(We) can do better

Yesterday, in Cyprus, ordinary citizens turned up to take money out of their accounts via EFTPOS and could not access their cash! This has actually happened. Overnight sums of money have been levied directly on every bank account in a country, apparently with the authority of the IMF and the European Union. There is nothing to say now that any bank account in the world is safe from similar action. This is a new bad era. The rules have been smashed.

Whilst the US borrows to continue spending, it imposes, with the IMF, austerity measures on Europe. This is grossly unfair on Europeans when one considers that Europe's financial problems largely result from international banks stupidly and greedily investing in the United States Sub Prime and Housing bubbles.

An 'austerity rescue plan' negotiated in Brussels has just authorised an exceptional tax on individual bank accounts in Cyprus. Money has been deducted electronically on with the authority of the EU and the International Monetary Foundation (IMF) without consultation with account holders.

Ordinary citizens financially injured, shocked

Yesterday, in Cyprus, ordinary citizens turned up to take money out of their accounts via EFTPOS and could not access their cash!

This has actually happened. Overnight sums of money have been levied directly on every account in a particular country.

This is the first time such a thing has ever happened.

Until now the security of deposits had never been questioned.

Cyrprus is a tiny little economy, forming 0.02% of Europe's but it has an enormous banking sector. Cyprus is an offshore tax haven.

Russian capital there amounts of tens of billions of euros.

The intention of the European Union and the IMF was purportedly to take tax-haven money from where it was being protected in Cyprus, but - astoundingly, shockingly - the bank accounts of all Cypriot citizens were included in this extreme net!

According to the French News (France2 Infos, 2000hrs, 17 March 2013), around 15:59 minutes in,

"The President of the European Parliament asked that the tax not be made on accounts with less than 25,000 Euros, but he had little chance of being heard."

Obviously people must now fear more of the same in other countries. One thinks of Greece nearby.

Will people start taking all their money out for fear of it being taken from their accounts?

"Today a taboo has been smashed and confidence in bank accounts has been broken,"

the program concluded.

The very foundations of banking have been smashed. Sociopaths are running the system.

What are people to do? This is an aggression by the banks, in cooperation with the International Monetary Foundation on citizens, potentially on citizens throughout the world. Anyone with a bank account should be banging on the door of their local parliamentarian tomorrow morning and insisting that his or her party do something to stop this happening now. The perpetrators must be punished and imprisoned. How can the European Parliament have permitted this?

It must not be allowed to stand. The IMF must reimburse the citizens of Cyprus.

Source: France2 Infos, 2000hrs, 17 March 2013. http://www.france2.fr/jt/20h/17-03-2013">France2 Infos, 2000hrs, 17 March 2013

On the Sunshine Coast development has destroyed a great deal of the beautiful natural surroundings that attracted people there in the first place. Native animals are being cruelly decimated by starvation and exposure.

Developers seem animated by greed alone, machinally moonscaping lots when buyer uptake has dropped to 1996 levels[1] in Australia, despite constant mass immigration. The developer lobbies have not been able to restimulate demand, even by touting for overseas immigrants and selling property to foreign investors off the plan. (That doesn't stop them charging huge fees for membership.)

Photos by Brett Clifton

We need laws to imprison developers who ruin nature but they now run our parliaments

The conduct of developers in needlessly clearing land merits new laws that would imprison them for gross vandalism, cruelty to animals and dangerous greenhouse gas generation. The main reason that Australia lacks effective laws to protect wildlife and that it seems helpless before the grotesque appetites for speculative profits of property developers is because of the Labor and Liberal Parties' huge investment in property development and financing and the cancerous presence in State parliaments of property developers or people who represent their interests over those of other citizens.

Citizens feel helpless against residential developers

James Ray, who is a resident of the Sunshine Coast, moved into a development a little while ago. He enjoyed seeing wildlife in the surrounding bushland. Although he had some idea that this bushland was also marked for development, he was shocked to see these areas cleared way ahead of lots actually being sold. He protested that this seemed premature, but also asked why buyers could not buy lots with trees retained on them and clear them only if they chose. He wrote to his council about this in an article published at http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/ancient-bush-levelled/1794757/

Why clear land brutally and unnecessarily?

There seems no good answer to this question of why clear land unnecessarily except for the corruption in parliament and of our economic system.

In fact Australia should not be clearing any more land for housing at all and it should not be artificially growing its population either. The two things are related. We have huge immigration numbers coming in all the time, inflating prices. Investors in property development lobby constantly for mass immigration. The cost of land is now so high that even this population pressure is not producing more buyers, it is simply displacing people already here, by pricing people out of the market and into homelessness, or leaving only the option of sharing with relatives or living in group houses.

What is happening to our wildlife is a weeping sore in our society. It is consuming and deforming our whole way of life. Although Queensland and West Australia are the worst for recent wildlife annihilation due to state-induced rapid population growth, the older states had already cleared too much to keep on clearing. In Victoria, the most cleared state, population growth has outpaced New South Wales due to State Government policies that ram development down the throats of local communities despite continuous protests.

Stupidly stealing habitat from native animals and the ignorance of people

It seems that the Sunshine Coast is a dark and depressing place for those who love nature. In Victoria, in an outer suburb, also called Sunshine, things are very gloomy too.

Pamela, who lives in Sunshine Victoria, and works in animal welfare, writes:

"Every time we steal more habitat from our native animals people are stupidly surprised to see kangaroos looking lost on a new vacant block where their habitat used to be. They wander down new cul-de-sacs or get hit by cars.

People come into contact with them and call them 'pests' just because they're still there.

People believe kanga numbers are 'exploding' just because they are more visible without their Australian bush to hide in for protection from humans and dogs. When the truth is their numbers are actually dwindling because of floods, dogs, dumb human hunters, vehicle strike and bushfires.

Those who spread the myths of 'ballooning populations' are only the shooters and hunters who have a vested interest in killing them.

We also have a spate of vicious attacks on kangaroos by yobbos. Kangaroos are being shot with arrows, hacked to death, beheaded, joeys are being ripped from pouches and swung against the bullbars of utes or dragged behind them until dead.

I work in animal welfare and these sorts of brutality are an ongoing problem in this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves for the way we treat the animals we proudly display on our Coat of Arms."

NOTES

[1] "House Sales Drop: The number of houses and units sold in Australia last year dropped to 256,559, the lowest level of transactions since 1996, according to RP Data. The second half was 7.6 per cent stronger than the first, but analyst Cameron Kusher said a further incease in sales would be needed to underpin more price rises." Australian Financial Review, 10-17 March 2013, p. 3. Candobetter Editorial Comment: This is a sociopathic policy, to keep housing prices up for the benefit of the few who care more about their investments than in the country, and the disbenefit of the vast majority, who go into debt and homelessness because of this Australian political and economic phenomenon that corrupt parliaments encourage.

(Ultra-resistant mutant bacteria--more frightening than sci-fi movies from the 1980s. Film still: The Fly)
Antibiotics are the wonder drugs of modern medicine. They've allowed doctors to save and extend life by killing infection and enabling ground breaking surgery.
England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, says that antibiotic-resistant bacteria posed a ''catastrophic threat'' to human health, and likened it to the dangers of terrorism.
Factory farms are artificially accelerating the evolution of superbugs, and are bringing us closer to the day when antibiotics won't work.

Antibiotics are the wonder drugs of modern medicine. They've allowed doctors to save and extend life by killing infection and enabling ground breaking surgery.

Multi-resistant organisms arise naturally, by spontaneous mutation or when the genes for resistance are passed on from other bacteria. Their presence is encouraged by the frequent use of "broad spectrum" antibiotics. The bacteria however can be spread from person to person, usually on hands.

The main reason that doctors worry about multi-resistant organisms is that if a person colonised with a multi-resistant organism gets sick, we often have to start treatment with powerful, expensive antibiotics, which may have more side-effects, instead of our preferred antibiotics.

In India, where antibiotics are not restricted in their use, a new superbug, New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase or NDM-1, has evolved. Not only is it deadly in its own right, it's also capable of genetically modifying other bacteria to make them superbugs.

Dame Sally Davies – superbugs likened to the threat of terrorism

England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, called for worldwide action to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria that she said posed a ''catastrophic threat'' to human health, and likened it to the dangers of terrorism.

“Superbugs” MRSA and C difficile have been reduced to low numbers in hospitals, but there has been an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia. These so-called "gram negative" bacteria, which are found in the gut instead of on the skin, are highly dangerous to older and frailer people.

Routine operations such as hip replacements could become fatal in just 20 years time if we lose the ability to fight infection, she said.

Dame Sally said the problem is “as important as climate change for the world” and urged the Government to raise the issue when meeting political leaders at the G8 summit in London in April.

Professor Thomas Riley (WA) - “massive under-reporting”

Thomas Riley, a professor of Microbiology at the University of Western Australia, is an expert in Clostridium difficile, or C diff, a
common bug which comes in various strains and can cause severe gut problems.

Professor Riley said he believed there was a “massive under-reporting” of the bug, and health departments around the country had been too slow to respond. . The 244 super strain had gone from being non-existent in Australia to being the third most common strain of C diff, accounting for five per cent of tested cases.

Growing use of antibiotics in food production

Antibiotics have been over used to promote growth in farm animals for decades which probably presents as much of a threat to human health as over use in medicine. It was only a matter of time that pathogens became resistant to antibiotics. They have been over used for decades in food production as they were found to promote growth in farm animals.

As for E. coli, Dr. Michael Greger had this to say during an interview with Kathy Freston of the Huffington Post back in 2010:

"E. coli is an intestinal pathogen. It only gets in the food if fecal matter gets in the food. Since plants don't have intestines, all E. coli infections--in fact all food poisoning--comes from animals. When's the last time you heard of anyone getting Dutch elm disease or a really bad case of aphids? People don't get plant diseases; they get animal diseases.

The problem is that because of the number of animals raised today, a billion tons of manure are produced every year in the United States--the weight of 10,000 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Dairy cow and pig factories often dump millions of gallons of putrefying waste into massive open-air cesspits, which can leak and contaminate water used to irrigate our crops. That's how a deadly fecal pathogen like E. coli O157:H7 can end up contaminating our spinach."

Factory farming – incubators of misery

Factory farms are artificially accelerating the evolution of superbugs, and are bringing us closer to the day when antibiotics won't work.   Artificially and unnaturally cramming animals together, in all weathers, with little room to move, and forcing them to grow and produce far beyond the level they would in natural circumstances, means that they will routinely get ill.

Pigs and other animals on factory farms are fed a steady diet of drugs to keep them alive in these unsanitary, stressful conditions, increasing the chance that drug-resistant superbugs will develop.

According to Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s latest report, sales of antibiotics for human use has remained fairly constant over the last decade, but the amount of drugs sold for meat and poultry production has been increasing steadily. Worldwide, doctors, public health experts, and medical organizations have not only acknowledged the pressing concern of antibiotic resistance caused by overuse in industrial farm animals, but have also called for a change in the status quo.

Superbugs are the byproduct of unsustainable meat production, in particular, the overuse of antibiotics in Contained Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), or factory farms. Factory farms suck up 70 percent of America’s antibiotics. And worse, they use most of ‘em on healthy animals!

Read more: Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs

Intensification of cattle farming systems is progressing rapidly overseas. Now new dairies are being established, each with several thousand cows. There is no support for small farming systems, like those common in Western Europe. Cows are never allowed onto pasture and are loose housed in barns, where they used to be tethered. They are milked by robots and live on wet concrete covered in excreta.

Even meat labels “raised without antibiotics” isn't safe. It can be contaminated with MRSA (superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) at the farm, by slaughterhouse workers who carry MRSA or by other meat, if processing equipment is not “cleaned out between runs of certified organic and non-certified organic meats,” say the researchers.

The abuse of antibiotics on farms was one of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s last stands. “It seems scarcely believable that these precious medications could be fed by the ton to chickens and pigs,” he wrote in a bill called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007 (PAMTA), which has yet to pass.

Population growth and urbanization are forcing livestock into smaller and smaller allotments, and dependence on antibiotics.

Approximately 140 vaccines are registered for use in livestock and companion animals in Australia. Many more animals are vaccinated each year than humans.

Common sense and intuition says that we urgently need to reduce antibiotic use in food production to preserve life-saving antibiotics for the treatment of common diseases.   Either eat organic foods, or steer clear of livestock products and go vegan.
Meat Free Week- 18th -24th March

Next week is Meat Free Week, 18th - 24th March, 2013.  The avoidance of deadly surgery should be an incentive to start a new diet  - if the welfare of animals, human health and the environment isn't enough!

WASHINGTON (March 13) – Tens of millions of Americans drink water contaminated with chromium (VI), a compound the Environmental Protection Agency was poised in 2011 to conclude likely causes cancer.

That finding would have set the stage for stricter drinking-water standards. But industry-funded science has caused the process to stall.

Today, the Center for Public Integrity and the PBS NewsHour will tell the story behind the delay, focusing on Hinkley, California, where environmental activist Erin Brockovich made her name and residents are forced to drink bottled water because of chromium (VI) in their wells.

The EPA delayed its assessment of the compound to wait for new studies paid for by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. The EPA planned to complete the assessment in 2015, but after the Center and PBS began asking questions about the delay, the agency posted a revised timetable showing that the effort would be finished this year.

The Center’s story can be found this morning The Center for Public Integrity's website. The NewsHour segment will air this evening (check local listings).

The Center for Public Integrity write, "This story is part of our ongoing investigation, ‘Toxic Clout’: More than 80,000 chemicals are on the market in the United States, with hundreds added each year. The Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators are supposed to protect the public from contaminants in air, water and consumer products that can cause cancer and other illnesses. But the chemical industry's sway over science and policy is powerful. Toxic Clout explores how the industry's actions create uncertainty and delay, threatening public health.

About the Center for Public Integrity: Founded in 1989 by Charles Lewis, the Center is one of the country's oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations. Our mission: To enhance democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism."

Max Planck's adage should therefore be amended to read that "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it --- and by being adequately funded and promoted by people who incarnate Dale Carnegie's formula for success."

Influencing Influential People

Let me share my cynicism about the role of funding and politics in assigning value to new ideas.

I wished I had $. I am quite financially stressed, and after phoning a travel agent, and Kelowna Tourist bureau twice over the last 3 days, I informed my ally in mischief, Madeline Weld, that I probably can't make it to that Kelowna CSEE conference.

After 6 years of full-out activism I have come to a jaded conclusion about the value of conferences. As JK Galbraith said of them, they take place to simulate action. They are more like revival meetings in that their real purpose is to allow the devout to meet folks of their own kind and be assured that they are not alone--and with their morale thus boosted, return home with a false sense of momentum and confidence. Nevertheless, I have also noticed that attending conferences is mandatory for those who want their papers and books published and well reviewed. Successful authors must physically meet with their peers, look into their eyes, shake their hands, tell them jokes, exchange small talk, and form a 'relationship' with them over the buffet table or dinner afterward. Once they have done that, then anything they subsequently write will be elevated to a stature that is not merited by its contents.

For example, I would wager a fair sum that if I were to submit a set of articles to one group---the control group---with my name on it, and a second set of identical articles to a second group with let's say, William Rees' name on it, the latter group would instantly proclaim my articles a masterpiece, while the former would likely ignore or dismiss it. Several examples could be summoned to validate this belief, but two will suffice. Author Doris Lessing found that once she reached celebrity, her manuscripts were greeted with enthusiasm and her not-so-brilliant books were assured of wide purchase. So as an experiment, she wrote a story under a pseudonym. It was largely ignored. Coincidence? I think not.

Another case---Chris Clugston. He has been saying essentially the same thing for five years, but for the first four of those years the people in my network more or less refused to acknowledge his facts and insights, preferring instead to stick with limited eco-footprinting analysis. Call it 'brand loyalty'. ("GPS? No thanks, I will stick with my compass"). Once his work finally percolated up to the organizational top dogs in the network, and once they endorsed it after reading William Catton's endorsement---they suddenly felt able to give him the seal of approval--though they remain true to their fixation on energy and climate change. Call that peer pressure and group-think (as documented by Solomon Asch's research). Chris's problem was that for those first four years he didn't attend any conferences. People heard of him but they had never met him. But things changed after that.

Of course, if his work was utter nonsense, it is unlikely it would have reached that pinnacle. But that is not my point. My point is that a great many people with important and revolutionary concepts that are well articulated remain unknown simply because they lacked the means or the connections to meet the "right" people or the good sense not to offend their egos. Not the smart people, but the influential people. The principal rule is "Thou shalt not trespass revered icons". You must spend a good two paragraphs grovelling before their achievements, thanking them for their past contributions, and genuflecting in their direction, but you must never ever challenge their obsolete shibboleths. (Now repeat after me, "We must educate and empower women", "couples must be free to choose their family size", "we must return to a sustainable population level of 2 billion", "we must stop growing") There is no new knowledge, only revealed truth. The truth according to Ehrlich, Brown, Bartlett, Rees and Wackernagel.

Our movement is much like a monarchy. You do not displace those in the pantheon or their staid commentaries, you can only out-live them. They will be celebrated by the guardians of orthodoxy in the organization's hierarchy until they pass. Challenge them and you and your ideas will be banished to the margins. You must play the game and waste precious time earning brownie points with mediocre minds who achieve job security by spouting the party line for organizations dedicated to not solving the problems that sustain donations. They are our priesthood.

In other words, there is a class of people in our movement I call "schmoozers", who make a lifestyle of resting their comfortable arses in DC or jet-setting around the continent (or the world) attending conferences, and come to form a sub-culture of insiders who use their political power within the movement to act as arbiters and filters of incoming ideas. Good luck to you if you have something novel or important to say but haven't run their social gauntlet or been personally vetted by them. And how do you get vetted? By going to conferences and glad-handing them. If you lack the financial means to go to conferences, your ideas are essentially quarantined. It's a good thing that somebody gave Einstein the dough to travel or we would still be clinging to Newtonian physics--the EFA of the scientific establishment until the 1920s.

I have a suspicion that many of the ascendant ideas in science---or any field---owe as much of their success to politics and funding as to anything else. That surely can't be regarded as an earth-shattering revelation, but it think it has never been more true than it is now. Max Planck's adage should therefore be amended to read that "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it --- and by being adequately funded and promoted by people who incarnate Dale Carnegie's formula for success."

Money rules, and the ideas of paupers languish. If you sense some bitterness in this observation, your sense is correct.

Tim

PS Something about American culture puzzles me. In American professional sports, for example, if a team consistently posts a losing record, you can expect that the coach or manager will be fired. Good intentions, strong efforts, and bad luck are inadequate excuses. Only results count. It's a tough business. Yet there are people running organizations like Numbers USA, Fair, or the World Watch Institute who have remained in the saddle drawing handsome salaries for DECADES while the population of the United States and the world has grown leaps and bounds unchecked. Shouldn't their careers and their organizations carry an expiry date? Shouldn't they be held accountable for futility? Either their message is wrong or their ability to convey that message is faulty. It would be bad enough if failure was their only sin. But it is worse than that. They have all actively attempted to push alternative ideas and approaches off the stage in order to maintain their monopoly of the cause, managing the problem rather than addressing its root cause in order to milk a limited donor basee. They are living validation of Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy.

Hugo Chavez:A true and passionate Latin American leader.

Latin America was always material for big movies and great stories of literature of South America. It's always been the cradle for big revolutionary leaders such as Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Salvadore Allende, Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra. Always unsuccessful but their work rarely finishes because The United States of America always interferes. Chavez was inspired by all these leaders. (11 March, 2013 Two Venezuelan diplomats were deported from USA).

Early influences

Hugo Chavez was born in 28th July, 1954 in a small town forgotten and remote. This town had no electricity. His great grandfather was a Commander in the army, Pedro Peres Delgado.

He considered himself blessed as this was Peru's Independence Day, and he felt something of his importance as a child. He was excited to visit a relative in the next town, and was amazed by their generator. His childhood was poor, and his mother and father were primary teachers.

In the family book collection he found a book of the Liberators, and he began to be a reader of the Latin American leaders like Simon Bolivar. He read about Neruda, a celebrity Chilean writer. All the books he remembered in his head, and the American writer and Nobel Prize winner Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) was an American poet, journalist, and essayist. The work for which he is best known is "Leaves of Grass," which has been controversial and banned. He has been called the greatest American poet of his time.

The story starts in Venezuela was the when Juan Vicente Gomez was a dictator for 36 years, but he influenced Chavez because his image was distorted by the influence of the rich people, and USA. Chavez admired him as a great man, even though he never met him. He liked to listen to the old farmers and the old people.

Chavez sold sweets and fruit in the street to help the family budget. He was incensed by the poverty of the people.

The Church was a big influence, and he was a popular alter boy. He played with the bells. Everyone recognised his cheeky calling of the bells. His mother influenced too by his her morality. He wanted to be a baseball champion, but he saw many injustices and the abuse of the working class people.

He was a cadet in the military army to be a baseball player, and he was sent to study in Peru in 1974. He was young and enthusiastic and learnt to play soccer. He met the President of Peru, Juan Velasco Alvarado. The social change gave opportunity for the workers in Peru, but America didn't like this progress and he died mysteriously! (A military secret).

Patriotic fervor

He then saw the corruption of “democracy” and American corporations and the minority of white people and discrimination and lack of equal opportunity. He wanted to secretly get people to love Venezuela through the through the Bolivar Alliance for the Americas.

He had a strong admiration for Fidel Castro and for Che Guevarra. The more important thing that he was a commander in the army and had a comfortable life and elite status. He could have been selfish and closed the eyes. He studied a lot, and he was intelligent, astute, cunning, athletic and young. He was passionate for the love of his country.

When Allende of Chile died, he asked if he was elected then why did the army kill him?

Carlos Andrez Perez was a corrupt president of Venezuela and the revolution to remove him failed. Chavez was two years in prison, along with his friends and his political party. CARACAZO was the name of the day of rebellion. He served two years (out of 10 year sentence) because the next president released him.

Campaign against corruption

All the mining companies and corporations brought their own workers and this make him so angry. Everyone knows the skills of the American government. If you a re good leader in South America, they distort your name and defame the good quality thinking of the leaders. America always looks for leaders that cave into them and allow the corruption to enter. They sell the tools and arms to the terrorists, and Chavez discovered this. He had a vision of the dream of Bolivar, and he was NOT a good manager of money. That was his defect. His strength was intrinsic, and his passion. He discovered many traitors in his own group,his political party! Chavez was not the perfect leader. He worked from 7am to 1 am in the morning, and he used to drink 30 cups of coffee per day – addicted. He suffered a lot of stress. He travelled a lot.

He provided free hospitals for the poor people, and health care cover, free schools, free food for the kids, public housing for the poor, and he had many envious enemies. He taught ethics and morals. He taught compulsory patriotism and values that the country never had before. People were used to seeing corruption. He taught by good example. He nationalised the petrol. Venezuela has 300 years of petrol. This is not for sale. He knew the petrol would not last.

