Sydney Morning Herald
Thousands turn out to peacefully protest
2007-09-08 18:49:33 Thousands turned out in Sydney to protest a wide range of issues. The protest remained peaceful however 9 people were arrested.(01:54)
http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=31477&category=Breaking%20News
Bush leaves Australia after APEC summit
September 9, 2007
US President George Bush left Australia in the middle of the APEC leaders' summit to return to Washington to prepare a crucial White House report on the war in Iraq.
Mr Bush flew out of Sydney airport after a four-day visit which included a raft of meetings with other leaders before he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders' meeting, a gathering of 21 heads of government that began yesterday.
The president left his fellow leaders at a cultural show at Sydney's iconic Opera House and headed straight to the airport where he boarded his Air Force One jet for the trip back to the United States.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard was forced to rearrange the timetable of the annual APEC meeting to accommodate Bush's last-minute schedule change and arrange for the traditional group photo of leaders to be taken a day early.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/apec/bush-leaves-australia-after-apec-summit/2007/09/08/1188783563918.html
Imagine a world without whales.
Whales are still recovering from commercial whaling that ended 25 years ago. And they are still not safe. Your tax deductible donation to our whales campaign will put Greenpeace between the whales and the harpoon.
Greenpeace sees a future for whales. This tax time, defend the whales. Donate to our urgent campaign by 30 June.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-staying-put-till-election/2007/09/08/1188783555929.html
PM staying put till election
Kerry-Anne Walsh Political correspondentSeptember 9, 2007
LIBERAL MPs and Federal Government insiders have scotched continuing speculation the Prime Minister will step aside before the election - even as early as this week.
Health Minister Tony Abbott told The Sun-Herald that the talk was "making a difficult situation even more difficult".
He believed the poor opinion polls for the Government - responsible for increasing the leadership speculation - would improve once the election was called.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-staying-put-till-election/2007/09/08/1188783555929.html
Tossed out ... and it's not even their default
Maxine FrithSeptember 9, 2007
TENANTS are being forced out of their homes at a dramatic rate, some with just two hours' notice.
Renters are becoming the innocent victims of an overcrowded rental market and the problem is expected to worsen if interest rates rise.
Tenant advocates blame the deepening problem on landlords who default on mortgages and lenders who take on high-risk customers.
The Tenants Union of NSW cited cases of landlords stealing repossession notices from the mailboxes of tenants, allowing them to pay rent right up until the sheriff's knock on the door.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/its-not-even-their-default/2007/09/08/1188783556227.html
Australian cricket team get racism delivery
September 9, 2007
THE Australian team has been warned to avoid racial outbursts as Cricket Australia prepares to host a potentially heated summer series against Sri Lanka and India.
Cricket authorities also committed to keep their nationwide ban on the Mexican wave to help eliminate "yobbish behaviour".
At a team camp before the World Twenty20 competition in South Africa, starting this week, the players were reminded of recent incidents in Australia in which cricketers and crowds had broken International Cricket Council rules.
In January 2006, South African Andre Nel formally complained about racial taunts from the Sydney crowd. In January 2003, Australian Darren Lehmann was suspended after a racial remark.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/australian-cricket-team-get-racism-delivery/2007/09/08/1188783553612.html
Mourners farewell Pavarotti
September 9, 2007 - 1:15AM
Thousands of mourners led by top political figures and stars of the entertainment world attended the funeral of opera legend Luciano Pavarotti at Modena in Italy.
About 800 family, friends and special guests packed Modena Cathedral for a mass for the venerated tenor, who died on Thursday aged 71.
Among those present were Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, U2 rock star Bono and Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.
Pavarotti's second wife Nicoletta Mantovani sat in front of the white maple coffin, which was covered in sunflowers. Nearby were his three daughters from his first marriage.
Thousands more watched the ceremony on two giant screens set up in the main square outside.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/thousands-farewell-opera-legend-at-funeral/2007/09/09/1188783574742.html
School shrinks week to four days
Sarah Price Education Reporter
September 9, 2007
A SENIOR state high school will move to a four-day week next year in a move designed to provide more flexibility to students completing their HSC.
Bankstown Senior College has just received approval from the Department of Education to introduce the reduced school week following the successful trial of the program at Illawarra Senior College.
Principal Col Harris said the move would cater for the diverse student population, which ranges in age from 15 to 69, many of whom work to support themselves and their families. Ninety per cent of them have a non-English-speaking background.
