Quote of the Moment:

"Don't suffer from PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder], go out and cause it."

The slogan chosen by the most recent graduating class of the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training Academy to appear on their graduation programs.

 

Police appear to have deliberately hindered the investigation into a racial attack on a Jewish man in Melbourne which involved an off-duty police officer.

Menachem Vorchheimer was racially abused and punched in the face by drunken Ocean Grove footballers travelling home in a minibus from a day at the Caulfield races in October last year. The bus was driven by Senior Constable Terrence Moore.

Constable Karli Hawkins was one of several police officers called to the scene. She said in a statement that Mr Vorcheimer told police that a man wearing a pink tie had punched him.

She said that Senior Constable Moore had immediately reboarded the bus and spoken to his passengers, who had removed their ties.

Mr Vorchheimer's brother David obtained Constable Hawkins' statement from the Office of Public Prosecutions after being denied it by police despite many Freedom of Information requests.

Police also altered a witnesses statement, in a way which cast Senior Constable Moore in a better light.

Leon Yuhanov blocked the minibus with his car when he saw Mr Vorchheimer being attacked. His original statement said that the driver said "don't be a fool; don't call the cops, you idiot."

He also said that the driver tried to drive the bus onto the kerb to escape.

He emailed this statement to the police, and in December was asked to come in to St Kilda police station to sign it.

Unknown to him, the statement had had several paragraphs removed, including those referring to Senior Constable Moore's actions.

(Source: The Age)

 

More Australians than ever before have to work on Christmas, according to a union spokesman.

Paul Howes from the Australian Workers Union said that increasing 'casualisation' of the workforce meant that fewer and fewer Australian employees have Christmas Day off.

The union says that while people expect emergency services and hospitality employees to work on Christmas day, it is also common for people in the operations areas of manufacturing and resources.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Former FBI director J Edgar Hoover had a plan to arrest 12,000 Americans he deemed a possible threat to national security, declassified papers reveal.

The FBI chief sent his proposal to US President Harry Truman just after the start of the Korean War in 1950, The New York Times newspaper reports.

He asked the president to declare the mass arrest necessary to counter "treason, espionage and sabotage".

Mr Hoover wanted the president to suspend the centuries-old legal right of habeas corpus, which protects individuals against unlawful arrest.

The FBI director, who also spent 22 years monitoring Albert Einstein as a subversive and called Martin Luther King "the most notorious liar in the country", planned to detain the suspects in US military and federal prisons.

"The index now contains approximately 12,000 individuals, of which approximately 97% are citizens of the United States," wrote Mr Hoover in the now declassified document. He had spent years compiling the list.

The US Department of State recently declassified the plan, along with other documents from 1950-55.

(Source: BBC News website [UK], Wikipedia)

 

Food prices are set to rise around the globe, with climate change making it harder for the world's poorest people to get adequate food, according to a new report.

The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute said that food prices, which have been falling steadily for decades, will rise for the forseeable future.

Although one factor in the increase is higher food consumption in countries such as India and China, rising global temperatures are another.

The report said that hunger and malnutrition could rise as poor agricultural communities most sensitive to the environment, such as in Africa, are hurt.

The world's agricultural production is projected to decrease by 16 percent by 2020 due to global warming, the report said, with land used for certain crops shrinking. For example, it said land to grow wheat could almost disappear in Africa.

(Source: Time magazine [US])

 

A judge has described an impact statement from a victim of child sexual abuse as a "waste of time", and accused the victim of receiving "illicit pleasure", before declining to jail his abuser.

Judge Michael Kelly said that the victim, who was 13 when he was assaulted by a 24 year old man, "wouldn't have done well in a British public school in the 30s".

The abuse continued for two and a half years.

The judge added that "the majority of people who suffer this kind of incident at some stage in their life simply get over it and think no more of it", and that perpetrator and victim had "both...acquired illicit pleasure."

The victim said that "me and my family all thought he was on that bloke's side, just the way he talked."

In 1998 Judge Kelly declined to jail a man who had pleaded guilty to trying to establish a child sex ring in Africa, sending letters to people there explaining how they could "train little girls" as young as 4 to have sex.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

A singer whose songs glorify the World War Two Nazi puppet government of Croatia, has been given a visa to tour Australia.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans decided not to overrule his Department's decision to grant a visa to Marko Perkovic, who performs as Thompson.

Departmental officers viewed footage of one of Thompson's concerts in Croatia's capital Zagreb. The footage shows fans giving Nazi salutes and chanting "Kill the Serbs."

Thompson's songs praise the Ustase government, which killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, and thousands of Jews and gypsies, as well as political opponents. One of his songs refers to Jasenovac, the main extermination camp in Croatia during World War Two.

Perkovic will be told he must not "vilify, incite discord or represent a danger to the community" during his visit.

