreading your hands before strangers” — that the Nats were trying to leave behind.
The widow’s story was what she expected. She had run out of flour two days earlier. The thought of going deeper into debt terrified her, so she did not want to approach Roshan, who would lend money but charge interest. She wept, and then she went to beg.
That morning, Big Suman decided the time had come to end it. She visited all the women who had resigned from the factories, stopping by at times when they would not be overheard by Roshan. They agreed that they would break into small groups, leaving when the men slept, and take their case to the one person who could clear the way for them to work again.
When Mr. Mewati, the Muslim politician from down the road, saw the crowd of women enter his courtyard, he perked up. Local elections were two months away and he was feeling lively, like a bear coming out of hibernation. Several days later, at 7:30 one September morning, he bumped down the road in his decrepit Maruti Gypsy jeep, its suspension squeaking as it hit ruts in the road.
He moved with purpose. His shirt was clean and crisply ironed. He parked the Gypsy in front of Roshan’s homestead, and a series of Mr. Mewati’s male cousins unfolded themselves from the back seat, assuming positions in Roshan’s yard. The two headmen sat down on a rope cot, exchanging compliments.
“I am with you with all my heart,” Mr. Mewati said.
“I know you are,” Roshan said.
“Even if I die, I will support you,” Mr. Mewati said.
“I can die, but I cannot fight against you,” Roshan said.
Mr. Mewati assembled the villagers and informed them that the Indian Constitution guaranteed equality under the law. Women could not be prevented from working, and Geeta and her friends should be forgiven. Then he withdrew 3,000 rupees in folded bills from his pocket, enough to cover the fine for Geeta’s disobedience, and handed it to Roshan.
“Take care of this mess,” he said.
The machinery of compromise cranked into motion. Roshan’s brother sprinkled sugar on the ground outside the temple, reversing the rite of ostracism. Geeta and her friends lined up and their neighbors embraced them gingerly, barely grazing one another with their arms. Geeta gathered the women to celebrate, and a shoe dangled on a pole above her house, in an ancient symbol of contempt for her accusers.
The matter was unfinished. Some tension flickered in the night. Dharmender, livid at his father’s lenience, grabbed Roshan by the shoulders and tried to shove him out of the town square.
“Your mind is not working,” he said.
Premwati’s son Bhima was angry at his mother for defying the village leaders. His wife, Puja, was taken from him because of the dispute.
‘A Black Mark Has Been Drawn’
It was late at night, two nights later, that the police stationed at Kharkhauda received a report of violence from the village of Peepli Khera.
The officer on duty was Subinspector Ankit Chauhan, a babyfaced 28-year-old. Striding down the center lane into the settlement, heavy loops of khaki braid hanging from each shoulder, the subinspector noted that there were few men present, only a gaggle of women who had, he deduced, spent the last hours exchanging terms of abuse. He recalls examining “scratches and bruises,” nothing serious.
Finally, because he saw the necessity for some kind of action, he detained a short, excitable man, one of several who had been named in a complaint from Geeta, a female resident of the village.
He then gathered the villagers and reminded them that it was necessary to embrace modern life. Subinspector Chauhan recorded this encounter as a constructive, civil one. Then, satisfied that he had performed his duty, he got back into his service vehicle and left the village.
Those who remained could hear the familiar sound as the police car bumped away down the rutted dirt road. Chup chup chup chup chup.
At night, the settlement is engulfed in darkness, oceans of darkness.
The electricity flickers on for a few hours a night, creating pools of light from single bulbs suspended inside each house. Beyond that, for miles around, there are only crickets, stars and sugar cane fields.
Jackals, gray and ghostly, dart in and out of the croplands.
When the sound of the police car had become faint enough, Dharmender and his brothers and his cousins and uncles came back out of the sugar cane field.
Premwati watched them advancing across the village square, some two dozen men closing in. When bricks began to fly, she and her friends ducked inside a house and braced their bodies against the door. Seated on the floor by the light of a candle, Premwati could see the faces of her neighbors, some pressed up against the grill on a window: Those she loved, those in her family, those she had known since childhood.
“They have put a black mark on us,” she said. “It will stay as long as we live together.”
Pinki, whose 4-year-old daughter was trapped outside with the crowd, had begun to sob.
“They said, ‘By morning you will come out,’” Pinki recalled. “They said, ‘We will sit here all night for you.’”
Karim Khan, a Muslim neighbor, rushed over from his sundries shop when he heard about the melee, certainly more excitement than he had gotten from the Nat village in a long time.
“Those women peed their pants from fear and it was running out onto the floor,” he chortled. “They peed their pants! All these men were standing outside and banging on their doors, abusing them. They knew if they fought again, they would be killed.”
Inside the tiny house, Geeta’s friends watched as she dialed the cellphone again and again that night. But the government was not available. Mr. Mewati remained in his compound, about a mile away. He claimed later that his phone’s battery had died and he had been unable to receive calls.
Men working in a brick factory near the village. Wages earned by men, one said, “is the money that is earned with respect.”
Subinspector Chauhan, for his part, was not in a hurry to return to this corner of his precinct twice in the same night. He found the reports of serious injury to be dubious. Where the Nats were concerned, he reasoned, injuries could be caused by any number of things.
“These people are all drunkards,” he said. “They are so drunk that even if you push one of those guys into a drain, he will fall down. These women try to exaggerate, they say, ‘This person attacked us, that person attacked us.’”
Mr. Siddiqui, their defense lawyer, saw no need to report the incident to the magistrate who had issued the restraining order. Sometimes, he said, it is better to allow a community to settle its own differences rather than initiate a laborious investigation. Anyway, he added, the police are very busy.
"This a country with 1.4 billion people,” he said. “The police can’t stand behind every single person.”
The women were alone. When it became clear that Geeta’s friends were securely barricaded, Dharmender gathered a few men and made his way to the other end of the village.
Coursing through him, he explained later, was a certain kind of anger that he associated with being part of a mob. He had felt it before; it is gone after 15 minutes. But for that period, anger can make ordinary men strong enough to flip over a truck. Geeta had already called the police, and Dharmender saw no further reason to avoid violence.
Geeta’s husband, Sanjay, was in his undershirt at a neighbor’s house, watching a television serial, the children asleep under mosquito nets. When he looked up he saw that the door was blocked by bodies. He recalls the sight of his niece, slumped beside a drain, crying, and a heavy blow to the back of his head, and then nothing.
Dharmender felt pity as he beat Geeta’s husband: Sanjay was a poor boy, a decent boy. It was not his fault.
“If he was a bad person, we would feel O.K. that he had gotten hurt. But he’s a good guy,” Dharmender said. But the beating was necessary, he said, with a heavy sigh. “Until someone gets hurt, people don’t learn.”
The crowd dispersed some time later, leaving Sanjay unconscious in a pool of blood, with a deep cut on his arm, a slit snaking across a cheekbone, and a red knot on his forehead. His neighbors recalled seeing him lying unconscious on a woodpile. The police, when they finally arrived, recommended that he be taken to the hospital.
Sanjay would spend five days in a hospital bed. He had always been a small and quiet man, but when he returned to the village, he was somehow smaller and quieter. He took to slipping in and out in the half-light, trying to avoid crossing paths with the men who had beaten him.
“Anyone who has beaten you in the night can do it again,” he said.
Geeta, too, had lost her swagger. When people asked about Sanjay, she told them that he had fallen off the roof. She denied that she had been trapped in the house with the other women. She was no longer eager to boast about her campaign against the village council.
“They are powerful,” she said. “They are stronger. They beat us up like dogs.”
On the day Sanjay was discharged, Roshan was lounging with his male relatives on a rope cot outside the temple. The heat was soporific, and beside them, two buffaloes nosed through a pile of dung, quietly grunting.
All told, it had been an expensive night, Roshan said. To avoid criminal charges, he had had to pay 3,000 rupees for Sanjay’s medical care and an additional 4,000 to ensure there would be no investigation. But it was worth it, they all agreed.
Even Roshan’s concession — allowing the women of the village to return to work in the factories — had turned out in his favor. Though the Nat women had headed out almost immediately, nearly all of the factories were now shuttered: China had closed its markets to Indian meat, and Brazil’s currency had declined so sharply that its meat was now cheaper than Indian buffalo.
So that was that. No one was hiring.
Roshan could not help preening a little. “See, in our community, a woman is a woman and a man is a man,” he said. “This is what it is here. Women have lower status and men have higher status.” If any more women propose to challenge that principle, he said, “we will quietly, politely tell them this is not a good thing.”
And that night, as the sun slipped down over the sugar cane, Roshan and the others laughed and laughed.
This story was reported over a five-month period by Ellen Barry in Peepli Khera, Meerut, Alipur, Atrara and Ganeshpur, India. Descriptions of events are based on her first-hand observations, and on dozens of interviews with villagers, law enforcement and legal officials, factory staff members and owners, and local politicians. Ravi Mishra and Hari Kumar provided interpretation and reporting assistance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/world/asia/indian-women-labor-work-force.html
Kevin Andrews skips Parliament to address conservative lobby group in Washington on defence
"Tony Abbott has [had when leader/still has as backbencher] much bigger problems than a rogue knight"
Heath Aston Political reporter
January 27, 2016
VIDEO - Turnbull reacts to Abbott's 'gay hate' group speech
The Prime Minister Malcolm tells Network 10's The Project he respects Tony Abbott's right to address the Alliance Defending Freedom, a US group strongly opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage.
* Tony Abbott's speech to far right ground in the US not 'intentionally secretive'
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-speech-to-far-right-group-in-us-not-intentionally-secretive-20160126-gmeot8.html
* Inside the Alliance Defending Freedom, the 'gay-hate' group hosting Tony Abbott
http://www.smh.com.au/world/inside-the-alliance-defending-freedom-the-gayhate-group-hosting-tony-abbott-20160125-gmdu9o.html
Kevin Andrews will become the second Liberal backbencher in a week to address a right-wing US lobby group when he speaks at the largest conservative think tank in Washington on Tuesday.
--
[ Andrews was Immigration Minister in 2007 when the "terrorist case against Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef
collapsed" http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=21600823 .. on that stuff-up ..
Report concludes Haneef was innocent
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 23/12/2008
Reporter: Matt Peacock
The federal government today released a report by retired judge John Clarke QC into last year's controversial arrest
and subsequent release of Dr Haneef on terrorism charges. The Clark Report concluded that Dr Haneef should
never have been charged and is highly critical of the actions of Australian authorities over the affair. ..
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2454058.htm ]
--
Mr Andrews, who was dumped as defence minister by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in September as part of a purge of Tony Abbott-backers, will
miss the first week of Parliament to deliver a speech on "Australia's Global Security and Defense Challenges" to the influential Heritage Foundation.
Kevin Andrews speaks out against his demotion from cabinet in September. Photo: Paul Jeffers
[ .. looks like a turd, talks like a turd...]
His booking in Washington has emerged days after Mr Abbott attracted criticism for agreeing to speak to
conservative Christian, anti-gay lobby group, the Alliance Defending Freedom in New York on Thursday.
Mr Andrews' decision to fly to the US rather than attend the first sitting of Parliament in 2016 is likely to be interpreted as another conservative Liberal flying the flag for the hard right.
Mr Abbott's announcement this week that he will not retire from politics has rallied the faction, with warnings from conservatives like Eric Abetz that the group
will not bow to a more moderate approach to issues like same-marriage even if Australians vote for its legalisation in the upcoming nationwide plebiscite.
Backbenchers Tony Abbott and Kevin Andrews during Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's
ministerial statement on national security in November. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Andrews has spoken out twice since his removal on the need for Australia to agree to US requests for a greater military contribution in the Middle East. He has called for Australian combat troops to take the fight to Islamic State.
His position has hardened since he was minister when in September he said "We're not contemplating boots on the ground .. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/islamic-state-tony-abbott-refuses-to-rule-out-combat-forces-as-syria-air-strikes-announced-20150909-gjih49.html " and "Iraqi boots on the ground" were the right way forward, supported by Australian training .. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-hard-fight-ahead-to-take-mosul-20160121-gmbhj9.html .
Mr Turnbull and new Defence Minister Marise Payne have ruled out a greater contribution .. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-rejects-us-request-for-more-military-help-in-is-fight-20160113-gm5c6w.html .. to the fight in Iraq and Syria.
[ repeat again that Turnbull is too liberal for many of those in his party ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=43959741 .. remember Turnbull was leader in 2009
before he was booted by Abbott by one vote, then regained the leadership of Australia's conservative Liberal party in 2015 ]
Fairfax Media understands Mr Andrews has not alerted the minister's office of his plans to speak about his former portfolio area.
Established in the 1970s, the Foundation was a key policymaker for Republican president Ronald Reagan and was
a loud supporter of the original Iraq war. In recent years it has campaigned aggressively to defund Obamacare.
The Foundation's current president is former Republican senator Jim DeMint, a leading figure in the Tea Party movement and a pro-lifer who opposes same-sex marriage.
According to the Foundation's invite, Mr Andrews will cover Australia's key defence challenges, including in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
"Australia is in a unique position, straddling the line between Asia and the West. It faces global security and defense challenges from the perspective of an Alliance partner with the United States. It, also, focuses on the challenges that confront both nations, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region – especially the China Seas – and the Middle East," the Foundation said in promoting Mr Andrews' presentation.
The Foundation lists its mission as "to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
Mr Andrews' office has been asked whether he sought Ms Payne's approval and whether his trip is being paid for by the Foundation.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has defended the right of Mr Abbott and other MPs to speak at such events, saying he won't be censoring the former prime minister.
"There are people in the Parliament, there are colleagues, there are, you know, fellow members of the Coalition, who have different views, and they are...entitled to express them, and I respect their right to do so, just as they would respect my right to disagree with them," he told Channel Ten's The Project on Tuesday night.
The Alliance Defending Freedom dinner will be held in New York later this week, but the organisation has not publicly announced the date and location.
"I don't know if it is intentionally secretive," ADF media relations director Bob Trent, discussing the event, told AAP on Tuesday. "For us, it was never intended to be a public event."
Mr Abbott arrived in Los Angeles on a Qantas flight on Wednesday morning.
With AAP
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kevin-andrews-skips-parliament-to-address-conservative-lobby-group-in-washington-on-defence-20160127-gmeyg6.html
Philippines Has The Highest Use of Shabu in the World
Taiwan elects its first female president; China warns of 'grave challenges'
--
"China's New Drones Raise Eyebrows
By JEREMY PAGE " .. [bit] ..
"The Chinese drone of greatest potential concern to the U.S. is the one with several missiles and a jet engine—called the
WJ600—which was displayed by China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp., or Casic, one of China's top weapons makers.