"Some of our students work up to 12 hours a night and then come to school," he said. "It allows them to balance work, family and school commitments."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/school-shrinks-week-to-four-days/2007/09/08/1188783555768.html
APEC leaders set to push Doha deadline
September 8, 2007 - 7:54PM
APEC leaders will issue a statement urging the global community to conclude the Doha round of world trade talks by the end of the year.
Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba confirmed that the 21 Asia Pacific Economic leaders had agreed to a statement urging the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to meet a year-end deadline for finalising the stalled negotiations.
The current Doha round of the WTO, now in its sixth year, is on its death bed as industrialised nations and the developing world struggle to agree on ways to liberalise trade.
During a press briefing after the first day of the APEC leaders summit, Mr Sakaba said leaders had backed a recommendation from APEC ministers that they issue a separate statement urging the WTO pursue the deadline.
"We will adopt a joint statement on the WTO Doha round negotiations expressing the APEC economies commitment to engage in the final stage of negotiations for reaching, hopefully, a successful conclusion by the end of the year or substantial part of negotiations," he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/APEC-leaders-set-to-push-Doha-deadline/2007/09/08/1188783555940.html
Patients to have drugs tailor-made
Louise Hall
September 9, 2007
AUSTRALIAN scientists are leading a global push towards "personalised medicine" with the development of two new cancer drugs tailor-made to patients' genes.
Called pharmacogenomics, the science allows doctors to treat people with drugs based on their genetic profile, rather than a one-size-fits-all model.
Executive director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research Professor John Shine said the human genome project, which identified all the 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA, enabled researchers to better match drugs to each patient.
Australian biotechnology company ChemGenex is developing two cancer pharmaceuticals.
Ceflatonin treats patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.
ChemGenex chief executive officer Greg Collier said Ceflatonin was expected to be available in the US by the end of next year.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/patients-to-have-drugs-tailormade/2007/09/08/1188783557686.html
Fat, chance and cancer
Renee Switzer and Hannah Edwards
September 9, 2007
THE nation's obesity epidemic is exposing the alarming link between body fat and cancer.
A dramatic increase in a deadly form of oesophagus cancer linked to obesity suggests excess body fat is driving the disease.
David Whiteman, a senior research fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said adenocarcinoma had increased five fold in the past 25 years in Australia - an "unprecedented" rise.
"Could it be that the fat tissue itself is acting like a fertiliser?" he said.
"Is it producing an environment where if you have an early change that could turn into a cancer in someone with more body fat, that it is more likely to flourish, take root and grow than it would in a lean person who doesn't have the same amount of proteins flitting around the body."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fat-chance-and-cancer/2007/09/08/1188783554661.html
Toxic gas escapes through loophole
Frank Walker
September 9, 2007
THOUSANDS of small suburban factories can release toxic gases due to a loophole in environmental laws, the State Opposition said yesterday.
Factories where emission levels fall under legal thresholds can pump out up to 90 pollutants without having to be licensed by the Government.
The legislation allows local councils to regulate factories without having to check on the potentially harmful emissions.
These gases can have a cumulative effect on human health, scientific experts have warned
Liberal MP Michael Richardson said: "This loophole . . . means there are thousands of factories like Unomedical at Mona Vale emitting dangerous pollutants across NSW without their activities being monitored."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/toxic-gas-escapes-through-loophole/2007/09/08/1188783558427.html
Mutant bug will keep on biting
Louise Hall Health Reporter
September 9, 2007
A VIRULENT strain of gastroenteritis that has struck tens of thousands of people has two months left to run, threatening child-care centres, aged-care facilities and hospitals.
The combination of a new strain of norovirus and increased susceptibility due to this year's severe influenza season has caused scores of outbreaks across NSW.
There were 63 outbreaks affecting 44 nursing homes and 11 hospitals last month, with some forced to close wards to new patients and visitors.
Molecular virologist Peter White, from the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science at the University of NSW predicted the virus, identified as norovirus 2006b, would continue until November.
"We are one month into a three-month epidemic," he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mutant-bug-will-keep-on-biting/2007/09/08/1188783557290.html
Times are rough for old man of the sea, chefs warn
Hannah Edwards Environment Reporter
September 9, 2007
SOME of Sydney's top chefs are urging consumers to stop buying some types of seafood, which face extinction from overfishing.
Kylie Kwong and Jared Ingersoll have joined conservationists in a campaign to raise public awareness of the seafood they eat and how it is caught.
