Cutting meat production and consumption would cut carbon emissions and save lives, according to Australian and British scientists.

Improving efficiency, increasing carbon capture, and reducing fossil fuel dependence would not be enough to meet emission targets.

A 30 percent decrease in meat consumption would reduce premature deaths from heart disease by 17 percent, scientists said.

According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from meat production.

(Source: MX)

 

The ACT Legislative Assembly has passed a bill allowing gay couples to recognise their relationship with a legal ceremony.

The Civil Partnerships Amendment Bill makes the ACT the first part of Australia to formally legalise civil partnerships ceremonies for gay couples.

The ACT government tried to legalise ceremonies as part of its 2008 Civil Partnerships Act, but was overruled by the federal government.

The Federal Government has not indicated at this stage whether it will overturn the bill but says its position on marriage has not changed. Since 2004, the Marriage Act has defined marriage as "the union of a man and a woman". In addition, Australian law expressly declares that unions between same-sex couples entered into outside the country are not to be recognised as marriage in Australia.

(Source: ABC News website, Wikipedia)

 

The Catholic Church says it will cease the social service programs it runs in the US capital Washington if the district government passes a law allowing gay marriage.

Under the bill, to be voted on next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings.

However they would have to obey laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church.

However the Archdiocese of Washington, fearful among other things that they could be forced to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, said that it would abandon its contracts with the city if the law passes.

(Source: Washington Post)

 

An American Catholic archdiocese spent US$352,000 in a year on payments to victims of abusive priests, and more than twice that amount on lawyers.

The Archdiocese of St Louis released financial figures, which show that it spent more on legal fees than was given to victims for five of the last ten financial years.

David Clohessy from the Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests said that "more and more, the archdiocese is playing legal hardball with victims."

"It shows a continued emphasis on a legalistic and defensive posture, rather than a really compassionate and preventive one."

(Source: Associated Press)

 

Britain's last surviving World War One veteran ignored Remembrance Day and ANZAC Day, because he felt they glorified war, according to his family.

Claude Choules, 108, lives in a nursing home in Perth. He is one of only three veterans of WWI alive in the world. He joined the British navy aged 14, after lying about his age.

His daughter Daphne Edinger said Choules had been scarred by his experiences, and "after my father left the navy, he never went to ANZAC Day again."

"He didn't think we should glorify war."

(Source: Yahoo! News)

 

Victorian employers underpaid their employees by at least $8.76 million in a single year, according to the ombudsman's office.

The Victorian workplace ombudsman's office said that it recovered a total of $8.76 million last financial year, for 4552 underpaid employees.

Workplace investigators recorded 7442 breaches of workplace law in the financial year.

(Source: MX)

 

Lesbian couples, on average, raise more successful children than heterosexual couples, according to parenting experts.

Stephen Scott, director of research at Britain's National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, said that the latest research showed that children of lesbian couples did better in life.

Speaking at the launch of a report on the influence of character on life, Scott said that "lesbians make better parents than a man and a woman."

His arguments are supported by experts who have found, over years of research, that children brought up by female couples are more aspirational and more confident in championing social justice.

Research at Birkbeck college, part of London University, and at Clark University in Massachusetts, says there is no evidence to show children of lesbian parents are disadvantaged in any way.

Daughters of lesbians are more likely to aspire to professions that were traditionally considered male, such as doctors or lawyers.

(Source: Times [UK])

 

An American justice of the peace has refused to marry an inter-racial couple.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa parish, Louisiana, said it was his experience that most interracial marriages did not last long.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way" Bardwell said. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Bardwell said he asked everyone who called about marriage if they were a mixed race couple. If they were, he did not marry them.

Beth Humphrey, 30, and Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, said they would consult the US justice department about a discrimination complaint.

(Source: Guardian [UK])

 

A Liberal Party politician has used the example of Nazi Germany to argue in favour of greater police powers.

Western Australian State MP Peter Abetz spoke in favour of legislation which would allow police to search people for weapons and drugs without having to prove grounds of suspicion.