Casic officials declined to comment, but a video and a two-dimensional display by the company showed Chinese forces using the WJ600 to
help attack what appeared to be a U.S. aircraft carrier steaming toward an island off China's coast that many visitors assumed to be Taiwan. "
--
By Katie Hunt and Kristie Lu Stout, CNN
Updated 12:09 AM ET, Sun January 17, 2016 | Video Source: CNN
VIDEO: 2;26
Story highlights
Tsai Ing-wen won the presidential vote by a landslide
NEW: Chinese state media warns of "grave challenges"
NEW: It is also the first time the ruling Kuomintang party lost control of the legislature
Taipei (CNN) - Taiwan has elected its first female president in a landmark election that could unsettle relations with Beijing.
Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the presidency with 56.1% of the vote, the official Central News Agency ..
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201601160004.aspx .. said, after eight years under the government of the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist Party.
Eric Chu, the Nationalist Party candidate in Taiwan's presidential election conceded defeat late Saturday and congratulated rival Tsai Ing-wen on her victory, the agency added.
Her supporters filled streets, waving party banners and cheering to victory announcements made from a stage.
Democratic Progressive Party presidential
candidate Tsai Ing-wen casts her ballot.
The election also marked the first time the KMT has lost control of the island's legislature. The DPP took 68 of the 113 seats in Taiwan's parliament compared to the DPP's 35.
At a post-election news conference .. http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201601160053.aspx , Tsai underscored Taiwan's commitment to democracy, calling it a value "deeply engrained in the Taiwanese people."
"Our democratic way of life is forever the resolve of Taiwan's 23 million people," she said.
But later in her speech, she also acknowledged the tenuous relationship with Beijing, saying both sides "have a responsibility to do their utmost to find mutually acceptable ways to interact ... and ensure no provocation and no surprises."
[tweet]
Kristie Lu Stout CNN
@klustout
"Only through strength, can we gain more respect and protect our
people & way of life." - Tsai Ing-wen to @CNNi #Taiwan2016
#TaiwanElection
12:14 AM - 17 Jan 2016
'Grave challenges'
An editorial carried on China's official Xinhua news agency .. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2016-01/16/content_23117124.htm .. said there was "no denying that the DPP's return rule poses grave challenges to cross-strait relations."
And a statement from China's Taiwan Affairs Office .. http://www.chinadailyasia.com/nation/2016-01/16/content_15373488.html .. quoted by Xinhua said it resolutely opposed "any form of secessionist activities seeking 'Taiwan independence.'"
Tsai's DPP has traditionally leaned in favor of independence for the island from mainland China.
That could anger Beijing, which views Taiwan as an integral part of its territory that is to be taken by force if necessary. Beijing has missiles pointed at the island.
"I voted for DPP, because it's very critical time for the Taiwan people. We have our own democracy systems, we will not be influenced by China," said Tsai Cheng-an, a 55-year-old Taipei professor.
[tweet]
Kristie Lu Stout CNN
@klustout
At a Taipei polling station. Some voters tell me they are here to
assert their Taiwanese identity. #TaiwanElection
2:25 PM - 16 Jan 2016
MORE: Taiwanese voters turn their backs on closer ties with China
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/16/opinions/taiwan-election-china-united-states-richard-bush/index.html
The KMT forged closer ties with China under President Ma Ying-jeou. The new president will take over from Ma, who will step down on May 20 after serving two four-year terms.
China and Taiwan -- officially the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China -- separated in 1949 following the Communist victory on the mainland in the civil war.
11 Photos: Taiwan goes to the polls
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/16/asia/taiwan-election/
The two sides have been governed separately since, though a shared cultural and linguistic heritage mostly endures -- with Mandarin spoken as the official language in both places.
The sides have agreed since 1992 on a "one China" policy, in which both governments claim sovereignty over mainland China and Taiwan -- but crucially neither recognizes the other's legitimacy.
"I voted for KMT because they are less likely to provoke cross-strait troubles. They want peace. That's why I chose them. We've lived through war, and it was not easy," said Chen, 83, a military veteran who declined to give his full name.
Taiwan's freewheeling democracy stands in sharp contrast to China's one-party state, and a cast of colorful candidates are contesting seats -- they include an ex-convict, an alleged spy and the front man of Asia's biggest death metal band .. http://cnn.com/2016/01/13/asia/taiwan-rock-star-politician-freddy-lim/index.html .
MORE: Meet Taiwan's rock star candidate
http://cnn.com/2016/01/13/asia/taiwan-rock-star-politician-freddy-lim/index.html
Pop star's apology stirs anger
The strained relationship was highlighted over the weekend when teenage pop star Chou Tzu-yu made an apology for holding a Republic of China flag on South Korean TV, setting off a national debate.
From Taiwan, she is part of the South Korean pop act Twice. She appears in the video reading her apology off a sheet of paper, leading many to speculate that her Korean management company JYP Entertainment had coerced her to appease mainland Chinese fans, who represent a lucrative market.
There is only "one China", Chou said, and she will be taking a break from all China appearances to reflect on her actions.
The video even garnered a mention from Tsai in her victory speech, saying it "has shaken Taiwanese society."
"This particular incident will serve as a constant reminder to me about the importance of our country's strength and unity to those outside our borders. This will be one of the most important responsibilities for me as the next president of the Republic of China," Tsai said.
Balancing act
Tsai, a soft-spoken U.S.-educated lawyer, is viewed as a pragmatic leader but will have her work cut out balancing the interests of China, which is the island's biggest trading partner, the United States, its key ally, and the diverse demands of the island's 23 million residents.
In particular, a younger generation fears a future under the influence of Beijing and doesn't want Taiwan to become another Chinese territory.
Taiwan election: 'One China' explainer
VIDEO: Taiwan election: 'One China' explainer 02:41
"Taiwanese people are very peaceful. We want a peaceful relationship with mainland China, but that shouldn't mean we have to sacrifice our way of life and our democracy," said Huang Kuo-chang, leader of the New Power Party, one of a number of smaller opposition parties.
His party emerged from 2014's "Sunflower Movement," when scores of student protesters stormed and occupied Taiwan's Legislature and Cabinet building to object to a trade pact that symbolized Taiwan's deepening relations with mainland China.
The economy is a particular concern for many young people, with unemployment standing at 12% among 20- to 24-year-olds -- three times the overall jobless rate, according to official statistics.
MORE: What's at stake in the Taiwan elections
http://cnn.com/2016/01/14/asia/taiwan-election-china-key-issues/index.html
Katie Hunt wrote and reported from Hong Kong, Kristie Lu Stout and Yuli Yang reported from Taipei,
Tiffany Ap wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Ben Brumfield and Steven Jiang contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/16/asia/taiwan-election/
See also:
U.S., Chinese navy chiefs to discuss South China Sea on Thursday
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118079421
Afghanistan peace talks held in Pakistan
"Afghanistan, My Love and My Pain"
Hopes pinned on negotiations, which also involve US and China, to lead to renewed efforts to engage the Taliban.
11 Jan 2016 21:58 GMT | Politics, War & Conflict, US & Canada, Asia, Afghanistan
Listen to this page using
ReadSpeaker
Talks aimed at kickstarting negotiations for a final peace settlement in Afghanistan have taken place in Pakistan, emphasising the need for a dialogue between the government and the Taliban.
Monday's meeting - which also included the governments of the US and China - sought to revive the process that collapsed last summer after Afghanistan announced that Mullah Mohammad Omar, founder and leader of the Taliban, had died in a Pakistani hospital .. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/afghan-sources-taliban-leader-mullah-omar-dead-150729092917870.html .. more than two years ago.
The announcement led the Taliban to pull out of the talks after just one meeting hosted by Islamabad.
Analysis: Afghan Taliban rival factions agree on ceasefire
The meeting in Islamabad emphasised the immediate need for direct talks between representatives of the Afghanistan government and representatives from Taliban groups in a peace process that aims to preserve Afghanistan’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, said a joint statement released after the discussions.
The Quadrilateral Coordination Group - comprising representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US - is scheduled to meet in Kabul on January 18 "to hold discussions on a roadmap", the statement added.
Meanwhile, a former Taliban senior official said that "military confrontation is not the solution" and that a "political solution" was needed to end the war in Afghanistan.
"The motivation for peace talks was very weak in the past," Mohammad Hassan Haqyar said.
"But now the situation has changed and the Afghan government, America and Pakistan seem to have a readiness for dialogue.
"America has realised that a military confrontation is not the solution."
Earlier, speaking at the meeting, Sartaj Aziz, a foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan's prime minister, said that "the primary objective of the reconciliation process is to create conditions to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table and offer them incentives that can persuade them to move away from using violence as a tool for pursuing political goals".
--
Factors influencing peace talks
1. Infighting within the Taliban: Ever since the appointment of new leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, there have been divisions, and it is unclear who would represent the group if talks went forward.
2. The rise of ISIL in eastern Afghanistan .. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2015/11/islamic-state-isil-taliban-afghanistan-151101074041755.html : The armed group has been fighting the Taliban.
3. Lack of trust and confidence between Pakistan and Afghanistan: There is hope that with the involvement of the US and China, this could be mended.
--
Aziz added that neither preconditions nor threat of military action should be attached to the start of the negotiation process.
Attempts at peace talks have occurred in the past, but Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Kabul, said: "What is different this time is that when the Pakistani army chief [General Raheel Sharif] came to Kabul last month, the two sides [Afghanistan and Pakistan] agreed that this time Pakistan would use force alongside the Afghan government against any Taliban members who oppose the peace talks."
He identified several factors the parties must be taking into consideration, including what he called "the splinter within the Taliban".
"The Taliban is not one united faction ever since the appointment of their new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour .. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/profile-mullah-akhtar-mansoor-150803174828504.html ," he said.
ISIL phenomenon
This power struggle within the Taliban has raised questions about who would represent the group if and when the talks with the Afghan government restart.
A splinter group headed by Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund, which rejects Mansour's authority, has dismissed any talks under the mediation of the US or China or of Pakistan.
"We have a very clear-cut stance about peace talks: all the foreign occupying forces would need to be withdrawn," Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, Rasool's deputy, told Reuters on Monday.
"The issue is between the Afghans, and only the Afghans can resolve it. We would not allow any third force to mediate."
Our correspondent also mentioned the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in eastern Afghanistan, which is fighting the Taliban.
"And, finally, the lack of confidence and trust between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a major issue, and they will try with the Americans and the Chinese to resolve these issues," he said.
The Taliban has stepped up attacks since the United States and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan a year ago, and the fighters are battling local Afghan security forces on several fronts.
OPINION: Afghanistan and the Taliban need Pakistan for peace
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/afghanistan-taliban-pakistan-peace-160110055820128.html
The group is expected to keep up the fight even if peace talks get off the ground in order to secure territory and improve their leverage in the negotiations.
When the Taliban opened their office in Qatar in June 2013, they outlined their two-pronged strategy .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNU8rL-dmcYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNU8rL-dmcY .. of fighting and negotiating simultaneously.
[INSERT embed, oops it's gone .. this sub does not specifically mention a 2013 two-prong strategy, but if it was/is fighting to gain ground
while at the same time talking ostensibly toward a peace settlement, then that obviously 'good-for-them' Taliban strategy is mentioned here]
Indonesia turns to China as ethnic Uighurs join would-be jihadis
"Indonesia as a Model of Muslim Democracy
Developments, Problems, and Opportunities"
Wed Jan 6, 2016 4:34am EST
JAKARTA | By Randy Fabi and Agustinus Beo Da Costa
Saud Usman Nasution, the head of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency, gestures
during an interview at his office in Bogor, January 5, 2016.
Reuters/Beawiharta
Indonesian authorities are working with their counterparts in China to stem a flow of ethnic Uighur militants seeking to join Islamist jihadists in the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia's counter-terrorism chief said.
Saud Usman Nasution's comments come amid mounting concern in Indonesia about possible attacks by sympathizers of the Islamic State group and follows the arrest of 13 men across the island of Java, including a Muslim Uighur with a suicide-bomb vest.
The appearance among Indonesian militant networks of Uighurs, who come from the Xinjiang region in far-western China, is likely to add to Beijing's concerns that exiles will return to their homeland as experienced and trained jihadists.
China says Islamist militants and separatists operate in energy-rich Xinjiang on the borders of central Asia, where violence has killed hundreds in recent years.
Rights groups say much of the unrest can be traced back to frustration at controls over the Uighurs' culture and religion, and that most of those who leave are only fleeing repression not seeking to wage jihad. China denies repressing rights.
Nasution, who heads the National Counter-Terrorism Agency, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that several Uighurs had responded to a call last year by Santoso, Indonesia's most high-profile backer of Islamic State, to join his band of fighters.
Islamic State and human trafficking networks helped them travel via Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia to Santoso's hideout in an equatorial jungle of eastern Indonesia, he said.
However, the would-be suicide bomber arrested on Dec. 23 was hiding in a house just outside the capital, Jakarta.
"We are cooperating with China and investigating evidence such as ATM cards and cellphones," Nasution said, adding that an Indonesian team went to China to interview members of the man's family, who would not confirm that they were related to him.
There was no immediate comment from China's foreign ministry on whether Beijing is collaborating with Indonesia.
"As far as China is concerned, these people are running off, some of them taking part in jihad and planning to strike back," said Pan Zhiping, a terrorism expert at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
"Of course we must stop them. I believe, in terms of jointly guarding against extremism, it is necessary that we cooperate."
Bilveer Singh of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said the direct involvement of Chinese Uighurs in Southeast Asian militancy added "an external dimension to the existing home-grown terrorist threat".
"It could also complicate ties with a rising China, which may want to play a bigger counter-terrorism role in the region," Singh said in a Eurasia Review article.
'SERIOUS CONCERN FOR CHINA'
Indonesia's security forces have given Santoso, who styles himself as the commander of the Islamic State army in Indonesia, until Jan. 9 to surrender along with his force of about 40 men on the far-flung island of Sulawesi.
However, security analysts believe a larger threat is emerging across the populous island of Java as networks of support for Islamic State grow.
Indonesia has been largely successful in disrupting domestic militant cells since the bombing of two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali in 2002, and sporadic attacks have been mainly targeted at the police.
The government is now worried that the influence of Islamic State, whose fighters hold swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, could bring a return of jihadi violence and strikes against foreigners and soft targets.
Officials believe there are more than 1,000 Islamic State supporters in Indonesia, and say that between 100 and 300 have returned from Syria, though this includes women and children.
Nasution said that monitoring of radical groups had revealed plans to launch attacks on Christmas Eve and around the New Year holiday but the situation was now under control.
"They cannot attack like in the Middle East or Europe because we anticipate before they attack. We monitor their activities every day," he said. "Their capability has not increased because their personnel is limited, their funding is limited and explosives are limited."
Police spokesman Suharsono said the Uighur arrested just outside Jakarta was part of an Islamic State-affiliated group based in the Central Java city of Solo.
Officials declined to comment on media reports that two other Uighurs from the same group were on the run, but they did confirm that three Uighurs were with Santoso.