They say fish eaters should keep away from buying species including red snapper, orange roughy, sharks and southern blue fin tuna.
The Nature Conservation Council (NCC) will launch the "Sustainable Seafoodies" campaign later this month at Ingersoll's Danks Street Depot restaurant in Waterloo.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/times-are-rough-for-old-man-of-the-sea-chefs-warn/2007/09/08/1188783557747.html
Replaced cleric says 'role still with me'
Taghred Chandab
September 9, 2007
OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly still regards himself as Australia's Muslim leader, despite being replaced three months ago.
Speaking one year after his infamous Ramadan sermon - in which he compared scantily dressed women to "uncovered meat" - the sheik said he continued to represent Muslims at international Islamic conferences. He has just returned from Malaysia.
While he was replaced by Sheik Fehmi Naji El-Imam in June, Sheik Hilaly told The Sun-Herald: "The role is still with me."
"I have the tongue that speaks the truth, a heart that is only afraid of God and the knowledge to guide Muslims spiritually. They are three important qualities a leader must have," he said in Arabic from his home in south-western Sydney.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/replaced-cleric-says-role-still-with-me/2007/09/08/1188783557475.html
Former Taliban hostages mourn slain pastor
September 9, 2007
South Koreans freed from six weeks of captivity in Afghanistan mourned at the funeral of a church pastor who was one of two in their group shot dead by Taliban militants.
Five former hostages wept, prayed and sang hymns along with hundreds of black-clad mourners during the funeral service for pastor Bae Hyung-kyu at their Presbyterian Saemmul Community Church in Seongnam, just south of Seoul.
Video footage of Bae was also shown during the service, prompting sobs and wails from mourners.
Bae, 42, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds on July 25, six days after he and 22 other aid workers from a South Korean church were kidnapped from a bus on their way to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
He was the first of two killed in the six-week standoff. The second victim, Shim Sung-min, 29, was slain on July 31.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/former-taliban-hostages-mourn-slain-pastor/2007/09/08/1188783555595.html
New York state of mind
Kellie Hush
September 6, 2007
Kit Willow Podgornik is returning to the Big Apple ready to pick up where she left off a year ago.
There's a buzz in the air when I step into the Surry Hills studio of fashion designer Kit Willow Podgornik. She's hard at work with her team, finessing the 30 looks for her Willow spring-summer 2008 New York Fashion Week show on Sunday.
Podgornik fiddles with a strap on a skin-coloured, silk goddess gown explaining the draping technique she recently mastered in Paris for her new collection called H2O. The 31-year-old says her nerves are under control even though the late nights started long ago and will continue until the lights go down on the Bryant Park catwalk. She's not fazed because she knows first-hand about the hard yards required.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion/new-york-state-of-mind/2007/09/04/1188783234161.html
Some verbal gymnastics, and Bush is in Austria
Annabel CrabbSeptember 8, 2007
BEHIND THE FENCE
AND on the Friday there came a great confusion on the conference, and they spake in tongues.Thank God for the arrival of Vladimir Putin.
APEC was in dire need of a language as yet unmastered by the rampaging Kevin Rudd.
It was almost a relief to haul out the clunky headphones and embark upon the agonising choreography of simultaneous translation at the Putin/Howard news conference; the missed cues, the bungled allusions and the long stretches of everyone looking vaguely stupid while Viktor the blank-faced interpreter delivered a guttural account of what the Russian President had just said.
Howard never looks entirely graceful at these events. We cannot blame him for that - they are impossible - but this one brought a special clanger, when he enthusiastically endorsed the idea of a 2012 APEC in "convivial" St Petersburg, only to be reminded with Slavic chill by Putin that Russia favours Vladivostok.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/some-verbal-gymnastics-and-bush-is-in-austria/2007/09/07/1188783493506.html
Babies at risk from non-stick chemical
Daniel DaseySeptember 9, 2007
ANTI-TOXIC chemical campaigners have called for non-stick frying pans to be taken off the market after a study found a chemical used in their manufacture is harmful to humans.
US researchers analysed blood in the umbilical cords of newborn babies and found those with increased levels of the chemical were likely to be smaller with reduced head sizes.
Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smit, of the National Toxic Networks Australia, said the study was the latest showing a link between ill-health and the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used in non-stick frying pans and barbecues.
