Selective scenes have been used to give people the impression of a violent mob threatening the Prime Minister and the  opposition leader. When the video footage failed to display evidence of such violence, they then replaced some video footage with photo images of the Prime Minister dragged almost on the ground by the security officer to create the right atmosphere to justify their narration.

The police said that they will not charge anybody over the incident, and some writers begin to compare the Australia Day incident with the 2005 racially motivated Cronulla Riot; and then believe that it is unfair not to arrest the “rioters” over the incident.

The truth is that while the protesters may be noisy by chanting slogans with a small number patting on the restaurant glass window, they are not violent at all and I cannot see any video footage presented by the Australian media showing any evidence of protesters slamming or smashing the glass window.

Unfortunately, to find out the truth, we have to move away from the mainstream media in Australia for an answer. This Washington Post video shows footage of the Prime Minister being rushed from the restaurant to the car without any sign of aggression by protesters:

The Juice Media has produced a video on YouTube showing police aggression instead of violence by the protesters:

Anybody who comes by any video footage showing protesters violence please let everybody know by adding a link at the end of this article in the comments.

Colonialism has been resented by the world after the Second World War. It is unwise to continue to celebrate Australia Day based on the arrival of the British Colonistd on 26 January 1788; the feeling of our First people have to be respected. Australia Day should be an inclusive day that represents all Australians in this country. It is time to remove the Union Jack from our flag and change Australia Day to another date.

Written on 30 Jan 2012 by Wei Ling Chua, author of the book: Racism in Australia—The Causes, Incidents, Reasoning and Solutions.

So, with prejudice and pride, let our freaky flag of racism fly over the crumbling ruins of indigenous history!

h/t Earthsharing.org.au

Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people, the government said Thursday. Intersex people, who are biologically not entirely male or female, will be able to list their gender on passports as “X.”

Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The U.S. dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people’s passports last year.

Any country that complies with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s specifications for machine-readable passports can choose to introduce a gender “X.”

“‘X’ is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth,” Pratt said. “It’s a really important recognition of people’s human rights that if they choose to have their sex as ‘indeterminate,’ that they can.”

How did Murdoch’s Newspapers demonise a Chinese Restaurant in Melbourne?

Can you tell the problem with the following report by the Herald Sun?

St Kilda Chinese restaurant food bill handed to man in ambulance

By Jessica Craven    From: Herald Sun April 26, 2011 7:21PM

• Man suffered seizure while dining at Chinese restaurant
• Man given bill as he was being loaded into ambulance
• Restaurant manager said someone had to pay for meal

A CHINESE restaurant that slapped a customer with the bill as he was being loaded into an ambulance has defended its actions.

Onlookers called paramedics when the man fell to the ground suffering an apparent seizure while enjoying dumplings with his friend at Shifu Dumpling Express in Acland St, St Kilda, at about 4.30pm today.

As the man was being loaded into the ambulance and his friend was climbing in to join him, a waiter came and handed the friend the bill.

Bella, who did not want her surname used, said she was disgusted at the restaurant’s actions.

“I was so incredulous that it had happened,” she said.

“It wasn’t the most expensive restaurant in town, it’s a dumpling house and their bill would not have been more than $30.

“It was just so inappropriate, I will never go there again.”

Manager Kevin Tian was remorseless about the gaffe and said he did not regret the money grab.

“My opinion is that they ate in our restaurant, they have to pay,” he said.

An Ambulance Victoria spokesman confirmed a man in his 30s was taken to the Alfred Hospital in a stable condition.

______

The exact copy of the content of the above Herald Sun story was reported nation-wide by News Limited, Courier Mail, Daily Telegraph, Perth Now, Adelaide Now and The Australian just to name a few.

I personally find this story is particularly biased, vicious, unfair, inconsiderate, misleading and possibly racist. The reasons as follow:

1) The name of the restaurant and location has been clearly identified and the story may affect the restaurant’s business;

2) The news heading, bullet-point-highlight and bold-highlight of the story are misleading. They gave people an impression that the restaurant handed bill to a injured customer loaded into the ambulance, but the fact is, the bill was handed to the friend of the injured man who had eaten the dumplings and tried to walk away with a free meal, perhaps.

3) The report then exclusively cited a few negative comments by Bella (without surname) who was “disgusted at the restaurant’s actions,” and claimed that the value of the meal would have being less than $30 and then said, “I will never go there again.”

The Herald Sun’s “Journalist” then editorialising the restaurant manager responded with this statement: “Manager Kevin Tian was remorseless about the gaffe and said he did not regret the money grab,” followed by ending the story with, “An Ambulance Victoria spokesman confirmed a man in his 30s was taken to the Alfred Hospital in a stable condition”. (Author note: this statement has again reminded readers the story is about a bill being handled to an injured man in the ambulance.)

Whether or not Bella is a real person or imaginary person in this report, the way this “journalist” reported the story with a misleading heading, bullet-point-highlight and bold-highlight and editorialising the manager’s reply with the use of three subjective and strong words: “remorseless”, “the gaffe” and “money grab” tell a lot about the quality of journalism in this country. The fact that it has became a nation-wide story with exactly the same content being published word by word by those major states and national newspapers tell us the kind of editorial standard in this country as well. In fact, to be fair to the “Journalist”, the News heading, bullet-point highlight and bold highlight may be done by an editor or sub-editor.

The overall impression I had with this report is that, the friend of the injured man has the right not to pay for the meal in the restaurant; and that the restaurant as a business entity with an overhead to maintain such as rent, wages and outgoing expenses does not deserve the right for payment to their products and services even if the owner of the restaurant may need the money to pay his mortgage, feed his family, finance his children’s education and may be struggling to stay in business due to the current economic climate.

What information has being deliberately omitted by the Murdoch’s newspapers?

As a result of my suspicion of the accuracy of the above report, I search the Internet for related story and find that Nine MSN reported the same story with a bit of extra information – the whole picture is now clear to me: that is, Bella is the lady whom the Chinese restaurant handed the bill to. This is exactly how Nine MSN reported:

“As he was getting into the ambulance, and his friend climbed in to join him, a waiter came out and handed her the bill. The man’s companion, Bella, who did not want her surname used, said the restaurant’s actions “were just so inappropriate.”I was so incredulous that it had happened,” she said. ”It wasn’t the most expensive restaurant in town, it’s a dumpling house and their bill would not have been more than $30”. However, restaurant manager Kevin Tian told the newspaper he did not think it was inappropriate. ”My opinion is that they ate in our restaurant, they have to pay,” he said.”

The fact that Nine MSN claimed in their report that their source of the news is from the Courier Mail indicted that all the above named Murdoch’s Newspapers have no reason to publish the above news in such distorting manner. This is the second paragraph of Nine MSN report:

“Paramedics were called to the restaurant when the unidentified man fell to the ground after suffering an apparent seizure at St Kilda’s Sifu Dumpling Express on Tuesday afternoon, the Courier Mail reports.”

By comparing the content of the Nine MSN and those other reports, it is not hard for us to draw a conclusion that: Nine MSN has being truthful with the story whereas Herald Sun (the original source of the report) deliberately failed to disclose who Bella really is. They went to the extent to editorialising the restaurant manager’s reply with highly subjective and strong wording such as “remorseless”, “the gaffe” and “money grab”  with the intention to demonise the Chinese restaurant.  The rest of Murdoch’s Newspapers including the Courier Mail, despite knowing the truth, simply copied Herald Sun report word by word. Why?

Conclusion

I believe that, unnecessary on-going negativity against minorities in this country by our media has definitely contributed to racism in Australia. Why can’t those elites in the Australian media industry find peace in their little brains without smearing against other cultures or countries?

The following are my earlier articles on media fuels racism in Australia:

• Evidences of Australia Media fuelling Racism against Minorities
• Another case of media fuelled racism in Australia
• Why are the Australian media and politicians totally silent on the latest ABS crime figures? (This article come with a series of examples showing how our media smearing against non-Western countries whenever our criminals committed crimes there and was prosecuted under their laws.)

May the world find peace with each other with a socially more responsible media industry. Can we trust the current media culture in Australia?

Written by www.outcastjournalist.com

Australia’s military has lost its X-Files, detailing sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, across the country, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

After a two-month search in response to a newspaper Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which forces government officials to release documents of public interest, Australia’s Department of Defence had been unable to locate the files, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

“The files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost,” the department’s FOI assistant director, Natalie Carpenter, told the paper. Defence officials could not be contacted by Reuters.

The only file Defence had been able to locate was a folder called: “Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera,” a military weapons testing range in the center of Australia’s vast outback, Carpenter said.

Read More: Reuters

Photo: Dan Searle (CC)

How can we curb the emission of greenhouse gases? Get rid of a bunch of camels, apparently. Via Physorg:

Australia is considering awarding carbon credits for killing feral camels as a way to tackle climate change.

The suggestion is included in Canberra’s “Carbon Farming Initiative”, a consultation paper by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, seen Thursday.

Adelaide-based Northwest Carbon, a commercial company, proposed culling some 1.2 million wild camels that roam the Outback, the legacy of herds introduced to help early settlers in the 19th century.

Considered a pest due to the damage they do to vegetation, a camel produces, on average, a methane equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide a year, making them collectively one of Australia’s major emitters of greenhouse gases.

In its plan, Northwest said it would shoot them from helicopters or muster them and send them to an abattoir for either human or pet consumption.

[Continues at Physorg]

Eyre Peninsula’s Matt Waller has added another tip to the ‘don’t get eaten’ handbook with his discovery that Great White’s are much less aggressive when listening to AC/DC: particularly ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.

A South Australian charter boat operator has made a fascinating discovery whilst conducting research into what kinds of music affect the behaviour of Great White Sharks.

More on ABC News

Note, they are not necessarily advocating vegetarianism or the elimination of slaughterhouses (although there are many benefits to reducing industrialized slaughterhouses including cutting down on pollution, increase agricultural land and reduction of animal cruelty), but they argue the unfair treatment of live animals being exported to other countries.

Warning: The video below include graphic material that may be difficult to watch.

Australians may have a love of plain speaking but new laws are set to curtail some of their more colourful language with police issuing on-the-spot fines for obnoxious swearing.

The country’s second most populous state Victoria is due to approve new legislation this week under which police will be able to slap fines of up to Aus$240 (US$257) on people using offensive words or phrases.

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said the penalties, similar to those issued for speeding or parking illegally, would free up police time.

“This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings,” he said.

But even the state’s top lawyer admitted to swearing sometimes. “Occasionally I mutter things under my breath as probably everybody does,” he told ABC radio.

[Continues at The Sydney Morning Herald]

More than 570 people, including seven juveniles, were arrested in Queensland as part of a two-day police blitz targeting booze-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour.

Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett said more than 1000 uniformed and plain-clothed police officers flooded potential trouble spots across the state, including bars, from 6pm on Friday.

Over the two nights, 574 people were charged, including seven juveniles who were apprehended over a combined total of 28 charges.

‘‘We’re disappointed that this level of police enforcement is necessary to ensure community standards of behaviour are being met,’’ Mr Barnett said.

Officers were forced to move 322 people to safety during a sweep of nightclub precincts, and issued 154 move-on directions.

‘‘We will continue to enforce the law to ensure that all members of the community can enjoy a night out in public places without their evening being ruined by a selfish few who have no regard for the rights of others,’’ Mr Barnett said.

For more information, see original article.

The above is a comment made by former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser on ABC radio about the important of having quality people in a political system. One need just to browse through the events that have taken place in Australia politics (Federal and States) over the last few months will be able to understand why Australians are so frustrated with the lack of deep thinkers and serious policy makers in our political establishment.

Quality of leaders is not a problem in good time

In normal time when the world economy is booming, despite wide spread incompetency amongst the political leaderships, Australia is blessed by its natural resources and are able to flow along with the world trend of economic prosperity. Therefore, the issue of political incompetency within our current system of government has not become an alarming issue as it has yet to affect the livelihood of the average people on the streets. For example, Australia can simply ride on the wave of China boom such as:

1) ‘China the focus of our fortunes’ (WA Today, 27 Dec 2010)

2) ‘Good year ahead for investors, depending on China’ (The Australian, 29 Dec 2010)

The world has become so inter-connected that some problems are beyond our control

However, when the world economy has become so inter-connected that an event taken place in one part of the world could negatively impacts upon the rest of the world such as the global financial crisis ignited by the United State in 2008, and the subsequent global inflation  due partly to the then Bush’s and now Obama’s Administration so-called ‘Quantitative Easing Monetary Policy’ (plainly speaking, it is a money printing policy) that flooded the world with hot money and a depreciating US dollar. (Money Market, 25 Oct 2010 – ‘Is the US. Federal Reserve Setting the Stage for Hyperinflation?’)

There are of course many other international factors that resulted in inflation beyond our control such as:

1) The US administration irresponsible policy in the sudden converting of 35 per cent of US corn into biofuel without taking into consideration the immediate impact to the rest of the world due to:

a) US exports account for about 60 per cent of the world’s corn supply, hence a sudden shortage in supply of 35% of corn from US into the market causing the price to go up.

b) Many livestock farmers are using corn to feed their livestock. Hence, inflation on meat and meat related products as well.

As a result, the Independent UK (23 march 2011) reported a complaint by Nestle boss with a heading: ‘Biofuel policy is causing starvation, says Nestlé boss’.

2)  The recent mass protests across the Middle East and North Africa have also got to do with inflation in food price and daily necessity. The political turmoil in the oil rich regions fuel inflation across the world in another front with a surge in oil price, and hence affecting the cost of transport, electricity and everything else due to such cost increment.

3) There are of course other factors that cause inflation such as the appreciation of the Chinese Currency and labour cost. Corporate greed is also a key reasons in creating inflationary pressure, etc.

While the Treasurer claims credit on an economic figure, can you find any politician commenting on the following headings?

Meantime, when our politician, Treasurer Wayne Swan was fast to claim credit over the latest unemployment figure (Herald Sun, 10 April 2011 – ‘Australia’s jobless rate envy of world, Treasurer Wayne Swan says’), no politician (government, opposition, minor parties and independents) seems to make any comment on any of the following set of figures over the last few months:

1) ‘One in five Australians struggling with debt repayments’ (Herald Sun, 7 April 2011)

2) ‘Shock rise in mortgage default cases’ (News Limited, 28 March 2011)

3) ‘Australians raid superannuation to avoid home loss – it is as bad as it gets’ (The Australian, 9 April 2011)

4) ‘Private rental too much for many families’ (The Age, 29 March 2011)

5) ‘Going up and up – living costs outstrip the CPI, latest figures reveal’ (Daily Telegraph, 15 Feb 2011)

6) ‘Rise in middle-class bankrupts’ (WA Today, 24 May 2010)

7) ‘Health insurance hike double inflation rate’ (News Limited, 25 Feb 2011)

‘Construction sector shrinks again as federal stimulus winds up’ (Construction News, 7 Dec 2010)

9) ‘Australians crippled by tax burden’ (News Limited, 7 Mar 2011) with the following information issues by the tax office: “Documents show 4.3 million individual taxpayers have “not yet lodged” a tax return for 2008-09 – a staggering 26 per cent increase on 3.4 million in the previous year,” “about 700,000 taxpayers entered into special repayment plans with the Tax Office in 2009-10 – an increase of 32 per in four years.”

The reality on the ground is, instead of having 105,000 homeless across the country during the 2006 ABS counting, the latest figure reported 4 years later by the ABC (30 April 2010) has become ‘1 in 100 homeless in past year’. That is, the number of homeless in Australia has been more than doubled within 3 years since the last count in 2006. The problem is so serious that, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, “as many as 80 per cent of new applications for temporary housing by couples with children cannot be met on a daily basis.” The report also indicated that “of the total new requests for housing, 62 per cent of people were turned away, a rate stable with previous years”. (Brisbane Times, 22 July 2010 – ‘Homeless families are being turned away’)

Any solutions and policies announcement by our political ‘Elites’?

The total silence over the above news would appear to us that, none of our politicians either have a solution or have any understanding of the actual causes to the problems. Otherwise, base on our political culture, somebody would have jumped in front of the media to give themselves some free publicity.

In a time of massive poverty and suffering, this is what our politicians do:

1)  One of our independent MP who hold the balance of power in the minority government – Andrew Wilkie threaten to bring down the Gillard’s government over pokie game reform. (Herald Sun, 30 March 2011 – ‘Wilkie threatens PM over pokie reform’). Andrew has won a seat in Tasmania with a tiny margin by campaigning against pokie game. It would appeal to us that, the issue of pokie reform seems to have taken up most, if not all of his time since he got into the federal parliament 8 months ago.

2) Our former Prime Minister and now Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd appear to be still bitter with his dumping by his comrades months before the last election and has been acting strangely as a lone ranger against his own party with virtually no or little contact with the Prime Minister Julie Gillard and other cabinet ministers.

Immediately after his dumping as Prime Minister, it has been making used of his former status and “upsetting Labor insiders by holding high-level talks in the US (and the UN) even though he is now just a backbencher” (News Limited, 16 July 2010 – ‘Kevin Rudd’s one-man show haunts Julia Gillard’). He then went further to leak information about his secret deal with the Gillard government the night before his dumping to ensure that, he will be given a senior position in the new Labor cabinet if Labor win the upcoming election. ( WA Today, 16 July 2010- ‘Rudd’s political ghost haunts Gillard’). [Note: there are only 4 people in the secret meeting, despite Kevin Rudd never admit that he is the one who leaked the secret deal, virtually almost everybody facing the media pointing the finger at him].

When in the position of Foreign Minister in the newly elected Gillard’s government, Kevin Rudd uses the tax payer money to jet around 20 countries in just 100 days apparently trying to get himself a high level United Nation position. This has some Labor MPs wondering: “Just what the hell is Kevin up to?”(The Daily Telegraph, 23 Dec 2010 – ‘Kevin Rudd’s eye on UN hot seat’) [Note: this is published under opinion].

While eyeing United Nation job, Kevin Rudd again trying to position himself as the next Prime Minister by continue to disclose secret cabinet meeting to explain to the Australian public his decision to dump certain policy prior to the election was a result of the pressure from member of his own Cabinet. (News Limited, 6 April 2011 – ‘I’m not shutting up about my time as Prime Minister, says Kevin Rudd’).

It was then reported that, Kevin Rudd has “quietly launched himself on a one-man campaign trail, visiting electorates across the nation,” and “introducing himself to strangers, “Hi mate, Kevin. What’s your name ?” (News Limited, 10 April 2011 – ‘Hi, I’m Kevin Rudd and I’m here to help’)

Apparently, over the last few months, as a cabinet minister under the Australian Tax Payer’s payroll, Kevin Rudd love only himself and working only for himself with no or little communication with the Prime Minister.

3) In a hung parliament with few seats short, the Gillard’s government cannot survive with any single member of her coalition partners or members of her own party swinging their support against her. Therefore, her government can do nothing about the behaviour of her foreign minister beside creating her own “malicious leaks designed to discredit the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.” (The Australian, 15 Feb 2011 – ‘Kevin Rudd backlash rattles cabinet’)

In order to maintain her grip on power, Prime Minister Gillard was reportedly offering the Independent MP’s Andrew Wilkie “more one-on-one prime ministerial contact than is enjoyed by most ministers and mandarins”. (WA Today, 27 Nov 2010 -  ‘Gillard’s grip on power’).

The Gillard’s government is busily dealing with the Greens as well on policy direction to stay in power as she broke her own election promise on the issue of Carbon Tax (Herald Sun, 25 March 2011 – ‘Julia Gillard’s carbon policy a desperate measure’). When the public form a perception that it is the Greens who formulated Labor policy, Julie Gillard again repositioning herself by publicly claiming that her coalition partners “Greens don’t share Australian values” (Adelaide Now, 1 April 2011) and then criticised the Greens as “Extremists” (Herald Sun, 7 April 2011).

Within the last few months since Labor came into power, there are more news of politicking within the party; with their coalition partners; and with the opposition party than any actual policy initiative being announced so far.

4) The opposition is not doing any better, beside embroiling themselves  in a number of poll driven race base politics such as the asylum seekers issue with a decades old slogan “Stop the boats”, and migrants bashing such as ‘Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy’ (Brisbane Times, 17 Feb 2011). There is no policy to assist Australians who are struggling with the cost of living. On the contrary, there are a number of policies to chop off the welfare assistance to the most disadvantage people in the society. For examples,

a)  ‘Libs to cut incentives for poorer university students’ (The Australian, 19 Aug 2010)

b)  ‘Tony Abbott calls for welfare crackdown’ (The Telegraph, 31 march 2011)

5) Meanwhile, in NSW state politics, Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell managed to win a landslide victory without having to produce any detail policies (Inside, 18 March 2011).

6) While in Queensland, after years of political infighting with consistently poor poll rating, the LNP decided to change their leader again. This time, they invited an outsider (person without a seat in the State Parliament) – Lord Mayor of Brisbane City Council Campbell Newman as their leader for the position of Premier in the coming election.

This is because during the recent flood in Brisbane, Campbell Newman as Mayor of the city has exposed himself on the nation TV screen every day for weeks and is now a familiar household name. This prompt former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to “described the circumstances of Campbell Newman’s foray into state politics as ‘weird’“ (Courier mail, 23 March 2011).

