A review by Tasmania Police has exonerated the actions of officers who twice strip-searched a 12-year-old girl during a drug raid.

Deputy Commissioner Scott Tilyard has finished a review of police actions during the raid on Wednesday at Rokeby on Hobart's eastern shore.

The girl was searched in a bedroom of her house with her mother present.

No drugs were found on her.

Mr Tilyard says a review was conducted rather than an internal investigation because the facts did not suggest any of the officers involved had acted unlawfully.

The review found both searches were justified based on the behaviour of the girl and others in the house at the time.

Mr Tilyard says the officers involved have his full support.

"The conduct of the people in the residence that was being searched, including the movements and activities of the young girl in question, caused the officers to suspect that she may have been in possession of some drugs," he said.

"We find drugs in all sorts of places on all sorts of people."

The Deputy Commissioner says searches of children by police during drug raids are rare and the girl was not touched or required to squat as reportedly claimed by her mother.

He says it is legal for officers conduct a strip search of a child of any age, if it is warranted.

Police say a white powder seized in the raid, possibly methamphetamine, is being analysed by forensic officers.

An environmental group has accused Woodside Petroleum of trying to bypass legally required approvals for its proposed $30 billion gas hub in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

But Woodside says it has fulfilled all its requirements and is working with the State Government and the Shire of Broome on the liquified natural gas project.

Environs Kimberley says Woodside did not have shire approval for a laydown area with a fuel tank, transportable accommodation, offices, toilets, fences, gates, a vehicle washdown area and drilling.

Director Martin Pritchard said Woodside was originally granted approval from the shire in 2012 to develop some facilities but have since been working on other facilities and have not gained the appropriate approvals.

“Was Woodside ignorant of the fact that they needed planning approval for the work they did at James Price Point in 2011, or did they decide to do the work and pay for the consequences later?” he said.

Mr Pritchard said Woodside was now applying for retrospective planning approval through the Development Assessment Panel (DAP), rather than the shire, which included only two councillors and three government representatives.

“It looks like Woodside has tried to bypass shire decision-making processes by going to the DAP,” he said.

However, a spokeswoman for Woodside said the company liaised with the Shire of Broome and agreed to submit a consolidated application to the DAP with information about work that had been done and work that was planned.

“The Kimberley Joint Development Assessment Panel is the appropriate forum to consider the application, based on the size and scope of the development and works that are the subject of the planning application,” she said.

“Woodside has all of the relevant consents and approvals required for our current program of geotechnical and environmental studies within the proposed Browse LNG Precinct.

“We have submitted a consolidated planning application for our geotechnical and site activities in 2012 following a request from the Shire of Broome.”

U.S.: Energy Dept. Cuts Estimate For Marcellus Shale Gas

(AP) WASHINGTON — The Energy Department on Monday cut its estimate for the amount of natural gas stored in underground rock across New York, Pennsylvania and a handful of other states.

Its Annual Energy Outlook for 2012 says the Marcellus Shale region holds about 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. That's down from a 2011 estimate of 410 trillion cubic feet. The department said last year it would make the change after the U.S. Geological Survey made a similar reduction.

The reductions by both agencies have led to confusion about how much gas actually sits below the surface. The Marcellus Shale, which stretches from New York to West Virginia, has been the center of a production boom that has boosted land values in recent years while raising concerns about the effects of drilling on groundwater.

Regulators and petroleum companies both rely on government resource estimates, and changes can affect how the land is developed in the future.

The Energy Department said its current estimate was made using more recent drilling and production data in the region. The agency's estimate is larger than the U.S.G.S. 2011 estimate of 84 trillion cubic feet.

The US President Barack Obama has confirmed that US drone aircraft have struck Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan - operations that until now had not been officially acknowledged.

During an online question and answer session, Mr Obama was asked whether he thought the program was succesful enough to justify high numbers of civilian casualties.

He defended the drone strikes, saying their primary targets were "al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan".

"For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we're already engaging in," he said.

The United States ordinarily does not confirm drone strikes, and has until now been reluctant to discuss the program.

In October, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the CIA's drone program, but did not specifically indicate they were used in Pakistan.

The AFP news agency says 64 missile strikes were reported in 2011 in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

While Pakistan's government is believed to agree to the program, the deaths of civilians in drone strikes has fueled anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

But Barack Obama says the drone program "is kept on a very tight leash."

"I wanna make sure that people understand, actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties," he said.

"For the most part, they've been very precise, precision strikes against Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, and we're very careful in terms of how it's been applied."

Officers from the riot squad have been sent in to contain about 100 angry protesters as workers try to remove fig trees in a Newcastle street.

Lord Mayor John Tate said residents were furious to see the avenue of 14 fig trees go.

"People are just devastated. There was a lot of tension in the air," Cr Tate said.

"They are hacking limbs off as fast and furious as they can so there's no way back."

Furore over the trees has been dragging on for more than two years, with calls for an independent review into their safety rejected by council, Cr Tate said.

Mr Tate said workers had moved tree removal equipment into the area about 4am today and then began sawing the limbs off the 80-year-old trees just before 6am, accompanied by a "heavy police presence".

"We don't allow the first garbage trucks to start that early," he said.

"These are the sorts of things that really get to people."

Officers including Newcastle police, the operational support group and members of the public order and riot squad, have been sent to Laman Street to "prevent any breaches of the peace or the removal process", a police spokeswoman said.

Greens councillor Michael Osbourne said there were up to 60 police officers as well as security at the removal site.

"There are two layers of steel fencing there and police and security are in between the two layers, with work occurring inside," he said.

"I think the council has underestimated the value of the trees to the community.

"There would be a lot of people that wouldn't have turned up [to the protest] because it's too depressing."

Acting Local Area Commander Trevor Sheils said at a press conference police were present to protect the rights of protesters and workers.

"I'll certainly support the police should they have to take action to stop any violent or disorderly conduct, and that includes the obstruction of people trying to go about their work," acting local area commander Sheils said.

Cr Tate predicted all trees would be removed within a day or two.

The council website states the trees have an "absence of adequate structural support roots".

The removal of the figs marks the end of a two-year battle between the community and Newcastle Council.

TonenGeneral To Buy Exxon Japan Refining, Marketing Unit For $3.9 Billion

Malaysia's political opposition has vowed to scrap a controversial $200 million rare-earths processing plant being built by Australia's Lynas Corp if it wins national elections expected to be called within months.

The plant, in Malaysia's east, aims to weaken China's monopoly on the global supply of the metals, which are used in a range of products from flat screens to iPhones and energy-efficient light bulbs. It is also backed by Japanese investors keen to see the development of alternative supplies.

"The opposition will put a stop to the plant," Fuziah Salleh, an opposition member of parliament for Kuantan where the plant is being built, told Reuters on Monday.

"We are very clear about our position with regards to sustainable development. And Lynas is definitely not what we categorize as sustainable development."

The opposition is backing some residents and green groups which have voiced fears over radioactivity from thorium waste from the plant, though Lynas says this will be extracted and kept in a facility that meets world standards for safe storage.

The opposition is seen as unlikely to win a parliamentary majority in the upcoming elections, but its shock gains four years ago mean a victory is not out of the question.

Its strong stance against the plant adds to uncertainty over the project as Lynas and its investors await a decision by Malaysian authorities as early as Monday on its application for a pre-operating licence to begin commissioning the plant.

Malaysia's Atomic Energy Licensing Board confirmed it was discussing the Lynas case, but its director general, Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan, told Reuters it was not clear if a decision would be announced on Monday.

Government officials said the final decision would likely be made by Prime Minister Najib Razak and his cabinet next week.

The Malaysian plant is to process rare earths mined in Australia at Lynas' Mount Weld project. The operation is key to breaking China's grip on the supply of rare earths metals, crucial in several green products such as hybrid cars.

Japan is counting on Lynas to supply 8,500 tonnes a year of rare earths by early 2013 to curb its reliance on China, under a deal involving trading house Sojitz Corp and state-run Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp.

The Japanese came to Lynas's rescue in 2010 with $325 million in funding after the Australian government balked at approving a Chinese bid for a majority stake in the company.

Lynas has also lined up Germany's BASF as a customer and has plans to form a joint venture with Siemens AG to make magnets for wind turbines using rare earths products from the Malaysian plant.

Lynas shares rose 1.95 percent to A$1.31 on Monday.

WARY OF VOTERS

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has also spoken out against the plant, saying he would scrap it if his disparate three-party alliance wins the election. Protests by local residents during construction of the plant prompted an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Lynas received a favourable report from the IAEA but was told to provide a long-term waste management and safety plan.

It says that its plant is not comparable at all to a rare-earths plant that was shut by a unit of Mitsubishi Chemicals in Malaysia in 1992, after residents there blamed the plant for birth defects and a high rate of leukemia cases.

Prime Minister Najib wants more foreign investment but is wary of sparking voter anger after his ruling coalition suffered record losses in 2008 polls.

Opposition politician Fuziah said Lynas' plan for managing the radioactive waste was "shoddy and full of holes". She said it had yet to identify a permanent disposal site for the waste that would not be a risk to the environment or public health.

"Lynas claims that they are for green technology because rare earths is used in green technology," Fuziah told Reuters.

"There's nothing green about a rare earth refinery," she added.

The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.

The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six of the scientists and doctors, who filed a lawsuit against the FDA in U.S. District Court in Washington last week — took place over two years as the plaintiffs accessed their personal Gmail accounts from government computers.

Information garnered this way eventually contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six of the FDA employees, the suit alleges. All had worked in an office responsible for reviewing devices for cancer screening and other purposes.

Copies of the e-mails show that, starting in January 2009, the FDA intercepted communications with congressional staffers and draft versions of whistleblower complaints complete with editing notes in the margins. The agency also took electronic snapshots of the computer desktops of the FDA employees and reviewed documents they saved on the hard drives of their government computers.

FDA computers post a warning, visible when users log on, that they should have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” in any data passing through or stored on the system, and that the government may intercept any such data at any time for any lawful government purpose.

But in the suit, the doctors and scientists say the government violated their constitutional privacy rights by gazing into personal e-mail accounts for the purpose of monitoring activity that they say was lawful.

“Who would have thought that they would have the nerve to be monitoring my communications to Congress?” said Robert C. Smith, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, a former radiology professor at Yale and Cornell universities who worked as a device reviewer at the FDA until his contract was not renewed in July 2010.

“How dare they?”

An FDA spokeswoman, Erica Jefferson, said the agency does not comment on litigation.

But according to FDA internal documents that the scientists and doctors obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency told the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general that they had improperly disclosed confidential business information about the devices. The agency requested that an investigation be opened in May 2010.

The scientists and doctors denied sharing information improperly. The HHS inspector general’s office, which oversees FDA operations, declined to pursue an investigation, finding no evidence of criminal conduct. It also said that the doctors and scientists had a legal right to air their concerns to Congress or journalists.
FDA officials sought a second time that year to initiate action against the scientists and doctors.

“We have obtained new information confirming the existence of information disclosures that undermine the integrity and mission of the FDA and, we believe, may be prohibited by law,” wrote Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, on June 28, 2010.

Even the so-called most dangerous man in the world has a mum. Christine Assange, mother of WikiLeaks editor in chief Julian Assange explains why this week will determine her son's future.

In Australia, The Murdoch Media Probably Doesn't Really Need To Hack Dead Childrens' Phones.

The Government Gives Them All The Ammo They Need To Further Their Hate Agenda For Free!

The Queensland Teachers' Union says Premier Anna Bligh has sidelined tens of thousands of teachers and principals weeks out from an election by publishing school audits.

The Courier Mail on Saturday published the 2010 and 2011 Training and Learning Audits of the state's public schools.

The audit rates each school on eight key areas, including teaching practices, resources and curriculum delivery, with marks given from low to outstanding.

QTU president Kevin Bates told AAP the union had an agreement with the education department that results would not be made public.

The point-in-time audit also unfairly compared schools because it implied they were good or bad without showing variables such as improvements made, the impact of natural disasters and transient student cohorts with differing needs, he said.

"By being published, it opened the doors to that misuse of information," Mr Bates said.

"People are feeling a sense of betrayal. They thought they had an agreement which has now been breached.

"I think it is an unnecessarily inflammatory action when you consider there are 44,000 teachers union members, and 98 per cent of the comments we have received are angry over the government taking this action.

"The government is not held in high esteem in any event and I think the decision they have taken is clearly not one that is going to change people's minds to vote for the government."

The QTU said its state council decided on Monday to send a directive to members to suspend any participation in the audits until further notice.

The boycott would be successful as the audits were conducted by principals who, along with teachers, give marks in consultation with parents, Mr Bates said.

The QTU is now seeking members' views on how the audits could possibly continue, perhaps in a modified form or process that would protect schools against the public misuse of data.

The audits were published after a Freedom of Information request by The Courier Mail.

Premier Anna Bligh is standing by the audit's release.

She said she would not negotiate with the union on making the results confidential in the future.

"At the heart of this discussion is the best interests of children in our classrooms and the rights of their mums and dads to know how well their schools are performing," she told reporters in Brisbane.

"We would be looking to make any material in the future public.

"I don't think it is in the public interest to keep this material under lock and key."

She said the government is ready to negotiate to get the audits done and was confident an agreement could be reached.

The union said although it was angry it is ready to negotiate and would consult its members on the best way forward.

Mr Bates said the audits could proceed if schools could provide one-page reports on each topic instead of rating each criteria from low to outstanding.

The move would mean it would be harder for papers to publish.

"This would make it useful to schools but not so useful to publish in the newspaper," he said.

Opposition education spokesman Bruce Flegg said the government had broken a promise to the Queensland Teachers Union by failing to keep the audits confidential.

"In another classic case of Labor lies, this tired, 20-year-old Labor government backflipped," he said in a statement.

"... the government has led teachers up the garden path by claiming this information would remain confidential and then allowing it to be released publicly."

Dr Flegg said the LNP supports parents being provided with information in a meaningful and constructive way about how their children's school is performing.

Training manuals used by the company which runs Australia's detention centres will not be publicly released after a Darwin magistrate ruled it could jeopardise safety.

Three asylum seekers detained in Darwin are facing court, accused of assaulting security guards employed by the company Serco.

Lawyers for the men have been given access to documents which reveal how security officers are trained to deal with detainees, including the amount of force they are allowed to use.

But in the Darwin Magistrates Court today, lawyers for Serco argued that information contained in the training manual should not be exposed to the public through media reports.

Magistrate John Lowndes imposed a non-publication order on the documents, saying allowing the media to report on Serco's internal security operations could jeopardise safety at detention centres.

Press Release: Australian Defence Force

Farewell parade for Army members departing to Timor Leste

The Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Senator David Feeney, farewelled 171 members of the Timor Leste Task Group 4 preparing for deployment to Timor Leste on Operation Astute at a parade on Sunday.

The farewell parade, which was held at the RAAF Williams in Laverton, Victoria, was well attended by the friends and families of the soldiers.

Senator Feeney said the parade was an opportunity for family, friends and the wider community to formally farewell the deploying troops.

“The soldiers will be deploying in February and will complete an eight-month operation,” Senator Feeney said.

“This parade is an opportunity to show them our appreciation.”The soldiers are drawn from Army reserve units across the 2nd Division but primarily from the 4th Brigade.

The task group also draws on Regular Army units from the 7th Brigade.

Operation Astute is the Australian Defence Force’s contribution to the Australian Government’s response to a request from the Government of Timor Leste to assist in restoring peace and stability to their country.

Bouncers Cause For Concern: Dad

A coast father fears there will be a "tragedy" unless someone stops overly-aggressive bouncers at Coast nightspots.

Scott Solway claims his 19-year-old son and a mate were bashed by security staff after being kicked out of O'Malley's Irish Bar this month. [owned by ALH i.e. Woolworths - Ed]

The Mountain Creek dad has met with venue management and had phone conversations with the security provider, Imperial Protection Services, but says he did not get any answers.

Mr Solway is the first to admit his son and his mate may have deserved to be ejected from the venue but argues rogue bouncers are being allowed to step out of line.

"I'm not saying they didn't behave badly inside the bar and didn't deserve to be kicked out," he said."But they didn't deserve a hiding from six bouncers.

"Their job is crowd control and they are supposed to be trained professionals who have learned techniques to deal with people without violence.

"In the end, if this continues, something bad is going to happen."There's going to be one great punch, someone's head hits the ground and there's a tragedy."