"I would like polyfluorinated chemicals to be removed from products and if that means getting rid of non-stick frying pans, so be it," Dr Lloyd-Smith said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/babies-at-risk-from-nonstick-chemical/2007/09/08/1188783556356.html
Such tolerance of anti-Semitism raises a modern Jewish question
Michael Duffy
September 8, 2007
Recently I was involved in one of those conversations most parents end up having. I had to try to explain to a young person how the Holocaust could have occurred. For me it involves not just what was unique about Nazi Germany, but what was not unique about it. It seems to me that unless you realise just how widespread anti-Semitism once was around the world, it's almost impossible to comprehend the road to the death camps.
Of course it existed in Australia, too. The problem is that it's very hard to explain this today, because we've done a pretty good job of removing anti-Semitism from our society. It's so remote from most young people's experience that it's difficult to make it real for them.
But there are traces of the way things used to be, and a while ago I came upon a striking example in an old copy of this very newspaper. It was a letter to the editor, published on October 16, 1940. It's not a letter that would be published today, and the fact it was published then says a lot about the different public values of the time.
The writer was the artist and critic Lionel Lindsay, and it was inspired by a visit he'd just made to an exhibition of the Contemporary Art Society. Lindsay, who like his good friend Robert Menzies had traditional tastes in art, was ropable.
"The Australian public is perhaps yet unaware," he wrote from Wahroonga, "that modernism was organised in Paris by the Jew dealers, whose first care was to corrupt criticism, originate propaganda … and undermine accepted standards so that there should be ample merchandise to handle. It was Uhde, the Jew art critic, who proudly boasted that three-fourths of the art dealers, critics and collectors were Jews."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/such-tolerance-raises-a-modern-jewish-question/2007/09/07/1188783493524.html
WHO WE ARE: a column about Australia
by David Dale
Published in The Sun-Herald, 9/9/2007
It's a scary thought that two out of three marriages end in death. It's almost enough to make you apply for a divorce, so you can be in the remaining third. But lets start from the assumption that being in a long term relationship with another person is A Good Thing. It's probably good for the happiness of the individual, and it's certainly good for the continuation of society. So most of what you're about to read will be comforting news.
Australians are divorcing less than they were six years ago (rate down from 2.9 per 1,000 people in 2001 to 2.5 per 1,000 people last year), according to a report released last week by the Bureau of Statistics. When divorces do occur, the marriage has usually lasted longer than it did two decades ago (median duration of marriage up from 10.1 years in 1988 to 12.5 years in 2006). And the proportion of divorces where children under 18 are involved has dropped from 59.7 per cent in 1986 to 50.1 per cent in 2006.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/sit/archives/2007/09/who_we_are_a_column_about_aust_20.html
ADHD drug enlisted to fight fat
September 5, 2007 - 2:15PM
A single dose of Ritalin appears to dampen adults' taste for calories and fat -- suggesting, researchers say, that the ADHD drug should be studied as a weight-loss medication.
Weight loss is known to be a potential side effect of methylphenidate, best known by the brand-name Ritalin.Whether the drug stands as a potential weapon in the battle of the bulge has been little studied, however.Theoretically, Ritalin could help overweight people control their appetite because the drug increases brain levels of the chemical dopamine, which is involved in feelings of pleasure and ``reward.''
http://www.smh.com.au/news/diet/adhd-drug-enlisted-to-fight-fat/2007/09/05/1188783294682.html
Wireless computer users warned to boost security
September 8, 2007 - 1:53PM
Police are urging wireless home internet users to seriously consider boosting their security.The warning follows a number of complaints about the unauthorised use of unsecured wireless internet networks in the Rockhampton area.A wireless or "wifi" connection uses radio frequency signals to send data between computers and devices.If a network is unsecured, a stranger can tap into it and access the owner's personal details or files, including email accounts or web-based networking accounts, including Facebook and MySpace.Criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment apply for anyone caught using another's wireless network without permission.Police said home users should talk to their internet providers about boosting security.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/09/08/1188783541631.html?s_rid=smh:top5
New Zealand Herald
Agreement on climate
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By Greg Ansley
John Howard, George W Bush, and Helen Clark wearing their Apec special stockmen's coats. Photo / Reuters
Leaders of Pacific rim countries yesterday agreed to an urgent new focus on climate change, embracing a joint commitment to action by some of largest polluters in the world.
Although the language remained cautious and referred only to "aspirational" greenhouse gas targets after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, the declaration has recognised the United Nations as the key forum for global agreements.