(Source: The Australian, Wikipedia, The Centre for Peace in the Balkans)

 

A man who had gone into a diabetic coma on a bus in Leeds was shot twice with a Taser gun by police who feared he may have been a security threat, and told him he looked Egyptian.

Nicholas Gaubert says he is suffering post-traumatic stress as a result of the incident in July 2005, just a week before the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

He said he had now decided to speak out after the Crown Prosecution Service ruled no officers involved should be charged with any criminal offences.

Mr Gaubert said he was on his way to meet friends when he suffered a fit on the bus and slipped into a coma which left him slumped on his seat clutching his rucksack. Armed police were called to the bus depot and when he failed to respond to their challenges he was shot with the Taser.He said as this was happening, another officer was pointing a real gun at his head.

He was restrained and eventually came round in the police van. He said it was only then that the officers realised it was a medical emergency, despite him wearing a medical tag round his neck to warn of his condition, and took him to hospital.

Mr Gaubert said he was told the police believed he looked Egyptian.

(Source: BBC website [UK])

 

Quote of the Moment:

"People know what happened, but to see it in living colour would have far greater power."

An American official, commenting on videotapes showing CIA officers using 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on suspects, which the CIA destroyed.

 

A prison officer has been accused of taunting and assaulting an inmate.

Colleages said that the female officer at Melbourne Custody Centre punched or slapped the prisoner in the face and said "how does that feel?" and "that's coming from a woman."

The prisoner said that the officer "smacked my head into the ground and blood started coming out."

Closed-circuit TV footage shows another officer grabbing the prisoner around the throat as a second officer helped wrestle him to the ground.

Several other officers entered the room seconds later.

One of the officer's colleages said that "she just flew over the top of the guys and just took over. What I saw floored me."

Staff told investigators from the Victorian Ombudsman's office that a group of officers called themselves "The Family" and thrived on aggression and use of excessive force.

The Melbourne Custody Centre is run by a private company, GEO Group Australia, and is in the basement below the Melbourne Magistrate's Court.

The Ombudsman said that the centre, which has no access to daylight, is unsuitable for holding prisoners longer than a weekend, "yet it continues to be used as a de facto prison."

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

A company whose employee died in an accident at work had already been convicted and fined twice over workplace safety.

Bruce Hartwich feel into a full grain silo and eventually suffocated, after his safety harness snapped.

A switch which should have released a hatch and allowed the grain to fall out also failed.

The company, GrainCorp Operations group, was fined a total of $185,000 for two incidents. In August 2005, an employee was pinned by a machine, and was in hospital with a broken hip and leg for 17 days. In a second incident, an employee fell four metres into an unguarded grain hopper, suffering serious head, knee, shoulder and kidney damage.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

The housing crisis in Sydney has gotten to the point that homeless people are checking in to the emergency departments of public hospitals, after being turned away by crisis accomodation services.

Graham Long from Wayside Chapel estimated that 300 people sleep on the footpath near the chapel every night.

(Source: City News)

 

A charity has been forced to pay copyright fees, because their staff radio can be heard by the public and their Christmas carol event involves children singing copyrighted carols.

British charity Dam House received a visit last year from the Performing Rights Society, who told them that they would need to pay for a license, because the radio in the kitchen of their tea-room can be heard by the general public.

They managed to pay the 230 pound annual fee by holding a raffle. However the PRS questioned them about what other activities they allowed on premises, and told them that their annual children's carol concert would be taken into account when calculating their license fee, as it included songs which were copyrighted.

This year the annual event is in doubt, after their fee was raised to 470 pounds.

(Source: Wigan Observer [UK])

 

A lawyer representing the United States government has told a British court that the United States has the right to kidnap citizens of other countries.

Alun Jones QC told the Court of Appeal that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America.

"If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse - it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s" he said.

Jones said that "The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared."

(Source: The Times [UK])

 

Queensland government ministers have been accused of ordering Department of Child Safety workers not to tell police about hundreds of cases of suspected child abuse and neglect.

Detective Sergeant David Harold from Cairns Child Protection Investigation Unit said that police became aware of "numerous child protection issues through the Cape [referring to Aboriginal communities in Cape York, such as Aurukun in Monday's story] we hadn't been advised of."

While there have been numerous cases where child safety officers had failed to pass evidence to police, Sergeant Harold said: "It got to a political level at that stage where I believe ministers got involved and certain people were told not to speak to police. My job was to track down each clinic in the Cape and I got that under way...but then there was some political issues where a directive came from Brisbane, 'you are not allowed to talk to the police - don't tell them anything'."

Sergeant Harold said that the clinics were eventually told not to advise police of any reports they had made of abused or raped children which had been sent to the Department of Child Safety.

(Source: The Australian)

 

A British nurse was promoted - and told on the same day that she was suspended, later to be sacked, as her employer had no confidence in her.