An Imperial Protection Services spokesman said he did not usually get complaints about assaults by bouncers but had spoken to Mr Solway and told him to contact police.

"People have a legitimate right to make a complaint about any incident but I haven't heard anything from police," he said.

Mr Solway said he had heard several horror stories involving Coast bouncers since the January 8 incident.

Until about 12 months ago, the Daily received regular complaints about the behaviour of Coast bouncers but no one has ever pursued the matter.

There have been very few complaints since then.

"Obviously the right thing is to go to police and put an assault charge in but my son's gone back to his navy posting and his friend is trying to get in (to the navy) so he doesn't want to get involved with police," Mr Solway said.

The 19-year-olds told him they were attacked with punches, kicks and kneeing just outside the venue.

His son told him that police who attended had urged him to report the incident, saying assaults by bouncers was an increasing problem.

He said O'Malley's management would not let him view the security footage he believed would show the incident, claiming it was against the law.

A manager had promised to view the footage and contact him but he was still waiting to hear and his calls were not being returned.

When contacted by the Daily, a manager at O'Malley's said company policy prevented him from responding to media questions.

At least 16 people were confirmed killed and more than 2,300 houses damaged in torrential rains and strong winds that lashed much of Indonesia over the past few days.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said on Sunday that most of those killed were struck by trees felled by severe winds.

“Fourteen people were crushed by falling trees,” the spokesman said.

“In total, 60 people were injured.”

He added that more than 2,300 houses in 35 districts and cities across Java and Bali had been damaged in the last four days due to heavy winds and rain whipped up by Tropical Cyclone Iggy, churning just south of Bali and the Nusa Tenggara island chain.

“But now Tropical Cyclone Iggy has weakened and is moving away from Indonesia,” he said.

Elsewhere in the country, at least two other people were confirmed killed as a result of the foul weather.

In Bali, the heavy rains caused a massive landslide on Saturday in the Taman Ayun Temple area, a popular tourist spot, killing an 18-month-old baby.

Ketut Parwa, the head of the Bali Search and Rescue Agency, said the child had been asleep with her mother at a food stall in the temple’s parking lot when the disaster struck at 11 p.m. They had gone to the food stall to take shelter from the rain. Parwa said the 12-meter-high precipice on which the food stall was located suddenly gave way, burying the child in tons of mud. The mother managed to escape.

Rescuers recovered the child’s body on Sunday evening. In Lebak district, Banten, authorities recovered the body of a boy who had been swept away and drowned in a river. They are continuing their search for a friend who was with him.

Irna, an official with the local search team, said the victims, both 14-year-old students at an Islamic boarding school, went missing on Friday while swimming in the rain-swollen Ciberang River. One of the bodies was recovered later that day and given to the family for burial.

“We’ve combed a four-kilometer stretch of the river over the past two days, but we still haven’t been able to find the second boy,” Irna said.

“We’re having great difficulty in our search because of the strong current in the river.” Also in Banten, strong winds damaged hundreds of homes, including 334 of the 790 houses at the Kota Bumi 2 residential estate in Tangerang.

Retno, the marketing head for real estate developer Karsatama Bumi Permai, said the company would compensate residents whose homes were damaged when the strong gusts hit last Thursday. She said most of the damage consisted of tiles being blown off roofs, although there were reports that the walls of some houses had also collapsed.

In Kediri, East Java, strong wings uprooted almost 11,000 trees at plantations run by state forester Kesatuan Pemangku Hutan. Erik Alberto, a KPH official, said some of the trees uprooted were 16 years old, indicating the strength of the wind gusts.

At around $100 million to pipe water just two kilometres, it could be Australia's most expensive water pipeline.

Curtis Island will soon be the home to four coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas plants.

However getting clean, fresh water on the island has proven an issue.

In an Australian first, the Gladstone Area Water Board is laying a pipe 70 metres under the Gladstone harbour to avoid the environmental issues that come with desalination.

Canadian drilling expert Jim Murphy is heading up the operation and he says they have some of the best equipment in the world on site.

"We are using directional drilling technology to install water and sewer to Curtis Island," he says.

"We are actually drilling from the island as well, we have a total length to drill of about 2,200 metres and we have got a drill on the island drilling in one direction, and we have got a big drill on the mainland drilling from the other direction.

"In the background we have what is known as an American Auger 1080; it has a push-and-pull capacity of one million pounds, and it is one of the largest in the world."

Gladstone Water Board CEO Jim Grayson says the environmental benefits of the pipeline justify the large price tag. He says directional drilling technology has meant the pipeline has had minimal effect on the harbour and there will be no need for desalination plants on the island in the long-term.

"The LNG proponents on the island were going to have to meet their water needs by desalination which would result in brine having to be put into the harbour," he says.

"They would also have some waste water requirements that would also, ultimately- after being treated- also find their way out into the harbour."

There was a raft of problems that we saw around just laying it over the sea bed but the biggest one was it just wouldn't work with a very busy harbour.

"The total project price will be somewhere in the order of $100 million."All of that will be funded by the beneficiaries of the new infrastructure - that is the LNG proponents themselves."

TONY EASTLEY: The stabbing death of a young homeless man in inner-Melbourne at the weekend has drawn attention to an acute shortage in the city's crisis accommodation and its support services.

A passer-by found the 31-year-old whose identity and background still remains a mystery.

It's emerged police tried, and failed, to find him a safe place to stay in the hours just before his death.Peta Carlyon reports.

PETA CARLYON: In the early hours of Saturday morning, a young man was murdered in the bay side Melbourne suburb of St Kilda.

Homicide detective sergeant Sol Solomon is from Victoria Police.

SOL SOLOMON: He met a violent death. There are obvious signs of violence on his body. As to the cause of death, I don't know at this point. There needs to be an autopsy but certainly he was attacked quite violently.

PETA CARLYON: However it has emerged the homeless 31-year-old was with police less than two hours before he was attacked.

Sometime after two o'clock on Saturday morning, police were called by staff at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital to forcibly remove him from the emergency department.

Police tried to find him crisis accommodation, but were turned away from several agencies.

Detective sergeant Solomon says eventually, they escorted him to St Kilda, and left him alone on a darkened street.

SOL SOLOMON: Those officers are currently making statements in relation to their contact with the deceased man; they will be explaining the reasons why he was dropped off at that location.

PETA CARLYON: The CEO of Melbourne's Hanover Welfare Services, Tony Keenan, says up to nine out of 10 people in similar situations are turned away from crisis accommodation.

TONY KEENAN: The community is shocked when they hear these stories, but unfortunately it happens all the time. Hospitals are overwhelmed, police are overwhelmed, emergency accommodation services are overwhelmed.

People who are vulnerable get discharged to the streets, and people who are sometimes dangerous get discharged to the streets, and we have to have a better system.

PETA CARLYON: The Victorian Police Union's inspector Bruce McKenzie says officers are increasingly responding to call-outs to hospitals. He points to a lack of support services for those most in need, particularly people with a mental illness.

BRUCE MCKENZIE: Accommodation facilities for those who suffer a mental illness are difficult to find, those that are available are already full, so what are our members supposed to do? They just can't just abandon these people with a mental illness, they don't want to do that of course. Part of policing is caring for others.

PETA CARLYON: Inspector McKenzie says police leaving homeless people on the street poses risks, not just for the individual involved but also the wider community.

BRUCE MCKENZIE: There is little doubt in the view of our members that people who suffer a mental illness, some are out and about in the community who are not being supported when it comes to appropriate medication, who are not being supported when it comes to appropriate treatment, they're not being supported when it comes to accommodation.

PETA CARLYON: The CEO of Hanover Welfare Services, Tony Keenan.

TONY KEENAN: Unfortunately the people involved don't have a lot of power, they're often very vulnerable, and they don't have a big voice to change things.

PETA CARLYON: The man's body has still not been identified. Investigations into his death are continuing.

TONY EASTLEY: Peta Carlyon reporting.

More Cargo Ship Oil Washing Up On Christmas Island

Oil from a stricken cargo ship has again started washing up at Flying Fish Cove on Australia's Christmas Island.

The MV Tycoon broke its moorings in high seas on January 8 and smashed into rocks at the port.

The ship remains lodged on the rocks because heavy seas have prevented it from being cut into pieces and removed.

It started leaking oil into the ocean at the time but much of it washed out to sea, and the environmental impact of the incident appeared to be limited.

But Christmas Island resident Robyn Stephenson says oil has been appearing in the harbour at a steady rate since the Tycoon first hit the rocks.

"Our pristine, beautiful blue ocean is now chocolate, oozy brown. The sand is turning black," she said.

"There are tide marks of black oil along the sand, a lot of the rocks are covered in oil, and there are trees down there that have an oil slick on them and they are actually dripping oil."

Ms Stephenson says she is concerned that because the island is so far from the mainland, authorities are ignoring the unfolding environmental disaster.

She says heavy seas continue to lash the ship which is still leaking oil.

"No-one as of yet has entered Flying Fish Cove and looked at the corals," she said.

"We have an extensive reef system there and there is a big fear that the oil has suffocated the corals."

The owner of the rig that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico will not have to pay any pollution claims because it is shielded in a contract with well-owner BP, a US federal judge has ruled. The decision may have spared the driller from having to pay potentially billions of dollars.

A 16 kilogram consignment of cocaine that Mexican drug traffickers recently lost has turned up in an unlikely place - the United Nations in New York. Police and UN officials described how two fake UN bags containing the drugs set off a security alert when they were delivered to the global body's headquarters.

Railroad group QR National will seek environment approvals by mid-year for a $2 billion multi-user railway in Queensland's Galilee Basin after the state government declared the project "significant".

If the rail project is approved, QR National could boost revenues by charging miners to move coal, and sign new haulage customers in the emerging termal coal region. The basin is expected to support at least five major coalmines, with an estimated production capacity of about 200 million tonnes annually.

Coal producers Hancock Coal, Waratah Coal and India's Adani Group are also developing rail proposals for the basin. ...

Gas Venture Go-Ahead

Horizon Oil's board aprroved the go-ahead of its Stanley gas condensates venture with Talisman Energy in Papua New Guinea. The decision is conditional on Horizon receiving up to $160 million in debt financing.

Some mining companies have very good policies. The rest hire spin doctors.In the complex area of indigenous employment, "smoke and mirror" tactics have too often won the day and slowed the benefits that should be flowing during the mining boom.

To Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh, head of department in politics and public policy at Griffith University in Queensland, it is mischievous for miners to use the promise of jobs as a bartering tool when negotiating agreements with claimants.

"Often, there's a misconception that Aboriginal employment can be traded for royalty payments," says O'Faircheallaigh, who has negotiated on behalf of indigenous groups.

"Does an Aboriginal employee working 12 hours a day on a mine site not earn their pay?"

The use of such a trade-off is often couched in paternalistic terms, as if the community will squander the royalty streams that are there to compensate the loss of native title rights. The mining company can promote the hardline stance as not only reasonable, but responsible.

Among the most mischievous tactics used in Western Australia's Pilbara is the example of one mining company that uses royalty payments to pay the salaries of indigenous workers.

Indigenous employment, in that scenario, appears to be treated as a burden rather than the cornerstone of a stable workforce.

O'Faircheallaigh says there are plaudits to be handed out. He says Rio Tinto's Argyle Diamond Mine, for example, has made indigenous employment figures a performance measure for its line managers, which has helped dramatically inrease numbers.

The initiative was not limited to lowly skilled workers bt extended into highly sophisticated areas such as geology and engineering.

Simon Hawkins, chief executive of the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, says the better mining companies have clearly defined avenues for their indigenous workers o advance their careers.

Those companies often enter into binding agreements when negotiating with native titleholders, and are held responsible if they don't deliver on the promise. In contrast, other companies insist on using terms like "best endeavours" when promising employment opportunities to a claimant.

"How do you measure that?" Hawkins says.

"It's kind of like, 'We'll give it a crack, it didn't work, good on us'."

With all but two disputes referred to the National Native Title Tribunal in the past 20 years being decided in favour of resource companies, miners hold the pwoer as to how the agreements are worded.

David Milroy, chair of the Palyku Native Title Working Group, says he has had better outcomes negotiating with smaller miners, such as BC Iron, than the resource giants.

"It's easier to form a good relationship with the small companies than juggernauts," Milroy says.

"They tend to be less combative; less, 'we are going to screw you for everything we can'."

Indonesia Revokes Australian Miner's Permit Over Deadly Protests

Indonesia has revoked a gold mining exploration permit granted to an Australian miner following deadly protests against the project.

In 2010, West Nusa Tenggara province granted exploration rights to Australian Arc Exploration (ARX) and local miner Sumber Mineral Nusantara - a project that covers some 250 square kilometres of Sumbawa Island, which is near Bali.

In December, police fired on anti-mining protesters in Bima city and two people were killed.

The decision to revoke ARX's permit came after thousands of people against the mining operation demonstrated last week at Bima.

Government buildings were set on fire during the protests.

"We decided to revoke permanently the permit for the sake of security stability here," Bima district head Ferry Zulkarnain told local television station MetroTV.

"We're ready to face any possible legal lawsuit by mining companies against the revocation," he told state news agency Antara.

Critics worry the project would have a negative environmental impact.

ARX had halted its early-stage exploration activities following the violence.

Four senior journalists from the Sun newspaper have been arrested on suspicion of making illegal payments to police officers.

The men, believed to include current and former executives, were detained after information was handed to the Metropolitan Police by News Corporation, the tabloid’s parent company.

The arrested journalists are believed to be Fergus Shanahan, 57, who was Rebekah Brooks’s deputy during her editorship of the Sun from 2003 to 2009, who now works as a comment writer; Chris Pharo, 42, the current head of news; Graham Dudman, 49, a former managing editor, who now works in a training role for News International; and Mike Sullivan, 48, the paper’s long-serving crime editor.

Police from the Met’s Operation Elveden, set up to investigate illegal payments to officers, were searching the Sun newsroom for evidence after the early morning arrests.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation set up its Management and Standards Committee (MSC) last July to oversee the company’s response to the police investigation into phone hacking and illegal payments.

A company spokesman said:

“News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated.

“It commissioned the MSC to undertake a review of all News International titles, regardless of cost, and to proactively co-operate with law enforcement and other authorities if potentially relevant information arose at those titles.

“As a result of that review, which is ongoing, the MSC provided information to the Elveden investigation which led to today’s arrests.

“No comment can be made on the nature of that information to avoid prejudicing the investigation and the rights of individuals.”

The spokesman said the MSC gave police “every assistance” during searches of News International premises, and offered legal representation to employees who had been arrested. The News of the World, the Sun’s sister title, was shut down last year after it was implicated in the phone-hacking scandal.

The arrest of three of the journalists took place at their homes in Essex and London between 6am and 8am today. Police are understood to have mistakenly visited Mr Pharo’s former marital home, before managing to contact him by telephone. The 42-year-old journalist later attended voluntarily at a police station, where he was arrested.

All four journalists were arrested on suspicion of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906; aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office and conspiracy in relation to both those offences. They are currently being questioned at police stations in London and Essex.

A 29-year-old police officer from the Met’s Territorial Policing command was also arrested at the central London police station where he worked, on suspicion of corruption, misconduct in a public office and conspiracy. He is being questioned at a south London police station.

UK: Serco Slashes Jobs

More than 500 jobs were on the line at Serco yesterday after the outsourcer which makes its money by cutting its customers' costs took a look at its own wage bill.

Serco, which runs swathes of British public-sector services, including prisons, the Docklands Light Railway and the Boris Bike scheme, said it was "streamlining the management of its UK business", as well as its back-office staff.

Most of the job cuts are likely to involve Serco's offices in Hook, near Basingstoke.

It employs 35,000 people in the UK and 100,000 worldwide.

People power: Hundreds of police and public order officers monitor thousands of workers at the MM 2100 tollgate in Bekasi, West Java. The workers are expected to stage a mass rally in protest at a court decision that annulled a West Java administration minimum wage decree. (JP/Sita Dewi)

Tens of thousands of Bekasi workers staged a rally on Friday, blocking the Jakarta - Cikarang toll road access to Bekasi from KM 21 to KM 26.

The workers protested the ruling issued by the Bandung State Administrative Court (PTUN) granting the Bekasi chapter of the Indonesian Employers Association’s (Apindo) lawsuit aimed at revoking the 2012 minimum wage set by the local administration on Thursday.