"You're looking at Apec never having a work programme on these issues, to wanting to work one out," Prime Minister Helen Clark said. "So that's progress. We've come a long way from where we were."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10462528
11:30AM Saturday September 08, 2007
Japan's Shinzo Abe, Australia's John Howard and US President George W Bush in Sydney.
Climate change and trade will top the agenda as APEC leaders hold their first full meeting at the Sydney summit this afternoon.
Officials and ministers have been meeting all week, but this weekend the talks ramp up to the highest level.
The final massaging of international diplomacy will take place in the leaders' retreats.
Australia is hoping to clinch consensus on a so-called 'Sydney Declaration' including a long-term aspirational goal for greenhouse gas reductions.
China is seen as one stumbling block. It backs a statement, but warns the UN should be the top arbiter on climate change action.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10462425
Fran O'Sullivan: Finding our way to real agreement
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By Fran O'Sullivan
Tom Donohue the energetic president of the US Chamber of Commerce is a master of the art of making the seemingly impossible seem completely do-able.
This is particularly so in relation to the World Trade Organisation's global trade talks, which, while no longer at an impasse, need some major sacrifices to get the Doha deal done.
A Doha agreement cannot be signed during the Bush Administration's remaining months because the President's trade promotion authority has expired.
This has dismayed New Zealand's farming exporters, manufacturers and service providers, who want the WTO deal done so they can bag a greater commercial dividend.
But Donohue is adamant that President George W. Bush is committed to getting the negotiations finalised.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10462497
Brian Fallow: Tough choices on power
5:00AM Thursday September 06, 2007
By Brian Fallow
As the Prime Minister heads off to Sydney to add to the peer pressure on other Asia-Pacific leaders to get serious about climate change, her Government is grappling with some tough choices at home.
New Zealand is at a crossroads in energy policy, but none of the signposts is marked "cheap and easy".
Under our Kyoto Protocol commitments we have to take financial responsibility for any increase in greenhouse gas emissions above 1990 levels.
But since 1990 CO2 emissions from the electricity sector have increased a whopping 137 per cent.
The reason, in a word, is Huntly.
Switching the 1000MW plant from natural gas to coal - reflecting dwindling supplies from the Maui gas field - followed by the need to run the plant increasingly hard, despite its inefficiency, to cope with relentlessly rising electricity demand has seen emissions from the sector's use of coal soar.
They reached 4.6 million tonnes of CO2 last year, five times the level in 2000 and nearly 10 times the level in 1990.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=10461877
Battling the big guns
5:00AM Saturday September 08, 2007
By Greg Ansley
"There is talk that [the Doha round] might be put in the freezer for two years, until 2009-10," he said. "I would deeply regret any outcome from Apec that resulted in that because you can't be certain that if a round is put in the freezer for that long, that when it emerges again it's still going to be capable of revival."
The communique is a familiar wish-list: continued regional economic integration and the ultimate hope of an Apec free-trade area; easier and less costly trade; greater protection of intellectual property; renewed attacks on corruption; structural reform in member economies; and greater economic and technical co-operation.
Other areas included determination to combat terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to improve food safety.
The communique failed to present any specific goals on climate change, instead fudging around an issue clouded by divergent perspectives of rich and poor, and the determination of the US and Australia to forge a new agreement outside the Kyoto protocols.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=171&objectid=10462322&pnum=2
Leaky homeowners on suicide watch
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By Jane Phare
John Gray helps distressed leaky home owners.
At least one owner of a leaky home has taken his own life and 10 others are on suicide watch, while hundreds of others are facing bankruptcy and wrecked lives as aggressive body corporates hound them for thousands of dollars to fix leaky buildings.
Stacked atop their broken housing dreams comes ill health, depression, anxiety and sleeplessness as they watch debts they cannot possibly pay balloon with penalty interest.
Leaky home advocate and Air New Zealand pilot John Gray puts in hundreds of hours a month helping desperate apartment and multi-unit complex owners who can't afford their share of bills run up by body corporates. Legal help is equally unaffordable.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10462521
Kiro wants every child monitored
New 5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
The Children's Commissioner wants mandatory screening of every baby's home life to halve New Zealand's high child-murder rate.
Cindy Kiro wants every newborn baby's parents or caregivers to nominate a provider to assess their family's progress through home visits.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10462454
Dead girl's father: I've seen worse bruises
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By Jonathan Marshall
Joseph Wilson, right, faced three trials for Alyssa's death.
