here - Investigate Magazine

AUSTRALIA
WORLD
SPORT
TECH
Kevin Rudd opens
chequebook
Terminator warns
financial doom
Phoenix going
for Glory
New i-Look for
Windows Mobile
page
4
page
TGIFEDITION.TV
9
page
Auckland
Sat: 22°/13° Sun: 22°/13°
Hamilton
Sat: 24°/9° Sun: 23°/10°
11
Wellington
Sat: 18°/8° Sun: 21°/12°
page
Christchurch
Sat: 17°/10° Sun: 18°/13°
Queenstown
Sat: 21°/8° Sun: 18°/8°
Dunedin
Sat: 15°/9° Sun: 17°/10°
SUBSCRIBE TODAY,
ONLY $3 PER MONTH
THERE’S ONE EASY WAY TO GET THIS
DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY WEEK...
EDITION
17
www.tgifedition.com
ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 1 | Issue 19 |
| 12 December 2008 on the
Govt Obama tainted in corruption sting INSIDE
toughens up bail laws
LONG LAG
By Ian Wishart
Wellington, Dec 12 – Government legislation
that strengthens bail provisions has passed its first
hurdle in Parliament with the support of Labour.
The Bail Amendment Bill reverses changes made
to the test for imprisonment passed last year that
raised the bar for remand in custody from “a risk”
the defendant might offend, abscond, or interfere
with witnesses to“a real and significant risk”.
A second change meant the court only took
breaches of bail conditions into account when they
were relevant to the“real and significant risk”factor
in the first change.
The bill passed its first reading today by 106 votes
to seven, with only the Maori Party and the Greens
opposing it.
Justice Minister Simon Power said it showed the
Government was taking swift action to put public
safety first.
Justice Ministry estimates suggested the move
would lift the prison population by 50 to 100, but
officials had noted it could be more as the judiciary
was likely to take the new law as a signal the bail
threshold had been raised.
“Everyone should have the right to be considered
innocent until proven guilty and the right not to be
arbitrarily detained ,”he said.
“However, these rights must be balanced against
the safety of the New Zealand public.”
US President-elect Barack Obama has
become mired in a corruption controversy before he even takes office, after
the arrest this week of Democrat colleague and Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Blagojevich was charged Wednesday
by the FBI on corruption offences after
wiretaps revealed the Democrat governor
was trying to sell Obama’s now vacant
senate seat.
Under the Illinois constitution, the Governor has sole responsibility for filling the
seat with a nominee of his choice, but
transcripts released Thursday show the
governor was out to sell the seat to the
highest bidder.
On Nov. 5, while discussing his
authority to name Obama’s replacement,
Blagojevich said Obama could use his
influence to name the governor to a
lucrative spot with a private foundation.
Blagojevich told Adviser A: “I’ve got this
thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and, uh,
uh, I’m just not giving it up for (expletive)
nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and
I can always use it. I can parachute me
there.”
26 years behind bars Page 2
NUDE MEN Kids calendar? Page 4
GREECE
FRIGHTENING Read more, page 8
More riots Page 10
UPI
Continue reading
Muriwai beach gets speed limit
Wellington, Dec 12 – Speed restrictions have
been placed on a popular Auckland beach after local
residents expressed concern about the dangers of
speeding vehicles.
Traffic on Muriwai Beach, 45km west of downtown Auckland, has been restricted to 30kmh from
the southern end to Coast Road beach access.
A 60kmh restriction has been placed from the
beach access to the New Zealand Defence Force
Bombing Range.
“Muriwai is an extremely popular beach, and
vehicle traffic on the beach has increased noticeably
in recent years,” Rodney District Council western
sector project manager Gavin Flynn said.
“Local residents have expressed concern about
the dangers of speeding vehicles on the beach as
traffic has grown.”
Mr Flynn said there were already some restrictions controlling where vehicles were allowed on the
beach and these would continue to operate.
“Signage is in place on the beach showing where
the speed restrictions will apply.
“The police will be monitoring the beach area and
issuing speeding tickets to anyone caught breaking
the rules,”he said.
Last summer a quadbiker was seriously injured after
a collision with a trailbike rider on Muriwai beach.
And last NewYear’s Eve a 13-year-old girl died in hospital after being struck by a motorbike at Ripiro Beach,
17km southwest of Dargaville.The 15-year-old male
rider was alleged to have been racing his unregistered
motocross machine without a headlight at night.
– NZPA
Before and after...
trust Olympus
The new E-410 from Olympus
For more information contact H.E. Perry Ltd.phone: 0800 10 33 88 | email: [email protected] | www.olympus.com
NEW ZEALAND
off
BEAT
12 December 2008
FROM FRONT PAGE He said those that had benefited from the previous Labour-led government’s amendment were not
“low risk”.
If reversing the changes has an equal and opposite effect, the operating cost would be $7 million a
year, with a capital cost of $38 million.
Despite supporting the bill, Labour leader Phil
Goff and law and order spokesman Clayton Cosgrove attacked it as a flimsy branding exercise.
Mr Cosgrove said Labour was supporting the bill as
the 2007 change was merely a“clarification”of an unclear
law and the reversal would make little difference.
Mr Goff said about 15,000 people were already
remanded in custody every year and the legislation
would only affect an additional 50 to 100 people.
He said some Justice Ministry estimates had suggested only 10 more prison beds would be needed.
“This bill is entirely without substance. It is simply window dressing.”
The previous Labour-led government had raised
the prison muster by 3000 through tougher sentencing laws and between 2004 and 2008 the number of
people remanded into custody went up 30 percent.
“That is the biggest increase in history.”
He urged the Government to adopt a measure of
the previous government to bar inmates from parole
before serving two thirds of their sentence, which he
said would make a real difference to public safety.
But Mr Power said the bill was just the first stage
of a wider overhaul of bail laws.
Other possible future changes included:
making it clear bail could not be granted to
alleged offenders in return for information;
considering whether people remanded on drug
offences should be barred from bail with electronic
OBAMA HUNG UP ON, AGAIN!
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich., (UPI) – A U.S. congressman-elect says he mistakenly screened out a call from
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama that came in on his
cellular phone.
U.S. Rep.-elect Gary Peters, a Democrat from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., told Wednesday’s Detroit Free Press
he’s sorry now about his policy of sending calls bearing
restricted identifications to voice mail. It turns out the
one he got a few days after the Nov. 4 election was from
Obama himself, calling to congratulate him on his victory
over incumbent Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg.
Peters decided not to interrupt the call he was on
when the restricted call came in, rolling it over to voice
mail, the newspaper said. But when he checked his
messages later that evening, a distinctive voice said,
“Gary, this is Barack Obama. I just wanted to congratulate you on your victory. You don’t need to call me back.”
Peters said he would have loved to return the call,
yelling at his phone, “I want to call you back, what’s your
number?” So the lesson is: Answer those restricted calls
when you get them.
– NZPA
Back to the front page
The 36-year-old has
been on trial before
for abducting a woman,
sexually violating her,
and attempting to murder
her during a session
of experimental sex he
described as “cool”
KFC’S SPICY SECRET
ANDERSON, Calif., Dec. 12 (UPI) – Three Kentucky
Fried Chicken workers in California have been fired after
being accused of using a restaurant sink as a bathtub, a
company spokesman said.
KFC spokesman Rick Maynard said the three
unidentified female employees were initially suspended
for allegedly bathing in a dishwashing sink in Anderson,
Calif., but were later fired over the incident, the (Redding,
Calif.) Record Searchlight said today.
“KFC has zero tolerance for violations of our operating
standards, and our franchisee has taken immediate
action by terminating the employees who were involved,”
Maynard said in an e-mail.
The incident came to light after photographs of the
female workers that allegedly show them bathing in the
sink were posted on a MySpace profile.
The suspected bathing incident at the fast food
restaurant could have significant repercussions for the
Anderson eatery as well, senior environmental health
specialist Fern Hastings of Shasta County’s Environmental Health said.
Hastings told the Record Searchlight the photos
appear to indicate the employees allegedly wore only
swimsuits or underwear while bathing, a violation of a
clean employee clothing state regulation.
Italian court mandates divorce cell phones
ROME, Dec. 12 (UPI) – Italy’s top court said today that
children involved in a divorce must receive cell phones
as part of maintenance payments.
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that, according to a Cassation Court ruling, divorced parents will be
required to buy their children cell phones to use as daily
forms of communication.
The court’s ruling came from a case involving a 51year-old divorced father identified only as M.D.
The father had been accused of avoiding payments
to his ex-wife, Luise, regarded as maintenance payments
for necessary supplies for his son, Lorenzo.
The court ruled that maintenance payments should
extend beyond mere lodging and food, but should also
include cell phone services and similar daily services.
ANSA said the court ordered M.D. to pay more than
$13,300 in missing maintenance payments during the
last four years.
monitoring and home detention.
The Government would also be reviewing the Bail
Act to increase compliance.
ACT MP David Garrett said the proposed change
was minor, merely returning the law to the pre-2007
status quo. He said stronger changes were needed to
prevent cases like that of Michael Curran who killed
two-year-old Aaliyah Morrissey while on bail for
killing his former partner Natasha Hayden.
Green MP Metiria Turei said the Curran case was
shocking but due to mistakes in the application of
the law rather than the law itself.
It was important such cases were not presented
as the norm. She said the courts should err on the
side of keeping non-violent and young offenders in
the community rather than prison.
Liam Reid looks to the Public gallery during his sentencing for the rape and murder of Emma Agnew, Christchurch High Court.
NZPA/John McCombe
Bondage & discipline
killer goes down for life
Christchurch, Dec 12 – The violent life of
Liam James Reid culminated today in a sentence
of preventive detention with no chance of parole
for 26 years.
His sentence was in response to being found guilty
of raping and murdering deaf Christchurch woman
Emma Agnew and the violent rape and attempted
murder of another woman just nine days later.
The 36-year-old has been on trial before for
abducting a woman, sexually violating her, and
attempting to murder her during a session of experimental sex he described as “cool”.
He was acquitted of all those charges in October
2002, but convicted of fraudulently using the victim’s bankcard while he was on the run, when he
knew she had gone to the police.
He had a different name then,Julian Heath Edgecombe, which was mentioned during his four-week
trial on charges of raping and murdering Emma
Agnew, and raping, sexually violating, attempting to
murder, and robbing another woman in Dunedin.
The Dunedin woman told of being attacked in
the street by a man who put a rope around her neck
and choked her during the rape.
Emma Agnew was found near Spencer Park,
naked and choked to death with a sock stuffed into
the back of her throat, blocking her airway.
Handcuffing, spanking, and asphxia were part of
the sex games Edgecombe admitted playing with the
woman he was accused of trying to hang in 2002.
The pair argued and he said that when they
were going to have “reconciliation sex”he told her
that he needed to protect himself because of the
threats she made to have him charged and to harm
his daughter.
She then wrote a note, saying she had not been
raped and it referred to spanking.
Edgecombe told of having sex with her involving spanking and asphyxia using a power cord. He
denied that he had tried to hang her with a phone
cable.
As he did at the murder trial this month, Edgecombe gave evidence in his own defence. He told
the court he and the woman had“hard out, furious,
fast, deviant, experimental, disgusting sex. It was
cool.To us it was normal”.
After the acquittals on all the sex charges, Edgecombe was remanded for sentence on the bank card
charge and got a three-month jail term.
His time in prison on remand had been marked
with violence.
In November 2002 he admitted attacking two
other prison inmates in a frenzied bashing with a
broom handle.
He broke the broom handle over one man, who
was struck repeatedly.The second victim was bashed
over the head when he tried to intervene.
Judge David Holderness referred to Edgcombe’s
bad list of previous offending, including violence,
and jailed him for 27 months.
He was acquitted in 2003 on a charge of assaulting
another inmate with intent to injure – a charge that
alleged he had thrown a mug of boiling water in the
other man’s face and then punched him 15 times.
Edgecombe also attacked a convicted paedophile
in prison. His attack may have left George Darren
Cant – in jail for molesting five children at a church
camp – eligible for tens of thousands of dollars in
compensation.
When Edgecombe was cuffed by a prison officer
he claimed $40,000 compensation but it was refused
in a decision by Christchurch District Court Judge
Stephen Erber in July 2005.
Cant would have been eligible to claim any compensation money that Edgecombe had received.
The prison officer lost his job over the incident.
Edgecombe claimed the compensation for“hurt
feelings”.
After Judge Erber refused compensation, Justice
Minister Phil Goff said:“It vindicates the Government’s judgment that this legislation (the Prisoners
and Victims Claims Act) would be effective in stopping golden handshakes for inmates where disciplinary action against an errant prison officer dealt
more effectively with the problem.”
During the hearing, there was reference to Edgecombe’s previous convictions for assault, possessing
unlicensed firearms, and making threats to kill.
Now the little man with all the tattoos has added
convictions for rape, sexual violation, attempted
murder and robbery to his record.
– NZPA
NEW ZEALAND
12 December 2008
Left in a spin over job law
By Maggie Tait of NZPA
Wellington – New workers in small businesses
can be sacked within 90 days of starting their jobs
under a law passed today.
The probation period may be extended to larger
firms in future.
Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said the Employment Relations Amendment Act would encourage
small businesses – with 20 or fewer workers – to
take a risk and hire more staff knowing they would
not be caught up in expensive and time consuming
personal grievance processes if the person was not
right for the job.
The bill was passed under urgency, meaning there
was no select committee process where views could
be heard and changes made – Ms Wilkinson said fast
action was needed because of tough economic times.
A similar bill put up by National’s Wayne Mapp had
been well canvassed, she said.
However, Labour claims the bill strips rights and
will open workers up to abuse.
The new law is effective from March after the
Government agreed to an ACT Party amendment
to bring it forward by a month.
“This bill is a win-win for employers and employees, it is not about taking away rights,”Ms Wilkinson
told Parliament this morning.
“It is about giving opportunities.”
She said mediation was available and protections
against discrimination remained.
“It gives businesses the confidence to take on new
employees. This bill dramatically reduces compliance costs for small to medium businesses associated with recruitment and dismissive.”
Bad employers were unlikely to abide by rules
anyway, she said.
Labour’s Lianne Dalziel said compliance costs
increased in Britain when a similar move was done.
More employment cases would be taken on discrimination grounds as workers tried to get their
rights. Often it was cheaper to agree to a settlement.
Labour’s Trevor Mallard criticised the Govern-
ment for refusing amendments to give people notice
in writing and for them to be told the reason for
their sacking. The Government also refused an
amendment to exclude schools.
He said most employers would treat people fairly,
but there were “scumbag employers” who would
abuse it.
Protections were useless if people did not know
why they were sacked and, if not backed up with
legal enforcement, were toothless.
Green MP Sue Bradford said the law was an
affront to workers.About 100,000 at any time would
be under probation.
Ethnic workers and the most vulnerable – such as
migrants unfamiliar with their legal rights – would
be worst affected.
Ms Wilkinson has said beneficiaries who lose their
jobs under the probation period would not face a
stand down period for benefits, but Ms Bradford
said that would not help other workers who had not
been on welfare before taking the job.
ACT’s David Garrett said the left was scaremon-
gering and there was no advantage for employers
to sack good workers.
The Maori Party, which has a support agreement
with National, is also opposing the bill, saying it
would hurt Maori and Pacific workers.
Unions were outraged by the bill and EPMU was
to petition Governor General Anand Satyanand
today, asking he delay or refuse royal assent.
That won’t happen but was indicative of opposition to the change and the rushed process.
Business groups welcomed the change.
Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly said
most developed countries had similar policies.
“Most important, we are facing an economic
downturn when jobs are most at risk and small
businesses are least likely to hire,”he said.
“It is a pro-worker policy.The least skilled, most
marginal employees – currently most at risk of not
gaining jobs – will get the most benefit from it.”
The bill passed by 63 votes to 51 with National,
ACT and United Future in favour.
– NZPA
Tagger’s mum laments killer’s decision
Auckland, Dec 12 – The mother of a teenage boy
who was stabbed and killed after tagging a fence
says her son should not have died that night.
Leanne Cameron said she did not support what
her 15-year-old son had done, and had previously
signed a petition against graffiti to make parents
more accountable for their children’s actions.
Bruce Emery, a 50-year-old businessman, was
convicted of manslaughter for stabbing her son,
Pihema Clifford Cameron, 15, with a knife.
Emery confronted the teenager and a relative after
he found them tagging in Manurewa on January 26.
Ms Cameron said Emery should not have taken
the law into his own hands. She pointed out there is
an 0800 graffiti number which people can call.
“No one should take the law into their own hands,
no matter what. It’s not their place,” she told The
New Zealand Herald.
Ms Cameron said her son was raised in a loving,
caring family but had stopped attending high school
late last year because he hated it, much to the disagreement of his separated parents.
Pihema had been brought up knowing tagging
was wrong, but had got into a bit of trouble, like
many teenagers.
His parents even caught him tagging a table
about a year ago.
Ms Cameron said she gave him a bucket of water and
a cloth with cleaning product and made him scrub it
off, which she hoped would teach him a lesson.
Ms Cameron said Pihema would be remembered as
being very family-oriented and he enjoyed working
on cars.He played in the ripper tag touch competition
for a team called the Strickly Green Tag Team.