Mr. Newman while still officially the Mayor of Brisbane, and as somebody who have just entered state politic in a sudden and “weird” circumstance decided to give a fresh start to the LNP by simply binning all existing policies formulated by his predecessors. (Brisbane Times, 29 March 2011 – ‘All current LNP policies ‘null and void’: Newman declares new beginning’). Apparently, he has binned those policies without spending any time to analyse and understand issues and problems relating to the State.

The only thing that interest our politicians

As demonstrated from the above 6 examples, the only thing that interest our politicians is to stay in power. Election promise can be brushed aside; all existing policies can be binned overnight by a new leader who have the charm but no experience in state politics; politicians embroiled themselves in race base politics because they believe it is a vote winner;  cabinet minister can use tax payer money to run his personal agenda without having to consult the Prime Minister. Independent MP winning a seat with just a tiny margin who hold the balance of power in a minority government has being taken up more prime ministerial time than ministers over  a single issue “pokie reform”.

Individualism seems to rule the day. Who is going to serve the interest of the people and the nation?

Meanwhile, while a record number of Australians are suffering from poverty and homelessness, our Member of Parliaments are busily increasing their personal wealth by being the top lodgers of dodgy tax claims on the one hand (News Limited, 17 March 2011 – ‘Australian MPs top lodgers of dodgy tax claims, ATO investigation reveals’), and boosted their own pay rise by the thousands of dollars just few month ago on the other hand. (Adelaide Now, 18 Nov 2010)

Democracy Needs Reform

The world is getting more and more complex in the 21st century. Can any Tom, Dick and Harry on the street be able to understand the complexity of the modern age. Will they have the knowledge, expertise, skills and ethical values to serve the very people that voted them into the Parliament? How long can we afford to have second, third or ninth rated people in the Parliament doing nothing right for us?

At the time of economic uncertainty, rising international conflicts and global inflation with increasing pressure on the cost of living, voters become so irrational that they simply wanted a quick fix on every problem they faced. The popularity of a government is on a roller coaster. The life span of a government may become shorter and shorter. As a result, opponent party is able to win election in landslide without having to put forward any detail policy.

The charm of politicians has become more important than substance. Will such trend become a political circle that fewer and fewer deep thinkers will be able to make their way into Parliament or hold their position long enough to make a different to the situation?

Democracy is great! But should we begin to ask ourselves the following questions:

Is democracy in the current form the best for the survival of mankind?

Is there room for improvement?

What is the purpose of democracy if people we voted not serving the interest of the very people that voted into the Parliament?

How long can we afford to have politicians not doing anything right for us?

Will current form of western democracy eventually resulted in mass poverty and humanitarian disaster?

At a time of economic uncertainty, in the US, people also increasingly conscious about the quality of their politicians. The Washington Post recently carry a report ‘2012 Republican presidential candidates all have flaws’ (30 Jan 2011). A survey by NBC News/Wall Street Journal (March 2010) indicated that the Congress enjoy only 17% of approval rating from the American public.

In the UK, the 2010 election also resulted in a hung parliament, with all 3 major parties “failed to disclose to the voters the scale of tax rises and public sector cuts required to tackle the financial crisis”. The outcome of the election has been label as “No Choice Democracy”.

China has been very much misunderstood by the Western World due to the disinformation of the mainstream Western Media. I will try to find time to write an article on democracy with China characteristic some time in the future.

In the meantime, this article in the Guardian (19 January 2011) under the heading ‘China’s tentative steps towards democracy’ may interest you. The article ends with quoting a statement made by Daniel Bell, a Canadian-born professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who says China may be groping toward “a political model that works better than western-style democracy”.

For the sake of humanity and the welfare of the Western Public, should we forgo our cold war mentality against China and begin to look into the positive aspect of the Chinese Communist Party and their progressive political ideology and methodology in an objective manner?

For more info check out www.outcastjournalist.com.

Professor Allan Snyder with his thinking cap. Photo: AFP

I can think of some kids who would happily trade in their dunce caps for one of these, even if the thinking cap’s inventor says it’s not intended for homework help! AFP reports from Sydney:

Scientists in Australia say they are encouraged by initial results of a revolutionary “thinking cap” that aims to promote creativity by passing low levels of electricity through the brain.

The device, which consists of two conductors fastened to the head by a rubber strap, significantly boosted results in a simple arithmetic test, they said.
Three times as many people who wore the “thinking cap” were able to complete the test, compared to those who did not use the equipment. Sixty people took part in total.

Allan Snyder, director of the University of Sydney’s Centre for the Mind, said the device worked by suppressing the left side of the brain, associated with knowledge, and stimulating the right side, linked to creativity.

“You wouldn’t use this to study or to help your memory,” Snyder told AFP. “You would use this if you wanted to look at a problem anew.

“If you wanted to look at the world, just briefly, with a child’s view, if you wanted to look outside the box.”

He said goal was to suppress mental templates gathered through life experiences to help users see problems and situations as they really appear, rather than through the prism of earlier knowledge…

[continues at AFP]

Groggle

An Australian hoping to quench his nation’s thirst via the web has agreed to change the name of his alcohol search site after protests from Google.

Cameron Collie set up Groggle to allow users to find the best-priced “grog” in nearby stores.

Search giant Google complained at his effort to trademark the name, prompting a six-month legal wrangle.

Now the name Groggle has been changed to a more conventional title, Drinkle, ahead of its launch in 2011. Announcing the settlement, Mr Collie, 37, said he could not disclose terms of the deal but confirmed that the name change was part of the agreement.

There was no word on whether money had changed hands, but the firm announced on Twitter that it would be celebrating with a bottle of “Australia’s most expensive beer”.

More at BBC News …

The very minute the news of SGX’s intention to merge with ASX was leaked to the public arena, our politicians begin to jump up and down against the idea without even trying to find out in detail the rationale of the proposed merger, and the possible benefits to Australia. Their responses are so pathetically predictable in a habitually hysterical manner.

Response from the Australian “Elites” in the absence of any detail information about the Merger

Despite the fact that the Treasury Department has yet to receive any submissions from either the SGX or the ASX of the proposed deal (The Australian, 26 Oct 2010, 1:34PM), the Green Senator Bob Brown begin to “links Singapore Human Rights to the Australia Stock Exchange merger proposal” (The Australian, 26 Oct 2010, 12:34PM), The Coalition Shadow Treasury Joe Hockey questioned “whether ASX merger is in Australia’s interest” (The Australian, 26 Oct 2010, 9:28AM). The Australia’s competition regulator (ACCC) said “it has ’significant concerns’ about ASX takeover” (Perth Now, 26 Oct 2010, 12:59PM).

Australian Securities Exchange entrance.

Federal independent MP – Bob Katter expressed his intention to “table a resolution in parliament to block the takeover,” and called the takeover “lunacy on a grand scale”. He then claimed that “I have a desire some things in my country are left owned by my country. I do not wish to live in a country of serfs working for foreign landlords.” (The Australian, 26 Oct 2010, 4:04PM).

Australian Greens MP Adam Bandt, WA Nationals MP Tony Crook and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie all said “they did not support the sale”.

The only Independent MP reserving his position is Rob Oakeshott. Mr. Oakeshott said, “he would wait to hear what the Foreign Investment Review Board recommended,” “If they come out in favour of any takeovers or mergers I will be strongly persuaded by the recommendations,” “Singapore is one of our strongest trading and commercial partners and there is a very strong argument to develop links and strengthen our financial centre.”.  (News Limited, 28 Oct 2010 – ‘Independents to try to block Singapore Exchange’s ASX takeover’)

Even the Australian government failed to provide any leadership over the issue. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been very low profile so far demonstrating no political courage to lead the nation out of this bigotry and xenophobia culture against non-Western’s investment.

Double Standard towards Foreign Investment in Australia

Over the years, there are no lack of examples of foreign investments in Australian businesses and assets without ticking off the above nationalist or xenophobia style of response so long as those investments came from the West. For examples,

Example 1

Just 3 weeks ago, the 100% took over of the Australian Agribusiness’s AWB in term of AWB’s share and performance rights by a Canadian agribusiness giant’s Agrium Inc went on smoothly all the way to the FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board) with only a few lines from The Australian (8 Oct 2010) under the heading ’AWB takeover offer is fair and reasonable, says independent expert’.

Despite the fact that Canada has a notorious record in human rights violation such as torture. For examples:

a) ‘Canadian Government Rocked by Accusations of Abuse, Torture of Afghan Prisoners’ (Global Research, 2 Dec 2009)

b) ‘Canada’s Supreme Court : Torture as Foreign Policy: the Omar Khadr Decision’ (Global Research, 9 Feb 2010)

Examples 2

Again, the latest story of a British energy company (BG Group) commitment to “a $15 billion liquefied natural gas project at Gladstone in Queensland” was reported calmly by the Brisbane Times (1 Nov 2010) under the headline: ’$15bn BG project sets the pace for LNG’ without stirring any response from our politicians despite the fact that, Britain has a notorious record as well in human rights violation such as torture and murder. For examples,

a) ‘Top judge: Binyam Mohamed case shows MI5 to be devious, dishonest and complicit in torture’- (The Guardian, 10 Feb 2010)

b) ‘Humiliate, strip, threaten: UK military interrogation manuals discovered’ – (The Guardian, 25 Oct  2010)

c) ’Hiding the truth about Bloody Sunday’ – (The Guardian, 14 Oct 09)

Perhaps, that may be because Australia also has a notorious record of human right violation such as torture and so it is not an issue to those politicians who express their superiority against Singapore Singapore’s human rights record. For examples,

a) ‘UN Torture Committee Blasts Australia’ (NSW Council of Civil Liberties, 17 May 2008)

b) ‘UN to critique Australia’s human rights record on asylum seekers’ (ABC, 10 Aug 2010)

c) ‘Australia named in US State Department slavery report’ (News Limited, 18 June 2010)

However, when an investment initiated by a non-Western country to have a less than 50% stake in an Australian business or asset, the response are usually dramatic, strong and xenophobia in nature. For example,

In the case of the abandoned deal between Rio Tinto and Chinalco last year, that could ultimately have given the Chinese company an 18 per cent stake in the miner through a mix of assets and convertible bonds, the then Rudd’s government was unable to make up it’s mind, and the FIRB had to seek an additional “90 more days to carry out its review” due to the so-called “complexity of the deal” (MineWeb, 16 Mar 2009). As a result, ’OZ Minerals shares slump after FIRB decision extended’ (Herald Sun, 24 Mar 2009). The deal was eventually abandoned by Rio Tinto due to a “Bold offer from BHP Billiton”  (The Australian, 16 May 2009) and the reality that our government policy on China set by a Western’s foreign entitle – BHP. (Brisbane Times, 15 Oct 2009 – ‘Rudd policy on China ‘set by BHP’’)

The bigotry culture within the Australian “Elites” towards non-Western investment did not stop here. Despite the fact that, all foreign investments in Australia with a stake of above 15% share have to go through 2 levels of scrutiny such as: Firstly, a FIRB review to determine if the investment is in the interest of the nation, follow by a final decision by the Treasurer of the day before the investment can be legalised. There are already in place sufficient legal safeguards to protect any foreign interest taking over of Australian businesses as demonstrated by the failed Rio Tinto and Chinalco case.