Four others were sentenced last year to six years in prison for conspiring with Indonesian militants.
Todd Elliott, a Jakarta-based terrorism analyst for Concord Consulting, said many Uighurs will see Indonesia as more accessible than Turkey or Syria and are exploiting entrenched smuggling and human-trafficking networks to travel around the region undetected.
"I am sure returning Uighur fighters are a serious concern of the Chinese government," he said, adding that Islamic State's hardline ideology has gained traction among small minorities in both Xinjiang and Indonesia, binding them closer together.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-security-idUSKBN0UK0SE20160106
==
Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?
26 September 2014
The Xinjiang autonomous region in China's far west has had a long history of discord between
the authorities and the indigenous ethnic Uighur population. The BBC sets out why.
Who lives in Xinjiang?
The ethnic Uighur population used to be the majority in China's Xinjiang region
The largest of China's administrative regions, Xinjiang borders eight countries - Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - and until recently its population was mostly Uighur.
Most Uighurs are Muslim and Islam is an important part of their life and identity. Their language is related to Turkish, and they regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations.
The region's economy has largely revolved around agriculture and trade, with towns such as Kashgar thriving as hubs along the famous Silk Road.
But development has brought new residents. In the 2000 census, Han Chinese made up 40% of the population, as well as large numbers of troops stationed in the region and unknown numbers of unregistered migrants.
Has Xinjiang always been part of China?
Xinjiang officially became part of Communist China in 1949
The region has had intermittent autonomy and occasional independence, but what is now known as Xinjiang came under Chinese rule in the 18th Century.
An East Turkestan state was briefly declared in 1949, but independence was short-lived - later that year Xinjiang officially became part of Communist China.
In the 1990s, open support for separatist groups increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Muslim states in Central Asia.
However, Beijing suppressed demonstrations and activists went underground.
Profile: Xinjiang autonomous region
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16860974
What is at the heart of the unrest?
China's critics say authorities have stepped up a crackdown on Uighurs in recent years
While the situation is complex, many say that ethnic tensions caused by economic and cultural factors are the root cause of the recent violence..
Major development projects have brought prosperity to Xinjiang's big cities, attracting young and technically qualified Han Chinese from eastern provinces.
The Han Chinese are said to be given the best jobs and the majority do well economically, something that has fuelled resentment among Uighurs.
The Uighur culture leans more towards Central Asia than China
[ oh yeah, is that a supa picture or what!! ]
Activists say Uighur commercial and cultural activities have been gradually curtailed by the Chinese state. There are complaints of severe restrictions on Islam, with fewer mosques and strict control over religious schools.
Rights group Amnesty International, in a report published in 2013 .. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL10/001/2013/en/b093912e-8d30-4480-9ad1-acbb82be7f29/pol100012013en.pdf , said authorities criminalised "what they labelled 'illegal religious' and 'separatist' activities" and clamped down on "peaceful expressions of cultural identity".
In July 2014, some Xinjiang government departments banned Muslim civil servants from fasting .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28123267 .. during the holy month of Ramadan. It was not the first time China had restricted fasting in Xinjiang, but it followed a slew of attacks on the public attributed to Uighur extremists, prompting concerns the ban would increase tensions.
Making sense of the unrest from China's Xinjiang
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26414016
Death on the Silk Route: Violence in Xinjiang
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14384605
How has the violence developed?
China has poured troops into the region in recent years as unrest has rumbled
China has been accused of intensifying its crackdown on the Uighurs after street protests in the 1990s and again in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
But things really escalated in 2009, with large-scale ethnic rioting in the regional capital, Urumqi. Some 200 people were killed in the unrest, most of them Han Chinese, according to officials.
Xinjiang's economy has largely revolved around agriculture and trade
Security was increased and many Uighurs detained as suspects. But violence rumbled on as right groups increasingly pointed to tight control by Beijing.
In June 2012, six Uighurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew.
There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings
Establishing facts about these incidents is difficult, because foreign journalists' access to the region is tightly controlled, but in recent months, there appears to have been a shift towards larger-scale incidents where citizens have become the target, particularly in Xinjiang.
At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-27554067 .. and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a "violent terrorist incident".
It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi's south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others.
In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28558290 .. and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China's largest mosque, Jume Tahir .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28586426 , was stabbed to death days later.
In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media.
Chinese officials blamed the attack at Tiananmen Square on separatists from Xinjiang
Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing's Tiananmen Square .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24768037 .
In response to the latest slew of attacks, the authorities have launched what they call a "year-long campaign against terrorism", stepping up security in Xinjiang and conducting more military drills in the region.
There have also been reports of mass sentencings .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-27600397 .. and arrests of several "terror groups". Chinese state media have reported long lists of people convicted of extremist activity .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28258983 .. and in some cases, death sentences.
[ INSERT: Iranian Protesters Ransack Saudi Embassy After Execution of Shiite Cleric
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=119595240 ]
High-profile Uighur academic, Ilham Tohti was detained and later charged in September 2014 on charges of separatism .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29321701 ., sparking international criticism .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29339178 .
Shock and anger after Kunming brutality
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-26380542
China tries to block Xinjiang blast memorial
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-27557027
Who's to blame?
China also blamed Xinjiang separatists for the brutal attack in March 2014 at Kunming station
China has often blamed ETIM - the East Turkestan Islamic Movement - or people inspired by ETIM for violent incidents both in Xinjiang and beyond the region's borders.
ETIM is said to want to establish an independent East Turkestan in China. The US State Department in 2006 said ETIM is "the most militant of the ethnic Uighur separatist groups".
The scope of ETIM's activities remains unclear with some questioning the group's capacity to organise serious acts of extremism.
ETIM has not said it was behind any of the attacks. Chinese authorities said the Turkestan Islamic Party - which it says is synonymous with ETIM - released a video backing the Kunming attack, however.
With the recent apparent escalation in Xinjiang-related violence, the question of who and what is driving it is likely to attract greater scrutiny.
Q&A: East Turkestan Islamic Movement
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24757974
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26414014
See also:
World Reaction to Donald Trump’s Proposal Banning Muslims: Befuddlement and Despair .. bit ..
But Mr. Trump’s position also had its admirers. His stance on Muslim immigration drew several hundred favorable comments on China’s Twitter-like social media site, Weibo, where supporters linked his idea to their own fears of the Uighurs [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/uighurs_chinese_ethnic_group/index.html ], a minority Muslim group in China’s northwestern region, some of whom have resorted to militancy and violence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/donald-trumps-call-to-bar-muslims-reverberates-abroad.html
.. 2-3 inches from bottom here .. The GOP on the Eve of Destruction
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=119029379
High-level inter-Korean talks fail to reach agreement
"Rival Koreas agree on reunion talks as mood improves - Tue Feb 8, 2011"
North and South Korea have wrapped up two days of rare, high-level talks aimed at easing cross-border tensions, with no agreement and no set date for further discussions.
Posted 12 Dec 2015 21:11 Updated 12 Dec 2015 21:30
PHOTOS [one]
South Korean Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi (left), Seoul's chief delegate for high-level talks with North Korea, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Jon
Jong-su (right) before their meeting at the Kaesong joint industrial zone on Dec 11, 2015. (Photo: AFP/Korea Pool)
SEOUL: Two days of rare, high-level talks between North and South Korea aimed at easing cross-border tensions broke up on Saturday (Dec 12) with no agreement and no set date for further discussions.
South Korea's chief delegate, Hwang Boo-Gi, suggested North Korean intransigence over what issues could be discussed had contributed to the failure of the meeting in the jointly-run Kaesong industrial zone.
He also said it was Pyongyang who had rejected the idea of resuming the dialogue next week.
The vice-minister-level talks, with a mandate to address a broad but unspecified range of inter-Korean issues, were the first of their type for nearly two years.
While no substantial breakthrough had been expected, there had been hopes of some tangible progress with both sides seeking the resumption of stalled cooperation projects that have significant symbolic and financial value.
The cash-strapped North wanted the South to resume lucrative tours to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort, which Seoul suspended in 2008 after a female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard.
South Korea, meanwhile, wanted the North to agree to regular reunions for families separated by the Korean War.
Speaking to reporters at the talks venue, Hwang said the North Korean side had insisted on linking the two issues and making a resolution of the Mount Kumgang question a pre-condition for discussing the reunions.
"They insisted that the two sides reach an agreement on the resumption of the tours first," Hwang said. "Our side stressed that the humanitarian issue of separated families and the resumption of the tours to Mount Kumgang are different in nature and should not be bundled together," he added.
There was no immediate comment from the North Korean side.
NO FURTHER TALKS
Hwang said he had offered to resume discussions on Monday, but the North Korean delegation "conveyed its decision there was no need to continue talks".
The failure to set a date for continuing the dialogue will be a disappointment for those who saw an opportunity to put inter-Korean relations on a more constructive footing.
Previous efforts to establish a regular dialogue have also tended to falter after an initial meeting - reflecting decades of animosity and mistrust between two countries that have remained technically at war since the end of the 1950-53 Korean conflict.
When they shook hands at their first session on Friday morning, Hwang had declared it was time to "take a crucial step", while his North Korean counterpart Jon Jong-su underlined the opportunity to move towards a less confrontational relationship.
There was no indication that the two sides had discussed the elephant in the room for any North-South dialogue - Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
The talks started a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the country had developed a hydrogen bomb - a claim treated with scepticism by US and South Korean intelligence officials.
They also come amid diplomatic shifts in northeast Asia that have left North Korea looking more isolated than ever, with Seoul moving closer to Pyongyang's main diplomatic and economic ally China, and improving previously strained relations with Tokyo.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/high-level-inter-korean/2342054.html
==
Were North-South Korea Talks Set Up to Fail?
FILE - Hwang Boogi, left, South Korea's vice minister of unification and the head negotiator for high-level talks
with North Korea, talks as his North Korean counterpart Jon Jong Su, right, listens during their meeting.
Brian Padden December 24, 2015 1:02 AM
http://www.voanews.com/content/were-north-south-korea-talks-set-up-to-fail/3116736.html
==
Hydrogen bombs versus atomic bombs, explained
Updated by Brian Resnick on January 6, 2016, 12:30 p.m. ET
http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/1/6/10723918/whats-a-hydrogen-bomb
Iraq Refugee Stories .. videos, youtubes of embeds ..
"Afghanistan, My Love and My Pain"
HIBA'S STORY
Hiba and her family fled Iraq in 2003, shortly after the war began. Their family of seven was not allowed to enter
Jordan, so they spent four years living in a tent in Ruwayshed, a refugee camp on the border of Iraq and Jordan.
Afghanistan, My Love and My Pain
"Under a cloud of violence and fraud, Afghans head to
polls - From Ivan Watson, CNN .. September 18, 2010"
Dec 28, 2015 3 Comments
It was August 2015 and I was on my way to school, listening to Akele Tanha, .. insert video ..
LMAO, top rapper! 'Catch, catch catch': Chinese President Xi Jinping's voice debuts in official rap video
"China passes first domestic violence law, gay couples excluded"
Date December 30, 2015 - 1:31PM
Kirsty Needham
The Chinese government has released a rap video featuring the President that hails its anti-graft drive and sets out goals for 2016.
VIDEO - Chinese President sampled in rap
Chinese government releases a rap video featuring audio samples from
President Xi Jinping to extol its 'glorious achievements' and set out 2016 goals. 2:44
Sydney: The Chinese government is attempting to shake off the straitjacket of convoluted Communist Party speak, releasing a rap video sampling its President, Xi Jinping.
The video and its cartoon graphics are an attempt to reach a smartphone generation that is shunning traditional propaganda channels.
"Flies, tigers and big foxes. Catch, catch, catch, catch," chants the rapper, in a reference to Operation Fox Hunt .. http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinas-mostwanted-international-fugitives-communist-party-lists-10-suspects-believed-to-be-in-australia-20150422-1mr7h0.html , Mr Xi's crackdown on alleged corrupt officials which has extended as far as Australia .. http://www.smh.com.au/business/china/chinas-most-wanted-fugitives-in-australia-20150507-ggwgku.html .. and Canada as targeted executives and bureaucrats flee arrest on the mainland.
The video broadcast by China's CCTV adds to President Xi Jinping's propaganda
arsenal. Photo: Screengrab
The anti-corruption drive, plus China's attempts to clean up the environment, and its financial system reform are extolled in a catchy hip-hop beat.
Mr Xi's voice, sampled from earlier speeches, sternly warns: "All corruption must be punished. Every corrupt official must be prosecuted."
The song promises to "cure, cure, cure, cure" China's polluted air and water. China announced in September it would introduce a nationwide emissions trading scheme ..
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/china-to-introduce-nationwide-emissions-trading-scheme-20150925-gjuv7a.html .
"With clear water and lush mountains, a new march can start."
"Change, change, change, change" is another theme.
Tax reform, and the recent decision to extend household registration, vital to access free education, to 13 million children who were born out of wedlock or breached the One Child Policy, are referenced. But with such a lofty and expansive reform agenda to praise, many of the Chinese government's favourite phrases make an inevitable and unwieldy appearance in the lyrics.
"Streamline the administration and delegate power to lower levels, unleash energy. Reform the supply side and upgrade the economy," the nearly three-minute song says.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/catch-catch-catch-chinese-president-xi-jinpings-voice-debuts-in-official-rap-video-20151230-glwrm8.html
China passes first domestic violence law, gay couples excluded
Sun Dec 27, 2015 6:03am EST
BEIJING
Chinese flag waves in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, October 29,
2015. REUTERS/Jason Lee
China's largely rubber stamp parliament on Sunday passed the country's first law against domestic violence, which covers unmarried people who cohabit but does not protect gay couples, a senior lawmaker said.
China previously did not have a special law covering violence in the family, an issue often ignored to avoid bringing shame upon the family in traditional Chinese culture.
The new law prohibits any form of domestic violence, including psychological abuse, and helps streamline the process for obtaining restraining orders.
According to the Communist Party-run All-China Women's Federation, about one quarter of women have suffered violence in their marriage, though only some 40,000 to 50,000 complaints are registered each year.
Of the cases reported last year, almost 90 percent involved abuse by husbands of their wives.
The new law also covers cohabitation, meaning those who are not related but live together are also included.
Asked at a news conference whether this covered gay couples, Guo Linmao, a member of the Legislative Affairs Commission of parliament's standing committee, said the law had been formulated in response to specific problems discovered.
"There are a lot of examples of domestic violence between family members, and also between people who cohabit," Guo said.
"As for homosexuals in our country, we have not yet discovered this form of violence, so to give you a certain answer, it can be said that people who cohabit does not include homosexuals."
