Shark Vs Crocodile - Croc Wins



The remote Daly River in the Northern Territory is one of the last truly stunning untouched wildernesses left in the world, like most of of the NT. Spend enough time up there, and you you'll see things nobody would ever believe, unless you catch it on camera.

Which is exactly what fisherman Indrek Urvet managed to do, when he saw a huge 13 foot long saltwater crocodile explode out of the river, with a live bull shark in its jaws.

According to this story, Urvet managed to snap off a few unbelievable photos like the one above, before "Suddenly the croc saw me. He turned around and came shooting towards me.”

Mr Urvet, who said that fishermen on the river frequently lost their catch to the bull sharks before they could reel it in, retreated and watched from a safer distance as the crocodile devoured the metre-long shark.

Bull sharks, which grow to 3.5m, are known to be highly aggressive and, unlike other marine sharks, can dwell for extended periods in both fresh and saltwater.

The Northern Territory : you won't believe it, until you see it.

Jamming The Jammed



A new Australian film gets rave reviews from just every film critic who sees it, including two rare four star reviews on The Movie Show, from two of the toughest critics in the land. Reviews claims it deals honestly, and dramatically, with its controversial subject matter, with an excellent script and some of the best performances seen in recent Australian films. It's described as a brilliant, taut thriller, and stars three of Australia's best up-and-coming young actors.

But every Australian film distributor turns down the producers, it is rejected by the Melbourne film festival, even though Melbourne is virtually a character in the movie, and key government funding bodies refuse to kick in even minimal amounts of money to help the producers finish the film and get it ready for distribution.

The film is called The Jammed and last week it was heading straight to DVD.

So why has this film been crushed at almost every turn and kept out of Australian cinemas?

Perhaps it might have something to do with the subject matter it dares to take on :

The sex slave trade and the criminal gangs who kidnap teenage girls to be sold into prostitution.

You'd think film distributors would be falling over themselves to get their hands on a well-made film about such a controversial subject. Controversy generates media coverage, which helps to generate "vibe" and ticket sales.

Hundreds of teenage girls and young women are allegedly smuggled in and out of Australia every year to fill brothels and escort agencies. The worldwide trade, so rarely reported on in any deep, impactful way, sees the lives of thousands of children and young people destroyed every year :

According to the United Nations, Australian is the tenth main destination for victims of trafficking; this kind of fact makes The Jammed all the more disturbing...

Director Dee McLachlan said she was inspired to make The Jammed when read a few years ago about police raids on brothels uncovering women who were being kept as slaves, sex slaves, and traded internationally. Didn't we outlaw slavery almost a century ago?

McLachlan went to the trouble of thoroughly researching her film, The Jammed, from court transcripts, and interviews, and pulls together a cast and crew dedicated to getting the movie made on a low budget, and not one distributor, big or small, or most of the plethora of film development funding bodies, dishing out taxpayers money, are interested in helping?

Nobody's trying to cover up anything here, are they? Because that's exactly what it sounds like.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that one of the key sex slave traders in the movie is not some cliched backstreet grubby thug, but a middle class professional, married with children, with a wife who runs an inner city Melbourne gallery.

Too close to home for some people perhaps?

The good news is that The Jammed is now getting interest from distributors when it was set to go straight to DVD :

The film's executive producer, Andrea Buck, described the superlative reviews as "way better than we could have expected - it felt life-changing. We've dealt for so long with lukewarm, negative responses. To have someone say 'I love your movie' with such passion and conviction is overwhelming."

None of this seemed possible a few days ago, when the film's producers were preparing for last night's low-key premiere at an independent cinema in Melbourne. They secured a modest two-week season - designed to promote the release of a DVD on September 5 - by agreeing to pay the cinema's marketing costs and sharing any profits.

The story of a Chinese mother searching for her missing daughter, it features a cast of up-and-coming young actors including Sydney's Emma Lung, Saskia Burmeister and Sun Park.

Of course, if The Jammed goes on to win awards at international film festivals, and picks up a few at the AFIs, many of those very same distributors and funding body types will be in the media ranting about how fantastic the film is and how they always knew it would do so well.

Regardless, it's good to see such a daring, challenging film looking more likely to get a cinema release sometime soon.

The Jammed Website (Trailer Online)

The Jammed Review From The Movie Show

Interview With Director Dee McLachlan

McLachlan : Why Isn't News About Australia's Prostitution Slave Trade On Page One?

APEC : Sydney To Be Cut In Half By Three Metre High 'Steel Wall' Security Fence

Eight Year Old Children Subjected To Security Checks

Have Your Photo ID Ready If You Want To Cross The Street


The large red lines show the route of the 'steel wall' security fence that will enclose the hotels and conference centres used by world leaders during the APEC summit. No cars will be allowed inside. The blue marks show the gates in the fence where pedestrians can cross, but you may need to produce photo ID to get through, and be subject to body searches.

Apparently it's an honour for Sydney to be chosen to host the APEC conference in three weeks time, bringing together more than 20 world leaders, including US President Bush. But most Sydneysiders are wondering why they couldn't have chosen one of the dozens of luxurious islands of the far north to hold their conference, now the full scope of the staggering security measures that will lock-down half of the city's centre for 10 days are being made public.

A five kilometre long, three metre high security fence will cut Sydney's CBD in half.

You will only be able to enter the lockdown zone on foot, and then only through a small number of gates, manned by some of the 4500 police and thousands more private security guards, secret service and intelligence agents already descending on the city.

You will need to queue at the gates, where your face will be scanned in a live field test of facial recognition technology and assessed by agents for suspicious body language. Police and intelligence agents have been scouring through years of anti-war protests and building up a database of faces that were captured on police and security video.

Nearly everyone who passes through the gates will be searched, have their ID checked and have their handbags and briefcases unpacked.

Once you've produced ID, your name and address will be compared to a long list of suspected 'troublemakers' that the police and intelligence agents have been compiling for months. Everyone who enters the security zone is expected to be photographed, and databased along with their ID information.

Even if you work on the other side of the fence, you can be refused entry without explanation. Should you then choose to make a scene, you may be judged to be a troublemaker and detained, without charge, for the entire length of the APEC summit. If you are charged, you can be denied bail.

There will be buses, converted into mobile prisons by the police, to hold those who the police and intelligence agents deem to be suspicious, or those they want to interrogate further, or submit to full body searches.

Inside the security zone, you will come face to face with police and soldiers carrying machine guns, and if you look to the top floors and rooftops of buildings you might catch a glimpse of the dozens of snipers expected to be in place once President Bush settles into his room at the InterContinental Hotel.

If you watch the skies you will probably see BlackHawk helicopters, surveillance balloons and even jet fighters conducting patrols of the airspace above the city.

Gone from some of the busiest streets of Sydney will be all parked cars, and most other vehicles.