However, in an election year, the then Rudd’s government  had to take further step to push through parliament in February 2010 a so-called “legislation to tighten rules preventing foreign investors from using complex takeover arrangements to bypass relevant laws to gain control of an Australian company.”  (The Australian, 3 February 2010 – ‘Parliament approves legislation to tighten laws on takeovers by foreign investors’)

This is perhaps the kind of on-going negative publicity against non-western countries that make some in this country bigotry.

The following statement quoted in The Australian (30 Oct 2010) under the heading ‘Protectionist instincts reduce us to a branch economy’ appropriately pointed out the social psychic in this country:

“Paul Rubin, author of Darwinian Politics, said in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that when it comes to protectionism, “there is no area where the beliefs of ordinary citizens are more at odds with the views of professional economists”. He asserts that with international commerce, positive-sum thinking doesn’t come naturally to people because, as part of our evolutionary psychology, we harbour zero-sum instincts for in-groups and out-groups. In this instance, Singapore is the out-group.”

Double Standard towards the issues of Democracy and Human Rights

The amazing thing with Australia is that, our politicians love to use the term “Human Rights” and “Democracy” whenever they criticise a non-Western country to demonstrate that we are morally more superior and civilised than them.

The irony is, we allowed the British to colonise Hong Kong for 156 years without any democracy or welfare system in place. We also have no problem with the human right implications of the Cage Dwellers in Hong Kong before 1997. However, 12 years after China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, our government funded media (SBS) produced a program called “The Cage Dwellers” and advertised it as the “Dark Side of China” to relentlessly criticise China over the issue of democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. For those who are interested to learn more about such double standard approach to the same issues under a Western and Non-Western governments, please read this article from the Outcast Journalist website under the title: Hong Kong’s Cage People Vs. Homeless in Australia and USA.

Beyond the appearance of being a defender of democratic value and human right, our government and politicians seems to have:

1) No problem in bribing Indonesia Centre Bank to win contracts (News Limited, 24 May 2010 – ‘Sex, bribes in RBA banknote deals’) despite the fact that ‘Indonesia warns Gillard not to interfere in torture case’ (Brisbane Times, 2 Nov 2010); or

2) No problem in bribing Malaysian government official to win contracts (The Age, 22 July 2010 – ‘Malaysian police grill RBA contact’) despite the fact that Malaysia has in place an official racist policy against minorities. (Radio Australia – ‘Malaysian PM tries to end race debate’); or

3) No problem in bombing Iraq on the one hand and bribing Saddam Hussein’s regime on the other hand under the United Nation’s ‘oil-for-food program’. (Brisbane Time, 16 Aug 2010 – ‘RBA agent’s oil for food link’).

None of our politicians, or at least those who opposed Singapore investment in ASX added their voice on any of the above bribery cases involved the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia).

They seems to have no problem also with the latest news about “SENIOR militia fighters loyal to a notorious Afghan warlord have been flown to Australia to train with elite special forces,” and the fact that, this is the warlord “with whom Dutch forces refused to work because of his alleged connections to murder and extortion.” (Brisbane Times, 29 Oct 2010 – ‘Afghan warlord’s private army trained in Australia’).

Human rights and freedom is not a straight forward issues

As a born Singaporean with all the relatives still living in Singapore, I am fully aware of the massive human rights achievement this tiny island (without any physical resources including drinkable water) achieved over the last 45 years since its independent from Malaysia in 1965.

As a country of choice, as an Australian over the last 16 years, I am also fully aware of the strength and weaknesses of this country inside out.

There is no intention on my part to take sides beyond merely stating some simple facts as follows for people to ponder:

Human right is a big subject, for the purpose of this article, I will limit my analysis on the following 2 points brought out by the Green Senator Bob Brown based on the report by the Australian (26 Oct 2010) under the heading ‘Bob Brown links Singapore human rights to Australian Stock Exchange merger’.

Point 1) The Execution of an Australian Drug Trafficker in Singapore in 2005

One of the problem with the Australia “Elites” concept of human right is a micro concept. They are more concerned with the right of the criminals and often omitted the bigger picture, that is the macro concept of human right – the right of the millions of victims of drugs to live normally and happily like anybody else.

For example, they ignored the fact that, “Drug addiction responsible for an estimated 5 million deaths worldwide each year”. The medical consequences of drug addiction includes “Individuals who suffer from addiction often have one or more accompanying medical issues, including lung and cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and mental disorders.”  In addition, “some drugs of abuse, such as inhalants, are toxic to nerve cells and may damage or destroy them either in the brain or the peripheral nervous system.”  (For an in-dept information of drug related issues, please refer to: Addiction and Health for detail ).

Perhaps due to the pro-criminal attitudes among some of the “Elites” in Australia, we now see that Australia appear to emerge as a base for drug trafficking to Asia. Just a quick search on the Internet using this year incidents as examples, I find the following news heading:

a) ‘Unionist Mcjannett admits using and importing marijuana to Bali’ (WA Today, 7 Jan 2010)

b)  ‘Suspected Aussie drug smuggler nabbed in Bali’ (WA Today, 11 Jan 2010)

c) ‘Indonesia contradicts Rudd team on Bali nine’ (Brisbane Times, 19 Feb 2010)

d) ‘Australian on cocaine charge in Bali’ (The Age, 5 July 2010)

e) ‘Corby’s release hopes boosted by Indonesia’ (Sydney Morning Herald 21 Oct 2010)

f)  Australian professional golfer Wayne Perske was arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession (WA Today, 23 Oct 2010 – ‘Australian golfer arrested in Japan’)

So, human rights under the concept of micro vs. macro and criminals vs. victims, which one should we protect? The life of the Australian drug trafficker executed by Singapore in 2005 under their written law or the life of the 5 million drug related deaths across the world each year as a result of those criminal drug trafficking activities?

You be the Judge.

By the way, please bear in mind that, in a 2008 report, just the state of Queensland alone, there are “4300 drug-related deaths each year” and “drug abuse cost the community $10 billion a year” and that “figures from the Department of Health in Canberra show 13 per cent of Australians have tried illicit drugs,” and “if we compare that to the Queensland population we estimate that over 400,000 Queenslanders have taken an illicit drug in the last year.” (Brisbane Times, 22 Jan 2009 – ‘400,000 Queenslanders took drugs in 2008’).

Point 2) Freedom of speech and the repression of opposition figures in Singapore

Yes, Senator Bob Brown may be right to point out that Singapore lacked the kind of free speech like Australia. In fact, to maintain racial and religious harmony, Singapore government implemented a series of laws and legislations to ban people from making inflammatory or racist statement again others base on their skin colour, culture or religion.

I remember some time ago, the Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan was fined a few thousand dollars for commenting on banning Muslim women from wearing burqa like many Western politicians did. In another occasion last year, a “Singapore Christian couple convicted for circulating anti-Muslim booklets” under the Singaporean law (Asia One, 29 May 2009). All these behaviour would have been done without any consequences in Australia. Does that mean that Australia is a country with more freedom than Singapore?

From the angle of those “elites’ in this country, the following incidents (News links) may represent FREEDOM:

a) ‘Over 200 mosque objections lodged’ (News Limited, 18 Oct 2010)

b) ‘Botched PR stunt leaves Muslim woman in tears’ (News Limited, 29 Oct 2010)

c) ‘Bill Park vows to fight against proposed mosque near his Gold Coast home’ (Courier Mail, 17 Sept 2010)

d) ‘Burqa decision ripples across world’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 20 Aug 2010)

e) ‘Fears of rising anti-Semitism’ (The Australian, 23 Aug 2007)

f) ‘No Chinese fabric will be used in Australian Army uniforms, says Greg Combet’ (The Australian, 10 Feb 2010)

g) ‘Sydney Islamic school rejected’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June 2009)

h) ‘Forces ‘at risk’ with Muslims in ranks’ (Herald Sun, 9 Nov 2009)

i)  ‘Muslims unwelcome as Hanson’s home buyers’ (The Age, 28 April 2010)

j)  ‘Subversive’ seniors’ Tai Chi class banned at church’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 2009)

k) ‘Court orders Muslims to cancel Friday prayers’ (WA Today, 7 July 2009)

Our citizens even have the freedom to use an unlicensed firearm and after having pleaded guilty in court to “willfully and unlawfully damaging a Perth mosque” in a drive by shooting, walked free with just a few thousand dollars fine. (WA Today, 24 Aug 2010 – ‘Neo-Nazism is dead in WA: police’).

In another incident recently, “A white supremacy group preparing to host a race-hate music festival on the Gold Coast” and the Mayor of Gold Coast city council couldn’t do anything about it. According to the Mayor: “Unless those groups are specifically banned or prohibited by the state or Commonwealth governments for any reason, we have no grounds whatsoever to stop them,” (Brisbane Times, 6 April 2010 – ‘Race-hate group should be ‘ignored‘‘)

Just one more example, “More than 20 complaints of racism by Victorian police, including allegations of criminal behaviour, were made to the Office of Police Integrity by lawyers acting for young African Australians between 2006 and 2009”, “Only one has been investigated by the OPI and several resulted in charges being laid by police against those who made the complaints in what lawyers describe as “cover charges””. “No police officers have been sacked for race-related incidents, despite Chief Commissioner Simon Overland admitting he was aware of several “substantiated cases.” ( The Australian, 18 Mar 2010 – ‘Victorian police watchdog shelved racist complaints’).

However, one should remember that, the freedom for some may resulted in the deprivation of freedom to others.

In Singapore, at least, people of different ethnic groups are able to walk the streets in the middle of the night without any fear of encountering some kind of  racially motivated assault or killing. People of different faiths are able to respect and accommodate each other differences and are able to live and warship side by side peacefully. People are able to built their beloved Churches, Mosques and Temples without all kind of opposition and verbal abused from another group.

The 3 pictures at the end of this article taken by my brother (Han Ling) at my request at the proximity of his work place in Singapore could best describe the kind of FREEDOM all Singaporean enjoy.

Wouldn’t the concept of a society whereby everybody respect each other right to co-existence regardless of their colour, language or religion a higher form of FREEDOM?