While homosexuality is not illegal in China, and large cities have thriving gay scenes, there are no legal protections for same-sex couples and the country is not likely to legalize same-sex marriage soon.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Dominic Evans)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-lawmaking-family-idUSKBN0UA08A20151227
See also:
Worried About Violence Against Women, Australia Will Deport Anti-Abortion Activist
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=117437052
Thailand considers defamation case against human trafficking investigator
"Thai PM: I will punish those who threatened human trafficking whistleblower"
Major General Paween Pongsirin was appointed to investigate human trafficking but now says he fears attacks from senior figures implicated in the trade
Major General Paween Pongsirin is seeking political asylum in Australia. Photograph:
Meredith O'Shea for the Guardian
Oliver Holmes in Bangkok
Friday 11 December 2015 01.39 EST
Last modified on Friday 11 December 2015 01.42 EST
Thai police are considering a defamation case against a former officer tasked with investigating human trafficking who says he fled for his life after he found senior figures in the military and police were involved in the trade.
Major General Paween Pongsirin told Guardian Australia .. http://www.theguardian.com/au?INTCMP=CE_AU .. and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he was in Australia to claim political asylum as powerful figures now wanted to kill him.
Royal Thai Police chief Jakthip Chaijinda told journalists on Friday that a legal team was checking to see if his comments were defamatory, a criminal charge in Thailand .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/thailand .
“I don’t know the reason why he had to go and speak about this issue but he should not talk about this because it could damage the country,” Jakthip said.
He added that Paween was the only police officer to raise allegations of intimidation.
The south-east Asian nation argues it has made significant efforts to combat the trade, pressing charges against more than 100 people .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/thai-officials-among-more-than-100-charged-with-human-trafficking , including an army general, on counts of human trafficking after dozens of bodies were found in a jungle prison camp earlier this year.
Many of the exhumed bodies were believed to be Rohingya .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/rohingya .. Muslims, a long-persecuted minority who have been fleeing Myanmar .. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/21/thousands-rohingya-refugees-flee-boat-looming-disaster-amnesty .
Paween was appointed to lead the investigation into the grim discovery, which at the time was interpreted as Thailand .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/thailand .. treating the issue more seriously. His team uncovered a major human trafficking syndicate but he says that “from the beginning” he was under pressure not to pursue the perpetrators too enthusiastically.
Paween resigned from the force last month after he was transferred against his will to an insurgency-plagued region in the deep south of Thailand. He said traffickers he was pursuing were influential in this region and “senior police” in the area were involved with the trade. He told his superiors that he feared for his life if he were sent there, but says his protests were ignored.
The investigation he led was disbanded after just five months.
The military-run government was dismayed in July when Thailand was blacklisted in a US report for the second consecutive year .. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/20/thai-government-us-human-trafficking-report .. for not combatting modern-day slavery, with the ministry of foreign affairs insisting it had made “tangible progress”.
Revealed: how the Thai fishing industry trafficks, imprisons and enslaves
Read more - http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/20/thai-fishing-industry-implicated-enslavement-deaths-rohingya
Yet human rights groups have consistently said that Bangkok could do more and that security services are involved in the secretive industry which ships in migrant workers and forces them into indentured labour on fishing boats.
The topic is extremely sensitive under the military-run government in Thailand. An Australian editor and a Thai reporter were sued for criminal defamation last year for reporting on the alleged involvement of Thai naval officers in the trafficking of Rohingya refugees.
They were found not guilty .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/australian-and-thai-journalists-found-not-guilty-of-defaming-thai-navy .. in September in the trial that was widely condemned by human rights and media freedom groups.
Paween did not name the senior officials he alleges are complicit in the human trafficking trade in Thailand, but says the jungle camps would have needed influential oversight to stay open.
“Human trafficking is a big network that involves lots of the military, politicians and police. While I was supervising the cases I was warned all along.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/thailand-considers-defamation-case-against-human-trafficking-investigator
~~~
Australian and Thai journalists found not guilty of defaming Thai navy
Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, of news website Phuketwan, were accused in case that alarmed human rights and press freedom groups
Thai journalist Chutima Sidasathian and her Australian colleague Alan Morison arrive at the
provincial court in Phuket island. Photograph: Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP/Getty Images
[...]
he defamation claims and charges under the Computer Crime Act, which bans online material considered a threat to national
security, relate to a 41-word paragraph from a Reuters news agency report on Rohingya refugees, which was republished in Phuketwan.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/australian-and-thai-journalists-found-not-guilty-of-defaming-thai-navy
See also:
The People vs. The Monks
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103038540
Indian Ocean tsunami remembered
WRITER: ACHADTAYA CHUENNIRAN
26 Dec 2015 at 12:54
Authorities in Phuket province conduct a ceremony to mark the 11th anniversary of
the Indian Ocean tsunami on Saturday....
Continued: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/807100/indian-ocean-tsunami-remembered
~~~
Indian Ocean Tsunami Remembered — Scientists reflect on the 2004 Indian Ocean that killed thousands
Posted on December 23, 2014 at 8:46 am
Last update 2:33 pm By: Donyelle Davis,
dkdavis@usgs.gov Leslie Gordon, lgordon@usgs.gov
In the early hours of Dec. 26, 2004, one of the world’s most powerful earthquakes triggered one of the largest tsunamis in 40 years.
Women on the lagoon-side reef flat of M. Kolufushi, an island that was severely affected by the
tsunami. Trees and appliances (in the background) were washed from the island to the reefs.
Sometimes known as the Christmas or Boxing Day tsunami, the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami is far from a distant memory, a decade after resulting in more than 200,000 casualities.
“The tsunami struck after the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake .. http://comcat.cr.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/official20041226005853450_30#summary ..
occurred off the northwest coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, causing catastrophic levels of destruction to countries around the Indian Ocean basin.”
Cause and Areas Impacted
The magnitude 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake occurred on the interface between the India and Burma tectonic plates .. http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/sumatraEQ/tectonics.html .
M9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake Tectonic Setting and Seismicity Map
According to USGS scientists, the sea floor near the earthquake was uplifted several meters. The displacement of water above the sea floor triggered the tsunami, which caused catastrophic levels of destruction in countries around the Indian Ocean basin, reaching as far as the east coast of Africa.
The tsunami arrived in northern Sumatra approximately 30 minutes after the earthquake, in Thailand approximately an hour and a half to two hours after the earthquake, and in Sri Lanka approximately two to three hours after the earthquake.
The tsunami was only recently rivaled by the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
“The foremost impact, of course, is the loss of life in both cases,” said Eric Geist, USGS research geophysicist. “For the 2004 tsunami, the loss of life far outweighed damage to infrastructure, whereas for the 2011 tsunami, there was significant damage to infrastructure in Japan.”
Countries hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami included Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Somalia, Maldives .. http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2005/04/fieldwork3.html , Malaysia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Kenya
Tsunami Research
The 2004 tsunami was the deadliest and one of the most destructive in recorded history.
Tsunami runup heights .. http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2005/03/ .. of more than 30 meters were observed along the west coast of Sumatra.
In Aceh and Sumatera Utara Provinces, Indonesia, at least 108,100 people were killed, 127,700 are missing and presumed dead and 426,800 were displaced by the earthquake and tsunami.
Dr. Starin Fernanda, Geological Survey & Mines Bureau of Sri Lanka, taking measurement of height of tsunami, indicated by gouge mark in tree from debris carried by the tsunami. Photo by Bruce Jaffe, USGS, Jan 12, 2005.
Bruce Richmond, a coastal geologist with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif,, along with USGS scientists Bruce Jaffe and Guy Gelfenbaum joined international survey teams to documenttsunami impacts, collect water level information, and map erosion and deposition of sediments to characterize the sedimentary record. The tsunami effects were studied in an effort to develop techniques to improve the identification of paleotsunami deposits in the geologic record.
“Our studies were conducted in a variety of coastal environments impacted by the tsunami and went a long way in helping us to understand the variability of deposits from a single event in multiple coastal settings,” Richmond said.
Future Implications and Preparation
Before the Indian Ocean Tsunami occurred, USGS geologists had been assessing tsunami hazards in California, seeking evidence of past tsunami deposits along California’s shores. “Not long after we started our California work in 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck which changed the focus of our efforts for several years,” said Richmond. “At the time, that tsunami was the largest natural disaster in our lifetimes, both in terms of lives lost and widespread impact. Our observations on many different shorelines around the Indian Ocean went a long way in helping us to understand the variability of deposits from a single event in multiple coastal settings.”
Geist, too, said he and his USGS counterparts’ research since then has focused on taking the lessons learned from the 2004 and 2011 tsunamis and applying them to hazard issues that affect the U.S. Could it happen here .. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2004/us2004slav/canit.php ?
Car transported by the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. Photo by Dr. Robert Morton, USGS, Jan 10, 2005.
“Initially, my research focus was evaluating the performance of hazard assessment models if they had been used prior to the tsunami,” Geist said. “Since then, our research has focused more on taking the lessons learned from both tsunamis and applying them to hazard issues that affect the U.S.”
Bruce Jaffe, research oceanographer, said that earthquakes and tsunamis like those in 2004 have brought awareness and the need to study and prepare for these often underestimated hazards
“The take-home message is that we still have a lot to learn about what the real hazard of tsunamis are,” he said. “We’re getting there but it’s taking time.”
Learn More
Indian Ocean Earthquake Triggers Deadly Tsunami - http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2005/01/
USGS Public Lecture:
Ten Years After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: How geology is reducing tsunami risk
http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/2014/dec14.html
by Bruce Jaffe USGS Research Oceanographer
FAQs about the Magnitude 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake that caused the tsunami
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2004/us2004slav/faq.php
http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/indian-ocean-tsunami-remembered-scientists-reflect-on-the-2004-indian-ocean-that-killed-thousands/
See also:
Extremely cool new BBC site tells you the story of Earth within your lifetime
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=116298564
The Broken Lives of Fukushima
More than two and a half years have passed since the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck
northeastern Japan, wrecking the Fukushima nuclear plant and claiming nearly 16,000 lives.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92728365
The Earthquake-Proof Tower in Japan - Secret Revealed
"Returning to a Rebuilding Nepal"
Thai PM: I will punish those who threatened human trafficking whistleblower
Thailand’s military ruler Prayuth Chan-ocha calls for Police Major General Paween Pongsirin to return home from Australia to file lawsuits
Major General Paween Pongsirin in Melbourne; he is seeking political asylum in
Australia. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea for the Guardian
Oliver Holmes in Bangkok
Wednesday 16 December 2015 16.00 AEDT
Last modified on Wednesday 16 December 2015 21.24 AEDT
Thailand’s junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha has called for a whistleblowing police officer who fled to Australia to
return, promising to punish influential figures the officer said want to kill him for exposing their role in human trafficking.
Revealed: Thailand's most senior human trafficking investigator to seek political asylum in Australia
Read more - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/10/thailands-most-senior-human-trafficking-investigator-to-seek-political-asylum-in-australia
“Tell me now, who threatened you? It is no matter how big they are, I will have them punished,” Prayuth told reporters.
Police Major General Paween Pongsirin told Guardian Australia .. http://www.theguardian.com/au?INTCMP=CE_AU .. and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week that he was in Melbourne to claim political asylum after he found senior members in the military and police were involved in the illicit trade.
“I don’t understand why he [Paween] has to flee and seek political asylum in Australia. He should come home to file lawsuits against the alleged persons,” Prayuth added.
On Monday, Thailand’s deputy head of the attorney general’s human trafficking case office, Prayuth Sattayarak, suggested Paween might testify against the alleged aggressors via a video-link, according to the local Nation .. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Trafficking-investigator-can-testify-via-video-lin-30274938.html .. news website.
The offers to help Paween sit in stark contrast to comments on Friday by Royal Thai police chief Jakthip Chaijinda, who said police were considering a defamation case .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/thailand-considers-defamation-case-against-human-trafficking-investigator .. against Paween, a criminal charge in Thailand.
The police say Paween never filed internal complaints when he was allegedly threatened.
Dismayed by being blacklisted in a US report for the second consecutive year .. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/20/thai-government-us-human-trafficking-report .. for not combatting modern-day slavery, Thailand said it had made “tangible progress”.
The south-east Asian nation pressed charges against more than 100 people .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/thai-officials-among-more-than-100-charged-with-human-trafficking , including an army general, on counts of human trafficking after dozens of bodies were found in a jungle prison camp earlier this year.
Many of the exhumed bodies were believed to be Rohingya .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/rohingya .. Muslims, a long-persecuted minority who have been fleeing Myanmar .. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/oct/21/thousands-rohingya-refugees-flee-boat-looming-disaster-amnesty .
[ The People vs. The Monks
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103038540 .. and in reply ..
Myanmar Collects Temporary ID Cards from Rohingya Muslims
.. video .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113742734 ]
Paween led the investigation and he said he uncovered a major human trafficking syndicate but that “from the beginning” he was under pressure not to pursue the perpetrators too enthusiastically.
He resigned from the force last month after he was transferred against his will to an insurgency-plagued region in the deep south of Thailand .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/thailand . He said traffickers he was pursuing were influential in this region and “senior police” in the area were involved. He told his superiors that he feared for his life, but says his protests were ignored.
Paween did not name the senior officials he alleges are complicit in the human trafficking trade.
The investigation he led was disbanded after just five months, although Thai police say witnesses in human-trafficking cases will testify next week and throughout 2016 in an ongoing case.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/16/thai-pm-i-will-punish-those-who-threatened-human-trafficking-whistleblower
.. from previous ..
Thailand's former army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, calls for understanding of his democracy style
7.30 By South East Asia correspondent Samantha Hawley
Updated Thu at 2:07am
Video: What happens when a foreign journalist challenges the Thai PM over his dictatorship? (7.30)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-01/what-happens-when-a-foreign-journalist-challenges/6366302
Related Story: Thai PM Prayuth says he has power to execute reporters
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/thai-pm-prayuth-says-has-power-to-execute-reporters/6348454
See also:
The Threat Is Already Inside
And, no, it’s not just Islam.
You can’t even count on Buddhists to be peaceful: On Oct. 23, 2012, for instance, Buddhist militants attacked the Burmese village of Yan Thei
.. https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims ..
and massacred at least 70 people, including 28 children, most of whom were hacked to death.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=119135839
A people's tribunal puts Indonesia on trial
Fifty years after mass killings in Indonesia, victims hold a people's tribunal at The Hague.
Benjamin Duerr | 10 Dec 2015 11:50 GMT | Politics, Indonesia, Human Rights
Martono was in his 30s when soldiers from a special force of the Indonesian army broke into his house in Solo and detained him without explanation [Benjamin Duerr/Al Jazeera]
The Hague, Netherlands - Martono might not remember what he had for lunch a few days ago, but he can describe in detail the events of November 10, 1965.
He was in his 30s when soldiers from a special force of the Indonesian army invaded his house in Solo, a town at the centre of the Indonesian island of Java. The soldiers wore dark uniforms and masks over their faces, "like ninjas", Martono remembers.