Inside the security zone, even if you are simply enjoying lunch at a cafe with co-workers, you may be singled out for further searches or interrogation. And don't even think about trying to smuggle inside the zone a "Bush Is The World's Number One Terrorist" banner.

Free speech and democratic rights will be suspended inside the security zone.

With an expected 21 world leaders inside the security zone at the height of the summit, it is expected that only people with important business, or security clearance, will be allowed into an inner high security zone, around the hotels housing the leaders, that will swallow up entire blocks of Sydney's central business district.

In preparation for the APEC summit, the staff of dozens of restaurants and hotels were subjected to intense background and security checks.

Even eight year old children, who will be singing at the Opera House, as part of the Sydney Children's Choir, were subjected to security checks and assessments. The good news is none of the children were deemed to be terrorists, or security threats.

During the ten days that the three metre high fence will be in place, or in the process of being constructed, you will need ID to cross city streets that take you inside the fence, however briefly, as part of your journey.

If you want to escape the high security for a quiet lunch in the Botanical Gardens, you will find the three metre high fence cutting right through the heart of the park.

Although the security fence is claimed to be necessary to stop 'terrorists', it will have the added benefit of keeping all protesters hundreds of metres to a kilometre away from the gathering of world leaders, which include Communists, despots, dictators, champions of democracy and war makers. You can decide for yourself who is who.

The NSW police commissioner has made a point of stating that no protesters will get within shouting distance of any of the world leaders.

The NSW government claims the security measures will cost Australian taxpayers more than $170 million, but some estimates place the final costs at more than $300 million.

While some businesses will be mildly compensated for losses incurred during the 10 days of high security, many restaurants and small businesses are expected to lose millions from loss of patronage.

Outside of the city centre, major arterial roads leading to the airport and out to the RAAF base in Richmond, in western Sydney, have been designated 'clearways', which means locals will not be permitted to park outside shops or restaurants in their towns.

Massive delays are expected to further lock up Sydney's already notoriously gridlocked morning and afternoon traffic, as world leaders are shuttled across the city and suburbs in police and secret service motorcades dozens of vehicles long.

President Bush will travel through Sydney in a motorcade compromising of black 4WDs, from which, in the event of an attack, or major security incident, machine gunners will appear through the roofs of the vehicles, firing weapons that can unload more 20 rounds per second.

When the first details of the massive delays and inconveniences caused by the APEC summit were made known, a few months back, Sydneysiders were advised to "get out of town" and take holidays while the world leaders are meeting. A public holiday has been declared in Sydney for Friday, September 7, when the key APEC events are expected to be held.

So if you get stuck in stalled traffic for an hour, or three, or if you're forced off the road driving home from work by a fleet of police cars and limousines, or have a machine gun pointed in your face because you're wearing a 'No More War' badge on the lapel of your suit jacket inside the security zone, just try to remember how much of an honour it is that APEC chose Sydney as the host city for its summit.

Melbourne must be so jealous.

Maybe.

"The Biggest Security Event In Australia's History"

Pedestrians, Present Your Papers Please

Icons Of Sydney Will Be Locked Away Behind Security Fence

Horror In The Outback

Australian Gothic : Movies That Actually Make Money


Huge crocodiles, like this one we photographed last year on the East Alligator River, will star in the new movie, Rogue, from Wolf Creek director Greg McClean.

Some Australians were sickened by the backpacker serial killer flick Wolf Creek, others thought it was kind of funny, and pretty silly. American friends were shocked by the violence and the intense sense of isolation the movie conjured up, but they also said it made them want to visit the outback and see the place for themselves.

They're not alone.

When Wolf Creek was first released a few years back, there was genuine horror amongst tourism industry executives, fearful that the movie would put off tourists and backpackers from visiting Australia, and visiting the arid, remote stretches of the Australian outback in particular.

But the stream of tourists and backpackers hiring dodgy old vans, or renting air-conditioned homes on wheels for a few weeks of hitting the desert highways has actually increased in the past two years.

As terrifying (or funny) as Wolf Creek could get, it also showcased a hauntingly beautiful series of landscapes, barren, empty but dazzling. Why wouldn't tourists want to come and see such places for themselves?

The Australian tourism industry learned its lesson well.

When Wolf Creek director's Greg McClean's follow-up, Rogue, which pits a bundle of tourists caught on a sand island at night against huge and hungry crocodiles churning through the rising waters, hits cinemas across the world in the next few months, there are plans to launch publicity campaigns about the NT, where the movie is set, and Kathryn Gorge in particular, and those dead-eyed, cold-blooded dinosaurs will be the star attraction.

Thanks to the success of Wolf Creek, and the zombie flick Undead, Australian movie-makers are now turning out a string of horror movies and they are being snapped up by international distributors.

Australian horror movies are the rarest of Oz flicks - many of them actually make money and are seen by millions around the world.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Joel Anderson, the writer and director of the supernatural mystery Lake Mungo, puts it starkly: "One of the main reasons that Lake Mungo exists is because of Wolf Creek. That film had a big profile, and it made money, and film always follows money."

"We call what we do 'Australian Gothic'," says Everett DeRoche, a key figure in Australian horror who wrote the scripts for classics such as Patrick (1978), The Long Weekend (1978) and Razorback (1984). The term was coined to describe Razorback, and anyone who has seen this smoky, heavily backlit tale of a giant pig terrorising the outback will understand why. "Australia doesn't have that iconic 'haunted house' that we are familiar with from American movies. But it does have the outback, and people's fear of that, that agoraphobia."

A DeRoche script, Storm Warning, has recently been filmed by the director Jamie Blanks, who is also set to direct a remake of The Long Weekend. The original Long Weekend is a fascinating film, with a central idea of humans disrespecting the environment and suffering the consequences feeling years ahead of its time. Interestingly, DeRoche says the notion of the outback as a spooky place is more prevalent abroad than in Australia, perhaps explaining why his films have proved more popular in the US and Europe than here.

IndiVision, an Australian Film Commission scheme now in its third year, has given a boost to local film production, including the horror genre. The director of the commission's IndiVision Project Lab, Megan Simpson Huberman, explains the thinking: "Amongst a diverse national film slate, we wanted to make more films at a lower budget. This will allow more filmmakers to practise their craft."

One film helped by IndiVision is Black Water, from the first-time writer-directors Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich. Set in crocodile-infested mangrove swamps in northern Australia, it was actually filmed in Gungah Bay on the Georges River.

"There's nothing worse than making a film and no one goes to see it - which has been the case with many recent Australian films," says Black Water's producer, Michael Robertson. The film has been sold to more than 30 countries, and has already recovered its production budget of $1.2 million. It's an effective shocker, featuring three city-dwellers battling for survival against a man-eating croc, and brilliantly taps into that fear of remote Australia.

Lake Mungo, from the writer-director Joel Anderson, has also benefited from the IndiVision scheme. It tells of the drowning death of a 16-year-old girl, how the family copes with the tragedy, and the investigation into subsequent sightings of the girl. A line from the film - "Whenever someone dies, there's always a ghost story never far behind" - sums it up well.