"We are blocking access to the industrial areas to cut the supply and distribution to and from manufacturers to paralyze economic activities here," Yanto, a protester, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He added that he did not know how long the protest would last.

Cikarang Barat Police chief Comr. Zulham Effendy said that 2,500 police officers from Bekasi and the City Police, including the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers, had been deployed to secure the demonstration.

"We tried to restrain them from entering the toll road, but we were outnumbered by the workers. They've got out of control because of their anger [toward Apindo]," Zulham said.

Hundreds of vehicles and trucks were stuck at the MM2100 tollgate in Bekasi regency. ...

... ANNIE GUEST: From New York to New Zealand the Occupy protests shouted outrage at the rich and powerful. They rallied against the difference in influence and wealth held by 99 per cent of society and those at the top.

(crowd shouting: "We are the 99 per cent! We are the 99 per cent!")

Some of the Occupy protests were staged in countries currently descending into an economic hellhole. Australia may be spared this fate. But here people at the bottom feel life is getting harder, poorer, hungrier.

The Beenleigh Primary School provides breakfast for many of its children. Beenleigh is about 30 minutes south of Brisbane and it's home to some of Queensland's most disadvantaged people.

CHILD: Can I please have a drink of milk?

TEACHER: Certainly.

CHILD: Thank You.

TEACHER: Beautiful manners.

JASPER: Can I please have jam toast?

TEACHER: Certainly mate.

TEACHER: How's your day going Jasper?

JASPER: Alright.

ANNIE GUEST: Twelve-year-old Keithyn Fuller has been eating breakfast at school three times a week since the program started.

KEITHYN FULLER: Just didn't have any breakfast at home.

ANNIE GUEST: What's it like now to start the day to start the day with food in your stomach?

KEITHYN FULLER: It's pretty awesome 'cause you get free food. Not only that at least you have something to eat before you start your work.

ANNIE GUEST: Eleven-old-year Kylie Hoppner is another regular at the school's breakfast club.

KYLIE HOPPNER: Well I get to talk to a lot of people and I get lots of fruit because usually I don't have much fruit at home.

ANNIE GUEST: Why don't you have much fruit at home?

KYLIE HOPPNER: Because my mum, she has trouble buying stuff.

ANNIE GUEST: Last year, the Beenleigh Primary School expanded its breakfast club. The deputy principal is Roger Smith.

ROGER SMITH: We were already running one day a week and we surveyed the students just to see how many of those children were coming to school hungry and we actually found that 50 per cent of our students - we have a student population currently about 460 - so we had the equivalent of about 230 students who were complaining of hunger. ...

 

Reporters Without Borders: Press Freedom Index 2011 - 2012

Oil from a stricken cargo ship has again started washing up at Christmas Island's Flying Fish Cove.

The MV Tycoon broke its moorings in high seas on January 8 and smashed into rocks at the port.

The ship remains lodged on the rocks because heavy seas have prevented it from being cut into pieces and removed.

It started leaking oil into the ocean at the time but much of it washed out to sea, and the environmental impact of the incident appeared to be limited.

But Christmas Island resident Robyn Stephenson says oil has been appearing in the harbour at a steady rate since the Tycoon first hit the rocks.

"Our pristine, beautiful blue ocean is now chocolate, oozy brown. The sand is turning black," she said.

"There are tide marks of black oil along the sand, a lot of the rocks are covered in oil, and there are trees down there that have an oil slick on them and they are actually dripping oil."

Ms Stephenson says she is concerned that because the island is so far from the mainland, authorities are ignoring the unfolding environmental disaster.

She says heavy seas continue to lash the ship which is still leaking oil."No-one as of yet has entered Flying Fish Cove and looked at the corals," she said.

"We have an extensive reef system there and there is a big fear that the oil has suffocated the corals."

President Dilma Rousseff Thursday urged activists at the World Social Forum meeting in Brazil to come up with fresh ideas to help solve the world's most pressing problems.

The forum is an alliance of social movements opposed to the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world's economic and political elites being held at the same time in the Swiss resort of Davos.

"The task we are called upon at this forum ... is to unleash a movement of renovation of ideas and of new processes," said Rouseff.

Fresh ideas were "absolutely necessary" to help the world face the global economic crisis, Rouseff said, as she decried the negative effects of the crisis in the developed nations, warning it put "democracy itself" at risk.

The dissonance "between the voices of the markets and the voices of the streets seem to grow louder every day in the developed countries," she said.

Under the slogan "Capitalist Crisis, Social and Environmental Justice," the forum's main goal is to lay the groundwork for a peoples' summit of social movements to be held in parallel to the high-level UN conference on sustainable development that Rouseff will chair scheduled for June in Rio.

What is at stake in June, Rousseff said, "is a development model that articulates growth and job creation, battles poverty and decreases inequalities," and advocates for the "sustainable use and preservation of natural resources."

While past events under popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gathered tens of thousands of people, Rouseff spoke to some 4,000 activists at this year's event.

Many of the people came to personally see the president, a 64-year-old former leftist guerrilla who fought the country's former military regime and was jailed and tortured.

Rousseff spoke just ahead of a trip to Cuba and Haiti. She will not be traveling this year to the Davos event.

Participants at Porto Alegre include members of Spain's "Indignant" movement and the US Occupy Wall Street.

The forum has its roots in 1999 street protests in the US city of Seattle during a World Trade Organization meeting but it settled in Porto Alegre as its regular venue 12 years ago when it drew 20,000 activists from around the world.

High levels of dissolved copper and aluminium have been found in a central Queensland harbour at the centre of a fish disease outbreak.

But the Queensland government says the latest tests show there's no evidence dredging is affecting water quality at Gladstone Harbour, also known as Port Curtis.

The Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) late on Friday released results of water samples taken from the harbour in November and December.

Gladstone Harbour has been suffering outbreaks of diseased fish with sores and cloudy eyes, which the Greens and some local fishermen have blamed on dredging.Dredging has also been suspended three times at the harbour in the past three months because of a high turbidity levels.

DERM's director general Jim Reeves said dissolved metal concentrations were lower in October, November and December compared with the initial samples taken in September.

But he said dissolved copper and aluminium levels were above acceptable levels.

"The only metals to exceed water quality guideline trigger values in December samplings were dissolved copper at four of 19 sites and dissolved aluminium at two sites," Mr Reeves said.

"The tests were unable to detect dissolved cadmium, chromium, silver and thallium."

He said the copper may be linked to general marine activities because it's an antifouling component in paint.

A scientific report released earlier this month by an independent panel of experts also could not determine the exact cause of the diseased fish, however it did name nets, chemical damage, nutrition, parasites and bacteria as possible factors.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says an independent investigation into Labor MP Craig Thomson should be left to take its course.

Fairfax has reported the investigation by Fair Work Australia into the finances of the Health Services Union, which Mr Thomson headed between 2002 and 2007, had concluded with adverse findings and asked former and current union officials to respond.

The federal opposition has called on Ms Gillard to say whether or not she still had confidence in Mr Thomson, whose vote is crucial to the survival of the minority government.

Ms Gillard told reporters in Melbourne on Friday the industrial watchdog should be left to run its own investigation independently.

Fair Work Australia worked independently from government, she said.

"Anything about the investigations ... I only know from today's newspapers," she said.

"They are independent of us. The investigation is in progress and it should conclude."

Japanese authorities have lost track of nearly 3,000 cows suspected of containing high levels of radioactive caesium.

The cows ate rice straw contaminated in the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Last year Japan's health ministry ordered the testing of more than 4,500 beef cattle suspected of being contaminated with radiation.

But according to Japan's Yomiuri newspaper, so far only a third has been tested, with the distribution routes of about 3,000 head of slaughtered cattle remaining a mystery.

Of the tested meat, about six per cent was found to contain radioactive caesium above the acceptable safe limit.

Food safety experts say that consumers would have to eat a lot of the meat to suffer any damage to their health.

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has halted its work in detention centers in a Libyan city because it said its medical staff were being asked to patch up detainees mid-way through torture sessions so they could go back for more abuse.

Rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about torture being used against people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans, suspected of having fought for Moammar Gadhafi’s forces during Libya’s nine-month civil war.

The agency said it was in Misrata, 200 km east of the Libyan capital and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, to treat war-wounded detainees but was instead having to treat fresh wounds from torture.

“Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for more interrogation,” MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said in a statement.

“This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to treat the same patients between torture sessions.”

MSF said it has raised the issue with the authorities in Misrata and with the national army. “No action was taken,” Stokes said. “We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centers.”

Reports of the mistreatment and disappearances of suspected Gadhafi loyalists are embarrassing for Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council, which has vowed to make a break with practices under Gadhafi and respect human rights.

The allegations are also awkward for the Western powers which backed the anti-Gadhafi rebellion and helped install Libya’s new leaders.

An official with the Libyan government said it paid attention to all credible reports of abuse.

“There is no doubt that there are acts of violation of human rights but these are to do with the mentality of the people who are in charge of these prisons,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

“Neither the government, nor the NTC, nor any Libyan group supports these acts. These actions are individual acts and the authorities will take a very serious view of them.”

But the ability of the government in Tripoli to rein in torture is limited because, in most cases, it is carried out by locally based militias who are outside the NTC’s chain of command.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, speaking to the Security Council in New York Wednesday, said that detainees from Libya’s civil war held by revolutionary brigades continue to be subjected to torture despite efforts by the provisional government to address the issue.

Human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday it had evidence of several detainees dying after being subjected to torture, including some in Misrata.

It quoted one man who said he had been tortured earlier this month in the headquarters of Misrata security forces.

“They took me for interrogation upstairs. Five men in plain clothes took turns beating and whipping me,” Amnesty quoted the man as saying. “They suspended me from the top of the door by my wrists for about an hour and kept beating me. They also kicked me.”

Poland on Thursday signed an international copyright agreement, sparking more demonstrations by Internet users who have protested for days over fear it will lead to online censorship.

After the signing, protesters rallied in the Polish cities of Poznan and Lublin to express their anger over the treaty.

Lawmakers for the left-wing Palikot's Movement wore masks in parliament to show their dissatisfaction, while the largest opposition party — the right-wing Law and Justice party — called for a referendum on the matter.

Controversy in Poland has been deepening over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA.

Though many other industrialized countries have signed it, popular outrage appears to be greater in Poland than anywhere else.

ACTA is a far-reaching agreement that aims to harmonize international standards on protecting the rights of those who produce music, movies, pharmaceuticals, fashion, and a range of other products that often fall victim to intellectual property theft.

ACTA also takes aim at the online piracy of movies and music; those opposed to it fear that it will also lead authorities to block content on the Internet.

A prominent Polish rock start, Zbigniew Holdys, has come out in support of ACTA, accusing the Internet activists — mostly young people — of profiting from pirated material online and trying to hold onto that practice.

ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was shelved by lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day in protest.

Poland's ambassador to Japan, Jadwiga Rodowicz-Czechowska, signed it in Tokyo. Speaking on Polish television, she said that Poland was one of several European Union countries to sign ACTA Thursday, including Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece.

Several other industrialized countries, including the United States, Canada and South Korea, signed the agreement last year.

Poland's support for ACTA has sparked attacks on Polish government websites by a group calling itself "Anonymous" that left them several of them unreachable off and on for days. Street protests of hundreds, and in some cases thousands of people, have broken out across Poland for the past three days.

In reaction to the widespread opposition, Polish leaders have been struggling to allay fears over it.

Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski defended his government's position in a TV interview Wednesday evening, arguing that ACTA is not as threatening as young people fear.

But he said the Internet should not be allowed to become a space of "legal anarchy."

"We believe that theft on a massive scale of intellectual property is not a good thing," Sikorski said.

In the Czech Republic, a local group aligning itself with Anonymous attacked the website of a group that supports ACTA. The group collects money for music production and distributes it to artists.

This morning, RT had some very big news to announce that Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is going to be launching a talk show, which will be broadcast by this network. It will be called, "The World Tomorrow", and will consist of 10 weekly episodes where he interviews what he calls, "iconoclasts, visionaries, and power insiders". But before even seeing the program, we've already seen judgments made loud and clear.

Protester’s Death Overshadows Italian Strike

A strike by Italian truckers against high fuel costs and government reforms has taken a tragic turn with the death of a man taking part in a road blockade. He was reportedly run over by a German driver in an accident in the northern town of Asti.

The lorry drivers’ action, which is now said to be causing food shortages in some areas, is one of several strikes taking place this week.

In Milan a fruit and vegetable wholesaler said deliveries had stopped: “We are selling vegetables that we received on Sunday. But when they run out we will nothing to sell.

Fiat says four of its factories in Italy will halt production on Tuesday because of a lack of supplies.
The blockades are the most visible sign yet of anger brewing against the deregulation programme of the technocrat-led government. It insists austerity and reform are the only solutions to Italy’s unsustainable debt problems.

With prices rising and incomes falling there was evidence of the darkening mood in Naples, where drivers opposed to the strike reportedly had their truck tyres slashed.

Fracking in New Zealand

Concern is mounting about the environmental dangers of fracking – fracturing subterranean rock to get to the oil and gas.

The oil and gas industry is a bit touchy these days about the subject of hydraulic fracturing – better known as fracking. Too much misinformation is being put about in the media by folk with an axe to grind against the resources sector, they say.

So let’s go to one of their own for a straightforward description of how fracking works. Here’s Drew Cadenhead, chief operating officer of Canada-based Tag Oil. The company is aggressively expanding its operations in Taranaki, and has permits over vast areas of the North Island’s East Coast, stretching from Te Puia Springs to southern Hawke’s Bay, where it is searching for oil held in deep shale rock.

You drill down, he explains, and then “you turn the bit and you drill horizontally. And you start drilling, drilling, drilling. You’ve got a kilometre of hole going along here now. Then you go to the end of that hole, and you start fracturing it. Crack! And you do it again. Crack! Crack! And you do it all the way along that whole thing. You’ve just busted the shit out of a kilometre of the stuff, and all of a sudden seven, eight thousand barrels a day is comin’ through that hole.

“It’s called an unconventional oil play, and it really is at the forefront of what we’re doing down on the east coast of New Zealand right now.”

Cadenhead’s enthusiasm for busting open fuel-rich shale rock – described by geologists as the earth’s “kitchen” where oil and gas are cooked – has been matched by executives at Wellington-based L&M Energy, which told the sharemarket in June that it planned to explore “shale plays” in Canterbury and Southland, where there was “significant shale gas potential, analogous to some of the most productive shale acreage in the USA”.

No wonder they’re excited. In the US and elsewhere around the globe, the development of horizontal drilling and fracking as a way of unlocking the oil and gas held in shale and other impermeable rock is revolutionising the energy market. The industry calls it unconventional with good reason. “Conventional” gas and oil accumulates over millions of years in porous rocks, which give up their riches upon simple drilling, but the fuel in shale and other “tight” rock does not flow readily and was long thought to be too difficult and expensive to extract.

Fracking has changed all that. As conventional oil and gas sources dwindle, it’s expected that 70% of the world’s future reserves will come from unconventional resources, according to Tag’s website. And shale rock is not the only candidate for exploitation using horizontal drilling and fracking; other “tight” rocks include sandstones and coal seams. The technique has already turned the US energy industry on its head. A few years ago, it was on the verge of having to import natural gas; now it has so many fracking rigs producing so much gas from the continent’s vast shale beds that it could end up becoming an exporter of the stuff. Other countries keen to join the fracked-gas rush include China, Poland, the UK, Ukraine and Australia. ...

When it floods in Bellingen, the locals seek higher ground.

And the pub sits on some of the loftiest ground in town.

"The only thing we worry about when it floods is that there's beer on tap and the pub's open," said Donna, drink in hand, who'd taken refuge at the bar with a couple of friends.

"You've come to the best place, this is what you do when it rains."

The small town in northern NSW was cut in half for most of Wednesday after the Bellinger River burst its banks on Tuesday, submerging the town's only bridge and inundating a small number of homes.

By mid-afternoon Wednesday the SES had received more than 200 calls for help from residents in and around the town.

The caravan park has been evacuated and its showground and skate park remain under water.

More heavy falls are expected in the area overnight, with the town bracing for the chance of further evacuations.

Upstream of Bellingen, at Darkwood, about 500 people are isolated, with the SES now carrying out supply runs.

But back at the Federal Hotel, one of four Bellingen taverns bustling on Wednesday, the locals were unfazed about the threat of more flooding.

"This is nothing," said local man Fred, who had escaped the driving rain and sat with a schooner of ale.

"Years ago there was an old bloke who used to row people across the river to the pub or the shops but now with motor boats you're not allowed.

"There's all these fellas in orange coats running around but I guess they've got a job to do."

Greek award-winning director Theo Angelopoulos has died at the age of 77 in an Athens hospital, hours after a motorbike ran him over while he was filming a movie on the debt crisis rocking his country.

Winner of awards including the prestigious Cannes Palme D'Or prize in 1998 for Eternity And A Day and the Cannes grand jury prize in 1995 for Ulysses' Gaze, Angelopoulos had started shooting his new film The Other Sea earlier this month.

The film was about the impact of the debt crisis in everyday life in Greece.

Angelopoulos was crossing a road when he was hit by the motorcycle.

He was immediately transferred to hospital.

"He was in the middle of a shooting when the motorcycle hit him. He suffered multiple brain injuries and internal bleeding," said a police official who declined to be named.

The motorcycle belonged to a policeman who was off duty, the official added.

Some things transcend politics and policy and the lust for power. Truth, honesty, integrity, decency and fairness are immutable values. They are the ethical substance of life. They ought to be cherished. To sell them out is to sell one's soul. It is even worse when a leader expediently betrays these values, because it undermines the entire community.

We have a duty to lead and inspire our young people, in particular. What are they, and indeed all of us, to make of a prime minister who judges it acceptable to blatantly, blithely break a written pledge in the name of base politics? This is what Julia Gillard has done by abandoning her poker-machines promise to Andrew Wilkie. It was a solemn, public undertaking instrumental to her gaining the trust and the numbers to form government, having come to the prime ministership through means that had already undermined her moral authority.

She ought to have introduced the legislation; it is unimpeachably better to honourably lose a vote on the floor of the house than to prove beyond doubt that your word is not able to be trusted.

One of the greatest thinkers and leaders of all time, Socrates, that magnificent practitioner of the dialectic method of investigation and learning, might have had such circumstances in mind when he asked: ''Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?''

It is hard to think of a worse message Gillard could have delivered. It is shameful. She has pretty much forfeited her claim on respect. Her trashing of her word means she no longer merits our trust. If the Prime Minister places so little value on her honour, why should anyone else have any faith in it? It is little wonder that so many people feel so disenchanted by politics. This Prime Minister has even managed to trump the moral slipperiness of John Howard's Orwellian construct of ''core'' and ''non-core'' promises.

Media organisations need to think carefully and clearly about their role in all of this. There is a tendency for politics and policy to be covered more as blood sport than the noble contest of ideas. That is understandable, to a point, and can be entertaining for aficionados. But there is insufficient differentiation drawn between policy issues and those issues concerning the very structure and ethics within which parliamentary democracy operates. Gillard's pledge to Andrew Wilkie and, by extension, to all of us, falls into the latter category.

There is nothing wrong with a politician and, for that matter, any of us, changing position in light of new evidence. There is everything right with it. Economist and policymaker John Maynard Keynes famously said last century: ''When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?''

Here, too, media organisations might want to be more open to the validity and need for intellectual flexibility. Public policy is about getting best results. Public policy driven by ideology, rather than the intellectualism so neatly encapsulated by the late Lord Keynes, is the antithesis of what we should be seeking.

There is another category - the expedient reversal or abandonment of policy. In such cases, where, for example, a politician changes course by opting for what is currently popular, as measured by polls and focus groups, over what is right and just, media organisations and the general public should express dismay. Gillard's betrayal on poker machines policy is not of this category. It is a change for which there is no valid excuse. Any attempt to justify it as something dictated by ''the real world'' or ''real politics'' is disingenuous and insulting, both morally and intellectually. We owe our young people, and ourselves, far better than that.

When was the last time you heard an insightful, inspiring piece of oratory from an Australian political leader, an appeal to what is pure and true within humanity, a statement of belief backed by ideas for change and betterment, a call to those immutable values wherein lie the potential greatness of people individually and collectively?

Such exhortation, such leadership, is lamentably scarce. There are probably only two in recent times I reckon are candidates for a list that ought to be replete. One is Kevin Rudd's apology to indigenous Australians. The other is Malcolm Turnbull's speech when he crossed the floor on climate change.

There is something going on in the community that some of our politicians, including the Prime Minister, seem to be missing, bunkered as they are in the battle for dominance of the current Parliament. So many people are seeking authenticity, a return to simplicity, meaning and community. It's there in the burgeoning not-for-profit sector, where as many as one in 12 people are employed. It's there in the vegie patches that are being planted in so many more back gardens. It's there in the outrage people feel about the treatment of asylum seekers. It's there in the explosion of writing and communication and creativity in what's known as social media, but is perhaps better described as open media. It's everywhere.

There has been an inversion; the real leadership is coming from the community, a community that has left Gillard behind, rather than from the body politic. And it's a community now all-but out of reach for a PM who has let down not only herself, but all of us.

Michael Short is a senior Age editor and a board member of the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre.

Sewage Stations Overflow In Deluge

The second release of raw sewage at Golden Beach in as many months has drawn claims that residents and tourists were being subjected to Third World living conditions.

Raw sewage began flowing into the creek at Leach Park and Pumicestone Passage on Tuesday morning.

Sails Resort manager Paul Graham-Rowe said the overflow pipe into the Passage was running full bore.

Effluent was erupting yesterday from beneath the footpath in Landsborough Pde and out on to the road, across the Sails Resort driveway and into the stormwater system.

Toilet paper was strewn about the place including the gutter and roadway.

"This is the second time in as many months that conditions that should only be encountered in Third World countries have occurred," Mr Graham-Rowe said.

"The health, engineering and environmental issues must be addressed immediately."

Unitywater acknowledged it was having problems with 11 sewage overflows throughout its system due to heavy rain infiltrating pipes.

"Due to this, Unitywater advises residents not to enter flood waters nor come in to contact with any stormwater run-off or pooled water while this extreme rain event continues," a statement said.

Crews were on the scene at Golden Beach yesterday cleaning up the mess and sandbagging to restrict the flow of effluent.The sewage system regularly fails at Golden Beach during heavy rain.

A Unitywater spokesman said the sewer network was "operating as intended when spilling at controlled overflow points in such extreme weather".

"Unitywater inherited a sewerage and water network from its owner councils about 18 months ago, and has been working very hard to maintain and upgrade the network," he said.

Opposition to the coal seam gas (CSG) industry appears to be gathering momentum in the Lockyer Valley with a groundswell of opinion against the industry.

Announcements made by local state politicians and councils, who have spoken against the industry coming into the Lockyer Valley, have hit a chord with a Lockyer Valley Shut the Gate movement.

However a spokeswoman for the group, Judy Deucker, has expressed doubts as to whether the political parties will be true to their word after the elections and sees no other option but to lock out the mining companies.

"I'm not sure they (the politicians) would come out to the farm and support our cause," Mrs Deucker said.

"Bob Katter is out there and all the talking he does is just to justify the hat and the LNP is just as keen on the CSG industry."

Mrs Deucker said she believed the CSG industry would ruin not only the groundwater, but the lifestyle farmers have in the Lockyer Valley and questioned the benefit of decisions made in Brisbane in favour of overseas owned mining companies such as Arrow Energy.

"How stupid are the people in Brisbane who didn't think this thing through?" she said.

"Our politicians are representing overseas companies."

Hank and Judy Deucker have lived on their farm, which is situated on the northern edge of current CSG and coal mining leases, for 20 years and in the Lockyer Valley for 42 years.

They hope to raise awareness in the region of what they say is the real cost of mining leases.

"CSG will obliterate smaller farms," Mrs Deucker said.

"There is not much else we would be able to do but lock the gate."

The Lock the Gate movement is an Australia wide movement with 1500 farmers in its membership opposed to CSG mining.

Israel carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight Monday, sources from both sides said, in what Israel said was a response to recent rocket fire against the Jewish state.

Israeli planes targetted an arms factory in the centre of the Palestinian territory as well as three tunnels used for smuggling contraband, two in the north and one in the south, the army said in a statement. The targets were hit, the statement added.

"The targetting of these sites was in response to rockets fired against Israel in recent days," the military said.

A security source from the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the territory, and witnesses said there were four strikes -- in Beit Lahiya, Nuseirat and two in Khan Yunis.

There were no casualties in the attack, the Hamas source said.

So far this month at least eight rockets have been fired towards Israeli territory from the Palestinian enclave controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement.

They resulted in no injuries or major damage.

Hamas has engaged in a tacit truce with Israel, secured with Egyptian mediation, but that has not stopped more radical organisation, notably among Gaza's Salafist minority, from firing projectiles into southern Israel.

Four Palestinian fighters have been killed by Israeli strikes since the end of December.

The lone Marine convicted in his squad's killing of two dozen unarmed civilians in one of the Iraq War's defining moments escaped jail time Tuesday after defending his order to raid homes in Haditha as a necessary act "to keep the rest of my Marines alive."

The sentencing of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich ends a six-year prosecution for the 2005 attack that failed to win any manslaughter convictions. Eight Marines were initially charged. One was acquitted, and six others had their cases dropped.

Wuterich admitted he ordered is squad to "shoot first, ask questions later" after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine as part of a deal that ended his manslaughter trial with a guilty plea Monday to a single count of negligent dereliction of duty.

The deal that dropped nine counts of manslaughter sparked outrage in the besieged Iraqi town and claims that the U.S. didn't hold the military accountable.

"I was expecting that the American judiciary would sentence this person to life in prison and that he would appear and confess in front of the whole world that he committed this crime, so that America could show itself as democratic and fair," said survivor Awis Fahmi Hussein, showing his scars from a bullet wound to the back.

The military judge, Lt. Col. David Jones, initially recommended the maximum sentence of three months for Wuterich, saying, "It's difficult for the court to fathom negligent dereliction of duty worse than the facts in this case."

But after opening an envelope to look at the terms of the plea agreement, as is procedure in military court, Jones announced the deal prevented any jail time for the Marine.

"That's very good for you obviously," Jones told Wuterich.

Jones did recommend that the sergeant's rank be reduced to private, which would dock his pay, but he decided not to exercise his option to cut it by as much as two-thirds because the divorced father has sole custody of his three daughters. The rank reduction has to be approved by a Marine general who already signed off on the plea deal.

Wuterich read a statement apologizing to the victims' families and said he never fired on or intended to harm innocent women and children. But he said his plea shouldn't be seen as a statement that he believes his squad dishonored their country.

"When my Marines and I cleared those houses that day, I responded to what I perceived as a threat, and my intention was to eliminate that threat in order to keep the rest of my Marines alive," he said.

"So when I told my team to shoot first and ask questions later, the intent wasn't that they would shoot civilians, it was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy."

"The truth is I never fired my weapon at any women or children that day," Wuterich later told Jones.

The contention by Wuterich, 31, of Meriden, Conn., contradicts prosecutors and counters testimony from a former squad mate who said he joined Wuterich in firing in a dark back bedroom where a woman and children were killed.

Prosecutors argued that Wuterich's knee-jerk reaction of sending the squad to assault nearby homes without positively identifying a threat went against his training and caused needless deaths of 10 women and children.

"That is a horrific result from that derelict order of 'shoot first, ask questions later,'" said Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan.

Defense attorney Neal Puckett said Wuterich has been falsely labeled a killer who carried out a massacre in Iraq and insisted he only intended to protect his Marines in an "honorable and noble" act.

"The appropriate punishment in this case, your honor, is no punishment," Puckett said.

Wuterich directly addressed family members of the Iraqi victims, saying there were no words to ease their pain.

"I wish to assure you that on that day, it was never my intention to harm you or your families. I know that you are the real victims of Nov. 19, 2005," he said.

Wuterich, who hugged his parents after he spoke, declined comment on Jones' decision. Puckett and his co-counsel, Haytham Faraj, said in a statement, "We believe justice prevailed for Staff Sgt. Wuterich and in turn, he wishes it was within his power to impart the same measure of justice to the families of the victims of Haditha."

Military prosecutors worked for more than six years to bring Wuterich to trial on manslaughter charges that could have sent him away to prison for life. But only weeks after the long-awaited trial started, they offered Wuterich the deal.

It was a stunning outcome for the last defendant in the case once compared with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

The Haditha attack is considered among the war's defining moments, further tainting America's reputation when it was already at a low point after the release of photos of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

During the trial before a jury of combat Marines who served in Iraq, prosecutors argued Wuterich lost control after seeing his friend blown apart by the bomb and led his men on a rampage, blasting their way in with gunfire and grenades. Among the dead was a man in a wheelchair.

Faraj said the government was working on false notions and the deal was reached last week when prosecutors recognized their case was falling apart with contradictory testimony from witnesses who had lied to investigators. Many of the squad members had their cases dropped in exchange for testifying. Prosecutors have declined to comment.

Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, a Marine Corps spokesman, said the plea deal was the result of mutual negotiations and does not reflect how the case was going for the prosecution. He said the government investigated and prosecuted the case as it should have.

Wuterich was also seen as taking the fall for senior leaders and more seasoned combat veterans in his squad, analysts said. It was his first time in combat.

Brian Rooney, an attorney who represented a former defendant, said cases like Haditha are difficult to prosecute because a military jury is unlikely to question decisions made in combat unless wrongdoing is clear-cut and egregious, like rape.

"If it's a gray area, fog-of-war, you can't put yourself in a Marine's situation where he's legitimately trying to do the best he can," said Rooney, who represented Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine charged in the case.

Many of his squad mates testified that they do not believe to this day that they did anything wrong because they feared insurgents were inside hiding.

Wuterich plans to leave the Marine Corps and start a new career in information technology. His lawyers said they plan to petition for clemency.

UK: Coryton Refinery Job Fears After Petroplus Go Bankrupt

Hundreds of jobs at the Coryton oil refinery in Essex are under threat after Swiss owner Petroplus said it would file for bankruptcy.

Administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers says the priority is for work to continue at the refinery without disruption.

Other firms say they will still be able to supply fuel, but petrol retailers fear diesel prices will spike.
Energy Minister Charles Hendry said there was no need to stock up on fuel.

Steven Pearson, on behalf of the administrator, said: "Our immediate priority is to continue to operate the Coryton refinery and the Teesside storage business without disruption while the financial position is clarified and restructuring options are explored."

He said there were plans to have a number of discussions during the next few days over the future of the site in Coryton and the business in Teesside.

Petroplus has said it will file for insolvency "as soon as possible" after failing to reach an agreement with creditors to extend deadlines for loan repayments.

'Part of community' As well as refining oil for use as fuel, the Coryton site - which is one of eight refineries in the UK - also imports fuel from other countries which has already been refined.

It also supplies 20% of fuel for south-east England.

Although several lorries left the site before 0730 GMT on Tuesday, there has been no reported movement since.

Russell Jackson, an employee and representative of the Unite union, told the BBC the refinery had been at the site since the 1950s and was very much part of the local community, which would be heartbroken if it closed."There are also many contractors that work on site and rely on Coryton for their living as well," he added.

"People don't know what's going to happen and are insecure about the future but people are hopeful something will be done to resolve the situation and a buyer might be found."

He said he hoped the government was concerned about the situation, and warned the UK should not have to solely rely on its energy needs coming from third parties or imports.

East of England MEP Richard Howitt also said he feared petrol supplies would be affected and any job losses would have a "devastating impact" on the local economy.

"I don't want to be alarmist about this, but I don't want to be dishonest either. "Supplies across London and the South East could be affected, and I have been told this could impact the Olympics," he said.

But Mr Hendry said: "There is no need at this stage to be concerned about what's going on here. It is a matter of great concern for that company but it doesn't have a knock-on impact at this stage to our national security and energy security."

He added there was extra capacity to import more fuel if necessary, but he was confident the refinery would be under new management soon.

Stephen Metcalfe, the Conservative MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock said he was also confident that the plant, which is in his constituency, would survive.

Essar Oil, which owns the Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port, has agreed to supply significant volumes of both diesel and petrol to BP, the BBC understands.

Brian Madderson of the Retail Motor Industry (RMI), which represents petrol retailers, told the BBC he expected prices to rise for a number of reasons.

He said the European Union embargo on Iranian supplies of crude oil, the Coryton issues and striking tanker drivers in Lincolnshire were all creating pressure for the industry.