Conclusion

The problem with Australia is that, we may be located within the Asia Pacific Region, surrounded by Asian countries, with an economy rely heavily on our Asian trading partners to stay afloat. Many of our politicians still unable to accept the reality that we located in the Asia Pacific Region, and we are just a part of human civilisation. Former Prime Minister, John Howard would like Australia to become the Deputy Sheriff of the USA in the Asia Pacific Region (The Telegraph, 15 Aug 2003 – ‘Bush entrusts ‘deputy sheriff’ Howard with Pacific policing role’). And former Cabinet Minister and current opposition leader, Tony Abbott used to describe Australia as “the outpost of European civilisation in Asia”.

The reality is, some of our “Elites” in the society still unable to accept the philosophy that “All men are equal”.

Allison Kilkenny, a contributing writer to Huffington Post, Alternet, The Nation, and co-hosts Citizen Radio, the alternative political radio show in USA pointed out recently that: “There are approximately 50,000 “illegal” persons in Australia at any one time and most of them are British” and “boat arrivals only make up five percent of Australia’s annual humanitarian intake”. However, “Australia Welcomes Asian Refugees with Detention in For-Profit Jails — Or by Just Allowing Them to Drown” (AlterNet, 19 Oct 2010).

It is unfortunate that, the terms: “Human rights” and “Democracy” has often being used in a double standard manner by our politicians.

One should always remember to strike a balance over the concept of human rights at the micro level as well as the macro level. Also, it is important for policy makers to formulate policy on the concept of FREEDOM taken into consideration the different between freedom on the basic of culture bigotry and freedom with social responsibility and social conscious?

Individual freedom vs. collective freedom, which is more noble? We should always remember that, the freedom to some may be the deprivation of freedom to others.

If Australia want its migrant population to have sense of belonging, Australia should first respect its migrant population the freedom not to be abused by the bigotry culture existed within the society.

Confucius: “Those who respect others, will be respected”

Below (attached) are pictures of higher kind of FREEDOM not found in Australia:

Picture 1: Buddhist Temple right next to a Church and Sai Baba Centre

Picture 1: Buddhist Temple right next to a Hindu Temple

Picture 3: Church neighbouring Mosque

Written on 4 Nov 2010 by www.outcastjournalist.com

It could be one of the most bizarre reasons ever offered by a speeding driver — “A ghost made me do it.” But that is exactly the story being put forward by superstitious motorists hitting speeds of up to 180km/h on a road north of Newcastle, supposedly to conjure a ghost.

Port Stephens police have issued a warning to drivers after it emerged that young people were driving at dangerously high speeds along a stretch of Lemon Tree Passage Rd to conjure the spirit of a 20-year-old motorcyclist killed in a crash with a speeding driver in the area three years ago.

A handful of videos have been posted on YouTube, allegedly showing a ghostly bright light appearing in the rear windscreen of cars that start driving at dangerous speeds.Some locals are convinced the light is that of the motorcyclist’s ghost, in pursuit of people who drive dangerously.

Read More: Daily Telegraph

Experts from Oman, Kenya and Austria joined others from across the world to discuss sustainability and how communities in drier regions must adapt to warmer temperatures to safeguard precious supplies into the future.

The meeting dealt with basic issues of survival, said Katerina Ruzicka, a research assistant at the Institute of Water Quality at Vienna’s University of Technology.

“A huge problem we are facing besides climate change is water for food,” Ms Ruzicka said. “We have to feed a growing population and you need water to produce food.

“Somehow we will be able to cope with it because humans do always somehow cope with huge challenges in one way or another.”

Ensuring that supplies continue to flow to the nation’s homes and businesses has been a pressing concern for authorities in Australia.

It is the world’s driest inhabited continent and rainfall patterns have become increasingly erratic.

State governments have bickered with each other over irrigation rights in prized river basins as a long drought strangles parched areas of the country’s outback.

Professor Richard Stuetz, a leading authority on the environment at the University of New South Wales, believes that quarrels over water could boil over into serious disputes between competing interests.

(Story continues at The National…)

Mel Gibson's mugshot from his 28 July 2006 arrest for DUI.

It’s no secret that Mel Gibson is a racist and anti-semite, if admittedly a decent actor and filmmaker. The question is, why does he keep flaunting it in public? Is it an Aussie macho thing? From RadarOnline.com:

In one of the most explosive, racist and vile outbursts by a celebrity ever caught on tape, Mel Gibson told the mother of his love child that the way she was dressed would get her “raped by a pack of n***ers,” RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

It’s a shocking and blockbuster development in the couple’s bitter legal battle, and Mel’s disgusting words are on audio tape. His racist, misogynist statement is one of the secrets lurking in his war with his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.

RadarOnline.com has heard the tape, which also includes Mel telling Oksana he will burn down her home.

Drunken Mel previously shocked the world with his anti-Semetic comments when busted for DUI. Now, the new racist outburst has taken the Oscar winner to an even deeper low.

His outburst came during a series of explosive arguments with Oksana, mother of his infant daughter Lucia. They have been battling in court, with documents under seal, for the past several weeks.

And there is more than one disgusting outburst from Mel. RadarOnline.com has listened to the hate-fuelled rants the Braveheart star unleashed during fights with Oksana as their relationship unraveled.

“You’re an embarrassment to me,” Mel tells her at one point.

“You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault.”…

[continues at RadarOnline.com]

Kevin Rudd

After a series of sudden and drastic moves initiated by a handful of people within some factions of the Australia Labor Party on Wednesday evening,  Australians woke up the next morning (24 June 2010) watching their elected Prime Minister (Kevin Rudd) cry in front of the TV screen after he was told by the dozens of his colleagues he was finished as prime minister. (Herald Sun, 25 June 2010)

The cause of his down fall was mainly due to the fact that his popularity has plunged dramatically over the last 6 months. This in part was the direct result of the mining companies’ $100 million advertising campaign against his government intention to imposed a Super Mining Tax in 2012 to give the average Australian a fairer share of the profit from the resources digging out from Australian soil and seabed. The opposition has sided with the miners over the Super Mining Tax and benefited from a huge amount of political donation.

As a result, the first thing our (unelected) new prime minister (Julie Gillard) did was to offer a truce to the miners by withdrawing the government $38 million counter-miner-advertising-campaign and promised to “talk to the industry without pre-conditions,” (The Australian, 25 June 2010 – ‘Miners accept new Prime Minister’s offer of a truce’). BHP Billiton being the first miner to suspend its TV advertising campaign and our humble new government reacted immediately by showing appreciation: ‘Gillard thanks BHP for scrapping ads’ (Herald Sun, 25 June 2010).

However, after a mere few hours of excitement, some miners have again decided to continue their relenting advertising campaign: ‘Miners continue working on mining tax ads despite truce’ (News Limited, 25 June 2010). Mining Chief, Keith De Lacy then pressed on the federal government to take the $12 billion revenue from a resource super-profits tax out of the budget’s forward estimates. (The Australian, 26 June 2010).

A Sad Day For Democracy

Democracy is supposed to be a system base on the concept of ‘One People One Vote’. However, in this instant, it has became (as a friend of mine put it): an “One Dollar One Vote” system. The reality now are:

1) An elected Prime Minister can be replaced over night by the decision of a few dozens of privilege people within a political party.

2) A mostly foreign owe multi-national corporations like BHP Billiton and  Rio Tinto together with a  couple of local billionaires are able to influence a nation political process, overthrown an elected Prime Minister, and humble the new government by simply throwing their money around.

It would be fair for one to ask:

a) Have our current form of “democratic” system of government function in accordance to the wish of the people on the street?; Or

b) Have it became a system that favour the wishes of a handful of very rich people and multi-national corporations?

No Need To Feel Sorry For Kevin Rudd

During the last 2 and a half years as Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd has been very much a hated figure among his staffers with “262 ministerial staff – from a total of 444 positions departed since Labor came to office”. However, when a single tear ran down his face as he delivered an emotional farewell to the nation on the TV screen, some of his staffers apparently weep with him. Frankly speaking, when I watched the scene on TV, I do feel sorry for him as I can sense the kind of humiliation and betrayal he had to endure from his own comrades within the party. Their action were sweep, brutal and ruthless.

However, when we put in context Kevin Rudd own ruthless poll driven policies over the last few months, we can only ask ourselves, is this the sub-culture of the current form of democracy? What can we do to make the system more humane, ethical, responsible and civilise?

The Cruelty Of Poll Driven Politics

Example 1: A Sudden change to the ‘In demand’ Skill Migration List

Former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has always been an enthusiastic supporter of a bigger Australia:

According to a new Immigration Department report on skilled arrivals in 2009, “the Rudd Government has admitted it wants to bring in up to 230,000 migrants annually over the next 40 years,” (Herald Sun, 3 September 2009 – ’Federal Government set to maintain record high immigration levels’).

A month later, in an interview with the 7.30 report, Kevin Rudd unambiguously spoke of the merit of a bigger population. This is what he said: “I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no apology for that,” “I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing,” and “I think it is good for us, it’s good for our national security long term, it’s good in terms of what we can sustain as a nation.” (The Age, 23 Oct 2009)

Merely another 3 months later, Kevin Rudd in his speech to mark the 2010 Australia Day Celebration by again spoken about our aging population and the need for Australia to increase its population from 22 million to 36 million by 2050 to maintain our current standard of living. (‘Kevin Rudd’s speech in full’- News Limited, 20 Jan 2010)

However, when the media begin to publish a series of anti-immigration articles and speeches by the oppositions, activists, and right wingers with strong anti-immigrant sentiment and the public opinion indicated that “Two-thirds of respondents – 66 per cent – think the Federal Government should cap immigration rates” (News Limited, 24 Jan 2010). This is how the Rudd government begin to reverse his immigration policy in a sudden, brutal, ruthless, unethical, inhumane, racist manner with immediate effect:

Creating an ’In demand’ Skill Migration List to attract overseas students

Before the Rudd government won the last election (2007), the previous Australian governments have been using the creation of a list of ’In damand’ skill migration program and knowing that many migration and education agencies have been actively using that ‘favourable list’ as a marketing tools to attract foreign students.

As a result, our education sector has become our 3rd largest export industry with an annual revenue of $17 billion.

Despite the fact that there are many unscrupulous and dodgy colleges over the years collecting huge amount of tuition fees from overseas students and not offering any proper educational services, for examples,

- ABC Four Corners (27 July 2009) – ‘Holy Cash Cows’:

“Last year more than 70,000 Indian students came here to buy an education. Egged on by immigration and education agents, many were told if they enrolled in cooking, hairdressing and accounting courses they would not only get a diploma but they could also qualify for permanent residency in Australia.”

“Four Corners investigation reveals that foreign students in this country have been targeted by unscrupulous businessmen, who have set up training schools that supply qualifications that sometimes aren’t worth the paper they are written on.”