Anderson did not set out to make a genre film, but has enjoyed the opportunities of working within genre. "Australia has often made self-consciously Australian films, which can be inhibiting. Horror movies, though, are really B-movies. If we can inherit the vitality associated with B-movies, then questions of Australian-ness are absorbed into the story. The question takes care of itself."

More Australian horror movies? Yes, please. Anything but another $6 million movie about the grim struggle of junkies in decaying urbania.

We want to feel The Fear. Not fear The Boredom.


The Orstrahyun : Killer Crocodile Flicks Set To Terrify

Watch The Trailer For Rogue Here

Rogue And Black Water - Australian Monster Movies Make A Welcome Return

Drunk Downer Rambles, Slurs On Lateline

Calls Journalists Liars For Accurately Reporting Treasurer's Plot To "Destroy Howard'

So how hammered was foreign minister Alexander Downer during his interview on Lateline last night? About half a glass of Glenfiddich away from slurring whole sentences.

Perhaps he needed to be pissed to go on the ABC and deny that the Treasurer Peter Costello plotted to "destroy" John Howard, when he clearly did, and then dare to accuse one of Australia's most respected political journalists of being a flat-out liar.

Hilariously, Downer actually tried to claim that the Australian public were more likely to believe him and Costello over respected Australian journalists. How much more comprehensively out of touch with their own people could a couple of politicians actually be?

On Lateline, Downer repeated himself so often that host Tony Jones had to intervene to get him back on track. By the end of the interview, Downer was clearly slurring, his thoughts muddled and clouded. He looked ready for another double.

Michael Brissenden of ABC's 7.30 Report is one of the three journalists that both Downer and Costello have now accused of being stone-cold liars. An excerpt from his report on the scandal follows below.

Naturally, the whole scandal comes down to Costello's ceaseless boasting in 2005 that if John Howard didn't step aside and allow for an orderly leadership transition, to Costello, by early 2006, he would bring down Howard, all of which he tries to continue to deny.

Costello told numerous journalists of his plans, back in 2005, and said as much to the writers of a new Howard biography. He even gave a more subtle version in front of television cameras when he tried to encourage the PM to step aside last year.

How stupid do Costello and Downer really think people are? That they would trust either of them, particularly Downer, over the sober reporting of three journalists, who took short hand notes of their conversation with Costello, because it was on the record.

They'll find out soon enough, when the Liberal Party goes down in flames, and torrents of horrid shrieking, at the federal election.

Here's some of Brissinden's report on the fresh and already blood-soaked "I'll Destroy Howard" scandal. It all began with a dinner in early 2005 :

Present at that dinner were journalists Paul Daley, Michael Brissenden, veteran political reporter Tony Wright - then also a Bulletin writer now working with the Melbourne Age, and the Treasurer's press secretary.

The dinner was held on March 5, 2005, where the leadership question had been swirling its way through yet another eddy.

The Treasurer was in an expansive mood.

The three journalists still have the notes of that discussion.

Michael Brissenden says Mr Costello told the group he had set next April 2006 as the absolute deadline - "that is mid-term" for Mr Howard to stand aside.

If not, Mr Costello would challenge Mr Howard.

Mr Costello said a challenge "will happen then" if "Howard is still there".

"I'll do it," Mr Costello said, also saying he was "prepared to go to the backbench".

Mr Costello said he would "carp" at Howard's leadership from the backbench and "destroy it" until he won the leadership.

He says he would do it "because he (Howard) would lose the election".

Mr Costello said he could beat [then Opposition Leader Kim] Beazley but that Howard cannot win "without me".

He said April is the deadline, "then it's on".

The journalists all left the dinner that night with the understanding that the story - as background - could be reported.

The Bulletin planned to splash with the story the next week. The ABC agreed to run the story the night before the magazine was published.

But by 1pm the day after the dinner, the Treasurer had a change of mind.

An agitated press secretary rang pleading for the conversation to be now placed off the record and that the Bulletin pull its report.

Reluctantly, the journalists agreed.

The journalists, however, kept their detailed notes of the meeting, and Costello's bold claims, and have now made them public.

Costello had been caught out in a lie when he was questioned on the quotes by journalists yesterday. So why did he try and deny it?

But he did. Not only did he deny he ever said those words about destroying Howard, Costello tried to disparage the journalists involved :

"You find actually over the years that you get attributed with a lot of things you didn't do and you don't get afforded a lot of things you did do and I must say when I read some of these things, I wonder where the journalists get them from.

"They generally speak to somebody who has spoken to somebody who was down the back of a pub who heard the barman say, and that gradually finds its way into magazines or articles."

The journalists were sitting at a table, with Costello, while he spoke on the record.

Last night Alexander "Tulip" Downer had his drunken try at discrediting the journalists :

...you think the public would believe journalists over Peter Costello, well that's an interesting proposition, by the way.

that's the claim of the journalists and did that happen? No. And they claim that these conversation took place two years ago. I mean, you know, get real. At the end of the day journalists claim something was said two years ago, the Treasurer, who's a man of decency and integrity, has denied it.

Howard, Costello and Downer love to waffle on about their vast experience, and yet they still don't understand that when you're caught out in a lie, the worst thing you can do is try and deny it. Particularly when journalists recorded the lie.

So much for all that experience. And credibility.

Labor will have a field day with this scandal, as they well should.

Another bloodbath on the road to the Howard government's decimation has begun.

1916 : Diggers Were Told To Open Fire On Their Irish 'Cousins'

A little known story of what happened to Australians in Ireland on leave from the Western Front, during World War 1, has emerged. And it's a remarkable, troubling tale :

THE year was 1916. Australian soldiers involved in the brutal fighting on the Western Front had been granted leave and went to Ireland for a break.

But instead of catching up with relatives and resting up, the Australian troops found themselves reluctantly pressed into more action by the British — to help crush the Easter Rebellion in Dublin.

Some of the Anzacs involved in this little-known episode were Gallipoli veterans prized by the British for their sharp-shooting skills.

One group was ordered onto the roof of Dublin's Trinity College to snipe at Irish dispatch riders delivering messages to the the headquarters of the rebels, whose leaders included Michael Collins.

Barrister and historian Jeff Kildea has researched the episode and described the colonial soldiers' dilemma in a new book, Anzacs and Ireland..

"For soldiers who enlisted to fight Germans, it was not a happy time," Mr Kildea said.

These veterans of Gallipoli went to Ireland on leave but found themselves once again in battle, he said. "(They were) given a rifle and, in effect, told to shoot their Irish 'cousins'."

...when the fighting erupted in Dublin, many of the soldiers on leave were rounded up by British officers in hotels and clubs and at the local railway station and had rifles thrust back into their hands.

Mr Kildea found the diary of Private Davis, who described how the soldiers made the best of a bad job — "but we would prefer to be anywhere but this unenviable city".