Ms Cameron moved to Australia last year, and
her children joined her later. She said Pihema had
been living with his father Pihama Edmonds, who
was a tetraplegic.
“He was his dad’s hands and legs. He helped his
father heaps. That’s the hardest part now – who’s
going to be there for his dad?”she said.
Pihema was a student at Papakura High School
until last year, but had not re-enrolled, despite his
parents’ best efforts. The plan was for him to join
his mother in Australia this year, to work part-time
while doing a course.
Pihema’s grandfather Brian Cameron said the
jury’s manslaughter verdict was a huge disappointment.He believed it sent the wrong message to people
who hate tagging that it was okay to kill someone.
“He’s 15-years-old, he never started tagging until
he was 14, so I hear.We never knew he was out tagging at midnight, he used to go out with his mates
when everybody went to sleep,”he told Radio New
Zealand.
“They portrayed him as an alcoholic and a drug
addict. He had a couple of puffs of dope each with
his mate and a couple of beers but they tried to say
he drank a couple of boxes of booze and it was just
out of hand.”
Mr Cameron said he had asked Pihema a few times
why he went tagging and warned if he caught Pihema
tagging his property“I’d snap your fingers off”.
The family of
15-year-old
Pihema Cameron
who was fatally
stabbed by businessman Bruce
Emery after
he suspected
the 15 year old
of tagging his
house, leave the
court after Emery
was found guilty
of manslaughter
but not of murder
by. NZPA / Wayne
Drought
– NZPA
NZ dollar mixed as international events prevail
Wellington, Dec 12 – The New Zealand dollar
had a decidedly mixed day, especially around the
local close when markets around the world were
side-swiped by news US Senate negotiators failed
to reach a compromise deal to bail out US carmakers.
Equities markets in Asia dropped on the news
and the US dollar hit a seven-week low against the
yen.
The New Zealand dollar tested below US55c
late in the session but overnight it peaked around
US55.70c, its highest level in 18 days, as the market’s
appetite for risk improved.
By 5pm the NZ dollar was US55.03c, down from
the US55.32c open and the US54.60c close yesterday.
Imre Speizer, senior market strategist at Westpac,
said the interesting thing about the US market overnight had been that it received bad news in jobless
claims data but the US dollar fell.
In recent times bad news supported the US dollar
as a safe haven argument.
“It is too early to say whether it is a turnaround
and a recognition that bad data should punish the
US dollar,”he said.
The kiwi fell against the aussie to be at A82.89c
by the local close from A83.10c yesterday.
It had risen on the cross yesterday as traders with
long Australian dollar positions sold to square up.
“That’s been a big crowded trade and it has made
people a lot of money,”he said.
Against the euro the kiwi slipped to 0.4108 at
5pm from 0.4183 at yesterday’s local close, and
against the Japanese currency it fell to 49.84 yen
from 50.46 yen.
The trade weighted index was 54.54 from 54.82
yesterday.
– NZPA
DANSKE MØBLER means
DANISH FURNITURE means
DISTINCTIVE OUTDOOR DESIGN
SHOWROOMS
983 Mt Eden Road
Three Kings
Auckland
Ph 09 625 3900
THE ESSENCE OF DANISH DESIGN IS HIGH
QUALITY, TIMELESS ELEGANCE, SIMPLICITY, FUNCTIONALITY
AND BEAUTY.
SINCE 1958, THE DANISH HERITAGE OF DANSKE MØBLER
HAS INSPIRED THE DESIGN DIRECTION OF DANSKE
MØBLER’S FURNITURE.
THE ESSENCE LIVES ON IN THE EDEN OUTDOOR
COLLECTION, DESIGNED AND CRAFTED TO SUIT THE
NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE AND LIFESTYLE.
A STUNNING COLLECTION OF IMPORTED OUTDOOR
FURNITURE COMPLEMENTS THE NZ MADE EDEN RANGE.
PROUD TO BE
www.danskemobler.co.nz
13a Link Drive
Wairau Park
Auckland
Ph 09 443 3045
501 Ti Rakau Drive
Botany Town Centre
Auckland
Ph 09 274 1998
716 Victoria Street
Hamilton
Ph 07 838 2261
29 Totara Street
Taupo
Ph 07 378 3156
NATIONWIDE: WHANGAREI Fabers Furnishings TAURANGA Greerton Furnishings GISBORNE Fenns Furniture
NEW PLYMOUTH Cleggs WELLINGTON Heartlands Outdoor Living CHRISTCHURCH McDonald & Hartshorne
98423 Investigate FP Nov08 outdoor.indd 1
9/26/08 12:17:17 PM
NEW ZEALAND
12 December 2008
Broadband unbundling makes an impact
Wellington, Dec 12 – Services offered over
Telecom’s copper local loop by its competitors are
proving popular, according to a monitoring report
by the Commerce Commission.
“Unbundled copper local loop is a new product
wholesaled directly by Telecom’s local access network operator, Chorus, to Telecom’s retail competitors, and is proving very popular,”the commission
said in its September quarterly report on telecommunications markets.
The commission finalised the price and non-price
terms on which Telecom must make this service
available to other telecommunications providers
in November last year.
Between the launch in May and the end of
September, telecommunications companies have
purchased over 12,000 lines from Chorus, which
they are using to provide competing retail services
to customers, including broadband and telephone
services, the commission said.
Telecommunications Users Association (Tuanz)
chief executive Ernie Newman said that in many
aspects of telecommunications New Zealand was
improving its relative OECD ranking, but cell phone
pricing was a conspicuous exception.
“Kiwis are typically paying between 23 percent
and 46 percent more for mobile calls than the average
of the OECD countries,”he said in a statement.
Although some alternative service providers were
emerging, they were dependent on the two existing
networks for their connectivity and therefore, for
their pricing.
“To break out of this we desperately need a third
network. One has been under construction for some
time, but it is being slowed by resource management
issues and delays in establishing proper competition policy in relation to sharing of cell towers,”Mr
Newman said.
The commission’s report found that Telecom’s
shares of the retail DSL (digital subscriber line)
market decreased from 76 percent in June 2006 to
66 percent in September.
Most broadband connections in New Zealand
are provided over standard copper telephone lines
using DSL technology.
One third of DSL connections provided over Telecom’s network are wholesale connections provided
to another retailer.
Telecom’s retail connections have been growing
more slowly than the total DSL market.
The recent downturn in Telecom’s share of growth
in retail DSL connections has been the largest experienced by Telecom, with its increase in retail DSL
customers equal to only 6 percent of growth in retail
customers for the quarter.
This could be due to the end of its $16.95 broadband at dial-up prices promotion and the high
charge for extra data usage in the basic plan in
this promotion.
– NZPA
Australia announces big spend-up
Canberra, Dec 12 – The federal government is
introducing a $A4.7 billion ($NZ5.80 billion) nation
building plan to combat the affects of the global
financial crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
The latest injection of funds comes on top of its
$A10.4 billion economic stimulus package.
Flanked by Treasurer Wayne Swan, Deputy
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Infrastructure
Minister Anthony Albanese, Mr Rudd said the government was focusing on infrastructure because it
was a major driver of economic growth.
Mr Rudd said the package announced on Friday
was capable of creating 32,000 jobs.
“This package will deal with critical infrastructure in transport, it deals with rail, it deals with
roads, it also deals with education, it also deals with
how we support private investment,”
he said.
Mr Rudd said the government
will bring forward $A711 million in
spending in the 2008/09 and 2009/10
financial years to accelerate the commencement of 14 road projects.
It will also double funding for the
federal Black Spots program from
$A50 million to $A110 million.
“This ... effectively brings forward
a total of $A4.7 billion in the Auslink
11 program,”Mr Rudd said.
Mr Rudd said the government would spend $A1.2
billion on rail infrastructure,the largest single investment in rail in the history of the commonwealth.
He said that investment over two
years in the Australian Rail Track
Corporation (ARTC) was more than
the former coalition government
invested during its almost 12 years
in office.
“We will inject $A1.2 billion in
new funds into the ARTC,”Mr Rudd
said.
“For example, $A580 million of
today’s investment will be used to
expand capacity and rail corridors
to service the Hunter, the Hunter Valley Coal mines,
and of course their connection to the Port of Newcastle,”he said.
Mr Rudd said this investment would more than
double the export capacity at Newcastle from 97 to
200 million tonnes of coal a year.
Businesses with an annual turnover under $A2
million will be allowed to postpone 20 percent of
their next Pay As You Go (PAYG) tax instalment
until they make their annual return.
The measure will help 1.3 million small businesses, Mr Rudd said.
It would keep $A440 million in their bank accounts
instead of sending it to Treasury’s coffers.
The third component of the plan is a $A1.6 billion
investment in education.
This is made up of 11 specific education research
projects and $A1 billion to be directed towards the
immediate capital needs of universities andTAFE colleges to deal with additional teaching and learning.
MedRecruit’s ‘Dr
December’, Sam
Hazledine, says
he’s disappointed
his charity
calendar has
been dissed by
KidsCan.NZPA /
MedRecruit
special
the ordinary becomes
Nude men and kids don’t mix
By Kevin Norquay of NZPA
Epson Stylus Photo TX800FW
Epson Stylus Photo TX700W
Captured something unique?
Ensure you make it a special photographic print by using
an Epson printer. 71% of professional photographers
do*. All you need is in the range - 4800dpi scanner, Claria
individual ink cartridges, Epson PhotoEnhance, memory
card slots, 7.8" touch sensor operating panel, 3.5" LCD
viewer, 4"x6" photos in 10 secs, Italian styling.
The Epson Stylus™ Photo range - All Special.
Epson Stylus
Photo R290
Epson Stylus
Photo RX610
Epson Stylus
Photo 1410
Epson Stylus
Photo R1900
*Taverner Research (NZ) October 2005
For further information please call 0800 377 664
or visit www.epson.co.nz
EPS43622
Buy
Genuine
Get
Rewards
Wellington, Dec 12 – Children’s charity KidScan is horrified its name has been linked to a calendar of nude men, and is refusing to accept money
from its sale.
Men with links to medical recruit firm MedRecruit
bared all in the calendar, saying all the money raised
would go to KidScan, a charity for underprivileged
children.
The men, many of them doctors, were shown in a
range of poses, from lying in bed looking sultry, to
mountainbiking and surfing. No wiggly bits were
shown.
But KidScan general manager Julie Henson told
NZPA the calendar was “inappropriate”, and she
would not touch the money it raised.
While she had seen some of the text used, she
had not seen the nude photographs until shown
them by NZPA.
“We didn’t have final approval,”she said.
“Now that we’ve see it we don’t think it’s appro-
priate. We’ve communicated with them that we’re
not happy about it.
“They might want to chose another charity,like prostate cancer – something for men, not for children.”
MedRecruit managing director Sam Hazledine,
who appears clad in a stethoscope as Mr December,
was surprised to learn Ms Henson was upset.
There was nothing inappropriate about the photos,
as no male bits were showing, Dr Hazledine said.
“We see the calendar as a fun way of drawing attention to and raising money for a very worthy cause,”he
said, before finding out that KidScan disapproved.
“In my experience boring doesn’t work, so we
decided to get a bit creative so that people would
be excited to get behind this charity.
“And it’s worked, we are getting hundreds of
orders for calendars so we’re raising a lot of money
for KidsCan.
“I don’t think a calendar of watercolour landscapes would have had quite the same effect!”
All Blacks Doug Howlett and Ali Williams are
KidScan patrons.
EDITORIAL
12 December 2008
Editorial Letters The spin is incredible
It’s getting harder to hold one’s head up in these parts
and admit to being a journalist these days.The leftwing spin emanating from some of my colleagues is
now so open it leaves me gasping for breath.
Now, before I get stuck into some of them, I’ll
admit my own editorial position is right of centre. But let’s be honest, I’ve worn that badge on my
sleeve for a long time, and everyone knows it and
can adjust the weighting accordingly.
It’s very different when news agencies are the
culprits.
I was staggered to read one offering from a news
agency tonight on the Government’s new employment probation law.You’d think barbarians were
storming the gates of western civilisation. If the
reports were factual, that would be one thing. But
they’re not. Instead, the journalist involved went out
of their way to source the most outlandish scaremongering known to man and run it, with no byline,
as a supposedly“neutral”news story.
If I believe the news agency, the 90 day proba-
tion period means people can be sacked at will, and
they have “no rights” in any sense within that 90
day period.
Rubbish. From my reading of it, the 90 day clause
simply states that the contract can be terminated
within 90 days if the employer doesn’t wish to
continue with the contract. For that matter, the
employee is also free to quit within that period. If
the employer acts unfairly in other areas, they can
still be stung. Nothing else changes.
One group of“employment lawyers”, presumably
touting for business, warned of a hairdresser who
might be poached to work at a rival salon, and then
sacked after 90 days.
Hello? If the hairdresser has been ‘poached’, then
there won’t be a 90 day clause in her contract unless
she or he asked for it. Poaching is invariably a scenario that puts bargaining chips in the worker’s
hand, not the other way around.
Secondly, I don’t know what planet the lawyers
or their fellow travellers in the news agency live
on, but in the real world employers don’t like hiring and firing staff. It’s expensive, particularly in
small businesses who don’t have a dedicated“human
resources manager” to train up staff. Job ads cost
money.Training costs money and time. Employers
want to make the right choice.
There’s nothing sinister in this law.
Then there’s the Barack Obama controversy in
the US. I have witnesses numerous mainstream
media outlets bending over backwards to paint
Obama as “entirely innocent” of any involvement
in this nefarious scheme.
Newsflash: Obama is a veteran of Chicago politics.
Some of his mates and fundraisers are already in federal penitentiaries,serving time on corruption charges.
Now another mate is facing the clink.The FBI noted
wryly this week that if Illinois was not the most corrupt
state in the US, it was“a very close second”.
An Obama presidency is going to be fascinating.
The liberal love affair with“The One”won’t survive.
SUBSCRIBE TO TGIF! I guarantee it.
Comment Mumbai’s terrifying logic
By Brian Michael Jenkins
WASHINGTON – We tend to describe terrorism as
senseless violence, but it seldom is. If we look at
the attacks from the attackers’perspective, we can
discern a certain strategic logic.
Terrorists from the galaxy of fanaticisms collectively called jihadism seek three goals: They want
to attack targets that have symbolic or emotional
value. They want to cause economic damage. And
they want to run up high body counts.The surviving
member of the Mumbai attack team reportedly has
told his captors that their orders were to kill the
maximum possible number of people.
Why India? The jihadists see India as a Hindu
nation, which makes it an enemy of Islam along with
the Christians and Jews. Muslim Kashmir, ruled
with shaky legitimacy and a sometimes heavy hand
by Hindu-majority India, provides a further cause.
So does India’s increasingly close alliance with the
United States. Jihadi terrorist attacks in India also
tend to exacerbate antagonism between the nation’s
Hindu and Muslim communities and can provoke
reprisals like the 2002 massacre of more than 1,000
Muslims in Gujarat.That, in turn, facilitates recruiting among Indian Muslims by extremists.
Why Mumbai? As India’s Wall Street and Hollywood, it is an obvious target. This was the third
devastating terrorist assault on the city. Mumbai
is also a tolerant city, where Hindus and Muslims
have tended to get along. Now it is rent by fear and
suspicion.
The terrorists chose the Taj Mahal and Oberoi
hotels for their final stand.They fulfil all three target
criteria. The Taj, in particular, is a national landmark, a gathering place for foreigners and locals.
Killing foreigners guarantees international attention.The terrorists were hunting for Americans and
Britons. The message to the local Indian elite is:
Nowhere is safe.
Moreover, the three days of media-covered mayhem already have resulted in travel to India being
cancelled or postponed. Tourism is exquisitely
sensitive to security concerns, and some reports
in Indian media say it is already off by as much as
15 percent. Bookings from the United States had
fallen by 40 percent as of last week, the Times of
India reported.
Western media focused on the carnage at the
hotels. They paid less attention to the killings of
ordinary Indians at Mumbai’s train station or at
the Cama Hospital – a deliberately chilling target
choice calculated to inspire fear and rage, and divide
India’s religious communities.
It is highly unlikely that Pakistan’s newly elected
leaders ordered the Mumbai attack. But India
accuses Pakistan of creating and supporting the
extremist organizations as part of its continuing
proxy war in Kashmir, of not rooting out rogue elements within its intelligence services, and of not
turning over wanted terrorists believed to be living in Pakistan. If the United States can go after
al-Qaida and Taliban leaders holed up in Pakistan,
cannot India claim the same right?
Pakistanis already perceive India as a major
threat to their national security. While I suspect
that most Pakistanis were appalled by the terrorist
attack, the prospect of a fourth war with India, or
of India conducting military attacks on suspected
terrorist training bases in Pakistan, will provoke
anger and strengthen the hand of those who support
a hard line against India.That will ease the pressure
on terrorists based in Pakistan.
An immediate outcome may be the redeployment
of Pakistani forces from the frontier tribal areas,
where they have been pursuing militant jihadists,
to take up defensive positions against India.Yet
any slackening of Pakistani force in the frontier
areas could further complicate things for NATO and
American forces fighting Pakistan-based Taliban
-They charge by the pound: flesh, that is
Have you considered an article on the dairy industry? My
wife and I own a café and have noticed milk prices still
rising – latest one four weeks ago.