“We all know that they have sardine type cooking classes where there’s sixteen students to a frypan.” (Corruption investigator)

“If a student wants to apply for permanent residency they must pass an English language test. Four Corners has found clear evidence that unscrupulous immigration and education agents are offering English language tests for a price. In some cases the exam paper is worth up to $5,000.

“Another requirement for students in vocational courses, seeking residency in Australia, is a work experience certificate. Each student is required to undertake up to 900 hours of on the job training. Some work for nothing creating a source of cheap labour. Others are offered an alternative. Four Corners reveals an immigration agent was prepared to help procure a fake work experience certificate for students if they were prepared to pay between three and four thousand dollars. This practice clearly makes a joke of the vocational qualification and the integrity of the immigration system.”

- The Age (23 July 2009) – ‘College in gross breach of standards’:

“A CONFIDENTIAL report on a Melbourne private college has uncovered big education breaches, painting a picture of shambolic practices that failed to meet the most basic educational standards”

“The audit also found:

* Marketing of education and training services was unprofessional

* Students were not provided with information on emergency and health services

* There were no proper checks on overseas education agents

* Students’ course progress was not monitored

* Classes were overcrowded”

- The Australian (29 July 2009) – ‘UNE accused of allowing plagiarists to graduate’:

“MORE than 100 overseas students graduated from the University of New England with copied masters theses, creating one of Australia’s biggest plagiarism scandals after an academic whistleblower tried to raise the alert.”

The problem with the Australian government is that, they don’t really care as long as the money keep coming in.

- Time of India (23 Jan 2010)  ‘Australian govt ignores advice on Indian students: Report’:

“A top body that represents Australia’s universities has accused both state and federal governments of ignoring warnings issued by it on problems faced by overseas students, including Indians, in the country. “

“Universities Australia, which represents 39 universities, said it had alerted governments to problems relating to student safety, poor-quality colleges, lack of concessions on public transport and immigration matters for two years ago.”

“It (Universities Australia) passed on to Australian authorities warnings from officials in China and India relating to student safety. It also conveyed to governments student disenchantment resulting from a perception they were being treated like cash cows,”

“However, Universities Australia Chief Executive Glenn Withers said that he was disappointed as state and federal governments did not treat the problems as a priority when they were told about them two years ago but acted with urgency only when violent attacks on Indian students attracted intense media attention.”

Sudden withdrawal of the ‘In demand’ Skill migration list

However, when the poll indicated that the Government “Big Australia” policy was unpopular in an election year. This is how the new policy work:

Only 19 days after Kevin Rudd delivered his Australia Day speech about increasing our population to 36 million by 2050, his government suddenly decided to have a ‘Migration U-turn’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Feb 2010), by calling it a ‘Crackdown on skilled migrants’ (WA Today, 7 February), and immediately ‘rejects 20,000 migrants’ (Brisbane Time, 8 Feb 2010).  These are the detail:

1) “The changes to be unveiled today will see 20,000 current applications binned”

2) “The cancelled applications apply to all offshore general skilled migration claims lodged before September 2007. Refunding 20,000 visa applications will cost taxpayers about $14 million.”

3) “Given the changes could have a significant impact on many foreign students already in Australia, the government will introduce transitional arrangements to apply until 2012.”

4) Foreign students who have a qualification for an occupation no longer considered in demand will get to apply for a temporary 18-month visa, allowing them to gain work experience

5) The 18 months will also give a foreign graduate time in which to find an employer willing to sponsor their application as a skilled migrant.

It’s all about money for Australia –Where is the Human Right of those Students who have no voting right?

The only thing the opposition concerned over the government sudden policy’s U-turn is still about money. This is how the Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said:

“there would be big transition costs associated with the changes, which would hit the international education sector hard”, “This is because there are many foreign students already taking courses on the in-demand list, whose study might no longer improve their chances of permanent migration.”.”There’ll be many students who’ll be caught between a rock and a hard place,” “It addition … there’ll be a lot of pressure on those colleges [catering to overseas students] and I suspect many will fail” “That will obviously have impacts for jobs.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Feb 2010).

Again, an opinion piece article published by the Sydney Morning Herald two months later (13 April 2010) – ‘When Indian students suffer, Australia risks being scarred for life’ with the main focus still about money. For examples,

“The country has suffered real reputational damage, real economic cost, and real diplomatic disadvantage,”

“The economic cost? Higher education is Australia’s third-biggest export sector, worth $17 billion a year. For Victoria, education is the number one source of foreign income at $4.5 billion a year.”

“So far, the known effect of the assaults has been twofold. First, the total number of Indians studying here is down by 5 per cent this year compared to last, about 1500 students, when the numbers from other major source countries are up. With the total average economic benefit to Australia of about $34,000 per student per year, this means an annual cost of about $50 million.”

“Second, there is the loss of potential student numbers. The number of new Indian enrolments is down this year by 40 per cent compared to last. But the potential cost is much bigger than this suggests.”

The reality to these international students are, they have already invested their time and a huge amount of money in Australia  believing in the government ‘in-demand list’. Some have borrowed those money as an investment hoping for a better future. However, if you are not a voters or if you are not the “mainstream” voters , you have no right in this country. This is how Australia, a self claimed “Civilised” country behave against migrants and minorities citizens in virtually each and every election.

Why can’t the government introduce their U-turn policy in a more humane and considerate manner by honouring their ‘in-demand list’ to those students who already completed the courses, half-way through the courses or already enrolled in those courses,  and set a later date as a cut off point? Why it has to do in such a hurry to cancel all applications lodged prior to September 2007 with immediate effect?

The very few people I came across over the last few months that speak for the students and was published by the media is in this news heading: ‘New migrant list will hit business’ (The Age, 18 May 2010):

Andrew Smith, the Chief executive of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training have the following fair comment in favour of the students:

“We have to be absolutely honest about what Australia has done over a number of years now, and that was to link immigration and education,” “Students invested tens of thousands of dollars on the basis of a clear government policy. It’s unfair to them that the rules have changed during their courses.”

However, at the back of the above statement that published by the mainstream media, it is still all about money and our selfish national interest. For examples,

“Some restaurants would go out of business and others be forced to shorten their trading hours without migrant labour.”

“…the industry was already 3000 cooks short before the federal government halved the number of places for which independent skilled migrants could apply.”

“Private educators, however, predicted more college closures, thousands of job losses and a flight of international students to other countries.”

“Just a 5 per cent slump in student numbers would lead to more than 6000 job losses and $700 million in lost revenue.”

Remark: So, when is Australia going to stop encouraging overseas migrants on the one hand to solve its own money, skill shortage and employment problem, while one the other hand, continue to abuse its migrant population as and when an election is on the agenda?

Example 2: asylum seeker policy U-Turn

During the Howard era, Australia asylum seeker policy has been widely condemned as racist and inhumane. Amnesty International at that time accused Australia of violating the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. (RTE News, 29 August 2001).

In order to help restore Australia’s international reputation after the “shameful” Howard years, the new Rudd government decided to ‘soften Australia asylum seeker laws’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 29 July 2008)

However, when the media begin to run a series of creative news against the arrival of boats people and migrants such as:

‘Warning on Australian immigration border control’ (ABC Radio, 14 Oct 2009)

‘Taxpayer bill for Oceanic Viking refugees is set to soar’ (News Limited, 10 Nov 2009)

‘Australia to take bulk of refugees’ (Adelaide Now, 13 Nov 2009)

‘Immigration ‘will fuel greenhouse gas growth’ (Herald Sun, 20 Jan 2010)

‘Mass immigration kills Aussie culture, says demographer Bob Birrell’ (Adelaide Now, 24 March 2010)

‘Coalition wants Aussie babies, but fewer migrants’ (Brisbane Time, 7 April 2010).

Again, this is how our Rudd’s government introducing an ‘U-turn policy’ with the characteristics of sudden, brutal, ruthless, unethical, inhumane and racist. The impact is immediate:

For example, “The federal government has toughened its policy on asylum seekers by immediately suspending the processing of all new refugee claims by Sri Lankans and Afghanis.” (SBS, 9 Apr 2010 – ‘Sri Lankan, Afghan asylum visas suspended’). The immediate outcome is ‘Asylum seekers face years of detention’.

The director of the advocacy group the Edmund Rice Centre, Phil Glendinning is right to point out that the policies are “an appeal to fear and racism” and that “both sides of politics are attacking asylum seekers in the lead-up to the federal election.” (ABC, 28 May 2010 – ‘Asylum seeker policy ‘an appeal to fear and racism’).

There is an article with detail research and analysis about the suffering of Asylum seekers during the Howard’s era. For the benefit of those who are interested to know more. I hereby attached the link (‘Asylum seekers, Australia’s retraumatisation policy, and healthcare ally work’) for you to read as I believe that it is still applicable to the suffering of the asylum seekers now as a result of the Rudd’s government ‘U-turn’ policy.

Conclusion: Democracy needs reform

There are too may of this kind of creative news against migrants and asylum seekers in Australia over the years. It is meaningless to flood this article with such links. I would like to list just a few more examples as follows before writing my conclusion:

‘Aust legal system may face challenges over migrant attitudes to women’ (ABC, 16 April 2010)

‘Australian-born families will be minority in 15 years’ (News Limited, 18 April 2010)

‘Sexist migrants create legal problem’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April 2010)

‘Majority oppose population growth: survey’ – (The Age, 14 Apr 2010

Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations on 13 Oct 2000. Unfortunately, I believe that 10 years on, the above UN assessment is till accurate.

If democracy produce racism, then it need to reform to overcome such human right violation as a result of the racist behaviour during each and every election. How? I believe that we can look to Singapore model as an example. Its education system and government policy in favour of racial interaction, and also the legal frame work against racism by public figures, individuals, religious leaders, etc. I will write a separate article about Singapore model sometime in the future.

Again, if democracy resulted in the reality and effect of ‘One Dollar One Vote’, its also need reform. How? I believe that, we can analyse it from the perspective of our education system, media culture, anti-lobbyist laws and regulations, political donation, the personal quality and integrity of our leaders and bureaucrats, and our political process as a whole. Again, I will write a separate article on that sometime in the future.

Democracy is a very good ideas, but our current form of democracy is definitely far from perfect. China leader is right to point out in March 2009 that: “China would draw on the achievements of all cultures but would not “simply copy” the West.”

Let’s the world learn from each other achievement and experience of success to improve on our own. Let’s stop demonising another countries or culture simply because they are different from us.

Confucius says: “三人行，必有我 师” – Where 3 people got together, I will find a teacher.

Written on 28 June 2010.

By www.outcastjournalist.com

The informative Phil Plait writing his Bad Astronomy blog is saying it’s some kind of man-made space rocket.