"All of that is going to mean further pressure on price as we have to import for product, and I can see a new record for diesel within days."

The striking Lincolnshire drivers, who work for road haulage firm Wincanton, are in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Unite said the seven-day walkout by 100 of its members, will affect fuel supplies to many Jet garages.
ExxonMobil, the owner of the Fawley Refinery on Southampton Water, told the BBC its stock levels for London and the South East remained good and it would continue to deliver to forecourts as normal.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that although Heathrow Airport has one underground pipe taking jet fuel from Coryton, it also has several others it can rely on and therefore is not believed to have any "immediate worries" for now.

The Chicago Mental Health Movement released a report Thursday outlining the long-term costs of Mayor Emanuel's proposed cuts and condemning the closure of six mental health clinics outlined in his 2012 budget.

"While the city presents these reductions as a 'consolidation' of services, an analysis of the [Chicago Department of Public Health] budget, an assessment of need in Chicago and first-hand accounts from patients make clear the Emanuel closures are risky, ill-conceived, and riddled with hidden costs," wrote the report's author, Jo Patton.

The Mental Health Movement released the results of their study at a rally in front of Grace Episcopal Church Thursday, where Chicagoans reliant on the city's mental health services shared their stories.

"For me, my therapist is a matter of life or death, because I have no one," said Helen Morley, a patient at the Beverly Morgan Park Mental Health Clinic slated for closure.

"I am lucky to have my therapist."

Emanuel's budget calls for the city's 12 mental health clinics to be consolidated into six, which would displace 2,549 patients, according to the Mental Health Movement report. The report also argues that the closures would transfer at least 1,100 Medicaid patients to private providers, "effectively giving away federal reimbursement for these services."

The closures will also disproportionately affect minority patients. Facilities are slated for closure in Auburn Gresham, Back of the Yards, Beverly Morgan Park, Woodlawn and North Rogers Park, where 61 percent of patients are African-American and 17 percent are Latino, according to the report.

"My therapist is like part of my family," said Florencia Cano, a patient at Northwest Mental Health Clinic.

"It's important for me that this clinic does not close. This is my neighborhood. Sending people to other neighborhoods is going to be very difficult."

The Commonwealth Bank has apologised to Queensland Health employees who did not receive their pay this morning, promising to pay any fees incurred by health staff because of the bungle.

Several Queensland Health employees told brisbanetimes.com.au this morning they had not received fortnightly wages that were due to be paid overnight.

brisbanetimes.com.au understands all Queensland Health employees have been affected.

A spokesman for the Commonwealth Bank said the bank experienced a delay in the overnight processing of the Queensland Health Payroll file resulting in pay not being credited to employees' accounts.

He said the file had since been processed and employees would see their salaries processed into their account either this morning or later today.

"The Commonwealth Bank apologises to any customers affected and reassures any employees affected that they will not be charged any fees by the Commonwealth Bank in relation to this problem," he said.

"The bank will also refund any fees that may be charged by other banks in relation to this issue."

A Sunshine Coast nurse, who did not wish to be named, told brisbanetimes.com.au she contacted the Queensland Health payroll hotline this morning after she discovered she hadn't been paid.

''The lady that I talked to ... said she hadn’t been paid either. She said everyone in the office hadn’t been paid,'' she said.

''I’m OK for a couple of days but when my mortgage payment goes from my account that I’m paid into ... I'll be penalised when I redraw on that.

''It is frustrating, it’s been going on for a long time.''

Another Queensland Health employee, who did not want to be named, said he called his bank, Suncorp, this morning and was told they had received ''many calls already'' from Queensland Health staff about unpaid wages.

''[I] rang the hospital and spoke to the nurse manager who had also not been paid,'' he said.

''Both my wife and I [have] not received any money for two weeks of work. [I] have worked for Queensland Health for twenty years. This is not good enough.''

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said she was disappointed by the bank's failure to process employees' pay.

Queensland Health Director-General Dr Tony O’Connell said the department's pay run was processed smoothly yesterday.

"Commonwealth Bank acknowledged receipt of the pay run files, advised Queensland Health they were being processed, and transferred the money out of Queensland Health's account for distribution to staff," he said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, despite Queensland Health having paid the money to the bank, the bank has not successfully transferred the money to our staff, due to a bank processing error."

The payroll issue follows in the footsteps of the Queensland Health payroll debacle two years ago.

Thousands of Queensland Health workers were underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all after the department's new payroll system was switched on in March 2010.

Three men have appeared in court over an oil spill in the Brisbane River.

Five to 10 tonnes of oil leaked into the water from the GL Lan Xiu while it was being refuelled at the Hamilton Wharves on Monday morning.

Maritime Safety Queensland has laid the charges after an investigation into the incident.

The ship master Cecillo Balagatas, the Chief Engineer Marlin Arceo and the company which owns the ship have all been charged with discharging oil into the Brisbane River.

The Filipino nationals will be released after paying $20,000 securities to the court.

The case has been adjourned until April.

There are reports dozens of people may have been buried in a landslide in Papua New Guinea's mountainous Highlands region.

Aerial photographs show the landslide near Tari in the Southern Highlands extends for about 1 kilometre and is several hundred metres wide.

Some houses narrowly avoided being swept away when the landslide happened at 6:00am (local time), but locals say dozens of people were buried.

Tari resident Joseph Warai says around 40 people are missing.

"Almost five big trucks [were] covered and gardens and houses [were] all destroyed," he said.

The landslide is near one of the main work sites for Exxon-Mobil's massive liquefied natural gas project.

Spokeswoman Rebecca Arnold says the main road in the area has been cut and work at the site and a nearby airfield has stopped.

She says the company is standing by to help the community.

"That could include support such as food, rations, temporary housing needs, offering the use of heavy equipment and to have that standing by for deployment," Ms Arnold said.

"We are ready and willing to assist the government as soon as they require our services."

Officials from the National Disaster Centre are expected to travel to the area tomorrow to assess the damage.

The Australian High Commission says all Australians reported to be in the area have been accounted for.

800 People Evacuated Amid Fiji Flooding

Nearly 800 people have been evacuated as a result of flooding hitting the western part of Fiji’s Viti Levu.

Two people are confirmed to have died, and officials are warning people to move to high ground before high tide this evening.

The government spokesperson, Sharon Smith-Johns, says flood waters aren’t easing.

“We have evacuation centres in Ba, Nadi, Tavua, in those areas. In total we have 393 adults and 322 children from 41 families currently in accommodation in evacuation centres. With the rain coming down, we can’t predict at the moment, when the waters are going to subside, and it’s just a wait and see game.”

Sharon Smith-Johns says traffic is moving around Nadi, but a number of roads in low-lying areas have been closed.

Forty whales are again stranded on the northern coast of New Zealand's South Island after failing to move out with the tide.

The pilot whales were refloated by rescuers when high tide arrived around on Tuesday morning after having spent much of Monday on the on Farewell Spit.

Rescuers had hoped they would move out to sea but by 1.45pm, local time, they were stranded again.

"We tried to encourage them to move to deeper water, but they wouldn't move," Department of Conservation Golden Bay manager John Mason told AAP.

"They just milled around in a group and didn't show any inclination to move, other than 4-500m down the beach."

The whales were part of a pod of about 100 which became stranded on Monday.

Thirty-four of them died overnight, while a further 17 refloated at high tide on Monday night and have swum safely to sea.

It was originally thought there were 39 remaining but Mr Mason said a 40th was spotted around noon and it was among those which re-stranded.

He said rescuers would now have to go through the same action of trying to keep them alive until dusk and then hope they would refloat at high tide around midnight.

"We put a lot of work in trying to refloat the whales and they chose not to go. It's disappointing but we will try and refloat them again and hopefully they will choose to leave."

About 50 people had volunteered to help with rescue efforts, with people travelling from as far as Australia, Auckland and Invercargill to take part. ...

Scenic Rim Regional Council is pushing for amendments to State legislation to prohibit coal seam gas (CSG) exploration activities in its region.

The council has sent a peer-reviewed report analysing the potential impacts of coal and CSG activities in the region to key State government personnel, including Mining Minister Stirling Hinchliffe.

The report calls for the State government to develop amendments to the Mineral Resources Act 1989 and the Petroleum and Gas (Production and Safety) Act 2004 to prohibit any form of exploration right or mining or petroleum tenement for coal mining and CSG extraction in the Scenic Rim region.

The report also calls for the council to work with the State government to rescind all existing permits and applications.

"Furthermore, our consultation with residents, visitors, businesses and community organisations demonstrates that there is strong concern about mining and coal seam gas extraction and gives a clear direction that these activities are not appropriate for this region," the report states.

Mayor John Brent, also a local grower and chairman of Ausveg, questioned the government's decision to permit mining exploration throughout the region, given the resource sector "was not given serious consideration" in the South East Queensland regional plan for 2009-2031, released in July 2009.

The plan aims to balance population growth and employment generation with the need to protect the lifestyle of residents.

"We have maintained it is inappropriate to conduct mining activities in our region.

"It may sound like 'nimbyism', but we are a closely settled area and the South East Queensland regional plan did not articulate the resource sector as one of the activities for this community," he said.

"Horticulture, tourism and future urban settlement were the focus of the plan, with Beaudesert as the principal activity centre.

"Whilst we recognised at the time there were exploration permits in place, we did not expect them to be renewed."

Cr Brent hoped the report would provide more long-term security for the region, rather than simply pushing for a moratorium.

"We need to be realists and see what can be achieved within the existing framework," he said.

"I think the report reflects the beliefs of most of the people in the Scenic Rim."

Mr Hinchliffe said the report was currently under review by a parliamentary committee.

An industry analyst warns that Australia's natural gas boom may be about to bust.

Peter Strachan says any new projects are going to have to compete with companies that have already sold their gas for the next 10 or 20 years.

He says projects like Inpex's $34 billion Ichthys venture in Darwin and off the coast of Western Australia face much higher costs than others did a decade ago.

"The cost of drilling equipment has gone up substantially, so instead of paying, say, $200,000 a day for a drilling rig, you are now paying $550,000 a day," he said.

"The cost of putting pipe in the ground has doubled or tripled, so all of those engineering costs have also gone up."

Mr Strachan says new projects will also have to grapple with high labour costs.

"Wage costs in Australia are probably double what might be expected in parts of North America and would probably be 10 times higher than the costs associated with labour that would be typical in a project offshore in East Africa," he said.

BHP Sets Sail For Port Hedland

BHP Billiton is on track to approve the first major spending on a $US 10 billion-plus outer Harbour project at Port Hedland in the coming weeks after receiving conditional environmental approvals from the West Australian government.

The outer harbour is crucial for BHP’s ambition of raising its annual iron ore production from about 160 million tonnes at present to 350 million tonnes by the end of the decade.

The miner is aiming to ultimately triple production to 450 million tonnes. …

Downer EDI will receive millions of dollars from NSW taxpayers to settle a $160 million claim as part of a deal to bail out the troubled Reliance Rail project, which is half-owned by the engineering group.

Downer is understood to be receiving a sum from the government, albeit “substantially less” than the $160 million claim, as part of the deal to be announced as early as today.

The NSW government is expected to tip in as much as $200 million to rescue Reliance, which has to build and deliver 78 trains for Sydney’s suburban network by 2014.

US oil producer Hess corporation is moving one of its top executives to Perth in a clear sign that it wants to expand in Australia well beyond its drilling activities in Western Australia and its early-stage shale gas exploration.

Howard Paver, a senior vice-president at the New York-based oil company, will take up the role in Perth next week.

He will arrive as Hess is locked in talks with Woodside petroleum and Chevron on rival options for gas from its multi-billion dollar Equus project in the Carnarvon Basin.

The US company has taken on a pivotal role in shaping the liquefied natural gas industry off the West Australian coast, where its 13 gas discoveries could supply either Woodside’s Pluto expansion project, Chevron’s Wheatstone venture, or the North-West shelf venture. …

15 Filipino Fishermen Shot Dead

Gunmen have killed 15 Philippine fishermen and wounded three others in a sea attack by suspected local rivals.

The fishermen were killed by men armed with assault rifles off the insurgency-torn southern island of Basilan on Monday, regional military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said.

"They (victims) were fishing on another group's turf," Cabangbang said.

He said the authorities had ruled out the potential involvement of Islamist militants or Muslim guerrillas, who are also active in Basilan.

Police have identified several suspects and arrests are expected shortly, Cabangbang said, adding that a military unit was ordered to provide security for police investigators.

"The suspects are heavily armed," he added.

The victims were all residents of the southern city of Pagadian, about 160 kms to the northeast, and were attacked as soon as their three boats approached the tiny island of Sibago, off Basilan's east coast.

Other fishermen in the area later discovered the shooting and took the three wounded victims to hospital, Cabangbang said.

The bodies of the 15 dead fishermen were taken back to Pagadian, he added.

The brown, foamy coloured water with "not a good odour" pouring into the Maroochy River mouth on Sunday morning was not what it looked like.

Maroochydore Surf Club lifesavers advised swimmers to steer clear of the popular paddling area near the Cotton Tree caravan park after noticing the discoloured water.

Maroochydore lifesaving director Todd Sweeney said the lifesaver on duty contacted authorities who advised people not to swim there.

"It was at the northern end of the caravan park where there is a stormwater drain pipe coming from the caravan park," Mr Sweeney said.

"We noticed brown, foamy coloured water was running out at high tide into the river."The situation was monitored closely by Unitywater."

Maroochy Beach was not affected and the problem was resolved by lunchtime.

A camper at Cotton Tree, who wanted to be known only as Judy, was lying in the river when told to get out of the water.

"There was a yucky, bubbly, dirty froth," she said.

"It wasn't your normal beach froth.

"He (the lifesaver) said it was raw sewage coming through. They were obviously concerned and they said it had happened before.

"He said it was only a problem at high tide but the issue needed to be resolved and they had made calls about it many times."

According to a council spokeswoman, the murky water was stormwater runoff.

There is no swaying Dave Burns's opinion of the Gladstone Regional Council and the decision regarding the relocation of local clubs.

"The council has dark glasses and a white cane," Mr Burns, founding chairman and life member of Clinton Park, said.

"I don't know what they are thinking. Clinton Park is the best sporting facility we have, why would you take that away?

"There are three turf pitches in this park alone, you take that away and the town is less three, you're not going to get them back without spending millions."

Mr Burns's passionate outrage is not without due cause.

"This was one of the earliest sporting facilities in Gladstone, prior to its development sport was played out of school ovals," he said.

"I was elected to council all those years ago due to my stand on the sporting platform and thanks to a band of volunteers we have this park.

"Volunteers created what is Clinton Park. It started with the cricket pitch closest to the Penda Ave roundabout but when the roundabout was added the field grew.

"To see the hard work of his mates and himself be turned into commercial airport property saddens Mr Burns.

"We already have limited sporting facilities which are not at the standard to the rest of the state," he said.

Supporters of ousted Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi have seized control of the town of Bani Walid after clashes with a militia loyal to the new government in which four people were killed, witnesses said.

A resident of Bani Walid, about 200 kilometres south-east of Tripoli, said the sides fought using heavy weaponry, including 106 mm anti-tank weapons, and that 20 people were wounded.

Another witness said the fighting had now stopped, but that Gaddafi loyalists were in control of the town centre, where they were flying green flags, a symbol of allegiance to the ousted administration.

"They control the town now. They are roaming the town," said the witness, a fighter with the May 28 militia which was fighting the Gaddafi loyalists.

Bani Walid, the base of the powerful Warfallah tribe, was one of the last towns in Libya to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year. Many people there oppose the country's new leadership.

The uprising in Bani Walid could not come at a worse time for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC).

It is already reeling from violent protests in the eastern city of Benghazi and the resignation of its second most senior official.

The violence in Bani Walid was sparked when members of the May 28 militia arrested some Gaddafi loyalists.

That prompted other supporters of the former leader, who was captured and killed in October, to attack the militia's garrison in the town, said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They massacred men at the doors of the militia headquarters," the resident said.

During Libya's nine-month civil war, anti-Gaddafi rebels fought for months to take Bani Walid.

Local tribal elders eventually agreed to let NTC fighters enter the town, but relations have been uneasy since and there have been occasional flare-ups of violence.

In November last year, several people were killed in Bani Walid when a militia group from Tripoli arrived in the town to try to arrest some local men.