He was hated by foreign investors and the very rich exploitative people who used to pay low wages, not enough to survive. This was part of the revolution, looking for social justice. He wanted to wake up and remind the people of the vision of Simon Bolivar. The universities wanted to air-brush the memory of Simon Bolivar, and his vision of a unified South America – the Gran Colombia (the original name of South America). America Vespucio was writer who was a drafted of maps and put the name “America”.

Chavez couldn't control the mafia, the terrorists, the drug and weapon traffickers. There was so many stresses trying to control the borders, the schools and the task of unifying South America. He taught not to steal, but the generational fault was to continue to be criminals with the “DNA” of the conquistadors! The generational wrongs was in the blood. They enjoyed the crimes. He was a Christian and tried to change the people.

Chavez's legacy

The future generations will remember him. There was a 7 day procession after he died. America didn't let him finish what he started.

In Australia the principle is of open house for foreigners. In Venezuela the nationality is not for sale. Anyone can be “Australian”, but in Venezuela the jobs are for their own people.

He had the skill of keeping secret the country's reserves of petrol. He was Latin America, and passionate.

He had a great gift of speech. He said things as they were. Diplomacy was not his skill, and he didn't follow protocol. He was not scared to speak the truth. He would swear in front of the cameras to protect the poor people.

Chavez was a friend of Gadaffi and he knew America wanted to take the petrol of Venezuela. He gave an award to Gadaffi for the petrol business, and he protected Palestine.

Many people thought he was crazy and eccentric. If you are opposite America they make a scandal for you. He was not a good manager and there was corruption in his own party. However, he was NOT a dictator but was elected 4 times -with big margins. He unified all Latin America and created a fraternity. He gave money to Bolivia and Peru and Haiti for petrol and medicine and professional assistance. His vision was for all South America to be one Bolivariano country. American wanted them separate and dis empowered. The United States accused him of theft, but it's not true.

Writer Mario Vagas Llosa wrote an article about the death of the Chavez, and he criticized his poor manager. He was a big “Caudillo” (leader) but poor financial manager. Garcia Marquez wrote an article “Sun of your bravery” regarding Chavez -the “Two Chavez” in one. He wasn't as despotic as claimed by The United States of America. He was a typical happy “Creole” (Criollo).

Why did millions of people go to the funeral? If he wasn't a good leader, why would world leaders to to the funeral? President Obama didn't go. USA ("the Empire") wants elections now, but it is not their country!

Now he's dead, there's a plan to mummify his body and be on public display, like a freak show! He created a museum for the revolution, but would not expect to be an exhibit.

Photo: Three countries united, part of the Cono ( Cradle) Sur:

Three socialist leaders of the ConoSur (South Corner): Presidente Lula e os presidentes da Brazil, the late Néstor Kirchner, e da Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, durante reunião tripartite .

The report by past Federal Treasurer Peter Costello of his supposedly independent investigation into Queensland State finances on behalf of the Queensland Government Commission of Audit recommended the full privatisation of Queensland Government's electricity generators. Only last year, the Queensland public, outraged at the asset fire sale embarked upon by former Premier Anna Bligh without any electoral mandate whatsoever from the 2009 state elections, savagely punished Labor at the ballot box leaving only 7 sitting Labor members in a house of 89.

That, less than a year after, the new Government of Campbell Newman has contrived an excuse to continue with policies, that have been so resoundingly repudiated by Queenslanders, provoked outrage. An example of the outrage felt is a new opinion poll taken by news.com, which shows that Qld privatisation [is] opposed by 85%: poll.

Professor John Quiggin of the University of Queensland responded on 6 March with a post on his web site. That post included a link to a pdf report which, by examining the disastrous history of privatisation across Australia in recent decades, comprehensively demolishes the case for any privatisation.

In fact, much of the ground covered by Professor Quiggin has also been covered by candobetter.net and, before that, the site citizensagainstsellingtelstra.net. I realised that Professor Quiggin's pdf document could be made so much more useful if it were reformatted from pdf into html so that it could be directly linked to other material on the Internet which is also against privatisation, particularly on candobetter.net. This document is the result of that work.

Privatisation of Queensland Electricity Assets: A Preliminary
Evaluation

Moreover, by endorsing the 'Facts and Myths' propaganda pamphlet and website, Treasury has completely destroyed its credibility on this issue. Not a single serious economist in Australia could be found to publicly endorse the spurious claims made by 'Facts and Myths'. The same will be true of whatever Treasury analysis is produced to support future asset sales.

The Commission of Audit Interim Report

Exactly the same points are applicable to the Commission of Audit. The appointment of a Commission of Audit is a routine piece of political theatre, almost invariably adopted by newly elected conservative governments. Invariably, such Commissions report massive fiscal mismanagement by the outgoing Labor government and recommend policies in line with the preferences of the government that appointed them.

The Queensland Commission of Audit is a particularly transparent example. Its chair, former Treasurer Peter Costello, appointed his own Commission of Audit which was used to justify the Howard government's abandonment of 'non-core' election promises. In office, Costello used asset sales to produce spurious improvements in the government's balance sheet.

Although the Howard-Costello government presented itself as a model of fiscal rectitude, independent evaluations have been far less charitable. An International Monetary Fund assessment (Mauro et al 2013) described the Howard government, in its later terms as fiscally 'profligate'.

The conclusions of the Commission of Audit were entirely predictable. Equally predictable was the Commission's, and the Newman governments, refusal to engage with criticism. Following the pattern set by Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser, independent analyses of the Commission's interim report were dismissed wit.h contemptuous quips and ad hominem attacks.

The Commission of Audit Final Report

The recommendations of the Costello Commission have been released, but the report itself remains secret. The only plausible interpretation are

(i) the analysis presented in the report is so weak that its release would undermine the political case for the policies being recommended; or

(ii) the analysis is inconsistent with claims made by the Newman government about tax and expenditure policy

Summary

The sale of Queensland electricity assets has been put forward as a way to reduce electricity prices and improve the state's financial position. In reality, it will achieve neither of these goals.

Footnotes

#fn1" id="fn1">1 (#txt1">text) From the point of view of the corporate interests and their government glove puppets like Peter Beattie, Anna Bligh, Jeff Kennett, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard, privatisation has often not been politically disastrous and rarely disastrous in personal or financial sense. Whilst some may have eventually paid a political price by having lost office, they achieved what they had set out to do and can expect to be richly rewarded in their post-political lives by the corporate sector for their services.

#fn2" id="fn2">2 (#txt2">text) That Kennett was re-elected even once is symptomatic of the political bankruptcy of other opposition forces in Victoria, including the Victorian Trades Hall Council, which called off general strikes against Kennett even though the strikes enjoyed strong popular support. Once people cease being engaged politically, such as when they take industrial action and march in the streets, their minds become easier for the mainstream media to mould. In any case, given the records of 'Labor' governments before and since Kennett's time, which were, at best, mediocre, it is little wonder that many Victorians could not bring themselves to vote Labor.

#fn2" id="fn12">2 (#txt2">text) That Kennett was re-elected even once is symptomatic of the political bankruptcy of other opposition foreces in Victoria, including the Victorian Trades Hall Council, which called off general strikes against Kennett even though the strikes enjoyed popular support.

#fn3" id="fn3">3 (#txt3">text) Peter Beattie has recently expressed remorse for his role in initiating privatisation in Queensland. He correctly acknowledged that the fire sale of publicly owned assets by his successor Anna Bligh, with no electoral mandate, was what caused the devastating defeat of the Labor Party in Queensland last year. (See Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie says he retired too early and feels responsible for Labor's poor poll showing in the Courier Mail of 8 March 2012. Apparently Peter Beattie's regrets do not extend to include: his undermining of Labor's Federal election chances in 2007 with forced local government amalgamations, his negotiations with Prime Minister John Howard over the implementation of the "never ever" GST after John Howard's rorted election victory of 1998, which sabotaged a popular campaign against the GST, full privatisation of half privatised Suncorp (formerly the State Government Insurance Office) in 1998 in spite of promising to retains government ownership in the election campaign of the same year, privatisation of the Golden Casket lottery, etc..

This is the text of the introductory speech by Susan Dirgham to what turned out to be an uplifting evening on the politics of war in Syria, as interpreted by members of AMRIS (Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria). The speakers formed a panel of two young women and one man, all with different connections to Syria and different perspectives. The level of political sophistication was very high, impressive, and stimulating. For those of you who were not able to attend the Unitarian Church on Wednesday 6 March, I filmed the event in four films. The films are embedded in this article and available at http://youtu.be/HifmWKE0cg4; http://youtu.be/exoNr8r4UEU; http://youtu.be/BpWjdzlOheg and http://youtu.be/obw4M40CeDM

AMRIS (Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria).
Susan Dirgham: On behalf of AMRIS [Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria] I’d like to thank the Unitarian Church, particularly the Social Justice Committee for hosting this evening.

What unites all the speakers you will hear tonight is a love for the people and secular societies of Syria and/or Lebanon.

That word ‘love’ isn’t sniggered at in Syria, as it might be in Australia. People use it frequently and it has meaning.

I don’t want to idealize Syrian society and the people, but in my mind, there is something in the air in Syria, or there was in the Syria I knew when I lived there and visited. It is very human, and very precious, and genuine.

The other main speakers at the forum were Edward, Nina and Leyla, pictured below. Each of his/her pictures is linked to the embedded video of his/her talk.

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I used to believe I could take something of value from our modern affluent world to Syria. Like a 21st Century missionary.

I took diaries with beautiful photos of Australian landscapes and I took koalas.

But I found so much in Damascus and other parts of Syria that was precious and that couldn’t be packed in a bag. It was both a physical and metaphysical expression of the history of humanity, something grand and sweeping, and tragic and triumphant, and still very much present - being lived by the people in Syria who have Arab, Turk, French, British, Palestinian, Russian, Roman, Greek, Circassian, Armenian, Kurd etc etc in their blood.

In the classrooms of the British Council, I felt that my Syrian students had a common purpose in bringing their society together, in modernizing it and uniting the disparate peoples, despite the enormous challenges and the threats from outside. It was hard work that the people of Syria were committed to, the women as much as the men.

In Syria, I was very conscious of the plight of the Palestinian people and of the war in Iraq. On television, we saw images of US soldiers walking the streets of Baghdad looking as alien there and as unwelcome as say Saudi Arabian soldiers would if they were striding the streets of Australia with AK47s.

But Syria was on the list of countries the neo-cons in the US planned to topple. Now the US and its allies are waging a modern day Cowboy and Indian fight in Syria, a 21st century digital crusade against Syria, with support from Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel and Australia.

So it is a love for Syria and Lebanon which unites the speakers tonight. And it is Mother Agnes Mariam who has brought us together. Mother Agnes, as described by Angela Shanahan in The Australian (6 Oct 2011) was the mother superior of a 1500-year-old monastery in Syria.

For me, she is a modern day hero in a time when we imagine we don’t need heroes because our suburban life-style and city scape look so permanent. But trust me, we need heroes. The grand architecture and monuments or Syria appeared permanent to me; and the free and easy lifestyle which allowed young women to go out alone at night in Damascus did, too.

We need heroes. And we need to search hard for the truth, and demand that people in our media and the government do the same.

As in the 1930s, there are signs that a most terrible genocide could be committed in Syria and the region. It has to be prevented.

Questions and discussion in the latter half of the forum

"This submission does not follow the suggested response questions but sets out to make comment upon what we see as the necessary strategic planning issues for the future of Melbourne... In our previous submissions on planning, BRAG has pushed for a federal population policy that limits immigration to more sustainable levels like we used to have in the 80’s and 90’s of around the 70,000 to 80,000 p.a. mark and we have not moved away from that stance. The first step in any planning is to have a population policy that is sustainable otherwise planning policy will continue to fail....we believe that the general planning powers must be with local councils who better understand their municipalities and those who live in them. Centralization leads to power and power leads to corruption and this is one of the issues we are now facing with developer donations being used to corrupt decision-making." You may not agree with everything, but it's a pretty impressive democracy submission.

Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Strategy Submission from the Boroondara Residents’ Action Group (BRAG)

The Boroondara Residents’ Action Group has a current membership of over 500, mainly residents and small business operators in Boroondara. BRAG also receives strong support from the general residents of Boroondara.

BRAG is registered under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 N0 A0054624J
P. O. Box 1034 Camberwell Vic. 3124 www.brag.asn.au [email protected]

Introduction

The Boroondara Residents’ Action Group has been lobbying for a new planning strategy to replace Melbourne 2030 and Melbourne@5million since before the last state election but the discussion paper is a big disappointment because it provides little in setting a strategic direction or evaluated options.

Therefore this submission does not follow the suggested response questions but sets out to make comment upon what we see as the necessary strategic planning issues for the future of Melbourne. Any planning for the future must be accepted by key interest groups but most importantly by the residents and general citizens of Melbourne. Otherwise it will fail, just as M2030 did, because the residents and general public were not really consulted so they had no ownership of M2030 or M@5Million.

The Ministerial Advisory Committee has indicated that we must move away from regulation as the primary means of achieving outcomes, which is very concerning, as that would leave planning and construction in the hands of developers who would act in their own interests and not in the interests of the end users, the residents of Melbourne.

The Committee has listed some principles including a Polycentric city linked to regional cities which could be developed further to provide a more realistic planning direction but the Committee has accepted that Melbourne’s population will continue to grow without any indication that it is the escalating growth that is part of the problems we are now facing, overloaded infrastructure, unacceptable housing densification, water and power issues, public transport issues, traffic issues, etc.

In our previous submissions on planning, BRAG has pushed for a federal population policy that limits immigration to more sustainable levels like we used to have in the 80’s and 90’s of around the 70,000 to 80,000 p.a. mark and we have not moved away from that stance. The first step in any planning is to have a population policy that is sustainable otherwise planning policy will continue to fail.

We recommend that the principles set out in *Kelvin Thomson’s 14 point plan are seriously considered and we understand that this is really a federal issue but unless the state governments start a push to review the current policies nothing will change.
( *Kelvin Thomson is the Federal Member for Wills and a copy of his 14 point plan is attached)

Recommendations For a Planning Policy for Melbourne

One of the key issues that residents are concerned with is protection

- for Melbourne’s leafy green suburbs and the increasing amount of opportunistic development that is changing the character of their tree-lined streets. Therefore any plan must contain mandatory protection of neighbourhood character and mandatory height controls set by the local councils after consultation with their local residents.

- Any proposed new suburb in future must first have the necessary infrastructure before any housing is built including roads, drainage, sewerage, water and power, shopping centre, social amenities and transport links.

- A detailed plan to upgrade existing public transport to meet immediate and future needs in Melbourne including a rail link to the eastern suburbs and to existing and any new airports

- A detailed plan to capture and recycle suburban rainwater and build local water storage and distribution capabilities.

- Plan for reducing our dependency upon building houses to keep the economy going and introduction of hi-tech industries and intellectual products – bring back the “clever country concept”.

- Decentralization should be one of the main objectives of any planning policy. In Victoria there are opportunities to create regional cities with one initially in the east of the state where there are resources for power and water and one in the west where there are several suitable sites such as Hamilton or Warrnambool.

- We believe there should also be a plan to develop in the future another major city in Victoria of about 1 million ( or more) and, because Portland has the potential to develop a natural harbour, it should be investigated now as a possible site.

Note : regionalization, with good planning by establishing smaller cities using cheaper land tax and other exemptions, can be surprisingly inexpensive and would strike at the cause of our current urban problems. First build the infrastructure then the people will follow. Fast trains linking to Melbourne will be essential.

- There have been many suggestions, mainly from those in the planning profession, to centralize planning. However we believe that the general planning powers must be with local councils who better understand their municipalities and those who live in them. Centralization leads to power and power leads to corruption and this is one of the issues we are now facing with developer donations being used to corrupt decision-making.

- It will be essential that VCAT be returned to be an appeal body on planning issues ( partly because tribunal members are generally planners or architects who’s professions rely upon the development industry for their income and their decisions continually go against councils and resident objectors). VCAT should only be able to adjudicate on whether or not council has made its decision properly based on its own and government regulations and procedures, VCAT should not be able to act as an “Authorized Authority”. This would return some sanity to issuing planning permits.

- Currently planning permits can be rolled over for a further period and are often traded on sale of the property, which places a value on the permit and makes the property more easily tradeable. Very often large profits are made by such trading. This is undesirable and should be stopped.

Finally

Currently planning has been ad hoc and continually changing depending upon the government of the day. This will be the sixth strategic plan for Melbourne in the last 25 years plus many minor planning changes which does nothing for certainty. (That means there are real changes about very four years).

Over this period public consultation has been token and inadequate resulting in planning decisions being heavily criticized by the public. We note that members of the Ministerial Advisory Committee consulted with many who were listed at the back of the discussion paper “Melbourne, Let’s talk about the future” but not one resident or resident group. This is damning but not surprising because that is how it has always been.

It looks to us that nothing has changed. The professionals seem to be saying “we know best” but do they? We don’t think so for in all that time they still haven’t got it right.

Jack Roach
President Boroondara Residents’ Action Group.

In Summary.
Any planning policy must contain pointers to the following :-

- A plan made in concert with the federal government for developing a sensible population policy.
(To continue to support population growth in our cities makes no sense when we don’t have enough water, power, public transport or adequate health systems, police, etc to cope with the current population numbers).

- A similar plan made in concert with the federal government for a workable policy on climate change & environmental issues in conjunction with the population policy
- Ensure honest and genuine community consultation processes in developing a new metro strategy. ( Didn’t happen for M2030 or M@5Million).

As well as developing a new planning blueprint for Melbourne it is essential for consultation on a new planning blueprint for coastal areas and consultation on a new planning blueprint for country areas

- Regionalization policy which should include broadband rollout for home office connection and improved train and fast train services.
- A plan for a future airport to service the eastern growth corridor and the Mornington Peninsular.
- Remove dependency upon development as the only way to keep the economy going.(Strengthen manufacturing base toward hi tech. industries and intellectual products. Bring back the “Clever Country” concept).
- Scrap Melbourne 2030. and Melbourne@5million.
- Positively protect heritage.
- Protect suburban residential from opportunistic infill development Return planning power to Councils. (Centralized planning V each council having its own say must be in balance). Melbourne is like a giant tapestry with each area having its own character with different requirements and different demographics. Ensure that the Minister for Planning’s plan for new residential zones is enacted to protect the residential suburbs from opportunistic development through his Neighbourhood Character policies.

- Retain third party rights - to be notified, object & appeal.
- Councils to set and control zones in their own municipality.
- Councils to set height controls.
- Councils to identify where any development should occur
- Review Urban Growth Boundaries to ensure they are permanent
- Convert VCAT to an appeal body only.
- Restrict VCAT from acting as a planning authority.
- Limit areas for high-rise development.
- Provide positive plan for protecting public land and open space.
- Provide guidelines for better designed student accommodation complexes that blend with existing residential areas & amenity rather than the current future ghettos that overpower the local area especially in university precincts.

Other suggestions that are not directly related but must be included in policy:

- A Corruption Commission that has the real power to work properly.
- No Political donations (for access and/or favours – especially from developers).
- The role of paid lobbyists must be removed.

Kelvin Thomson’s 14 point plan.
Condensed from a recent speech made to the Malvern East Group.

A lot of people have agreed with me that a population of 36 million is not a good thing for Australia - opinion polls show 2 out of 3 think it is a bad idea. People don’t want it. But a lot of people think it is inevitable, that there is nothing we can do about it. This is simply not true. As I said earlier, the population number we end up with depends on our net overseas migration numbers.

So to show there is an alternative, in November 2009 I released a plan for population reform, a plan to stabilise Australia’s population :

- Stabilise Australia’s population at 26 million by cutting the net overseas migration program to 70,000 p.a.
- Cut the skilled migration program to 25,000 p.a.
- Hold the family reunion program at 50,000 p.a.
- Increase the refugee program from 13,500 to 20,000 per annum.
- Alter the refugee criteria to include provision for genuine climate refugees.
- The revised number of annual permanent arrivals from these programs would be 95,000 – 50,000 family reunion plus 25,000 skilled plus 20,000refugees. Two more factors need to be considered, the number departing permanently from Australia and the number of people arriving permanently from New Zealand. To reach a net overseas annual migration target of 70,000, the number of automatic places available for New Zealanders needs to be restricted to the number of departures from Australia over and above 25,000.
- Reduce temporary migration to Australia by restricting sub class 457 temporary entry visas to medical and health related and professional engineering occupations.
- Require overseas students to return to their country of origin and complete a 2 year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence.
- Abolish the baby bonus.
- Restrict large family supplement and Family tax benefit A for third and subsequent children to those presently receiving them.
- Dedicate the savings from the baby bonus and reduced expenditure on family payments fro 3rd and subsequent children towards increased investment in domestic skills and training through universities and TAFE
- the final 3 points go to increasing aid to the U.N. and using aid budget to educating girls for better family planning and putting overpopulation on the agenda for International Climate Change talks.

BOOK LAUNCH & DISCUSSION, Balwyn Library 2pm: Sustainable Population Australia, Victorian and Tasmanian branch

At this meeting we are proud to launch an exciting new book, published in December 2012, Demography, territory and law: rules of animal and human populations by population sociologist and SPA member, Sheila Newman.

How do you think overpopulation happens and does it have to happen? Ms. Newman will present an overview of established population theories, then new ideas from her book. This will be followed by general discussion. Some of the ideas may be familiar to you, some will not, but certainly you will not have seen them considered together as they are in Ms. Newman’s book.

When - Saturday March 23rd 2013 at 2.00 p.m.

Where - Balwyn Library Meeting Room 336 Whitehorse Rd. Balwyn VIC 3103

Melway Map – 46E8 Tram No. 109

Contact Jill Quirk 0409742927 vic[AT]population.org.au

(Copies of the book will be on sale at the meeting after the talk for those interested. You can also purchase a print copy here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/QueenieAlexander2000 or ebook (kindle) here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B00ALE8YSA/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link)

Quantitative Easing for the People: Default on the Public Debt, Nationalize the Banks, and a Dividend for Citizens

It turns out comedian Beppe Grillo does have a plan for Italy... and though some is silly, there's lots to like.

by Ellen Brown, 7 March 2013, republished from Common Dreams.

Comedian Beppe Grillo was surprised himself when his Five Star Movement got 8.7 million votes in the Italian general election of February 24-25th. His movement is now the biggest single party in the chamber of deputies, says The Guardian, which makes him "a kingmaker in a hung parliament."

Grillo's is the party of "no." In a candidacy based on satire, he organized an annual "V Day Celebration," the "V" standing for vaffanculo ("f--k off"). He rejects the status quo--all the existing parties and their monopoly control of politics, jobs, and financing--and seeks a referendum on all international treaties, including NATO membership, free trade agreements and the Euro.

"If we get into parliament," says Grillo, "we would bring the old system down, not because we would enjoy doing so but because the system is rotten." Critics fear, and supporters hope, that if his party succeeds, it could break the Euro system.

But being against everything, says Mike Whitney in Counterpunch, is not a platform:

To govern, one needs ideas and a strategy for implementing those ideas. Grillo's team has neither. They are defined more in terms of the things they are against than things they are for. It's fine to want to "throw the bums out", but that won't put people back to work or boost growth or end the slump. Without a coherent plan to govern, M5S could end up in the political trash heap, along with their right-wing predecessors, the Tea Party.