The father who failed to attend his 4-month-old daughter's inquest had spoken of a string of accidents that bruised the girl, according to evidence at his trial for her manslaughter.
At an inquest last week, Coroner Dr Murray Jamieson ruled that Alyssa Amy Te Ataahua Wilson died from "violent shaking to the head" the day before her death.
The coroner said that Alyssa "was in the care of her father and her uncle, Tamati Kem, on the day she received the violent shaking that caused her death".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10462473
111 stretched to brink
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By Jared Savage
Health Minister Pete Hodgson.
Emergency Ambulance services are so stretched that patient safety is in danger, according to a damning report to Government by 111 paramedic service, St John.
The report states nearly one in five 111 responses fails to meet minimum standards, a crisis which St John says could be fixed for $5 million a year.
It comes just days after Parliament's health select committee announced an inquiry into ambulance services, as Health Minister Pete Hodgson continues to play down problems with the service.
St John's greatest concern was being forced to staff many ambulances with just one ambulance officer.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10462508
PM blamed for turmoil at TVNZ
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007By Michelle Coursey
Bill Ralston has accused the Government of meddling in TVNZ's affairs.
Prime Minister Helen Clark has been accused of bringing state broadcaster TVNZ "almost to its knees", leading to the loss of some of its best-known presenters and plummeting ratings.
In a column in the Herald on Sunday starting today, former TVNZ head of news and current affairs Bill Ralston has broken his silence over the rocky period that saw broadcasters Paul Holmes, Judy Bailey and Susan Wood leave.
Ralston says TVNZ has been treated as a "political football", and that Clark's "aversion to paying presenters large salaries has cost the company tens of millions of dollars and has been a major factor in bringing the place almost to its knees".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10462536
Official cash rate set to be left unchanged
5:00AM Sunday September 09, 2007
By James Gray
Alan Bollard is expected to stick to his hard line on inflation. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Turmoil on international credit markets is likely to loom large in this week's monetary policy statement from the Reserve Bank, economists say.
Economists are expecting the central bank to keep its official cash rate steady at 8.25 per cent come Thursday, and for governor Alan Bollard to maintain the same stern line on inflation as he did in the last announcement on July 26. But a lot has happened since then.
Firstly, the uncertain state of the risky US sub-prime credit markets has sent shockwaves around the financial world.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10462446
Australian construction in crisis
5:00AM Saturday September 08, 2007
SYDNEY: The housing affordability crisis continues to wreak havoc in the Australian construction industry, contributing to more deterioration in activity, figures show.
Activity in the construction industry deteriorated for a second consecutive month, with the Australian Industry Group-Housing Industry Association Performance of Construction Index (PCI) falling 0.4 points last month to 48.4.
The fall in activity meant the index remained below the key 50-point level that separates expansion from contraction.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10462378
So of course, Reuters pastes Bin Laden’s picture on the article regardless of the fact he was never at Gitmo but many innocent people were. And they were tortured against any known International Law, but, who’s counting?
Doctors damn Gitmo medics
5:00AM Saturday September 08, 2007
More than 260 doctors from around the world have launched an unprecedented attack on the American medical establishment for its failure to condemn unethical practices by medical practitioners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
In a letter to The Lancet, the doctors from 16 countries, including Britain and America, say the failure of the United States regulatory authorities to act is "damaging the reputation of US military medicine".
They compare the actions of the military doctors, whom they accuse of being involved in the force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and of turning a blind eye to evidence of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, to those of the South African security police involved in the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko 30 years ago.
The group highlighted the force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last year and suggested the physicians involved should be referred to their professional bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines. The doctors wrote: "No healthcare worker in the War on Terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence despite [documented instances of] fraudulent record-keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations ... The attitude of the US military establishment appears to be one of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10462343
Both Madeleine's parents suspects - Portuguese police
2:30PM Saturday September 08, 2007By Henrique Almeida
Gerry McCann (left) and his wife Kate have both been put on the police's list of suspects. Photo / Reuters
PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal - Portuguese police today named the parents of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann as suspects in their investigation, their lawyer said after they were questioned for hours by police.
A spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, who had gained widespread sympathy in Europe for their plight, said they were innocent and that, in naming them as suspects, police were not focusing on finding Madeleine.
"Today, Kate and Gerry McCann have both been declared 'arguidos'," their lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, told reporters using the Portuguese word for suspect.
"No charges were brought against them," he said, adding that there were no conditions established by the police on them as suspects. "The investigation continues."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10462416
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