How can this be when Fonterra first stated that the reason why milk, butter and cream started rising in price two
years ago was due to the rising international commodity
prices for these items and New Zealanders would have to
buy in a competitive market. I unwillingly had to swallow
this and watched as these commodity prices rose over
the next 2 years, some by 250%!!
I note now however that over the last 3 months international commodity prices for dairy products has fallen
by 30-40% (I believe) yet our domestic prices are rising.
This, even with the exchange rate moving to the benefit
of the exporter.
The cynic in me would suggest that we in the domestic
market are propping up the dairy payouts, whilst the “New
Zealanders must buy these commodities at internationally
competitive prices” line no longer applies. The international price is substantially cheaper now.
I would suggest an inquiry into this would make excellent reading – I would love to understand the justification ( Like courier companies instituting a fuel surcharge 8
months ago and still charging it today, even though fuel
costs have plummeted )
Greg Garratt
Editor responds:
and al-Qaida insurgents in Afghanistan.
All terrorist operations are recruiting posters:
Terrorist attacks are intended not only to cause fear
and alarm but also to inspire terrorist constituencies
and attract recruits. For the planners of the Mumbai
attack, it was a strategic masterstroke.
But what motivates the attackers themselves, all
but one of whom were killed? The attack provides
an opportunity to demonstrate their conviction
– their prowess as warriors. As martyrs for jihad,
they anticipate a swift passage to paradise.
Their homicidal-suicidal fanaticism, however, runs
deeper than their declared beliefs.It reflects a peculiar
personality type, if not outright psychopathology.
With today’s globalized grievances, one can
download reasons for aggression from the Internet.
The young men who carried out the attack appear to
have been self-radicalized, disposable killing instruments.The planners had only to insert a SIM card
to program them into action.
Brian Michael Jenkins, author of the just-released book Will Terrorists
Go Nuclear? (Prometheus, 2008), is senior adviser to the president of
the RAND Corp., a non-profit institution that helps improve policy and
decision-making through research and analysis.
– UPI
Fair comment. The same applies to a vast range of businesses who imposed fuel surcharges, and also trading
banks and finance companies who are still charging interest rates far higher than their cost of borrowing.
Marac finance, for example, is still charging 16.95%
interest on loans, despite the lowest OCR in five years.
-A new blog is born
You wouldn’t believe the number of times I get driven
to total frustration trying to cope with new technology.
From talking around, it seems there are plenty others in
the same situation.
So I have set up a new weblog called “Coping in a
Technological World...” which is intended to be a combination of practical ideas and (hopefully fun) thinking about
the topic. As far as I can discover, there is no other blog
of this kind around this part of the world.
I would really appreciate any feedback that readers
care to give, and you would be very welcome also to
contribute to the blog.
John McNeil, South Island Editor
Challenge Weekly
Letters to the editor can be posted to:
PO BOX 302188, North Harbour, North Shore 0751 or
emailed to: [email protected]
ANALYSIS
12 December 2008
Not a healthy outlook
By Peter Curson
The recently released WHO World Health Report
2008, Now More Than Ever calls for a return to
the values, principles and approaches of Primary
Health Care. Globalisation, the report argues, has
transformed the world and placed many countries
and their health systems under particular stress
with the result that many health systems are not
delivering the goods and failing to provide even the
most basic of health care.
Thirty years ago, the Alma-Ata Conference
advanced the world Primary Care Movement, a set
of broad principles designed to tackle the health
inequalities in all countries, to place people at the
centre of health, to stress social justice, and to place
emphasis on the right to better health for all. The
sad reality is that in many ways these values have
not been realised, and while access to health care
for all is espoused by many world political leaders,
success in actually delivering it has been profoundly
disappointing and decidedly uneven.
There seems little doubt that moving towards
health for all, produces challenges in an ever-changing globalised world, and while it is true that generally people are healthier and living longer lives
today than 30 years ago, that many essential drugs
have become commonplace, that there have been
major advances in sanitation and water supply, and
that the resources for health have never been better,
the fact remains that inequality still reigns supreme
and that there are still many health peaks to be
climbed. Certainly there have been many successes.
If children still died at the rate they did 30 years ago,
there would be about 16 million child deaths in the
world today. In fact there are only about 9.5 million.This represents the equivalent of about 18,000
children’s lives saved every day.
So despite some important victories why has the
global community failed to deliver on the promises
made 30 years ago? A number of reasons seem to
stand out.
Firstly, global progress in health has been deeply
unequal with some countries progressing in leaps
and bounds while others have actually gone backwards. In the latter case, Zimbabwe comes to
mind.
Secondly, many countries failed to anticipate and
satisfactorily manage the impact of broad demographic and social change, particularly things like
falling fertility, rapid population ageing, increas-
ing population movements and urbanisation, and
such trends have significantly changed the nature
of health problems and impacted on health in a
variety of unexpected ways. Increasing population
movement has, for example, transformed the health
scene and raised the issue of infections, both old and
new, to a new pedestal, while the burden of increasing chronic and degenerative disease concomitant
on population ageing and ‘Westernisation’ is fast
taking central stage. At the same time childhood
infections, while declining in significance, still feature significantly in many developing countries.
All this has placed extraordinary strain on health
systems and health care delivery. In addition, a
complex web of other factors is also at work. This
includes climate change, challenges to energy, water
and food security, and social, economic and political
tensions. Health systems, particularly in the developing world, are not immune from such factors and
are particularly sensitive to political and economic
crises. The current health crisis in Zimbabwe is a
good example as is the HIV/AIDS crisis and the
way it was managed in the Republic of South Africa.
There also seems little doubt that the health sector
remains massively under-resourced in many countries producing a substantial mismatch between
broad expectations and actual performance.
Globally, annual government expenditure on
health varies from as little as $US20 per person to
well over $US6,000. Striking inequalities also exist
throughout the world in access to health and health
care and what people have to pay for care. For billions of people in low and middle income countries,
more than 50 percent of all health care expenditure
must be met from personal resources. Of approximately 136 million women expected to give birth
this year in the world, 58 million will receive no
medical care or assistance. Equally striking differences in life expectancy between the richest and
the poorest countries continue to persist and the
gap now exceeds 40 years. In Australia and New
Zealand, life expectancy now exceeds 82 years. In
parts of sub-Saharan Africa life expectancy remains
below 45 years.
In an unequal world a return to primary health
care principles would seem more relevant than ever
before. Quite possibly, inequalities in health care are
today much more marked than they were 30 years
ago, and that is a major failing of world societies.
We now live at a time of increasing polarisation
of many societies where the well-off are generally
healthier and have the best access to health care,
while those at the other end of the socio-economic
spectrum have much poorer health and are largely
left to cope for themselves. Even in our own society
we see evidence of this polarisation albeit on a more
moderate scale.
In the final analysis, the WHO report argues
that all societies must aim to diminish inequalities
in health, eliminate all forms of health exclusion,
develop health care systems that reflect people’s
needs and expectations and become responsive
to changing societal circumstances, to ultimately
ensure that health care is available to all.The past
30 years suggests that we have made some progress
in achieving these aims, but not nearly enough.
Peter Curson is Professor in Population & Security, at the Centre for
International Security Studies, Faculty of Economics & Business, the
University of Sydney. He is also a TGIF Edition subscribe
THIS CHRISTMAS,
THERE’S ONE BOOK
YOU SHOULDN’T MISS…
WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY
“Wishart takes up the gauntlet laid down
by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion,
and in fact, uses Dawkins own logic and
methodology to launch a counter-attack…
a compelling case against unbelief”
– Keepingstock.blogspot.com
“The genius of this Kiwi author is the ability to
discover those ugly facts that slay the hypotheses
of scientists, philosophers, historians and
novelists that God does not exist and that Jesus
Christ was not a person in history but a myth.
Its coverage is almost encyclopaedic. Wishart’s
skill as an investigative journalist is obvious”
– NZ Catholic newspaper
“The Divinity Code is one of the best
Christian apologetic books I have read…
excellent…Don’t miss reading it”
– Being Frank
“A very compelling response to books such as The
God Delusion by Richard Dawkins... he takes the
“inaccuracies” of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Spong
and others and pulls them apart, looking deep into
the facts and issues around them and explaining
with clarity the real story that is behind them”
– The Bible Geek
THE DIVINITY CODE
From all good bookstores, or click this ad to order it right now
ANALYSIS
12 December 2008
Walker’s World: Britain and the euro
a good reason to join the euro. The euro has never
been primarily an economic project, it’s a political
one. Once you share a currency and a central bank,
the pressures for closer political union become ever
more powerful. Monetary union will only increase
the pressure for closer political union. That’s not
what the British people want, and under a Conservative government they can be confident that it’s not
what they’ll get.”
Osborne’s argument makes sense, as far as it goes.
The British people repeatedly tell opinion pollsters
that they want neither to join the euro nor to be
part of a single European superstate. But those
who put these issues at the top of their political
euro on bilateral trade have continued to rise during
the second half of the eight-year history of the euro,”
says Frankel’s report, published by the non-profit
National Bureau of Economic Research.
This is the more striking in that Frankel is something of an intellectual hero to advocates of the
euro, after another report he published earlier this
year suggested the euro could overtake the dollar
as the world’s leading currency by the year 2015. It
may match it by then, but on the whole, the world’s
markets and bankers and investors tend to think
that currencies backed up by unrivalled military
might and technological prowess are likely to be
more reliable than those that aren’t.
Majority opinion in Britain wants to leave
matters unchanged, to keep the pound, but also
to keep their membership in the European Union,
which now accounts for 60 percent of British trade.
And they want, sensibly, to keep their options open
By Martin Walker
WASHINGTON – As the British economy slides
deeper into recession, the pound has dropped from
US$2 in the summer to less than $1.50 today, and
the relative strength of the euro means that just
1.14 euros will buy a pound. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to see renewed speculation about
the British joining the European single currency
and exchanging their pounds for euros.
Despite the speculation, fed by European Commission President Jose Barroso’s claim that the
people who count in Britain have floated the prospect with him, this is not going to happen in the
foreseeable future.
There are a number of reasons for this, of which
the most obvious is that the decline of the overvalued pound is a useful development for the British,
making their exports cheaper and thus making
their recovery more likely.
It is widely believed that the British official
whom Barroso had most prominently in mind
was Peter Mandelson, until recently the EU trade
commissioner and now ennobled to the House of
Lords and appointed Britain’s minister for business.
Equipped with great political skills and a feline
cast of mind, Mandelson is a known enthusiast for
Europe and for the euro. But he is also the likely
choreographer and chief strategist for the re-election of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government.
Any speech or leak from him in what is becoming
Britain’s pre-election period therefore should be
weighed with great care.
The fuss over Britain joining the euro is, in the
light of the pound’s weakness, just plausible enough
to be possible. It therefore has excited the opposition Conservative Party, whose chief economic
spokesman, George Osborne, had denounced
Labour’s eurofanatics and for the first time given a
solemn promise that the Conservatives will never
take Britain into the single currency.
“We will not join the euro – in the present or the
future,”Osborne declared, breaking the first rule of
politics, which is never to say “Never”.
“It didn’t take long for the eurofanatics in the
Labour Party to seize on our economic difficulties for their own political ends,”Osborne went on.
“Our deteriorating economic performance is not
priorities (a relatively small minority of voters)
are already voting Conservative, or for the fringe
U.K. Independence Party or the far-right British
National Party.
Majority opinion in Britain wants to leave matters unchanged, to keep the pound, but also to keep
their membership in the European Union,which now
accounts for 60 percent of British trade.And they want,
sensibly, to keep their options open. If the economic
situation worsens to the point that the euro appears
a safe port in a storm, they might well take it.
So far, the evidence suggests that the euro has neither hurt British trade nor damaged Britain’s position as the financial centre of Europe. Indeed, the
euro does not appear to have done much for Europe.
The orthodox view that the single currency would
double or even triple the trade in goods between its
members has been undermined by Harvard Professor Jeffrey Frankel, who finds that trade within
the eurozone grew by just 10 percent to 20 percent
during the first four years of the currency, and then
the growth stopped.
“The most surprising finding of this study was
the absence of any evidence that the effects of the
But there will be at least two British general elections before the year 2015, and the wily Mandelson
is focusing on the next one, which must take place
by May 2010 and may well take place next year.
The Conservatives are now locked into their no euro
pledge, which is unlikely to do them any good save
with their eurosceptic faithful, and may do them
harm with that pragmatic majority of the British
public that prefers to keep its options open.
Indeed, this week they witnessed something close
to a love-in on the steps of Downing Street between
Prime Minister Brown, French President Nicolas
Sarkozy and European Commission President Barroso, all urging a concerted European stimulus package to match that announced by U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama. In the midst of the worst recession
most Britons can remember, that was a smart move,
tying together the economic strength of Europe
with the huge popularity of Obama.
It left Brown looking like a world statesman and
the Conservatives like so many Little Englanders.
Mandelson, in short, set a trap, and the Conservatives have walked into it.
Democrats and Republicans alike the levelheaded
practitioner one would hope to find at the top of
the military. In his speeches he reveals that he is a
balanced man, if anything.
But at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs
earlier in the year, Gates criticized what he deemed
to be a lack of balance in the military, an ailment he
diagnosed as Next War-itis. Harmful enough to be
given the suffix of an illness, but one sounding more
chronic than debilitating, Gates was describing the
tendency of the military establishment to focus on
future wars to the detriment of preparing for and
fighting the wars America currently finds itself in.
In September, in another speech, this one at the
National Defence University, Gates again picked
up this issue and expounded upon it.
“When referring to‘NextWar-it is’,”Gates explained,
“I was not expressing opposition to thinking about and
preparing for the future. It would be irresponsible to
do so – and the overwhelming majority of the people
in the Pentagon,the services and the defence industry
do just that.My point was simply that we must not be
so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional
and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide,both
short term and long term,all the capabilities necessary
to fight and win conflicts such as we are in today.”
It may seem odd that a defence secretary would
find it necessary to say to the military, essentially,
“Win the wars you’re fighting”. But it’s not quite as
simple as that. Gates is walking a tightrope between
adapting to the realities of a complex world today
and hampering the ability to deter or respond to
large-scale, conventional conflicts in the future.
And in doing so, he’s asking: Is the country more
likely to see another Iraq or Afghanistan – a failed
state in need of fundamental rebuilding – than it is
to see a conventional war with a belligerent state,like
China or Russia? Gates, and many others, says yes.
“It is true that the United States would be hardpressed to fight a major conventional ground war
elsewhere on short notice, but as I’ve said before,
where on Earth would we do that?”Gates asked.
And despite Russia’s recent mischief in Georgia,
which ignited in many renewed fears of the Cold War,
Gates explained in his speech that the Kremlin’s motivations and capabilities differ greatly today and are
a result of a desire to exorcise past humiliation and
dominate their ‘near abroad’ – not an ideologically
driven campaign to dominate the globe.
As such, Gates said,“the U.S. response must not
be a return to the military and nuclear buildup
seen in the 1980s.”
Instead, Gates is touching on the issue of whether
the adaptations that have occurred over the last
five to seven years as American troops adjusted
their tactics, equipment and weaponry in Iraq and
Afghanistan – thus far paid for through emergency
supplemental bills outside the baseline defence
budget – should be institutionalized.
While few question the effectiveness of the tactics,
there are those asking whether the military should
really be a one-stop shop for nation-building.And they
worry that as U.S. troops build roads, pick up trash,
provide electrical generation and train police,they lose
their ability to fight and win the wars of tomorrow.
– UPI
What is the next war?
By Frank N. Carlson
WASHINGTON – Opportunity cost is a term economists use to describe the price of not doing something: the consequences of choosing one thing and
thus forgoing another.
A consumer who drives to work each day must buy
a car and pay expenses like insurance, garage bills
and gas.The benefits of the car are obvious, but they
come at the cost of other possible purchases, like a
remodelled kitchen or a new home closer to work.
People make decisions with opportunity costs
dozens of times a day, often with little or no reflection. Most times this does not matter – the decisions
are small and so are the consequences. But every so
often the consequences are huge and lasting, and
when that happens, the risks and rewards must be
weighed and the consequences of choosing incorrectly seriously considered.
The U.S. military is now in such a period.As military chiefs describe Iraq in a fragile and reversible
state and the nation’s collective attention moves
toward rising difficulties in Afghanistan, there is a
debate heating up – visible mostly on the pages of
military journals, at Washington think tanks and in
defense colleges – on issues that will directly affect
the lives of American troops and their families, the
welfare of developing nations and the influence
America projects around the world.
The debate centres on this question:Should the U.S.
military adapt its institutions to reflect the hard lessons
learned in Iraq? And second, but no less important,
does America wish to engage in nation-building?
It may be surprising that the answers individuals
give to these questions are not neatly predictable
along political lines. Many of those who opposed
the Iraq War on the grounds that it was fought on
the basis of faulty or perhaps cherry-picked intelligence would now have U.S. forces draw down there to
intervene in more humanitarian causes like Darfur.
But the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, and
indeed the broader War on Terror, would be central
to precisely that sort of protracted undertaking.