Steve Colatrella, who lives in Italy and also has an article in Counterpunch on the Grillo phenomenon, has a different take on the surprise win. He says Grillo does have a platform of positive proposals. Besides rejecting all the existing parties and treaties, Grillo's program includes the following:

• unilateral default on the public debt;
• nationalization of the banks; and
• a guaranteed "citizenship" income of 1000 euros a month.

It is a platform that could actually work. Austerity has been tested for a decade in the Eurozone and has failed, while the proposals in Grillo's plan have been tested in other countries and have succeeded.

Default: Lessons from Iceland and South America

Default on the public debt has been pulled off quite successfully in Iceland, Argentina, Ecuador, and Russia, among other countries. Whitney cites a clip from Grillo's blog suggesting that this is also the way out for Italy:

The public debt has not been growing in recent years because of too much expenditure . . . Between 1980 and 2011, spending was lower than the tax revenue by 484 billion (thus we have been really virtuous) but the interest payments (on the debt of 2,141 billion) that we had to pay in that period have made us poor. In the last 20 years, GDP has been growing slowly, while the debt has exploded.

. . . [S]peculators . . . are contributing to price falls so as to bring about higher interest rates. It's the usurer's technique. Thus the debt becomes an opportunity to maximize earnings in the market at the expense of the nation. . . . If financial powerbrokers use speculation to increase their earnings and force governments to pay the highest possible interest rates, the result is recession for the State that's in debt as well as their loss of sovereignty.

. . . There are alternatives. These are being put into effect by some countries in South America and by Iceland. . . . The risk is that we are going to reach default in any case with the devaluation of the debt, and the Nation impoverished and on its knees. [Beppe Grillo blog]

Bank Nationalization: China Shows What Can Be Done

Grillo's second proposal, nationalizing the banks, has also been tested and proven elsewhere, most notably in China. In an April 2012 article in The American Conservative titled "China's Rise, America's Fall," Ron Unz observes:

During the three decades to 2010, China achieved perhaps the most rapid sustained rate of economic development in the history of the human species, with its real economy growing almost 40-fold between 1978 and 2010. In 1978, America's economy was 15 times larger, but according to most international estimates, China is now set to surpass America's total economic output within just another few years.

According to Eamonn Fingleton in In The Jaws of the Dragon (2009), the fountain that feeds this tide is a strong public banking sector:

Capitalism's triumph in China has been proclaimed in countless books in recent years. . . . But . . . the higher reaches of its economy remain comprehensively controlled in a way that is the antithesis of everything we associate with Western capitalism. The key to this control is the Chinese banking system . . . [which is] not only state-owned but, as in other East Asian miracle economies, functions overtly as a major tool of the central government's industrial policy.

Guaranteed Basic Income--Not Just Welfare

Grillo's third proposal, a guaranteed basic income, is not just an off-the-wall, utopian idea either. A national dividend has been urged by the "Social Credit" school of monetary reform for nearly a century, and the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network has held a dozen annual conferences. They feel that a guaranteed basic income is the key to keeping modern, highly productive economies humming.

In Europe, the proposal is being pursued not just by Grillo's southern European party but by the sober Swiss of the north. An initiative to establish a new federal law for an unconditional basic income was formally introduced in Switzerland in April 2012. The idea consists of giving to all citizens a monthly income that is neither means-tested nor work-related. Under the Swiss referendum system of direct democracy, if the initiative gathers more than 100,000 signatures before October 2013, the Federal Assembly is required to look into it. Colatrella does not say where Grillo plans to get the money for Italy's guaranteed basic income, but in Social Credit theory, it would simply be issued outright by the government; and Grillo, who has an accounting background, evidently agrees with that approach to funding. He said in a presentation available on YouTube:

A basic income guarantee paid for with central bank credit would not be "welfare" but would eliminate the need for welfare. It would be social security for all, replacing social security payments, unemployment insurance, and welfare taxes.

The Bank of Italy a private join-stock company, ownership comprises 10 insurance companies, 10 foundations, and 10 banks, that are all joint-stock companies . . . They issue the money out of thin air and lend it to us. It's the State who is supposed to issue it. We need money to work. The State should say: "There's scarcity of money? I'll issue some and put it into circulation. Money is plentiful? I'll withdraw and burn some of it." . . . Money is needed to keep prices stable and to let us work.

The Key to a Thriving Economy

Major C.H. Douglas, the thought leader of the Social Credit movement, argued that the economy routinely produces more goods and services than consumers have the money to purchase, because workers collectively do not get paid enough to cover the cost of the things they make. This is true because of external costs such as interest paid to banks, and because some portion of the national income is stashed in savings accounts, investment accounts, and under mattresses rather than spent on the GDP.

To fill what Social Crediters call "the gap," so that "demand" rises to meet "supply," additional money needs to be gotten into the circulating money supply. Douglas recommended doing it with a national dividend for everyone, an entitlement by "grace" rather than "works," something that was necessary just to raise purchasing power enough to cover the products on the market.

In the 1930s and 1940s, critics of Social Credit called it "funny money" and said it would merely inflate the money supply. The critics prevailed, and the Social Credit solution has not had much chance to be tested. But the possibilities were demonstrated in New Zealand during the Great Depression, when a state housing project was funded with credit issued by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the nationalized central bank. According to New Zealand commentator Kerry Bolton, this one measure was sufficient to resolve 75% of unemployment in the midst of the Great Depression.

Bolton notes that this was achieved without causing inflation. When new money is used to create new goods and services, supply rises along with demand and prices remain stable; but the "demand" has to come first. No business owner will invest in more capacity or production without first seeing a demand. No demand, no new jobs and no economic expansion.

The Need to Restore Economic Sovereignty

The money for a guaranteed basic income could be created by a nationalized central bank in the same way that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand did it, and that central bank "quantitative easing" (QE) is created out of nothing on a computer screen today. The problem with today's QE is that it has not gotten money into the pockets of consumers. The money has gotten--and can get--no further than the reserve accounts of banks, as explained here and here. A dividend paid directly to consumers would be "quantitative easing" for the people.

A basic income guarantee paid for with central bank credit would not be "welfare" but would eliminate the need for welfare. It would be social security for all, replacing social security payments, unemployment insurance, and welfare taxes. It could also replace much of the consumer debt that is choking the private economy, growing exponentially at usurious compound interest rates.

As Grillo points out, it is not the cost of government but the cost of money itself that has bankrupted Italy. If the country wishes to free itself from the shackles of debt and restore the prosperity it once had, it will need to take back its monetary sovereignty and issue its own money, either directly or through its own nationalized central bank. If Grillo's party comes to power and follows through with his platform, those shackles on the Italian economy might actually be released.

Ellen Brown

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. She is president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org, and has websites at http://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com.

“Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.” (Jill Quirk, President, SPAVicTas)

“The Urban Development Institute of Australia congress being held in Melbourne this week is a blatant exercise in talking up Melbourne’s and indeed Australia’s population for the benefit of developers rather than for the current residents,” says Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch).

“In a return to the past (the year 2010) ex PM Kevin “Big Australia” Rudd, will be the keynote speaker on Thursday March 7th. His topic will be “Population growth for a stronger economy”. He would do better to find out how Melbourne residents actually feel about more population growth. Melbourne is presently groaning under the planning and environmental implications of being capital of the state with the highest numerical population increase of any in Australia, with no relief in sight.”

Miss Quirk said, “Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.”

President Quirk added, “Population growth is placing strong pressures on our environment and on planning. Economically it is causing reduced housing affordability and a huge need for upgrading, replacing and building infrastructure and services. It is clear that Victoria is already not keeping up with these increasing needs in the vital areas of schools, hospitals and fire and ambulance services.

Endless and high population growth is not inevitable and with the reality of an energy and resource constrained future, responsible leaders would be planning for a stable population and a steady state economy as soon as practicable. SPA hopes these issues will be raised effectively but the program and industry bias of the conference gives little hope of this.”

Vale Hugo Chavez died Tuesday, March 7, 2013, aged 58. Inside there is a stirring song on video about Chavez, his life and work.

Life as a Wildlife carer has given me a rare insight into the world of the beautiful Kangaroo. I have witnessed first hand the threats they continually face and will continue to face in a world so entrenched with a greed mentality. As urban sprawl spreads like an out of control Cancer, the demise of the Kangaroo, I believe, is imminent. They won’t make a noise, they won’t fight back, the Kangaroo will just disappear. History will, unfortunately, repeat itself, Australia is an expert at achieving Wildlife extinctions.

This story is dedicated to the 453 Belconnen Kangaroos Killed by the A.C.T. Government in a Kangaroo Management Cull, 2009.

Message from a Belconnen Kangaroo

'Reflection In My Eyes'

I’ve lived peacefully here for a while now
But my time is up, we’ve been blamed somehow,
For the neglect and greed of man.

No gratitude for our contribution to
The balance of the land.

I ask you as I lay dying before you,
Look into my innocent eyes and reflect upon the injustice
You have given us, all because of lies.

End.
(by Leisa Moore)

Foreword

The Kangaroo Industry and the Australian Government’s aim is to brainwash the public into believing that if Kangaroo numbers were not managed they would be out of control.

My account of observations and experiences with Kangaroos over the last twenty five years , I believe, proves otherwise. I have come to this conclusion without the need of tracking collars or a film crew, just time, patience, passion and an undying love for Kangaroos.

Discovery

My discovery of animal love and compassion spans from Gooby to Kobei, with a variety of animals along the way. Fifty years of experiences, some incredibly beautiful, others terribly traumatic. My first realisation that animals experienced feelings occurred at the age of three in the backyard while peddling around the cement pathways of the cottage garden on my bike. Gooby was my first cat, a long haired Tabby, I adored him. Gooby’s tail was laying across the path blocking my racing circuit and I can vividly remember questioning myself about what his reaction would be if I casually ran over it. I stopped peddling and seriously contemplated doing the deed but decided, with the help of a piercing stare from my Mum watching me through the kitchen window and a deep affection for Gooby, it was not such a good idea.

I dismounted my bike and carefully picked up Gooby who greeted me with his soft purr and gentle smooch and decided it was time to have an afternoon sleep with my beautiful Cat. It was at that very moment I awakened to the fact that animals have feelings and emotions. I have in the fifty years since that day experienced many beautiful moments which are also etched into my heart and have added to convince me that animals have an incredible capacity to love and care for, not only their own species, but also Humans.

In The Beginning

I have been a Wildlife carer specialising in Kangaroos for almost half my life and have lived with Kangaroos twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for all that time. I came to live in the Adelaide Hills in 1983, an area which is fortunate to still have pockets of bush where beautiful Western Greys are native. Unfortunately, habitat loss and the usual suspects which threaten Kangaroos including barbed wire fencing, increased human population vehicles and dogs, there are going to be Kangaroo casualties. I decided to convert my property into a safe haven for Wildlife and become a carer for injured and orphaned Kangaroos and Joeys.

My new life with Kangaroos began after being invited by my sister to attend an Open Day at an R.S.P.C.A. shelter. As I wandered around checking out the various animal related stalls I came across a group of Wildlife Carers sitting with Joey Kangaroos who were snugly tucked away in hanging hand made pouches. After a brief chat I was encouraged to put my name down to perhaps adopt an orphaned Joey. I guess the organisation involved in rescuing the Joeys felt that I would be a suitable candidate as I had a small property in the Adelaide Hills where Kangaroos could be cared for in relative safety. In South Australia Kangaroos are not allowed to be released into the wild if they have been hand reared.

A year after the Open Day, out of the blue, I received a phone call from the Kangaroo Network asking if I would like to take on an orphaned Joey. The Joey was a Red Kangaroo male from Port Augusta, orphaned after his Mother was shot. I hesitantly said,‘yes’ and named him Androo. Soon after acquiring Androo I received another call and was advised to take on another joey to keep Androo company, another Red Kangaroo Joey, a female this time, I named her Roobei. Roobei was orphaned after her Mother was involved in a collision with a vehicle.

Androo and Roobei came to school with me, I was employed as an Art/Design teacher at an elite boys college in Adelaide. Each morning before my trip to work I would bundle up the Joeys along with the pouches and milk formula required for the day. Joeys at a very young age require special milk replacement formula four times a day, need to be kept calm, they also require warmth and minimal handling.

Only a few carefully screened boys ever got to see the Joeys, boys whom I trusted would not stress them in any way.

When I first started the teaching position at the College I vividly remember overhearing horror animal stories the boys had with each other as they went about their work. There was a great deal of cruelty in their conservations. By the end of my eighteen years teaching there, the attitude of the boys in regards to animal welfare completely changed and each and every day I was pleased to hear something pleasant about animals or being greeted by a boy with a creature of some sort with an injury which I was expected to help in some way.

Androo and Roobei had to remain a secret until I felt it safe to reveal the secret in the Art room to the Principal.That meant hoping that the three hundred and forty Preparatory school boys I asked to keep the secret did just that. Luckily, the Principal accepted the fact that two Joeys would be attending the school for a short time and all was well. I was able to keep the Joeys safe in the dark room and allow them access to the whole Art room at recess and lunch.

A few months passed and the Joeys were coping excellently and becoming more active and interested in their surroundings. It was nearly Christmas and I was looking forward to the Christmas holidays which would be the time to prepare them for their new lifestyle. At the end of the Christmas holidays Androo and Roobei would not be returning to school, they were getting too big and too active, they would remain at home.

I could hardly wait to return home to be with them the first day back after the Christmas break. The anxiety experienced being from being away from the Joeys was too much to bear. My only option was to risk the financial security of being employed full time and apply to go part time so I could spend more time helping Wildlife. I was granted a reduction in contact time giving me the opportunity to became more involved in Wildlife issues and was offered the position of S.A. Representative for the Australian Wildlife Protection Council. I still hold that position and do all I possibly can to help the beautiful Kangaroo.

A New Addition to the Mob

A few years on, half way through one of the Art lessons a student approached me with some alarming information. He informed me that his family had a Joey in a box in the garage at home. After some intense interrogation, the horrible story was revealed. The boy’s Father and Grand Father had been shooting Kangaroos on their country property on the weekend and one of the Does shot had a Joey in her pouch. Apparently the boy pleaded to his father that they take the Joey home to keep. The petrified Joey had been kept in a cardboard box for forty eight hours without fluids. I insisted he contact his Mother and to bring the Joey into me. Permits are required to keep or hand raise Wildlife and these people had no permit and no idea what they were doing.

It was not long before a beautiful little Western Grey arrived in a cardboard box, scared and dehydrated, a female with barely any fur, just a velvet haze over her body, weighing 600 grams, I named her Frooshei. Her pale blue undeveloped pupils stared up at me, I instantly fell in love with her as I did with Androo and Roobei.They were my life and I wanted the best life I could give them. Veterinary help was almost non existant back then so it was really hard getting help in that regard. I had been reading and researching anything I could possibly get my hands on about Kangaroo diseases and medications, diet and Kangaroo husbandry. Frooshei is going to turn fifteen this year and has developed into a fiesty girl who believes it is her job to boss around the younger Joeys she shares her life with.

The Accident

It was on one of my days off a terrible accident occured. I was on my way to get some milk formula when all of a sudden, as I was negotiating a sweeping curve, I saw a vehicle speeding towards me on the wrong side of the road. I remember experiencing about two seconds before the head on collision happened and the last thoughts I had were, “This is going to hurt,” and “I need to survive this for the Kangaroos.” Obviously, I survived the collision. I was, however, severely injured. Apparently, the driver and occupant of the other vehicle forgot to return to the left hand side of the road after road works, they were from somewhere overseas where driving on the right hand side was normal. My injuries were so bad that I was unable to continue working after trying to continue for a year following the accident. I had to resign from my teaching position which had been a part of my life for eighteen years. Since resigning I have completely dedicated my life to Kangaroo welfare, rescuing and caring for Kangaroos and voicing my concerns about the Kangaroo Industry and Government Kangaroo Management Plans and Culls. I have vowed that I will do all I possibly can for Kangaroos and this passion grows daily.

I believe my love for Kangaroos is the sole reason I have pushed through the hell of diagnosed depression due to chronic pain. I now spend every single moment with what I love, a special love only a few people ever experience.... Kangaroo love.

Western Grey Kangaroo

I live in an area which is home to the Western Grey kangaroo. Even though they are not threatened by the Kangaroo Industry the Kangaroos do experience their fair share of challenges in their strive to survive. I have been observing, documenting and photographing a Mob of Kangaroos who live close to my property for approximately 25 years, during which time I have been fortunate to observe some very intimate, numerous funny, and many beautiful moments.The Mob has had to adjust to an influx of humans due to the increased popularity of the ‘Tree Change’. This particular Mob of Kangaroos have not been subjected to ‘Culls’, they have been left to manage themselves and have proven to be expert at it. In monitoring the Kangaroos I have not needed to utilise collars fitted with transmitter devices or employ a film crew, just love and a passion for the Kangaroo was required. The Mob has never exceeded fifteen in number and the area they roam is roughly four square kilometres.

The alpha male, named ‘Hercules’ is transient and prefers to live a solitary existance except when females are in season. Hercules will then visit the females (Does) and stay around them whilst they remain in season to keep other males (Bucks) from mating them. Hercules will not always choose to mate each female, he decides whether or not to do so. The Doe will not usually allow herself to be impregnated by other Bucks so it can be a frantic time with Does racing all over the place in their attempts to escape unrelenting Bucks. This is where Mob dynamics are destroyed by the likes of the Kangaroo Industry and Government controlled Culls. The shooters who shoot for the Kangaroo Industry aim to kill the large Bucks as they get paid per kilogram for the carcass. Also, companies like Adidas insist on the large skins for their ‘Predator’ Football boots. In doing this, the Mob is no longer protected as the Alpha male is taken and the Does are chased down by the Juvenile Bucks resulting in a weakening the gene pool .

Due to predation, one out of three Joeys will not survive past twelve months of age and only one on average will grow to adulthood. Vehicle collisions, dog attacks, fences, human intervention and who knows what horror is inflicted on them when they venture onto private property, all contribute to their demise at a young age or any age in all seriousness. Living life as a wildlfe carer combined with being fortunate to live amongst wild Kangaroos is a gift. I have been priviledged to have experienced an incredible insight into Kangaroo behaviour and dynamics of the Mob and have been welcomed into their world.

Tough Boy Bailei

Words cannot express what I would like to do to the person who invented Barbed Wire. The injuries and deaths that happen to Wildlife because of the wretched stuff is horrific! I can clearly remember being called out to a property where a Joey, I named ‘Bailei’, was seen caught in a fence with it’s hind legs twisted in the Barbed Wire. As I approached the the property I dreaded what I would be confronted with. The person who contacted me was waiting and took me over to where the Joey was hanging. A possible scenario could be, the Mob the Joey belonged to was frightened by a vehicle or a dog. In the Bailei’s endeavour to keep up with his Mob he was unable to clear the fence and his legs got trapped between the two top strands of the Barbed Wire. Bailei must have been hanging and struggling for quite some time as the blood was dry and the damaged area was not fresh, the Joey had nearly ring barked both his ankles. All the fur and flesh had been ripped off in his panic to free himself from the fence, the Tendon and bone on one ankle was exposed. I covered his head and carefully cut him from the wire. Bailei was extremely brave and as soon as he was free he snuggled into my arms and fell asleep. He trusted that I was there to help him and never at any stage of caring for him did Bailei show fear. It took several months and a great deal of medication and bandage dressings to repair the extreme damage, but thankfully, Bailei made a full recovery, albeit with a very unusual pair of legs.

Frank’s Story

In my pursuit to help Kangaroos in my area I have met some people who enjoy the Kangaroos and others who make it their job to make life as difficult as possible for them. I would spend a great deal of time checking fences, patrolling roads near Kangaroo habitat for injured kangaroos and also, just keeping an eye on known kangaroo haters. This is a very dangerous part of my life. I have been abused, blamed, threatened, had my car damaged by a violent individual who was threatening a Kangaroo and countless other frightening incidents, simply because I watch out for Wildlife.

Frank, was an elderly gentleman who often noticed me watching the Kangaroos near his property and would often come out to have a chat when I drove past his house. I got to know Frank quite well, we were both concerned about the dwindling Kangaroo numbers in the area. On this occasion there appeared to be a blind kangaroo on a nearby property. I will never forget the conversation we had on that hot November night as we stood mesmerised watching a Mother and Joey interacting together, they clearly loved each other.

There was silence for a considerable length of time and then Frank asked if he could tell me about an incident he had never told anyone about before. For some reason he felt compelled to tell me about what had occurred one night when he was about thirty years old. Frank was seventy seven years of age. He went on to tell me how he used to go out Rabbit shooting with his mate when on this particular night his mate decided that they would also shoot a couple of Kangaroos for dog meat. Frank was asked to have a shot at a Kangaroo in the distance and he obliged. He took aim, pulled the trigger and realised it was not a clean shot. Frank wandered over to the Kangaroo who was writhing in pain and trying in vain to push her Joey out of her pouch. Frank went on to say that he actually heard the Kangaroo scream to her Joey ‘get away, go,the man is going to kill us!’. Frank honestly believed that he heard the Kangaroo scream those words to her Joey. Frank, with tears in his eyes, continued with the horrible detail and said that he had to shoot both, Mother and joey. He then told me he was so disgusted by what he did on that sickening night that he went straight home and destroyed his gun and never killed anything again and is now haunted each minute of his life.

It was difficult to say anything to Frank when he had finished talking, I am not the forgiving type when it comes to animal cruelty, abuse, neglect, whatever. Frank never came out to talk with me again, so I did not have to deal with the emotions that were challenging my conscience.

The Old Blind Girl

When travelling around I observe and document where and how many Kangaroos are in specific areas. I am not employed by the Government , not a Council Ranger or an R.S.P.CA. Inspector but do all I can on a voluntary basis. This lack of authority has it’s difficulties however, as I am not allowed onto properties to check Kangaroos I may be concerned about. I had been keeping an eye out for several months for an old , what seemed to be, blind, female Kangaroo. The Kangaroo appeared to be coping and was keeping up with her Mob so I felt it was best to monitor her and move her if she seemed to deteriorate at any stage. I tracked her daily and all seemed to be going well for the girl. Then one day, she had disappeared from the Mob. I searched for hours on end and had difficulty in doing so as some property owners would not let me look for her on their land. I would wake up at five am each morning and search for her and return each night at about six pm. till dark. A week later I found her, she was laying exhausted upturned with her legs in the air in a ditch. She was on a property that belonged to a Kangaroo hater, a man who had previously abused me when I stopped to remove a Kangaroo off the road, a man I believe responsible for shooting Kangaroos in the area. I needed his permission to go on his property to retrieve her but feared he would say no. I rang the R.S.P.C.A. but they were unable to come out as it was late at night and the Council Ranger would shoot her for sure. I decided to get her out myself.