Karen Reismann, a psychiatric nurse for 25 years and a representative for the UNISON trade union, was suspended in June this year. Management described her offence as "engaging in activities which have seriously affected the reputation of the Trust". This appears to relate to her activities as a union representative, which included criticising cuts to public health services. Her employer, Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, is to make over 3 million pounds worth of further cuts.

Management also claimed that they "no longer had confidence in her as an employee", despite notifying her on the same day that she had been promoted.

She has now been sacked, for four acts of gross misconduct. One act was telling people that she was suspended, and what for.

(Source: www.reinstate-karen.org)

 

Nine males who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 10 year old girl have escaped a prison term, with the judge saying that the victim "probably" agreed to have sex with them.

The three perpetrators over the age of consent, now aged 17, 18 and 26, were given a suspended sentence of six months. They also escaped having a conviction recorded.

The victim has been removed from her home in the Aurukun Aboriginal community and put with foster parents.

The oldest perpetrator, Raymond Frederick Woolla, 26, is on the Australian National Child Offence Register following a conviction on March 29 last year for unlawful carnal knowledge of a female child - an offence committed after he was charged with this offence.

However the judge, Sarah Bailey, told him that "I am not treating anyone any differently in terms of being a ringleader."

The judge said that the penalties were those asked for by the Crown prosecutor.

(Source: The Australian)

 

As Congress debates new rules for government surveillance of citizens, a high-ranking intelligence official has said that people in the United States should change their definition of privacy.

Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, said that privacy can no longer mean anonymity.

Instead, he said it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Congress is re-examining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Act required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil.

However, between 2001 and 2007, telecommunications companies are widely believed to have given the government access to private emails and telephone conversations without a court order.

Congress recently changed the act, so that such surveillance is now legal.

They are also considering changing the Act, so that telecommunications companies are protected from legal action for breaking the Act between 2001 and 2007.

(Source: Forbes [US])



Quote of the Moment:

"The state of being private; the state of not being seen by others. "

"Not done in the view of or with the possibility of disturbance by others; Intended only for one's own use; Not accessible by the public."

The definitions of 'privacy' and 'private', according to wiktionary.org

 

The British government signed up to a committment to increase the use of renewable energy - and immediately took advice on how to reinterpret facts so as to appear to be meeting the target, rather than on changing their policies.

Earlier in 2007 the British government signed on to a European Union commitment to generate 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

A subsequent internal briefing paper prepared by officials said that Britain had achieved "little so far" on wind, solar or hydroelectric sources of power, and that even getting to 9% from the current level of 2% would be "challenging". On current policies, renewables would only account for 5% of Britain's overall energy mix by 2020.

Officials at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform advised lobbying EU member states to agree that the target could be interpreted more flexibly by including investment in solar farms in north Africa, or by counting nuclear energy as renewable.

Another section asks ministers to examine "what options there are for statistical interpretations of the target that would make it easier to achieve."

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran stopped trying to develop nuclear weapons in 2003 - and apparently knew this while President Bush was warning of the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran.

The National Intelligence Estimate, which offers the consensus view of all 16 of the US government's spy agencies, reversed its 2005 conclusion that Iran's rulers were determined to develop nuclear weapons despite sanctions and threats of international isolation.

In October, President Bush warned of the danger of "World War III" or a "nuclear holocaust" if Iran developed nuclear weapons. White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that "he (Mr Bush) would have made that, I believe, that comment after the new intelligence was known."

(Source: Herald-Sun)

 

The man convicted for the worst terrorist act on British soil in modern times, the Lockerbie bombing, may have been framed.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of bombing a Pan-Am passenger flight, killing 270 people.

However a four-year review by the Scottish justice system has found that a miscarriage of justice may have occured.

The owner of the Mebo telecommunications company, Edwin Bollier, says that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4 million to testify that a fragment found near the scene of the crash was part of a Mebo MST-13 timer supplied to Libya.

Tony Gauci, one of the chief prosecution witnesses, is similarly alleged to have been paid $2 million for testifying against Megrahi.

A Time magazine report speculated that the United States government may have intended to blame the bombing on that of Libya, who was one of their main political opponents at the time.

(Source: Time [US], Wikipedia)

 

Kevin Rudd has announced that Australian combat troops should be withdrawn from Iraq around mid-2008.

Australia currently has 550 combat troops in Iraq, as well as troops in support roles.

Labor Party policy supports continued involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

(Source: CNN website [US], ALP website)

 

The director of Texas' science curriculum has been fired for bias - for creating the impression of being in favour of the theory of evolution.

Chris Corner, who has been the Texas Education Agency's director of science curriculum for nine years, resigned after officials recommended that she be fired.

The TEA cited an email that Ms Corner had forwarded, announcing a presentation criticising 'intelligent design'.

An official memo said that "Ms. Comer's e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral."

(Source: Austin American-Statesman [US])