In just a few minutes, they overpowered him, bound his hands together and dragged him to a waiting car. He had no idea where he was taken, he recalls.
"Nobody has ever told me why I was arrested or imprisoned," Martono told Al Jazeera in The Hague.
Martono was thrown into a prison cell.
Indonesia's killing fields
In the days and weeks that followed, four guards would regularly enter the cell, seize him by his hands and feet and throw him like a ball against the walls and the low ceiling. Cracks emerged in the walls and in Martono. He lost all of his teeth.
Hear the people's voice
Martono is about 81 now. He doesn't know his exact age since births were not recorded properly when he was born.
Half a century after he was arrested, Martono climbed up the lithic staircase to the entrance of a hall a renaissance-era church building that became a temporary court room in November.
For one week the building in the centre of the Dutch city of The Hague was the seat of the International People's Tribunal for Indonesia.
The symbolic court is investigating and prosecuting a forgotten mass murder which left nearly 500,000 people dead in the 1960s.
RELATED: Revisiting an Indonesian massacre 50 years on
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/revisiting-indonesian-massacre-50-years-150930055803832.html
Lawyers and activists have set up the People's Tribunal - a hybrid truth commission created to establish a historical record, collect evidence against the perpetrators and give victims a voice.
Organised by the community of survivors and Indonesians in exile with support from human rights activists, the tribunal seeks .. http://1965tribunal.org/about/concept-note-on-international-peoples-tribunal-on-crimes-against-humanity-in-indonesia-1965/ .. to "break down the vicious cycle of denial, distortion, taboo and secrecy".
Remembering 1965
Fifty years ago, six generals of the Indonesian army were killed by a group calling itself the 30 September Movement .. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/revisiting-indonesian-massacre-50-years-150930055803832.html . The background to and motives for these killings are controversial, but research indicates that key figures of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were involved.
David Henley, a professor of contemporary Indonesia studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, explained that "their motive was to head off an anticipated coup by rightist generals, or at least to shift the balance of power in Jakarta to the left in the face of a perceived threat from the armed forces to the position of the PKI".
General Suharto, who later ruled the country as president from 1967 to 1998, assumed command of the army and accused the "communists" of being behind the 30 September Movement. "Communists" became an umbrella term for members of the PKI, alleged communists and suspected sympathisers, but also for anybody else perceived as opposing Suharto.
The army used the events to justify a crackdown on rivals.
In October 1965, the military launched a campaign against all those it had branded "communists".
In the weeks and months that followed, around half a million people were detained, tortured, killed or disappeared. Soldiers and other armed groups went after those, like Martono, whom they considered enemies of the state.
Martono was most likely targeted because he openly supported Marxist ideas.
"No one knows how many people have been brutally and inhumanely killed," said Todung Mulya Lubis, an Indonesian lawyer at the tribunal. The most common estimate places the number of deaths at 500,000 but Amnesty International .. https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2015/09/indonesia-millions-of-victims-and-families-still-abandoned-50-years-after-mass-killings/ .. says the true count could be as high as one million.
RELATED: Lasting legacy of Suharto
http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/indonesia/2008/01/20086150541562370.html
The events of 1965 remain a highly sensitive issue in the country. "Anti-communism, along with developmentalism, was an ideological pillar of Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime, which saw and styled itself as having saved the country from the menace of the radical left," Henley explained.
"The murderers were part of an establishment which did not decry violence as such, and indeed based its own legitimacy on the allegedly necessary and purifying violence of 1965."
The People's Tribunal
Today impunity surrounds the events of autumn 1965. The Indonesian government prosecuted 34 people for gross human rights violations, which included the 1965 mass murders. Only 18 of them were actually convicted, however, and of these all were acquitted on appeal, Indonesian human rights group Tapol .. http://tapol.org/sites/all/modules/custom/tpl_sorry/docs/Indonesias_unresolved_mass_murders.pdf .. reported in 2012.
"A chilling culture of silence has prevailed in Indonesia, where even discussing the killings of 50 years ago has been largely impossible for victims," Amnesty International stated .. https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2015/09/indonesia-millions-of-victims-and-families-still-abandoned-50-years-after-mass-killings/ .. in 2015.
Lawyers and activists want to change this fact through the People's Tribunal. As the tribunal wasn't set up by an international treaty or by the UN Security Council, its decisions are not legally binding. Its aim, instead, is to use the law to draw attention to a much-ignored part of Indonesian history.
And, instead of charging individuals, the tribunal has put the entire Indonesian state on trial.
The prosecutors allege that in the months after October 1965 crimes against humanity were committed, among them murder, torture and enslavement. Many were held for several years in camps where they were forced to work.
Censorship returns to Indonesia
Even though the crimes were committed by individuals, in accordance with International Law Commission case law .. http://tinyurl.com/jf2t8ry .. a state can be held responsible under the principle of state responsibility for facilitating and aiding and abetting the commitment of an internationally wrongful act, such as those that constitute crimes against humanity.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have also been charged with complicity in these crimes in the People's Tribunal. According to the indictment, "several Western countries ... provided small arms, radio communications, money and even lists of people they would like to see eliminated".
The Indonesian state, which is the main player accused before the tribunal, did not participate in the proceedings which ended in November, and the Indonesian embassy in The Hague did not react to a request for comment.
The panel of judges, made up of lawyers, political scientists and human rights experts from South Africa, Iran, the UK, France and other states, is currently deliberating on the case. They hope to present their final report and judgement to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2016.
'Five times I almost died'
The People's Tribunal is filling the space where the Indonesian government has failed to act. The democratic transformation of 1998 left much of the old elite in place, Henley said. Hence there was a reluctance to talk about the events or to punish those responsible.
Censorship and crackdowns have continued through the years. Authorities have targeted activists daring to speak about the past by blocking events .. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/16/the-past-is-never-dead-an-unflinching-look-at-indonesias-bloody-past.html , publications .. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/20/student-magazine-withdrawn-publishing-about-1965-massacre.html , and media covering these events.
"The censorship ... is part of a broader crackdown in recent months," says film-maker Joshua Oppenheimer, whose documentary about the killings, "The Look of Silence .. http://thelookofsilence.com/ ", was not shown at this year's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali following pressure from the Indonesian authorities.
OPINION: 'The Act of Killing' and the consequences of forgetting
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/act-killing-consequences-forgetting-201310211415845850.html
Oppenheimer told Al Jazeera the crackdown was led by the army. He believes, some of the alleged perpetrators of 1965 still exert influence in the military, but that "many parliamentarians are business partners of military people, so nobody has an interest in investigations of the past or in prosecutions".
The Indonesian lawyer who acted as a prosecutor in The Hague agrees with him. "We don't know what will happen to us when we return home," said Lubis. Communist sympathisers or those who speak openly about the killings are threatened and "regarded as traitors of the nation", he added.
But Martono is not afraid. "Five times I have almost died," he said of the torture he endured. What more should he be afraid of, he asked.
When Martono took the stand as a witness on the first day of the tribunal, he told the seven judges his story in detail and expressed his satisfaction with the opportunity to finally speak out.
Establishing the facts is a first step to acknowledging the past and honouring the victims, prosecutor Lubis said in court. "Only by knowing the truth we can start healing the wounds and the pain."
Source: Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/12/people-tribunal-puts-indonesia-trial-151201051119025.html
.. any action which could serve as even a tiny deterrent to unwarranted violence is good to see ..
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Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
by Yvonne Ridley May 12, 2012
Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is a war criminal.
In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
.. more .. http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/
See also:
Justice for Timor War Criminals?
By David Loyn BBC February 18, 2005
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=37138053
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon calls for Israel to halt all settlement activity
Sunday, March 21, 2010
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=48064964
Nepal Police Break up Anti-India Protest Over Blockade
.. a much different tone and substance .. :)
By The Associated Press
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Dec 10, 2015, 7:07 AM ET
The Associated Press
Nepalese activists protesting against India show papers written with their appeal as they are detained by police outside the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015. About 50 activists were detained as they demanded an end to a monthlong blockade of supplies from India. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Police in Nepal .. http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/nepal.htm .. detained about 50 activists protesting outside the Indian Embassy on Thursday to demand an end to a monthslong blockade of supplies from India .. http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/india.htm .
The protesters held banners demanding India halt the border blockade, calling it a "crime against humanity."
Police said they would be released later Thursday.
India has restricted fuel, medicine and other supplies for Nepal since the ethnic Madhesi group in the country's south began protesting a new constitution adopted in September.
Members of the ethnic group say the constitution unfairly divides Nepal into seven states with borders that cut through their ancestral homeland. India has close cultural ties with the group and has asked Nepal to consider its demands for a bigger state, more seats in parliament and greater local authority.
Landlocked Nepal gets most of its fuel from India, as well as many other goods including medicine.
Protesters have blocked a key border point with India, and Nepalese officials say imports through other border points where there are no protests are difficult. India denies it has imposed a blockade.
At least 50 people have been killed in the protests since August.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nepal-police-break-anti-india-protest-shortages-35687492
.. sheesh, drawing borders to cut people up STILL going on .. damn, after war .. within
countries .. Africa .. ME .. to divide .. for electoral advantage .. on and on .. still it continues ..
==
India’s 7-amendment suggestions in Nepal’s constitution are of Madhesi front’s demands
September 25, 2015 Praveen Yadav 0 Comments #Indo-Nepal
Recently, the media report about 7-amendments India wants in Nepal’s constitution that appeared in Indian Express on September 23 (click here .. http://indianexpress.com/article/world/neighbours/make-seven-changes-to-your-constitution-address-madhesi-concerns-india-to-nepal/ ) has been refuted by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (IMEA). When compared those amendment suggestions to Nepal with demands of Madhes, they are not of India but agitating Madhesi front.
It is learnt that India wanted the Nepalese government resolve the ongoing unrest in Terai/Madhes region by addressing the demands of Madhesi front. As the the report, following are 7-amendments.
* Article 63 (3) of the Interim Constitution provided electoral constituencies based on population, geography and special characteristics, “and in the case of Madhes on the basis of percentage of population”. Under this provision, Madhes, with more than 50 per cent of the population, got 50 per cent of seats in Parliament. The latter phrase has been omitted in Article 84 of the new Constitution.
* In Article 21 of the Interim Constitution, it was mentioned that various groups would have “the right to participate in state structures on the basis of principles of proportional inclusion”. In the new Constitution (Article 42), the word “proportional” has been dropped and it should be re-inserted.
* Article 283 of the Constitution states that only citizens by descent will be entitled to hold the posts of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament, Chairperson of National Assembly, Head of Province, Chief Minister, Speaker of Provincial Assembly and Chief of Security Bodies. This clause is seen as discriminatory for the large number of Madhesis who have acquired citizenship by birth or naturalization.
* Article 86 of the new Constitution states that National Assembly will comprise 8 members from each of 7 States and 3 nominated members. Madhesi parties want representation in National Assembly to be based on population of the Provinces.
* Five disputed districts of Kanchanpur, Kailali, Sunsari, Jhapa and Morang: Based on the majority of the population, these districts or parts of them may be included in the neighboring Madhes Provinces.
* Article 154 of the Interim Constitution provided for delineation of electoral constituencies every 10 years. This has been increased to 20 years in Article 281 of the new Constitution. Echoing the Madhesi parties, India wants this restored to 10 years.
* Article 11(6) states that a foreign woman married to a Nepali citizen may acquire naturalized citizenship of Nepal as provided for in a federal law. Madhesi parties want acquisition of naturalised citizenship to be automatic on application.
http://www.madhesiyouth.com/political/indias-7-amendments-suggestion-in-nepals-constitution-are-of-madhesi-fronts-demands/
The Koala in the Coal Mine
CORRECTION: reposted as i mucked up the emphasis the first time ..
.. has anyone else noticed we don't see as many of these caring 'human' considerations on the board as we used to see .. whatever, the board is no doubt
more one-dimensional than it used to be .. perhaps that's the way most here want it to be? .. almost science/political period? .. just an observation .. grin ..
seriously, i'm only saying this here as i am not sure .. and i like to think of the board as a family, of sorts .. it used to have more of that feeling ..
Oh, the image at the top i can't reproduce .. it's here for any who would like to experience it in the now.
Australian farmers are fighting to stop an enormous coal mine from destroying their way of life and the habitat of an iconic animal that is disappearing as the climate grows hotter.
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Nov 30, 2015
Todd Woody is TakePart's senior editor for environment and wildlife.
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GUNNEDAH, Australia—Scrambling up a rock-strewn hill, I crane my neck and scan a row of trees for koalas. Truth be told, I’ve never been all that good at spotting koalas in the wild. The cartoon-cute marsupial may be one of the world’s most recognizable animals, but try finding one silently snoozing 40 feet off the ground in a leafy eucalyptus tree among hundreds scattered across this former farm in the Liverpool Plains, a fertile agriculture district 250 miles northwest of Sydney. Koalas, which sleep up to 22 hours a day, don’t snore or do much of anything else that would attract attention. But on this sunny antipodean spring day in late September, even the koala experts from the University of Sydney I’m accompanying aren’t having much luck. After hours of searching, we’ve found only one in an area once crawling with koalas. That is deeply disconcerting to the scientists, who are studying the impact of climate change on an animal listed as one of the species most at risk from global warming .. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/species_and_climate_change.pdf . A 2009 heat wave here wiped out an estimated 25 percent of what had been one of the healthiest populations of koalas in Australia.
They aren’t bouncing back.
“These heat waves are happening more and more with climate change,” Mathew Crowther, the wildlife ecologist who leads the research team, says as we take a break for lunch. “We have weeks of high temperatures we never had before, and koalas can’t get enough food and water and shelter. Koalas can cope with the odd hot day, but after that they’re found dead or dying at the base of trees.”
FULL COVERAGE: Climate Change(d): The Future Is Now
http://www.takepart.com/climate
The 2009 heat wave followed a decade-long drought and helped trigger the most deadly wildfires in Australia’s recorded history, killing 173 people in the southern state of Victoria as temperatures soared to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Droughts and bushfires, as they’re called here, have been part of the Australian landscape for 65 million years. But in recent decades, the intensity and frequency of deadly conflagrations have grown with rising temperatures. The number of days of record heat a year, for instance, has doubled .. http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/00ca18a19ff194252940f7e3c58da254.pdf .. since 1960, according to government scientists, while annual rainfall has declined by as much as 20 percent in southern Australia. September ended as the third driest September .. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/third-driest-september-on-record-in-australia-as-global-records-tumble-again .. ever, while October ranked as the hottest October .. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml , with bushfires breaking out across the country during an ever-lengthening fire season. Wildfires have killed six people in the past week alone.