I went home and got all the equipment required to do the rescue and prepared my car so I could transport her safely. I suspected she had been chased by his dogs so made sure I had the appropriate Antibiotics on hand and Dexamethasone for shock. I returned and placed blankets on her and waited in the car till I felt it was safe to make the move. I approached quietly and she did not move at all, I thought she had died. Then I noticed her beautiful face looking up at me and I could tell she was relieved that someone was there to help. Kangaroos know when they are being helped, they just know. The poor girl was in the middle of a boggy paddock with drainage pipes all over, so it was extremely difficult carrying a fully grown Kangaroo on my own in the dark. I managed to carry her through to the fence where my car was parked and manoevered her through the gate to my car door. I only had a Sedan back then so had to place her on the floor in the front of the passenger seat but being next to me I would be able to place my hand on her and speak softly if she got stressed by the unusual noises during the trip.

I carefully lifted her into the car and wrapped her securely then reached into my pocket to get my car keys.... they weren’t there! I race around to the driver’s side door in the hope that I had left them in the ignition, No !!! I had dropped them in the paddock.!!!I had a rough idea where I had picked her up and retraced my steps in complete darkness and... unbelievably, I stumbled across them. I could not believe luck was with me for a change. I ran back to the car and drove home with an exhausted blind Kangaroo next to me. I carried her into the Laundry and she fell straight to sleep, beautiful girl. I woke next morning with her in my arms and her beautiful head tucked into my body. I checked out her injuries and as suspected, she had been attacked by a dog or dogs, presenting injuries consistent with dog attack. She had bite marks and punctures all over her buttocks, legs and neck. I cleaned and dressed her wounds, gave her Antibiotics and Dexamethasone. Sadly, even with Veterinary help, the blind girl died in her sleep a few days later.

Tobei

Tobei was an absolute treasure, a hero in his own right and I believe, along with Lucei, another rescued Joey, saved my life. Tobei was adopted by Lucei who was also hand raised after her Mother was run completely over by a truck. Lucei loved Tobei and they went everywhere together, grazed together, slept next to each other. It was a windy night and after setting up the outdoor heating arrangement I had for the Kangaroos who chose to sleep on the Verandah, and sorting out the food stations, I retired to bed. The heating consisted of galvanised domes which were suspended above the areas where it was dry and comfortable if the Kangaroos felt cold. Near by, there were a couple of containers where Meadow Hay was placed. On this extremely windy night a tragic event occurred and if not for Tobei’s famous Trumpet call he always used to get my attention I would have possibly lost my life and my home.

At about 2am I was woken by the repetitive trumpet sound of Tobei, extremely loud and clearly in a state of panic. I stumbled out of bed to see what was going on and to my amazement I saw flames about to catch the eves of the house alight. One of the heaters had blown into the meadow Hay container which in turn caught the cupboard next to the house alight. Tobei and Lucei were standing there side by side, staring at the flames which had nearly taken complete hold. I managed to get the hose to the fire and extinguish the fire. I firmly believe they both knew what they needed to do and did so to save my life.

Beautiful Tobei tragically died two years later on my Birthday from a snake bite. I will never forget the bond we had with each other for nearly four years, such a beautiful Kangaroo, his memory etched in my heart forever. Lucei had tears in her eyes the day Tobei left us and for months after... Kangaroos do cry, we never got over his loss.

Kangei

Kangei was a wild Western Grey Kangaroo who often enjoyed visiting my Kangaroos, a dominant male who belonged to the Mob that resides in Council land behind my property. Kangei was about three years of age when he first came to visit, a very trusting and placid Kangaroo. Our bond was sealed the day I found him caught in a neighbour's fence. Kangei allowed me to sedate him and cut him free from the fence. We had only known each other for about a year when the incident happened but he allowed me to inject him on two occasions with long acting Antibiotics and administer Vitamin E daily for Myopathy. Beautiful Kangei would have been about four years old and weighed approximately eighty Kilograms. Realising I was helping him he would like my face and gently stroke my hand with his large soft paw, I was able to dress the wound in his hind leg and thankfully Kangei made a complete recovery. Kangei continued to visit us until March 24th 2010.

Kangei died after being hit by a car after a dog chased him onto the main road as he was navigating through bushland in a reserve where dogs are legally supposed to be on a lead at all times. The progeny of Kangei live on with other Joeys that were born after his death. I am aware of two Joeys that are definitely Kangei’s, how precious that I can still be close to him in some way. Kangei is now with his best friend,Tobei.

Mob Tactics

The dynamics of a Mob are extremely interesting to me and I believe many people underestimate the amazing qualities the Kangaroo possesses. On one occasion when I was on a Photography expedition in the bush I spotted the mob in a paddock a small distance from where they usually hung out. I stopped and watched as they were on the move and needed to negotiate a couple of Barbed Wire fences on their return to their day time resting spot. I had noticed the youngest Buck had safely crossed the dirt road along with two of the Does and one of the at foot Joeys.

Bradei, the dominant Buck at the time stayed behind to ensure all Kangaroos crossed safely. With him was the other at foot joey who decided it was time to play and rough up Bradei and not follow his Mum. Bradei kept trying to show his Joey where to get under the fence by gently pushing the Joey’s head down to the section where there was a large enough space to get under. The Joey thought Bradei was playing and I had such a laugh watching the antics of the Joey and the frustration Bradei was experiencing. Finally, with a little bit more force by Bradei and a Mother calling her boy, the Joey realised it was time to squeeze under. It was not until the Joey was safely out that Bradei felt ready to to jump the fence and join the Mob. I have seen on many occasions actions which indicate close bonds, love and also grieving of deceased members of a Mob. The bond between a mother and a joey is a special one. The Joey stays with the Mother for at least eighteen months, the female Joey many months longer and will usually remain with or close to the Mob in her adult life.

I have also observed the actions of a Mother to protect her Joey in times when threats are near. Always on the alert, the mother will communicate to her Joey to go to a predetermined spot and hide if she senses a threat. The Mother will then stand completely upright, perfectly still and watch and listen, ears flicking frantically in all directions like a radar. If she feels it necessary she will leave the scene to take the threat away from her Joey. The Joey instinctively realises it must not follow, it understands it must remain still and completely quiet and wait for its Mother to return when she feels it is safe to do so. I have observed a Joey wait more than three hours for her Mother to return. The love and excitement shown when they reunite is so precious, wow, I love them.

I have also experienced the love the Kangaroos in my care have for me. I have never had a sick day whilst being a Wildlife carer. Fact is, I can’t. Too much Kangaroo work to be done. When I experience unrelenting pain I sometimes have to lay down for a while, but I am never alone. The Kangaroos sense when I am unwell and will always join me either on my bed or on the floor next to the bed. Sometimes I am lucky to get any of the bed but feel so happy when they are with me. They are my healers.

The Kangaroos have a choice to do as they wish, they can come inside or they may choose to graze and lay around outside. I love it when I am their choice.

Kobei

As mentioned at the beginning of my story, my journey spans from Gooby to Kobei. Kobei came into my life on August 31st 2010 at the age of five months. He was orphaned after his Mother lost him from her pouch when being chased by a dog on someone’s property. The owners of the property left the little Joey, whom I named ‘Kobei’, after Kangei and Tobei, near a bush all night in 3 degrees C. amongst predators such as Foxes, in case the Mother returned for him.

Unbelievably, Kobei survived the night but his Mother did not return. How such a small Joey could survive those conditions astounds me till this day. Kobei apparently stayed in the same place all night. He did not move a centimeter. They picked him up and I was contacted and asked what they should do with him. Kobei became part of my Mob and has been with my other Kangaroos ever since. Kangaroos are very accepting of new arrivals and I gradually introduced him into my Mob. He has grown up to be a vibrant and content Kangaroo who loves Lucei and his other Mob friends that live here.

A Wish

I would much prefer that the Kangaroos who have had a second chance of life with me never had to experience losing their Mother but I suppose they are the luckier ones in a Country that insists on slaughtering millions of Kangaroos and Joeys each year. Kangaroos are blamed for just about everything and have been betrayed since white man set foot on their land. It’s little wonder that when they are observed they are always on the lookout for Human threat, introduced predators along with the ongoing loss of habitat due to degradation of land and urban sprawl. Where I live I have noticed the number of Kangaroos drop 75% in twenty years and there is no Kangaroo Industry here to blame, only human intervention, greed and a blatant disregard for Wildlife. I have seen and still see people buy properties knowing it is home to Wildlife and feel it is their right to apply for destruction permits to get rid of the animals.

Sadly, I don’t think there will be many Kangaroos in my area in the near future and only then will the Kangaroo haters be happy. Life as a Wildlife carer has given me a rare insight into the world of the beautiful Kangaroo. I have witnessed first hand the threats they continually face and will continue to face in a world so entrenched with a greed mentality. As urban sprawl spreads like an out of control Cancer, the demise of the Kangaroo, I believe, is imminent. They won’t make a noise, they won’t fight back, the Kangaroo will just disappear. History will, unfortunately, repeat itself. Australia is an expert at achieving Wildlife extinctions.

My Wildlife journey, so far, has been like a Roller Coaster, I have been pushed to say and do things I never thought I would or could. I will continue to support Kangaroos for as long as I live.... they are my life long passion.

My biggest wish is for the Kangaroo to be appreciated and respected before it is too late, so that the amazing people who relentlessly endeavor to give a voice to these precious, sentient beings can continue to admire, observe, photograph, love and appreciate their wonder.

Liberal Leader Will Hodgman's idea of pushing up Tasmania's population from 512,000 to 650,000 by the year 2050 has started a predictable bidding war, with Housing Industry Association's Stuart Clues, weighing in with a proposal for one million by the year 2050. Tasmania is currently a destination for Australian refugees from the unpleasant effects of turbo-charged population growth in Western Australia and other mainland states, so no-one in government or the property development industry is likely to ask Tasmanian residents what they think. Meanwhile, Canadian population renegade, Professor T. Murray, is accusing the Libs and the HIA of lack of vision. In a phone call to Candobetter.net, he called them 'pussies.' "Let's not dick around," he said, "The sky is the limit for Tasmania..."

"Tasmania could easily accommodate over 174 billion Breatharians. How so?"

Let’s be generous and assume that the average individual is 6 feet tall, two feet wide and one foot thick (planners, politicians and economists thicker). Each human of these dimensions lying down would take up an area of 12 square feet. The land mass of Tasmania is 26,383 square miles. Therefore, to determine the number of people who could rest horizontally in Tasmania, one must multiply 26,383 by 5280 (the number of feet in a mile) divided by 12 feet. Since air is breathable at 16,000 feet---make it 15,000 feet for good measure---and most people are one foot thick, you could stack 15,000 Breatharians one atop the other in 11, 608,520 12 square foot columns. Grand total, 174,127,800,000 environmentally responsible Tasmanian citizens who draw all the nutrients they need from the air and the light without pushing anything out the other end. Zero consumption, zero waste.

Tasmania, a shiny beacon of greendom

Naturally, it would be unrealistic to expect Australians to transit to this green lifestyle abruptly. All emigrants sent to this new shining beacon of Greendom would first have to be processed in a kind of dietary decompression chamber. Meat eaters would first become vegetarians, then vegetarians would become vegans, then vegans would become exclusive consumers of raw food, and finally nirvana. Raw food eaters would then become Breatharians. At each juncture of the process, transisters could enjoy the sublime pleasure of moral one-upmanship--- one of the prime motivations of being an environmentalist. The ability to turn around and say “my footprint is lighter than yours” would be well worth the sacrifice. After all, environmentalism is not really about achieving actual results, but about feeling good about oneself and expiating sin. Secular Christianity with a green face.

An airy, optimistic footprint

Of course, skeptical voices would no doubt say that living exclusively on air and sunlight is physically impossible. Friends, the Devil is always sowing doubt in our ears. His is the same voice that says that alternative energy sources cannot be found to supply all of our current and growing energy needs, and that substitutions cannot be found for all of the 69 metals, minerals and fuels that Chris Clugston has shown to be in scarce supply and increasingly economically inaccessible. We can continue to live fulfilling and meaningful lives without these material prerequisites, so long as we agree to shed our selfish desires and share our space. Move over, squeeze tighter, and reach for the sky.

All you need to do create this new world, this new Tasmania, is faith and vision. For those of weak resolve, encouragement can be sought from the Green Gospel According to Lovins, John 6:50 and 11:26, “Here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die”, and “who ever lives in me will never die”.

It is not how many Tasmanians there are, but how they live.

Tim

Given that the supporters of the armed insurgency against the Syrian Government of President Bashar al-Assad, namely the governments of United States, Australia, their NATO allies and the Arab dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, are the same who waged the illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, from which 3.3 million Iraqis died, according to one estimate shouldn't we expect Australia's newsmedia, this time to subject the claims made by these same governments to more scrutiny? Shouldn't the Syrian government, which is being accused by the Western newsmedia of making foreign intervention necessary, at least, be allowed to put its case? Evidently not, judging by the Australian newsmedia's failure to report on the included interview of Bashar Al-Assad conducted by The Sunday Times on 3 March.

This page has been copied from the English language section of VoltaireNet. Includes embedded YouTube broadcast of some of the interview

Sunday Times: Mr. President your recent offer of political dialogue was qualified with a firm rejection of the very groups you would have to pacify to stop the violence: the armed rebels and the Syrian National Coalition, the main opposition alliance.

So in effect you are only extending an olive branch to the loyal opposition, mostly internal, that renounces the armed struggle, and who effectively recognizes the legitimacy of your leadership, who are you willing to talk to, really?

President Assad: First of all, let me correct some of the misconceptions that have been circulating and that are found in your question in order to make my answer accurate.

Sunday Times: Okay.

President Assad: Firstly, when I announced the plan, I said that it was for those who are interested in dialogue, because you cannot make a plan that is based on dialogue with somebody who does not believe in dialogue. So, I was very clear regarding this.

Secondly, this open dialogue should not be between exclusive groups but between all Syrians of every level. The dialogue is about the future of Syria. We are twenty three million Syrians and all of us have the right to participate in shaping the country’s future. Some may look at it as a dialogue between the government and certain groups in the opposition - whether inside or outside, external or internal -actually this is a very shallow way of looking at the dialogue. It is much more comprehensive. It is about every Syrian and about every aspect of Syrian life. Syria’s future cannot be determined simply by who leads it but by the ambitions and aspirations of all its people.

The other aspect of the dialogue is that it opens the door for militants to surrender their weapons and we have granted many amnesties to facilitate this. This is the only way to make a dialogue with those groups. This has already started, even before the plan, and some have surrendered their weapons and they live now their normal life. But this plan makes the whole process more methodical, announced and clear.

If you want to talk about the opposition, there is another misconception in the West. They put all the entities even if they are not homogeneous in one basket – as if everything against the government is opposition. We have to be clear about this. We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists; we fight terrorism. Another phrase that is often mentioned is the ‘internal opposition inside Syria’ or ‘internal opposition as loyal to the government.’ Opposition groups should be loyal and patriotic to Syria – internal and external opposition is not about the geographic position; it is about their roots, resources and representation. Have these roots been planted in Syria and represent Syrian people and Syrian interests or the interests of foreign government? So, this is how we look at the dialogue, this is how we started and how we are going to continue.

Sunday Times: Most have rejected it, at least if we talk about the opposition externally who are now the body that is being hailed as the opposition and where the entire world is basically behind them. So, most of them have rejected it with the opposition describing your offer as a “waste of time,” and some have said that it is “empty rhetoric” based on lack of trust and which British Secretary William Hague described it as “beyond hypocritical” and the Americans said you were “detached from reality.”

President Assad: I will not comment on what so-called Syrian bodies outside Syria have said. These bodies are not independent. As Syrians, we are independent and we need to respond to independent bodies and this is not the case. So let’s look at the other claims.

Firstly, detached from reality: Syria has been fighting adversaries and foes for two years; you cannot do that if you do not have public support. People will not support you if you are detached from their reality. A recent survey in the UK shows that a good proportion British people want “to keep out of Syria” and they do not believe that the British government should send military supplies to the rebels in Syria.

In spite of this, the British government continues to push the EU to lift its arms embargo on Syria to start arming militants with heavy weapons. That is what I call detached from reality–when you are detached from your own public opinion! And they go further in saying that they want to send “military aid” that they describe as “non-lethal.” The intelligence, communication and financial assistance being provided is very lethal. The events of 11th of September were not committed by lethal aids. It was the application of non-lethal technology and training which caused the atrocities.

The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria; we all know that we are now fighting Al-Qaeda or Jabhat al-Nusra which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies. This is beyond hypocritical! What is beyond hypocrisy is when you talk about freedom of expression and ban Syrian TV channels from the European broadcasting satellites; when you shed tears for somebody killed in Syria by terrorist acts while preventing the Security Council from issuing a statement denouncing the suicide bombing that happened last week in Damascus, and you were here, where three hundred Syrians were either killed or injured, including women and children - all of them were civilians. Beyond hypocrisy when you preach about human rights and you go into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and kill hundreds of thousands in illegal wars. Beyond hypocrisy is when you talk about democracy and your closest allies are the worst autocratic regimes in the world that belong to the medieval centuries. This is hypocrisy!

Sunday Times: But you always refer to the people fighting here as terrorists, do you accept that while some are from the Jabhat al-Nusra and those affiliated to Al-Qaeda but there are others such as the FSA or under the umbrella of the FSA? That some of them are the defectors and some of them are just ordinary people who started some of the uprising. These are not terrorists; these are people fighting for what they believe to be the right way at the moment.

President Assad: When we say that we are fighting Al-Qaeda, we mean that the main terrorist group and the most dangerous is Al-Qaeda. I have stated in many interviews and speeches that this is not the only group in Syria. The spectrum ranges from petty criminals, drugs dealers, groups that are killing and kidnapping just for money to mercenaries and militants; these clearly do not have any political agenda or any ideological motivations. The so-called “Free Army” is not an entity as the West would like your readers to believe. It is hundreds of small groups – as defined by international bodies working with Annan and Al-Ibrahimi - there is no entity, there is no leadership, there is no hierarchy; it is a group of different gangs working for different reasons. The Free Syrian Army is just the headline, the umbrella that is used to legitimize these groups.

This does not mean that at the beginning of the conflict there was no spontaneous movement; there were people who wanted to make change in Syria and I have acknowledged that publically many times. That’s why I have said the dialogue is not for the conflict itself; the dialogue is for the future of Syria because many of the groups still wanting change are now against the terrorists. They still oppose the government but they do not carry weapons. Having legitimate needs does not make your weapons legitimate.

Sunday Times: Your 3-staged plan: the first one you speak of is the cessation of violence. Obviously there is the army and the fighters on the other side. Now, within the army you have a hierarchy, so if you want to say cease-fire, there is a commander that can control that, but when you offer cessation of violence or fire how can you assume the same for the rebels when you talk about them being so many groups, fragmented and not under one leadership. So, that’s one of the points of your plan. So, this suggests that this basically an impossible request. You speak of referendum but with so many displaced externally and internally, many of whom are the backbone of the opposition; those displaced at least. So, a referendum without them would not be fair, and the third part is that parliamentary elections and all this hopefully before 2014; it is a very tall list to be achieved before 2014. So, what are really the conditions that you are attaching to the dialogue and to make it happen, and aren’t some of the conditions that you are really suggesting or offering impossible to achieve?

President Assad: That depends on how we look at the situation. First of all, let’s say that the main article in the whole plan is the dialogue; this dialogue will put a timetable for everything and the procedures or details of this plan. The first article in my plan was the cessation of violence. If we cannot stop this violence, how can we achieve the other articles like the referendum and elections and so on? But saying that you cannot stop the violence is not a reason to do nothing. Yes there are many groups as I have said with no leadership, but we know that their real leadership are those countries that are funding and supplying their weapons and armaments - mainly Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

If outside parties genuinely want to help the process they should be pressuring those countries to stop supplying the terrorists. As with any other sovereign state, we will not negotiate with terrorists.

Sunday Times: Critics say real and genuine negotiations may be the cause of your downfall and that of your government or regime, and that you know this, hence you offer practically impossible scenarios for dialogue and negotiations?

President Assad: Actually, I don’t know this, I know the opposite. To be logical and realistic, if this is the case, then these foes, adversaries or opponents should push for the dialogue because in their view it will bring my downfall. But actually they are doing the opposite. They are preventing the so-called ‘opposition bodies outside Syria’ to participate in the dialogue because I think they believe in the opposite; they know that this dialogue will not bring my downfall, but will actually make Syria stronger. This is the first aspect.

The second aspect is that the whole dialogue is about Syria, about terrorism, and about the future of Syria. This is not about positions and personalities. So, they shouldn’t distract people by talking about the dialogue and what it will or will not bring to the President. I did not do it for myself. At the end, this is contradictory; what they say is contradicting what they do.

Sunday Times: You said that if they push for dialogue, it could bring your downfall?

President Assad: No, I said according to what they say if it brings my downfall, why don’t they come to the dialogue? They say that the dialogue will bring the downfall of the President and I am inviting them to the dialogue. Why don’t they then come to the dialogue to bring my downfall? This is self-evident. That’s why I said they are contradicting themselves.

Sunday Times: Mr. President, John Kerry, a man you know well, has started a tour that will take him this week end to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, where he will be talking to them about ways to ‘ease you out.’ In London and Berlin earlier this week, he said that President Assad must go and he also said that one of his first moves is to draft diplomatic proposals to persuade you to give up power. Would you invite him to Damascus for talks? What would you say to him? What is your message to him now given what he said this week and what he plans to say to his allies when he visits them over the weekend? And if possible from your knowledge of him how would you describe Kerry from your knowledge of him in the past?

President Assad: I would rather describe policies rather than describing people. So, it is still early to judge him. It is only a few weeks since he became Secretary of State. First of all, the point that you have mentioned is related to internal Syrian matters or Syrian issue. Any Syrian subject would not be raised with any foreigners. We only discuss it with Syrians within Syria. So, I am not going to discuss it with anyone who is coming from abroad. We have friends and we discuss our issues with friends, we listen to their advice but at the end it is our decision as Syrians to think or to make what’s good for our country.

If anyone wants to ‘genuinely’ – I stress the word genuinely – help Syria and help the cessation of violence in our country, he can do only one thing; he can go to Turkey and sit with Erdogan and tell to him stop smuggling terrorists into Syria, stop sending armaments, stop providing logistical support to those terrorists. He can go to Saudi Arabia and Qatar and tell them stop financing the terrorists in Syria. This is the only thing anyone can do dealing with the external part of our problem, but no one from outside Syria can deal with the internal part of this problem

Sunday Times: So, what is your message to Kerry?

President Assad: It is very clear: to understand what I said now. I mean, not a message to Kerry but to anyone who is talking about the Syrian issue: only Syrian people can tell the President: stay or leave, come or go. I am just saying this clearly in order not to waste the time of others to know where to focus.

Sunday Times: What role if any do you see for Britain in any peace process for Syria? Have there been any informal contacts with the British? What is your reaction to Cameron’s support for the opposition? What would you say if you were sitting with him now, especially that Britain is calling for the arming of the rebels?

President Assad: There is no contact between Syria and Britain for a long time. If we want to talk about the role, you cannot separate the role from the credibility. And we cannot separate the credibility from the history of that country. To be frank, now I am talking to a British journalist and a British audience, to be frank, Britain has played a famously (in our region) an unconstructive role in different issues for decades, some say for centuries. I am telling you now the perception in our region.

