A woman who sought help after her six-year-old son was throttled by an older student was told by an education official that bullying builds character, a court has heard.

Benjamin Cox is suing the NSW government, claiming not enough was done to protect him from playground abuse that allegedly began when he was five years old.

Benjamin's mother Angela, from Raymond Terrace near Newcastle, said that the bullying began when a student began stealing from Ben in 1994 when he was in kindergarten.

The situation escalated and in 1995, when Ben was six, he was choked by another student, she said.

"(There were) red welts around his throat, you could actually see the finger marks around the front of his throat," Mrs Cox said.

When she approached the NSW education department at Maitland about protection for her son, an official told her bullying could be good for Ben, Mrs Cox said.

"Ian Wilson told me that bullying builds character and it was a good thing that Ben got bullied," she told the court.

Mrs Cox also said that she "asked him if he could provide a safe place for my son to go", but that Mr Wilson said he "could not provide total safety for my son."

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

India has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and is often cited as an example of the power of free-market economics to pull Third World countries out of poverty.

However a new survey has found that India has higher rates of malnourished children than sub-Saharan Africa, despite having the money to tackle the problem.

A survey by UNICEF and the Indian Health Ministry found that almost 46 percent of Indian children under the age of three suffer from malnutrition. India's child malnutrition levels are worse than those of Ethiopia.

Werner Schultink, chief of child development and nutrition for UNICEF in India, said that the problem isn't that India lacks the money to tackle these problems. The Indian government currently spends only 1 percent of GDP on healthcare.

Although India currently has the world's twelfth-largest economy, and by some estimates could have the fifth-largest in only a decade. However, its economic growth has failed to deliver any benefit to large numbers of its people.

(Source: The Australian, Wikipedia)

 

The Australian government may almost double the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said that he was concerned by reports that Taliban and other insurgents were planning a big spring offensive.

"It's hard for us in Australia to see it but it's essential that we prevail," he said.

Canberra is sending a team to evaluate requirements in Afghanistan. Although Mr Nelson did not confirm numbers, the mission is expected to pave the way for the dispatch of about 450 additional troops, including members of the special forces.

Australia currently has 550 soldiers in Afghanistan, after replacing 200 special forces soldiers with 400 other troops late last year.

(Source: Financial Times [UK])

 

Labor's industrial relations spokeswoman has hinted that the ALP may 'soften' its opposition to the new unfair dismissal laws.

The controversial Work Choices legislation ruled that workers in businesses with 100 or fewer employees no longer had access to unfair dismissal protection, a measure welcomed by business but strongly opposed by the union movement.

Labor had previously vowed to restore the previous situation, but new leader Kevin Rudd has left the door open to a softer stance.

Ms Gillard, who is also deputy opposition leader, said that she was "prepared to talk to small business on the substance of their concerns and to see what we can do to address those concerns...that's a genuine offer, it's a serious offer. We understand that there've been difficulties in the past. We don't want to replicate or reproduce those difficulties."

(Source: ninemsn)

 

The United States Vice-President has raised the possibility of military action against Iran.

Vice-President Dick Cheney said he had no doubt that Iran was in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons. He endorsed comments by an American Senator that a nuclear-armed Iran would be worse than a military confrontation with Iran.

Mr Cheney added that the US would stay in Iraq until it "got the job done."

(Source: news.com.au)

 

The American government deliberately sent hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners insane with psychological torture, according to lawyers for one of them.

Brooklyn-born Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago in 2002, classified as an 'enemy combatant', and taken to a navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina.

He was kept in a cell 9ft by 7ft, with no natural light, no clock and no calendar. Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. Padilla was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured the extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds. Padilla also says he was injected with a "truth serum", which his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP.

According to his lawyers and two mental health specialists who examined him, Padilla has been so shattered that he lacks the ability to assist in his own defence. He is convinced that his lawyers are "part of a continuing interrogation program" and sees his captors as protectors. Navy staff describe him as acting "like a piece of furniture."

