Australian household debt is now higher than the entire Australian economy earns in a year.

Reserve Bank figures show mortgage, credit card and personal loan debts now stand at $1.2 trillion, up 71 per cent from five years ago and equating to $56,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

(Source: Sunday Telegraph)

 

An Australian shipping company will not face legal action for breaching United Nations sanctions by transporting weapons from North Korea to the Middle East.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said yesterday an investigation had indicated that the ANL Australia was chartered to a company based in the Bahamas when it was carrying the contraband cargo.

This means ANL Container Line has not fallen foul of domestic legislation 'enforcing' UN sanctions against the export of weapons from North Korea.

United Arab Emirates authorities boarded the ANL Australia in Sharjah on July 22 this year and found containers packed with weapons and military hardware believed to be bound for Iran.

It has been reported that the cargo included small arms, more than 2000 detonators for short-range rockets, electronic circuitry and solid-fuel propellant for rockets.

(Source: The Age)

 

Senior executives of the authority that manages Victoria's public sector superannuation were awarded some of the highest bonuses ever paid in the state, despite huge falls in the value of the funds they were managing.

A government inquiry has found that executives of the Victorian Funds Management Corporation should never have received the bonuses, and that they were awarded in breach of government guidelines.

However executives will be able to keep their bonuses. The board of the Corporation will also escape punishment.

Premier John Brumby ordered a top-level review of VFMC remuneration practices in October, after the fund's annual report revealed six executives shared more than $1.2 million in bonuses last financial year. One executive, believed to be chief investment officer Justin Pascoe, was paid more than $1 million in wages and bonuses in the 12 months to June 30.

In the two years to June 30 the value of the funds the VFMC manages for about a dozen institutions, including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Royal Children's Hospital, fell from $41 billion to $31 billion.

Treasurer John Lenders said that board members would not be punished because they "clearly did not understand the full implications of the Government framework...that bonuses must be commensurate to the performance of the fund."

The VFMC reports to Mr Lenders through the Department of Treasury and Finance.

It has also recently been revealed that executives and staff at VicUrban, the state government developer in charge of Docklands, were paid more than $1 million in bonuses last financial year, while the organisation lost $8.74 million.

(Source: The Age)

 

American police officers covered up the fatal assault of a Mexican man, and engaged in extortion and kidnapping, according to federal investigators.

In July 2008, six teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania assaulted Luis Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, while yelling "fucking spic", "go back to Mexico" and "tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah."

As they gathered at one of their homes after the attack, according to court documents, the mother of assailant Brandon Piekarsky arrived to tell them they needed to "get their stories straight" because she had heard from her boyfriend that the victim might die. Before they left the house that night, they allegedly agreed not to tell police that Piekarsky had kicked the man or that they had attacked him because of his ethnicity.

The mother's boyfriend was Jason Hayes, a Shenandoah patrolman who had stopped several of the attackers as they fled.

According to the indictment Piekarsky's mother was also friends with Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor and had vacationed with him. In addition, Lieutenant William Moyer - who, along with Patrolman Hayes, stopped the attackers after the assault - had a son who played on Shenandoah's high school football team with the assailants.

The indictment gives the following account: After the assault, Piekarsky accompanied police officers Hayes and Moyer to the park and told them about the attack. While at the crime scene, Piekarsky used his cell phone (which Hayes had given him and paid for) to call Donchak with the news that he had told police about the beating of Ramirez. He then went to Donchak's home, where the assailants agreed to lie about what had happened that night.

The next morning, Moyer showed up at the house of an assailant who is not named in the indictment and told him to speak with the other attackers so they could all give the same account to police, the indictment alleges. During the week after the assault, Moyer contacted the parents of a second unnamed participant with the suggestion that they get rid of the sneakers their son wore on the night of the attack.

Shortly before July 24, 2008, he went to that participant's home and, in an attempt to absolve Piekarsky, told the parents that their son "should take full responsibility for the assault."

In another effort to conceal Piekarsky's involvement, Moyer and Hayes mischaracterized a witness's account in an official report to make it appear that the second unnamed participant had a greater role in the attack than he actually did.

Moyer also allegedly falsely reported that an eyewitness who called 911 from the park that night did not identify any of the attackers and said there was a man wielding a gun. In fact, the 911 caller had identified Piekarsky, Donchak and other attackers to Moyer and Hayes. After stopping the assailants identified by the 911 caller, Moyer and Hayes released them. All three police officers deliberately wrote false reports in connection with the investigation, the indictment said. In addition, when a Shenandoah official recommended that the police department recuse itself from the investigation because of its ties to the suspects, the police chief refused.

In a separate indictment Chief Nestor and his second-in-command, Captain Jamie Gennarini, were charged with multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations. In one incident described in the indictment, Nestor and Gennarini drove to the office of a local businessman, where they proclaimed that "this is the way we are going to do business in Shenandoah!" They then drove the businessman to the police station while Gennarini demanded money from him. After placing him in a holding cell, Nestor threatened to formally arrest him unless another individual brought $2,000 in cash for the two police officers. That person, who is not named in the indictment, told Nestor she needed to go to the bank. Nestor told her he would be getting paperwork ready for the businessman's arrest while she made the trip. He then called her on her cell phone to ask why it was taking so long, the indictment said. After accepting the money, Nestor and Gennarini wrote "vague and misleading entries" in the department's logbook to cover up the businessman's detention.