Mr Abetz told Parliament that Hitler gained support because he provided people security in a time of anarchy.

He later said he was not endorsing Hitler, only highlighting the importance people place on security.

"When it comes to the crunch, people prefer to be safe than to have freedom" he said.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Corrective services officers ignored pleas for help as a prisoner suffered a heart attack and died during a six-hour journey between two jails, according to a group of inmates.

Police are investigating the death of Mark Stephen Holcroft, 59, in August as he was being taken from Bathurst Correctional Centre to a prison farm near Tumbarumba.

Inmates in the van alleged Holcroft complained of chest pains and asked a duty nurse for his regular heart medication before leaving Bathurst, but it was not given to him.

The inmates also say prison officers did not stop the van or respond to their efforts to raise the alarm when Holcroft collapsed some time after a fuel stop at Cootamundra, during which they were not let out.

In a letter smuggled out of jail the inmates wrote that "we started banging on the doors and screamed for help and continued banging all 50 minutes to Mannus [Correctional Centre]."

Neither Holcroft, who was in custody for breaching a community service order, nor the other inmates had water, food or a toilet break during the 400 kilometre journey and a request to turn on the air-conditioning was refused, they said.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

A British government program aimed at preventing Muslims from being recruited into terrorist groups is actually being used to gather information on Muslims in general, according to experts.

Sources directly involved in running Prevent schemes say it involves gathering intelligence about the thoughts and beliefs of Muslims who are not involved in criminal activity.

Authorities are trying to find information including sexual activity and associates. The information can be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100.

Funding for a mental health project to help Muslims was linked to information about individuals being passed to the authorities. Similarly, a youth project in London alleged it was being pressured by the Metropolitan police to provide names and details of Muslims, none of whom have any known terrorist activity, as a condition of funding.

In one London borough, those working with young people were told to add information to databases they hold to highlight which people were Muslim. They were also asked to provide information, to be shared with the police, about which streets and areas young Muslims could be found.

One manager of a project in London said "I think part of the point of the [Prevent] programme is to spy and intelligence gather. I won't do that."

One source, who has been involved in government discussions on counter-terrorism, said "there is no doubt Prevent is in part about gathering intelligence on people's thoughts and beliefs. No doubt."

He added that the authorities feared "they'd be lynched" if they admitted Prevent included spying.

Civil liberties group Liberty described the Prevent program as "the biggest domestic spying programme targeting the thoughts and beliefs of the innocent in Britain in modern times."

"It is information-gathering directed at the innocent and the spying is directed at people because of their religion, and not because of their behaviour."

(Source: Guardian [UK])

 

A government agency changed the results of a poll, giving the false impression of support for nuclear power.

The Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation ran an online poll in late October, on attitudes to nuclear power. A majority of respondents chose the option "I am against it".

However ANSTO changed this response to read "it is one of the options", without resetting the poll numbers.

The chair of ANSTO, Dr Zygmunt Switkowki, has been a persistent advocate of nuclear power. In 2006, Dr Switkowski was appointed to chair a Commonwealth Government inquiry into the viability of a domestic nuclear power industry. An independent panel of Australian scientists and nuclear experts claimed that the resulting report relied on flawed assumptions which revealed a bias towards nuclear power.

(Source: media release by Senator Scott Ludlam, Wikipedia)

 

A group of past and present Sydney University students set up a Facebook group advocating rape.

The 'Define Statutory' group ran from August until October this year, in the 'Sports and Recreation' category. It described itself as "anti-consent."

The members were mostly associated with one of the University's economically 'elite' residential colleges.

The page was an example of a broader culture at the university's residential colleges that demeans women in a sexist and often sexually violent way, according to experts.

Several young women, also past and present residential college students, say they have experienced sexual assault or attempted assaults on campus. They say the privileged atmosphere of colleges, combined with a culture of binge drinking and few restraints on behaviour, meant most rapes went unreported.

The promotion for an event at one college, St Andrews, read "$10 entry, $3 beer, $0 women: deflowering a virgin: priceless."