The techniques used to break Padilla are believed have been standard operating procedure at Guantanamo Bay since the first prisoners arrived five years ago. They wore blackout goggles and sound-blocking headphones and were placed in extended isolation, interrupted by strobe lights and heavy metal music. The same practices have been documented in dozens of cases of "extraordinary rendition" carried out by the CIA, as well as in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many have suffered the same symptoms as Padilla. According to James Yee, a former army chaplain at Guantanamo, there is an entire section of the prison called Delta Block for detainees who have been reduced to a delusional state. "They would respond to me in a childlike voice, talking complete nonsense. Many of them would loudly sing childish songs, repeating the song over and over." All the inmates of Delta Block were on 24-hour suicide watch.

Human Rights Watch has exposed a US-run detention facility near Kabul known as the "prison of darkness", where "plenty lost their minds" according to one former inmate. "I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors."

The effects of these techniques have been well known to the US military since at least the 1960s. A 1963 CIA manual for interrogating "resistant sources" stated that "the deprivation of stimuli induces regression by depriving the subject's mind of contact with an outer world and thus forcing it in upon itself. At the same time, the calculated provision of stimuli during interrogation tends to make the regressed subject view the interrogator as a father-figure."

The army's field manual, reissued just last year, states that "sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and antisocial behaviour", as well as "significant psychological distress".

Padilla is unique in that, unlike other such prisoners, he is a US citizen and so has received a civilian trial.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

The Victorian Police Association lobbied for two detectives who were jailed last year on drug charges, to keep their jobs.

The Association argued that corrupt drug squad officers Glenn Sadler and Wayne Strawhorn should not be sacked while they explore avenues of appeal.

Sadler was found guilty of conspiring to traffic heroin, while Strawhorn was convicted of trafficking pseudoephedrine.

The Association also paid more than $1 million from its legal fighting fund to cover the costs of Strawhorn's unsuccessful defence.

(Source: The Age)

 

Peter Garrett has pledged his support for Labor Party policy, which favours US military bases in Australia.

Mr Garrett spent some 20 years campaigning against a US military presence in Australia before joining the Labor Party. In 1986 he led a protest against the American base at Pine Gap. Six months after the bombing of the World Trade Centre, he wrote that US bases put Australia at risk of terrorist attacks. His repertoire as lead singer of Midnight Oil included songs on the subject such as 'US Forces' and 'When the Generals Talk'.

This month he refused to express support for a new US base to be built in Geraldton, Western Australia.

However he then announced that "I want to make it perfectly clear that when I joined the Labor Party I accepted and understood what the policy was for Australian joint facilities ...and that is a policy I unreservedly accept."

Mr Garrett did not elaborate on why his views had changed.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

The Victorian State government signed a secret deal with the police union, agreeing that police officers suspected of corruption would have their legal costs paid for by public money.

Premier Steve Bracks and then-Police Minister Tim Holding signed the six-page document on behalf of the Labor Party 20 days before the Victorian election. In return, the Police Association agreed to support the ALP's re-election campaign.

The ALP also agreed to allocate $10 million towards new stun guns and semi-automatic weapons for police.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

New South Wales police circulated racist emails at work, according to a recent investigation.

An internal police audit found police circulating emails such as four Aboriginals on a mock Abba album with the word 'ABBO' above them.

Another email featured sexually explicit stories about racial groups including Lebanese, and suggested that bestiality was accepted in Lebanon.

One employee said police had not done enough to warn staff of what was acceptable email content .

(Source: news.com.au)

 

A hospital van dropped off a paraplegic man on Skid Row in Los Angeles, allegedly leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag, police said.

Witnesses who said they saw the incident Thursday wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number, which helped detectives connect the vehicle to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site.

Police said the incident was a case of 'homeless dumping' and were questioning officials from the hospital.