Meanwhile,those who claim ousting Saddam Hussein was a legitimate end based on the proposition
that pre-emptive wars should be fought to protect
America’s strategic interests or punish those who
harbour terrorists – essentially the Bush doctrine
– might oppose using American troops to police
the world, protecting schoolchildren in Myanmar
or building hospitals in Haiti. But it was their decisions that pushed the military into a conflict in
which its lack of capability in stability and peacebuilding operations was painfully obvious.
The coming change of administrations presents a
natural opportunity to reconsider the familiar but
fading admonition that the world changed on Sept.
11, 2001, and so too must America’s willingness to
confront its enemies. At this historic juncture, it is
worth asking: Do Americans actually still believe
this? And if so, are they willing to pay the price
– measured in troops, time and money – as well as
the price of not doing something else?
Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, who took
over after Donald Rumsfeld resigned following
the midterm elections in 2006, represents to many
– UPI
WORLD
FROM FRONT PAGE During a two-hour telephone conversation with
various people on Nov. 12, Blagojevich talked about
securing high-paying jobs for him and his wife in
exchange for the Senate seat. He said he is “struggling”financially and does“not want to be governor
for the next two years.”
An approach was evidently made to Obama’s
team, who named their preferred candidate but
offered no immediate cash.
Blagojevich said advisers are telling him he has
to“suck it up”for two years and give this (expletive)
(Obama) his senator. (Expletive) him. For nothing?
(Expletive) him.”
Blagojevich raised the idea of creating a nonprofit group for him to lead. On Nov. 11, he asked
Adviser A if “they”(believed to be Obama and his
associates) “can get Warren Buffett and others to
put $10, $12 or $15 million into the organization.”
During a conversation with his own adviser John
Harris on Nov. 11, Blagojevich said he knew Obama
wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but
“they’re not willing to give me anything except
appreciation. (Expletive) them.”
On Nov. 12, Blagojevich told Harris his decision
about the open Senate seat would be based on three
criteria in the following order of importance:“(O)ur
legal situation, our personal situation, my political
situation.This decision, like every other one, needs to
be based upon that. Legal. Personal. Political.”
On Dec. 4, Blagojevich told Adviser B he was going
to give Senate Candidate 5 greater consideration for
Obama’s seat because the person would raise money for
Blagojevich if he ran for another term as governor.
12 December 2008
In an earlier telephone conversation recorded
on Oct. 31, Blagojevich described an approach by
an associate of Senate Candidate 5 as“ ‘pay to play.’
That, you know, he’d raise 500 grand. An emissary
came.Then the other guy would raise a million, if I
made him (Senate Candidate 5) a senator.”
Blagojevich told Fundraiser A on Dec. 4 that
if Senate Candidate 5 wanted to be appointed to
Obama’s seat, the candidate should follow through
on promises to raise money for Blagojevich.“(S)ome
of this stuff’s gotta start happening now ... right now
... and we gotta see it.You understand?”But Blagojevich told Fundraiser A that“you gotta be careful
how you express that and assume everybody’s listening, the whole world is listening.You hear me?”
Senate Candidate 5 has now been confirmed as
Jesse Jackson Jr, son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Junior denies offering money for the senate seat.
Obama, too, has denied having discussions with
Blagojevich, but his credibility’s been undermined
by comments from his own adviser, David Axelrod,
to Fox News on November 23:
“I know he’s talked to the governor and there
are a whole range of names many of which have
surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of
them,”Axelrod said on the record.
Obama’s team now claim Axelrod“misspoke”, but
commentators are more sceptical. And with good
reason. The ties between Obama and Blagojevich
are significant.
On July 21st this year, The New Yorker’s Ryan
Lizza reported on Obama’s position as adviser to
Governor Blagojevich in his successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign:
Governor
Blagojevich and
Obama in happier
times. MCT
“That year, [Obama] gained his first high-level
experience in a statewide campaign when he advised
the victorious gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich, another politician with a funny name and a
message of reform,”wrote Lizza.
Rahm Emanuel,now Obama’s Chief of Staff,told the
magazine that he and Obama were among“the top strategists of Blagojevich’s 2002 gubernatorial victory”.
Again, the Obama camp now insists Emanuel
“overstated”Obama’s role.
It’s hard to see how,though.In 2006,despite controversy swirling around Governor Blagojevich,Obama
continued to endorse him, as he told journalist John
Patterson in the Chicago Daily Herald of July 27:
“If the governor asks me to work on his behalf,
I’ll be happy to do it.”
An Associated Press report of August 16, 2006
quoted Obama:
“We’ve got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who
has delivered consistently on behalf of the people
of Illinois.”
Both Obama and Blagojevich were intricately
linked in the business and social affairs of their friend
Tony Rezko, a fundraiser for both men indicted in
October 2006 on federal corruption charges.
President-elect Obama maintains his hands are
clean in the latest scandal; only time will tell.
– With extra reporting from the Chicago Tribune, and
National Review Online
Back to the front page
Lashkar terror group going global
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – A United Nations Security Council committee put three Pakistani leaders of the
group Lashkar-e-Taiba and a Saudi operative on a
terrorist watch list today as new evidence surfaced
that the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks has
expanded its activities and its fundraising well
beyond South Asia.
A U.N. document obtained by McClatchy Newspapers said that LeT has sent operatives to attack
U.S. troops in Iraq, established a branch in Saudi
Arabia and been raising funds in Europe.The group
may also have received money from al-Qaida, suggesting that it has close ties with Osama bin Laden’s
terrorist network based along Pakistan’s border
with Afghanistan, the document said.
Although Pakistan’s government outlawed LeT
in May 2002, it “continues to operate and engage
in or support terrorist activities abroad,”the document said.
“Is there real concern about Lashkar trying to
expand its footprint? The answer is yes,”said a U.S.
counterterrorism official in response to questions
about the document, which the U.N. committee
reviewed before voting to add the four to the watch
list. He requested anonymity because he wasn’t
authorized to speak publicly.
New Zealand’s Investigate magazine reported
last year of LeT members in that country, with documents urging them to set up local support networks.
The documents cited attendance at guerrilla train-
ing camps, and study leave for members in Saudi
Arabia.
U.S. intelligence officials worry that as the U.S.led campaign against al-Qaida has taken a toll on
its leaders, restricted the movement of its members
and curbed its financial support, bin Laden and
his second-in-command,Ayman al-Zawahiri, have
cultivated ties with other militant Islamist groups,
especially non-Arab ones such as LeT.
The U.N. document, which describes some of
LeT’s activities and fundraising, names LeT founder
Muhammad Saeed as the group’s “overall leader
and chief,”and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged
military coordinator who was arrested by security
forces on Sunday on the Pakistan-held side of the
divided Kashmir region.
The U.N. Security Council al-Qaida and Taliban
Sanctions Committee also added Haji Muhammad
Ashraf, whom the U.N. document calls Lashkar’s
finance chief, and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed
Bahaziq, whom it describes as a key propagandist
who once coordinated fundraising activities in
Saudi Arabia, to the watch list.
The committee said in a statement that three of
the four reside in Pakistan: Saeed, who insists that
he left LeT to run a charity that the U.S. considers
a LeT front organization, Lakhvi and Ashraf. It said
that Bahaziq is from Saudi Arabia.
Individuals and groups placed on the U.N. list
are subject to international sanctions, including
asset freezes and travel bans. LeT was included on
the list in May 2005.
The U.S. and India sought to have the U.N. desig-
nate the four as part of an crackdown on LeT, which
is accused of training and sending the 10 gunmen
who attacked two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a
train station and other targets during a three-day
rampage last month in Mumbai. More than 170
people died, including six Americans.
India also sought to have the U.N. committee
include on the list Hamid Gul, a retired Pakistani
Army general who headed the country’s main
intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence
Directorate, in the late 1980s. However, China, a close
ally of Pakistan that has veto power on the Security
Council, apparently blocked Gul’s inclusion.
Gul, a harsh critic of the U.S., insists that he has
no connections to any extremist groups.
The U.N.document said that Saeed plays“a key role”
in LeT’s operational and fundraising activities.
“In 2005, (LeT founder) Saeed determined where
graduates of an LeT camp in Pakistan should be
sent to fight, and personally organized the infiltration of LeT militants into Iraq during a trip
to Saudi Arabia,” the document said.“Saeed also
arranged for an LeT operative to be sent to Europe
as LeT’s European fundraising coordinator.”
Lakhvi, the group’s alleged military coordinator,
“has directed LeT operations,including in Chechnya,
Bosnia, Iraq and Southeast Asia. In 2006, Lakhvi
instructed LeT associates to train operatives for suicide bombings,”the document said.“In 2004, Lakhvi
sent operatives and funds to attack U.S. forces in
Iraq, having directed an LeT operative to travel to
Iraq in 2003 to assess the situation there.”
The document alleged that Lakhvi has also
been involved in fundraising activities,“reportedly
receiving al Qaida-affiliated donations on behalf
of LeT.”
Ashraf has overseen Lashkar’s finances since
2003, the document said. It alleged that he traveled
to the Middle East to collect money and help the
“Saudi Arabia-based LeT leadership with expanding its organization and increasing fundraising
activities.”
Bahaziq was “credited with being the main financier behind the establishment of the LeT,”which
was founded in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, the
document said. He then went on to become the
group’s leader in Saudi Arabia and coordinated
fundraising with Saudi nongovernmental groups
and businessmen, it said.
“As of mid-2005, Bahaziq played a key role in
LeT’s propaganda and media operations,” it continued.
The Mumbai attacks have fueled serious tensions
between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
The Bush administration has been pressing
Islamabad to crack down on Lashkar and other
extremist groups in an effort to dissuade India
from launching retaliatory military strikes against
Pakistan.
Washington fears that Indian retaliation could
spark a fourth Indo-Pakistan war that would free
al-Qaida and other Islamic militant groups to intensify their insurgency in Afghanistan.
ON THE WEB
Read the press release of the U.N. Security Council al Qaida
and Taliban Sanctions Committee
Obama climate policy has fishhooks
By Laurie Goering
Chicago Tribune
POZNAN, Poland – President-elect Barack
Obama’s administration is prepared to embrace
mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in
the United States but will push through Congress a
new international climate treaty only if China and
other big emitters join in a “global solution,” Sen.
John Kerry warned at the latest round of climate
talks today in Poland.
Kerry, widely viewed as Obama’s unofficial repre-
sentative at the U.N. meeting, praised China – which
recently surpassed the United States as the world’s
biggest greenhouse gas producer – for taking a variety of climate-friendly actions, including establishing auto emissions standards tougher than those in
the United States and setting ambitious goals to
improve energy efficiency.
But unless China and other developing world
powerhouses agree to quickly follow the U.S. toward
large-scale emissions cuts,“there’s no way for us to
get from here to there”in terms of holding climate
change to less than catastrophic levels, he said at a
news conference.
International climate negotiators trying to craft
a new global treaty to both stem and prepare for
the consequences of climate change face extraordinary new challenges and opportunities as they draw
closer to a December 2009 deadline for replacing
the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
Since last year’s negotiations in Bali, much of the
world has plunged into a global financial crisis that
is threatening to rapidly turn into a deep global
recession. That has distracted political attention
from climate concerns and led some nations that
once promised deep emissions cuts – Germany,
Canada and Japan among them – to try to soften
their pledges.
The economic downturn has also sent oil prices
plunging, weakening what once were powerful
incentives to pursue cheaper – and cleaner – alternatives. And Europe, once the leader in pushing
global emissions cuts, now finds itself embroiled
in bitter wrangling over how the economic burden
of reductions should be shared between richer and
poorer members.
– MCT
WORLD
12 December 2008
US: Mugabe lied about cholera
Washington – The United States warned today
that the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is worsening and announced millions of dollars in spending
to combat the disease.
US officials refuted a declaration by Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe that the cholera epidemic
was over.The US Agency for International Development announced it will provide 6.2 million dollars
to fight the cholera outbreak in addition to the 4.6
million dollars already spent.
“We are not seeing that it has stopped,” Henrietta Fore, head of USAID, said.“We currently have
a report that there are approximately 800 deaths
(and) 16,000 people infected.This is a cholera outbreak that is ongoing and urgent.”
Fore and the US ambassador to Zimbabwe,
James McGee, briefed reporters in Washington
on the dire situation in Zimbabwe, where water
supply, sanitation and state health and education
services have crumbled as the country’s economy
caves under eight years of hyperinflation and mismanagement.
“Mugabe said that there is no longer a crisis,”
McGee said.“This just shows how out of touch he is
with the reality on the ground in Zimbabwe.”
President George W Bush on Tuesday joined a
growing group of world leaders calling on Mugabe,
84, to step down and end the tyrannical rule that
included murdering and beating political opponents.
Mugabe has heavily cracked down on dissidents
to maintain a grip on his 28-year-rule as the country
deteriorates toward a failed state.
“One man and his cronies,Robert Mugabe,are holding this country hostage,”McGee said.“And Zimbabwe
is rapidly deteriorating into failed state status.”
Mugabe, told a gathering of party supporters at
the funeral for a senior member of his Zanu-PF
party on Thursday, that the West was exaggerating
Terminator warns
of ‘financial Armageddon’
the threat posed by cholera to justify a military
invasion.
“Now there is no cholera, there is no cause for
war,”he said.
The United Nations has warned that half of the
country’s population will suffer from food shortages
unless there is greater international assistance.
San Francisco – California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger warned today
of a“financial Armageddon”in
the most populous US state
and the world’s eighth largest
economy.
The warning came as lawmakers continue to stonewall
his attempts to make up for plummeting revenues
by cutting services and raising taxes. The state’s
budget director Michael Genest warned that California now faces a deficit of US$42 billion dollars
over the next two fiscal years.That’s up from a prior
28-billion-dollar deficit projection as revenues continue to plummet.
“California faces a growing financial crisis,”
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said.“If we don’t
put aside our ideological differences and negotiate
and solve this problem we are heading toward a
financial Armageddon.”
The financial crisis prompted Standard & Poor’s
Ratings Services late on Thursday to lower its rating on California’s recently issued 5-billion-dollar
revenue anticipation notes and to place 46.6 billion dollars of the state’s general bonds on negative
credit watch for a possible downgrade.
– DPA
– DPA
Toyota and Honda as certified by the Secretary
of Labour.”
Companies also would be forced to cut outstanding unsecured debt by at least two-thirds. Health
and benefit plan funds would get half their scheduled payments in company stock. It was unclear
whether the United Auto Workers, let alone rank-
pany restructuring.Money could go quickly to General
Motors and Chrysler,which otherwise would face bankruptcy. Ford has said it doesn’t need immediate aid.
Many Republicans have been concerned that
the loans would only prop up faltering companies,
which would then seek more money next year when
a friendlier, more Democratic Congress and Democratic president will be in office.
The Corker plan, and McConnell’s stance, reflected
new unity among Republicans, eager to show they
could band together on a tough economic issue and
separate themselves from Bush.That unity solidified on Thursday, when senators met privately with
Vice President Dick Cheney and White House Chief
of Staff Josh Bolten. Senators said the guests were
surprised by the tough tone of the session.
Despite pleading from Cheney and Bolten, most
Republicans would not budge from their long-held
reluctance to have government rescue failing private
companies.
“There’s a group of Republicans who don’t care
what anyone says; they’re willing to let the companies go into bankruptcy,”said Sen. George Voinovich,
R-Ohio, the only senator in his party who backed
the Bush plan.
US carmakers teeter on the brink
By David Lightman
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – The congressional bid to provide
US$14 billion in emergency aid to Detroit’s automakers suffered a huge blow this morning when
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said
he’d oppose the effort.
“In reality, this proposal isn’t tough enough,”said
McConnell, of Kentucky, in a Senate floor speech as
he broke with President George W. Bush, who has
pushed the plan hard.
McConnell’s opposition helped stiffen the resolve
of many Senate Republicans to oppose the bailout
on principle and in the belief that bankruptcy is
a better process to force Detroit automakers to
restructure. Some are threatening to block a vote
by endless debate, and finding the 60 votes needed
under Senate rules to shut off debate could prove
impossible.
Uncertainty about the bailout’s fate helped send
the Dow Jones industrial average down 196.33
points, or 2.24 percent.
The White House and Democratic leaders made
last-ditch efforts to save the bill. Administration
officials were calling senators, and White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino issued a tough warning:
“We believe that the economy is in such a weakened
state right now that ... another possible loss of 1
million jobs is just something our economy cannot
sustain,”she said.
In Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama joined
Many Republicans have been concerned that the
loans would only prop up faltering companies,
which would then seek more money next year
when a friendlier, more Democratic Congress and
Democratic president will be in office
the chorus, saying an industry collapse “would
lead to a devastating ripple effect throughout our
economy.”
Inside the Capitol, lawmakers scrambled to craft
a last-ditch deal.They worked on a draft authored
by Senate Banking Committee member Bob Corker,
R-Tenn., that would require labour costs for the
domestic Big Three carmakers to be “immediately brought on par with companies like Nissan,
and-file Democrats who are loyal to unions, would
agree to such changes.
Even if the Senate approved Corker’s blueprint,
it would still need the backing of the House of
Representatives, which late Thursday approved the
emergency loan package supported by Democratic
congressional leaders and the White House.
That measure would create a “car czar”appointed
by the president with authority over loans and com-
Suicide bomber kills 55
By Yaseen Taha and Adam Ashton
BAGHDAD – A suicide attack at a posh restaurant
in the northern city of Kirkuk killed 55 people this
morning and wounded 102, security authorities
said, shattering a calm that had settled over Iraq
during the four-day Eid al-Adha religious holiday.