The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlight this tradition of bullying and hegemony. I am being frank. How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarize the problem? How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better and more stable, how can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists and don’t try to ease the dialogue between the Syrians. This is not logical. I think that they are working against us and working against the interest of the UK itself. This government is acting in a naïve, confused and unrealistic manner. If they want to play a role, they have to change this; they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way, till then we do not expect from an arsonist to be a firefighter!

Sunday Times: In 2011 you said you wouldn’t waste your time talking about the body leading opposition, now we are talking about the external body, in fact you hardly recognized there was such a thing, what changed your mind or views recently? What talks, if any are already going on with the rebels who are a major component and factor in this crisis? Especially given that your Foreign Minister Muallem said earlier this week when he was in Russia that the government is open to talks with the armed opposition can you clarify?

President Assad: Actually, I did not change my mind. Again, this plan is not for them; it is for every Syrian who accepts the dialogue. So, making this initiative is not a change of mind. Secondly, since day one in this crisis nearly two years ago, we have said we are ready for dialogue; nothing has changed. We have a very consistent position towards the dialogue. Some may understand that I changed my mind because I did not recognize the first entity, but then I recognized the second. I recognized neither, more importantly the Syrian people do not recognize them or take them seriously. When you have a product that fails in the market, they withdraw the product, change the name, change the packing and they rerelease it again – but it is still faulty. The first and second bodies are the same products with different packaging. Regarding what our minister said, it is very clear.

Part of the initiative is that we are ready to negotiate with anyone including militants who surrender their arms. We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorize people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprises and destroy the country.

Sunday Times: Mr. President, the world looks at Syria and sees a country being destroyed, with at least 70,000 killed, more than 3 million displaced and sectarian divisions being deepened. Many people around the world blame you. What do you say to them? Are you to blame for what’s happened in the country you are leading?

President Assad: You have noted those figures as though they were numbers from a spreadsheet. To some players they are being used to push forward their political agenda; unfortunately that is a reality. Regardless of their accuracy, for us Syrians, each one of those numbers represents a Syrian man, woman or child. When you talk about thousands of victims, we see thousands of families who have lost loved ones and who unfortunately will grieve for many years to come. Nobody can feel this pain more than us.

Looking at the issue of political agendas, we have to ask better questions. How were these numbers verified? How many represent foreign fighters? How many were combatants aged between 20 and 30? How many were civilians – innocent women and children? The situation on the ground makes it almost impossible to get accurate answers to these important questions. We all know how death tolls and human casualties have been manipulated in the past to pave the way for humanitarian intervention. The Libyan government recently announced that the death toll before the invasion of Libya was exaggerated; they said five thousand victims from each side while the number was talking at that time of tens of thousands.

The British and the Americans who were physically inside Iraq during the war were unable to provide precise numbers about the victims that have been killed from their invasion. Suddenly, the same sources have very precise numbers about what is happening in Syria! This is ironic; I will tell you very simply that these numbers do not exist in reality; it is part of their virtual reality that they want to create to push forward their agenda for military intervention under the title of humanitarian intervention

Sunday Times: If I may just on this note a little bit. Even if the number is exaggerated and not definitely precise, these are numbers corroborated by Syrian groups, however they are still thousands that were killed. Some are militants but some are civilians. Some are being killed through the military offensive, for example artillery or plane attacks in certain areas. So even if we do not argue the actual number, the same applies, they still blame yourself for those civilians, if you want, that are being killed through the military offensive, do you accept that?

President Assad:Firstly, we cannot talk about the numbers without their names. People who are killed have names. Secondly, why did they die? Where and how were they killed? Who killed them? Armed gangs, terrorist groups, criminals, kidnappers, the army, who?

Sunday Times: It is a mix.

President Assad: It is a mix, but it seems that you are implying that one person is responsible for the current situation and all the human casualties. From day one the situation in Syria has been influenced by military and political dynamics, which are both very fast moving. In such situations you have catalysts and barriers. To assume any one party is responsible for all barriers and another party responsible for all the catalysts is absurd. Too many innocent civilians have died, too many Syrians are suffering. As I have already said nobody is more pained by this than us Syrians, which is why we are pushing for a national dialogue. I’m not in the blame business, but if you are talking of responsibility, then clearly I have a constitutional responsibility to keep Syria and her people safe from terrorists and radical groups.

Sunday Times: What is the role of Al-Qaeda and other jihadists and what threats do they pose to the region and Europe? Are you worried Syria turning into something similar to Chechnya in the past? Are you concerned about the fate of minorities if you were loose this war or of a sectarian war akin to that of Iraq?

President Assad:The role of Al-Qaeda in Syria is like the role of Al-Qaeda anywhere else in this world; killing, beheading, torturing and preventing children from going to school because as you know Al-Qaeda’s ideologies flourish where there is ignorance. Ideologically, they try to infiltrate the society with their dark, extremist ideologies and they are succeeding. If you want to worry about anything in Syria, it is not the ‘minorities.’ This is a very shallow description because Syria is a melting pot of religions, sects, ethnicities and ideologies that collectively make up a homogeneous mixture, irrelevant of the portions or percentages. We should be worrying about the majority of moderate Syrians who, if we do not fight this extremism, could become the minority – at which point Syria will cease to exist.

If you worry about Syria in that sense, you have to worry about the Middle East because we are the last bastion of secularism in the region. If you worry about the Middle East, the whole world should be worried about its stability. This is the reality as we see it.

Sunday Times: How threatening is Al-Qaeda now?

President Assad: Threatening by ideology more than the killing. The killing is dangerous, of course, but what is irreversible is the ideology; that is dangerous and we have been warning of this for many years even before the conflict; we have been dealing with these ideologies since the late seventies. We were the first in the region to deal with such terrorists who have been assuming the mantle of Islam. We have consistently been warning of this, especially in the last decade during the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The West is only reacting to the situation, not acting. We need to act by dealing with the ideology first. A war on terror without dealing with the ideology will lead you nowhere and will only make things worse. So, it is threatening and it is dangerous, not just to Syria but to the whole region.

Sunday Times: US officials recently, in particular yesterday, are quoted as saying that US decision not to arm rebels could be revised. If this was to happen what in your view will the consequences in Syria and in the region? What is your warning against this? Now, they are talking about directly equipping the rebels with armament vehicles, training and body armaments.

President Assad: You know the crime is not only about the victim and the criminal, but also the accomplice providing support, whether it is moral or logistical support. I have said many times that Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So, playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East. Is the situation better in Libya today? In Mali? In Tunisia? In Egypt? Any intervention will not make things better; it will only make them worse. Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region; they do not foresee it.

Sunday Times: What is your message to Israel following its air strikes on Syria? Will you retaliate? How will you respond to any future attacks by Israel especially that Israel has said that we will do it again if it has to?

President Assad: Every time Syria did retaliate, but in its own way, not tit for tat. We retaliated in our own way and only the Israelis know what we mean.

Sunday Times: Can you expand?

President Assad: Yes. Retaliation does not mean missile for missile or bullet for bullet. Our own way does not have to be announced; only the Israelis will know what I mean.

Sunday Times: Can you tell us how?

President Assad: We do not announce that.

Sunday Times: I met a seven year old boy in Jordan.

President Assad: A Syrian boy?

Sunday Times: A Syrian boy who had lost an arm and a leg to a missile strike in Herak. Five children in his family had been killed in that explosion. As a father, what can you say to that little boy? Why have so many innocent civilians died in air strikes, army shelling and sometimes, I quote, ‘Shabiha shootings?’

President Assad: What is his name?

Sunday Times: I have his name ... will bring it to you later.

President Assad: As I said every victim in this crisis has a name, every casualty has a family. Like 5 year-old Saber who whilst having breakfast with his family at home lost his leg, his mother and other members of his family. Like 4 year-old Rayan who watched his two brothers slaughtered for taking him to a rally. None of these families have any political affiliations. Children are the most fragile link in any society and unfortunately they often pay the heaviest price in any conflict. As a father of young children, I know the meaning of having a child harmed by something very simple; so what if they are harmed badly or if we lose a child, it is the worst thing any family can face. Whenever you have conflicts, you have these painful stories that affect any society. This is the most important and the strongest incentive for us to fight terrorism. Genuine humanitarians who feel the pain that we feel about our children and our losses should encourage their governments to prevent smuggling armaments and terrorists and to prevent the terrorists from acquiring any military supplies from any country.

Sunday Times: Mr. President, when you lie in bed at night, do you hear the explosions in Damascus? Do you, in common with many other Syrians, worry about the safety of your family? Do you worry that there may come a point where your own safety is in jeopardy?

President Assad: I see it completely differently. Can anybody be safe, or their family be safe, if the country is in danger? In reality NO! If your country is not safe, you cannot be safe. So instead of worrying about yourself and your family, you should be worried about every citizen and every family in your country. So it’s a mutual relationship.

Sunday Times: You’ll know of the international concerns about Syria’s chemical weapons. Would your army ever use them as a last resort against your opponents? Reports suggest they have been moved several times, if so why? Do you share the international concern that they may fall into the hands of Islamist rebels? What is the worst that could happen?

President Assad: Everything that has been referred to in the media or by official rhetoric regarding Syrian chemical weapons is speculation. We have never, and will never, discuss our armaments with anyone. What the world should worry about is chemical materials reaching the hands of terrorists. Video material has already been broadcast showing toxic material being tried on animals with threats to the Syrian people that they will die in the same way. We have shared this material with other countries. This is what the world should be focusing on rather than wasting efforts to create elusive headlines on Syrian chemical weapons to justify any intervention in Syria.

Sunday Times: I know you are not saying whether they are safe or not. There is concern if they are safe or no one can get to them.

President Assad: This is constructive ambiguity. No country will talk about their capabilities.

Sunday Times: A lot has been talked about this as well: what are the roles of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia in the war on the ground? Are you aware of Hezbollah fighters in Syria and what are they doing? What weapons are your allies Iran and Russia supplying? What other support are they providing?

President Assad: The Russian position is very clear regarding armaments - they supply Syria with defensive armaments in line with international law. Hezbollah, Iran and Russia support Syria in her fight against terrorism. Russia has been very constructive, Iran has been very supportive and Hezbollah’s role is to defend Lebanon not Syria. We are a country of 23 million people with a strong National Army and Police Force. We are in no need of foreign fighters to defend our country. What we should be asking is, what about the role of other countries, - Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, the US, - that support terrorism in Syria directly or indirectly, militarily or politically.

Sunday Times: Mr. President, may I ask you about your own position? Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov recently said that Lakhdar Ibrahimi complained of wanting to see more flexibility from your regime and that while you never seem to say ‘no’ you never seem to say ‘yes’. Do you think that there can be a negotiated settlement while you remain President, which is a lot of people are asking?

President Assad: Do not expect a politician to only say yes or no in the absolute meaning; it is not multiple choice questions to check the correct answer. You can expect from any politician a vision and our vision is very clear. We have a plan and whoever wants to deal with us, can deal with us through our plan. This is very clear in order not to waste time. This question reflects what has been circulating in the Western media about personalizing the problem in Syria and suggesting that the entire conflict is about the president and his future. If this argument is correct, then my departure will stop the fighting. Clearly this is absurd and recent precedents in Libya, Yemen and Egypt bear witness to this. Their motive is to try to evade the crux of the issue, which is dialogue, reform and combating terrorism. The legacy of their interventions in our region have been chaos, destruction and disaster. So, how can they justify any future intervention? They cannot. So, they focus on blaming the president and pushing for his departure; questioning his credibility; is he living in a bubble or not? is he detached from reality or not? So, the focus of the conflict becomes about the president

Sunday Times: Some foreign officials have called for you to stand for war crimes at the International Criminal Court as the person ultimately responsible for the army’s actions? Do you fear prosecution by the ICC? Or the possibility of future prosecution and trial in Syria?

President Assad: Whenever an issue that is related to the UN is raised, you are raising the question of credibility. We all know especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union – for the last twenty years - that the UN and all its organizations are the victims of hegemony instead of being the bastions of justice. They became politicized tools in order to create instability and to attack sovereign countries, which is against the UN’s charter. So, the question that we have to raise now is: are they going to take the American and the British leaders who attacked Iraq in 2003 and claimed more than half a million lives in Iraq, let alone orphans, handicapped and deformed people? Are they going to take the American, British French and others who went to Libya without a UN resolution last year and claimed again hundreds of lives? They are not going to do it. The answer is very clear. You know that sending mercenaries to any country is a war crime according Nuremberg principles and according to the London Charter of 1945. Are they going to put Erdogan in front of this court because he sent mercenaries? Are they going to do the same with the Saudis and the Qataris? If we have answers to these questions, then we can talk about peace organizations and about credibility.

My answer is very brief: when people defend their country, they do not take into consideration anything else.

Sunday Times: Hindsight is a wonderful thing Mr. President. If you could wind the clock back two years would you have handled anything differently? Do you believe that there are things that could or should have been done in another way? What mistakes do you believe have been made by your followers that you would change?

President Assad: You can ask this question to a President if he is the only one responsible for all the context of the event. In our case in Syria, we know there are many external players. So you have to apply hindsight to every player. You have to ask Erdogan, with hindsight would you send terrorists to kill Syrians, would you afford logistical support to them? You should ask the Qatari and Saudis whether in hindsight, would you send money to terrorists and to Al-Qaeda offshoots or any other terrorist organization to kill Syrians? We should ask the same question to the European and American officials, in hindsight would you offer a political umbrella to those terrorists killing innocent civilians in Syria?

In Syria, we took two decisions. The first is to make dialogue; the second is to fight terrorism. If you ask any Syrian, in hindsight would you say no to dialogue and yes to terrorism? I do not think any sane person will agree with you. So I think in hindsight, we started with dialogue and we are going to continue with dialogue. In hindsight, we said we are going to fight terrorism and we are going to continue to fight terrorism.

Sunday Times: Do you ever think about living in exile if it came to that? And would you go abroad if it increases the chances of peace in Syria?

President Assad: Again, it is not about the president. I don’t think any patriotic person or citizen would think of living outside his country.

Sunday Times: You will never leave

President Assad: No patriotic person will think about living outside his country. I am like any other patriotic Syrian.

Sunday Times: How shaken you were you by the bomb that killed some of your most senior generals last summer, including your brother-in-law?

President Assad: You mentioned my brother-in-law but it is not a family affair. When high-ranking officials are being assassinated it is a national affair. Such a crime will make you more determined to fight terrorism. It is not about how you feel, but more about what you do. We are more determined in fighting terrorism.

Sunday Times: Finally, Mr. President, may I ask about my colleague, Marie Colvin, who was killed in the shelling of an opposition media center at Baba Amr on February 22 last year. Was she targeted, as some have suggested, because she condemned the destruction on American and British televisions? Or was she just unlucky? Did you hear about her death at the time and if so what was your reaction?

President Assad: Of course, I heard about the story through the media. When a journalist goes into conflict zones, as you are doing now, to cover a story and convey it to the world, I think this is very courageous work. Every decent person, official or government should support journalists in these efforts because that will help shed light on events on the ground and expose propaganda where it exists. Unfortunately in most conflicts a journalist has paid the ultimate price. It is always sad when a journalist is killed because they are not with either side or even part of the problem, they only want to cover the story. There is a media war on Syria preventing the truth from being told to the outside world.

14 Syrian journalists who have also been killed since the beginning of the crisis and not all of them on the ground. Some have been targeted at home after hours, kidnapped, tortured and then murdered. Others are still missing. More than one Syrian television station has been attacked by terrorists and their bombs. There is currently a ban on the broadcast of Syrian TV channels on European satellite systems. It is also well known how rebels have used journalists for their own interests. There was the case of the British journalist who managed to escape.

Sunday Times: Alex Thompson?

President Assad: Yes. He was lead into a death trap by the terrorists in order to accuse the Syrian Army of his death. That’s why it is important to enter countries legally, to have a visa. This was not the case for Marie Colvin. We don’t know why and it’s not clear. If you enter illegally, you cannot expect the state to be responsible. Contrary to popular belief, since the beginning of the crisis, hundreds of journalists from all over the world, including you, have gained visas to enter Syria and have been reporting freely from inside Syria with no interferences in their work and no barriers to fulfill their missions.

Sunday Times: Thank you.

President Assad: Thank you.

---

Source : “Bashar Al-Assad’s Interview with The Sunday Times”, by Bashar al-Assad, Voltaire Network, 3 March 2013, www.voltairenet.org/article177726.html

See also:
Speech by Bashar al-Assad on Syrian crisis
Russia Today interview with Bashar al-Assad
Bashar el-Assad interview by Ad-Dounia TV
Speech Delivered by H.E. President Bashar al-Assad At the People’s Assembly
ABC’s Barbara Walters’ Interview With Bashar al-Assad
This author's articles

As a result of the wars and sanctions against Iraq since 1990, found by the UK Government's own Chilcot Inquiry in 2012 to have been illegal, 3.3 million Iraqis have died and many more have fled, including 1.2 million to Syria, according to Wikipedia. Knowing that the same people who invaded Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are now arming, supplying and paying the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), Syrian patriots are fighting hard against the FSA killers -- and winning.

Please attend a public meeting at 7.30PM on Wednesday 6 March for peace in Syria at the Unitarian Church, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne. (The previously advertised time of 6.30PM was wrong. Our apologies.)

In order to boost the numbers of fighters, sadly depleted by almost two years of savage fighting, Syrian women are now being enlisted into the armed forces as shown in this YouTube video on the Syrian Girl Partisan's YouTube channel. This channel is an excellent resource with which to arm yourself against lies from the mainstream media such as the Guardian article Brothers in arms: the 10 brothers fighting for the Syrian uprising of 22 February by Martin Chulov.

How you can help save lives and help Syria save itself from the New World Order

If you live close to Melbourne Victoria, please attend a public meeting for Peace in Syria.

Venue: Melbourne Unitarian Church Hall, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne

Date: Wednesday 6 March

Time: 6:30PM

"Both the process and the discussion paper are undirected, unsatisfactory and of little help to anyone or anything. Nothing so inadequate has ever been seen in the history of Melbourne strategic planning."... "The paper generally avoids any discussion of how to intensify established areas while not destroying amenity, or even whether it is possible to achieve both objectives. It does not discuss in detail the major options for intensification, mentioning only briefly the capacity to redevelop large brownfield sites, and arguing that medium and higher density residential development should not be regarded as a problem. It states that “there are different ways of increasing housing density without undermining the valued characteristics of local areas” – what are these and why would they not destroy valued amenity?"(Michael Buxton, Professor Environment and Planning, at PPLVic AGM on Saturday 23 February 2013.

Michael Buxton
Professor Environment and Planning, RMIT University

Context

Link to videoed speech here.

The process of developing a new Melbourne metropolitan strategy, and the discussion paper prepared by a ministerial advisory committee, are deeply flawed. The discussion paper seeks ‘to help generate debate and discussion about the future of our city”. But the process is neither properly participatory nor informative. The discussion paper does not canvass well supported and evaluated options. No detail is provided on how public comment will contribute to the development of policy. In short, both the process and the discussion paper are undirected, unsatisfactory and of little help to anyone or anything. Nothing so inadequate has ever been seen in the history of Melbourne strategic planning.

Some earlier plans for Melbourne have involved years of research and investigation, and the modeling of options. The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) strategic planning was exemplary for investigation and consideration of options, particularly the 1954 and 1971 plans. Later planning, such as by the Cain government for the 1987 plan and the Kirner government in the early 1990s, considered a range of options for the future of Melbourne and associated strategic issues. Seven major reports into such subjects as activity centres, sustainability and environmental issues were commissioned during the preparation of Melbourne 2030 and informed the final plan. No additional research or investigations lie behind the new strategy process other than normal government activity, such as Victoria In Future and the Urban Development Program.

Metropolitan strategic planning should be long term and bipartisan, and accepted by key interest groups and citizens. This will be the sixth strategic plan for Melbourne in 25 years, together with a number of other minor plans. A plan on average about every four years does not provide for either certainty or continuity. There is little sense of what the government has in mind for the future of Melbourne, how this relates to previous planning and what this means for the future of the city.

The consultation process has been inadequate. Another weakness in the process is the government preempting major strategic initiatives by prior policy and statutory decisions. This continues the approach of the former Kennett government to metropolitan strategic planning. Kennett and his planning minister, Robert Maclellan, had no use for strategic land use planning and did none. Their metropolitan plan, Living Suburbs, was little more than a promotional document. The real planning lay in the statutory changes to planning schemes which implemented their ideology of development facilitation as part of deregulated governance.

The Baillieu government through its planning minister, Matthew Guy, is following a similar approach. Guy has introduced new planning zones which further deregulate planning rendering strategic metropolitan planning obsolete. For example, the new Melbourne strategic plan cannot include a retail policy which restricts out-of-centre development because the new zones will allow it, much as-of-right. A new plan cannot limit Melbourne’s outer urban growth because governments have provided 30 years land supply on the urban fringe. Baillieu and Guy supported the former Labor government’s abandonment of the urban growth boundary as a major strategic tool and then in government expanded the area of Melbourne by a further 6,000 hectares. Clearly, the metropolitan strategy can say nothing meaningful about restricting outer urban growth.

All this means that the new metropolitan strategy must avoid most of the key strategic issues affecting the future of Melbourne. So far there has been little left to discuss in the discussion paper except for a series of general principles (‘globally connected and competitive city’), truisms most people would accept (‘fostering strong communities’), and platitudes (‘a 20 minute city’). It remains to be seen whether the strategy itself can actually develop a strategic direction with meaningful implementation tools. The signs so far are not promising. The strategy would have to improve markedly on the discussion paper. The choice is for it to either make clear the de-facto planning policy of government or convince the government to abandon its direction. The first option is unlikely – the government does not want its direction blandly spelt out or the people will know what it is really up to. The second would seem impossible.

Strategic approach

The discussion paper outlines its objectives through five principles, what needs to change in two principles, and implementation in two more. Overall, there is no clearly stated vision. Long term intention is fundamental to strategic planning. An acceptance of growth is implied through the statement that planning needs to be for a city of up to 6.4 million people by 2050. The paper advocates alternatives to business-as-usual activity, but such growth is business-as-usual. It rejects the use of land use planning as a tool to achieve change, arguing against intervention through the planning system to achieve alternative future scenarios: “The Metropolitan Planning Strategy must move away from regulation as the primary means of achieving planning outcomes”, it argues. This diminution of government leaves decisions to developers and other private interest groups such as large retailers who will act primarily in their own interests. This concept of the role of government fatally handicaps a future strategic plan. Only government can plan strategically in the public interest.

Networks to regional cities are canvassed but no detail is provided about how this concept might be achieved and how regional development could lower the projected size of Melbourne. How much growth should be transferred to regions; should it be concentrated in large regional centres or some located in smaller regional towns along fast rail routes? There is no discussion of the necessary links between regional growth, access, amenity, types of regional employment, education, improved infrastructure and other services. Regional manufacturing, for example, is declining while Geelong and Ballarat are embarking on their own versions of urban sprawl in standard single use suburbs far from town centres.