Davis and a friend were ordered to join 70 men taking arms and ammunition to Dublin Castle and described how a volley of rifle shots rained down on the party from buildings the rebels occupied. "Around us bullets pinged and broken glass clattered onto the footpath.

"The horses bolted and vanished into the darkness and the troops did likewise."

The British military aristocracy of the World War I era saw little difference between Australian diggers and Irish revolutionaries. They were all just human pawns for them to pit against their enemies, or in this case, each other.

No doubt amongst the Diggers in Ireland there were those who refused to kill their Irish 'cousins' and those who were threatened with a bullet to the head from British sergeants for refusing to obey orders.

Those who ran away didn't necessarily do so simply because they were scared.

Is This How The Flu Pandemic Begins?

Virulent Flu Epidemic Fills Australian Hospitals


UPDATE : ABC News Australia has reported this evening that a 29 year old woman and her five year old child have died from suspected bird flu in Bali in the past week. A two year old girl, from the same small Balinese village, has been hospitalised with bird flu symptoms.

A two year old Sydney boy is believed to be the latest victim of the deadly Influenza A virus.

Below is one of the absolute nightmare scenarios for the hundreds of doctors, scientists and medical specialists in Australia who've spent the past three years preparing for an influenza pandemic in Australia :

An Indonesian travels to Bali for holidays, or business. They feel a bit under the weather on the short flight to Bali, but not enough to visit a doctor, or a hospital, when they arrive in Denpasar.

Within days of arriving in Bali, they fall seriously ill, high fever, lungs rapidly filling with fluid. By the time they get to a hospital, it's too late. The next morning, the person is dead. Tests confirm that the person died from the bird flu virus, and the media carries stories about huge numbers of chickens dying from the virus in the dead Indonesian's hometown.

In the three or four days before the person died in Bali, they moved through dense, tourist packed beachside suburbs, like Kuta, coming into contact with people from all over the world.
One of those tourists was a young Australian from Queensland.

Before he left for his holiday, the Australian had been feeling terrible, like many of his friends and co-workers, he had been struck down by a particularly virulent influenza virus. Not wanting to cancel his holiday, and miss all the fun, he loaded up on Codrals and made his flight. In Kuta, still feeling rundown and bone sore from the influenza, the Australia walks past the H5N1-infected Indonesian, who sneezes in the Australian's vicinity.

The Australian tourist inhales some of the sneeze cloud of H5N1-dusted moisture from the Indonesian. Inside the Australian's lungs, or in his throat, the H5N1 virus meets Influenza A. They breed, they mutate, they swap genes, becoming an easily transmissible version of the bird flu virus.

On the flight home, after a week's holiday in Bali, the Australian is feeling really, really sick. He just wants to get home and get to bed. He sneezes on the plane, into his hands, then staggers to the toilet, touching seats and surfaces along the way, looking for privacy to give his nose a good blow.

Other passengers heading to Australia breathe in his bird flu-infected sneeze droplets, or touch the same chairs and surfaces that he touched, leaving behind the virulent virus which can now survive outside the human body for hours, perhaps even days.

Other passengers rub their tired eyes, after touching the seats the sick tourist touched, and the bird flu virus infects them, too.

When the plane from Bali arrives back in Sydney, the passengers split up for flights on to Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, the United States, England, Germany. Dozens of people on the flight picked up the H5N1-Influenza A hybrid virus and will be sick, and close to death, within days. But before they are sick enough to require isolation, or treatment with anti-virals, they will each come into vicinity or personal contact with hundreds of people. The now easily transmissible bird flu virus spreads across the world.

Back in Australia, the human bird flu pandemic is already underway. Within 10 days, a few dozen will have died from the virus. Within a month, the fatalities will top a few hundred. Within two months, a few thousand. By the time, the deadly viral spread is called a pandemic, tens of thousands of Australians have become infected, if not hundreds of thousands.

That's the kind of realistic 'what if?' scenarios that helped to shape the planned response by federal and state government and health agencies to potential human bird flu infections in Australia, and what steps would be taken to contain the spread of H5N1, and to disable as much as possible the growth of a bird flu pandemic.

Here's a round-up of news relating to the above, from today's headlines :

Australian health officials are on the alert amid fears a fatal strain of bird flu may have spread to Bali, after the deaths of a woman and her daughter on the holiday island.

Doctors are awaiting results of tests on a woman and her daughter, who are believed to have been killed by the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus on the Indonesian resort island.

In Australia, a spokeswoman for the Federal Department of Health and Ageing said the "situation is being closely monitored".

From Reuters :

Samples from an Indonesian woman who died on Sunday on the resort island of Bali have tested positive for bird flu after an initial test, officials said on Monday.

A second laboratory test, which is now being conducted, is necessary to confirm the initial findings, Joko Suyono of the health ministry's bird flu centre said.

The woman, 29, from a village in the district of Jembrana in western Bali, was suffering from a high fever before dying of multiple organ failure, said Ken Wirasandi, a doctor at the Sanglah hospital in the Balinese capital Denpasar.

Suyono said there had been sick chickens around the woman's house and many had died suddenly in recent weeks.

"The villagers didn't burn the carcasses. Instead they buried them or fed them to pigs," Suyono added.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the H5N1 virus.

The woman had started showing symptoms more than a week ago, but was only admitted to hospital six days later.

From the Courier Mail, under the headline 'Killer Flu Claims Another Two Lives' :

Another two adults, both in their 30s and both from Queensland, have died after developing flu-like symptoms.

Queensland's Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young will hold a news conference at 3.30pm.

The deaths follow those of a four-year-old boy and 37-year-old father-of-three Glen Kindness in Queensland in the past two weeks after they developed influenza A.

Premier Peter Beattie said today the Queensland Government would make its stockpile of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu available to ensure everyone who needed the drug would have access to it.

The Premier said he would be asking Prime Minister John Howard to follow Queensland's lead to provide stocks of Tamiflu from the national stockpile to residents of aged homes.

Releasing Tamiflu to cope with an Influenza A epidemic is not unusual, but because the threat of a bird flu pandemic is so real, and so possibly devastating, there is a reluctance to use limited stocks of anti-virals to fight the yearly outbreaks of influenza.

Mr Beattie may be acting with caution, fearing further deaths, or he may be aware of information not yet made public, from which he shaped his decision to dig into the Tamiflu stockpile and to ask the prime minister to do the same.

While the latest deaths of children and people under 40 years old from Influenza A are making headlines, the media has dropped all references to the already high death toll the influenza epidemic has clocked up so far, as this report from July 22, in Sydney's Daily Telegraph details :

AT least 150 elderly Sydneysiders have died from the most serious flu outbreak to hit the city in four years. The victims have all died this month after suffering complications, mainly pneumonia, caused by the influenza A virus, a Health Department report reveals.

Babies and young children have also been hard hit. Hundreds have required specialist treatment in hospitals.

Although the elderly are particularly at risk in winter, he said the full extent of cases was not known as many people did not seek medical treatment for the influenza A virus.

At Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, the number of youngsters at the emergency department with viral infections has soared by 200 per cent compared to last year.

Respiratory illnesses have risen by 70 per cent.

Doctors in Sydney held an urgent teleconference with West Australian colleagues last week following the death of a fourth child there.

So severe and prevalent are the cases of influenza A and bronchiolitis that babies such as seriously ill Liam Wolthers had to be placed in an adolescent ward until a bed became available at the Randwick hospital.

What began as a runny nose quickly escalated to breathing difficulties. He was rushed to hospital where he required oxygen for six days.

Dr Adam Jaffe, head of the respiratory department at Sydney Children's Hospital, said there had been a peak in cases of bronchiolitis and viral pneumonias compared to previous years.

In WA, doctors are desperately trying to discover the reasons behind the four child deaths.

The media is now focusing primarily on the deaths of children from Influenza A. Why have they dropped all references to the figure cited above of more than the 150 elderly people who have died in the past few months?

MORE TO COME...


Balinese Believed To Have Fed H5N1 Infected Chickens To Pigs - Bird Flu Experts Horrified

Go Here For The Latest News From The Bird Flu Blog

Australia Prepares To Withdraw Troops From Iraq

Howard Tries To Blackmail Maliki Government

Pass Contentious Oil Law Now So Australian Energy Giants Can Feast On Iraq's Oil-Rich Future

Facing political obliteration at the November federal elections, prime minister John Howard is preparing the Australian public, and the media, for an announcement, within weeks, that Australia will withdraw most of its combat troops from Iraq in the first half of 2008. After the election.

John Howard spoke with US president George W. Bush during the week and apparently got the okay to begin talking up an Australian troop withdrawal.

The conditions for Australian troops to stay on in Iraq are impossible for the Maliki government to achieve and Howard knows it :

"...prompt, concrete measures are needed not only to secure Iraq's future, but also to ensure regional stability and continued constructive international engagement".

The opening sentences in the story published in today's issue of 'The Australian' are remarkable for displaying the utter disrespect and contempt with which Howard now views the democratically elected government of Iraq. The threatening nature of Howard's letter to Maliki is clear :

John Howard has demanded the Iraqi Government make faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences...

In the letter, Mr Howard urges Mr Maliki to move decisively on political reconciliation within Iraq, and outlines a number of measures he should take.

Naturally fast-tracking the vastly unpopular new Oil Law is one of the chief "measures" Howard demands Maliki get sorted. Now. Or face troop withdrawals. It's almost blackmail.

If the Maliki government actually cared.

Iraqi government ministers who don't laugh out loud at this will just be insulted.

Prime Minister Maliki and senior ministers of his government said earlier this year that Australian troops were not essential to Iraq's security, and they could be withdrawn at any time.

While the Oil Law is meant to see a greater sharing of the pre-war level oil revenues amongst the majority Shia, the Kurds and Sunnis, it will also allow great swathes of Iraq's oil infrastructure to be handed over to foreign-owned oil corporations, including Australian oil giants, whose investment is needed to repair all those pipelines and refineries handily targeted by insurgents, or outside agents, and degraded by almost a decade of crippling sanctions.

Sanctions that were backed heartily by the Howard government, while simultaneously turning many blind eyes to the shockingly corrupt bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars handed over to Saddam Hussein by the Australian Wheat Board from the late 1990s up until just before the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.

Howard's letter "demands" Maliki get his political shit together. The "demands" are mostly for the benefit of his Australian audience. Which is why the supposedly "Top Secret" letter from Howard to Maliki was leaked to The Australian's Greg Sheridan.

From Sheridan's story :

The top-secret letter was transmitted electronically to the Australian embassy in Baghdad and hand-delivered to Mr Maliki's office by the Australian ambassador to Iraq, Mark Innes Brown. The hard copy was later sent in a secure diplomatic bag.

So how did Greg Sheridan get his hands on it? Did he crack the electronic encryption of a diplomatic cable? Or did he run a pen scanner over the letter before it was tossed into the embassy mail bag?

Sheridan recently shed his last claims to credibility when he wrote lengthy, swirly tributes in his newspaper for disgraced NeoCon warpigs Paul Wolfowitz and 'Scooter' Libby. Naturally, he forgot to mention the extent of Wolfowitz and Libby's lies and propaganda in the pre-Iraq war hard sell period.

Sheridan is still good, however, for launching election-positive propaganda campaigns on behalf of his good friends John Howard and Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.


Of course, Howard will likely choose to announce his new "cut and run" policy before the election, with the proviso that "events on the ground" in Iraq would determine the actual date for the troop withdrawals to begin. This would allow Howard to say before the election that he is withdrawing combat forces from Iraq, quelling another massive voter negative, and then change his mind and keep the troops in Iraq, by claiming security needs demand the troops to remain, if he somehow manages to win the election.

The proviso in Howard's own words :

"Our military commitment (is based) not on a timetable but on security conditions and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces."

But it's not all grim. Howard tried for some outright humour in the Maliki letter. Minus the irony :

Mr Howard warns that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable.

Some 70% of Australians opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and more than one million Australians marched against the war in hundreds of events around the nation. More than 500,000 people filled Sydney's centre during a march in February, 2003, and in some small Australian towns, more than two-thirds of the entire population turned out for anti-war rallies.

Howard responded to the unity of the Australian public's demands for a non-violent approach to the problems in iraq, and the involvement of thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam war veterans in the marches, by claiming they all were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

The same dictator who, as we noted above, was being propped up at the time by the delivery of duffel bags from Australians stuffed with millions of dollars in cash, that Howard somehow didn't bother to notice, even though diplomatic and military phone lines ran hot for years with the news that the Howard government was allowing Saddam Hussein to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. Dozens of memos and letters warning him of the AWB bribery corruption crossed Howard's desk. He claims he saw not one such letter or memo.


There are other factors figuring into Howard's decision to withdraw Australian troops. They are needed back home to deal with local problems, primarily.

East Timor, where the Fretilin party won the majority of votes, but was stripped of its parliamentary power by a UN-backed presidential appointment, looks set to spend 2008 struggling with a low-level insurgency. Australia has to provide security in order to gets its big fat slice of East Timor's oil and gas reserves, despite the fact that the East Timorese people are some of the poorest in the world. If Australia doesn't provide security, no billions in oil and gas revenue will come our way.

Also, by mid-2008, the NeoCon propaganda campaign to rally support for attacks on Iran will have reached its climax, with strikes on Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure looking more likely by the week. If Australian troops are in Iraq when US-Israel strikes on Iran commence, they will become key targets of Shia militias and terrorists.

By admitting that he fears Australian will vote him out of office over the Iraq War, Howard has acknowledged that he really does use the Australian military like political pawns, and is prepared to "cut and run" and "abandon Iraq to terrorists" - to quote foreign minister Alexander Downer.


In recent months, Howard has been forced to limit his media-heavy tours of Australian military facilities due to growing disapproval and dissent amongst both senior and junior ranks. The rumour runs in a number of military family heavy communities that some army bases have refused, outright, to provide meet-and-greet walls of green for Howard during the election campaign. If he wants to visit, fine, but no media in tow.

Some 1500 Australian soldiers are now in Iraq, including 500 combat troops.

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has already committed to withdrawing Australia's combat troops, and states the Labor position clearly on a recently launched website :

...we want a phased withdrawal of our combat troops from southern Iraq, in consultation with our allies and the Iraqi government. This would be part of a broader diplomatic effort to urge opposing Iraqi factions to resolve their political differences and end the civil war.

In conjunction with Howard's plans to announce "phased" troop withdrawals from Iraq, expect to see the spread of a new soft propaganda campaign from Howard, his ministers and his media supplicants on why Iraq has gone to hell :

"It's all Iran's fault."


Naturally, this will echo the current BushCo. and NeoCon anti-Iran propaganda campaigns. President Bush's office has probably already e-mailed the list of talking points to Howard and Downer. Who will, of course, then pass them onto handy journalists like Greg Sheridan at The Australian.


John Howard Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Alexander Downer Hit Up Washington And Baghdad For BHP Iraq Oil Riches Only Weeks After Iraq War Began

Dec. 2006 : Stunning Drop In Australians' Support For Iraq War - Half Demand Troop Fast Troop Withdrawal

January 2007 : War Weary Nation Ready To Drive Howard From Office Over Iraq

Howard's $200 Million War On The Internet

Porn, Violence, 'Terror' And Social Networking Sites In Firing Line

Prime Minister John Howard has announced a war to "clean up" the internet. With a proposed budget of almost $200 million, and plenty more to come, Howard's internet war will be one of the most expensive programs in the world to filter, censor and screen internet users and content.

Howard used an internet-televised speech to some 100,000 Christians to launch his war, claiming he wanted to help parents to protect their children from unseemly content and online predators.

Oh, and he also wants to block and/or ban "terror" and "violent" websites :

Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter and the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source. Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child predators, and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered.

Last night, as Mr Howard talked about Christianity and family values, he revealed the government plan to upgrade the protection for families from internet pornography, violence and sexual predators.

As well as practical tools to help families put internet pornography beyond the reach of children, the Government will form partnerships with leading computer providers in upgraded steps to block porn sites and detect predators using popular websites such as MySpace and Facebook to contact children.

Of the $189 million, $43million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the AFP and establish a working group to find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators.

A "black list" drawn up by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which covers Australia-based pornographic and terror sites, will be expanded internationally after consultation with the Attorney-General. The AMCA will also receive 14 additional internet regulators.

Behind the clearly good intentions of stopping online predators and children from being exposed to pornography and violence, there will likely be second and third waves of content control connected to Howard's war on the internet.

------------------------
More blogs by Darryl Mason

Latest News From 'Your New Reality'

Latest News From 'Planet Of Strange Things'

Latest News From 'The Fourth World War'

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The Howard government's plans to roll out broadband across the nation provides them with the opportunity to do what China, Iran and other countries have tried to do : block content they don't like, or that they deem dangerous, or threatening, or even too dissenting.

The Australian anti-terrorism laws has already led to the banning of books and DVDs that are claimed by the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, to "glorify" and advocate terrorism.

That the Howard government wants to do the same across all internet content reaching Australians is hardly a secret.

But the definitions of what constitutes 'terror' or 'glorification' of violence are broad and open to vast interpretation.

The Tamil Tigers and Hamas are classed as 'terrorist' groups by the Australian government. But does that mean Australians would be blocked from reading their press releases online, or visiting their websites?

Columnist Tim Blair's blog has allowed thousands of comments from readers, over the past three years, discussing ways they think politicians, community leaders and even actors and musicians and Muslim taxi drivers should, could or can be killed and tortured. Would the blog of Tim Blair, opinion editor for the Daily Telegraph, fall under such anti-violence, anti-intolerance and anti-terror related bans on internet content?

Or would it just be those of Islamic extremists discussing terror and violence?

Would future bans on religious intolerance or 'hate speech', both of which the Howard government are considering, apply to all religions?

Or what about the blog of Herald Sun opinionist Andrew Bolt?

In a post today about a New York Times blog where readers were invited to concoct terror attack scenarios on America, Bolt's commenters said the New York Times should be bombed or that journalists should be killed. Clearly such comments are said in jest, but could they also be deemed to be advocating both violence and terrorism? Would Andrew Bolt's blog then be subjected to filtering regimes and bans on its content, and comments?

We also covered the New York Times blog on thinking up terror attacks on the United States over at Your New Reality. Would the New York Times blog post, and Australian websites discussing such a post and open discussion among commenters fall under anti-terror and anti-violence censorship and content control?

To take but one example of successful historical terrorism, the Zionist Irgun group launched dozens of terror attacks on Arab civilians, and army bases and hotels filled with British nationals in Palestine in the late 1930s and the 1940s, killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people. There are numerous websites that openly praise the Irgun terrorism that helped lead to the establishment of the state of Israel. Would such websites be blocked from the eyes of Australian internet users because they glorify and justify the use of terrorism?

Or will bans and blocks only apply to groups advocating and justifying terrorism in the current 'War on Terror'? And what about state-sponsored terrorism?

As with any censorship, particularly censorship of new media, the slippery slope is easy and tempting to climb onto, particularly under the positive auspices of blocking online predators and children's exposure to pornography. When told technology exists to control and censor internet content, control freaks like John Howard are easily tempted.

But once the 'Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?' argument has been used to break down public objections, where do such controls on content, and outright censorship, stop?


'Terror' Books, Video Games And Movies To Be Banned Under Extraordinary New Censorship Law

Books, Movies, Videos Games That Glorify War Won't Face Ban Under New Censorship Laws

Downer Rattled By 17 Year Old's Questions On Climate Change

Aggressive Politician Verbally Attacks Teenager


You can read a blog here to learn more about the Australia-Korea Energy Forum, which brought together Australian and Korean students to talk climate strategy, and saw them visiting Kakadu, and the Ranger Uranium mine, amongst their many adventures. They then winged it back to Canberra for the Talkback Classroom debate, which resulted in Alexander Downer making a complete fool of himself, and allegedly directing unsavoury comments towards the Korean students and the insistent questioner Alex Meekin.

Climate classroom debater, and student, Tina Pahlman explains what happened during the 'Alexander Downer Incident' :

...we didn't ask everything we wanted to and Mr Downer tended to speak far too much on things other then our direct questions----we never mastered the cut in technique...but all in all I think the audience was engaged we had Downer on the edge of his seat and we raised some important issues...

What a sad, pathetic man Alexander Downer is.

From news.com.au :

Age is no protection when Alexander Downer is in a combative mood.

ACT student Alex Meekin got a taste for the thrust and parry of political life when he took the foreign minister to task over climate change during a session of Talkback Classroom at the National Museum of Australia today.

The Narrabundah College student was part of a panel grilling Mr Downer on energy and raised the minister's ire on a number of issues.

Mr Downer at first batted the tricky questions away, diplomatically sidestepping whether he agreed with climate change sceptics in the Government like Finance Minister Nick Minchin.

Mr Downer's tolerance started to slip when the 17-year-old asked about the moral imperative involved in addressing climate change, suggesting there had been similar economic arguments against ending slavery 200 years ago.

"We're not trying to have some sort of polemic debate," the minister said.

...when Alex questioned whether Australia could have much impact given its refusal to ratify Kyoto, Mr Downer hit back: "It sounds like your questions come from a familiar source".

"A source I'm very familiar with, I'd say they've written them well for you," the minister said, suggesting he thought the questions were supplied by Labor.

Talkback classroom producer Stephen Cutting said the students had been briefed by a variety of sources, including Mr Downer's office, Labor, the federal parliamentary library, business and industry.

"I think comments like that underline the effectiveness of how these kids learn the issues, they've met with many experts, they've been briefed by everybody including Mr Downer's own office," he said.

Downer refused to answer genuine questions from concerned teenagers. Teenagers concerned about how climate change will impact on their lives and the lives of their future children. They wanted to know if Downer's government are really committed to trying to control the growth of global warming. They wanted to know if Downer, as foreign minister, accepted the reality of climate change.

The students wanted straight answers, but Downer refused to answer. He didn't "bat" the questions away. He refused to answer them.

Instead, Downer tried to smear a 17 year old as a Labor stooge, and accused him of not writing his own questions.

Downer owes Alex Meekin, and the other students, an apology. And he still owes them truthful answers to their very valid questions.

So just how paranoid is Alexander Downer these days? Utterly.

Few Australians know how widely disrespected Alexander Downer is on the world diplomatic stage. Particularly in Asia. Diplomats can often be seen rolling their eyes or laughing to themselves when Downer enters a room. Others visibly tense up in his presence, or grit their teeth in grim smiles.

Downer is widely viewed as rude, impertinent and absolutely arrogant. He bullies Pacific nation leaders, and dismisses the concerns of Central and South East Asian leaders over Australia's involvement in the BushCo. missile defence shield, all the while demanding they do more to "fight terror".

Prime minister John Howard is not the only Liberal federal politician now shifting into meltdown mode after seven months of appalling polls. Downer has become a snow man in the sunlight.

Downer's woeful performance at the students' debate is another in a long string of embarrassing public spectacles, including his recent appearance on Lateline, where he was clearly drunk, slurring, and repeating himself.

Really, what sort of federal politician can't take a few hard questions from a 17 year old student without starting to whine, sulk and then go on the attack?

The sort of politician that is increasingly sad and pathetic and knows he will soon lose his job.

The sort of politician that is Alexander Downer.

There will be many a loud cheer sounding in embassies and parliaments across South East Asia when they learn, after the election, that they no longer have to tolerate Downer in order to keep up good relations with Australia.


Downer On Lateline : Drunk, Slurring, Repeating Himself

December, 2006 : Downer Expresses 'Sympathy', Then Urges Fijians To Stage Resistance Against Well-Armed Military

Downer Okays Uranium Sales To India - Formation Of Asia Pacific Alliance To Contain China Moves Closer To Reality

Downer And Howard Spattered By 'The Blood Of Iraqis' In Cartoonist's Christmas Card

The Final Nail In Howard's Political Coffin

Interest Rates Hit 10 Year High

Journalists Laugh At Howard's Excuses During Press Conference

"Rising interest rates dominates everything else when it comes to family security. Just a tiny upward movement in interest rates more than devours a few dollars of taxation relief..."

John Howard, September, 2004

The above image is a screen grab from a TV ad the Howard government ran for weeks during the 2004 federal election campaign. More than $100 million of taxpayers' dollars were spent pumping this, and other messages, in a fear-based campaign to convince Australians that if they voted for Labor Party, they would see the economy plunged into turmoil. Their wages would fall, inflation would increase, interest rates would rise and their mortgage payments would soar.

There was nothing subtle about anything connected with the 'Low Interest Rates' ad campaign. The Howard government would keep interest rates at "record lows". Vote for Labor and it will cost you, and your family.

Today, the Reserve Bank decided to raise interest rates for the fifth time since the 2004 election.

The average Australian family will now have to find yet another chunk of money from rapidly depleting household funds to meet their mortgage payments. For more than a million families, already suffering 'mortgage stress', this latest increase in interest rates will destroy their already meager household budgets :

Homeowners were dealt more mortgage pain today with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lifting interest rates to a 10-year high, amid rising inflation.

Most economists expected the increase which saw interest rates rise by 25 basis points to 6.50 per cent, the highest they've been since November 1996.

Interest rates up, inflation up. The Howard 'Plan' promoted in 2004 lies in tatters.

Voters believed Howard would "keep interest rates low" and he has clearly failed to do so.

The Howard government knew this was coming. Their early reaction? Blame the states. Almost every Australian financial institution and credible economist who has commented so far on the 'Blame The States' claim has dismissed it as worthless garbage :

This week, the Federal Government blamed state government debt for putting upward pressure on interest rates but economists say strong economic growth and Treasurer Peter Costello's latest tax cuts are more likely to have fuelled inflation, paving the way for a rise.

ANZ chief economist Saul Eslake said there was little connection between state government borrowing and interest rates.

"It's true state governments will be borrowing money over the next four years but there's very little historical evidence between government borrowing and the cash rate," he said.

"It's political propaganda. It's not economic analysis."

And Howard's personal reaction? He continues his absurd and irrelevant claims that interest rates are still lower than they were at their highest during the Keating government in the early 1990s.

Pathetic, and downright insulting to every Australian family who now have to ind another $50, $80 or $100 a month to hold onto homes. The Australian public no longer buy this line of spin from Howard, or from the Treasurer, Peter Costello, though they are both likely to keep pumping it.

The latest interest rates rise should prove to be the final nail in Howard's political coffin.


UPDATE : Tim Dunlop, at Blogocracy, unearths the mother of all Howard quotes from his "Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?" period in 2004. Open mouth, insert both feet :

"My friends, we all prize the financial security of our families. Let me say this, and it’s not just my view, but it’s a view frequently expressed to me as I move around this country talking to Australian families. Nothing threatens that security more directly than the prospect of rising interest rates. Rising interest rates dominates everything else when it comes to family security. Just a tiny upward movement in interest rates more than devours a few dollars of taxation relief or additional family benefits. There is no economic credential for office more crucial than a capacity to keep interest rates low."

