A woman who exposed the US and British governments' email surveillance and tapping of home and office phones has lost her job and faces a jail sentence as a result.

Katharine Gun was working in Britain's Government Communications Headquarters last year when she learned of a plan by the US government to spy on at least half a dozen UN delegations as part of the US's failed efforts to win Security Council support for the invasion of Iraq.

Ms Gun leaked the memo from the US National Security Agency to the London Observer, in the mistaken belief that Britain and the US might not invade Iraq if they could not get United Nations approval.

As well as losing her job, she faces up to two years jail for violating the Official Secrets Act.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Successful business people have similar psychological problems to juvenile delinquents, according to a new report.

Abraham Zaleznik is a psychoanalyst and professor at Harvard Business School. He says that entrepreneurs typically do not feel risk or weigh up consequences in the same way as normal people. He says that they lack 'signal anxiety' - the normal internal signal which tells people to not always act on their impulses, because of possible bad consequences.

Professor Zaleznik also talks about "delinquent communities" forming in business circles, and causing scandals such as the false accounting in Enron. He says that "if individuals who are invited to become part of the delinquent community have a fully functioning conscience, they will not engage" - however people who lack signal anxiety can allow a leader to "take over the functions of conscience" and "in effect give people permission to join in the illicit activity".

(Source: The Age)

 

Labor leader Mark Latham has said in a speech that Australians should work harder.

Mr Latham told the ALP national conference that "when I was young, Mum used to tell me there were two types of people in our street - the slackers and the hard workers".

The original draft of Mr Latham's speech used the term "no-hopers".

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

Victorians with long-term illness are often forced to wait more than a year for a public hospital bed, according to a new report.

The report by the Productivity Commission found that more than 40 percent of Victorians who needed hospital admissions within 90 days of falling ill, actually had to wait 12 months or more for a bed.

The report also said that 18 percent of patients who needed emergency treatment also had to wait 'longer than acceptable' times.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

Emergency relief agencies are struggling to cope with demand from parents who are unable to cope with rising public school costs.

A new report, A Study in Back To School Costs, shows that Melbourne's relief and aid agencies are not coping with the increased demand.

Gavin Dufty from St Vincent de Paul said that "this survey is identifying people who have had to come and beg to afford a below-basic education for their children".

Mr Dufty said that key factors were 'voluntary fees' of up to $1000 a year that are increasingly becoming compulsory, and problems with the Education Maintenance Allowance. The Allowance is paid partly to schools rather than parents - a practice defended partly on the grounds that 'some parents' would not spend it responsibly.

(Source: Melbourne Times)

 

Victoria's public sector watchdog is investigating claims that the State Government doctored an annual report from the state's former surveyor-general and forged his signature on another document.

Acting Ombudsman Robert Seamer has decided to investigate why former surveyor-general Keith Bell's final annual report was substantially altered before being tabled in State Parliament last November.

Mr Seamer is also examining accusations that the Department of Sustainability and Environment used an electronic version of Mr Bell's signature to sign off on a section of another report that he said he had not written.

The original version of the report featured criticisms of Land Victoria and raised concerns about administrative procedures that were having a negative effect on his role.

Planning Minister Mary Delahunty was also criticised over a lack of consultation on an issue in his original report.

More than a dozen paragraphs and sentences referring to Land Victoria or Ms Delahunty were edited out of the version tabled in Parliament.

The Government has also been criticised for the unauthorised use of Mr Bell's signature in a report late last year.

Premier Steve Bracks defended the changes, saying the department had to be satisfied with the report before submitting it to Parliament.

(Source: The Age)

 

The Wal-Mart chain of supermarkets in the United States is under fire for reportedly locking in overnight workers at many of its stores, sometimes to the detriment of their own safety.

The New York Times reported a number of cases in which employees were allegedly prevented from leaving a store when they were injured, unwell or, as in one case in Florida, when a hurricane struck the area.

Michael Rodriguez, who works at a Wal-Mart store in Texas and waited an hour for colleagues to free him from beneath fallen machinery as they searched for a key, said: "It isn't right. You could have been bleeding to death and they'll have you locked in."