Early next month Lord Justice Leveson, who has spent the past three months scrutinising the wicked British press, proceeds to examine the relationship between the press and the police. Today there came an early hint about just how ugly the revelations from that phase of the inquiry are likely to prove.

Last July reporters at the Guardian newspaper broke the story that the News of the World had got hold of messages left on the mobile phone of Milly Dowler, a girl who disappeared in 2002 and was subsequently found to have been murdered. This, and a catalogue of other awful revelations, brought down the News of the World, at the time Britain’s biggest Sunday newspaper.

The Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee has now released a letter from Surrey police, which was investigating Dowler’s disappearance. This details the police force’s early contacts with the News of the World. The letter says nothing about an issue that has preoccupied the London media village for the past month or so—whether the Guardian was correct in reporting that Dowler’s voicemails had been deleted, giving false hope to her parents that she might be alive. But it does reveal something just as shocking.

On April 13th 2002, according to the coppers, they were told that the News of the World was in possession of voicemail messages from Dowler’s phone. The police were also told the contents of those messages. The News of the World was then following what turned out to be an unfruitful line of investigation—that Dowler had registered with an employment agency. And how had the News of the World got hold of these messages? Because, it was explained to the police, the newspaper had obtained Dowler’s phone number and PIN code from other school children.

On April 20th an e-mail to the police helpfully summarised the situation. “As you are aware, last Saturday evening (13 April) the News of the World contacted the Dowler squad with information we had received,” the e-mail stated. “In the course of a conversation with [a police officer] we passed on information about messages left on Amanda Dowler’s mobile phone”. The email went on to explain that the newspaper had offered to supply a tape recording of the messages “and other evidence”.

Liberal use of a redacting black pen means it is difficult to ascertain who was speaking to the police. What is not difficult to ascertain is the significance of what the coppers were told. Accessing someone else’s voicemail messages is a crime. (When the police wanted to listen to Dowler’s messages, they obtained a court order.) Surrey’s police were told that the News of the World had obtained voicemail messages left on Dowler’s phone, were told what they contained and were given the opportunity to listen to them. Apparently, they did nothing.

The Times could be subject to a police inquiry after Scotland Yard received a complaint from Labour MP Tom Watson calling on the force to investigate the newspaper over email hacking allegations.

Mr Watson has sent a letter to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers urging Scotland Yard to launch an investigation into The Times amid allegations one of its reporters admitted hacking into the email account of a police officer.

Both James Harding, the editor of The Times, and Tom Mockridge, the News International chief executive, recently gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry acknowledging that a reporter at the paper had admitted to hacking but not naming the reporter as Patrick Foster.

The newspaper later admitted Mr Foster, 28, had hacked the account of Richard Horton, a police officer who blogged anonymously under the name Nightjack. In an article published on Thursday, Mr Harding admitted it was the NightJack case but did not disclose whether he knew before the court case that the emails had been hacked, or if he knew about it before the story was published.

The Times last week said that Mr Foster, 28, had "informed his managers before the story was published that he had, on his own initiative, hacked into Mr Horton's email account".

Mr Horton was outed in 2009 after the Times fought an injunction in an effort to reveal his identity.
Mr Foster, who has contributed articles to the Daily Telegraph, was later dismissed from the newspaper over an unrelated incident.

Mr Watson's letter to the Metropolitan Police, which was also sent to the Attorney General, said: "It is clear that a crime has been committed - illicit hacking of personal emails.

"A journalist and unnamed managers failed to report the crime to their proprietor or the police.

"I must ask that you investigate computer hacking at The Times. In so doing you will also be able to establish whether perjury and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice have also occurred."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police was not able to comment immediately.

The force has set up Operation Tuleta to look at allegations of email hacking.

This weekend, it emerged Mr Watson would write to Lord Justice Leveson this week formally requesting he recall Mr Harding following fresh revelations surrounding the NightJack blogger case.

Mr Watson said: “James Harding has questions to answer.

“Who at the company was aware the High Court and the blogger’s lawyers were not told about this?”
Mr Watson added that it raised further questions as to whether James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, knew.

In the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, Mr Murdoch told MPs last year that he was unaware of any computer hacking.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "We can confirm that a letter was received today, Monday 23 January, from MP Tom Watson.Officers from Operation Tuleta are in contact with Mr Watson in relation to specific issues he wishes to raise.We are not prepared to discuss the matter further."

Chicken group La Ionica has admitted to misleading and deceptive conduct over descriptions of birds raised in its barns as "free to roam".

The company behind La Ionica, Turi Foods, will pay a $100,000 penalty and take out a newspaper advertisement as part of a deal that ends legal action brought by consumer watchdog the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Turi Foods included the "free to roam" claim in promotional material, including a poster featuring celebrity chef Geoff Jansz, produced since 2004.

Last month, the Federal Court in Melbourne heard that each chicken had a space equivalent to an A4 sheet of paper in which to move around.

Two other chicken suppliers that also made the "free to roam" claim, Bartter Enterprises and Baiada Poultry, and peak industry body the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, continue to fight the ACCC's lawsuit.

In a judgment handed down today, Federal Court judge Richard Tracey said Turi, which supplies about 9.5 per cent of the chicken eaten in Australia, had co-operated with the ACCC by removing signs from delivery vehicles as soon as the watchdog raised its concerns.

He said La Ionica attempted to gain an advantage over its competitors "by advertising that, as they have grown, the chickens have been free to roam around the sheds in which they were held".

"La Ionica has acknowledged that its statements to this effect have been misleading and deceptive," he said.

"Its customers and potential customers should be disabused."

Justice Tracey said the $100,000 penalty agreed between the ACCC and Turi Foods was "towards the lower end of the proper range" of up to $1.1 million.

"It is, however, within the permissible range and I would not depart from the proposed amount simply because I might have been minded to impose a higher figure within the range but for the agreement of the parties," he said.

The protest against genetically modified seeds in France does not stop: About a hundred of GM maize critics have occupied a site on Monday morning, the U.S. company Monsanto and demonstrated against the inaction of the government in Paris.

Paris – Actually, the attitude of the French Government on GM maize clear: Of man-modified varieties, such as Mon 810 are prohibited. But because the Supreme Administrative Court, the country’s adoption in November last year due to procedural errors again conceded that the discussion is regaining momentum on GM crops. Now some 100 activists have occupied a site of the U.S. agricultural company Monsanto in the southern French Trebes.

In a surprise action early in the morning blocked the opponents of genetic engineering a warehouse and poured sacks of Mon-810-seeds that they are “genetically altered and dangerous” as designated on the ground. They unfurled a banner bearing the words “Genetically Modified Zone” and called for an immediate ban on cultivation of GM crops.

A farmers’ representatives accused the U.S. company, he met concrete preparations to bring the
genetically modified Mon 810 varieties in circulation “. Monsanto is already developing seed to bottle it to deliver to its customers,” said the farmer. The Ministry had promised months ago to ban Mon 810 immediately, “but nothing has happened.”

In fact, the government is in Paris remains committed not to allow farming of genetically modified plants – but nothing happened since November. Already in early January so angry farmers had occupied another French Monsanto site.

Worldwide criticism of Monsanto

The U.S. company comes under pressure worldwide and over again – in the past week it was announced that the Argentine tax authority has determined on a Monsanto corn fields supplier slave-like working conditions.

The company had employed all their harvest workers illegally, they prevented from leaving the fields and their wages are not paid, it said. In addition, the workers would have fourteen hours a day corn harvest and buy their food at inflated prices in the corporate business need. The Authority announced that it will take for the Monsanto Company practices of its suppliers to account.

Chinese oil company Sinopec has finalised a deal with local energy producer Origin Energy and US firm ConocoPhillips to boost its stake in a major liquefied natural gas project in Queensland.

Sinopec will pay $US1.1 billion ($1.05 billion) to increase its stake in the Australia Pacific LNG Project on Curtis Island from 15 per cent to 25 per cent.

The deal also means Sinopec will buy an extra 3.3 million metric tonnes of LNG per year for 20 years, making it the largest gas supply agreement in Australian history.

Federal Trade Minister Craig Emerson says the project will have widespread benefits for Queensland and represents a vote of confidence in the Australian economy.

"This is a really good breakthrough and a step up in the intensity of investment in LNG," Mr Emerson said.

"Securing these sales contracts is so important. When you're putting in billions and billions of dollars - I think it's $45 billion or more going into Gladstone - you need these long-term contracts."

Origin managing director Grant King says the project remains on track and within its $20 billion budget, with the first shipments expected in 2015.

"First train and shipments are due to commence around the middle of 2015, and we would expect shipments under this second train under these agreements to commence in the first half of 2016," Mr King said.

"The key take-out from there is, both in respect of schedule and project costs, the project remains on track."

In a statement, Sinopec chairman Fu Chengyu welcomed the arrangement.

"The sale and purchase agreement with Australia Pacific LNG is an important part of Sinopec's energy portfolio, and will help us to ensure long-term gas supply for the growing demand in the Chinese market," he said.

Sinopec signed an initial agreement to raise its stake in the project last month.The deal reduces Origin and ConocoPhillips' stakes in the project to 37.5 per cent each.

It is yet to be approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Santos says it is on track to start liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Gladstone, in central Queensland, in 2015.

The $16 billion GLNG project was approved early last year.

Santos has a 30 per cent share in the project.

Two LNG trains will be built on Curtis Island, off Gladstone, and will deliver up to 7.8 million tonnes of gas per year.

The consortium already has sales agreements with two companies for seven million tonnes a year.

The Curtis Island facility will be linked by more than 400 kilometres of pipelines from the Surat and Bowen basins.

The first 150 kilometres of pipes will be delivered to Gladstone this month and laid in the first half of this year.

Santos says 500 people are involved in engineering design, and earthworks are well advanced at Curtis Island.

 

First, the earth around the rural town of Dimock, Pa., was cracked open as gas drillers used fracking [1] to tap the vast energy supplies of the Marcellus Shale.

Then, in April 2009, residents there lost their access to fresh drinking water [2]. Wells turned fetid. Some blew up. Tap water caught fire.

Now, nearly three years later — and after a string of lawsuits and state investigations has ushered Dimock to the forefront of the environmental debate over drilling but failed to resolve the water problem — the Environmental Protection Agency is stepping in to supply drinking water itself.

On Friday, the agency announced it would bring tanks of drinking water to four homes, including that of Julie Sautner, whom ProPublica first interviewed [3] about her water problems in 2009.

“Data reviewed by EPA indicates that residents’ well water contains levels of contaminants that pose a health concern,” the agency said in a statement [4].

Tests showed dangerous levels of arsenic [5], a carcinogen, as well as glycols and barium in at least four wells, and the EPA is apparently concerned that the contamination may be more widespread.

According to the statement, the EPA plans to test the water supplies in 60 additional homes for hazardous substances.

In 2009, Pennsylvania officials charged Cabot Oil & Gas [6], the company that drilled the wells in Dimock, with several violations it said had contributed to methane gas leaking out of the gas wells and into drinking water.

For a time, Cabot supplied drinking water to a number of homes in the area but then stopped. The EPA has waded into the Dimock issues slowly over the past few months, provoking a defensive stance from the state’s lead environmental regulator, who earlier this month called the EPA’s understanding of the Dimock situation “rudimentary [7].”

But the state has not undertaken the scope of water analysis the EPA now plans to do, and until the EPA stepped in Friday, Dimock residents had found little resolution.Environmental groups are applauding the EPA’s move.

"This finding confirms what Dimock residents have said for months, that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection should have never allowed Cabot to end deliveries of clean water," said Environmental Working Group senior counsel Dusty Horwitt.

But they also say the time has come for the EPA to address water contamination concerns in other communities across the country where residents say drilling has harmed their water.

In December, the EPA concluded that fracking [8] was likely to blame for a similar rash of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyo. The agency is conducting a multiyear national study of fracking’s effects on water supplies. We have previously reported about water and drilling concerns [9] in parts of western Wyoming, as well as central and southern Colorado, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere.

Add methane emissions to the growing list of environmental risks posed by fracking.

Opposition to the hydraulic fracturing of deep shales to release natural gas rose sharply last year over worries that the large volumes of chemical-laden water used in the operations could contaminate drinking water. Then, in early January, earthquakes in Ohio were blamed on the disposal of that water in deep underground structures. Yesterday, two Cornell University professors said at a press conference that fracking releases large amounts of natural gas, which consists mostly of methane, directly into the atmosphere—much more than previously thought.

Robert Howarth, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, and Anthony Ingraffea, a civil and environmental engineer, reported that fracked wells leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural gas wells. When water with its chemical load is forced down a well to break the shale, it flows back up and is stored in large ponds or tanks. But volumes of methane also flow back up the well at the same time and are released into the atmosphere before they can be captured for use. This giant belch of "fugitive methane" can be seen in infrared videos taken at well sites.

Molecule for molecule, methane traps 20 to 25 times more heat in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide. The effect dissipates faster, however: airborne methane remains in the atmosphere for about 12 years before being scrubbed out by ongoing chemical reactions, whereas CO2 lasts 30 to 95 years. Nevertheless, recent data from the two Cornell scientists and others indicate that within the next 20 years, methane will contribute 44 percent of the greenhouse gas load produced by the U.S. Of that portion, 17 percent will come from all natural gas operations.

Currently, pipeline leaks are the main culprit, but fracking is a quickly growing contributor. Ingraffea pointed out that although 25,000 high-volume shale-gas wells are already operating in the U.S., hundreds of thousands are scheduled to go into operation within 20 years, and millions will be operating worldwide, significantly expanding emissions and keeping atmospheric methane levels high despite the 12-year dissipation time.

Howarth said he is particularly concerned about fracking emissions because recent data indicates that the planet is entering a period of rapid climate change. He noted that the average global temperature compared with the early 1900s is now expected to increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next 15 to 35 years, which he called "a tipping point" toward aggressive climate change. More and more fracking would speed the world to that transition or undermine efforts to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The notion, Ingraffea said, that shale gas is a desirable "bridge fuel" from oil to widespread renewable energy supplies several decades from now "makes no sense" in terms of climate change.

Howarth and Ingraffea spoke from Cornell, where they also released a paper (pdf) that is about to be published by the journal Climatic Change, which details their analysis. It follows up on a paper they published in April 2011 that comprehensively analyzed emissions from fracking. The gas industry disputes that paper. So does Cornell geologist Lawrence Cathles, in a commentary in Climatic Change. He estimates that fugitive emissions are only 10 percent of what Howarth and Ingraffea maintain, and that shale gas would indeed be a good replacement for home heating oil and for coal used in power plants.

Capturing the big belch of gas could prevent the problem. Ingraffea said capture is difficult because the gas is emitted along with the flow-back water, but a procedure known as a "green completion," in which special equipment traps the gas, has been shown to work. Regulators do not require that step, however, and the market price of methane is less than the cost of capturing it in that way, so drillers have no incentive to do so for economic reasons.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters tried to disrupt the Bahrain airshow on Thursday, burning tires which sent up columns of smoke as the authorities attempt to show life is returning to normal in the troubled Gulf kingdom.

People on the opening day of the Bahrain International Air Show, the kingdom's first big event since major unrest last year, saw U.S. and Russian jets swoop past against a backdrop of the plumes of smoke.

The protesters set fire to tires around Manama, hoping to embarrass the government which cracked down last February on massive demonstrations demanding more democracy.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa inaugurated the show at the Sakhir air base earlier in the day. The government hopes the event will help to draw back investors and businesses to the country.

Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa later said the show would elevate Bahrain's status on the international map, the state news agency reported.

Bahrain is also due to host a Formula One grand prix in April at a circuit near the airbase. Last year's race was cancelled due to the unrest, although the circuit company said last week it would reinstate employees who had been sacked for taking part in the protests.

The three-day air show includes flying displays by American military jets including F15 and F18s.

No plane deals were announced on the first day of the event.

However, Bahrain's Gulf neighbors showed their support with Qatar Airways and Oman Air displaying their aircraft. Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum visited the show, arriving on an Emirates Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifa family has offered limited parliamentary reforms but the opposition wants a shift to a constitutional monarchy and elected government.

Three Russian warships, namely the Admiral Pantelev, Fotiy Krylov and Boris Butoma, have arrived at Surabaya`s Tanjung Perak seaport, according to a press release issued by the Indonesian Navy`s 5th Main Base here Thursday.

On hand at the port to greet the three Russian warships were Russian Embassy officials and senior officers of the Indonesian Navy`s 5th Main Base in Surabaya and a group of typically Surabaya Remo dancers.

The purpose of the three Russian warships` visit to Indonesia was to strengthen the relations between the two countries, in addition to carrying out joint exercises with the Indonesian Navy.

All the three warships would stay in Surabaya for four days from January 19 to 22 to conduct a series of activities.

On the agenda of the Russian warships crew during their visit in Surabaya were a courtesy call on the commander of the Indonesian Navy`s 5th Main Base, receiving Indonesian Navy officers on board the Admiral Pantelev, a meeting with the mayor of Surabaya, and sports matches with members of the Indonesian Navy`s Eastern Fleet Command.

The Admiral Pantelev is a battle ship with anti-submarine weapons, the Fotiy Krylov a rescue tug boat and the Boris Butoma a marine tank vessel.

Col Maman Firmansyah, operations assistant to the commander of the Indonesian Navy`s 5th Main Base, said the Indonesian Navy welcomed the three Russian warships` visit.

During their sail through the Malacca Strait up to the Port of Tanjung Perak , the Russian naval flotilla was escorted by an Indonesian warship.

"When they depart, we will also escort the three Russian war ships up to the Indonesian sea border," he said.

Last January 18, the Russian defense attache, Colonel Vladimir Fedorovich Afasenkov, visited the Indonesian Navy`s 5th Main Base Headquarters in Surabaya to coordinate about the expected arrival of Russian warships.

There will be 40,000 fewer public employees by the end of this year as compared to autumn 2009, when the number of public sector jobs was as its peak.

Dennis Kristensen, chairman of the union FOA, told MetroXpress newspaper that the cuts are hurting services across the country.

"The knife has cut very, very deep," said Kristensen.

"No politician with respect for the truth can say that we are delivering the quality of service that we did before."

Figures from local budget offices and the Det Fælleskommunale Løndatakontor, which oversees salary and personnel information for the nation’s regions and councils, show that nearly 36,000 public jobs have been lost since 2009.

FOA expects that number to top 40,000 by the end of the year.

Some see the the reductions as a positive step.

"The decline in the numbers of public employees is good news," said economist Mads Lundby Hansen from the liberal think tank CEPOS.

"These numbers can be reduced without effecting services, especially if the cuts come in administration and not among hands-on workers."

The education sector is also feeling the pinch as municipalities tighten their belts.

Numbers from the teachers union BUPL show that nearly 1,000 jobs were cut in 2010 and another 900 disappeared in 2011. Another 500 teachers had their hours reduced.

The picture is even bleaker for teaching assistants; FOA reports that from October 2009 to October 2011 the number of teacher's aides dropped by 5,000 – nearly 14 percent.

From 2008 to 2010, nearly 13,000 jobs at daycare institutions, clubs, after-school programmes and nurseries disappeared, according to Danmark Statistik.

Henning Pedersen of BUPL told Politiken newspaper that the cuts hurt the nation’s young people.

"The children can feel a drop in the quality of the care that they receive," he said.

The government has set aside 500 million kroner annually to help daycare institutions recruit about 1,500 new workers.

Pedersen says it is not enough.

"Five hundred million kroner is a good start, but it doesn't make up for the number of jobs that have disappeared," he said.

Denmark's national municipal organisation, Kommunernes Landsforening (KL), said that budgets for municipalities will continue to shrink in 2012.

The challenges faced in delivering quality care on a tight budget is a major part of the agenda at KL's ‘Børnetopmøde’, a biannual meeting held to discuss children's issues, scheduled to take place in Aalborg on February 2-3.

The French Polynesian president Oscar Temaru has called for street protests should France refuse to return the two atolls used for its nuclear weapons tests.

Mr Temaru made the call as one of the territory’s senators, Richard Tuheiava, is to submit a proposed law in Paris seeking the atolls’ return and a review of the compensation offered for the tests’ impact.

His comment comes as the territorial assembly in Tahiti endorsed the senator’s initiative with 30 of the 57 votes.

He says if France refuses to give back what belongs to the Polynesians, people should close their homes and the administration to take to the streets in protest.

Mr Temaru says Paris should be told that it render to Caesar the things that are Ceasar’s.

The two atolls Moruroa and Fangataufa were ceded to France at no cost in 1964 to allow its military to test its nuclear weapons.

Over 100,000 Rally In Hungary To Back Government In EU Row

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - More than 100,000 people rallied Saturday in a show of support for the embattled Hungarian government, as it prepares to compromise in a bitter row with the European Union to secure a vital loan.

Labeled a "March of Peace" the demonstration was by far the largest rally since the government took power in May 2010, in what analysts said was a reminder that Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party remains a potent political force.

Orban's center-right government, accused by Brussels of threatening the independence of the media, judiciary and central bank, backed down earlier this week, aiming to prop up its battered forint currency and keep access to financial markets.

The government has said it will work out details of necessary legal changes by Monday after the European Commission started infringement procedures in the three areas, saying Budapest's new laws failed to comply with EU rules.

Orban is travelling to Brussels Tuesday to try to hammer out a political agreement with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, in order to be able to start formal talks with the EU and International Monetary Fund about a loan deal.

Amid the diplomatic wrangle and market swings the government has also seen its popular support dwindle and big demonstrations against its policies have become regular.

According to a fresh opinion poll, 84 percent of people think things are going in the wrong direction, although the opposition is fragmented and Fidesz still commands the support of about 1.5 million voters in the country of 10 million.

"Those who are here, many of us also think things are not going in a good direction," Bela Petrik, a 22-year-old economy student from Budapest, said at Budapest's Heroes Square as people gathered for a march to parliament.

"But these mistakes should not lead to speculative attacks that serve the interests of nobody except the speculators."

NO COLONY OF THE WEST

The organizers of the rally, billionaire Gabor Szeles, news magazine editor Andras Bencsik and others said the rally was to show Hungary would not bow to the West.

"We won't be a dominion, we don't want to be a colony," Bencsik told the crowd.

"This is our message to those abroad.

"The other is we fully support Viktor Orban, and we are proud of what we achieved at the 2010 elections."

Political analyst Zoltan Kiszelly said the size of the crowd was a clear message that Fidesz was by far the strongest political force in the country.

"They have shown the political left that the street does not belong to them," Kiszelly told Reuters.

"And they have sent a message to the government's partners abroad to stop trying to tell us what to do, the government is doing fine."

"The way the Italian or the Greek governments were removed will not work in Hungary, and early elections are out of the question with this kind of public support."

Judit Marcsok, a 43-year-old homemaker from Mogyorod, said she was appalled at the tone EU politicians used in their critique of Hungary.

"I was completely enraged when socialist and liberal MEP's screamed this week in Strasbourg, with veins on their necks bulging, at the Hungarian prime minister," she said.

"This is no way to negotiate, this is no attitude to any country."

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Police in the Swiss capital say they have detained more than 100 people who took part in a demonstration against an upcoming meeting of global political and economic elites.

The protest targeted the annual World Economic Forum that takes place Jan. 25-29 in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Bern police say a group of between 100 and 120 people were stopped from staging an unapproved demonstration in the center of the city Saturday afternoon.

A police statement said some of the would-be protesters threw fireworks and objects at officers. Police later found a vehicle containing large amounts of pepper spray, masks and helmets.

The statement said "several" protesters were charged with breaching the peace.

The Occupy London protest group says it has taken over a fifth site in London.

Up to 20 demonstrators moved into Roman House, on Fore Street, Barbican, in the City of London, in the early hours of Saturday, an Occupy spokesman said.

The "economic justice" campaigners said they planned to "open the building to the public" on Monday.

Berkeley Homes, which owns the empty office block, has asked protesters to leave, saying the building was "not safe for public use".

The firm said the property was being converted into 90 residential flats and the occupation was putting jobs at risk.

An Occupy London spokesman said the group would leave if there was a building contract in place, because to remain and put jobs at risk would be "so against what we are about".

City of London Corporation and police said they were aware of the occupation.

Protest 'misguided'

The 1950s building has been lying empty for the past few years. Protesters said they targeted it because it "previously housed companies from the financial service industries".

Berkeley Homes disputed this claim saying an architecture firm was the previous occupant of the eight-storey building.

The latest move from Occupy comes after the corporation won its High Court case on Wednesday to evict protesters from outside St Paul's Cathedral, where the Occupy London Stock Exchange group set up its tents on 15 October.

Berkeley Homes, owner of Roman House, said the building was "not safe for public use" Since October the protest group has "occupied" Finsbury Square, an empty office building owned by the Swiss bank UBS in Sun Street, east London, and the empty Old Street Magistrates Court.

A statement on Occupy London's website said it had "publicly repossessed Roman House".

It added: "The Occupy London campaigners - part of the global movement for social and economic justice and real democracy - stated that they intend to occupy the building - their fifth occupation - until such time as the City of London Corporation publishes full details of its City cash accounts.

"The City of London Police have visited the building and have agreed that it is a civil matter."

A Berkeley Homes spokesman said: "We urge the protesters to vacate this building site as quickly as possible, as we are very concerned that they are putting both themselves, and members of the public, in real danger.

"It is not safe for public use, there are holes in the floors and we are in the early stages of asbestos removal. City of London Police officers have been at the site since the morning.

"The protesters are misguided in their actions which are sadly preventing Berkeley Homes from implementing their planning permission and so providing not only 90 much-needed new homes, but also a significant number of key construction jobs during an economic crisis.

"We are taking legal advice, particularly given the safety concerns, to ensure this potentially dangerous occupation ends quickly."

Occupy supporter Bryn Phillips, 28, dismissed the safety concerns, saying: "There was a log book inside the building and it was completely blank for asbestos.

"And we're only going to be occupying one floor at a time and that would be health and safety checked first."

The protesters plan to open the building to the public on 23 January, which will be the 100th day since they began the London chapter of a global movement against "corporate greed".

The group said it would use the venue to hold lectures and events, beginning with a lecture on the City's "secret finances and lobbying activities".

It needs a focus on the development and celebration of culture and the arts. We don't need to create a casino for Chinese high-rollers as the solution for our problems, whether it be to re-vitalise our tourism economy or to improve the amenity of Surfers Paradise. We need to place a much greater emphasis on high quality entertainment that promotes local talent, we need to attract talent from around the nation here permanently as a compenent of our future economy, and we need to create cultural experiences and facilities that will attract local, national and international audiences. I well remember David Power arguing fervently for the interests of a tavern owner in Coomera, stating that the people in his area had rights to their 'fare share' of pokies. He was serious! I didn't think much of that argument and, with respect, I don't think much of this one either. We need to make a decision as a city. Do we want to become another version of Las Vegas with our hopes and ambitions based on the number of nightclubs and casinos and brothels we can offer, or do we want to celebrate and encourage family values, culture, and being a city of excellence?

Green Left Weekly [9/1/12]:

On 22 May 2007, the British Guardian's front page announced: Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq.

The writer, Simon Tisdall, claimed that Iran had secret plans to defeat United States' troops in Iraq, which included "forging ties with al-Qaeda elements". The coming "showdown" was an Iranian plot to influence a vote in the US Congress.

Based entirely on briefings by anonymous US officials, Tisdall's "exclusive" rippled with lurid tales of Iran's "murder cells" and "daily acts of war against US and British forces". His 1200 words included just 20 for Iran's flat denial.

It was a load of rubbish: in effect a Pentagon press release presented as journalism and reminiscent of the notorious fiction that justified the bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Among Tisdall's sources were "senior advisers" to General David Petraeus, the US military commander who in 2006 described his strategy of waging a "war of perceptions... conducted continuously through the news media".

The media war against Iran began in 1979 when the West's placeman Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, a tyrant, was overthrown in a popular Islamic revolution. The "loss" of Iran, which under the shah was regarded as the "fourth pillar" of western control of the Middle East, has never been forgiven in Washington and London.

In November, the Guardian's front page carried another "exclusive": "MoD prepares to take part in US strikes against Iran". Again, anonymous officials were quoted. This time the theme was the "threat" posed by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

The latest "evidence" was warmed-over documents obtained from a laptop in 2004 by US intelligence and passed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Numerous authorities have cast doubt on these suspected forgeries, including a former IAEA chief weapons inspector. A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks describes the new head of the IAEA, Yukiuya Amano, as "solidly in the US court" and "ready for prime time".

The Guardian's November 3 "exclusive" and the speed with which its propaganda spread across the media were also prime time.

This is known as "information dominance" by the media trainers at the British Ministry of Defence's psyops (psychological warfare) establishment at Chicksands, Bedforshire, who share premises with the instructors of the interrogation methods that have led to a public enquiry into British military torture in Iraq.

Disinformation and the barbarity of colonial warfare have historically had much in common.

Having beckoned a criminal assault on Iran, the Guardian opined that this "would of course be madness".

Similar arse-covering was deployed when Tony Blair, once a "mystical" hero in polite liberal circles, plotted with George W. Bush and caused a bloodbath in Iraq.

With Libya recently dealt with ("It worked," said the Guardian), Iran is next, it seems.

The role of respectable journalism in Western state crimes — from Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan to Libya — remains taboo. It is currently deflected by the media theatre of the Leveson enquiry into phone hacking, which the London Daily Telegraph's Benedict Brogan describes as "a useful stress test". Blame Rupert Murdoch and the tabloids for everything and business can continue as usual.

As disturbing as the stories are from Lord Leveson's witness stand, they do not compare with the suffering of the countless victims of journalism's warmongering.

The lawyer Phil Shiner, who has forced a public inquiry into British military's criminal behaviour in Iraq, says that embedded journalism provides the cover for the killing of "the hundreds of civilians killed by British forces when they had custody of them, [often subjecting them] to the most extraordinary, brutal things, involving sexual acts … embedded journalism is never ever going to get close to hearing their story".

It is hardly surprising that the Ministry of Defence, in a 2000-page document leaked to WikiLeaks, describes investigative journalists — journalists who do their job — as a "threat" greater than terrorism.

In the week the Guardian published its "exclusive" about Ministry of Defence planning for an attack on Iran, General Sir David Richards, Britain's military chief, went on a secret visit to Israel, which is a genuine nuclear weapons outlaw and exempt from media opprobrium.

Richards is a highly political general who, like Petraeus, has worked the media to considerable advantage. No journalist in Britain revealed that he went to Israel to discuss an attack on Iran.

Honourable exceptions aside — such as the tenacious work of the Guardian's Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor — our increasingly militarised society is reflected in much of our media culture.

Two of Blair's most important functionaries in his mendacious, blood-drenched adventure in Iraq, Alistair Campbell and Jonathan Powell, enjoy a cosy relationship with the liberal media, their opinions sought on worthy subjects while the blood in Iraq never dries.

For their vicarious admirers, as playwright Harold Pinter put it, the appalling consequences of their actions "never happened".

On November 24, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the feminist scholars Cynthia Cockburn and Ann Oakley, attacked what they called "certain widespread masculine traits and behaviours". They demanded that the "culture of masculinity should be addressed as a policy issue". Testosterone was the problem.

They made no mention of a system of rampant state violence that has rehabilitated empire, creating 740,000 widows in Iraq and threatening whole societies, from Iran to China. Is this not a "culture", too?

Their limited though not untypical indignation says much about how media-friendly identity and issues politics distract from the systemic exploitation and war that remain the primary source of violence against both women and men.

[First appeared at www.johnpilger.com.]

Australia's corporate regulator has issued an urgent warning to online share traders to upgrade their security after hackers broke into some accounts and used them to buy shares.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) says it is the first time hackers have managed to make transactions on Australian share trading sites.

ASIC says it was during regular surveillance of financial markets that it noticed signs of an intruder, and there is more than one person involved in this operation.

The regulator's head of market supervision, Greg Yanco, says it appears that an accomplice is buying shares at the normal price and then putting them up for sale at an inflated price. The hacked accounts are then used to buy those overpriced shares.

ASIC says it knows of about 12 accounts which have hacked, but only a few have been used for unauthorised transactions.

Stockbrokers Association of Australia policy executive Doug Clark says it is treating this breach as "quite a significant matter".

"It's certainly one that is of concern to the industry because it involves not just access to client information, but also trading directly on client accounts," he said.

Mr Clark says this is the first time he has heard of a breach of this nature.

"I haven't heard of one which involves accessing client information and then trading," he said.

"I haven't heard of one that takes it to the next stage of trading."

The accounts targeted were those that have been dormant for some time, presumably the culprit has been watching and picking targets over time.