With only a few hours of search time left in the day, we split up to maximize our chances of a koala encounter. As I reach the end of a ridgeline, there’s no mistaking what I see dozing in a sprawling eucalyptus tree, its butt and belly wedged in the fork between two thick branches, its paws hugging the rough bark of the trunk like a pillow. After a few minutes, the koala rouses from its slumber and peers down at me, staring. I stare back. Most people will never look a wild polar bear in the eye, exchanging glances with a magnificent animal whose extinction is unfolding in real time. The koala is Australia’s polar bear, its tree an ice floe. The eucalyptus I’m standing under is the marsupial’s sole source of shelter, the elongated leaves its only food and water. When heat waves drain moisture from eucalyptus leaves, thirsty koalas have nowhere to run—and a species evolved to conserve energy can’t run for long. A growing pile of scientific studies .. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/52005008_Koalas_and_climate_change_a_case_study_on_the_Liverpool_Plains_north-west_NSW .. indicates that rising carbon dioxide levels will make the few species of eucalyptus leaves preferred by fussy koalas increasingly toxic and less nutritious. As temperatures continue to climb, koala populations in hotter, drier regions of Australia are crashing.
The koala ambles up a branch toward the top of the tree. Sitting on its haunches, the warm breeze ruffling its gray-brown fur, the animal holds on to a branch with one arm as pink-and-gray birds called galahs circle overhead. The idyll is interrupted by the blast of a horn. The koala slowly turns its head and gazes at an approaching train in the valley below, each of its dozens of cars piled high with jet-black coal. Traveling from a mine in the north, the train takes several minutes to pass on its way to a coastal port where its cargo will be loaded on ships bound for China and India.
Even as world leaders gather in Paris .. http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015/11/30/climate-change-curtain-raiser .. this week to negotiate a treaty to slash greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of fossil fuels accelerates the climate change battering Australia, the country’s coal-mining binge continues unabated. The world’s second-largest exporter of coal, Australia ranks as one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita, thanks to its dependence on the black stuff to generate more than 70 percent of its electricity. One recently approved coal mine would generate more carbon dioxide than 52 nations .. http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/28/australia-just-approved-coal-mine-will-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-52-nations . That mine, along with six others in the works, would collectively become the world’s seventh-largest emitter of C02.
Coal is not just an existential threat to an iconic animal whose vulnerability to climate change foreshadows the fate of other species, scientists say. Fifteen miles away, the government has approved the construction of a 13.5-square-mile Chinese-owned coal mine .. http://www.shenhuawatermark.com/html/Watermark/WatermarkProject/TheProject/ .. to be built on the habitat of several hundred koalas and some of Australia’s richest farmland. The Shenhua mine has triggered a rebellion among residents, who fear the 1,000-foot-deep open pits will contaminate an aquifer that transformed the Liverpool Plains into Australia’s food bowl. Now, the farmers and ranchers of this bedrock conservative region are making common cause with environmentalists to stop the mine by challenging its impact on the koala. If they can save the koala, they may just save themselves.
Video: Farmers Take on Big Coal to Save Koalas—and Themselves
Plant a Tree, and They Will Come
When Crowther first came to the Liverpool Plains in 2008, it was not to study why the koalas were dying but rather why they were so healthy. Researchers have found that at least 50 percent of koalas in Australia suffer from chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease that leaves the animals blind and infertile. The Liverpool Plains kolas, on the other hand, appeared to be virtually chlamydia-free. Koala populations elsewhere in Australia were plummeting as suburban development fragmented their woodland habitat, leaving them vulnerable to predation by their new neighbors—pet dogs and automobiles. The country koala population, though, numbered in the thousands and was growing.
Then there was another mystery: Why were koalas even here, and where did they come from?
“There really weren’t many koalas recorded here before the 1980s, as there had been too much land clearing for agriculture over the past century,” says Crowther. So much that the soil began to turn saline. In an effort to keep the water table down and return nutrients to the soil, the state government began planting thousands of trees across the Liverpool Plains. Nutrients weren’t the only thing that returned.
“I reckon we have 100 koalas on our property,” says Doug Frend, 33, who raises cattle, barley, and sorghum on Dimberoy, his family’s 5,200-acre farm nestled between rolling hills on the Liverpool Plains south of the country town of Gunnedah. “My dad said they never really noticed them before the 1970s or ’80s.” You don’t have to wander too far to find them today. It’s a bright, sunny morning, and we’re standing near a row of eucalyptus trees towering over sheds and tractors. A gray-and-white koala perches on a branch high off the ground, its eyes closed tight. Within a few hundred feet of Frend’s tin-roofed farmhouse we find another five koalas, including a mother and baby.
Andrew Pursehouse and Cindy Pursehouse have been farming on the Liverpool Plains for three decades. “We’ve planted hundreds of trees over the years,” says Cindy Pursehouse as she and her husband give me a tour of Breeza Station, their 11,000-acre farm. Andrew Pursehouse gestures to a row of eucalyptus trees that stretches up a hill. “This is a tree line we planted about 20 years ago,” he says. “Usually when we plant tree lines, we make sure they’re a variety that that the koala likes to eat.”
The trees are apparently tasty. Behind us, a rather large koala watches languidly from a branch, only a few feet from a barbed wire fence that marks the boundary between Breeza Station and the Shenhua mine property. A hundred feet away, another koala shimmies down a tree, bounces like a bunny across the grass, and hops onto another eucalyptus.
Farmers Cindy Pursehouse and Andrew Pursehouse point to a koala on their property. (Photo: Elise Hassey)
“Werris Creek is a town on the other side of the gap in those hills,” Andrew Pursehouse says, pointing to the southeast. “Friends of ours have been there for three generations, and the second generation only saw koalas about 20 years ago. They had never been there before, and now they are. I don’t know if it’s climate change or what.”
The origin of the Liverpool Plains koala is unknown, but biologists say there is a possibility that some of the koalas are climate refugees from the Pilliga Forest .. http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/pilliga-national-park , a 1.2-million-acre woodland to the west. The forest was home to as many as 10,000 koalas in the early 1990s, according to government surveys. By 2011, detections of koalas in the Pilliga had plummeted 77 percent.
“Today there’s only about a couple of dozen left out of a population in excess of 5,000,” says David Paull, a wildlife ecologist who studied the Pilliga koalas when he worked for the state government. “They more or less disappeared over a 10-year period of above-average droughts.”
In a paper reporting the results of the 2011 survey, Paull linked the disappearance of the koalas from the Pilliga to climate change and to a series of heat waves. Meteorological data cited in the study shows that between 1984 and 1994, there were only three years when temperatures in the Pilliga exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit, for a total of 14 days of excessive heat during the entire decade. But between 2001 and 2011, the Pilliga experienced temperatures greater than 104 degrees every year, with 10 days of searing heat in 2002, twelve days in 2006, and seven days in 2009.
“Rising temperatures and heat stress during certain times seems to be what killed them,” says Crowther. “It’s hard to tell if the koalas were moving into the Liverpool Plains from there or if they hadn’t been discovered here before.”
If some koalas did somehow manage to survive the journey from the Pilliga, the Liverpool Plains may prove to be a short-lived haven.
Nowhere to Run
When researchers came back to the Liverpool Plains after two consecutive heat waves struck the region in late 2009, they found dead and dying koalas clinging to the base of trees, forced to the ground by dehydration and the merciless sun. At Dimberoy farm, Doug Frend’s father found a fifth of the koalas on the property dead on the ground after several 100-degree days. The researchers offered water to one hugging a tree by spraying it with some. “After the koala felt the water on its nose, it then sprinted to John Lemon, who was holding the spray-gun,” Crowther and his colleagues wrote in a study published in 2012. “It clasped his hand to stop John Lemon withdrawing the bottle to refill it. The koala climbed through the fence to pursue John Lemon in its quest for the water bottle. What is so remarkable is that this koala would, in any other circumstance, have quickly climbed the tree on our approach. It was manifestly desperate for water.”
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The researchers observed that the animals’ fertility rates had dropped precipitously in the wake of the heat wave. A month before the first heat wave, 89 percent of female koalas caught in the Gunnedah area were found with joeys. A year later, only 40 percent of captured koalas were carrying young. Scientists also think the stress of the heat wave and drought may have triggered a chlamydia outbreak. According to the study, 43 percent of koalas captured tested positive for the disease after the heat waves, compared with just 8 percent in 2008.
In late September, I join the researchers when they return to the Liverpool Plains for the first time in four years for a weeklong excursion to capture koalas, test them for chlamydia, and outfit the animals with GPS collars to track their movements. After I spot the koala, I call out to the team, and 20 minutes later they return carrying long poles festooned with strips of pink-and-gray plastic. The chief koala wrangler, a ponytailed 33-year-old named George Madani, puts on a harness and helmet and starts rappelling up the tree. Madani, a self-described “field monkey” (albeit one with a master’s degree in wildlife management), holds a pole with a length of rope running up the side. As he gets closer to the koala, the animal is startled and moves farther out on a high limb, its weight bending the branch. “You bugger,” Madani curses.
Wildlife ecologist George Madani captures a koala that will be tested for disease and outfitted with a GPS tracking collar. (Photo: Elise Hassey)
He manages to lasso the koala with the rope while three people on the ground wave the plastic-topped poles over the animal as it struggles to free itself. Koalas don’t like anything above their heads, and it begins to back down the tree, alternating between guttural grunts and a high-pitched scream. When it reaches the trunk, veterinarian Mark Krockenberger grabs the koala and presses it to the ground, staying clear of its razor-sharp claws, and then pops it into a white canvas Australia Post mailbag.
Down the hill, Krockenberger weighs the koala while it’s still in the bag and then sedates the nearly 23-pound animal and places it on the tailgate of a Ford Ranger 4x4 pickup truck. The koala is male, about eight to 10 years old, judging from the wear on its teeth. And it’s been captured before: A scanner picks up a signal from a microchip that was implanted under the koala’s skin on Oct. 26, 2010. It’s put on some weight since then—a good sign—but its eyes are red. That’s not so good. “Looks like conjunctivitis, which is a sign of chlamydia,” says Krockenberger as an assistant shaves a patch of fur on one of the koala’s arms to draw blood for laboratory testing that will confirm the presence of the disease. “One of the big problems with chlamydia is that koalas are no longer successfully breeding, yet they’re taking up habitat.”
Still, Krockenberger, an assistant professor at the University of Sydney, deems the koala healthy enough to be outfitted with a GPS collar. Valentina Mella, a postdoctoral research associate at the university, straps the 3.5-ounce collar around the koala’s neck and tunes in its UHF frequency, which will be used to find the animal when the researchers return in six months to retrieve the device and download its data.
Crowther says the scientists hope to learn where and how far the animals travel each night from the trees they choose for shelter against the sun to those that offer the most nutritious koala chow. Those insights will allow wildlife officials to better plan where to create refuges for the climate-stressed animals and plant the tree species most likely to allow them to survive.
Earlier in the day the team caught a female, but Krockenberger ruled against collaring that one, which was showing definite signs of chlamydia. “She’s probably eight to 10 years old, which is oldish,” he says. “She’s also a bit dehydrated, so I’ve given her a bit of fluids. We will release her, but putting a collar on her would put more stress on her.”
A baby koala that was captured with its mother. (Photo: Elise Hassey)
Biologists believe most koalas carry chlamydia, but the disease remains dormant until it’s triggered by stress—from habitat destruction, harassment by dogs, or drought and heat waves.
Laboratory results will show 67 percent of the 24 adult koalas that are caught by week’s end testing positive for chlamydia, an eight-fold increase from 2008.
“They’re living on the edge, particularly out here,” Krockenberger says. “They might breed every two years, maybe annually, but I doubt it.”
At Breeza Station, the Pursehouses find koalas suffering from 100-degree temperatures during most summers. “Even last year I had one in my yard sitting on the ground by the tree,” says Cindy Pursehouse. “You just put some water before them, and they actually drink.”
A 2011 study by University of Queensland scientists used computer modeling to forecast that koalas will be forced to move south and east as temperatures rise. The Pursehouses say they’ve seen evidence that such a migration is under way. “We have been here 31 years, and the intriguing issue is that we do see koalas leaving the hill and moving south and east from where we are,” says Andrew Pursehouse. “That means crossing a treeless plain for many kilometers until they find the next hill and tree.”
“We regularly pick them up on the black soil, and there’s not a tree in sight,” he adds, pointing to an expanse of agricultural fields below his house. “We’ve had to rescue so many here over the years, particularly when it gets wet and they get bogged in the fields.”
Drought, heat waves, and wild swings in the weather also have taken a toll on the farmers. Doug Frend says his family sold off its breeding cows as the cost of feeding them during droughts became ruinous. “We know we’re going to get dry times, and droughts can go on for years,” he says. “We now buy in other people’s calves that they’ve bred.”
[ .. sorry can't reproduce the images here ..]
Photographer Elise Hassey captures efforts made by farmers and scientists to save the koala on the Liverpool Plains.
Liverpool Plains rancher Nicky Chirlian notes that climate change has started to hit area cattle operations. “There’s been a huge amount of destocking,” she says. “We breed cattle, but we get skinny ones and fatten them. It’s amazing when you drive out west—where have the cattle gone? It’s been dry for so long.”
The drought in 2002–2003, for instance, hurt agricultural productivity, lowering Australia’s gross domestic product by 1 percent, according to a report released in October by the Climate Council, a nonprofit research institute. Between 1996 and 2010, the years of the so-called Millennium Drought in Australia, declines in agricultural productivity resulted in a 0.5 percent fall in GDP. Food prices, meanwhile, rose at twice the rate of the consumer price index.
Andrew Pursehouse, 57, recognizes the threat climate change poses to farmers, but he is focused on a more immediate danger—the huge coal mine to be built by China’s Shenhua Group about a mile from Breeza Station. The Liverpool Plains may boast Australia’s most productive farmland, thanks to an immense aquifer, but underneath that rich soil is an estimated 1.5 billion metric tons of coal. “My fear is that this mine is going to be put here and cut the natural migration of koalas clean off,” he says.
While we're talking, Crowther and his team are on the mine site looking for koalas. They will capture 12 adults and one joey.
“This hill where the mine is going to be is a source of water for the aquifer, as are all the hills in the district," says Andrew Pursehouse. "We’re terribly concerned there is going to be impacts to the underground water supply.”
He scoops up a handful of the rich black dirt that grows just about anything, from cotton and wheat to sunflowers and chickpeas, at Breeza Station. “Why would you want to damage the agricultural ability of this soil for a stinking dirty coal mine?” he asks.
Rural Rebellion
Why, indeed?
To a non-Australian, the idea of trading food for coal may seem, well, insane. After all, would you put a coal mine in the Napa Valley, the cradle of the $25 billion California wine industry .. https://www.wineinstitute.org/resources/pressroom/05192015 ? Australia has. In the Hunter Valley—the Napa Valley of New South Wales—there are 31 coal mines and five coal-fired power plants amid the vineyards.