Maybe so, but time-traveling aliens sounds so much fun to me:

Photo: Karen Gowlett-Holmes

Carolyn Barry writes in National Geographic:

Using its fins to walk, rather than swim, along the ocean floor in an undated picture, the pink handfish is one of nine newly named species described in a recent scientific review of the handfish family.

Only four specimens of the elusive four-inch (ten-centimeter) pink handfish have ever been found, and all of those were collected from areas around the city of Hobart, on the Australian island of Tasmania.

Though no one has spotted a living pink handfish since 1999, it’s taken till now for scientists to formally identify it as a unique species.

The new-species determinations were made based on a number of factors, including number of vertebrae and fin rays, coloration, the presence of scales and spines, and proportional body measurements, according to review author Daniel Gledhill of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO.

Read More: National Geographic

A restaurant in a northwest suburb of Adelaide that refused a blind man entry because it thought his guide dog was “gay” was ordered by the Equal Opportunity Tribunal to pay him $1500.

A statement given by restaurant owners Hong Hoa Thi To and Anh Hoang Le said one of the restaurant’s waiters said that Mr Jolly’s partner Ms Chris Lawrence stated “she wanted to bring a gay dog into the restaurant.”

Mr Jolly and Ms Lawrence were refused entry to the restaurant – which displays a “guide dogs welcome” sign — even after providing staff with a guide dogs fact card.

At an Equal Opportunity Tribunal conciliation hearing on Friday, the restaurant agreed to provide Mr Jolly with a written apology and attend an Equal Opportunity education course, in addition to paying him $1500.

“The staff genuinely believed that Nudge was an ordinary pet dog which had been desexed to become a gay dog,” a statement from the hearing said.

Read More in the Herald Sun

Would somebody please not think of the children. At least not while we are discussing internet censorship. This may sound like an odd request given that, historically, almost all censorship debates have pivoted around children and the need to protect them. But moral panics and fear-mongering campaigns concerning “the helpless children” often muddy what could otherwise be rational, evidenced-based debates.

And there is no easier way to get an otherwise progressive, reasonable parent to endorse an illogical, anti-democratic censorship regime than by appealing to (and exploiting) their deep-seated fears concerning their children.

But here’s the thing. Censorship debates over child safety have little to do with actual flesh and blood children. If they did then they would acknowledge and include the voices and views of young people and they would recognise the competencies and strengths that children bring to online interactions.

[Read more at the Syndey Morning Herald]

Thanks for the input, Disinfo readers around the globe. My take is I’d never see these guys on American network TV with this song, or basic cable (but they may have a shot on the pay-extra cable networks). Good luck to them…

Rio Tinto's Australian headquarters are located in the 120 Collins Street building in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Canley (GNU)

[disinformation editor's note: the author's native language is not English and he makes numerous spelling and grammar errors. We chose to publish the article notwithstanding this and hope that readers will value the author's opinions nonetheless.]

After nine months of media allegations, finger pointing based purely on hearsay, speculation surrounding the reasons behind the arrest of the four Rio Tinto executives in Shanghai on 5 July 2009, the truth about the actual background of the arrest has finally outweighed the disinformation relentlessly generated by the mainstream media in Australia.

We now know that:

1) The four Rio Tinto executives admitted taking bribes (The Australian, 23 March 2010).

2) One should note that, it was only after the four Rio Tinto executives admitted taking bribes on the 23 March 2010, we then learn on the following day that, ’Secret Rio Tinto probe cleared company but left Stern Hu in doubt’ (The Australian, 24 March 2010).

3) Stern Hu was sentenced to jail for 10 years (The Australian, 29 March 2010) and Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh sacked all the four convicted executives. Mr Walsh described the bribery findings — admitted by all four men — as “deplorable”, and said that the company had “implemented a number of improvements to our procedures, and we have now ordered a further, far-reaching independent review of our processes and controls”.  (The Australian, 31 March 2010).

Is Rio Tinto as a company an innocent party?

On the outset, Rio Tinto as a company seems to be an innocent party. However, according to the Melbourne’s Age (31 March 2010), under the heading ‘Rio Tinto calls in Kissinger to mend fences’, it was disclosed that: “Mr Kissinger’s role came to light as claims emerged that Rio was told months before the arrests of Hu and his three colleagues of potential ”dodgy dealings” within its China operations but resisted internal calls for an investigation.”

The Age further evaluated that: “The Age has been told that a number of Rio employees in Singapore raised concerns with management about the activities of employees in China more than a year ago but the concerns were never formally investigated.”. “A well-placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a rapid rise in the iron ore spot price led some to question whether bribes were being offered. ”Some of the guys in Singapore said ‘let’s have an investigation’ but that investigation was quashed by senior company figures,”

The truth is, Rio Tinto is a direct beneficiary to the bribery activities. As a result, “China paid $165m too much for iron ore last year,” (Daily Telegraph, 30 March 2010).

One should note that, all these information only came after the four Rio Tinto executives admitted taking bribes! The interesting questions here are: How did our media and politicians behave between the period after the arrest on 5 July 2009 and the Rio Tinto executives admission of taking bribes on 23 March 2010?

What can we learn from this case about our media culture, our law in practices and our politicians?

In retrospect, when we examine the way our politicians and mainstream media reaction to the arrest of Rio Tinto’s executives in Shanghai since July 2009 and the subsequent abusive language used, and the on-going and systemic repeating of certain points about the case to the Australian public, we can tell a lot about our media culture and the kind of political leaderships and competency we rely upon to manage our national affair. Can we trust them?

a) Our legal frame work on anti-foreign bribery:

On the 10th August 2009, I wrote an articles with a title: “Australia media and government should respect its own law on Foreign Bribery – Stern Hu’s Case: Problem of corruption is a world issue, not just Chinese”. In this article, I highlighted the content of the Australian government website on the issue of anti-foreign bribery (www.ag.gov.au/foreignbribery), with part of the information as follows:

“Australia recognizes that corruption is not just one country’s problem and, in recognition of this, is an active participant in international initiatives, including:

- ratifying the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) on 7 Dec 2005

- ratifying the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime on 27 May 2004.

- ratifying the OECD Convention and Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions on 18 Oct 1999 and participating in the Asian Development  Bank OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for the Asia – Pacific.

- participating in the Asia – Pacific Economic Cooperation Anti-Corruption and Transparency Experts Task Force (APEC ACT)….(etc)

Australia is committed to sharing technical expertise and improving our legal cooperation relationships with other countries to strengthen the fight against corruption, both in Australia and throughout the Asia – Pacific region.”

Note: The Australian government has changed the content of this website and removed many of the statements I reported in my article mentioned above dated 10th Aug 2009. However, I have save a copy of the original content. By the way, you can still find the name of the International Convention  ratified by Australia.

I submitted this article to a number of newspapers and magazines in Australia but receive no response from the editors except the New Internationalist Magazine with this message: “Thanks for your message. Our June issue is all about China, so I’m afraid we won’t be looking for any more China-related stories for the time being.”.

As a result, I decided to create my own website and register the domain www.outcastjournalist.com on 19 Oct 2009 to publish my own research against media disinformation.

b) Our Law is only as good as the people who administer it

Despite the series of International Convention we ratified, and our government pledged in their own website to cooperate with countries “throughout the Asia Pacific region” to “fight against corruption”,  did our government honour these International convention they ratified? Did we do what we preaches? Let’s look at how our politicians response to the arrest of Rio’s executives on the 5th July 2009:

i) Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd not only failed to allow Shanghai’s police the time to sort out the evidence, conduct further investigation and offer assistance to China to facilitate their investigation, he politicised the whole issue with a  public statement: “Our Chinese friends”, “China had significant economic interests at stake in it relationship with Australia and other commercial partners around the world.” (Brisbane Time 16 July 2009)

ii) As usual, The Australian Newspaper always knew which politician to pick for negative comment about China. This time, they mentioned Senator Barnaby Joyce twice to assert one point: “the failure of Chinalco to increase its stake in Rio was behind the arrests.” Apparently, the Australian Newspaper has removed the content of this news on their website with the subject heading: ‘Beijing accuses Rio of spying as Australia is shocked at arrest of mining executives’ dated 9 July 2009. Luckily, I have kept a copy of this news from the Australian website as well. You may read my detail analysis in my earlier article on Rio Tinto case to find out how the Australian Newspaper skilfully crafted wording using the techniques of creating, repeating, asserting and confirming an unproven speculation that the arrest was related to the recent failed negotiation over Australian iron ore exports to China . By the way, the Crowdsourced coverage website can proof my claim that the Australian did carry that news heading on their website in July 2009.

c) The rule of law in theory and in practices (China vs. Australia)

China as a developing country is not perfect in many aspects. It was at one stage a totally lawless society 60 years ago with wide spread poverty, low literacy, bad health (average life expectancy was 36 year), without an effective government after century of foreign invasion and colonial exploitation such as the First Opium War; the numerous unequal treaties forced upon China by varies foreign governments such as UK, USA, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain and Netherlands – Wikipedia recorded 18 of these unequal treaties; and Nanking Massacre, etc.

However, over the last 60 years of political, legal and economic reform, China enjoy unprecedented prosperity with political stability and high level of citizen satisfaction with the direction of the government. (PEW survey 2008).

China is still far from a perfect country, and the country knew that – in the recent session of the National’s People Congress, the heads of the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procurator made a promise for “greater supervision and competence in its judicial system”. (CCTV, 11 Mar 2010).

Like any Western country’s history of building its legal system, it is an on-going process of improvement as a result of discovering new loopholes and inefficiency. However, where there are existing written law to follow, no one have the right to dispute its legitimacy. Rio Tinto’s bribery case was trial in accordance with the existing Chinese law and legal proceeding – the bribery case was trial at an open Court, and the stealing of commercial secret case was trail in a close Court but with 40 witnesses including some of the family members of the defendants. (The Australian, 26 Mar 2010)  and we should respect the outcome as the crime was committed in China under their Judiciary system.

If we want other countries to respect our law, we should learn also to respect others.

The irony with the Australian media and government is that,

i) We keep making unfounded speculation that Chinese leaderships are personally involved in the case. For example,

After Prime Minister Rudd issue a public warning to China: “The world is watching”, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Treasurer Wayne Swan also joined him in saying “the rest of the world was watching China”. Despite Qin Gang, China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman urging Australia not to “interference in China’s judicial sovereignty”, and claimed that: “The actions of the Rio Tinto staff have caused losses to China and China’s interests,” he said. “I believe Stern Hu and Rio Tinto are fully aware of this.”, like most media throughout the country, the Age also pushing the following point in its report dated 17 July 2009 under the heading: ‘China tells Australia to butt out’:

The Age: “It has been widely speculated that Mr Hu’s detention is linked to Rio’s decision to snub a bid by China’s state-owned Chinalco last month to take a large stake in the company.”