A woman who worked in residential colleges over the past three years said she was "shocked and horrified by what I saw - I made a conscious effort to avoid the inter-college events because it made me feel so uncomfortable."

She said that she was aware of at least two incidents of rape in the colleges and many more times where young women have been put at terrible risk.

"In one incident, girls in the college could hear the rape going on in the next room and called the resident assistant, who used the master key to get into the room."

"The girl left college as a consequence. I don't know whether or not she went to police, and there didn't seem to be any consequences for the guy."

A college revue featured storylines of the date-rape drug Rohypnol being used to help a male student get laid. At a college breakfast the students wore baseball caps inscribed with nicknames such as "date rape" and "sloppy seconds."

A former student said that "I was grabbed in O-Week and held up against a wall as a joke. My boyfriend found the guy...and...threatened him not to touch me again. Their response was to leave drunken messages on my phone calling me a slut and a whore and trying to freak me out."

After she went to the principal, the perpetrators "nearly got kicked out, but it pretty much tarnished my reputation there."

The outgoing master of Wesley College, Reverend David Russell, said that in his eight years in the role he had spoken to several female students who felt they had to leave college; "they say, 'I just don't feel safe.'"

(Source: The Age, Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The closure of New South Wales' only boarding school for profoundly disabled children will put unbearable pressure on families and further strain respite services, according to parents.

The charity Anglicare has pulled its support for the Kingsdene special school and residential program, which it has run in Telopea for 33 years, saying it can no longer afford the $1.2 million a year needed to keep it open.

Mary Lou Carter, secretary of Carers Alliance, said there was nowhere else for the 21 students, who have severe intellectual and physical disabilities, to go.

She said the residential school had given her son Nick, 18, the opportunity to learn basic life skills and make friends, and allowed her family to have a normal life during the week.

"I've been lucky enough to have my son go there - I'd probably be dead otherwise - it's so devastating to think it will disappear for so many other families who won't get that chance now" she said

"This model of care has to be fought for because it's the only one left."

Several Kingsdene parents, including Vanessa Browne, have declared they would be forced to abandon their children, who were often violent, hyperactive and slept only two hours a night.

"We are not like [wealthy boarding schools] The King's School or Shore, who use government grants to buy real estate, yet we're caught up in the same funding model" Ms Browne said.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The legal aid system in New South Wales is in crisis due to lack of funding, according to the state Attorney-General.

John Hatzistergos said that one in five people seeking legal aid in NSW were turned away.

The chief executive of Legal Aid NSW, Alan Kirkland, said the organisation would soon have to tighten eligibility for funding to war veterans and their widows, for claims relating to medical treatment and benefits.

"We're stuck between a rock and a hard place in choosing which services to cut next. Whichever way we turn, it will be a very disadvantaged group that suffers" he said.

Legal Aid NSW has already stopped funding court action to enforce family court orders against former partners.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The ANZ bank has been accused of funding weapons whose manufacture, trade and use have been banned under a convention signed by Australia.

Uniting Church spokesman Mark Zinsak said the ANZ had joined a global consortium lending money to Lockheed-Martin, which manufactures cluster bombs.

Such funding will become illegal if federal Parliament accepts the recommendation of its treaties committee to prohibit funding companies that may produce cluster bombs. It has already signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which seeks to ban their manufacture, trade or use.

Cluster bombs contain hundreds of small bombs that break open in mid-air, releasing over a wide area.

Often they do not explode on impact, acting as small mines and leaving the area unsafe for decades. For example up to 300 civilians are still killed annually in Vietnam, by cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance deployed during the Vietnam War.

(Source: The Age, Wikipedia)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"It's a good commitment for me to make personally and to say to my councillors that they should be making no junkets...I may take the occasional day trip to Frankston...I think we know what the problems are here. My job is to stay here and work on the solutions."

Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, when elected last year. Councillor Doyle will lead a group of four to a conference in Europe next month, at a cost to ratepayers of $61,000.