Australia is a bit of an economic oddity—a wealthy, advanced developed nation with a developing world–like dependence on digging stuff out of the ground. Thanks to China’s voracious appetite, exports of coal, iron ore, wheat, and other commodities have fueled Australia’s 20-year economic boom. The country’s richest person, Gina Rinehart (net worth $11.7 billion, according to Forbes .. http://www.forbes.com/australia-billionaires/list/#tab:overall ), is not a tech mogul but a miner.
In short, no politician, right or left, has met a coal mine she or he didn’t like. It was a state Labor government that in 2008 granted China’s Shenhua Group a license to explore 75 square miles of the Liverpool Plains for coal in exchange for the equivalent of $215 million. Final approval for the mine came from the conservative government of Tony Abbott, the recently deposed prime minister and climate change skeptic who proclaimed at the opening of a coal mine .. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/04/coal-is-the-future-insists-tony-abbott-as-un-calls-for-action-on-climate-change .. last year that “coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential part of our economic future.”
A coal train passes through the Liverpool Plains. (Photo: Elise Hassey)
The conservative government’s pell-mell push to approve coal mines threatens to fracture a decades-old alliance between rural interests and urban conservatives. “Certainly, like all farmers here on the plain, we’re not against mining,” says Andrew Pursehouse. “But this one is just smack in the wrong spot.”
As if on cue, a coal train rumbles by in the distance, skirting fields planted with wheat and other crops. The Shenhua mine would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and would require the construction of roads and a rail line to transport the coal.
We’re sitting on the Pursehouses’ patio overlooking a broad plain, drinking coffee and noshing on Nicky Chirlian’s homemade coffee cake. David Paull, the wildlife ecologist, has joined us. He resigned his position with the state government last year to protest what he characterizes as a rush to approve coal and natural gas projects regardless of the consequences for wildlife. He now advises Shenhua opponents in a legal challenge to the mine’s approval on the grounds that the government did not consider the impact on koalas of leveling 2,000 acres of their woodland habitat. (Shenhua somewhat incredulously has said it would encourage the animals to leave of their own volition or, barring that, relocate them.)
As Andrew Pursehouse calmly delves into the complex hydrology of the Liverpool Plains and the potential for the mine to contaminate the aquifer, there’s an undercurrent of rage at the table: fury at Shenhua and the government, dismay at neighbors who sold their farmland to the Chinese for millions of dollars, giving the miners access to water rights.
“If this mine goes ahead, I think we’ll see a revolution of people here,” he says. It’s not an idle threat. In 2008, Liverpool Plains farmers staged a 635-day blockade to prevent Australian mining giant BHP Billiton from exploring for coal on growers’ land. The company backed off.
“People are so angry they will do anything to stop this mine,” he adds, his voice growing steely. “Whatever it takes.”
The End of Coal
“Farmers are the biggest greenies in the country at the moment,” says Tim Flannery, one of Australia’s most prominent scientists and author of The Weather Makers .. http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=The+Weather+Makers , a global best seller that, along with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth .. http://www.takepart.com/an-inconvenient-truth , brought climate change to worldwide attention a decade ago. “They wouldn’t call themselves that, but that’s effectively what they are. They’re at the radical end of things.”
The Weather Makers laid out the coming climate catastrophe in chilling and persuasive scientific detail and warned of the consequences of inaction, including the melting of glaciers, the collapse of coral reefs, and prolonged droughts. “The delay of even a decade is far too much,” Flannery wrote in the concluding chapter, titled “Time’s Up.”
When I meet Flannery on the patio of his Melbourne home, it’s been nearly a decade of dithering by world leaders on climate change since the book’s publication. But I find him cautiously optimistic
[ INSERT: Paris climate talks: Tim Flannery optimistic global agreement will be reached
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118810733 ]
that a turning point has been reached as renewable energy technologies ramp up. Thus the title of his latest book, Atmosphere of Hope .. http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=Atmosphere+of+Hope , in which he calls for the development of “third way” technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere and oceans to create products, such as the process developed by a California company .. http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08/19/plastic-bag-sucks-carbon-out-air-and-may-save-planet-not-destroy-it .. to make plastic furniture from methane gas emissions.
“I think the days of exporting coal are finished for Australia,” says the soft-spoken Flannery as his two-year-old son plays with a toy train. “The cost of the highest-quality metallurgical coal you can buy in China is now less than that of potable water. You can’t afford to dig it out of the ground and ship it.”
Tim Flannery. (Photo: Andrew Francis Wallace/Getty Images)
“Coal is losing its social license to operate in Australia,” he adds. “They’re not generating the jobs anymore, but the pollution is still there, and people in regional Australia are keenly aware of that. Australia totally needs to leave its coal in the ground.”
Two of Australia’s biggest banks have ruled out financing a recently approved $16 billion mine, while the city council of Newcastle in New South Wales, home to the world’s biggest coal port, has voted to pull its investments from four Australian banks if they continue to finance fossil fuel projects.
Flannery led the Climate Commission, which the Australian government established to provide scientific advice on climate policy. When Abbott’s Liberal Party (which is conservative) came to power in 2013, it abolished the commission, along with a carbon tax that had been imposed by the outgoing Labor government. Flannery reconstituted the commission as the nonprofit Climate Council.
Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, a proponent of action on climate change, ousted Abbott in a party-room coup in September. He became the country’s fifth prime minister in five years, a turnover spawned in large part by disputes over climate policy.
For Flannery, action is being increasingly driven from the ground up as average Australians, like the Liverpool Plains farmers, experience the consequences of climate change in their backyards. Flannery, a mammalogist, points to his own backyard. “It was hot last summer, and we had a family of black rats living up in that tree there, and I watched them chewing through bamboo to get some water, and they eventually died,” he says.
Climate Refugees
Are Australia’s koalas fated to end up like rats in a bamboo cage? They have, after all, survived endless millennia of drought and bushfires. “Australia has always had droughts, but before we came around and messed up the landscape, koalas could find a refuge and hunker down until conditions improved,” says Christine Adams-Hosking, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland, who studies the impact of climate change on koala habitat.
Adams-Hosking is lead author of the 2011 study that found that koala populations would contract toward the south and the east as temperatures continue to rise. “The rapidity of this climate change is one of the big issues for koalas—they’re just not a very mobile animal,” she says, noting females tend to stay within a small home range, while males typically don’t move more than 12 miles from where they’re born. “I don’t think most of them will be able to migrate. It’s happening now in real time that their populations are crashing.”
But not all of them. On Christmas Day in 2001, when I was living in Australia, we woke in our Sydney home by the beach to apocalyptic yellow clouds hovering over the ocean. Some 1.7 million acres of bushland surrounding the city were burning. At a family gathering later that day, ash fell into our gin and tonics as thick black smoke drifted across the horizon. On Sydney’s western edge, 60-foot walls of flames were incinerating forests, including a woodland home to 200 koalas near the suburb of Campbelltown that biologist Robert Close had been studying for a decade. When I joined him months later as he ventured into a moonscape of charred trees to monitor the survivors .. http://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Hazardous-habitat-Isolated-by-development-3188518.php , he was relieved to find Franceska, a 10-year-old female koala that he had been tracking for seven years, sitting in one of the few intact eucalyptus trees. Better yet, a three-month-old joey was sticking its head out of Franceska's pouch.
Veterinarians examine a koala. (Photo: Elise Hassey)
I contact Close to find out how the koalas are faring 14 years later, given a panoply of threats, including encroaching housing developments. He tells me the animals have not suffered long-term consequences from the fires. “Nor did we notice any other possible effects of climate change, except that koala numbers around Campbelltown are increasing,” he says. The housing developer has gone bankrupt, and the woodland is now part of a national park.
Australians may love their koalas and love putting them in the arms of visiting royalty, presidents, and prime ministers, but the federal government does not protect them as a threatened species, and state safeguards remain weak.
That underscores the importance of the work Crowther and his colleagues are doing to track the animals and determine which tree species are crucial for their survival. On the second day of the excursion, the team catches six koalas, including a joey, at Dimberoy farm. With the day drawing to a close, Doug Frend thinks more are to be found on the further reaches of his farm. I jump in a truck with him and his dachshund, and we head out past an electric cattle fence. “There,” he says, pointing to the silhouette of a koala sitting in the crook of a eucalyptus, its baby nestled against its chest.
In short order, three more koalas—one a joey—are spotted nearby. As the setting sun lights the golden hills afire, Madani races up trees to capture the animals before darkness falls. He wrestles a big and feisty koala into an Australia Post bag, and I carry the 22-pounds of squirming marsupial a few hundred yards to where Krockenberger is examining the captured koalas by flashlight while assistants hold an overflow of sedated animals on their laps.
“Imagine if the world had no more koalas,” Crowther says. “Imagine if Australia lost its koalas on our watch. It’s important to our culture; it’s important to our ecosystem. All other species have inherent rights to exist with us on our planet.”
[IMAGE: image can't copy]
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Watch 23 Years of Climate Negotiations in 3 Minutes
http://www.takepart.com/video/2015/11/30/watch-23-years-climate-negotiations-3-minutes
15 Comments [2 of]
Melanie Leigh · Perth, Australia
Solar energy is the fuel of the future. Australia has plenty of sunshine, and should not continue to mine coal : a non-renewable, dirty energy source.
Groundwater contamination from mining is a real danger, especially in a dry country.
The future for our children and grandchildren looks bleak indeed if political will remains weak and government does not put an end to the rapacious greed of mining giants.
Like · Reply · 3 · Dec 5, 2015 2:30pm
Nicola Chirlian · Speech Language Pathologist at Nicola Chirlian Speech Pathology Services
Totally agree with you Melanie.
Like · Reply · Dec 5, 2015 9:30pm
Continued .. http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015/11/30/koala-coal-mine
See also: repeat .. Paris climate talks: Tim Flannery optimistic global agreement will be reached
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State-enterprises under threat if Indonesia joins TPP: Experts
"It is true that Soeharto’s New Order regime had played a crucial role in changing Muslim political attitudes. The shift, however, is not only due to Soeharto who ruled the country repressively, but also due to the long and passionate role played by Muslim intellectuals. What is happening in Indonesia is not happening in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. Indonesian intellectuals played an important role in changing Muslim political mindset and attitude.
Through lectures, writings, and actions, they advocated democracy and delegitimized Islamic parties. Unlike in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, the Indonesian reform movement has always been through organizations. Intellectuals such as Abdurrahman Wahid (1940-2009), Ahmad Syafii Maarif (born 1935) and Nurcholish Madjid (1939-2005) are Muslim leaders who chaired big organizations. They spread their liberal ideas to Muslim society through these organizations. Wahid did it through Nahdlatul Ulama (40 million members), Maarif through Muhammadiyah (30 million members), and Madjid through Islamic Student Association and its alumnae (over 10 million members).
In Egypt, the Islamic reform movement has developed in a more solitary manner. Great intellectuals such as Jamaluddin al-Afghani (1837-1897) and Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) did not have any organization where they could spread their ideas. This trend continues until today’s generation of reformers. Intellectuals such as Hassan Hanafi (born 1935) and Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd (1943-2010) are solitary thinkers who do not have big followers. They disseminated their ideas in academic classes, seminars, and scholarly journals. No matter how sophisticated their ideas are, they remain limited and never reached to the grass roots."
Anton Hermansyah, thejakartapost.com, Jakarta | Business | Sun, November 29 2015, 7:07 AM"
President Barack Obama listens as Indonesian President Joko Widodo speaks during their meeting
in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on October 26, 2015. (AP/Susan Walsh)
Business News
Papua to discuss plans to buy Freeport shares
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/05/papua-discuss-plans-buy-freeport-shares.html
OPEC keeps oil production at current high level
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/05/opec-keeps-oil-production-current-high-level.html
Under pressure from ECB and the Fed, Indonesian market slides into the red
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/04/under-pressure-ecb-and-fed-indonesian-market-slides-red.html
Whether Indonesia should join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a topic of debate among the public but some economists have said that based on available trade data, joining the TPP may bring benefits to the country.
Berly Martawardaya, an economist with the Institute for Development of Economic and Finance (INDEF), said that out the 12 current members of the TPP, all them had formed free trade agreements (FTAs) with Indonesia, except the US, Canada, Mexico and Peru.
Based on Trade Ministry data, Indonesia’s total trade with those countries -except the US- is not significant. In 2014, the share of total trade with Canada was just 1.38 percent, while with Mexico and Peru 0.55 percent and 0.15 percent, and the US 13.04 percent. Berly added that there would be limitations to implement protective policy.
"Our state-owned enterprises [SOEs] will be in under serious threat because until now they are under protective policies such as government tender," Berly told thejakartapost.com on Saturday.
Former coordinating finance and industry minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita previously said in an analysis published in Kompas on Nov.9 that Indonesia had sufficient FTAs to reach to reach its export targets, namely the ASEAN Free Trade Area, ASEAN-China, ASEAN-India, ASEAN-Japan, ASEAN-South Korea and the future the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which will facilitate free trade among ASEAN+6 (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand).
Ginandjar said that rather than joining the TPP, it would be better if Indonesia focused on RCEP, in which Indonesia had a bigger role.
An economist from the School of Economics and Business at the University of Indonesia, Budi Frensidy, said that the government would not be able to force the policy, such as the obligation of local content, since foreign companies would demand equality.
Budi added that the current ASEAN members of TPP shared common traits. "Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam are countries with a limited domestic market, they need the developed TPP member countries’ markets," Budi added.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has mentioned the benefits of joining the TPP, including prompting Indonesia to improve the standard and quality of its products. The competition, he said, would make Indonesia work more efficiently, especially in the face of economic downturn. (dan)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/29/state-enterprises-under-threat-if-indonesia-joins-tpp-experts.html
===
What Indonesia's Support Means for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
COMMENTARY by Alan Wolff November 4, 2015, 4:31 PM EST
Joko Widodo, Indonesia's president-elect, reacts during an interview in Jakarta, Indonesia,
on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. Photograph by Dimas Ardian — Bloomberg via Getty Images
While the U.S. is undecided, the Asian country wants to join the trade deal.
As Congress considers one of the world’s biggest trade deals, many expect a tight vote. A majority of the 2016 presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, have spoken against the Trans Pacific Partnership. Key members of Congress who would normally lead the effort for passage of TPP have expressed initial concerns that the agreement may fall short of some of the rules they had hoped would be included.
But while the U.S. Congress appears undecided thus far, other countries are eager to join the trade deal. Last week, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo announced that his country intends to join the 12 nations that have agreed to create the TPP. Indonesia alone would add about 250 million potential future customers for U.S. goods and services.
And this week, South Korea’s president reiterated the country’s desire to join the trade agreement (with its 50 million population). This comes as the Philippines and Thailand have also expressed support of the TPP. With Taiwan also interested, that adds an additional half billion potential customers whose economies are not part of TPP.