The Abdullah restaurant was packed with a
lunchtime crowd that included Kurdish leaders and
members of an Arab district council that represents
the western half of Kirkuk (formerly Tamim) province.They reportedly were preparing to meet with
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
One official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party
was thought to be dead,along with an official fromTalabani’s party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kirkuk
police said.The Iraqi Islamic Party,a Sunni Muslim bloc,
said that one of its Kirkuk representatives, Imad Hus-
sein Ali, also had died.Two members of the governing
council were reported to have been injured.
Talabani plans to meet local representatives
tonight, according to a government official who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he
isn’t authorized to give out the information.
Kirkuk is a disputed region in northern Iraq,
where Kurdish,Arab and Turkomen groups compete
for power. Kurds want to annex the oil-rich city to
their semi-autonomous regional government, but
other ethnic groups want to block that move.
Brig. Gen. Sarhad Kardir, the chief of Kirkuk’s
district and suburban police, said it was possible
that someone had tipped off a terrorist cell, such as
one from al-Qaida in Iraq or Ansar al-Islam, about
the presence of Arab tribal leaders on the district
council in the restaurant.
Witnesses said the restaurant was bustling with chil-
dren and holiday travellers moments before the blast.
“You could hear their laughter and playing, but
suddenly everything ended,” said Allen Raouf, 30,
who was eating lunch at the restaurant when the
attack occurred.
“The sight was tragic after the explosion,”he said.
“The bodies of adults and children were torn apart
and strewn on the floor.”
Shirzad, a restaurant worker who declined to give
his last name for fear of retribution from the attackers, couldn’t bring himself to leave the scene while
emergency crews hauled away bodies.
“I was sitting on the blood that was covering
everything, uncontrollably crying because of the
loss of my friends who work with me here in this
restaurant,”he said.“I shouted and shouted, and I
didn’t know who did this or why? Why?”
– MCT
File
WORLD
10
12 December 2008
A big, fat, Greek fretting
tions, hurling firebombs, bottles
and stones in ongoing violence,
MAC.
which threatens to topple the
Students’ “December rebellion”
ALB.
conservative government.
puts pressure on the unpopular
conservative government.
Aegean TURK.
Authorities said at least one
GREECE Sea
man,
a passerby in the Athens
Population
50 km
10.7 million
district
of Halandri, was injured
50 miles
Athens
Religion
and taken to a hospital. At least
Greek Orthodox 98%, Muslim
five people were detained.
1.3%, other 0.7%
Ionian
Hundreds of stores have been
Government
Sea
burned or gutted since the riots
President Karolos Papoulias
(since 2005); Prime Minister
began last Saturday as gangs of
Greece
Kostas Karamanlis (since 2004),
hooded youths and self-styled anarleader of ruling conservative
Political background
party New Democracy; one seat
chists smashed windows, looted
• 1967 Military dictatorship
majority
shops and set up flaming barricades
• 1973 Student uprising at
Economy
Athens Polytechnic crushed
in streets across the country.
Major beneficiary of EU aid;
by military
Within hours of the police
ongoing economic reforms;
• 1974 Democratic elections;
tourism provides 15% of GDP;
shooting of the teenager, the viomonarchy abolished
growth rate 4% (2007)
• 1981 EU membership
lence spread to more than eight
Source: CIA World Factbook, AP, BBC
cities across the country.
Graphic: Jutta Scheibe, Eeli Polli
© 2008 MCT
The protests also spread abroad
as the Greek embassies or consustations in the port cities of Thessaloniki, Patras, lates in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Rome, Paris,
Ioannina and Kozani. In many cases police retali- New York, Moscow and Cyprus were occupied by
ated by firing tear gas into the crowds.
demonstrators in the past few days in what appear
Despite the renewed clashes, Athens was calmer to have been coordinated actions.
than in previous days, but authorities braced themScores of people have been injured and hundreds
selves for more civil unrest as tensions remain high. arrested.
Many fear the riots that have gripped Greece
Analysts insist that violence was the result of
could spill over to other European countries due to long-simmering discontent with the government
the recent economic turmoil and lack of jobs.
over a series of financial scandals and unpopular
Angry youths have reportedly also smashed economic, pension and education reforms.
shops, attacked banks and damaged police vehicles
The shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoin Spain, France and Denmark.
ropoulos was seen as the last straw by many young
Earlier Thursday in Athens, hundreds of high Greeks, whose economic future is bleak in a country
school students, many of them led by members of with a high unemployment rate and low wages.
anarchist groups, attacked more than 20 police staCommentators in Greece have pegged the new
Greece
Athens – Just as Athens residents thought it was
safe to venture into the city centre after angry leftwing students and police had transformed it into
a war zone, more clashes broke out this morning
causing passersby to run for cover.
Nearly 4,000 Greek students marched in a sixth
straight day of anti-government protests, triggered
by the police shooting of a teenager but also fuelled by
corruption and economic and education reforms.More
demonstrations were planned tonight and Monday.
Students, many of them wearing gas-masks,
threw chunks of marble and hurled firebombs in
a clash with police in the middle of Athens, while
helicopters hovered overhead.
Other clashes reportedly took place at police
BULGARIA
generation of young people as the “600-euro-amonth generation of workers,” as many earn less
than that amount, or NZ$1500 dollars, a month.
The government, which has seen its popularity
ratings fall sharply behind the opposition Socialists
in recent months, promised once again to compensate businesses for the millions of euros of damage
suffered - announcing loans, emergency subsidies
and tax relief measures.
Store owners have accused authorities of leaving
their businesses unprotected as rioters smashed
and burned their way through popular shopping
districts. Although police have responded when
attacked by firebombs, they held back when youths
turned their rage against buildings and cars.
Dimitris Katsaridis, president of the Federation of
Business in the northern port city ofThessaloniki,told
Greek radio that the measures were not enough.
“We are doubtful about how quickly these measures will be implemented; we need them immediately and do not have the luxury to wait,”he said.
Victims of devastating forest fires more than a
year ago claim that government promises of emergency subsidies for homes and livelihoods lost were
never kept.
Meanwhile, as the world economic crisis reached
Greece,the government immediately implemented a
series of tax measures and a 28-billion-euro bail-out
plan for Greek banks. Unlike the banking systems
of other countries, Greek banks were not exposed to
toxic assets and had no capital adequacy problems.
“The students are out demonstrating on behalf
of all the poor, the pensioners and for the average
worker who has constantly been taxed to the bones,”
said a 68-year-old civil servant, who rallied in Athens
along with thousands of strikers on Wednesday.
– DPA
Eurocrats still pushing
for ‘superstate’
Brussels – Ireland
is expected to hold a
fresh referendum on
the European Union’s
stalled Lisbon Treaty
after Dublin won a
series of concessions
today at the bloc’s
end-of-year summit in
Brussels.
But Libertas, a
political movement
that headed the “no”
campaign in the June
vote, promised more trouble ahead as it vowed to
field candidates for the European Parliament’s elections in the summer.
“The Irish government and the powerful elite in
Brussels are showing utter contempt for the democratic decision of the Irish people in rejecting the
Lisbon Treaty,”Libertas leader Declan Ganley said
as he launched his pan-European party.
The six-month institutional stalemate on a treaty
which aims to speed up decision-making within the
EU effectively ended when heads of state and government backed“in principle”a series of proposals by the
French presidency of the EU, diplomats said.
One such concession involves allowing each member state to nominate a member of the European
Commission beyond 2014.
Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty in the
June plebiscite, partly out of concerns that their
country would lose the right to nominate a“cabinet
member”of the EU’s executive.
The Lisbon Treaty states that the commission’s
size should be reduced to two-thirds of its current
size of 27 from 2014.
However, the treaty also contains a proviso allowing member states to alter its future size, as long as
a unanimous decision is taken by EU leaders.
Leaders agreed to act on such a proviso, despite
“regret”being expressed by representatives from the
Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
A draft statement tabled by the French government also included a declaration designed to
address a number of additional concerns expressed
by the Irish in their no vote.
These include guarantees that Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality will be maintained, that
the Lisbon Treaty does not impinge on Ireland’s
tax rules, and that it does not force the country to
change its abortion rules.
However, Ireland’s insistence that such concessions be legally binding prompted Britain to object
that it might have to renegotiate the treaty with
parliament.
Legal experts were to work overnight and in
the coming weeks on finding a solution to the
impasse.
“In the light of the above commitments by the
European Council ... the Irish government is committed to seeking ratification of the Lisbon Treaty
by the end of the term of the current commission,”
a draft statement from the French said.
The treaty must be ratified by all member states
before it can come into force. Diplomats hope that
it can take effect by the end of next year, following
a fresh Irish plebiscite to be held in all likelihood
in October.
During a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels today,
the French EU presidency issued draft conclusions
which set out a “path”for the Irish government to
call a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Open Europe, a British think-tank, slammed
Thursday’s deal.“This whole process is nothing but a
charade to make it look as though people’s concerns
about the treaty have been addressed.The Irish ‘no’
vote is being ignored in a most dishonest way,”said
its director Lorraine Mullally.
– DPA
Europe backpeddles on climate change
Brussels – European Union leaders are heading
for a deal on making a pledge to cut greenhouse-gas
emissions legally binding, Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi said today.
But the proposed compromise would be disastrous
for world efforts to stop global warming, seriously
damaging the EU’s own credibility, environmental
group WWF said in a statement.
“We are heading towards a deal. Italy is obtaining
everything it requested,” Berlusconi told journalists on
the fringes of the EU’s year-end summit in Brussels.
In particular, the EU’s fourth-largest state has
won assurances that the bloc will protect industries
which might face competition from countries with
less-strict climate laws, and will allow member states
to take more credit for supporting emissions-reduction projects in developing countries, he said.
The EU has also pledged to review its climatechange policies if world powers reach a deal on fighting global warming in Copenhagen in December
2009, and to put more money into experimental
power stations that pump their greenhouse gases
underground, Berlusconi said.
EU leaders are currently debating a set of laws
aimed at cutting the bloc’s emissions of carbon
dioxide (CO2, the gas most linked with global
warming) to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020,
in line with a pledge they made in March 2007.
Early today NZ time, the French government,
which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency,
set out a compromise proposal offering concessions
to all the package’s key critics.
Diplomats said that the compromise was well
received by most member states, with one EU
source telling Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that
the atmosphere in the first round of talks had been
“better than expected.” But WWF expressed dismay at the proposal,
saying that it was “abysmal” and would reduce
emissions “significantly less than the proclaimed
20-per-cent target by 2020.”
And observers warn that the proposal weakens
the laws so much that it runs the risk of rejection in
the European Parliament, which is set to have the
final say on the package on Wednesday.
– DPA
SPORT
12 December 2008
11
Herbert promotes young gun for Glory
Wellington, Dec 12 – Troy Hearfield is champing at the bit for some action after Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert gave him the nod to start
in midfield for an A-League soccer match against
Perth Glory in the capital tomorrow night.
Despite some fine performances when used, Hearfield, 21, has had to make way for Brazilian import
Fred in the last three games.
However, Fred has returned to Brazil following
the sudden death of his father midweek, and Herbert plumped for the youngster to fill the role of
attacking midfielder.
“ It’s obviously a very sad time for Fred and his
family, and it’s not the ideal way to be promoted to
the starting lineup, but I’ll be doing everything I can
to make the most of it,”Hearfield said today.
“Ricki’s put his faith in me and I’m aware how
important this opportunity is – not only for me but
also our goal to make the playoffs.”
Hearfield was the unluckiest player following the
addition of Fred to the squad.
He started in the midfield in the Phoenix’s 2-1 win
against Sydney in round 11 before Fred took over
the attacking role in the first of his three matches.
“I was disappointed, but that’s football,” Hearfield said.
“When a great signing like Fred comes in then
you know you’re probably going to have to make way
. . . I tried to learn as much as I could from him.”
Hearfield aims to break open the Glory defence
and create scoring chances for his strikers.
He also hopes to add to his own goalscoring tally for
the Phoenix,having nailed his maiden goal in the 2-0 win
against the Newcastle Jets as a substitute in round 12.
“ Ricki’s told me to stay high in the front three
and feed as much ball to the strikers as I can.
“I’m really looking forward to getting at the defenders and hopefully finding the back of the net again.”
Herbert said picking a replacement for Fred had been
tough,with Hearfield getting the nod ahead of Daniel.
“ We used Troy in that role against Sydney and
now he gets his chance back.
“He’s trained really well this week, and we’re
confident he can do a job for us.”
Having lost both matches to the Glory in Perth
this season, the Phoenix have plenty of motivation
to get one back against the West Australians.
The Phoenix want to maintain their unbeaten
record against the Glory at Westpac Stadium,having
won 3-0 and 4-1 in both home matches last season.
A win will be a real fillip to the Phoenix’s playoff
hopes.
“ We’ve quite simply got a game that we really
want to win.
Fast start goes awry for Lee
By Mark Geenty of NZPA
Sydney, Dec 12 – Leading New Zealand amateur
golfer Danny Lee faded after a rapid start to the
Australian Open as he just scraped past the cut
today.
The US Amateur champion began the second
round three shots behind co-leaders Stephen Dartnall, Matthew Goggin and Ewan Porter after shooting an excellent four-under 68 yesterday.
But in calm, wet morning conditions at Royal
Sydney, Lee’s compass went awry with his prodigious driver and the putts failed to drop as he signed
for a second round three-over 75.
It left him one-under overall, 10 shots behind
clubhouse leader Dartnall, the relative unknown
who shot 68 to go with his first round of 65.
The projected cut was even-par,meaning Lee would
maintain his impressive record of making four cuts
from five attempts in professional events this year.
“We’re only two points out of the four and three
points on Saturday night will put us right in the
thick of it,”Herbert said.
The Phoenix will wear black armbands in tomorrow’s
game as a mark of respect to Fred and his family.
Phoenix’s Troy Hearfeld, right, holds off Melboune Victory’s
Jose Luis Lopez in an A-League football match, Westpac
Stadium, Wellington. NZPA / Ross Setford
– NZPA
Lee opened with a bogey on the par-four 10th,then
gave his rapidly growing gallery something to cheer
about on the 12th when he smacked his drive 280m
then hit a wedge to tap-in distance for birdie.
But that was one of just two birdies in his round which
included a double-bogey six on the par-four fourth when
his drive and second shot both hit the trees.
“I played all right the first nine then it was the
same thing, my driving was really bad and today
I didn’t putt it very well and the scores just kept
rolling out,”Lee said.
“It’s not the weather, it was just where I was hitting it and where I putted it.... it just didn’t happen
today.
“I’ll just try to practice on my drivers and putting
and hopefully I’ll play a bit better tomorrow.”
Lee’s compatriot Gareth Paddison also made the
cut with an even-par 72 to leave him two-under after
he shot 70 on day one.
It meant a welcome payday for the European
Tour player who’d missed the cut in his previous
four events: the Australian Masters, Madrid Masters,
British Masters and European Masters.
The left-hander threatened a low score when he
birdied his second and third holes, but bogeys on
eight, 12 and 18 to go with a birdie two on the 17th
halted his charge.
“A little bit disappointed but I’m always happy
to make the cut. I’ve missed a couple and it would
have been nice to finish on a good note. I’ve made
the cut now and I’ll see what I can do from here,”
Paddison said.
Leading New Zealanders Mark Brown and David
Smail had just begun their rounds in rapidly deteriorating weather after both shot 67 yesterday.
Windies rained out
Dunedin, Dec 12 – The second day of the first
cricket test between New Zealand and the West
Indies has been washed out without a ball being
bowled at University Oval here today.
The match officials determined no play would
be possible at 2.30pm local time as rain swept the
ground intermittently.
New Zealand were 226 for four in their first
innings when bad light curtailed an hour early
yesterday. Heavy rain fell overnight drenching the
outfield.
The forecast is brighter for tomorrow though the
ground will take some time to dry out.
Jesse Ryder will resume on 54 and Brendon
McCullum four when the New Zealand innings
eventually resumes.
– NZPA
t
s
e
t
a
l
issue
n
o
o
s
t
ou
WEEKEND
12 December 2008
13
TV & Film The Day The Earth Stood Still
Frost/Nixon is a tale of the tapes
By Rafer Guzmán
Newsday
NEW YORK –“Why didn’t you burn the tapes?”
That blunt question, not exactly a softball, was
the very first posed by British journalist David
Frost to former president Richard Nixon on March
23, 1977, the start of an unprecedented series of
interviews stretching over 12 days and nearly 29
hours. Broadcast in May of that year, the interviews
covered nearly every aspect of Nixon’s presidency
in four 90-minute instalments. But it was the first
episode – the one dealing with Watergate – that
drew 45 million viewers, then the largest television
audience in history. Clearly, Americans were still
scarred by their long national nightmare.
For sheer depth and breadth, the Nixon interviews remain unparalleled in television journalism,
and they’ve since become a kind of cottage industry.
Nearly 30 years later, in 2006, British playwright
Peter Morgan staged Frost/Nixon,a dramatization of
the marathon sessions starring Michael Sheen as the
journalist and Tony Award winner Frank Langella as
the haunted president.On Friday,Universal Pictures
will release Ron Howard’s film adaptation,also with
Sheen and Langella.Frost himself has published not
one but two books on the subject.