"I can't think of anything colder than that," said Detective Russ Long. "There was no mission around, no services. It's the worst area of Skid Row."

The L.A. city attorney's office has filed its first indictment for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente, for an incident earlier last year. In the earlier case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.

Los Angeles city officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping people on Skid Row.

(Source: Associated Press)

 

Scientists and economists have been offered US$10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

Climate scientists described the move as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The IPCC report says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

German courts have issued arrest warrants for 13 people, over what authorities say is a CIA kidnapping of a German citizen.

Prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld said the warrants were issued in conjunction with the case of Khaled al-Masri.

A German citizen of Lebanese descent, Mr al-Masri says he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonian border and flown by the CIA to a detention centre in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was physically abused.

Mr Al-Masri says he was released in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA discovered they had the wrong person.

Mr Al-Masri has asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to reinstate a lawsuit he filed against the CIA. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in May, ruling that a trial could harm national security by revealing details about CIA activities.

(Source: Indian Express)

 

Treasurer Peter Costello has described a foreign leftist leader as a dictator, despite his having been elected.

Mr Costello described Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as "the Bolivarian dictator" in the course of an attack on the Labor Party.

Mr Chavez was re-elected in 2006 with 63 percent of the vote. However right-wing commentators consistently describe him as a dictator. In 2005 influential American evangelist Pat Robertson said that "...without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

(Source: The Age)

 

Former politician Pauline Hanson's ancestry is 9 percent Middle Eastern, and 13 percent Italian, Greek or Turkish, according to a new test.

Ms Hanson was one of the prominent Queenslanders to agree to have her DNA analysed by American company DNAPrint Genomics.

Ms Hanson, who last attacked Africans and Muslims in December, said before the test that she was confident that her ancestry would be English and Irish.

DNAPrint Genomics scientist Dr Matt Thomas said it was not unusual for someone who thinks of their ancestry as entirely European to have an Arab ancestor.

"People have moved around a lot more than is commonly thought. When people think about their relatives they think back to their grandparents or great-grand-parents but we go further back in time than that," he said.

"What this test routinely shows is that people have a lot more in common with people than they thought they did."

Ms Hanson explained her ancestry as probably having resulted from "rape and pillage", and that "all I can think of is that probably down the track it eventuated from some war."

(Source: Sunday Mail)

 

Some foreign workers coming to Australia on 'business visas' from the Third World are so exploited that they're actually worse off than in their countries of origin.

Several Malaysian workers undertaking the construction of a new $70 million print facility being built largely to print the West Australian newspaper and its allied suburban publications in Perth and regional Western Australia have said they will return home, because they can't afford to live off the amount they're being paid.

Electrical Trades Union Official Ian Gill said the union had been negotiating with West Australian Newspapers to end the arrangement but were being stonewalled.

"This is an appalling and exploitative situation, and we find it rather hypocritical coming from a media organisation publishing news articles complaining about overseas workers under-cutting Aussie pay rates" Mr Gill said.

Mr Gill said he believed the Malaysian workers had been brought in on Section 456 business visas, where no minimum pay rates apply and workers can be paid in the currency of the country of origin.

He said the workers were being paid 70 percent below the award rate, which in turn is about half the EBA industry rate.

The Malaysian workers were also being 'asked' to undertake electrical work without any electrical licences, until this was stopped by the West Australian Office of Energy Safety.

(Source: The Guardian [Australia])

 

Quote of the Moment:

"Major-General William Caldwell told reporters that the investigations into the crashes of three Army and one private helicopters were incomplete but 'it does appear they were all the result of some kind of anti-Iraqi ground fire that did bring those helicopters down.'

An American Army spokesman explains that Iraqis, firing on people who are not Iraqis, is 'anti-Iraqi ground fire'. Actually, this sort of explains how they can claim to be using 'diplomacy' to achieve 'peace'.

Please note, I don't think the situation in Iraq is a fit subject for mockery - but I don't think I'm the one who made a mockery of it.