And while China is not included in the TPP, reformers in the country of 1.4 billion people foresee to some day qualifying to join the TPP, according to last week’s official Chinese Communist Part newspaper.
In short, there is a line at the door for countries seeing open markets and a rules-based system, embodied in TPP, as vital to their future well-being.
The TPP is critical to America’s national security and commercial interests. The turning point for America’s interests in Asia occurred two years ago when Japan decided to join the trade agreement. Before TPP, very few people would have imagined Japan and the United States concluding a free trade agreement, linking two of the largest market-oriented economies – at least not for decades. But even before Japan joined the TPP negotiations, a straw in the wind was Vietnam opting to join in – no country in the region on its face has an economy so very different from that of the United States as Vietnam does, and so willing to change.
While the current deal is huge, with its twelve original participants accounting for about 40% of world’s economic activity, focusing solely on TPP as it stands today would be a mistake. Members of Congress, skeptical of whether there was any reality to the promised “rebalancing of America’s relationship with Asia” should see it in TPP, not just as TPP is now, but as what it is likely to become.
America is not alone in paying greater attention to Asia. Its TPP partners in this hemisphere – Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru —have the same vision. Their partners in Australia and New Zealand already do so.
Make no mistake. This vote is not just about another trade deal. It is about America’s future economic relationship with the largest and fastest growing part of the world.
Alan Wolff practices law in Washington D.C. with Dentons. He is a former U.S. Deputy Representative for Trade negotiations and is Chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council.
[ short video on Hillary's changed position on TPP ]
http://fortune.com/2015/11/04/indonesias-support-tans-pacific-partnership/
See also:
"How trade deals like TPP fail the global poor"
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118334228
A Carbon Tax’s Ignoble End
Why Tony Abbott Axed Australia’s Carbon Tax
Julia Baird JULY 24, 2014
SYDNEY, Australia — It will be remembered as one of the most ignoble moments in our history: On July 17, Australia became the first country to repeal a carbon tax.
The deputy leader of the Greens Party, Adam Bandt, said it was “the Australian Parliament’s asbestos moment, our tobacco moment — when we knew what we were doing was harmful, but went ahead and did it anyway.”
The tax, or carbon-pricing mechanism, had defined three elections, destabilized three prime ministers and dominated public debate in this country for eight toxic years. Finally, the leader of the center-right Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, won the last election in part by promising to “ax the tax.”
Mr. Abbott is famous for his fitness and muscular approach. As a student at Oxford, he won a “blue” at boxing for the university and was known for his all-out, flailing attacks. When the carbon-pricing scheme became law in 2011, he vowed to lead a “people’s revolt” and “fight this tax every second of every minute of every day.”
His political success was not, in fact, a result of the failure of the policy. The scheme was, in at least the most important sense, working, since emissions were declining. The initial public opposition was fading, but the Labor government that introduced the policy failed to sell it. Critics portrayed it as a burden that would hurt businesses and cost households, instead of one that would cut pollution and ensure a more secure future for our children.
It was the misleading old cliché — the economy versus the environment — but politicians staked their careers on it, and won.
In 2010, the Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, said she would look at carbon-pricing proposals, but also promised, “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” Then, under pressure to form a minority government, she made a deal with the Greens and agreed to legislate a carbon price: a tax by any other name.
The heat, anger and vitriol directed at her as a leader — and as Australia’s first woman to be prime minister — coalesced around the promise and the tax. It grew strangely nasty: She was branded by a right-wing shockjock as “Ju-Liar,” a moniker she struggled to shake. The political cynicism surrounding the carbon tax certainly reduced Ms. Gillard’s political capital, but it was a perceived lack of conviction in the policy itself that damaged the pricing scheme’s credibility.
Business leaders opposed what Mr. Abbott called a “useless, destructive tax,” even though just 0.02 percent of Australia’s three million businesses were affected (the top 500 polluters). But Australia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal, and the industry is worth about $60 billion and supports an estimated 200,000 jobs.
A powerful triumvirate campaigned against the law: mining companies, the conservative coalition parties and Rupert Murdoch’s
newspapers. A study found that 82 percent of articles on the carbon tax in News Corporation’s Australian papers were negative.
Ms. Gillard now believes she made a crucial error in framing. After losing office in June 2013, she wrote: “I erred by not contesting the label ‘tax’ for the fixed price period of the emissions trading scheme I introduced. I feared the media would end up playing constant silly word games with me, trying to get me to say the word ‘tax.”’
George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, agreed that “was a disaster.” It wasn’t just the T-word; even the term “carbon price” was a problem, too abstract and technical: “It does not evoke in the minds of the public the real human horrors and economic costs of climate disasters.”
“I made the wrong choice,” Ms. Gillard conceded, “and, politically, it hurt me terribly.” With Labor plummeting in the polls, her leadership was challenged and she lost the vote to the party’s previous leader, Kevin Rudd. (Mr. Rudd’s victory was shortlived; less than three months later, he was defeated general election by Mr. Abbott.)
Opposition to the carbon tax trailed away after Ms. Gillard’s ouster, and public concern about climate change has only grown. A recent poll found that almost two-thirds of Australians believe there should be carbon pricing for major emitters, but 42 percent agreed with the repeal of the tax (against 36 percent who did not). We did, after all, elect a government that promised to ax it. So we’re a hot mess of contradictions.
Mr. Abbott’s claim that households will be better off by 550 Australian dollars, or $520, a year following the repeal has been greeted with skepticism. Electricity prices did go up after carbon pricing came in, but this was mostly because of investment in infrastructure. Consumers are likely to see no effect now — unless they’re paying less simply by using less electricity. An Australian National University study reported that carbon emissions from the power generation sector had been cut by 1 to 2 percent as a result of the tax.
If carbon pricing was working, you might well ask why the law was repealed. The result is that Australia has no clear climate policy, though Mr. Abbott says he now believes climate change is occurring and he takes it “very seriously.”
The prime minister’s paramount concern, though, is still that taxing emissions should not “clobber the economy.” His government has proposed an alternative to the carbon tax, the Direct Action Scheme, that would provide incentives for businesses to cut emissions. But it faces fierce criticism — even from within Mr. Abbott’s own administration — because of loopholes, a lack of consequences for nonparticipants and its unfunded targets.
What’s clear is that Australia has proved again that politicians rarely choose to take the lead on tackling climate change. When the public is conflicted, our leaders too often whip up fear, and reason and evidence go out the window. The shame is that when the tax was axed, so were the facts.
Julia Baird is a journalist and a television presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and an author who is working on a biography of Queen Victoria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/opinion/julia-baird-why-tony-abbott-axed-australias-carbon-tax.html
.. so to today ..
Greg Hunt’s dubious carbon claims exposed
James Fernyhough Money Editor Apr 24, 2015
Minister’s claim we will easily meet our carbon emissions target is either wild optimism or a barefaced lie.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt is accused of fast tracking the mine. Photo: AAP
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2015/04/24/greg-hunt-blind-optimist-outright-liar/
~~
A Simple Guide To Understanding Greg Hunt's 'Nonsense' Carbon Con
By New Matilda on April 24, 2015
https://newmatilda.com/2015/04/24/simple-guide-understanding-greg-hunts-nonsense-carbon-con/
~~
The inconvenient truth about Direct Action comes from Turnbull himself
Lenore Taylor Friday 25 September 2015 05.47 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/25/the-inconvenient-truth-about-direct-action-comes-from-turnbull-himself
~~
Australia’s climate targets still out of reach after second emissions auction
Peter Christoff
Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne
November 12, 2015 7.58pm EST
https://theconversation.com/australias-climate-targets-still-out-of-reach-after-second-emissions-auction-50519
~~
Paris climate talks: Tim Flannery optimistic global agreement will be reached
By environment reporter Sara Phillips
Updated Wed at 9:21am
Photo: Professor Flannery said the booming renewable energy industry
is proof the world is willing and able to step up to the challenge. (AAP)
Related Story: Direct Action auction winner hits out at 'lack of real climate action'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-24/direct-action-auction-winner-hits-back-at-government/6970538
Related Story: Bega climate change experience leads to UN summit in Paris
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-17/bega-activist-to-address-un-climate-change-paris/6947248
Related Story: UK upbeat about Paris climate talks
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-18/uk-upbeat-about-paris-climate-talks/6950194
Related Story: World leaders to seek 2C degree climate deal in Paris: draft statement
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-16/world-leaders-vow-to-seek-2c-degree-climate-deal-in-paris/6945848
Map: France - http://www.google.com/maps/place/France/@46,2,5z
Australian Climate Council chief Tim Flannery says he is optimistic world leaders will reach a global agreement on climate change during talks in Paris next week.
The council will release a report today outlining the growth of renewable energy in the past six years.
Professor Flannery said the booming industry was proof the world was willing and able to step up to the challenge of addressing climate change.
"Circumstances have changed between the Copenhagen meeting in 2009 and the Paris meeting in 2015," Professor Flannery said.
"We've seen a huge increase in the deployment of renewables, and an enormous cost decrease in those renewables.
"What that story tells us is the mechanism is there to honour the pledges that are being made at Paris."
He said while the world was moving to embrace renewable energy such as solar and wind, Australia had been hampered by government policy in recent years.
"We went through five electoral cycles at the federal level, where we had clear bipartisan support for an ambitious renewable energy target ... that bipartisanship was then blown out of the water," he said.
While the Government and the Opposition reached a compromise Renewable Energy Target, Labor has said it intends to raise it if it wins government.
"I think it'd be great to see bipartisan support for a much stronger target," Professor Flannery said.
"If you look at that target versus opportunity, you'll see Australia is still missing the ball. The opportunities here are so enormous," he said, pointing to Australia's wealth of wind, sun, waves and natural geothermal heat.
Paris talks 'won't be a make or break event'
Kane Thornton, chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, was less optimistic about prospects for the international climate meeting.
"The reality is that Paris won't be a make or break event, but it could be an important demonstration of global momentum," he said.
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Megacities swamped by sea rise
Australia's coastal capitals would slip under the waves along with megacities across
the world even if global warming can be limited to 2 degrees Celsius, scientists say.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/global-warming-to-impact-megacities-with-surging-sea-levels/6924328
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"What is most important is the commitments that countries have already made, and will continue to make.
"And what is becoming abundantly clear is that the globe is heading towards a low-carbon future."
Both men agreed that the renewable energy industry had exploded globally.
"According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, more than 160 countries now have some kind of renewable energy target — four times the number there were in 2005," Mr Thornton said.
Professor Flannery pointed out that new investment in renewables had eclipsed investment in traditional energy sources and jobs in renewables had doubled in the past six years.
All of which "gives us cause for real hope that Paris will be a success," Professor Flannery said.
"Whatever promises are made to reduce emissions you need to have mechanisms in place that will do that and renewable energy has now got to a scale where very clearly it's capable of doing that," he added.
http://www.newsjs.com/url.php?p=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-25/flannery-optimistic-agreement-will-be-achieved-at-paris-talks/6970546
See also:
The Political History of Cap and Trade
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110010207
New Study Predicts Year Your City's Climate Will Change
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92899696
Why do people question climate change?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118809162
Meet the Sand Motor in the Netherlands, construction, operation and research (Sand Engine)
[Australian] Wealthy business owners get tax shield as PM talks up 'have a go' society
Heath Aston Date October 16, 2015 .. bit ..
Former Australian of the Year Dick Smith said Mr Turnbull would be "ratting on ordinary Australians who pay their tax" if the government passed the exemption.
An Australian Tax Office official recently disclosed at a Senate hearing that one in five privately owned companies with revenues in excess of $100
million paid no tax last year and Mr Smith said the only reason that wealthy business owners were pushing for the exemption was to avoid paying tax.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/wealthy-business-owners-get-tax-shield-as-pm-talks-up-have-a-go-society-20151015-gka899.html
Malcolm is a huge improvement on Tony Abbott, with an estimated million voters shifting back to the conservative side, but this
exemption effort sucks big time .. lol, and the reason first used by the government is truly laughable .. lolol .. it's inside if interested ..
===
NO GST Increase! No Medicare Levy Increase! We the citizens of Australia do NOT want the GST or Medicare Levy Increased!
Jeffrey Hodges Flaxton, QLD
I find it extraordinary that our so called political 'leaders' are considering taxing ordinary Australians even MORE when huge multinational
corporations are getting away with paying as little as 1% tax on their incomes, and wealthy landlords can reduce their tax through 'negative gearing'!
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
If taxes need to be raised then get that money from these huge corporations that are not paying their
fair share! Fix the tax loopholes so big companies pay the same as the rest of us, and end negative gearing.
Please join www.consumerrights.org.au .. http://www.consumerrights.org.au/ .. and support our petition.
Here are some facts about tax avoidance and negative gearing that everyone should know .....
At the recent Senate inquiry it was uncovered that big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline use profit-shifting techniques through transfer pricing and royalty payments to subsidiaries in other countries - and only paid tax of $85 million out of a revenue of $8.3 billion. This equates to about a 1 per cent tax rate! [Source : ABC news 1/7/15]
Further, many big corporations operating through tax havens pay an effective tax rate as little as 15 per cent, with for example companies shuffling profits through Singapore. Over $100 billion was shuffled through Singapore in 2013 with 1,470 companies involved. [Source: Australian Financial Review 7/4/15]
According to Ian Verrender [The Drum 4/5/15], large mininig companies like BHP companies can negotiate a tax rate in Singapore as low as 0.002 per cent, and sell iron ore cheaply via a virtual marketing company which then on-sells it to China at a huge mark up price.
In addition, a report by The Australia Institute estimates that negative gearing and the 50% capital gains tax discount is costing the Federal Government about $7.7 billion a year in lost revenue - and that most of this money is going to the top 20% of income earners! [Source : ABC news 28/4/15]
Finally, Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) modelling shows the Government could save $3 billion over four years by abolishing negative gearing. [Source : ABC news 7/6/15]
So Prime Minister and Premiers - ------
HANDS OFF THE GST AND MEDICARE LEVY! GET YOUR EXTRA MONEY FROM
THESE WEALTHY TAX AVOIDERS, NOT ORDINARY WORKING AUSTRALIANS!
See www.consumerrights.org.au .. http://www.consumerrights.org.au/ .. for more information, and support our petition.
Thanks!
https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-amp-all-state-premiers-no-gst-increase-no-medicare-levy-increase-we-the-citizens-of-australia-do-not-want-the-gst-or-medicare-levy-increased
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FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
Thank you to, Amaunet, who gave birth to this board and was
the guts and spirit of it. It must have been sad to leave; may you
be well and happy. It is my privilege to carry on and hope I
may do you some justice. (note: Am .. au .. that's nice and brings
a smile in this dastardly, only one, world of ours .. thank you, Amaunet .. :))
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This forum is an opportunity to experience the evolving relationships
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