And for completists, Liberation Entertainment
released Frost/Nixon:The Original Watergate Interviews, a DVD of the broadcast with new commentary by Frost,Tuesday.
“Obviously, there may never be anything quite
like the Nixon interviews again,”Frost said recently,
“because he’s the only president who was forced
out of office.And he’s the only president who’s been
interviewed for 28 and three-quarter hours. And
obviously, he’s the only president who came to say
what he did.”
Frost, sitting with a glass of chardonnay at the
bar of a Manhattan hotel one recent weekday afternoon, was referring to the extraordinarily candid
apology that Nixon offered during their conversation. Revisiting those gruelling and often contentious talks, Frost – now 69 and properly known as
Sir David, a title conferred on him in 1993 – vividly recalled even small details, and no wonder:The
interviews were long enough, but the preparations
took even longer.
They began in June 1975, when the late Clay
Felker, then editor of New York magazine, phoned
Frost after a weekend in the Hamptons. Felker had
a tip: Talent agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar, famous
for representing figures from Humphrey Bogart
to Vladimir Nabokov, was handling a book deal for
Nixon. Spotting an opening, Frost contacted Lazar
and began the delicate process of securing an interview with a man who, to all appearances, would be
the last person to grant one.
The pivotal moment
came when Frost,
abandoning the notes
on his clipboard and
speaking “from the
heart,” as he later put
it, suggested that Nixon
stop equivocating and
apologize to the country.
And to the amazement of
45 million viewers, he did
Yet Nixon agreed. He would be paid US$600,000
and receive 20 percent of any profits.The interviews
would take place in a rented house in Monarch Bay,
Calif.,not far from Nixon’s home in San Clemente.Most
important,he would not see the questions beforehand
and would give Frost total editorial control.
At the time, the Watergate scandal – a knotty
string of break-ins, cover-ups and taped phone calls
– was well-covered territory. Nixon had resigned
in 1974; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The
Washington Post had released their groundbreaking expose All the President’s Men; and the Senate
Watergate Committee had issued its 1,250-page
report. But Frost wasn’t satisfied, and he believed
the American people felt the same way.
“Very few of the questions had been answered,”
Frost said.“And he’d never had his account of Watergate tested – and ‘testing the account’ became the
key phrase we used.”
Both Frost and Nixon prepared for battle by
assembling small teams. The journalist relied on
Robert Zelnick, a longtime political reporter, and
James Reston Jr., an English professor at the University of North Carolina, among others.The former
president’s group included speechwriter Ken Kachigian and future 60 Minutes correspondent Diane
Sawyer, who served as a liaison between the two
camps.As the interviews progressed, it became clear
that Frost had become as well-versed in Watergate
as Nixon himself. At one point Nixon even says as
much, albeit with a pained smile.
But the pivotal moment came when Frost, abandoning the notes on his clipboard and speaking
“from the heart,”as he later put it, suggested that
Nixon stop equivocating and apologize to the country. And to the amazement of 45 million viewers,
he did.
“I let down my friends,”the president said, dryeyed but clearly emotional.“I let down the country.
I let down our system of government.”And later:“I
let the American people down, and I have to carry
that burden with me for the rest of my life.”
For Frost, it was the culmination of years of work;
for Americans, it was something much deeper.
“I do think we got the truth out of Richard
Nixon,” Frost said.“And as to what we got, we got
more than we could have hoped.”
Watch the trailer 0Director: Scott Dickerson
0Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly,
Kathy Bates, John Cleese, Jaden Smith
0Length: 103 minutes
0Rated M ( for medium level violence)
How much you will enjoy The Day the Earth Stood Still will
depend on how familiar you are with the original 1951
film.
If you consider the original a classic, then the new version
will feel more like “The One Hour and Forty-Three Minutes
the Earth Stood Still.” If you’ve never seen the first movie,
then the bar for the updated version is not so high.
The new Day features a wooden Keanu Reeves as Klaatu,
a representative for a group of alien civilizations. He has not
come in peace. These cosmic buttinskies are upset that we
are ruining the planet. The solution is to get rid of any trace
of humans.
Hope for salvation comes through Dr. Helen Benson
(Jennifer Connelly). She’s a scientist. She’s a mum. She’s
the last chance to prove humankind is worth a second
chance.
The reasons the new Day is but a pale copy of the original
are too numerous to mention. Here’s just a few:
The original film was more than aliens vs. humans. It was
released during the era of the Cold War. Tensions between
the United States and the Soviet Union were so thick, the
end of the world looked near. The movie had a serious
message about the end of civilization. The new version is
just about nosey intergalactic neighbours taking matters
into their own hands.
Michael Rennie’s portrayal of Klaatu had an elegance
about it. He came across as someone who would listen to
reason. That’s why the scenes where he sees the beauty of
the human race resonate with hope. Reeves, on the other
hand, is stiff, emotionless and cold. It never seems like he is
open enough to change his mind about his mission.
Director Scott Derrickson opts to go for big special
effects in his updated effort rather than use them as a
background for the more personal story that drove the
original. Derrickson might have gotten away with this ploy
if the effects weren’t so mediocre.
Klaatu’s way of making his point about the power of the
aliens in the first film – that whole Earth-standing-still trick
– works because it is so passive-aggressive. Derrickson’s
decision to use the Earth standing still as a weapon rather
than a warning changes the movie from being a cautionary
tale to a standard action movie.
But forget about the original movie. Based solely on its
own merits, the new version of The Day the Earth Stood
Still lacks tension, conflict and a smart script. It ends up
being predictable, lacklustre sci-fi fare.
Watch the trailer – By Rick Bentley
REVIEWS
14
12 December 2008
Music Noel Gallagher talks Oasis, past and present
Q. Any lingering physical or mental effects from
the attack?
A. No. It was two months with three broken ribs
Of all the excuses Oasis has doled out for cancel- and five bruised ones. Mentally, no, not at all. I’m not
ling gigs, at least the one that made headlines in that fragile upstairs.
September can be easily verified.
Q. Is it true Liam tried to kick the crap out of
“Just go to YouTube – it’s there for all the world the guy?
to see,”guitarist and bandleader Noel Gallagher said,
A. Yeah, you can actually see that on YouTube,
referring to the Sept.7 attack by an audience member too. It’s very embarrassing.
who rushed the stage during a concert in Toronto.
Q. So he does like you.
The online clips show Gallagher getting tackled
A. No, no. Of course, he doesn’t.We have a mutual
from behind with linebacker-like force and landing understanding in that department. Nothing has
awkwardly on his stage monitors. Don’t look for the changed there.At best, we have a hostile relationship.
British rocker to make any more excuses, though, At worst, it’s nasty. I can live with that, though.
on the current tour with Ryan Adams.
Q. One thing that has changed: Liam is writing
“I’ve been given the all-clear and everything’s healed,” more songs (three on the new record). Is it a case of
he said in a phone interview before the tour kicked off you letting him, or him insisting on it?
last week.“I’m back to the way I was before.”
A. Yeah, I don’t like that term “letting him.”I’m
Indeed, Oasis’ new album,“Dig Out Your Soul,” not letting anybody write songs. It’s our band. It
offers the same Beatles-&-Stones-copping sound belongs to the four of us. Going back to the early
that made the band famous in the mid-’90s, which days, everybody was required to write songs, but it
is to say it’s their best album since their heyday. just so happened that I wrote more than everybody
Likewise, Gallagher showed the same flashes of else, and mine were better than everybody else’s.
arrogance and inhibition that have made him one
Q. How do you rate Liam as a songwriter?
of rock’s great characters – and the same contempt
A.He tends to write a lot of ballads, which is quite
for his brother, Oasis singer Liam Gallagher.
annoying. I’ve got to say, though, if I didn’t like them,
Q. What do you remember about the incident I’d say so. But I generally think his songs are pretty
in Toronto?
good.The best thing about him is his music.The rest
A. I don’t remember a great deal about it and, of him I could live without.
of course, I’m not able to discuss it much because
Q.You guys get a steady balance of criticism and
there’s a legal case going on at the moment. Any- praise for not trying to reinvent the wheel from
thing I say can be used against me. But I really album to album. Do you consciously follow the same
don’t have any recollection of it. I was just playing formula?
away in my own little world. I had my back turned,
A. I genuinely don’t care what people say. I write
and the next thing I know it was total chaos all of my songs on guitar. I can’t write on keyboards. I do
a sudden.
what I do. I don’t analyze it. Other people do, and
By Chris Riemenschneider
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
I don’t care what they say about it. When we first
arrived on the scene, and everybody was saying I
was the greatest songwriter since Lennon/McCartney, I never believed it.And then in the middle bit,
when they said it wasn’t happening for me, I didn’t
believe that, either.
Q. You’ve admitted you were in a creative rut
around 2000’s“Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.”
What happened?
A. Yeah, I personally had a great lack of inspiration around me.That particular album,we were kind
of doing it for the sake of it.There’s some good stuff
on it,but when it was time to go make another record,
I didn’t want to be bothered. If I had that time over
again, I’d have resisted making that record. But in
the grand scheme of things,you’ve got to go through
some of the (expletive) to get to some of the stuff
that’s good.You can’t be brilliant all the time. Even
the Beatles had some (expletive), you know?
Q. Can you credit some of your turnaround to
you guys mellowing out a bit and avoiding a lot of
the excess?
A. Oh, yeah, definitely. Liam would try to convince you that he hasn’t mellowed, but he has.We’re
all fathers now. If that doesn’t change your life, then
you’re a bit of an idiot. But all the stuff that goes on
outside of what’s on the stage is kind of irrelevant
anyway. All the scandals surrounding “Definitely,
Maybe” and “Morning Glory,” you can’t remember
any of it now, can you? What you’re left with is the
music. So as long as you get that right, who gives a
(expletive)?
Q. Oasis fans definitely demand those old songs
at shows.Are you cool with that?
A. I love it. I only get to do it every three years
or so, so it stays fun. I also particularly like play-
ing the songs from “Morning Glory” because that
album kind of annoys me a little bit.We only spent
12 days in the studio recording it. It’s really a bunch
of demos. I think those songs now sound way, way
better live than they do on record.
Q. I understand you became a Ryan Adams fan
after he covered your song“Wonderwall.”What did
you like about it?
A. That song is essentially a blues song, and he
kind of found something in it that I never knew
existed. Like the point I was making before about
that album,“Morning Glory.”Ordinarily, I’ll have put
songs on a demo a year before and make constant
changes to them until we put them out.That song
was just captured in an embryonic state. I maybe
would have gotten to that version he made if I had
a year to work on it. He found something I thought
was really quite moving.
Q. Do you have a favourite album or song of his?
A. Well, he’s made so many (expletive) records
and written so many songs, where do you start with
him? He’s doing stuff on tour with us that he did
on that Nashville album (2000’s “Heartbreaker”).
He’s doing those but in more of a rock style, and
they sound great.
Q. Ryan has a reputation for being a bit of an ego
case and troublemaker.Any worries that could be a
problem on a tour with, um, Oasis?
A. No, no, no.You’ll find that most rock stars who
are known like that are not really like that.A lot of
them just get nervous around journalists. I’ve always
found him to have a bit of nervous energy. I think
people who come off like that are trying to mask
something. He’s actually sort of a shy American
rock star.
Watch “Wonderwall” REVIEWS
12 December 2008
NEW CD RELEASES
15
Books From Goths to geriatric superstars, seemingly every
singer, at some point in a career, releases a Christmas
album. Some musicians boldly create their own yuletide tunes, in hopes they catch on, while others simply provide their own take on timeless, traditional
fare.Whatever your musical tastes might be, we offer
a bunch of new Christmas albums worth a spin and
perhaps a place under a tree or in a stocking.
Tony Bennett
0A Swingin’ Christmas
As if a Tony Bennett holiday album
would be anything other than
slick.The classiest pop crooner in
the biz teams up with Count Basie
Big Band and doles out standards
smooth as bourbon, including the can’t-miss“I’ll Be
Home for Christmas.”The ideal disc to put on and
curl up with in front of a roaring fire.
Harry Connick Jr.
0What a Night! A Christmas Album
It’s hard to hear any of the 15
songs on the crooner’s third
Christmas album and not immediately race out to buy a tree. His
1993 holiday debut,“When My
Heart Finds Christmas,”remains
one of the best-selling holiday discs of all time, and
this CD will doubtless be lodged in many a player
for Christmases to come.
Natalie Cole
0Caroling, Caroling: Christmas With
Natalie Cole
Another yuletide veteran, Cole is
back with her third holiday disc,
featuring a duet with her dad,
the late Nat King Cole, on “The
Christmas Song.”At eight tracks,
it’s a bit slight, not to mention that
it recycles tracks from her previous two Christmas
albums. Only die-hard fans need apply.
Bishop T.D. Jakes
0The Gift That Remains
The Dallas-based pastor throws
his hat into the Christmas album
fray, blending snippets of sermons with tunes featuring Brian
McKnight, CeCe Winans and
Kirk Whalum. An odd mixture,
maybe, but a welcome reminder of the reason for
the season.
Enya
0And Winter Came
Since most Enya albums could
easily be classified as snow-dusted
soundtracks, it’s logical that the
Irish vocalist would finally record
a holiday-themed album, littering the disc with multi-tracked
melodies and spartan renditions of standards like
“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”There are several
moments of frosty beauty, but mostly, it’s business
as usual.
Melissa Etheridge
0A New Thought for Christmas
The raw-voiced rocker balances
traditional tunes like “O Night
Divine” and “Have Yourself a
Merry Little Christmas” with a
few freshly-penned songs that
find Etheridge still mining the
lyrical vein that produced “The Awakening” (hint:
lots of socio-political awareness).
– By Preston Jones
The inner Obama:
Interpreting presidentelect’s Dreams
Dreams From My Father
0By Barack Obama
0Crown Publishers
Maybe at age 29, Barack Obama was fantasizing
about running for president.
But Dreams From My Father – the 442-page
memoir he began drafting in his final year at Harvard Law School – is proof that he hadn’t given the
idea serious thought. It’s just too open, too frank, to
have been written by someone planning a conventional political career.
Take his casual reference to smoking pot and
sniffing cocaine in high school.“I had learned not
to care,”Obama writes.“Pot had helped, and booze;
maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”That’s
oceans away from the carefully homogenized writing that typically is produced, often by staff members, under the byline of an American politician.
As it turned out, that forthrightness helped
Obama. By pointing out such skeletons in his closet,
he didn’t leave much for investigative reporters or
enemy operatives to dredge up. (Some conspiracy
theorists contend that’s exactly why he wrote the
book, as part of a very long term agenda but I contend that, if he had been so calculating, he would
have given a tighter focus to the book, particularly
in relating his five-week visit to Kenya, which
sprawls for nearly 240 pages.)
Now, as Inauguration Day approaches, Dreams
From My Father, published in 1995, provides help of
another sort – an unusually unguarded look into the
complex mind and heart of the 47-year-old president-elect. Here are some interpretations that can
be made about the inner man:
Obama sees himself as a black American: Dreams
is a book about Obama’s struggles to find his racial
identity in a nation and world where race complicates everything. He honours his white mother and
grandparents, but he consistently describes himself
as a black man whose life is rooted in the United
States.
Obama notes that his appearance is black, but
he also recognizes that, with his intelligence and
education, he could have turned his back on his
African roots and let himself become subsumed
into the white mainstream culture.
His head rules his heart: Obama tells of a wealthy
white woman he loved while living in NewYork. One
weekend, he was invited to her family’s ancestral
country home.“I realized that our two worlds ...
were as distant from each other as Kenya is from
Germany,”he writes.“And I knew that if we stayed
together I’d eventually live in hers. ... Between the
two of us, I was the one who knew how to live as an
outsider.”He began picking fights with the woman,
and, in tears, she said she wasn’t black and couldn’t
be.After a year together, the couple broke up.
Not only is this an instance of Obama’s identifying with his black heritage, but it also shows that he
isn’t a captive to his emotions, even romantic love.
He reads – a lot: Obama is a man of books.
Throughout Dreams, he mentions reading works
by black writers, history books about Africa and
classics, such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
He read Conrad’s book“to help me understand just
what it is that makes white people so afraid.Their
demons.”
He’s not afraid of being alone: Obama writes
much about his search for community and family,
and by the end of the book, he has met and married
Michelle Robinson.Yet the man at the centre of
Dreams is someone who is comfortable in his own
head and who looks inside himself for validation.
For instance, during his years as a community
organizer in Chicago, he writes,“When I wasn’t
working, the weekends would usually find me alone
in an empty apartment, making do with the company of books.”
He sees all of us as strangers in the world: The
epigraph for the book is from the Bible:“For we are
strangers before them, and sojourners, as were all
our fathers.”Over and over again, Obama describes
himself as straddling the white and black worlds,
an outsider in both.
And not just him, but all blacks and whites as
well.“The emotions between the races,” he writes,
“could never be pure; even love was tarnished by
the desire to find in the other some element that
was missing in ourselves.”
He looks to the past to figure out the future:
Throughout Dreams, Obama is obsessed with trying to understand his father in order to understand
himself. In Kenya, he learns that both his father and
grandfather, through curiosity and ambition, left
the safety of their black villages to find success by
reinventing themselves in the white world. There
was a cost, though.They didn’t fit in either place.