Mr Clark says the association does not have the full details, but the ASIC investigation continues.

Mr Yanco has told AM the total amount of money missing is about $200,000.

Though ASIC is leading the investigation, the Federal Police are believed to have been informed.

ASIC is also working with authorities in other countries to try to trace the hackers.

Mr Yanco says the theft should serve as a warning to anyone who trades shares online.

He advises users of online stockbroking accounts to immediately upgrade virus protection software then check their transaction history and change their password.

Two Drivers Killed After Police Pursuit

The Age [21/1/12]:

Two drivers have died in a two-car crash in country Victoria, after one of the cars involved was pursued by police.

Police said the drivers of both cars - both men, believed to be in their 30s - died in the collision, which happened about 9.15am on the Princes Freeway between Moe and Morwell.

A Rural Ambulance spokesman said a 26-year-old woman was trapped in one of the cars and suffered serious injuries including leg, wrist, rib and pelvic fractures.

She was airlifted to The Alfred hospital in a serious but stable condition, the spokesman said.

A police spokeswoman said police were investigating the circumstances surrounding the crash and believed one of the cars was being pursued by officers.

She said the pursuit was terminated before the crash.

The death is believed to be the fifth on Victorian roads involving a police pursuit in the past six months, including one incident earlier this year, in which a young man died in Dandenong.

The deaths bring Victoria's road toll to 17, compared to 11 for this time last year.

Anyone who witnessed the crash is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppers.com.au.

Chemical Spill Sends Six To Hospital

Nine MSN [21/1/12]:

Six Melbourne dock workers have been treated at hospital after a corrosive chemical spill.

The workers had been unloading a cargo ship on Friday evening in the city's industrial ports when a release valve on a giant cylinder was damaged, a fire department spokesman says.

About 200 litres of isopropylamine then pooled onto the ground, forcing the crew to flee to a safe distance.
The liquid, which is extremely flammable and causes severe burns and blindness, was cleaned up in about an hour.

Six workers who were experiencing chest pains and breathing problems were taken to hospital.

A crane and nearly two dozen firefighters were part of the effort to fix the cylinder and clean up the hazardous spill.

Ipswich Garbos Set For Strike Action

Ipswich garbage collectors are set to strike over their dissatisfaction with pay and conditions offered by Ipswich City Council.

The garbos say they will start walking off the job in the middle of next month if they aren't offered a better deal from the council.

The Ipswich City Council enterprise bargaining agreement began last April and waste truck drivers withdrew from negotiations this week.

Craig Williams from the Transport Workers Union said the drivers decided to negotiate their own EBA.

"They are being offered a pay rise of about $1300 but they're going to lose about $900 through loss of entitlements and sick leave and overtime rights," Mr Williams said.

"That would give them a pay rise of about $400 which is about three per cent under the CPI. So if they don't play nice in the next couple of meetings guys are prepared to take industrial action and it will probably happen if nothing can get fixed up over the next couple of weeks.

"We'd probably kick off by having work-to-rule, maybe leave 1000 households a day out there.

"It could escalate into 24-hour strikes where trucks would be off the road and people wouldn't get their bins picked up. I hope it doesn't get that way but it could get that way."

An Ipswich Waste Services driver told the QT he and his colleagues were disillusioned about the negotiations.

"We haven't asked for anything. We just wanted to keep what we've got," he said.

"They're trying to pat us on the back and kick us up the bum at the same time."

Deputy Mayor Cr Victor Attwood, who is part of the council negotiating team, said it reached an in-principle agreement on two new EBAs which will be voted on early next month.

"The unions representing drivers in Ipswich Waste Services requested further meetings with council to continue negotiations and to negotiate a separate agreement," Cr Attwood said.

"Council has agreed to both requests and looks forward to negotiating in good faith a separate agreement to cover drivers engaged in waste collection by Ipswich Waste Services."

Opponents of mining say coal companies are ganging up on them to reopen an Ipswich mine.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner is heading the campaign against the Ebenezer mine reopening and a legal challenge was launched yesterday in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.

Lawyers for community groups opposed to the mine submit Mines Minister Stirling Hinchliffe had no legal right to renew Zedemar Holdings' lease on the mine.Zedemar is in the process of selling the 675-hectare Ebenezer mine and the nearby 9202ha Bremer View coal project to OGL Resources, which plans to reactivate the mine.

Legal representatives for OGL and Zedemar yesterday sought to be respondents to the application to stop the mine before Justice Anthe Philippides.

Justice Philippides will decide whether the two companies can be co-respondents at a hearing on February 17, while a hearing on the application to stop the mine has been scheduled for March 8.

Mr Turner said the wealthy mining companies were "combining against a community made up mostly of battlers, retirees and small farmers".

"These two companies are now siding with the government and taking on the communities of Amberley, Ebenezer and Rosewood, which will be adversely affected by the coal mining," Mr Turner said.

"We believe it's illegal to renew a mining lease when the mine hasn't been operating for almost a decade and there was no community consultation before the Minister made his decision."

Growing confusion surrounds the reason behind Australia Post's decision to close popular services at its Chapple St facility.

Australia Post said in November that it would close over-the-counter services at its Chapple St Business Centre because of "declining customer numbers".

The organisation is standing by that reasoning, but it has now acknowledged the facility's delivery centre, which was crippled by a lack of capacity over Christmas, is being expanded into the space currently occupied by the business centre.

News the business centre area is being used to expand the delivery centre has raised doubt over whether the closure is purely about customer numbers.

Federal Member for Flynn, Ken O'Dowd, said there appeared to be inconsistency in Australia Post's messages.

"I believe the second response (that the space is being used to expand the delivery centre) was a direct result of the number of complaints received over the late delivery of Christmas parcels," Mr O'Dowd said.

"It appears getting a straight answer out of Australia Post is as difficult as receiving your Christmas parcels on time."

In a response to questions from The Observer, an Australia Post representative said: "The Gladstone Delivery Centre will be expanded into the space currently occupied by the business centre to allow us to handle the increased volumes of parcels more efficiently".

"By focusing only on parcel pick-up and bulk mail lodgement services, we believe customer service times (for deliveries) will improve."

A steady stream of customers have expressed disbelief since the organisation said the closure was due to declining customer numbers.

The Observer has asked Australia Post to provide data showing there has been a decline in customer numbers. Australia Post did not respond to that request.

Mr O'Dowd said it was frustrating, as the community's concerns and objections appeared to be falling on deaf ears."This is completely unsatisfactory, keeping in mind the dramatic effect the closure will have on our community."

Christopher Shipman, the son of serial killer Harold Shipman, accepted "substantial" damages after his emails were hacked by the News of the World, the High Court heard.

The now defunct Sunday tabloid illegally accessed sensitive legal, financial and medical information belonging to the eldest son of one of Britain's worst mass murderers.

Mr Shipman was told by police that his messages were intercepted from August 2004, eight months after his father died.

The emails contained details about his "personal and professional life" as well as sensitive information about his father's death and the undisclosed "medical conditions" of his mother, Primrose. Many of the emails were "confidential and privileged communications" between himself and his lawyers.

Mr Justice Vos heard he was so "horrified" at the police's disclosures, he "finds it hard to put into words". On Thursday, he was awarded "substantial" undisclosed damages, plus costs, including aggravated damages, as a result of the hacking.

He joined other well-known names who accepted compensation from the News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers including Jude Law, his former Sadie Frost, Lord Prescott, MP Chris Bryant and rugby player Gavin Henson.

Lawyers confirmed that the number of phone hacking cases settled by the company now stood at 37. The total amount paid out by NI is £645,000. More settlements are expected. NGN offered Mr Shipman, its "sincere apologies ... for the damage, as well as the distress caused to him" by the hacking.

The company is still working to "ascertain the extend of wrongdoing", the court heard. In a witness statement tendered to the court, Mr Shipman told how he declined repeated media requests over a seven-year period in a bid to maintain his privacy.

Between 1998 and 2005 he maintained this stance despite facing "extremely difficult and distressing circumstances which were the subject of worldwide media interest, and which were no fault of his own".

In August last year detectives from Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting told him that his emails had been intercepted by Glenn Mulcaire, the disgraced former private detective, who was paid acting for News Group Newspapers (NGN).

His father, known as "Dr Death", is thought to have killed at least 215 of his patients at the Market Street surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester, with the drug Diamorphine over a two-decade period.

Shipman died in January 2004 after hanging himself in his cell at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire, four years after being jailed for life for 15 murders.

His son was 32 when he died.

His statement, read out by Hugh Tomlinson, QC, said:

"On 15 August 2011 (he) was contacted by Metropolitan police officers from Operation Weeting and told that they had evidence of unlawful interception of his email communications.

"(He) was subsequently shown and provided with copies of emails dated August 2004 which (Mulcaire) had intercepted, together with notes he had made.

"This evidence shows that the defendants had unlawfully obtained the confidential access details to the claimant's email account, including his password, and had accessed his in-box."

The court heard that the emails contained "a range of confidential financial, medical and legal information relating to his personal and professional life and to the lives of his family".

"At no time did (he) ever provide the password to his email account to any other person or waive privilege in any of his communications," Mr Tomlinson said.

"(He) was so horrified to discover that his privacy had been invaded in this manner that he has told me he finds it hard to put it into words."

In December, the court heard, NGN admitted its part in the hacking and that it had entered into an agreement with Mulcaire worth "hundreds of thousands of pounds" to obtain information from specific individuals. Mr Tomlinson said NGN had "accepted liability in this matter for invasion of privacy and breach of confidence and agreed to pay "substantial damages" as well as costs.

Michael Silverleaf, QC, for NGN, told the court that the company offered its "sincere apologies ... for the damage, as well as the distress caused to him by the unlawful interception of his emails and obtaining private and confidential information".

Gavin Millar QC, for private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, stressed his client was not involved in agreeing the wording of the statements and was not a party to them. Mr Shipman, who did not attend court, was unavailable for comment.

The federal government will consider providing extra funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if and when a request is made, says acting Treasurer Bill Shorten.

The IMF says it's aiming to increase its financial firepower by around $US500 billion ($A483.35 billion) so it can give out new loans to help mitigate the worsening financial crisis.

Mr Shorten said Australia had been supporting the IMF for 60 years.

Australia was not immune to what happened overseas and needed to support multilateral institutions, he said.

"In terms of special requests for extra funding, those matters will have to be considered if and when they're made to the Australian government," Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.

"We also repudiate the coalition's negativity when they said there was no way under any circumstances that they thought we should co-operate with increased funding to the IMF.

"They've got to stop saying no.

Flight-Path Fallout Under The Scope

Tweed Shire Echo [19/1/12]:

Air Services Australia has bowed to pressure to undertake a wide-ranging review of the impacts on residents living under increasingly busy flight paths during a sky-high period of growth for Gold Coast Airport (GCAL).

The regulator acted after the airport’s draft master plan predicted 113 planes a day would be landing at the airport by 2030, a sevenfold increase since the flight paths were last re-examined 14 years ago.

The review and its high-stakes outcome is already shaping up as a repeat of the suburban dog-fight which erupted when members of the noise abatement committee (ANACC) gave the green light to a new flight path hierarchy in 1998.

Avalanche of complaints

Fingal Head residents have fired the first shots with an avalanche of complaints to Air Services Australia (ASA) about a recent surge in international airliners throttling skyward just 3,000 feet above their heads.

Residents of South Tweed, Oxley Cove, Banora Point and Kingscliff living under the main southern flight path have recently formed a ‘Fair Go Alliance’ and say it’s time that aircraft noise and fuel pollutants were shared by other suburbs.

ASA is keeping details of the review lowkey, inviting hundreds of residents who’ve joined a GCAL community consultative group to a meeting to discuss the review only 24 hours before the deadline for their submissions closes on February 23.

One ANACC member, Barry Jephcote, said it seemed ASA was trying to keep a lid on a sensitive issue and at one stage set the deadline to expire two days before Christmas until they agreed to his request for an extension.

He says he is critical of ASA and GCAL for not doing enough to inform the public about the upcoming environmental review and the draft airport master plan which includes changes to flight paths north of the airport and an increasing rate of take-offs to the south. ‘The review is the first step in a process which could result in a change in flight paths and consequently a change in property values because of the impacts from noise as well as the chemical pollution,’ he said.

Under existing arrangements, about 70 per cent of aircraft departing the airport head south, with the lion’s share heading over suburbs belonging to the alliance, but Fingal Head has been hit with a sharp increase following the airport’s controversial push into Asia.

No representation

They are demanding that ASA stop all planes from flying over their village immediately, saying they were denied representation when ANACC allowed planes heading to new Asian markets to turn left over Fingal Head in 2001. They cite airport records showing they were encountering only three flights a week in 2001, but by 2010 the number of planes flying over Fingal had grown to 37 a week as new Asian routes opened up.

But Mr Jephcote, the village’s representative on the ANACC, says he needs to weigh the views of other suburbs he also represents, including Kingscliff and East Banora which are opposed to changes to Asian routes.

He says the push by the Fair Go Alliance to spread flight paths would also be resisted for the same reason it was defeated in 1998.

‘Most people who bought homes in these suburbs should have been aware they were under long-established flight paths and it’s unfair to push the burden onto those who paid extra to avoid them,’ he said.

Banora Point’s ANACC representative could not be contacted but part-time member Rod Bates says aircraft numbers using the flight path have trebled in the 12 years since 1998 to 13,300 a year.

‘We feel that because of the growth that’s occurred since the airport was allowed to open up to international flights, that there should be a fairer and more equitable way of sharing the load,’ he said.

ANACC currently has representatives looking after the five designated areas of the Tweed, apart from a vacancy which exists for the vast western part of the shire, which includes the fast-growing suburbs of Bilambil and Bilambil Heights.

Ethiopia Forcing Thousands Off Land: US Rights Group

Reuters [17/1/12]:

Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners destitute and in some cases starving, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

The Horn of Africa state has already leased 3 million hectares - an area just smaller than Belgium - to foreign farm businesses and the U.S.-based rights group said that Addis Ababa had plans to lease another 2.1 million hectares.

The United Nations has increasingly voiced concern that countries such as China and Gulf Arab states are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people.

HRW said that 1.5 million Ethiopians would eventually be forced from their land and highlighted what it said was the latest case of forced relocation in its report "Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship".

"The Ethiopian government under its "villagisation" programme is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare, and educational facilities," HRW said, adding it had interviewed more than 100 people for the report.

"The first round of forced relocations occurred at the worst possible time of year - the beginning of the harvest. Government failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has caused endemic hunger and cases of starvation," it said.

Government officials deny the charge and say the affected plots of land are largely uninhabited and under-used, while it has also launched a programme to settle tens of thousands from the remote province in more fertile areas of the country.

"Human Rights Watch has wrongly alleged the villagisation programme to be unpopular and problematic," government spokesman Bereket Simon told Reuters.

"There is no evidence to back the claim. This programme is taking place with the full preparation and participation of regional authorities, the government and residents," he said.

Ethiopia says its prime intention in leasing large chunks of land is technology transfer and to boost production in a country that has been ravaged by droughts over the past few decades.

Turtles' Fatal Shore

Tweed Daily News [14/1/12]:

Forty dead or dying turtles stranded themselves on beaches between Tweed Heads and Ballina during November-December 2011.

Australian Seabird Rescue's Kathrina Southwell said they were mostly "critically endangered" hawksbill turtles, and the amount was normally representative of a year's strandings. Ms Southwell confirmed National Parks and Wildlife Service Murwillumbah's Lance Tarvey's comments about the problem to the Daily News yesterday.

Mr Tarvey speculated January 2011's floods and Cyclone Yasi may have caused the delayed and tragic consequences.

"All these things affected water quality, and are tied to the death of sea grasses.

"It's a difficult problem to manage if you don't know what's causing it."

Ms Southwell said her organisation had never seen such devastation in its 20 years.

"It would have significantly affected their numbers, and we've never seen so many coming in to care - ever."

She agreed 2011's extreme weather "may have" reduced the hawksbill's major food sources such as sea grass, sponges and crustaceans and led to the staggering losses.

Events over the past few months have taken their toll on the volunteers, many of whom are Tweed-based, Ms Southwell said.

"We've been working very long hours.

"But we've done a few releases in the past few weeks, which is really good for the volunteers to build their morale."

Report nests, turtle and any sea creature strandings to 02 6686 2852 or 02 6670 8603.

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