Wal-Mart officials said a lock-in policy operated in some stores and had done for up to 15 years. But they said the stores were either in high crime areas or at risk of "shrinkage", a euphemism for theft by employees.

(Source: The Independent [UK])

 

Trinity Grammar in Sydney has received an increase in federal funding of 220 per cent over a four year period. Government schools have received an increase of about 20 per cent over the same four-year period.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Prime Minister John Howard has said that public school attendance is falling because public schools are too "politically correct", rather than because of lack of funding.

Mr Howard added that some public schools were "hostile or apathetic to Australian heritage and values".

Non-government schools, with 30 percent of secondary school students, will receive $4.7 billion in federal funding in 2004, beating universities which will receive $4.5 billion.

Rob Durbridge from the Austrailan Education Union said that many elite private schools had had increases of over 200 per cent in federal government funding in the last few years.

(Source: Herald Sun, ABC News website)

 

Australian troops secretly attacked Iraqi forces a day before war was announced by either the US or Australian governments.

SAS units attacked Iraqi positions on the evening of March 18 (Iraq time). This was 16 hours after President Bush had given Saddam Hussein a 48 hour ultimatum to leave Iraq or be attacked.

The troops had secretly entered Iraq before the attack.

(Source: The Age)

 

Quotes of the Moment:

"My time in Iraq has always involved finding things to convince myself that I can be proud of my actions; that I was a part of something just. But no matter what pro-war argument I came up with, I pictured my smirking commander-in-chief, thinking he was fooling a nation".

(Mike Prysner, a US soldier in Iraq)


"You'd be surprised at how many of the guys I talked to in my company and others believed that the president's scare about Saddam's WMD was a bunch of bullshit and that the real motivation for this war was only about money".

(An anonymous US soldier in Iraq)


"Wow, 130,000 troops on the ground, nearly 500 deaths and over a billion dollars a day, but they caught a guy living in a hole. am i supposed to be dazzled?"

(another anonymous US soldier)


"My step-son ________ has been in Iraq since March 19th. Last night he spoke to my husband on the phone (no, not a phone provided by the US government, an Iraqi satellite phone which he pays for himself). His unit got hit in a mortar attack. He watched one of his comrades get his legs blown off. His buddy tied tourniquets around the other soldier's legs and managed to stop arterial bleeding, luckily he is still alive.

_______ tried to give one soldier (a woman MP) CPR but she died in his arms

_______ said that this is the worst it's been since the "end" of the war. He said the troops have been given new rules of engagement, and that they are to "take out" any persons who aggress on the Americans, even if it results in "collateral" damage. Unfortunately, _______ did have to kill someone in self defense and was told by his commanding officer "Good kill."

_______ replied "You just don't get it, do you?".

Here we are...Vietnam all over again".


(the source for all these letters is Mike Moore's website).

 

The Iraqi Governing Council appointed by the United States has decided that family laws should be "cancelled" and issues such as divorce placed under strict religious law.

The status of Iraqi women was much better than in other Middle Eastern countries, with laws prohibiting child marriage, arbitrary divorce (in some countries men can divorce their wives instantly just by announcing the fact), or official sexism in child custody or property disputes.

The chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has dictatorial powers and is expected to veto the decision. However the US government is planning to hand over power (without direct elections) in June.

(Source: The Age)

 

Victorian taxpayers are paying about $18,000 a week to prop up the Mount Buffalo Chalet tourist resort, whose private operator has been accused of financial mismanagement.

Parks Victoria chief executive Mark Stone said payments had been made since November last year.

Mr Stone said that "whether the chalet is occupied or not we still have to run the sewerage and water systems up there".

Chalet operator Robert Arnold is at the centre of allegations including an Australian Securities and Investments Commission complaint, claims that staff superannuation has not been paid, failure to comply with payroll tax requirements and failure to pay creditors.

A source told The Sunday Age that employees' superannuation had not been paid since December 2002, with staff voluntary contributions not being included in the fund. The source also said that the Australian Tax Office was owed more than $1 million in unpaid payroll tax.

A former employee of the chalet said that she had received no superannuation payments since June 30, 2002, and the voluntary contributions being set aside by staff were not entering the fund. She said former employees had contacted the Tax Office to check the state of their superannuation funds. She said there had also been delays of up to three weeks in the payment of staff wages.

One employee says he is owed more than $10,000 in unpaid leave and other entitlements. "I don't believe I'll see any of my money," he said.

(Source: The Age)

 

The suicide rate among US soldiers occupying Iraq is rising, and is now 30 percent higher than the rate in peacetime.

The 21 military suicides so far represent 4.2 per cent of the 496 American deaths in Iraq.

William Winkenwerder, US assistant secretary of defence for health affairs, said "we don't see a trend there in looking at these cases that tells us there is more we might be doing".

(Source: Hearst Newspapers, The New York Times)

 

A mentally ill man who was shot dead by police after attacking someone, had been trying to get help for days but was ignored by the health system.

Awale Mohamed had been telling people that he was ready to kill himself.

A GP diagnosed Mr Mohamed as schitzophrenic, and wrote an urgent referral to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said he could see Mr Mohamed in six weeks. St George public hospital in Sydney said they could not assess him until the next afternoon. When he finally reached the hospital's mental health unit, he was sent home after an hour's assessment by a nurse with an assurance that he would be OK, despite relatives telling the nurse that Mr Mohamed was planning to kill himself and could hurt other people. The nurse refused to let Mr Mohamed be assessed by a doctor.

Twenty-four hours later, Mr Mohamed was taken back to St George in an ambulance, having been shot dead in the street by police.

Mr Mohamed's cousin Sugule said that "he should have got the help that was asked for, and he should not have died".

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Contracts signed under the government's information technology outsourcing program are running at least $750 million over budget.

Under the program, government departments paid private companies to do computer work which would previously have been done inside the department. Advocates of the free market said that this would be cheaper and more efficient.

The government has abandoned the program, but contracts that are already signed are still in effect.

(Source: Financial Review)

 

A quarter of all land animals, more than a million species, could be extinct by 2050 due to climate change.

The research by an international group of scientists found that 24 percent of species would go extinct using 'middle of the road' predictions on the amount of global warming.

Land clearing and the burning of fossil fuels are among the worst contributors to climate change.

The governments of the United States and Australia are almost alone in refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases.

(Source: The Age)

 

Victoria's childcare system is in crisis, with parents facing waiting lists of up to 1150 children in community and council-run childcare centres.

Parents are also facing extra costs for childcare, of up to $1820 per year.

The lack of facilities in regional areas means some parents have to travel 100km for childcare.

The co-ordinator of one childcare centre said that waiting lists there were between eighteen months and two years.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

Most people now get 500 less hours of sleep per year than they need.

A spokesman for the British Sleep Society said that longer working hours were parrtly to blame.

"Suddenly we don't have time to ourselves and sleep seems like a luxury" he said.

In the past 100 years, average sleeping hours have dropped by a fifth. The health risks of sleep deprivation include obesity, diabetes, stress, and even brain damage; a Canadian study has found that the brains of sleep-deprived people shrink.

(Source: MX newspaper)

 

Indonesian paramilitary police have killed at least one protestor while guarding a mine owned by an Australian mining company.

Local people are angry about the $100 million gold mining development in eastern Indonesia. They say that profits from the mine are not benefitting local people. They also say the mine was opened in protected forest without government approval.

Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network spokesman Igor O'Neill said that neither the Indonesian Parliament or the Department of Forestry had yet decided whether to overturn a ban on open cut mining in forest areas, yet Newcrest went ahead and clear-felled the area anyway.

Human rights groups said that another man was shot in the leg during the clash and severely beaten - some reports say he was beaten to death.

Australian mining company Newcrest said while "we regret that has occurred", it was not the company's responsibility.