The climax of the book comes when, standing at
their graves, Obama makes peace with the memory
of his father:“Oh, Father, I cried.There was no shame
in your confusion. Just as there had been no shame
in your father’s before you. No shame in the fear. ...
There was only shame in the silence that fear had
produced.”
He is a believer in community: In Dreams,
Obama’s religious conversion comes in the midst
of a community of believers during a sermon by the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright – yes, that Jeremiah Wright
– on the“audacity of hope,”the phrase that became
the title of his second book.
Then, at the book’s end, Obama comes to understand that his father and grandfather were left
bitter and estranged from the world because they
failed to reach out to others.What they needed, and
what everyone needs, he writes, is“a faith born out of
hardship, a faith that wasn’t new, that wasn’t black
or white or Christian or Muslim but that pulsed in
the heart of the first African village and the first
Kansas homestead – a faith in other people.”
The Way of Innovation: Master the
Five Elements of Change to Reinvent Your Products, Services and
Organization
0By Kaihan Krippendorff
0Platinum Press,(US$10.17 via Amazon)
Krippendorff’s 2004 book, Art of the Advantage, was a
fascinating glimpse at traditional Asian philosophical
thinking,making it comprehensible and actionable for
Western business minds.He looked at stratagems found
in books such as SunTzu’s The Art of War and extrapolated them into hypothetical scenarios that could be
replicated within modern commercial settings.
This new book picks up the thread by examining
the nature of innovation, the forces that drive it and
ways to jump-start the process. Using Buddhist,
Hindu and Taoist ideas and principles, Krippendorff
cites a number of companies and tells how they
utilized these philosophies – consciously or not – to
drive innovation and success.
It’s an interesting and potentially mind-blowing
exploration, and Krippendorff certainly knows his
stuff, though I didn’t know what to make of this jawdropping assertion, coincidentally concerning one
of his current clients:“Many believe Wal-Mart uses
size to negotiate lower prices from its suppliers. But
there is no meaningful evidence to support this.”
From Concept to Consumer: How to
Turn Ideas Into Money
0By Phil Baker
0FT Press, ($16.49 via Amazon)
Baker takes a decidedly pragmatic view of innovation, and his new book is a mostly no-frills primer
on what it takes to get it going. He looks at the various factors including product design, engineering,
testing, manufacturing and distribution. There’s
nothing arcane or mystical here, though he does
write expansively on the use of Asian resources for
design and manufacturing.
As you would expect, he employs ample examples
to illustrate his advice, many of which are derived
from primary experiences rather than analyses of
case studies.Though his prose is clean and precise,
there’s plenty of good information herein for those
attempting to capitalize on their inspiration.
Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to
Choose the Right Innovation at the
Right Time
0By Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino
0Harvard Business School Press, ($19.77
via Amazon)
– By Patrick T. Reardon
Books offer advice on
harnessing creativity
How do we get out of this mess we’re in? Some
observers say that small business will take the lead
and will aggregate the necessary critical mass for
economic growth, and that may well be the case.
Innovation could serve as the fuel to power the
engine. As corny as it may sound, ingenuity is a
formidable force and could be our salvation.Three
recent books look at ways to foster and capitalize
on innovation.
Timing is everything.The world apparently wasn’t
ready for Apple’s Newton when it was introduced,
though the BlackBerry and other PDAs – including
tricked-out iPhones – are now all the rage.
Fenn and Raskino lick their thumbs, check the
winds and look at the best times to ride the waves of
innovation.As vice presidents and fellows of Gartner
Research, they back up their assertions with solid
research.They seem to understand the intuitive part
of the equation too, which is exactly right, as the
creative process is one that draws from many sources
(see Krippendorff, above), and not every action can
be quantified. But benefitting from the lessons of
one’s predecessors is never a bad idea.
– By Richard Pachter
HEALTH
16
12 December 2008
Protein plays crucial role in fight against cancer
By Robert S. Boyd
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – It’s a tiny molecule with a nondescript name –“p53”– but it has an awesome responsibility: preventing more than half of all human cancers.
Some scientists call it the “guardian angel,”
“guardian of the genome” or the “dictator of life
and death.”
P53 is a protein, a string of 393 chemical units
stored in the DNA of most of the body’s cells. Normally, p53 works to suppress malignant tumours.
When it’s missing or mutated, however, it can’t carry
out its lifesaving mission and lets cancerous cells
run amok.
Scientists are developing drugs to repair or restore
damaged p53 in mice, but so far none of those drugs
is ready to treat human cancers.
Almost 50,000 papers about p53 have been published in scientific journals, but its workings are still
not fully understood, and it’s little known outside
the worlds of biology and medicine.
P53 is “certainly the most studied protein in the
whole history of cancer,” Magali Olivier, an expert
at the World Health Organization’s International
Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyons, France,
wrote in the journal Cancer Gene Therapy this fall.
Arnold Levine,a cancer expert at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who discovered
p53 almost 30 years ago,said,“We have uncovered and
explored a process central to life – how a cell responds
to stress or perturbation in its environment.”
Here’s how it works:A normal p53 protein detects
a patch of DNA in the nucleus of a cell that has been
damaged by accident, a virus, radiation, smoking or
other environmental assaults, raising the chance
that the cell will turn cancerous. P53 triggers a
complex biochemical program that stops the precancerous cell from dividing until it repairs its DNA
or commits suicide.
When p53 itself is flawed, however, it allows
other cancer-causing genes (known as oncogenes)
to hijack the cell’s control machinery and set it free
Despite the vast amount of research, work is only
beginning on cancer therapies based on fixing
damaged p53. Nevertheless, hopes are rising that the
immense body of knowledge about p53 will lead to
better ways to diagnose, prevent and treat cancer
to spread wildly – the hallmark of cancer.
“Loss of p53 function in cells leads to uncontrolled
proliferation and promotes cancer development,”
Olivier wrote in a summary of recent p53 research.
The gene that carries the instructions to make p53
is called TP53. Mutations in the gene may be inherited, which is why some cancers run in families.
Living with children
By John Rosemond
This is Part 2 and the conclusion of
Parenting 101, an overview of the fundamentals of effective parenting. Last
week’s class dealt with such basics as
having a more active relationship with
your spouse than you have with your
children, saying “No” more than “Yes,”
and the much overlooked fact that the
discipline of a child is accomplished
through the conveyance of proper leadership, not reward-ship or punishmentship. Having built a strong foundation,
we will now move into a set of specifics that are equally
essential to raising a child who will be well-equipped to deal
successfully with the realities of independence. After all, the
purpose of raising a child is to get him or her out of your life
and into a life of his/her own.
1. Put yourself at the centre of your child’s attention, not
the other way around. It is a simple matter to discipline a child
who is paying attention to you and nigh-unto impossible to
discipline a child who is not. In that regard, always keep in
mind that the more attention you pay a child, the less attention
the child will pay to you.
2. Put your child into a meaningful role in your family, one
that is defined in terms of responsibilities known as chores
(remember them?). By the time your child is 4 years old, he
should be contributing significant time and effort on a daily
basis to the maintenance of the household. Your child’s chores
should not be assigned haphazardly, but should be established
as a routine. In addition to picking up after himself and keeping
his own living space clean and orderly, he should be working
in “common areas” of the home, doing such things as dusting
and vacuuming. You do tell people that your child is gifted,
do you not? Without chores, a child
is a mere consumer, on a perpetual
entitlement program, and entitlements
do not strengthen people or culture.
Grow a strong child!
3. Keep television and other electronic media out of your child’s life until
your child has learned to read well
and is self-entertaining. The research
is clear that electronic media shortens attention span, interferes with the
development of certain critical thinking
skills, and develops a dependency that
leads to frequent complaints of boredom. Remember that an average of just two hours of “screen
time” a day means your child is absorbing electronic stimulation to the tune of 730 hours a year. That’s the equivalent of
eighteen 40-hour work weeks! Think of the creativity that’s
being lost! Grow a child with a strong brain!
4. From day one, keep clutter out of your child’s life by
keeping toys and other “stuff” at a minimum. Paradoxically,
children who entertain themselves well (low-maintenance
children) tend to have few toys. These children are also more
grateful for and take better care of what they have. Grow an
imaginative, creative child!
5. Emphasize manners, not skills. Sixty years ago, most
children came to overcrowded first grades not knowing their
ABCs, yet at the end of the year were reading at a higher
level than today’s kids, most of whom are already reading in
kindergarten. That happened because parents of 60 years
ago taught proper behaviour, not skills; therefore, teachers
taught skills, not proper behaviour. Grow a polite child!
6. Love your child enough to grow a happy child!
Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions
on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.
TP53 is “the most mutated gene in human cancer, and these mutations are correlated with more
than 50 percent of all human cancer,” said Ronen
Marmorstein, an expert on gene regulation at the
Wistar Institute in West Philadelphia, Pa.
According to Gerard Evan, a researcher at the
University of California’s Comprehensive Cancer
Centre in San Francisco, p53 mutations are also
associated with more aggressive cancers, resistance
to treatment by radiation and chemotherapy, and
decreased patient survival.
Despite the vast amount of research, work is only
beginning on cancer therapies based on fixing damaged p53.
Nevertheless, hopes are rising that the immense
body of knowledge about p53 will lead to better
ways to diagnose, prevent and treat cancer.
“The growing number of p53-targeting strategies
raises hope for more efficient cancer therapies in the
future,”reported Swedish researcher Klas Wiman in
the journal Cell Death and Differentiation.
In an experiment in his San Francisco lab, for
example, Evan restored damaged p53 in mice suffering from lymphoma.
“The tumours were completely dead within hours,”
Evan said.“This result is very good news to the many
of us who are thinking about trying to restore p53
function in established human cancers.”
Unfortunately, restoring p53 may cause accelerated aging, at least in mouse experiments.
“Cancer and senescence may be seen as two alternative fates in aging organisms, the secret of longevity being to find the best possible trade-off between
these two options,”Olivier reported.
Many questions remain about the workings of p53.
“Complete understanding still remains elusive,”
Antony Braithwaite, a New Zealand researcher,
wrote in Cell Death and Differentiation.“How p53
makes decisions to do one thing or another, or turn
on one gene or another, is far from clear.”
To accomplish its job, p53 has to scan 3 billion
letters in the human genetic code to decide which
genes it’s going to activate or repress.“This is a tall
order,”Braithwaite wrote.
ON THE WEB:
For more information on p53: http://p53.bii.a-star.edu.
sg/aboutp53/index.php
To see Cancer Gene Therapy’s summary of recent
p53 research: http://www.nature.com/cgt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html#19092008
A key to controlling anger is to not let it control you
By Liz Reyer
Q. I’ve learned to manage my temper pretty well
over the years, but when I’m stressed, I fly off the
handle at the slightest provocation. I don’t like this
behaviour. How can I avoid it?
A.Combine a hotheaded disposition with regular
day-to-day stresses, then add a dose of holiday pressure and worries about the economy. It’s a recipe for
blowups, but you can bring them under control.
THE INNER GAME
Remind yourself what has worked before.What have
you done to manage your temper? Consider preventive strategies as well as steps you’ve taken in the
moment to remain in control.
Understand your triggers. For example, if you
know that last-minute changes or people who don’t
follow through will flip the switch for you, plan
ahead. Think,“What will I do if ...?” so that your
plan can mitigate your reaction.You might not see
your own triggers, so ask trusted colleagues for their
perspectives about what sets you off or even what
seems to help you stay calm.
Look for role models. Identifying strategies
that others use can give you ideas for ways to be
more effective. In addition to people you know,
consider public figures and characters in movies
and books.
Most important, bring down your general temperature. The stresses in life aren’t likely to go
away, but you can influence your overall tolerance.
In particular, look at your self-care. It’s not new
advice, but it bears repeating: Notice what you eat,
get some regular exercise and get enough rest. If you
don’t already do these things, consider the barriers
that prevent them and look for small ways to get
started.
Transform your feelings. When little things get
to you, look inside and notice what is driving your
reactions. Focus on ways that you can have some
control so that anger won’t be your default.
THE OUTER GAME
Start your day with a few minutes of quiet. Reflecting on your day, the tone you want to have and how
you’d like to feel at the end of the day can get you
off on the right foot.
Manage your environment. Our society can have
an angry tone these days, and these moods are contagious.Try to buffer yourself from anger, whether it
comes from people, media or other sources.
Model calmness.You can’t live in a bubble, but you
can handle situations calmly and help defuse them.
Find ways to practice. For example, if traffic gets to
you, take a deep breath and relax. If you’re with a
negative person, point out the positives instead of
falling into their mood. Continue to pay attention
to your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being,
too. It’s great preventive maintenance for keeping
your temper in check.
If you have to, apologize _ and forgive yourself.
You won’t be perfect, but a sincere apology will earn
respect from others and ease the damage your temper might do.
THE LAST WORD
It takes courage to tackle a personal habit such as
losing your temper. Determination and consistency
in approach will bring greater success.
SCIENCE & TECH 17
12 December 2008
Blue streetlights may prevent crime, suicide
Central Japan
Railway Co. has
set up blue lights
at 10 railway
crossings in
Aichi, Gifu and
Mie prefectures
since August to
find out whether
they work in preventing suicide.
TOKYO – Blue streetlights are believed to be useful in
preventing suicides and street crime, a finding that is
encouraging an increasing number of railway companies to install blue light-emitting apparatus at stations
to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping
in front of trains.Although experts are split over the
effectiveness of the blue lights,railway companies that
already have installed the lighting say they have played
a successful role in preventing suicides.
Glasgow, Scotland, introduced blue streetlighting
to improve the city’s landscape in 2000.Afterward,
the number of crimes in areas illuminated in blue
noticeably decreased.
The Nara, Japan, prefectural police set up blue
street lights in the prefecture in 2005, and found the
number of crimes decreased by about 9 percent in
blue-illuminated neighbourhoods. Many other areas
nationwide have followed suit.
Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. changed
the colour of eight lights on the ends of platforms at
Gumyoji Station in Yokohama, Japan, in February.
In January, a person jumped in front of a train
from a deserted end of the station platform on two
consecutive days.
According to the company, a few people attempt
to commit suicide every year at the station.
A company employee in charge of train safety operations said,“We introduced the blue lights as part of our
efforts to try do all we can to prevent suicide.”
Since the blue lighting was introduced, no suicide
attempts have occurred at the station.
Central Japan Railway Co. has set up blue lights
at 10 railway crossings in Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures since August to find out whether they work
in preventing suicide.
East Japan Railway Co. and Kyushu Railway Co.
also are discussing the introduction of blue lighting.
West Japan Railway Co. was the first railway company to introduce blue lighting at its facilities.The
company was concerned by cars attempting to traverse
railway crossings despite the approach of trains.
Since December 2006,JRWest has set up blue lighting at 38 crossings along lines, including the Hanwa
Line connecting Osaka and Wakayama prefectures.
Since the installation, no accidents involving a car
ramming into a train at crossings has occurred, and
no one has committed suicide at the sites.
According to the Construction and Transport Ministry,640 suicides and suicide attempts involving the
jumping in front of trains occurred in fiscal 2007,
about a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
According to railway companies, suicides often
occur at night.
A JR West spokesman said,“We’re confident that
blue lighting is effective to a certain extent in preventing suicide.”
Blue illumination is used for other purposes than
preventing crimes and suicides.
A total of 152 blue lights were introduced along a
1.8-kilometer stretch of theTomei Expressway near the
Tokyo interchange in 2001 to try to prevent accidents.
A spokesman of Central Nippon Expressway Co.
said,“(The illumination was introduced) as part of
our efforts to encourage people to drive safely by
instinctively and emotionally appealing to them
to calm down.”
According to the expressway operator, after bluecoloured lighting was installed near trash cans at
the Yoro rest area of the Meishin Expressway in
Yorocho, Gifu Prefecture, the volume of domestic
garbage brought in by visitors decreased by more
than 20 percent.
Prof. Tsuneo Suzuki at Keio University said:
“There are a number of pieces of data to prove blue
has a calming effect upon people. However, it’s an
unusual colour for lighting, so people may just feel
like avoiding standing out by committing crimes
or suicide under such unusual illumination. It’s a
little risky to believe that the colour of lighting can
prevent anything.”
– The Yomiuri Shimbun
REVIEW: “Winterface” – a Christmas present for your PDA
By Ian Wishart
The buzz about Apple’s 3G iPhone is that whilst
it’s a cute consumer phone, it’s not so hot on business applications or some of the other whizz-bang
tricks common to high-end smartphones and
PDA’s like Blackberry or Palm’s Treo range. Power
users need the superior functionality of a high-end
PDA/smartphone, but look enviously at the iPhone’s
design.
Now Treo users can get the best of both worlds
– an iPhone screen interface coupled with the Treo’s
own unique features.
Software developers VITO have released Winterface Version 1.2, which essentially turns your Treo
or other Windows mobile device into an iPhone
lookalike.
The two megabyte file runs best when loaded
directly into device memory, rather than the storage
card, and essentially puts applications, settings, files
and contacts right onscreen, and the screen icons
move just like an iPhone does.
If your contacts already have photos loaded
against them, they’ll appear in Winterface with
those photos – simply touch to call.