Reader should note that, the effort to link the arrest of Rio Tinto executives in Shanghai to the failed bid by Chinalco to increase it investment in Rio Tinto is wide spread throughout the Australian media industry over the next 8 months since their arrest in July 2009 until the bribery findings — admitted by all four men.

The Sydney Morning Herald (29 July 2009) run an article: “China does not respond positively to humiliation”, implying that, by maintaining a good relationship with Chinese leaderships, Stern Hu stand a better chance for an early released.

Sydney Morning Herald (13 July 2009) under the heading ’Chinese President backed Rio spy probe’  quoting an (unnamed) Chinese Government sources suggesting that “The Chinese President, Hu Jintao, personally endorsed the Ministry of State Security investigation into Rio Tinto that led to the detention of the Australian iron ore executive”. If you Google this news title, you will notice that like most negative news against China, it is an Australia wide coverage.

Again, Sydney Morning Herald (7 Nov 2009) under the heading ‘Exposed: the man controlling Stern Hu’s fate’, speculating without quoting any source that “Wu Zhiming, who is due to decide his (Stern Hu) fate within 10 days”. Follow by an unnamed source: “But some Chinese lawyers say the justice system is more tightly controlled in Shanghai because it has been the stable, long-time power base of Jiang Zemin.”, then another unnamed statement: “Some say Wu has a tighter grip on Shanghai than even the mayor or Communist Party secretary”. Then “The President, Hu Jintao, and a host of lesser players might also vie for influence” (not quoting any source again), then “political analysts (unnamed) say there is a risk that Rio Tinto’s iron ore team will – or might already have – become stuck in the middle of a bitter struggle between President Hu and Jiang.”

How wonderful to be a mainstream media journalist. You can say whatever you like without quoting any sources.

On 11 Feb 2010, The Age made a further speculation under the heading ’China steps up Stern Hu bribe case’,  again, using the technique of quoting an (unnamed) observer: “Observers say the decision is likely to have been made at the highest level of Chinese politics,” follow by this statement: “Some had expected President Hu Jintao’s visit last month to Shanghai – the territory of his political rivals and his first visit in two years – would lead to the case being resolved in Mr Hu’s favor.”

The reality is, with the eventual admission of all four Rio Tinto’s executives in the bribery charged on March 2010, all the above rumours and speculations pushed relentlessly by the mainstream media over the last 8 to 9 months have reflected badly in the truthfulness and professionalism of our media industry and , unfortunately the competency of our political leaderships as well.

ii) Political interference in Australia Judiciary system.

Our media and politicians love to make up stories and accuse other culture of political interference in their judiciary system as and when our criminals committed crimes in a non Western country like the Rio Tinto case demonstrated above. However, in practice, did we do what we preaches?

Technically, if Rio Tinto as a company knowing its executives criminal act in China “more then a year ago and resisted internal calls for an investigation” (The Age, 31 March 2010),  Rio Tinto has effectively violated a number of Australian laws including the series of our Anti-Foreign Bribery related law and legislations. (Not to mention that Rio has directly benefited from these illegal activities). For a detail listing of our legal framework on Anti-foreign bribery, please read my earlier article dated 10 Aug 2009.

The ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) is right to indicate that it is “looking at Rio over Stern Hu case” as “Prof Ramsay said that under Australian criminal law, Rio could be potentially liable if a court found the company’s corporate culture either directed, encouraged or tolerated bribery of a foreign public official.” Despite the fact that “Green leader’s Bob Brown called for the Rudd Government to order the regulator to investigate Rio Tinto”, “Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith …. said it was possible that the Hu case involved a breach of Australian law, but he told the ABC …. that he had no reason to refer the matter to ASIC.” (News Limited, 31 Mar 2010). Whether or not the ASIC is serious about “looking at Rio over Stern Hu case”, we can only wait and see for now.

Again, the Rudd government is not interest in upholding the Australian law against foreign bribery. Instead, our “Foreign Minister slams Chinese as Stern Hu gets 10-year jail sentence” (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 2010), so as Prime Minister Rudd (The Australian, 9 April 2010). And the media is talking about a prisoner exchange treaties with China (Courier Mail, 8 Apr 2010). So much for the usefulness of the written law in Australia.

However, in another recent incident, when it was reported that a “Chinese coal ship that ran onto the Great Barrier Reef was one of dozens of freighters to have taken a legal short cut between dangerous shoals this year” (Brisbane Time, 7 April 2010). Let’s have a look at how our poll driven Politicians reacted to this incident in an election year:

Usually, incident like this should be handled by the experts to access the damages, and the federal police to investigate the cause of the incident and then refer the case with according to our established legal framework and procedure, and finally a court proceeding and expert (The Australian Maritime Safety Authority) recommendation such as to introduce new rule and regulation (for example, extending the VTS to the entire length of the reef ) to ensure this kind of incident will not happen again. It should be up to the Judicial System to decide on the case.

However, our Prime Minister have to personally involved himself on the case and pledged that: “vessels that threatened the health of the reef would be prosecuted with all the force of the law,” follow by our Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese: “The Australian government will ensure that the full force of the law is brought to bear on those responsible … and we will also ensure … compensation is paid with regard to the cost of cleaning up,.” (Brisbane Time, 12 April 2010).

So, is our Judicial System independent from political interference? You be the Judges!

Economic or Commercial espionage cases outside China

For the benefit of readers, I would like to provide the following links to other commercial espionage cases outside China:

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 was approved by Congress because theft of U.S. trade secrets is costing U.S. companies many billions of dollars a year in lost sales and costing U.S. workers their jobs. Here are brief summaries of some of the first arrests under this new US law: http://www.wright.edu/rsp/Security/Spystory/Industry.htm.

Other commercial espionage cases across the world:

- A case study in French Espionage: Renaissance Software.

- Case study: USA – UK industrial espionage

- F1 engineers plan appeal in Ferrari espionage case (30 April 2007)

- Telecom Italia espionage scandal deepens (25 January 2007)

- Fender bender crooks swipe $190K in chips (21 December 2006)

- Vodafone fined €76m over Greek wiretap scandal (15 December 2006)

- Foiled computer blaggers jailed for 38 years (3 July 2006)

- Spyware-for-hire couple plead guilty (15 March 2006)

- Eight CCTV cameras bust ‘Mr Stupid’ (28 August 2005)

- Armed raiders steal £840,000 in computer kit (20 January 2003)

Conclusion: Why are the Australian politicians and media cannot use normal heart to handle other cultures?

I feel sad for Australia—a country I called HOME. The world has changed so much in the 21st century and yet some in our society still unable to put aside the colonial mentality of the past. These people seem to has to see other culture through color lenses and unable to put in context our own behavior when facing the similar situation.

Our media reporting news based heavily on hear-say and unfounded speculations. Despite numerous newspapers and magazines on our news stand, they all seems to speak in one voice most of the time with the same messages and mistakes. Very often, those people  they quoted with a name are in fact – no expert to the case. Those so-called experts are people without a name. The editors seems not too interested in the truth of an event. Apparently, like the latest ANU research, most of our editors only interested in reporting news based on their party line. (I would put it as political line.) They are unable to distinguish the different in responsibility between writing a news piece and opinion piece.

Since the financial crisis, our reserve bank governor has in many occasions accredited China as the main factors that lifted Australia out of this crisis. China is in actual fact our number one trading partner. However, as a result of our bureaucrats and politicians reliance exclusively on our newspapers for information about China. (refer to Brisbane Time on the 15 Oct 2009 under the heading – Rudd policy on China ’set by BHP’, with the following statement from Mr Joske (an economic adviser to former treasurer Peter Costello in the 1990s): ”There’s no one in Treasury who can tell up from down on China, beyond what they read in the newspapers.”

Should our government consider to reform our media industry to safeguard our national interest as a result of the misleading information we received from our media on a daily basis?

Written on 21 April 2010.

www.outcastjournalist.com

The views expressed above are those of the author alone.

Penguin Group Australia turns over $120 million a year from printing words but a one-word misprint has cost it dearly.

The publishing company was forced to pulp and reprint 7000 copies of Pasta Bible last week after a recipe called for ‘’salt and freshly ground black people” – instead of pepper – to be added to the spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

The exercise will cost Penguin $20,000, the head of publishing, Bob Sessions, said. At $3300 a letter, it’s a pricey typo.

Stock will not be recalled from bookshops because it would be ”extremely hard” to do so, Mr Sessions said. Copies remained on the shelves in city bookshops yesterday, selling for $20.

Mr Sessions could not understand why some readers had found the slip offensive.

”We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,” he said…

[continues at the Sydney Morning Herald]

Brutal-Koala-Jedi-Action seemed relevant to this post

Ken Eakins writes on Sitting Now:

Here we go again …

The Australian Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against a widely read but controversial US-based website over an article that encourages racial hatred against Aborigines.

But online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia said trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the “Streisand” effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.

The same page was in the news in January when, in a rare move, Google Australia agreed to remove links to the article from its search engine following legal action from Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt.

Once again ED is attacked, and once again people miss the point of the site.

The Internet really is srs bsns.

(more @ Sydney Herald)

For residents of a small Australian town, their usually mundane conversations about the weather have just become a whole lot more interesting.

That’s because in the outback town of Lajamanu it’s started raining fish. Yes, fish. Hundreds of them, falling from the sky. Over the past two days the town’s 660 residents have been bombarded with small white fish which have been falling like rain.

Locals say the fish, mostly spangled perch, have even been alive as they hit the floor. Lucky it wasn’t crocodiles then. Meteorologists believe the fish where sucked up by a tornado — which passed over a river some 300 miles away — before being carried through the sky at 40,000 to 50,000 feet.

Image: 1555 Engraving by Olaus Magnus (via Wikipedia)

Read More in Asylum

The draft national curriculum does not prohibit the teaching of creationism in schools, raising questions about whether this will open the door to its promotion as a science in classrooms.

The NSW Board of Studies has explicitly ruled out the teaching of creation theory from the Bible as a science, however it allows the teaching of spiritual perspectives on creation in science classes, as long as they are not dressed up as scientific or used to substitute any curriculum content, such as the teaching of evolution.

Greens MP John Kaye said he did not oppose discussion of Aboriginal Dreamtime or Christian explanations of the world’s origins in science classrooms, as long as they were presented as non-scientific beliefs.

However, while the NSW curriculum explicitly required schools to present and ”discuss evidence that present-day organisms have evolved from organisms in the distant past” and to ”relate natural selection to the theory of evolution”, the draft national curriculum ”was remarkably silent on the connection between natural selection and the evolution of ancient species into modern forms”.

“[The state curriculum] leaves open no wriggle room to slip in religiously based views on the origin of species as science,” Dr Kaye said.

[Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald]