Indigenous Australians have a life expectancy 17-18 years less than that of other Australians, according to new research.

The report by aid agency Oxfam showed that life expectancy at birth for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders is estimated at 59 years for men and 65 years for women, compared to 77 years for non-indigenous men and 82 years for non-indigenous women.

The report also showed that infant mortality rates for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders are close to double that of indigenous people in New Zealand and Canada.

(Source: Oxfam)

 

The Interior Ministry of the US-backed Iraqi government is linked to sectarian death squads, according to an Iraqi who fled the country in fear of his life.

Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7000 people have been killed by Iraqi interior ministry death squads in recent months.

According to John Pace, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Baghdad, the Baghdad morgue has been receiving 700 or more bodies a month. The figures peaked at 1100 last July, with many corpses showing signs of torture.

"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills" he said.

Pace said many killings were carried out by Shia militias linked to the interior ministry run by Bayan Jabr, a leading figure in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). SCIRI is the main party in the coalition of Shiite religious parties that heads the US-backed Iraqi government.

The US-led coalition denies that Iraq is in a state of civil war. However Iyad Allawi, the former Western-appointed Iraqi interim Prime Minister, said "we are losing a day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

(Source: Green Left Weekly)

 

Officers at a privately run jail lied to and degraded an inmate purely for a joke, another prisoner at the same jail was left without food or water for nearly seven hours, and another died of an asthma attack when left unattended overnight.

The prisoner was tricked into believing he was leaving the Laverton jail, run by GSL Australia, coerced into inserting a sausage in his body, then strip-searched by officers in on the joke.

Four officers at the prison have been sacked. They were suspended on full pay until last week, when the of the investigation by GSL's security manager was revealed in the press.

This week the company's transport manager, Rod St George, was dressed down by Judge John Nixon in Geelong County Court over a bungle that left a prisoner late for court and without food or water for almost seven hours.

Vanessa Westcott, daughter of a man who died of an asthma attack at the prison in November after a help button he pressed apparently did not work said the prison was leaving people like her father, remanded alleged offender Ian Westcott, 55, in cells not monitored between 8pm and 8am.

His death, after he reportedly left a note saying he had called for help, is the subject of three inquiries.

GSL was recently penalised $200,000 for several incidents. However Charandev Singh, from Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre, said the penalty faced by GSL was "tokenistic" compared to its annual revenue of $147 million.

(Source: The Age)

 

More than 100 Australian troops returning from Iraq have been medically discharged from the military, many for psychological trauma.

The Defence Department has revealed that 121 veterans of the campaign have been medically discharged. That is 4 per cent of the 3000 or so soldiers who have served in Iraq over the past three years, four times higher than the normal medical discharge rate for the military.

Dr Bob Montgomery said the constant tension and stress of facing roadside bombs, snipers, grenades, mortars, rockets, suicide bombers would have a long-lasting effect.

"Every man, woman and child who approaches them has to be seen as a potential attacker. That builds up stress. Then there are the nightmare scenes of devastation and broken bodies at bombed markets and street ambushes, memories that never fade."

Medical discharges from the entire armed forces have grown by 43 per cent since 1999. In 2004, 723 servicemen and women were discharged, 1.3 per cent of the entire ADF. Mental disorders made up most of the discharges.

US studies found 10 per cent of Iraq veterans suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, but the ADF said it had no comparable figures. "It should not be assumed that the 121 medical discharges are directly related to service in the Middle East area of operations or that discharge is necessarily on mental health grounds," a defence spokesman said.

But troops returning from Iraq suggest the campaign is resulting in a much higher toll on Australian service people than official figures show.

Dane Simmonds, 35, quit the army to become a private contractor in Iraq after spending six months guarding the Australian embassy in Baghdad in 2004. "Morale was high as we were doing what we were trained to do, but some had psych issues when they got back," he said. "They had trouble adjusting to normal life after being on edge for so long."

(Source: The Age)

 

Optus has claimed that they must cut 200 jobs across Australia, despite record high prices for their shares.

Chief executive Paul O'Sullivan notified staff in an email yesterday that the company will eliminate 450 positions, but said the number of people who would lose jobs would be closer to 200.

A spokeswoman for Optus said that "industry pressures mean that we must reduce our costs across the business."

Australian shares of Optus' parent, Singapore Telecommunications, rose to a record close on the 16th of March of $2.28.

(Source: The Age)

 

British intelligence engaged in burglary and black propaganda, and the army "seriously considered" a military coup, against a Labour Prime Minister that they believed was too left-wing.

A new BBC program, The Plot Against Harold Wilson, reveals that MI5 men burgled the
homes of the prime minister's aides, bugged their phones and spread anti-Wilson propaganda throughout the media, inventing stories including that he was a secret IRA sympathiser.

Major Alexander Greenwood told the program that he set up his own private army in 1974-75. Former intelligence officer Brian Crozier said that he lobbied the army, who "seriously considered the possibility of a military takeover".

The army engaged in troop manoevres without informing the Prime Minister - who interpreted it as a warning.

Conservative forces were concerned at relatively high taxation and trade union power, and the decline of the British Empire. The CIA is said to have also had a baseless theory that Wilson was a Soviet agent and that the previous Labour leader had been murdered to make room for him.

Wilson resigned from his position as Prime Minister. Although this was partly for medical reasons, he also told journalists of the planned coup soon after resigning.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Australia's very richest people have the highest share of national income since the early 50s, according to new research.

The report, by ANU economist Andrew Leigh and Oxford's Sir Anthony Atkinson, found that the wealthiest 1 per cent of Australians now 'earned' 9 per cent of national income, compared with a 5 per cent share in 1980.

Using 80 years of taxation data, it found the wealthiest 1 per cent now have a greater share of national income than at any time since 1951.

Dr Leigh said the rapid rise in cash salaries paid to chief executives during the 1990s was the main explanation.

In 1992, a chief of one of the country's top 50 companies earned 27 times the wage of an average worker, Dr Leigh said. By 2002, this had risen to 98 times the wage of an average worker.

(Source: The Age)

 

Australian troops will remain in Iraq "well into 2007" at least, according to Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.

In his first speech as Defence Minister, Dr Nelson said that Australia has a responsibility to fight terrorism "wherever it occurs", and that Australian troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely, until the Iraqi government no longer requires them.

Dr Nelson described the 'war against terrorism' as "one that is going to be a generational one...it is obvious that it's not something that's going to be fought and won within the space of a few months or indeed a few years."

(Source: ABC News Online)

 

Parents are in danger of being misled about the quality of child care by an accreditation system that passes almost every centre it looks at, according to experts.

Almost 97 per cent of the 4000 centres that went through a five-step accreditation process by June last year were approved.

But this "is giving a false indication to parents" according to June Wangmann, associate professor of early childhood at Macquarie University, who helped develop the original accreditation system in the early 1990s.

Poorly performing child-care centres can be accredited though they fail 45 per cent of the principles against which they are judged in some measures of quality. Although poorly performing centres can be subject to financial sanctions, none ever has.

Frances Press, a former director of the Office of Childcare in NSW, now an academic, said that "a 96.5 per cent pass rate is a highly unbelievable figure in a field that is apparently full of staff shortages and high turnover."

Because almost every centre is approved, and there is only one passing 'grade', many experts say there is no incentive for centres to operate at more than a barely satisfactory standard. Anthony Semann, spokesman for the group Social Justice in Early Childhood, said that "there's no credit given for working above minimum standards."

Since January this year centres have been required to display a quality certificate - a bar chart showing how they rate in seven areas, from unsatisfactory to high standard. But most centres contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald claimed that they did not know they had to display it.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Many of the new, apparently healthier options offered by fast food chains actually contain more fat and salt than a Big Mac, according to new research.

A Choice magazine survey of 'healthy' fast food found for example that Hungry Jack's country chicken baguette has 35 grams of fat and 1320 milligrams of salt. A Big Mac has 25 grams and 800 respectively.

McDonald's Deli Choice range of rolls, similarly advertised to give the impression that they are a healthier option, have 21 grams of fat.

(Source: The Age)

 

Overcrowding in public hospitals causes 120 deaths each year in Perth alone, according to new research.

After analysing more than 120,000 emergency department admissions in several hospitals in Perth and Canberra, researchers found at least 133 deaths each year in those cities could be attributed to overcrowded conditions.

Survey co-author Peter Sprivulis said "this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the burden of harm of overcrowding - I was somewhat shocked by the magnitude of it."

The number of deaths per year as a result of overcrowding in Perth hospitals, estimated at 120, was only slightly less than the state's road toll of about 150 people.

The chairman of the NSW faculty of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Tony Joseph, said the figures lined up with the experience of those working in the state's hospitals.

Even though delays in NSW had improved, 25 to 30 per cent of patients were still not getting to wards within eight hours of being admitted.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

A judge threatened to charge a woman with contempt of court for refusing to watch a videotape of two men having sex with her as a 16-year-old - a key piece of evidence in the trial of a man accused of raping her.

Chicago judge Kerry Kennedy later ruled that the woman could give evidence without having to watch the 20 minute video, which reportedly shows two men having sex with her and a third writing obscenities on her legs with a felt-tipped marker, after an outcry from victims' groups.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

A large majority of US troops in Iraq think the US military should withdraw completely from Iraq within a year.

The poll of 944 American troops found that only 23 percent believe the US should stay "as long as needed".

Twenty-one percent said the US military presence should end within a year. 22 percent said six months, and 29 percent said immediately. 5 percent were unsure.

The poll also found that 85 percent of those surveyed believe that the US's main mission in Iraq is to retaliate against Saddam Hussein for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Saddam Hussein is generally believed to have had no role in the attacks. 93 percent said that they did not think that removing weapons of mass destruction was the reason they were in Iraq.

(Source: Christian Science Monitor [US])