(Source: Ninemsn website, Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"The government claimed inflation would rise by no more than 1.9 per cent, yet it reached 6 per cent in two consecutive quarters and was above 5 per cent in four consecutive quarters. They government claimed it would increase growth and boost jobs. Instead it has increased personal bankruptcies and slowed growth while the level of those employed has dropped. The government claimed that [the GST] would reduce the 'black economy', yet early indications suggest it has actually increased it".

(Ashley McInnes - from a study of the impact of the GST)

 

Families of 17 year olds in adult prisons in Victoria are considering legal action against the State government, saying that juveniles are victimised by other prisoners.

Victoria allows 17 year olds to be tried as adults and sentenced to adult prisons.

Father Peter Nordern, a former prison chaplain and convenor of the Victorian Criminal Justice Coalition, said that young people were subjected to physical and sexual assault in the prison system.

"The only thing that will make the government act quickly on this matter is the loss of a life", he said. "The longer we wait, the more likely it is that that will happen".

One 17 year old was remanded to an adult prison despite being delusional and depressed. When released, his body was covered in cigarette burns. Another 17 year old was homeless, and in prison for car theft charges. His only possessions of value were sneakers given to him by a social worker. On his first night in prison he was severely bashed and his sneakers stolen. A third juvenile was arrested for trespass and stealing a bicycle two days after his 17th birthday. Despite being intellectually disabled he was remanded and spent eight days in police cells with adult prisoners. Social workers say his mental state has deteriorated rapidly since his release.

(Source: The Age)

 

Nurses in public hospitals face constant violence from staff, according to a new study.

in 2003, staff at St Vincents Hospital had approximately 1000 'code grey' and 90 'code black' alerts. Code grey indicates a threat to the safety of staff or other patients. Code black indicates an armed threat.

Researcher Marie Gerdtz said that nurses "would be hearing code grey called at least once a shift, and sometimes three or four times".

Susan Cowling from St Vincents said that the rising number of violent incidents in hospitals reflected an increasingly aggressive society. Dr Gerdtz said that while most incidents were caused by patients, some were caused by relatives frustrated by long waiting times.

The study was conducted by the Victorian Centre for Nursing Practice Research, in conjunction with St Vincents, Royal Melbourne, Alfred, and Ballarat public hospitals.

(Source: The Age)

 

The United States army raided a school in Iraq with tanks, assault vehicles and helicopters, in order to arrest a group of 14 to 18 year olds who had thrown stones at US troops.

The First Armored Division raided the Adnan Kheiralla Boy's School and surrounded the block. Troops armed with machine guns, tear gas, and what one teacher present called "electric sticks", soldiers and interpreters carrying pictures of the wanted students entered the school and locked the doors.

An English teacher at the school said that soldiers opened fire over students' heads "to scare them". Students were tear gassed and beaten. One boy's arm was broken.

"Some of them were vomiting, some of them were crying and they were very afraid."

As the tanks headed out, boys threw stones at them. Soldiers responded with random overhead gunfire, sending students, residents and journalists scrambling for cover.

The arrested boys, estimated ages 14 to 18, were released. An arrested student said the army failed to notify parents of the arrests and that he and others were held in "chicken cages, about two metres by a metre and a half with criss cross wire" for seven to 10 hours.

(Source: Yellow Times website)

 

The United States administration in Iraq is refusing to lift a law passed by Saddam Hussein, which bans unions for workers employed at any of Iraq's state-owned assets.

U.S. soldiers arrested eight members of the new Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) in a raid of their Baghdad office in December, two weeks after two leaders of the Union of the Unemployed were arrested. All were released the following day.

The US administration has begun privatizing Iraq's state-owned assets, excluding the oil industry. Unemployment in Iraq is now approximately 70 percent.

"I'll have to fire 1,500 [of 3,000] workers," one oil refinery manager said, referring to the coming privatisation. "In America, when a company lays people off, there's unemployment insurance and they won't die from hunger. If I dismiss employees now, I'm killing them and their families."

(Yellow Times website)