(Source: Southern Poverty Law Center)

 

A 12-year old girl in state 'care' was raped by five men and later repeatedly escaped from a welfare residential unit to live with three middle-aged men who plied her with drugs.

At the time of the rapes, the girl was living in a Department of Human Services residential unit. She later escaped from the unit seven times and was eventually discovered at the house of the three men.

The magistrate said Rose (not her real name), who was under DHS care, was raped by five men on one day in October. Since then, she had "absconded from the unit and was unaccounted for" seven times.

A secure welfare order was finally made after Rose was found to be living at a house with three men, aged between 45 and 50, who the magistrate said were "providing her with bongs and cigarettes and one wonders what else."

Rose's case comes weeks after Victorian Ombudsman George Brouwer released a report on child protection that found children in state care had been seriously injured and permitted to have contact with sex offenders.

The report found that the DHS sometimes took a dangerously long time to intervene to protect children, leaving them exposed to continuing abuse.

(Source: The Age)

 

Victorian police struck deals with a series of private companies to share information on individuals, to help the companies manage possible protests.

The Government has called in the police files watchdog to investigate a security deal between police and the private consortium building Victoria's $3.5 billion desalination plant.

The Age newspaper revealed that the government had signed a deal under which police "will release law enforcement data" to the consortium AquaSure to help it "manage" protests and potential security threats. The memorandum says law enforcement data includes images, video recordings and "data related to individuals."

Chief Commissioner Simon Overland said that Victoria Police had struck "a whole range" of similar deals relating to other projects "as a matter of course."

He said he was happy to release the full list.

However within hours of making the promise, his office issued a statement saying he could not make the list public after receiving "subsequent legal advice relating to privacy issues and other sensitivities."

Mr Overland told reporters that the list may be released through Freedom of Information requests, but could not say how long it would take.

(Source: The Age)

 

The manager of a Melbourne cafe bullied a teenage waitress until she committed suicide.

An inquest into the death of Brodie Rae Constance Panlock, 19, heard she was treated in an "extremely aggressive and intimidating" manner at Cafe Vamp in Hawthorn.

On the evidence of a former workmate, a coroner described manager Nicholas Smallwood and another man, Rhys MacAlpine, as "relentless in their efforts to demean her", which included covering her with chocolate and dismissing her as worthless.

Nicola Wood told the inquest Ms Panlock was in an intimate relationship with Smallwood but believed she put up with his and others' behaviour because she sought "approval and acceptance".

Owner Marc Luis Da Cruz and his company MAP Foundation Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to two charges issued by WorkSafe Victoria investigators that included failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment. Smallwood, and chef Gabriel Toomey, pleaded guilty to failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of persons. MacAlpine, who faces the same charge, had his case adjourned.

Coroner Peter White found in May last year that Ms Panlock was emotionally vulnerable after joining the cafe in early 2005 because of her low self-esteem, age and inexperience.

Mr White said she became "infatuated" with Smallwood and they had an intermittent intimate relationship for 15 months until her death.

In this period, the relationship became unhealthy as Smallwood, MacAlpine and others "systematically bullied her, both physically and emotionally", Mr White found.

He said he was satisfied that "this almost daily routine of inappropriate pressure at work" culminated in her jumping from a car park building on September 20, 2006.

He said it was his view on the evidence that on that night Ms Panlock felt what she considered an "unbearable level of humiliation."

(Source: The Age)

 

Anti-psychotic drugs given to dementia patients are generally unncessary and often deadly, according to a new report.

The British government review concludes that about 1800 deaths per year are linked to the drugs.

The anti-psychotic drugs in question were originally developed to treat schizophrenia.

Over the past 30 years they have been increasingly used to subdue disturbed or violent dementia patients.

Of the 180,000 patients given the drug, the report concluded that only 36,000 actually benefited.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Indigenous babies are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than other Australian babies, according to a new report.

The Australian Medical Association report also says that indigenous babies are 2.6 times more likely than other Australian babies to die between the ages of one and four.

Indigenous men aged 25 to 64 are up to six times more likely to die from preventable causes than men in the general population.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"Just because you have no criminal record does not mean that you are not of interest to the police...everyone who has got a criminal record did not have one once."

Anton Setchell, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism for Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers, justifying the possible presence of protesters with no criminal record on a secret database relating to "domestic extremism, criminality and public disorder."

 

The federal government will give $1.6 million to two schools, with a total of less than 100 students, linked to Scientology.

The Athena School in Sydney will receive $751,519 in funding for the 2009 to 2012 period. It has also been allocated $135,287 for a new library, $114,713 for primary classroom refurbishments and $50,000 for other refurbishments under the Building the Education Revolution program.

The Athena School's website says it teaches from the booklet The Way to Happiness, written by Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

The government will also provide an estimated $367,000 over the four-year funding cycle to the Yarralinda School in Melbourne, which has about 30 students, whose materials are also based on Hubbard's works.

NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the Athena School had enrolled fewer than 50 students last year.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)