On the Treo 700wx, Bluetooth has been more
stable since Winterface was loaded; where previously the phone mysteriously and often dropped
its Bluetooth signal requiring a“settings”reset, the
link has remained open and operational throughout
the Winterface trial, with an onscreen icon alerting
whether Bluetooth is on or off.
Of particular use has been the ability to load website favourites into the Winterface screen, so I have
icons that hyperlink directly to streaming audio
Dark stars close by
The two megabyte file runs best
when loaded directly into device
memory, rather than the storage card, and
essentially puts applications, settings,
files and contacts right onscreen, and the
screen icons move just like an iPhone does
from National Radio, Newstalk ZB and other stations, which turns the Treo into a de-facto AM/FM
radio, as well as other websites I frequently visit.
Winterface is available with a fully-working free
trial version for 14 days, after which it’ll cost you
US$19.95 if you want to keep using it. I purchased
after just four days.
WEBLINKS
Download the 14 day trial version
View a YouTube demonstration of Winterface in action
PASADENA, Calif – U.S. space agency officials
say the Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the
dimmest known star-like objects in the universe.
The record goes to twin brown dwarfs, or failed
stars, each of which shines with only one-millionth
the light of our sun, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration said.
Astronomers previously thought the faint image
was that of just one brown dwarf. But when the
Spitzer Space Telescope observed the object in
infrared mode, it measured the extreme faintness
and low temperature for the first time. That data
revealed the brown dwarf was, in fact, twins.
“Both of these objects are the first to break the
barrier of one-millionth the total light-emitting
power of the sun,”said Adam Burgasser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Brown dwarfs are compact balls of gas floating
freely in space, but they are too cool and lightweight
to be stars, yet too warm and massive to be planets,
NASA said.The newly identified brown dwarfs are
located about 17 light-years from Earth, toward the
constellation Antlia.
The Spitzer Space Telescope is managed by
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif.The discovery is reported in the Astrophysical
Journal Letters.
– UPI
For more information on the new Cayenne Diesel contact your Official Porsche Centre or visit www.porsche.co.nz
Different fuel. Same spirit.
The new Cayenne Diesel.
GILTRAP PRESTIGE Auckland Ph 09 92 00 911
CONTINENTAL CAR SERVICES Auckland Ph 09 52 68 991
ARMSTRONG PRESTIGE Wellington Ph 04 38 48 779
ARCHIBALDS Christchurch Ph 03 37 75 200
SOUTHERN EUROPEAN Dunedin Ph 03 45 61 010
MAG12883/IM
12882 EM Investigate Mag.indd 1
Process CyanProcess MagentaProcess YellowProcess Black
12/8/08 10:55:55 AM
19
NEWSFOCUS
12 December 2008
A villager walks
by a wall of graffiti just outside of
Faridkot village
in Pakistan. The
graffiti written in
Urdu reads, “Go
for jihad. Go for
jihad.” Markaz
Dawat ul-Irshad”,
MDI, is the parent
organisation of
Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Saeed Shah/MCT
Lashkar-e-Taiba
This Pakistan-based Islamic
militant group is alleged to
have links to the Mumbai
terrorist attacks.
CHINA
Claimed by
Pakistan
AFGHANISTAN
• Name means “Army of the Pure”
• Military wing of Markaz
Dawa-ul-Irshad (MDI),
formed to oppose the Soviet
presence in Afghanistan
PA K I S TA N
• Strength Several thousand
250 km
• Targets Indian troops, civilians in
Kashmir; high profile attacks in India
who has written widely acclaimed books on the Taliban and the rise of Islamic terrorists. But he added
that the civilian government, elected in February
LAHORE, Pakistan – For a terrorist leader watched after more than eight years of military rule, could
by Washington and wanted in New Delhi, Hafiz not yet do much about men like Saeed.“I don’t think
Mohammed Saeed seems remarkably carefree.
the civilians can question these people, because it’s
He lives openly in the eastern city of Lahore, and the military that’s backed them.”
on Friday, he led prayers at his group’s mosque, lecThe country’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services
turing about sacrifice to almost 10,000 followers as Intelligence,or ISI,helped create most of the Kashmiri
three armed men stood behind him.
groups,experts say.But it’s not clear what role the ISI
The extradition of Saeed, founder of the Islamic or the army has had with the groups recently. Most
militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “army of the analysts doubt any government agency had a role in
pure,”was demanded by the Indian authorities after the Mumbai attacks, although rogue and former govthe 60-hour siege in Mumbai that killed at least 171 ernment operatives may have been involved.
people. He is a suspect in several other spectacular
Since winning power, the civilian leaders have
attacks in India; the U.S. has listed both Lashkar tried to rein in the ISI. Last summer they attempted,
and its parent organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as without success, to place the agency under the conterrorist organizations.
trol of the Interior Ministry.They also nominated a
But Saeed’s apparently lax treatment in Pakistan new ISI chief, considered a U.S. ally, and pushed to
highlights the challenge now faced by the fledgling dismantle the agency’s political wing.
civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari
Analysts said that it was extremely unlikely that
and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani: how Pakistan would turn over Saeed or 19 other men on
to restrain guerrilla groups once supported by the India’s wanted list, or two Lashkar leaders Indian
security forces but now refuelling animosity with authorities say masterminded the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan’s arch-foe India and bringing immense If they did so the already weak government would
new pressure from the U.S.
face a major backlash.
Without directly pointing fingers on her visit to
Saeed and the Jamaat group are also very popular
Islamabad last week, U.S. Secretary of State Con- here in Lahore. On Thursday, the group’s spokesman
doleezza Rice demanded that Pakistan actively offered reporters a tour of classrooms and dormitories
respond to India’s allegations that Lashkar or at the group’s elaborate compound outside the city.
other Pakistani terrorists were responsible for the
At Friday prayers, everyone waited quietly to
Mumbai attacks.
hear every word Saeed said. He talked about the
Lashkar and other groups were founded in the upcoming Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, where
1980s and early 1990s with the help of the country’s animals are sacrificed to commemorate when Ibramilitary and spy agencies, to fight in the conflict him, also known as Abraham, prepared to sacrifice
over India-controlled Kashmir, disputed since his son and leave his family for God.
the independence of Pakistan and India in 1947.
According to a Pakistani journalist who heard
Although Pakistan banned the groups in 2002 the sermon, Saeed said Muslims should not fear
under U.S. pressure, most continued to operate and bloodshed nor sacrificing themselves for Islam but
simply took new names.
denied that Jamaat-ud-Dawa had anything to do
For many Pakistanis,Saeed,63,is a hero.His group, with the attacks in Mumbai.
which reverted to its original name of Jamaat-udHe is hardly the only terrorist wanted by the
Dawa after being banned, now professes to perform Indian government who appears to operate freely
only charity work. His group’s spokesman claims in public in Pakistan. Maulana Masood Azhar, a
that Saeed is barely involved with Lashkar and guerilla leader released by India in exchange for
describes the group as based in India. And Saeed hostages on a hijacked airliner in 1999, is building
is allowed to go wherever he wants.
a giant mosque in Bahawalpur.
“There’s no restrictions on him at all, it seems,”
Jamaat also seems more out in the open than ever,
said Ahmed Rashid, an expert on insurgent groups even though many experts say the group uses relief
Claimed
by India
New
Delhi
I N D I A
mainly Pakistani, Afghan; support
from other terror groups
By Kim Barker
Chicago Tribune
KASHMIR
Islamabad
• Began late 1980s, early 1990s
Leashing the dogs of war
Controlled
by China
250 miles
Goals India out of Kashmir;
restore Islamic rule in SE Asia
Mumbai
© 2008 MCT
Source: U.S. State Department, South Asia Terrorism
Portal (SATP), ESRI
work to recruit new militants.
Last month, it held two large meetings in Lahore’s
Punjab province, the first large meetings Jamaat
held since Lashkar was banned. Saeed talked about
the idea of jihad,and some women were so impressed
with his speeches, they gave the group their gold
jewellery, said Jamaat spokesman Muhammad
Yahya Mujahid.
“We will keep talking about jihad, but we are not
training anyone,”he added.
There now are also posters, even in relatively moderate Lahore, advertising the group. One billboard
in the heart of the city proclaimed:“We can sacrifice
our lives to preserve the holiness of the Prophet.”
NZ CLASSIC
20
12 December 2008
The escape
Acclaimed science fiction writer Jules Verne didn’t just write Around the World in 80 Days, he
also wrote an epic about New Zealand and Australia called In Search of the Castaways, published in 1867. If you missed the previous instalment of this serial, you can download it here.
It was the hand of a woman or child, a European! On neither side
had a word been uttered. It was evidently the cue of both sides to
be silent.
“Is it Robert?”whispered Glenarvan.
But softly as the name was breathed, Mary Grant, already awakened
by the sounds in the hut, slipped over toward Glenarvan, and seizing
the hand, all stained with earth, she covered it with kisses.
“My darling Robert,”said she, never doubting,“It is you! It is you!”
“Yes, little sister,” said he,“it is, I am here to save you all; but be
very silent.”
“Brave lad!”repeated Glenarvan.
“Watch the savages outside,”said Robert.
Mulrady, whose attention was distracted for a moment by the
appearance of the boy, resumed his post.
“It is all right,” said he.“There are only four awake; the rest are
asleep.”
A minute after, the hole was enlarged, and Robert passed from the
arms of his sister to those of Lady Helena. Round his body was rolled
a long coil of flax rope.
“My child, my child,” murmured Lady Helena,“the savages did
not kill you!”
“No, madam,”said he;“I do not know how it happened, but in the
scuffle I got away; I jumped the barrier; for two days I hid in the
bushes, to try and see you; while the tribe were busy with the chief’s
funeral, I came and reconnoitred this side of the path, and I saw that
I could get to you. I stole this knife and rope out of the desert hut.The
tufts of bush and the branches made me a ladder, and I found a kind
of grotto already hollowed out in the rock under this hut; I had only
to bore some feet in soft earth, and here I am.”
Twenty noiseless kisses were his reward.
“Let us be off!”said he, in a decided tone.
“Is Paganel below?”asked Glenarvan.
“Monsieur Paganel?”replied the boy, amazed.
“Yes; is he waiting for us?”
“No, my Lord; but is he not here?”inquired Robert.
“No, Robert!”answered Mary Grant.
“Why! have you not seen him?”asked Glenarvan.“Did you lose each
other in the confusion? Did you not get away together?”
“No, my Lord!”said Robert, taken aback by the disappearance of
his friend Paganel.
“Well, lose no more time,”said the Major.“Wherever Paganel is, he
cannot be in worse plight than ourselves. Let us go.”
Truly,the moments were precious.They had to fly.The escape was not very
difficult,except the twenty feet of perpendicular fall outside the grotto.
After that the slope was practicable to the foot of the mountain.
From this point the prisoners could soon gain the lower valleys; while
the Maoris, if they perceived the flight of the prisoners, would have
to make a long round to catch them, being unaware of the gallery
between the Ware-Atoua and the outer rock.
The escape was commenced, and every precaution was taken.The
captives passed one by one through the narrow passage into the grotto.
John Mangles, before leaving the hut, disposed of all the evidences of
their work, and in his turn slipped through the opening and let down
over it the mats of the house, so that the entrance to the gallery was
quite concealed.
The next thing was to descend the vertical wall to the slope below,
and this would have been impracticable, but that Robert had brought
the flax rope, which was now unrolled and fixed to a projecting point
of rock, the end hanging over.
John Mangles, before his friends trusted themselves to this flax rope,
tried it; he did not think it very strong; and it was of importance not
to risk themselves imprudently, as a fall would be fatal.
“This rope,”said he,“will only bear the weight of two persons;therefore
let us go in rotation.Lord and Lady Glenarvan first;when they arrive at
the bottom, three pulls at the rope will be a signal to us to follow.”
“I will go first,”said Robert.“I discovered a deep hollow at the foot
of the slope where those who come down can conceal themselves and
wait for the rest.”
“Go, my boy,”said Glenarvan, pressing Robert’s hand.
Robert disappeared through the opening out of the grotto.A minute after,
the three pulls at the cord informed them the boy had alighted safely.
Glenarvan and Lady Helena immediately ventured out of the grotto.
The darkness was still very great, though some grayish streaks were
already visible on the eastern summits.
The biting cold of the morning revived the poor young lady. She
felt stronger and commenced her perilous descent.
Glenarvan first, then Lady Helena, let themselves down along the
rope, till they came to the spot where the perpendicular wall met the Grant leaned on the arm of John Mangles; Robert, radiant with joy,
top of the slope.Then Glenarvan going first and supporting his wife, triumphant at his success, led the march, and the two sailors brought
began to descend backward.
up the rear.
He felt for the tufts and grass and shrubs able to afford a foothold;tried
Another half an hour and the glorious sun would rise out of the
them and then placed Lady Helena’s foot on them.Some birds,suddenly mists of the horizon. For half an hour the fugitives walked on as
awakened,flew away,uttering feeble cries,and the fugitives trembled when chance led them. Paganel was not there to take the lead. He was now
a stone loosened from its bed rolled to the foot of the mountain.
the object of their anxiety, and whose absence was a black shadow
They had reached half-way down the slope, when a voice was heard between them and their happiness. But they bore steadily eastward,
from the opening of the grotto.
as much as possible, and faced the gorgeous morning light. Soon they
“Stop!”whispered John Mangles.
had reached a height of 500 feet above Lake Taupo, and the cold of the
Glenarvan, holding with one hand to a tuft of tetragonia, with the morning, increased by the altitude, was very keen. Dim outlines of hills
other holding his wife, waited with breathless anxiety.
and mountains rose behind one another; but Glenarvan only thought
Wilson had had an alarm. Having heard some unusual noise out- how best to get lost among them.Time enough by and by to see about
side the Ware-Atoua, he went
escaping from the labyrinth.
back into the hut and watched
At last the sun appeared and
It was of vital importance
the Maoris from behind the mat.
sent his first rays on their path.
that before the decisive
At a sign from him, John stopped
Suddenly a terrific yell from a
Glenarvan.
hundred
throats rent the air. It
moment arrived they should put
One of the warriors on guard,
came from the pah, whose direcstartled by an unusual sound, themselves beyond the reach of
tion Glenarvan did not know.
rose and drew nearer to the Ware- the savages, so as to put them off
Besides, a thick veil of fog, which,
Atoua. He stood still about two
spread at his feet, prevented any
their track. But their progress
paces from the hut and listened
distinct view of the valleys below.
with his head bent forward. He was slow, for the paths were steep
But the fugitives could not
remained in that attitude for a
doubt that their escape had been
minute that seemed an hour, his ear intent, his eye peering into the discovered; and now the question was, would they be able to elude
darkness.Then shaking his head like one who sees he is mistaken, he pursuit? Had they been seen? Would not their track betray them?
went back to his companions, took an armful of dead wood, and threw
At this moment the fog in the valley lifted, and enveloped them
it into the smouldering fire, which immediately revived. His face was for a moment in a damp mist, and at three hundred feet below they
lighted up by the flame, and was free from any look of doubt, and after perceived the swarming mass of frantic natives.
having glanced to where the first light of dawn whitened the eastern
While they looked they were seen. Renewed howls broke forth,
sky, stretched himself near the fire to warm his stiffened limbs.
mingled with the barking of dogs, and the whole tribe, after vainly
“All’s well!”whispered Wilson.
trying to scale the rock of Ware-Atoua, rushed out of the pah, and
John signalled to Glenarvan to resume his descent.
hastened by the shortest paths in pursuit of the prisoners who were
Glenarvan let himself gently down the slope; soon Lady Helena and flying from their vengeance.
he landed on the narrow track
where Robert waited for them.
The rope was shaken three
times, and in his turn John Mangles, preceding Mary Grant, followed in the dangerous route.
He arrived safely; he rejoined
Lord and Lady Glenarvan in the
hollow mentioned by Robert.
Five minutes after, all the fugitives had safely escaped from the
Ware-Atoua,left their retreat,and
keeping away from the inhabited
shores of the lakes, they plunged
by narrow paths into the recesses
of the mountains.
They walked quickly, trying to
avoid the points where they might
be seen from the pah.They were
quite silent, and glided among the
bushes like shadows. Whither?
Where chance led them, but at
any rate they were free.
Toward five o’clock, the day
began to dawn, bluish clouds
marbled the upper stratum of
clouds.The misty summits began
to pierce the morning mists.The
orb of day was soon to appear,
and instead of giving the signal
for their execution, would, on the
contrary, announce their flight.
It was of vital importance
that before the decisive moment
Mollies Invites You to a Distinctive Dining Experience
arrived they should put themNestled in St Mary's Bay, the “Dining Room” at Mollies is now open to the public for a relaxed,
selves beyond the reach of the
gourmet dining experience. With elegant cuisine and a selection of the finest wines, the a la carte
savages, so as to put them off
and degustation menus feature the best of local produce, prepared by Mollies talented and
creative young team of Kiwi chefs.
their track. But their progress
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner are available and reservations are recommended.
was slow, for the paths were
steep. Lady Glenarvan climbed
the slopes, supported, not to say
6 Tweed St, St Mary’s Bay, Auckland Phone: (09) 376 3489 Email: [email protected] www.mollies.co.nz
carried, by Glenarvan, and Mary