The paper argues for a ‘polycentric city’. Shifts in urban strategy have become more common in recent years from the centre-periphery model focused primarily on reinforcing a CBD, to networked metropolitan connections to regional settlements. However, it is crucial to define the polycentric approach proposed, and the functional connections between networked urban areas. The discussion paper’s notion of a multi-centred city seems to include the CBD, a limited number of activity centres, a few innovation clusters and the whole of inner Melbourne. This notion is unhelpful and confused. The opportunity was available to the discussion paper to remove confusion about multi-centred activity centre policy. MMBW district centre policy concentrated on a limited number of activity centres. Melbourne 2030 made every large or small centre an activity centre. However, the discussion paper does not adequately analyse the notion of polycentrism, wants a limited number of centres but defines a large differentiated part of Melbourne (the inner suburbs) as one centre and allows a multitude of local activity centres to be developed. The inner suburbs include most advanced business service and professional jobs and employee residences and contain a large number of activity centres. To talk of the inner suburbs as one element in a polycentric city makes polycentrism meaningless. The paper suggests that many local mixed use activity centres should be developed but some of these already contain important concentrations of employment, retailing and housing. No suggestion is provided on the size of proposed clusters, what would happen in each, or when local activity centres might transform to major ones. The three examples given of polycentric innovation clusters, Monash-Clayton, Melbourne Airport and Parkville biosciences precinct vary significantly from each other. Only Parkville has reasonable public transport facilities. Melbourne Airport is a large out-of-centre retailing precinct and is an undesirable location for such retailing. Similarly, large freight and logistics clusters are located along fringe metropolitan freeways, a similarly undesirable trend.

The paper is silent on the destructive impacts of out-of-centre retail development on existing strip centres and other impacts such as on traffic. Any comments by the discussion paper on this issue are irrelevant in any case because the real policy and power is in the new commercial zones which will lead to extensive out-of-centre retailing and commercial uses and accelerate the destruction of strip retail centres. The paper does not properly analyze the differences between elements of what it advocates leaving a confused mess.

Global connectivity sounds attractive but what in practice does the advisory committee believe it means? The discussion paper is little help here, repeating usual mantras of links to a global knowledge economy without analyzing possible future trends and alternatives. It is likely that this century the cities which relate satisfactorily to their hinterlands will survive best. This notion is largely ignored. Lip service is paid to the importance of peri-urban diversity and agricultural production but nothing is said about how these assets can help position Melbourne to survive. By 2050 most peri-urban agriculture will have disappeared on current trends. A metropolitan strategy should state clearly an alternative pathway to business-as-usual trends to achieve desirable alternative scenarios. But there is no consistent vision of the future for the Melbourne green belt. The paper mentions its importance as a food bowl, but then adopts the Tourism agency dogma that existing zones prevent tourism development. The Baillieu government appears set to emasculate native vegetation protection controls. The paper contains no endorsement of the need to prevent such major changes to policy.

Its discussion about urban form is another unsatisfactory element of the paper. Melbourne 2030 attempted to shift a large proportion of planned outer urban growth to the established metropolitan area through the use of an urban growth boundary. It proposed government intervention to achieve a desired future end. The discussion paper canvasses no such options. It is marked by an absence of discussion on the major pressure points of the inner city, activity centres and outer growth areas. It is reticent on the problems arising from Melbourne’s continuing sprawl in single use, poorly serviced suburbs and on the need for improved urban design there. It says nothing about the need for much higher average densities in outer urban areas, higher densities around new town centres, and a mix of lot and house types. The paper farcically states that the “green edge” of Melbourne should be strengthened but ignores the spoiling effects of a 30 year supply of outer urban residential land on proper planning through prior expansions of the growth boundary. There is no discussion of the reduction of this land bank in the context of an overall strategy for the city.

In discussing a distinctive Melbourne the paper says little about amenity and nothing about the importance of heritage as a crucial factor in the identity of citizens and as an economic asset. Heritage means money – destroy it and Melbourne’s greatest asset is lost. The paper generally avoids any discussion of how to intensify established areas while not destroying amenity, or even whether it is possible to achieve both objectives. It does not discuss in detail the major options for intensification, mentioning only briefly the capacity to redevelop large brownfield sites, and arguing that medium and higher density residential development should not be regarded as a problem. It states that “there are different ways of increasing housing density without undermining the valued characteristics of local areas” – what are these and why would they not destroy valued amenity?

The paper also is another lost opportunity to raise and discuss seriously social issues associated with inequity, particularly unequal access to services, and a crucial range of housing issues including affordable housing. Simply put, the discussion on these topics is more of the same avoidance that has characterised decades of policy discussion by government.

What is left?

Avoiding the major metropolitan strategic issues leaves only a series of five general principles and some trite proposals. The principles are; a distinctive Melbourne; a globally connected and competitive city, social and economic participation; strong communities; and environmental resilience. None are applied to detailed discussion or practical concerns drawing out issues, options and conclusions for elements in a functionally connected urban system. The principles are not related satisfactorily to each other. There is no sense of integration of ideas around a unifying vision for the future of Melbourne, just a grab-bag of ideas gleaned from somewhere and placed in little more than a list. Argument, substantiation and examination of evidence are all lacking. A metropolitan strategic discussion paper should place evidence, information and argued positions before people, canvass well considered options and propose an integrated strategic approach for the future. It should link spatial concerns to other sectoral ones. A brief mention is made of the need to integrate land use and transport planning – this too is a mantra which has hardly affected practice in recent years. There is almost no discussion of cross-sectoral policy and integrated institutional and governance arrangements.

Then there are the unexamined proposals. Perhaps the most trite is the proposal for a 20 minute city. Has a less useful proposal ever been put forward as a serious contribution to policy? This is a substitute for policy, what is left when all the effective decisions about the future of Melbourne are made outside the ambit of strategy, leaving only a shell with a brittle crust.

Speech given at Protectors of Public Land Vic (Inc). AGM on Saturday 23 February 2013. Thanks to Secretary and chief dynamo, Julianne Bell, for providing this text and organising the meeting.

"I am just amazed at the breadth and the depth of interest and knowledge about planning in groups like this, so I don't understand - given that - how the government gets away with what it does."(Prof. Michael Buxton)

Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne - Con Job or for Real?

In contrast to the arrogant demeanor of the panel at the Wheeler Center (described at "We REALLY need to talk about Melbourne Planning ..."), Michael Buxton addressed an audience of activists and concerned public from Defenders of Public Lands Victoria and stated:

"Looking at some of the faces here, lots of you know a lot about the Metropolitan Strategy as it exists, and have done lots of work in planning. So I am just amazed at the breadth and the depth of interest and knowledge about planning in groups like this, so I don't understand - given that - how the government gets away with what it does. There is kind of something wrong in the way we all collaborate and mobilize, and I don't know how to get around that because the development community is brilliant at getting around it. It has its paid 'peak groups', like the Property Council, the Urban Development Institute. And they lobby and they walk into the Premier's office - and you all go and do it, you know, going up to Canberra in your own time - it's so much harder for you. But, somehow, keep at it, because it's incredibly important."

Signs of Growth Lobby infiltration in audience at this meeting?

At this otherwise excellent meeting, conducted by courageous members of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., it seemed that pro-development people may have secreted themselves in the audience to quell attempts to address the problem of the Victorian Government's promotion of high immigration by making it sound as if talking about immigration numbers was somehow indecent. It isn't. The government, the mainstream media, and the property development lobby never stop talking about it. It is out there in the public domain. It is core political business. Two people seem to have led this muzzling from the audience, which, sadly, appeared to be successfully intimidated or confused as to what was wanted of them.

There could be another explanation as well - that people have become confused by ambiguous media coverage of Dutch MP Geert Wilders' visit and now fear that criticism of any immigration will stigmatize them. The Growth Lobby, which owns and runs Australian public and commercial media, is easily able to ensure that coverage of such events benefits their cause. The aim is to restigmatize criticism of high immigration numbers by confusing it with criticism about ethnicity. This needs to be sorted out, pronto.

How come business, media and government can rabbit on continuously about immigration but 'we' can't?

As Michael Buxton says in his videoed speech (cited above), "there seems to be something wrong in the way we collaborate and organize." What is glaringly wrong is that the growth lobby members, including the government, the mainstream media, and the property development lobby, all talk non-stop about immigration and population growth but still manage to make enough citizens feel that they have no right to do so, thus totally undermining every effort to stop overpopulation and overdevelopment. There is something very wrong when planning activist groups fail to support each other's leaders, simply caving into intimidation by faceless infiltrators. Factionalisation of planning activist groups, with some cliques doing deals with government and purporting to represent the wider majority, whilst selling others down the river, is just what the government and the developer groups want. Our environment and democracy is too important to be sacrificed for narrow political ambition.

Resolution Re Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne (MPSM)

At the Annual General Meeting of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. held on 23 February 2013 at the Flemington Community Centre in Flemington the Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne (MPSM) was considered and discussed. It was moved that the resolution of this meeting be sent as a submission to the Planning Minister and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on MPSM. Here is the resolution:

Motions:

That this meeting considers that:
1. The Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne should concentrate on maintaining and enhancing Melbourne’s liveability and sustainability, emphasizing the need to control carbon emissions, to provide for the effects of climate change, and to plan for peak oil and food security, acknowledging that social and economic well-being depend on a sustainable environment.
2. To maintain and enhance Melbourne’s livability and sustainability the following highly valued but threatened assets need better protection and expansion/enhancement:
• Public open spaces, parks, gardens
• Green wedges, including open space for environmental conservation, agriculture and recreation
• Our residential streets and suburbs
• Heritage
• Natural environment and biodiversity, urban parks and reserves, nature strips and private gardens
• Recreation and other community facilities
• Shopping centres (which are threatened by proposals to allow supermarkets in commercial and industrial centres);
3. More - and more mandatory - not less, regulation of developers is needed. (The Advisory Committee has suggested we should “move away from regulation” as the primary means of achieving planning outcomes, but we are concerned that this will disempower communities and Councils.);
4. Urban sprawl needs to be curbed with no more development in the growth corridors until adequate infrastructure is provided to service existing and proposed outer suburbs: developers should pay for infrastructure;
5. Infrastructure planning and provision should focus on improving public transport, particularly rail projects, including the lines to Rowville, Doncaster, Tullamarine and Epping and not on freeways such as the East-West Link freeway/tollway;
6. Melbourne’s green edge should be strengthened by:
• Protecting the green wedges for non-urban uses including parkland, environmental conservation and biodiversity, agriculture, recreation, open space, landscape and heritage values
• A clearly defined, permanent Urban Growth Boundary that makes clear where urban Melbourne ends and rural areas begin
• Retention of S. 173 agreements to allow Council to curb future subdivision and inappropriate uses;
7. More rigorous governance provisions are needed to prevent vested interests taking priority over the best interests of the community, including more weight to local planning schemes and a ban on political donations from developers;
8. The Planning Zones Review should be extended to allow adequate time for community consultation and for consideration to be given to curbing current discretionary uses that have been used as loopholes to allow inappropriate uses into green wedges and other zones; and
9. Protectors of Public Lands (Vic) is authorised by the meeting to write to the Minister for Planning and to the Advisory Committee for the MPSM conveying the resolution.

Moved: Rosemary West, Green Wedges Coalition (GWC)
Seconded: Julianne Bell. Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (PPL VIC)

Resolution carried unanimously after a several amendments were made.

Reading this letter to the Wheeler center about a shocking spin exercise delivered by professional development spruikers, with Roz Hansen (who is also involved in fielding public submissions), one is reminded of the film, We need to talk about Kevin, a film about a totally underestimated problem with utterly dire consequences. In fact, Melbourne really needs to talk about the corruption of democracy via Melbourne planning and development organisations, their contempt for citizens, their infiltration of law-making in parliament, and the gross unsustainability of the philosophy and projects they seek to unilaterally impose - Candobetter Ed.

Letter to the Wheeler Center after “We Need to Talk” The Wheeler Centre Books Writing and Ideas – Series on “Ideas for Melbourne” Part 1 “The City of the Future” Wednesday 13 February 2013.

Subtitles are by Candobetter.net editor

The booklet said re ‘The City of The Future:’ session: “In 30 years, Melbourne’s CBD will have another 220,000 new residents. A ‘second CBD’ has been proposed for Melbourne’s west, along with a third runway for Tullamarine Airport – and more green wedge land for housing. Can a big Melbourne remain beautiful – let alone liveable or sustainable? Can we have it all, or do tough choices lie ahead?” The panel consisted of Roz Hansen who is the Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Strategy of Melbourne Committee; Alan Davies; and David Nichols (University of Melbourne?). Jane Rawson was the interviewer.

Vivienne Ortega and Julianne Bell attended this Wheeler Centre evening event.

Here are our comments about the event:

We need to talk about what is happening to our democracy

We considered this exercise a piece of political spin, full of contradictions, and generalities. There were no speakers on the panel debating or contesting statements made by panel members; all 3 were in furious agreement with each other. There was no community involvement and no audience interaction. Few questions were allowed at the end of the session. We considered that it was simply a lecture by growth-lobbyists. We were just being lectured to as to how a “Future Melbourne” could accommodate a rapidly growing population!

Roz Hansen - Ethics and Fairness in question

Firstly, it appeared to us extremely inappropriate that Roz Hansen would be speaking at a public forum with obvious references to the Metropolitan Planning Strategy of Melbourne (MPSM) when she was Chair of the Ministerial Committee which is still receiving public submissions on the MPSM. In our view she was giving us the spin on Government policies which ensures growth for developers, the real estate industry and the road lobby. While Ms Hansen said that she wanted “community dialogue” and to hear what we think, she made it clear that said some topics were "non-negotiable" or off limits. It appeared that one of the “non negotiables” was the topic of trains. She made it clear – and had done so at a community forum she attended with the Minister for Planning Matthew Guy on 21 November 2012 - that the “Future Melbourne” would have buses but not urban rail, apart from the underground Metro rail. It would of course have the East West Link tollway/freeway.

Hobson’s Choice promoted as Consumer Choice

The panel was of the opinion that, with population increase, people would “choose” apartments and high density living. We see this as Hobson’s choice, that is, no choice at all. Many people have not now, and will not have in the future, any other affordable alternatives to high density living. No mention was made of the inevitable increase of per capita greenhouse gas emissions, and the denial of facilities enabling residents to reduce consumption and energy, reuse and recycle.

Mythologising exercise

There was an assumption by the speakers that "empty-nesters" will want to buy apartments and units. We know it has found to be a myth that the retired and the elderly want to “downsize”. Many want to stay in houses with gardens and keep their rooms for family and guests. (We have been through this argument with Bernard Salt who took a more extreme line stating that widows should move out of their large houses in the leafy suburbs to provide accommodation for incoming family groups of migrants.) [See Should Jeannie Pratt and Elisabeth Murdoch downsize to high rises in Activity Centers to give young people more room?]

Urban Parks for food production; shopping mall walks for exercise

It was suggested by one of the university academics when the subject of “food security” was raised that urban parks could be turned over for food production and that residents could exercise by walking in shopping malls. Presumably people would be denied back gardens though this was not specifically discussed. In the context of food security it was suggested by one of the speakers that more "intensive farming" could take place in the outer urban growth areas. To us it meant more factory farming, which is cruel and unethical. (Many animal activists want to put an end to it.) We are of the view that our food bowls and green wedges should be protected. Roof top gardens and parks are not a viable alternative.

False perception of inevitability dishonestly imposed on public

It was assumed by the speakers that this "future" spelt out for Melbourne with a rapidly growing population – 6.4 million by 2050 - was inevitable. We say it is not inevitable as the high net overseas migration intake could be capped and reduced as it has been in the past. We consider that the terms “sustainability” and “growth” are oxymorons. Anthropogenic climate change can't be addressed with an economy based on population growth.

Spin cannot hide increasing congestion and no solutions in sight

The "20 minute city" – one of the principles of the MPMS - is to us a contradiction in terms. The proposed growth of Melbourne will inevitably cause more congestion. Infrastructure continually fails to keep abreast of population growth. Rather than more buses, we need more linked public transport and trains. If we cannot manage with congestion and traffic gridlock now why could we manage any better in the future?

Resounding Silence on development-threatened Green Wedges

We consider that our green-wedges are not for housing - they have a purpose as our "green lungs" and should be protected. This was not discussed.

We were of the view that trying to maintain Melbourne's status as a "liveable" city, and "sustainable", are contradictions if our population is "projected" to be 2 million more by 2050 - at a time of severe climate change warnings and increasing scarcities of natural resources.

Homelessness swept under carpet

The problem of “homelessness” was not discussed. It is related, in our view, to the power of developers, grabbing rooming houses for "developments", and forcing up the price of family homes over what is affordable by those on normal fixed wages.

The threat of racism arising from unwelcome mass immigration was not discussed.

Sneering, out-of-touch panellists artlessly contemptuous of public

We were offended by the supercilious rather sneering tone of panellists and comments made. One panellist referred to the “great unwashed” from the outer suburbs. The other male panellist commented that with population pressure new suburbs were becoming “trendy” and expressed surprise that even in Preston growing a moustache was now acceptable and one could get a café latte there. We thought this showed contempt for the audience.

There were few questions, no real vision or strategy for improving or enhancing our city, and there was no chance for the audience to challenge the panel’s opinions. The "Ideas for Melbourne" lacked balance and a contrary side of the debate.

Signed:

Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
Vivienne Ortega, Secretary, Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian Branch)

28 February 2013

Originally published on Global Research TV (http://tv.globalresearch.ca, grtv) on 28 Feb 2013

They say that big ideas start from humble beginnings. In the pantheon of ideas, perhaps there is none bigger than the quest to criminalize war. The concept itself is difficult for many to process at first. It does not mean to uphold some mere code of war conduct, making certain atrocities committed during times of war punishable as “war crimes,” as in the Geneva Convention. Instead, the concept of criminalizing war seeks to make warfare itself a crime, punishable as an offense no matter when or how it is waged or under what pretext.

Originally published on Global Research TV (http://tv.globalresearch.ca, grtv) on 28 Feb 2013

They say that big ideas start from humble beginnings. In the pantheon of ideas, perhaps there is none bigger than the quest to criminalize war. The concept itself is difficult for many to process at first. It does not mean to uphold some mere code of war conduct, making certain atrocities committed during times of war punishable as “war crimes,” as in the Geneva Convention. Instead, the concept of criminalizing war seeks to make warfare itself a crime, punishable as an offense no matter when or how it is waged or under what pretext.

For many in the anti-war movement in the Western world, completely demoralized by the utter abandonment of the movement by many on the pro-war left who are unwilling or unable to criticize Obama’s avid pro-war policies, the idea of criminalizing war will seem a pipe dream, no more realistic than the idea of stopping all violence in the world or making everyone a millionaire. This is precisely the problem. The long-time activists and campaigners have become so disillusioned that they no longer even try to implement the changes they would really like to see take place in the world. The weight of their experiences has taught them to be grateful for small advances here and there, and to expect that big changes can never happen.

In stark contrast to the jaded views of older generations stands the idealism of youth, an idealism that the older generation, predictably enough, tends to dissuade by urging those youth to “grow up” and “face reality.” However, late last year the first seeds of a new anti-war movement were planted in Malaysia, a movement that seeks to shape the world in the image of that ideal society not by dissuading youthful idealism, but by fostering it.

The concept was unveiled at the International Conference on War-Affected Children which took place at the Putra World Trade Centre on November 22nd last year. Attended by dignitaries including former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and current PM Najib Razak, the event sought to draw attention to the plight of children in war-torn countries around the world.

The event also saw the launch of a new initiative by the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War. Called “Criminalise War Clubs,” the aim is to encourage the development of independent, student-run organizations around the idea of criminalizing war. The organization’s charter was formally signed by the Prime Minister and other dignitaries, and the first two chapters of what is planned to be a global phenomenon were started with a reading of the charter.

The charter calls for wars of aggression to be criminalized, for states and governments to protect children in armed conflicts, and for banning the participation of children in wars.

In an exclusive interview with Global Research TV, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad talked about the clubs, and what they hope to achieve.

The clubs are just one program spearheaded by the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War, the non-governmental organization founded by Mahathir Mohamad in 2007. Its other initiatives include the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, comprised of scholars, lawyers and high-ranking officials from around the world, and the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which successfully prosecuted George Bush, Dick Cheney, and others last year for their participation in war crimes in the war on terror.

Last November I talked to G.S. Kumar, the Editor of Criminalise War, about Mahathir Mohamad’s vision, and the promise that initiatives like the Criminalise War Clubs offer.

There is, of course, no guarantee that initiatives like these will pay off in the future. Whether or not human civilization will ever be able to envision a way to resolve their differences without recourse to war is a question that has yet to be definitively answered. But if we do not continue to pose that question, then surely no answer will be possible. And given the stakes of the conflicts raging across the globe today, and the possibility of nuclear war, or war waged with even more advanced technologies, the need to answer this question has never been greater.

To be sure, there is a vast chasm between the world we currently live in and one in which war itself is outlawed. No one is pretending otherwise. But it is clear at this point that if that ideal is ever to be realized, it will not be presided over by the current generation of disillusioned cynics in the burnt-out wreckage of today’s demoralized anti-war movement, but by a generation yet untouched by that disillusionment.

If it is indeed true that big ideas have humble beginnings, then it would be harder to think of a bigger idea, or a more humble origin.

Outside the property development and population growth lobby, very few people who are worried about population growth and high immigration appreciate the effect of endogamy (marrying within your people) and exogamy (marrying outside your people) on population size and fertility. They also don’t recognize its effect on the private amassing of wealthy estates and political power. Anyone who wants to understand modern day problems with overpopulation, poverty, and loss of democracy would do well to study this article. This article is intended to stimulate debate about democracy, wealth distribution, and overpopulation. The author invites critical comments and argument.

Article based on S.M. Newman Demography, Territory and Law: Land-tenure and the origins of capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, 2014. and S.M. Newman Demography, Territory and Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013.

How to read the diagrams: White squares in the diagrams below indicate permitted marriages and black squares indicate forbidden marriages. White squares become black squares when someone is already married, although polygamy varies this factor. The symetrical rules for marriage to "in-laws" are indicated by mirror images, creating an overall pyramid form in the diagram of an extended family or clan.

"Endogamy" refers to marrying within one’s clan, tribe or similar social unit. "Exogamy" refers to marrying outside those units. The most extreme kinds of endogamy tend to be practiced by ancient royal clans, such as the Egyptians and the Incas, where there were sibling, father-daughter and grandfather-granddaughter marriages. Less extreme, but more common, are first and other cousin marriages, frequently practiced by nobility and other established clans and tribes. The wealthy, whether they are noble or not, tend to marry other wealthy people for similar reasons.

High Endogamy, Low Exogamy, Low Fertility

If you look at the white squares, you will see that the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt could marry their children and their grandchildren and other close relatives. The rigidity of this practice varied from pharaoh to pharaoh, and lesser relatives might also be married, however marriage within close blood relatives was encouraged.

The purpose of highly endogamous marriages is to preserve land and power within a small group of people (known as a caste). To this day, dynasties can only preserve themselves by intermarrying. Although sibling marriage and parent or grandparent marriage is widely prohibited, first cousin marriage practiced over several generations can bring about similarly close genetic inheritance.

Although this system promotes fertility, it only does so within a very limited pool of candidates. This means that dynasties are powerful but small populations, able to concentrate, conserve and control their material assets through numerous social, legal and genetic bonds.

Outside the easily recognized institutions of tribe and nobility, people in countries where tradition holds them close to the land and preserves their extended families, still tend to live near and to marry within their own class, region and culture. This is the case with most continental European countries. It has a moderating effect on fertility opportunities[1] and a strengthening effect on local self-government and democratic organization.[2]

Low Endogamy, High Exogamy, Low Fertility

There are very few white squares, so very few permitted marriages. With incest avoidance to the 8th degree fertility opportunities within a clan are very low. This is the opposite system to the Ancient Egyptian one.

In cultures, such as those of desert indigenous populations and South Korea, fertility is kept low by restricting marriage opportunities within the family and clan and relying on external opportunity where external opportunity is limited – for instance by distance. If you are a very small clan, with only your feet for transport and your activities take place many kilometers from the next clan’s location, your opportunities to meet suitable partners will be limited. Infertile environments - typically with low rainfall - make for low density populations and big spaces between clans. The difficulty of finding a mate in such circumstances is well shown in the film Ten Canoes. (Although admittedly there were canoes, their use in the film was local rather than inter-clan.)

High Endogamy, High Exogamy, High Fertility

High exogamy is well represented by the biblical laws of Leviticus 18, very influential on Western societies. See the diagram below.

Lots of white squares here mean that you can marry a lot of people in your clan. Brothers are encouraged to marry their deceased brother's wife and niece marriage is legal. The rules differ according to whether you are male or female. This was the system that accompanied the exhortation to "Go forth and multiply."

Western societies tend to follow the Leviticus pattern, although you do get legal restrictions on cousin marriage in some places (such as Illinois, in the United States) where first cousins are not allowed to marry until they are over 55 years old) and there are age restrictions and social restrictions on marriage between uncles/aunts and nieces and nephews.

Multiculturalism as high fertility exogamy and its effect on self-government and citizen capacity to organize

Extreme exogamy applies in the English speaking ‘settler states’ of the United States, Australia and Canada. The populations in these ‘settler states’ are in continual motion due to constant reorganization of suburbs and infrastructure to accommodate high rates of immigration. This people movement occurs at international, national, regional and inter-suburban and intercity level, rather reminiscent of the increased movement of molecules in a heated substance.

Because families and clans tend to be split and disorganized in these societies, the level of endogamy is reduced, despite lack of legal restrictions. Exogamy is strongly encouraged by policies of ‘multiculturalism’. People move far away from their parents and divorce, remarriage and serial families are frequent impoverishing factors. In continental Europe there just isn’t the same amount of structural turmoil. Although the first and second world wars in those areas did cause significant disturbance, the arrangement of clans and their geographic position in villages and towns persisted.

The most important thing to understand about endogamy and exogamy, however, is their role in promoting or limiting population growth. The diagrams in this article should help the reader to see what is meant by this.

Transport factors in creating the Post War Baby Boom

Another important factor already alluded to that affects these patterns in most cases is the introduction of new transport because it permits individuals to travel greater distances. Horses, camels and elephants will take people a lot further and afford them significantly more fertility opportunities than travel on foot will. Trains, cars, boats and planes multiply opportunity exponentially. Trains are associated with massive population growth, but they impose a geometrically restricted pattern. Those restrictions disappeared with the advent of cheap oil and the automobile. Without these there would not have been a post war baby boom without precedent in size.

More variations

In general high endogamy plus high incest prohibition means low fertility. It is difficult to find people who are not married already and who are not forbidden to you in marriage but who are also members of your tribe. A person in this situation might have to go quite a long way in search of a partner and it is likely that a fairly high proportion of the clans-people would die without marrying or having children.

High endogamy but low incest prohibition, where cousin marriage is frequent means high fertility. In these kinds of situations it is considered important to lock all the land up in the tribe but to have a large tribe with many workers and potential soldiers. Nonetheless there are strict boundaries. Marriage outside the tribe is rare, although usually some immigrants will be accepted into the tribe. Living examples of such tribes are the Karen, the Hutterites and some orthodox Jewish peoples.

High exogamy and high incest prohibition will tend to disperse a people so that they ultimately become unidentifiable as clan or tribe, so you won’t find many intact tribes like this. It is a major factor in the dispersal and disintegration of many previously discrete peoples after they become affected by colonization and lose their contact with their land. Examples include Australian aborigines and possibly the Dutch of the 16th and 17th century during the minor industrial revolution that occurred in the Netherlands and which entailed major population drift from country to city. The capturing of African slaves and their transport to the Americas and Pacific Islands like Haiti is another example where the transported survivors of peoples who probably had low fertility in their original tribes encountered significantly increased fertility opportunities.

Low incest prohibition and low endogamy mean that where a clan is not isolated, it has more fertility opportunities than one with stricter rules. Such patterns characterize the settler states of Canada, Australia, the United States and Britain. Usually even first cousin marriage is permitted, but families and clans are so dispersed and fragmented that marriage to members of unidentified and equally dispersed descendants of clans are common. With the very high immigration in these countries, this potentially results in huge population growth. These are synthetically structured societies. Such countries lack the capacity to organize from the bottom up that is possible in countries where several generations are embodied in clans and historically settled and networked in a particular locality within a larger polity. An example of this strong capacity to organize based on relatively natural distribution would be France or Japan. Some examples of this capacity to organize are the French Revolution, which was able to persist over several generations until a lasting republic was formed, and the German and Japanese manufacturing sectors.

There is good reason to think that variations in endogamy and exogamy are instinctive social responses to environmental fertility signals because these rules also occur in most other animals and plants, as The Rules of Animal and Human Populations explains in chapters 3 and 4 which are also published by themselves as The Urge to Disperse. In a globalized society these signals are diffuse, remote and confusing. Media and government interpretation of signals can influence false perceptions of real environments.

NOTES

Polygamy helps to make such populations larger. An exceptional case was King Abdul Aziz, who began the current Saudi kingdom in 1932 and had 44 legitimate sons by 17 wives. The Saudi royal family had more than 4000 princes and 30,000 noble relatives in 2002 and is considered the largest royal dynasty. Without the commercial industrialization of petroleum the kingdom and dynasty could never have been so powerful. Without this kind of intermarriage the Saudi clans would not have been able to maintain control over Saudi assets. Corporations and international interference would have eroded their power, as they do among ‘common people’ by keeping them disorganised.

“Ibn Saud fathered dozens of sons and daughters by his many wives. He had at most only four wives at one time. He divorced and married many times. He made sure to marry into many of the noble clans and tribes within his territory, including the chiefs of the Bani Khalid, Ajman, and Shammar tribes, as well as the Al ash-Sheikh (descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab). He also arranged for his sons and relatives to enter into similar marriages. He appointed his eldest surviving son, Saud as heir apparent, to be succeeded by the next eldest son, Faisal. The Saudi family became known as the "royal family," and each member, male and female, was accorded the title amir or amira ("prince" or "princess"), respectively.

Ibn Saud died in 1953, after having cemented an alliance with the United States in 1945. He is still celebrated officially as the "Founder," and only his direct descendents may take on the title of "his or her Royal Highness." The date of his recapture of Riyadh in 1902 was chosen to mark Saudi Arabia's centennial in 1999 (according to the Islamic lunar calendar).” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud (Accessed 26 February 2013.)

[1] "Fertility Opportunity" is a phrase borrowed from anthropologist Virginia Abernethy's theory of that name.

[2] Without intergenerational organization in the form of locally organized clans, the French Revolution probably would not have occurred. It had to persist over several generations.

Tony Rooke has persuaded the courts that the BBC must answer the allegation that, in covering up information on the 9/11 attacks, they are colluding with terrorism. Many truth activists are planning to attend the three hour hearing in front of a judge at Horsham magistrates court this Monday 25 February at 9.00am.

Originally published as 9/11 Court Case in Horsham Today: BBC Must Answer Allegation Regarding the Covering up of Information, 25 February 2013 on Global Research. See also: Historic Court Hearings: The BBC in the Dock for Manipulating Evidence and Providing Biased Coverage of the September 11, 2001 Attacks by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, 22 February 2013, "9/11: The Conspiracy Files," The BBC Joins the Ranks of the Untrustworthy United States Media by Debbie Lewis, 24 February 2013.

Update, Tue, 26 Feb, 11:00AM UTC+10: Moral Victory for Protestor who says BBC 9/11 Coverage was False
Campaigner and film maker Tony Rooke claimed a moral victory today after a UK court gave him a conditional discharge even though he has refused to pay his BBC license fee. Over 100 supporters from as far away as Denmark and Norway cheered in front of the court house as independent media people conducted interviews and photographed the crowd. Court officials had booked their largest room for the case but were at a loss to find that well over 50 people could not be fitted in. ...

There are only 30 seats available in the court room and they will be on a first come first serve basis. Some activists will be flying long distance. The hearing will be at The Law Courts, Hurst Road, Horsham West Sussex England RH12 2ET. At least one mainstream media crew will be present but Tony is asking activists not to talk to them and not to hold up placards which do not represent his views.

Please go to bottom to see his message in full. The message to the mainstream media is that Tony will be making a statement after the hearing and they should wait for that. Campaigners are concerned that the media will seek out and interview whoever they can find pedalling a radical 9/11 theory and use them to attempt to discredit months of hard work. This has been a common tactic, for instance from the BBC in their Conspiracy Files programmes. To prevent this happening, organisers intend to physically obstruct interviews with mainstream media outside the court if necessary. Activists attending the hearing are asked to make sure any signs represent the message of this campaign: that the BBC has covered up the truth on 9/11.

Those with signs saying anything that would appear speculative to a general audience (eg 9/11 was an inside job) will be seen as undermining the court case and Tony's campaign. On the factual side Tony is most concerned to highlight the symmetrical collapse of WTC Building 7, a large portion of which fell at free fall speed and which was announced by the BBC some half hour before it happened. He says the Jimmy Saville scandal shows that the BBC were unable to investigate a child molester in their midst, so it is hardly surprising that they do not have the courage to impartially investigate the crime of the century. 'Despite recent offers from mainstream sources, Tony Rooke and his defence team feel that this has come all too late and is not consistent with far too many years of indifference towards the scientific facts that incontrovertibly disprove the official account of 9/11.

Illegal wars have come and continue to be fought under the pretext of that day. Civil liberties have been erased along with the countless lives of troops, civilians and children abroad. These overtures of 'friendly' interest are not to be trusted. This court case has happened only BECAUSE of mainstream media's indifference, antipathy and often ridicule towards those who have researched and found the truth of 9/11, in tandem with a conspicuous silence in the face of such overwhelming evidence that disproves the official version. The mainstream press are to be treated with the contempt they deserve. This case is being fought by those whose ONLY interest is in seeing the science of the 9/11 event analysed by a court, a scrutiny of FACTS that SHOULD have been undertaken by the commercial press and the BBC a long time ago.

Any individual who engages in conversation with a demonstrably deceptive mainstream media at Horsham, does NOT speak for myself or the defence team and we disassociate ourselves from those who cannot resist such insincere overtures. Win, lose or draw, we hope that this court case prompts all those who mistrust our media, to engage in similar, peaceful action, until such numbers become impossible to ignore.

The time for 'research' is long over. The obvious suspects, complicit in the orchestration and cover-up of 9/11, now need to be questioned by uncorrupted police officers. This will NOT be achieved sat in front of your PC. Ignore ITN, ignore ANY mainstream journalist. They have earned your suspicion.' Thank you to all who have supported this stand for progress.

Tony Rooke

www.reinvestigate911.org

info [AT] reinvestigate911.org

http://www.youtube.com/user/reinvestigate911org

We will support any new investigation of the 9/11 attacks so long as:

• it is run by uncompromised people with a range of opinion including those inclined to disbelieve the official 9/11 story,
• it follows the evidence wherever it leads if it takes place in the US to be credible.

It will need full legal authority to demand immediate access to any evidence and any witness it chooses.

The resources it requires to carry out its investigation Reinvestigate 911 is supported by Coffee Plant (www.coffee.uk.com) suppliers of organic and Fairtrade coffees to caterers and retail customers.

457 visas will be tightened.

What was initially intended as a way of plugging temporary skills gaps had become a permanent feature of the Australian labour market.  Thanks to some common sense from our new Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor, 457 visas will be tightened.

Employers should only be permitted to grant visas under the 457 visa subclass where the Australian Government establishes that there are skill shortages in the occupation sponsored in the capital city or region where the employer is located.

The 457 program is uncapped. In 2011-12, there were 68,310 visas allocated to such employer-sponsored 457 primary applicants – up from 48,080 in 2010-11. Further, there are no caps on the number visas issued to Working Holiday Makers, visitors or students, nor any restrictions on the movement of New Zealand citizens to Australia

The number of visas issued to temporary foreign workers under the 457 scheme in the past has outstripped the number of visas granted to permanent skilled migrants. There is every possibility that this is happening now.  Although the permanent skilled intake is capped at present to 210,000 permanent visas, the employer-driven 457 visa scheme is not.  Australians  have been discriminated against in their job searching. 

Our government previously overestimated our jobs growth, and projected large shortages of skills.  According to a report from the Centre of Population and Urban Research , by Bob Birrell and Earnest Healy, employment growth has slowed to about 100,000 a year, but there has been no corresponding adjustment in this immigration policy.   On the contrary, our government's permanent residency immigration program has increased and they continue to encourage employers to sponsor 457 visa holders, regardless of the industry, occupation or location of the employer - and their numbers are uncapped.

Ironically, AMMA (Australian Mines and Metals Association) chief executive Steve Knott said the overseas skilled migration program played a small but critically important role in the resource industry.

"With $650 billion worth of resource projects proposed for our country, it is an absolute fact that our industry cannot source all the skilled people it needs domestically," Mr Knott said in a statement on Sunday. These projects should benefit Australians and reduce welfare spending and unemployment, not transcend our nation.

Almost half of our skilled migrants end up in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney, adding to our population pressure, instead of being targeted to where their skills are needed.

The Roy Morgan May Unemployment estimate last year showed that Australia has a large ‘cohort’ of unemployed (997,000 – 8.2%) and underemployed (1,107,000 – 9.0%). A total of 2.1 million (17.2%) Australians were either looking for work or want to work more hours.

Instead of adjusting immigration rates according to economic conditions, they have been increased, with many uncapped categories.  While short-term skills shortages may be plugged through the use of foreign labour, the long term needs strong investment in our own young people, and our existing under-utilised skilled labour, all who need to be given a "fair go".

Working Holiday Makers

The surge of Working Holiday Makers (WHM) is a prime example. For example, the number of Irish citizens visaed under the WHM program increased from 14,790 in 2009-10 to 25,827 in 2011-12.

The Australian Government should also restrict the work conditions on these visas to allowing work as a direct employee only (as with the 457 visa) and not as a so-called’ independent contractor’. Under current visa rules, overseas students and WHMs can take out an Australian Business Number (or 33 ABN) and employers can engage them as ‘ABN workers’ pretending to work as independent contractors running their own businesses when it fact they are disguised employees.

Enterprise Migration Agreements

The Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) issue has brought the 457 visa program to public attention. Like other 457 visas, Roy Hill did not have to give Australian workers an opportunity to apply for the jobs.

The EMA arrangements have been based on claims that domestic workers are unwilling to work in remote settings. Yet, by October 2012, some 27,500 job seekers had registered an interest for such work on the Government’s Resources Sector Jobs Board.

Nothing is more permanent than a “temporary” migrant

The 457 visa has also become a conduit for migrants seeking a permanent residence outcome. By the 2000s, about half of those originally visaed as 457 visa holders, have, after five years, obtained a permanent residence visa, the great majority of whom were sponsored by the original employer.

All that is required is that the 457 visa holder has been employed for two years by the sponsoring employer. It seems likely that some employers are conniving with overseas students and other temporary migrants by providing them with a desperately sought pathway to permanent residence.

Employers should only have this right if – as the Labor migration policy statement cited above states – they can prove there is a genuine shortage of the skills of the sponsored migrants.

If the maintenance of high immigration is undermining the employment situation of Australians, then the immigration policy settings should be adjusted accordingly.

There might be some benefits to globalization, but not if projects don't benefit Australians, and residents are undermined by cheaper and more flexible foreign labour.

References:
Dr Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy, “Immigration Overshoot”, Centre for Population and Urban Research, Novermber 2012 Monash University

Dr Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy “The Impact of Recent Immigration on the Australian Workforce ”, Centre for Population and Urban Research – February 2013

As human overpopulation in Victoria Australia fuels new sprawling suburbs, kangaroos are being continually deprived of habitat and pushed out into roads. There is an ongoing pantomime to pretend that it is not the human population, but the kangaroo population that is making new impositions on the environment. Culls are called for and, not unexpectedly, country MPs are trying to win votes from the fringes by calling for a commercial kangaroo meat processing industry. Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Counsel, has leapt into the breach to defend kangaroos. Among other things she has said that it is inappropriate for the Minister for Agriculture to make decisions affecting wildlife. She has also repeated her call for wildlife corridors.

Nationals MP Mr O'Brien has asked Minister Peter Walsh (Agriculture and Food Security) to consider a proposal to use kangaroo meat commercially from 'culls' in Victoria. Victoria is currently undergoing government engineered human population growth to such an extent that kangaroos are being pushed out of their habitats by new suburbs and onto new roads. Victorians often find this shocking and would protest so the government tries to get rid of the kangaroos with so-called humane culls before their dreadful plight becomes obvious to those moving into the new suburbs. The human population pressure is mostly caused by mass immigration, which now accounts for well over half of all population growth in Australia.

"This is 2013, not 1788," says AWPC's Maryland Wilson

On 23 February, Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, said that Mr O'Brien was behaving as if it was 1788 (the year of Australia's settlement by the British) rather than 2013. She implied that in Victoria there is an attitude of "If it moves SHOOT it and if it doesn’t chop it down."

"This is 2013 Sir, not 1788 and we must establish interconnecting linking wildlife corridors for remaining native species to survive," said President Wilson.

She added that, "Alarmingly, no one knows how many kangaroos there are in Victoria- NO ONE!" And she asked, "Should that not be a starting point before [the Minister allowed or condoned] any industry or farmers to profit from their demise?"

She said, "Farmers must act responsibly, as must Councils/Shires like the South Grampians Shire who for years have been pushing this barrow [of commercial harvesting of kangaroos].

Kangaroos are not an agricultural product; they are wildlife with intrinsic value

She pointed to issues of cruelty and of gene pool depletion. She also warned that there was a "lack of meat hygiene as kangaroos are killed in the outback NOT abattoirs."

Finally, she asked why the Minister for Agriculture would be making such decisions when kangaroos are not an agricultural product. Her implication was, of course, that a department with responsibilities for wildlife should involved here.

The Greens are expected to oppose any move to lift commercial bans, with Victorian Leader Greg Barber stating that it wouldn't work in practice. "It's cruel, it's wasteful, and it wouldn't pass the food safety rules other farmers have to comply with," Mr Barber has said.

Dale Peterson begins his thesis with the execution of elephants for crimes of murder against humans. An unusual, well-argued and inspiring book. Peterson co-authored the famous Demonic Males, an anthropological study in their own environment of several kinds of apes, including humans. I expected him to come up with something new on the subject of animal morality, and I was not disappointed. This is a real thesis, a slow burning one that reaches a high temperature.

Dale Peterson begins his thesis with the execution of elephants for crimes of murder against humans. He thus arrests our attention with a couple of concepts most of us probably don't mull over every day in relation to elephants: 'execution' and 'murder'.

Execution and Punishment

Firstly, he calls to our minds the difficulty of killing an elephant and of how authorities 'execute' elephants mostly when those animals have done something that makes them seem pretty dangerous - generally maiming or killing a human. The level of decision-making and authority to kill the elephant in question is such that it takes on the character of an execution and a punishment.

Then he introduces the concept of 'murder' by non-humans of humans. He shows how people in earlier times have tended to assume intent and deliberation in animals and that, even though this assumption has been largely dropped with the institution of Cartesian values that say animals are machines without feelings, with elephants people tend, despite themselves, to assume intelligence and planning.

Australians might recognise the motif of execution and murder in the way we sometimes deal with sharks and crocodiles after one of them has killed one of us. And then, there is our attitude to dingos. And pit-bulls.

Speciesism

An important part of Peterson's logic depends on establishing that most species think of themselves as the most important, possibly the only 'real' species, just as humans do. He gives an example of how, when human observers were educated not to interact at all with non-human apes in the Goodall studies - the non-human apes simply forgot the human apes were there. They accommodated their presence in the sense that they went around them, but the almost never attempted to interact. Humans went off their radar - just as most other species are nearly always off most humans' radars.

Obviously you have to read the book to understand what Peterson is talking about here. He is sufficiently original to surprise most people saturated in animal ethology, evolution and animal rights literature.

Empathy a widespread evolutionary trait

Species self-centredness does not exclude a capacity for empathy when there is meaningful interaction with another species and within one's own. Peterson defines empathy and argues very effectively that this is an evolutionary trait shared by many species apart from humans. Readers may not be surprised by this observation, but they will probably be impressed by the reasoning and examples.

With this significant beginning, Peterson goes on to examine other perspectives on animals in laboratories and in the wild which many of us won't have thought of. He also has a lot of unusual but well documented examples from the wild, in part due to his long association with Jane Goodall.

Emotional attitude

When I was deliberating about buying this book, I wondered how Peterson would deal with his own emotions on these subjects and with those he might expect in a reader. Emotional attitude is very important in such works because it can put readers off for a number of different reasons. For instance, some readers might seek to avoid the pain of knowing of awful treatment of animals. Conversely, animal rights readers might suspect an author who did not express indignation and anger. On the other hand, scientific readers and people used to repressing their emotions might prefer an absence of emotion. How does Dale Peterson deal with this? He doesn't become 'emotional' but he nonetheless validates the experience of animals by describing their reactions - for instance how laboratory rats would go hungry and even risk starvation to avoid imposing pain on their rat-neighbours when that was a risk entailed in seeking food - for instance where pressing a lever to get a pellet of food appeared to cause another rat to receive some kind of 'punishment'.

Does Peterson rail against the people who would deliberately cause animals - from lab rats to chimpanzees and elephants - pain? No, he doesn't. But the actions of the animals to protect each other dignify the animals themselves, and so the reader makes their judgement.

Peterson succeeds here in a very difficult field: he teaches us that the matter is too serious for mere indignation. Serious in a manner that requires intense reflection on our relationship with other creatures, with ourselves and each other.

Whales

"The puffin (harvested locally, the waitress promised) was sliced thin, its gaminess muted with litchi and fig. The minke whale, also finely carved, tasted like beef tenderloin with a faint metallic finish; it was savoury and delicate when paired with an airy washabi cream." (Liz Alderman, New York Times travel journalist, 2013)

The industrialized killing of whales during the twentieth century was 'perhaps the most callous demonstration history offers of humankind's self-appointed dominion over animals. One searches almost in vain for an expression of sympathy, compassion, understanding, or rationality. In their place were only insensitivity and avarice.' (Richard Ellis,2003. The Empty Ocean).

Whales are present throughout the book, an undercurrent in the form of educated interpretations of Moby Dick, which will absolutely fascinate anyone who has studied it, but the cetaceans surface, so to speak, in their full glory, in the last chapter.

Now I am not one to be impressed by interspecies comparisons with human intelligence because I don't think I judge other species' worth in relation to humans. I have therefore never been very taken by the popular iconology of whales and porpoises. I love the sea and enjoy the creatures in it. They are a whole other planet. They do not need to be like me for me to want them to be.

Whaling on the west coast of Australia

No, when I think of whales, I think about how, when I was a child about five years old I participated in one of the last whale hunts off the West Australian coast. Two whalers were involved - one Australian and one Russian. My father (a scientist) was a guest for the day on the Russian boat and my mother and I were on the Australian one. The two boats competed for a mother whale and her calf. The Russians caught the mother and the calf. It was windy. The sea was roiling. The whales, although huge, appeared and disappeared among the waves. I remember the excitement of the pursuit and apparently friendly competition between the boat crews pursuing the same whale.

When we came ashore, we left the real crews to deal with their catch and drove to the country pub where we were sleeping.

Early the next morning we returned to the whaling station, eager to see the work that had been done. We climbed up on a rise above the station and looked down into a bay like a pit between cliffs. Our stomachs lurched at the sight. Humans were climbing over the partially exposed skeleton of the huge mother whale in a scene that resembled one of Hieronymous Boch's versions of hell. They were hacking away at the giant creature like ants with axes and knives. Was the little one lying beside its mother? I cannot be sure of my memory. I do remember that even my father (a man who made his own spears for underwater fishing) lost his bullish enthusiasm for the scene. The terrible smell of rotting whale even outdid the visual desecration of such an obviously monumental animal. Above everything else, the smell drove us away, gagging with horror, suddenly deeply depressed.

I was glad when I became aware they had banned whaling some years after that. Since then I have enjoyed the sight of whales with the feeling that - at least those I can see in Australia - are not menaced by a local whaling industry. Since there are already so many people out there protesting on behalf of whales, with an apparent appetite for associated posters and films, I have felt I could choose to spend my time trying to defend our very deserving Australian indigenous land-creatures and vegetation, which lack the profile in their own country that whales do, but suffer similarly.

Whale statistics

Reading Dale Peterson's last chapter, however, concentrated my mind on the precarious position of whales. Peterson doesn't waste the reader's time with excess adjectives and examples. He makes the matter perfectly clear. Some whale populations that recovered from initial whaling bans are now nearly extinct, largely due to the current activities of the Japanese, the Greenlanders and the Icelanders. Some of the biggest creatures on the earth - with much larger brains than ours and similar neuronal connections - and perhaps with superior morality and values - are close to being wiped out by a bunch of badly-educated apes who no longer are in touch with what is going on around them. There is no excuse for whaling. There is no excuse for extinction. We have no excuse, except perhaps that, collectively, we humans are not as smart as we think.

"Altogether the brains of cetaceans show 'a structural complexity that could support complex information processing, allowing for intelligent, rational behavior.' That's the word from the neuroanatomists, and those scientists who have been studying cetacean behavior for the last several decades strongly support it, finding a group of animals who have excellent memories and high levels of social and self-awareness, who are excellent at mimicking the behavior of others and can respond to symbolic representations, who form complex and creatively adaptive social systems, who show a broad capacity for the cultural transmission of learned behaviors ... and so on."

"Nearly half of the thirteen great whale species are currently listed as endangered, some critically so, while a number of localized populations are gone or just about gone. The right whale of the North Atlantic, once common, is now down to a population of around three hundred and still declining. These giant animals were given their name in the old days because, as slow-moving and naturally-buoyant-after-death creatures, they were the 'right' ones to find and kill. Now they are right for extinction, with their continuing decline today, largely the consequence of accidental collisions with ships. The magnificent blue whales of the Antarctic, abundant until whalers discovered them, have been reduced to around 1 percent of their original numbers. At more than a hundred feet long and 150 tons heavy, incidentally, these animals are the largest creatures ever to have lived on this planet, land or sea, but they, too, are teetering on the edge of nonexistence. Also endangered or threatened are the gray whales of the northwestern Pacific, the fin whales, the sei, the beluga, and the sperm whales. 'Trusting creatures whose size probably precluded a knowledge of fear,' writes author and marine wildlife expert Richard Ellis, in The Empty Ocean (2003), 'the whales were chased until they were exhausted and then stabbed and blown up; their babies were slaughtered; their numbers were halved and halved again.' The industrialized killing of whales during the twentieth century, Ellis concludes, was 'perhaps the most callous demonstration history offers of humankind's self-appointed dominion over animals. One searches almost in vain for an expression of sympathy, compassion, understanding, or rationality. In their place were only insensitivity and avarice.'

"The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was originally organized in 1946 to support the industry by promoting the supposedly 'sustainable' harvesting of whales. But commercial whaling had, by the second half of the century, reduced the numbers of most species so decisively that in July of 1982 the IWC declared a moratorium on all whaling.

That important and positive event has been challenged continuously by the Starbucks[1] of this world. The Soviet whaling industry simply continued harvesting whales of all species, all ages and sizes, while falsifying their reports. The Japanese officially adhered to the terms of the moratorium by identifying their whaling as 'scientific' rather than a commercial enterprise. Iceland ignored the moratorium, allowing its ships to kill one hundred minke whales and as many as one hundred and fifty endangered finned whales during the 2008 and 2009 seasons. The Norwegians have never stopped whaling either and continue to slaughter hundreds of minke whales yearly, insisting that whale killing is a glorious part of their cultural heritage and, furthermore, that these giant mammals eat too many fish. During the 2009 meeting of the IWC, meanwhile Greenland,backed by the Danish government, applied for permission to harvest as many as fifty endangered humpback whales over the next five years for the purposes of 'aboriginal subsistence,' even though Greenland already has a surplus of whale meat, which is sold in supermarkets."

Exotic eating driving extinction everywhere

After I began writing this review, I was sad to read the following in an internationally syndicated travelogue by New York journalist, Liz Alderman, about Iceland nightlife:

"We studied the menu and pointed to the puffin and minke whale appetisers, Icelandic delicacies. The puffin (harvested locally, the waitress promised) was sliced thin, its gaminess muted with litchi and fig. The minke whale, also finely carved, tasted like beef tenderloin with a faint metallic finish; it was savoury and delicate when paired with an airy washabi cream."

Liz Alderman was not starving, was not an indigenous hunter, was not unable to procure other kinds of food, so how could she be so blind and deaf and dumb to the imminent extinction of the whale and the puffin?[3] And, if it sold articles, would she also sample elephants' tusks and tigers' bones? Where would she draw the line? Would she, could she draw a line anywhere?

Is there any hope for the world? Are we any different from the Ancient Romans who gorged themselves with rare animal dishes and self-induced vomiting so as to be able to eat more?

It is as if every local rule that ever developed to save something for later and maintain the populations of food sources is being eroded by marketing for short-term gain to nations of unhappily fat people who cannot avoid exposure to the brainwashing.

I know I am not the only one who is absolutely sick of the multiplication of cooking shows on television. I rarely turn on my own television, but television is now everywhere - on the back of airline seats, in hospitals and doctors' waiting rooms, in public squares. It is a form of ideological pollution. At every hour of day and night we are sold the idea of eating more and more kinds of animals, to seek the out wherever they may hide and popularise their demise. So we are supposed to admire a man who urges us to taste fried spiders, then follow the camera's eye as it roves greedily over other produce, passing casually over the sad little face of a small dead bat. The image haunts me still, because I have actually been friends with a bat. I recorded it in this film, Gracie, the flying fox.

Julia Buch, who introduced me to the friendly bat took to saving baby bats orphaned on bat hunts in New Guinea, when she was a child. A tradition of bat eating among a small population of New Guinea clans-people is one thing; 7.5 billion people hunting down every bat and every spider, every tasty rare plant and turning their habitats into fields for soy and corn is like some kind of scary nightmare. Yet that is what is happening! Humans have become the nemesis of every other creature in the world. Our behaviour is monstruous.

NOTES

[1] Starbuck was one of the characters in Moby Dick. He was less impressed by Moby Dick and Captain Ahab than most of the crew. He wanted to get on with business and go home to his wife.
[2] Liz Alderman, "The nights and lights of Reykjavik," Australian Financial Review, February 22-24, 2013, pp22-24.
[3] Puffins are hunted for eggs, feathers and meat. Atlantic Puffin populations drastically declined due to habitat destruction and exploitation during the 19th century and early 20th century. They continue to be hunted in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

The Atlantic Puffin forms part of the national diet in Iceland, where the species does not have legal protection. Puffins are hunted by a technique called “sky fishing”, which involves catching low-flying birds with a big net. Their meat is commonly featured on hotel menus. The fresh heart of a puffin is eaten raw as a traditional Icelandic delicacy.

Conservation

SOS Puffin is a conservation project based from the Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick to save the puffins on islands in the Firth of Forth. Puffin numbers on the island of Craigleith, once one of the largest colonies in Scotland, with 28,000 pairs, have crashed to just a few thousand due to the invasion of Tree Mallow, an exotic plant which has taken over the island and prevented the puffins from accessing their burrows and breeding.[21] The project has the support of over 450 volunteers and progress is being made with puffins returning in numbers to breed this year.

In the summer, children in Iceland walk around local areas with boxes and containers to rescue puffins that land in dangerous spots, such as close to cities, where the city light has confused them into trying to fly into that direction, as opposed to diving in the direction of the light reflecting off the sea water near their burrows. The children who rescue puffins then later release them at sea, and away from the city. Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffin

About the author of this review

Sheila Newman is an evolutionary sociologist. Her home page is http://candobetter.net/SheilaNewman Her most recent book is reviewed at /?q=node/3155. See below for where you can obtain a copy.

Click here to Buy PRINT VERSION of S.M. Newman, Demography Territory Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (2013)

Videoed work by Tetsuro Matsuzawa shows that "Chimpanzees have a faster working memory than humans according to a remarkable study showing that it takes them a fraction of a second to remember something that it would take several seconds for humans to memorise." Video-link inside article, plus multiple links to this fascinating long-term Japanese study.Will this bring more respect for these creatures whom Spain recently granted legal rights as persons, along with gorillas?

"A Japanese scientist, Tetsuro Matsuzawa has demonstrated the prowess of chimps in remembering in less than half a second the precise position and correct sequence of up to nine numbers on a computer screen.

The numbers are shown together randomly distributed on a computer screen and as soon as the chimps press the number “one” the rest of the numerals are masked. However, they can almost invariably remember where each number was." (The Independent)

The above newspaper article was my first source, but I later found the far more fascinating original scientific site and have updated this article to include it, with excerpts below. The fast working memory video that initially got me interested, turns out to be a mere step in a groundbreaking long term study.

Some of you may recognise the computerized memory tests that the chimpanzee is doing in the video. I have certainly done similar ones on Lumosity. No way I could beat a chimp. I don't know anyone who could. I can easily see how impressive these studies are.

Will this kind of information bring more respect for these creatures whom Spain recently granted legal rights as persons, along with gorillas?

It would be nice to think that the ape in this film, Ai, would not spend her whole life a prisoner and that she might exercise her person-rights to a natural and fitting habitat. There are many photos of Ai and of a large clan of apes in the institute. Whilst they look happy and confident in the photos, I could not at first see whether or not they had access to natural habitat. They do, however, as these and other photos show. http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/en/friends/ai.html They have an outside compound which includes steel climbing towers with balconies overlooking Japanese suburbs.

Here is a link to some fabulous portraits of the apes associated with the laboratory. You can click on most or all of them for biographies of each ape, and more photos. These are certainly fascinating pages. There is even a page of drawings by the institute apes: http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/en/album/the_drawings_by_chimpanzees.html

Ai was born in West Africa, but has a long-time association with Tetsuro Matsuzawa, who has spent a lifetime studying apes, many of them in the wild. Here is another link to more detail about his work. http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/

Matsuzawa is also famous for studying how chimps use tools.
The video below is a charming film about a little ape learning how to use rocks to crack nuts from its mother in the wild.

Read more about Tetsuro Matsuzawa here.

Numerical memory span in a chimpanzee

There is a lot more about chimpanzees and their numerical skills, in work Nobuyuki Kawai and Tetsuro Matsuzawa have done with the same female ape, Ai, who features in the computer exercise at the beginning of this article. Below I have copied and pasted a short commentary from http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/en/publication/KawaiN/Kawai-Matsuzawa_2000_NATURE_Short_memory_span.html

"A female chimpanzee called Ai has learned to use Arabic numerals to represent numbers. She can count from zero to nine items, which she demonstrates by touching the appropriate number on a touch-sensitive monitor2, 3, and she can order the numbers from zero to nine in sequence4, 5, 6. Here we investigate Ai's memory span by testing her skill in these numerical tasks, and find that she can remember the correct sequence of any five numbers selected from the range zero to nine.

Humans can easily memorize strings of codes such as phone numbers and postcodes if they consist of up to seven items, but above this number they find it much harder. This 'magic number 7' effect, as it is known in human information processing7, represents a limit for the number of items that can be handled simultaneously by the brain.

To determine the equivalent 'magic number' in a chimpanzee, we presented our subject with a set of numbers on a screen, say 1, 3, 4, 6 and 9. She had already displayed close to perfect accuracy when required to choose numerals in ascending order, but for this experiment all the remaining numbers were masked by white squares once she had selected the first number. This meant that, in order to be correct in a trial, she had to memorize all the numbers, as well as their respective positions, before making the first response. Chance levels with three, four and five items were 50, 13 and 6%, respectively.

Ai scored more than 90% with four items and about 65% with five items, significantly above chance in each case. In normal background trials, response latency was longest for the first numeral and much shorter for all the others, indicating that Ai inspected the numbers and their locations and planned her actions before making her first choice. In masking trials, response latency increased only for the choice directly after the onset of masking, but this latency was similar to those recorded in background trials, indicating that successful performance did not depend on spending more time memorizing the numbers."

Crazily, the Federal Government is actually giving developers self-regulation regarding declaring whether there are 'significant' populations of koalas where they intend clearing and building. This is the height of absurdity. Alex Harris of KoalaTracker has a method for documenting koala activities but he needs your help to keep it up. We need this kind of evidence to challenge developers' lies about flora and fauna on the land they clear. KoalaTracker builds on every new sighting report. The bad new government guidelines underscore the need for KoalaTracker and local involvement. We need koala location intelligence. Article by Alex Harris

I have been ill for much of the last few months which left me unable to work and a lot has happened in the interim. Will send more regular and shorter updates in the future. FYI the drugs have kicked in and I'm told I'll live.

I must admit to losing heart at times. Recent events, however, prove unequivocally the value of KoalaTracker. We must prevail. There is too much at stake to give up now. More on that and changes to KoalaTracker below.

In November I spoke at the Spatial@Gov conference in Canberra on crowdsourcing for public policy, presenting KoalaTracker as a case study, which led to my also presenting at Georable Brisbane. You’ll be pleased to know geographic experts are impressed with the concept and execution of KoalaTracker.

Overwhelmed with the workload in November, I called for volunteers to help with data entry from rescue groups too busy to enter it themselves, and got three. Thank you to members Peter Levy, Judi Allen and Lyn Prowse-Bishop, who have been diligently working through spreadsheets supplied by Fauna Rescue South Australia (FSA in the database). Your contribution has been, and continues to be of enormous value.

More volunteers needed to share the load so no one burns out. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. Let me know if you can give a couple of hours a month.

Also in November, I ran a brief fundraising campaign on the community crowdfunding site Indiegogo, to help with the costs of maintaining KoalaTracker. Sadly, it was not the success I’d hoped. But my sincere thanks go to members Greg Johnstone, Greg Brinkley and Carol Wenz (USA) for their kind support.

Please take the time to continue with the rest of this email. Recording the location of alive, dead and injured koalas has never been more important, and below I outline why.

IN MEMORIAM

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who have suffered a shocking first month of 2013. From extraordinary fire events through record-breaking floods, the heart break of such incredible losses in homes, in stock and crops, in livelihoods and lives across Australia, touches us all.

The number of wildlife lost will never be known. The television cameras may have been in western New South Wales and Tasmania, but the fires in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia also burned through tens of thousands of hectares of wildlife habitat. The intensity, speed and height of the flames suggests potentially extreme loss of life in our fragile koala populations, incapable as they are of outrunning the flying infernos witnessed this summer. So too wallaby species, quolls, gliders and other marsupials and reptiles. Those that are left will struggle to find food in burnt out areas.

All koala populations, even those once thought healthy are now at risk. The challenge to save the koala has never been greater. But we can’t save them if we don’t know where they live. This is not about trees. It's about the koala.

URGENT ACTION REQUIRED

With koalas being officially listed as vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory in April last year, one could be forgiven for thinking all is not lost. But the koala remains under threat from impacts that we could control, and for the most part don’t. The threats include loss of habitat (development, farming, mines, fires), isolation of colonies that results in limited gene pools and vulnerability to disease, high volumes of car strikes and domestic dog attacks, uncoordinated and outdated public policy.

Policy not informed by the location of koalas, but the satellite mapping of pixel colours to define koala habitat; policy that sees an overwhelming number of koalas euthanised; policy that enables mining and logging of ‘protected’ primordial and irreplaceable koala forest, and official guidelines that will put the responsibility for the assessment of potential impact on koala populations of a development, under the new federal protection laws, in the hands of developers.

Here is the extent of that federal protection:

The federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is developing guidelines to assist businesses to clarify whether a development will need federal environment approval. The current document (Interim Koala Referral Advice for Proponents) is available here (http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/guidelines-policies.html#species). Read it and weep.

Yep, that’s right. You decide whether federal environmental approval of your project is required. If you don’t find any koalas, or fail to find a population of importance (whatever that means), your project will not be subject to federal scrutiny under federal environmental legislation.

Do we need to call Tom Waterhouse for the odds on developers quietly removing, or flat out denying the existence of koalas on their land? It has happened before. It will again. Or mining companies? Or… And who can challenge them without evidence to suggest otherwise?

The habitat maps relied upon for planning and development approvals are wrong. I proved that at Spatial@Gov, and KoalaTracker continues to build upon that proof with every new sighting report. These new guidelines underscore the need for KoalaTracker and your involvement. We need koala location intelligence. We cannot afford to become complacent.

You can do something, and you must. You have at your disposal a sophisticated mapping tool that puts koala location intelligence on the public record. KoalaTracker is free for you to use; governments, developers and media too. They are logging on regularly. Are you?

If you are refusing to report because you think you are protecting a hidden, ‘safe’ koala colony, think again, because you could be putting those koalas at risk. With these new guidelines, those populations could be annihilated and there is nothing we will be able to do, because the developers and governments will rightly say, we didn’t know there were any koalas there.

If as a rescue group you are refusing to report because you already file your data with a state government agency and this seems like a duplication, I can assure you it is not. Your entry to KoalaTracker is not filed away, it is free for anyone to view on a map, to search in the database. KoalaTracker has been instrumental in councils taking effective risk mitigation.

Please put your rescues on the public record at KoalaTracker. It is a free national resource. Sign your reports with the initials of your group, like FSA, SCKWR, SRWR do. This allows a search of the database on your rescue group’s initials, adding value to your local advocacy and fundraising efforts.

Let us help you get that information on the map. If you have a spreadsheet of rescues or sighting reports with geocodes or accurate address, situation and outcome details, I and our volunteers can enter that to catch you up, with the expectation that you would undertake individual reports from herein. Please contact me directly.

NEW DATA

Watching sighting reports come in, I am often struck by the variations in diet recorded by members observing koalas in the wild - including koalas eating macadamia, camphor laurel and olive leaves. The response to this discussion in an earlier email brought even more information. KoalaTracker member Charlie Lewis has reported and photographed koalas eating termites.

It appears to be mothers with back babies. The photos show the mother teaching and encouraging her young to eat out of the nest. (Search the database on keyword, termite, to see for yourself.) This behaviour appears to be similar to the mother-baby bark eating on the Monaro Tableland referenced in an earlier email.

It is possible this is more widespread, but has not necessarily been observed. So, if you have a tree termite nest and koala visitors, keep a watch for their behaviour around that nest and report it on KoalaTracker.com.au.

Do not doubt the value of citizen science. Like the landowners in Monaro, you are best placed to make observations of koalas in the wild. As we become more aware of koalas in our midst, observing their behaviour more than just noticing their presence, is our next frontier. You may find yourself adding valuable new data to our knowledge of koalas.

CHANGES TO REPORTING MAP

Over several days this month I conquered the rewriting of the geolocation code (Google’s V3 API). As I am not a spatial specialist, nor coder, it took more time and effort than it might otherwise have, but if you have experienced Google errors previously
you should be pleased with the result.

This represents the biggest change to KoalaTracker since its modest launch in February 2010. It reduces the mapping process to three simple steps. Your search for an address will throw up address records to choose from, eliminating errors. You can now also search on landmarks, such as national parks, pubs, sporting clubs and public buildings (very cool). The map zooms right in automatically, and to plot the koala you now drag the marker to the exact location, which automatically feeds geocodes through to the form, and this works on the computer, iPad and other tablets. So, no excuses now…see the new mapping tool and form on the Report a Sighting page in the member zone on KoalaTracker.

Our library (the Read News section), for obvious reasons, has fallen by the wayside, with no additions since June, despite a continuing high volume of media on koala issues. To this end, if you would like KoalaTracker to maintain this national library of media clippings on koalas, I need one or more volunteers to take on this ‘job’ as their own. Please let me know if you find the library of value, and if you have time and interest in sourcing and adding media clips to it.

I NEED YOUR HELP

I find it particularly hard to ask for help, but need now outstrips pride.

This is not a charitable organisation with tax deductibility status; it does not qualify for community grants; it is unsupported by corporations and government. KoalaTracker is a free community service, created, maintained and entirely self-funded for three years. I give everything I’ve got and I do it for free. Having been without income for six months now (self-employment isn't what it's cracked up to be) the circumstances can only be described as dire. Please consider a donation, however small. All donations gratefully received. See the Support page for details.

Alternatively, please send me work. Or a job! I am a digital savvy professional freelance writer, with a past in public relations and media.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Please tell your friends about KoalaTracker. Tell your friends in rural areas; tell friends in New South Wales, in western Sydney and western Queensland, the Eyre and Mornington Peninsulas. We know there are koalas there, we are just not yet getting reports. Keep an eye out on your morning walk, gardening or landcare activities. Check the KoalaTracker blog for the article on how to find them in the wild, and start watching for and reporting koalas in your area.

As always, every sighting counts.

Alex Harris
alex[AT]koalatracker.com.au
0412 635 274