It's almost unfair how easy it is for Labor to use Howard's own words to crucify him now. Howard was told by key advisers prior in the build-up to the 2004 federal election to tone down the "keeping interest rates low" talk, because they knew it would come back to haunt him, and the Liberals in general. Consider them to be now well and truly haunted.


UPDATE : Matt Price reports that during the joint Howard-Costello press conference held an hour after the interest rate rise was announced :

For the first time I can remember, press gallery members began laughing during a Prime Ministerial answer.

A Canberra source tells us that journalists are already trying to find ways to avoid having to join the 'Howard Bus Of Hope', or whatever it will be called, during the election campaign.

It appears most of the Canberra press gallery have already decided Howard will lose, and they want to hang out with much younger, much more fun, Kevin Rudd crew.

As Howard's Hope Bus winds through drought-devastated rural Australia, and Howard finally realises that he blew it, that he missed his chance to go out on top, and that he will be forever remembered as a loser, it won't be a cheery team to be spending any kind of time with.

Let alone a month or more.

It'll be like a 40 day long wake, without the free booze.

We're still betting that Howard will delay the election until February or March, 2008, or cancel it altogether, in the event of a national emergency.


Howard's "Who Do You Trust?" Line On Interest Rates Will Haunt Him All The Way To Election Day

The Reality Of Interest Rates

Statement From The Reserve Bank Governor

Economists Grim Warming : Expect Another Interest Rate Rise, And Soon

For Sale Signs Go Up All Over Sydney

Jet Fighters Equipped With Eye-Blinding Lasers Target Cars

'Class Four Lasers' Used In Fighters Also Listed As 'Laser Cannons'


The Australian Air Force claims it had a bit of a problem with its F/A-18 jet fighters during a training exercise on the North Coast. For almost a minute the fighters targeted cars at an intersection outside of Forster with laser beams strong enough to permanently blind the unfortunates who got in their way :

The pilots thought their laser targeting system was turned off for the training flight. Unfortunately it wasn't and the powerful light beams, known as class four lasers, were shone twice on to a road intersection for a total of 43 seconds.

The lasers used by Hornet fighters as target designators are the most powerful laser beams used by the air force.

While the likelihood of injury is rare, the powerful beams of compressed light have the potential to damage the retina permanently. According to the department, the symptoms of laser damage would be easy to recognise and investigate. If exposure had occurred symptoms would include glare, dazzle, a sudden bright flash (similar to a camera flash), and potentially pain and watering.

"Blurring and loss of vision may also be experienced. This could be temporary or permanent," the department said. "Visual changes would depend on amount and location of injury; small changes may not be obvious without specialist eye assessment."

Big changes however would be obvious. You'd be blind.

The incident happened back in mid-May. So why has the RAAF come clean in a press release with no prodding from journalists? Has there been an outbreak of sudden blindness amongst locals on the North Coast?

Or is there something just a bit more sinister to this story?

This page on laser safety makes 'class four lasers', as cited in the above story, sound more like a focused light energy weapon than simply a jet fighter's targeting tool :

Class 4 lasers are harmful to eyes and skin, even diffuse reflections are hazardous. Class four lasers may also present a fire hazard. (Examples: laser welding machines, laser canons)

That laser safety page also says that even being in the vicinity of an activated laser as powerful as a 'class four' can be very unhealthy, even if it's not burning through your retinas.


More on Ray-Gun Reality and lasers as weapons of war here.

And a story on how airborne lasers can track missiles in flight, and even one day be used to destroy them...maybe.


If the headline above sounds a wee bit tabloid-esque, it's because we've just finished writing a lengthy tribute to the infamous Weekly World News, which is closing after almost three decades, over at Planet Of Strange Things. We fear dipping into the WWN archives may have rubbed off a bit tonight. Goodbye Bat Boy.

The Changing Climate Of Andrew Bolt

Betrayed By Murdoch Over Global Warming, The Bolter Now Pulls His Punches

By Darryl Mason

Andrew Bolt, of Melbourne's Herald Sun, and a self-titled blog, finds himself in an interesting and career-stalling quandary. For a few years now Bolt has found great success in railing against the occasionally exaggerated predictions of climate change activists, and has filled hundreds of columns and blog posts with demands that the "debate" over global warming be more balanced.

How balanced?

For almost a year, Bolt demanded that the theory that solar activity be considered as responsible for climate change, instead of human generated carbon emissions. Let's just say the 'Blame The Sun' theory hasn't exactly set the scientific world on fire, particularly after the hopeless documentary that Bolt championed, The Great Global Warming Swindle, got an airing on Australian TV.

Bolt simply didn't believe that global warming of the kind promoted by scientist Carl Sagan in the mid-1990s was a reality, and often barked about it all being a huge scam, a cult, a new religion.

Bolt still rails against climate change true believers. Well, sort of. Then again, not really. He's now clearly lost his enthusiasm for the battle against the generally accepted truth that climate change is real.

There's a bevy of very simple reasons for why Bolt has toned down his attacks on all those who accept the reality of global warming induced climate change. John Howard backs it as policy shaping fact, as does President Bush, and virtually every major world leader. But most important of all, Bolt's own boss, Rupert Murdoch, backs climate change reality so devotedly he is reshaping his entire world media operations and content around spreading the message that climate change is real and the world must unite to fight it.

Murdoch has stated that climate change is now beyond debate, and it's time to find solutions. Being a good Murdoch employee, Bolt won't mention his boss's embrace of carbon trading and had next to nothing to say about Murdoch's May 9 acknowledgement that climate change was real, and that the debate had now shifted, at least as far as Murdoch and most of the Western world is concerned, to finding ways to solve the problem, and even stop its worst effects from becoming a terrible, centuries long reality.

Bolt spent years haranguing any scientist who dared to say our future prosperity and viability was in peril from climate change. But Bolt clammed right up when Rupert Murdoch said this :

'Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats."

Murdoch told his employees and stockholders that would use his worldwide audience of hundreds of millions of people, on five continents, to look at the problems of climate change as "exciting" and he promised to "weave this issue into our content, make it dramatic..."

In the next season of Fox's '24', special agent Jack Bauer will leave the terrorists alone long to somehow fight climate change. Presumably the bad guys this time will be heavy polluters, or perhaps there will be some Bond-esque bad guy using HAARP-type technology to speed up global warming to claim the mineral and energy riches of the melting Arctic.

Whatever the storyline of '24' is, Murdoch will use the show's popularity to ram home the threat of climate change, and the overwhelming need to do something about stopping it. Jack Bauer will do his bit, but it is also likely there will be extensive promotions tied into the new series telling Americans how they can be like Jack Bauer and help stop climate change.

The '24' website is already pumping Murdoch's message to the masses, and Jack Bauer himself, Keifer Sutherland, is pre-empting the focus of the new series by appearing in public service announcements on behalf of Rupert's mission to save planet Earth from "clear, catastrophic threats".

Will Andrew Bolt rail against Fox Television falling victim to the global warming "scam"?

Of course not.

You only have to leaf through The Herald Sun, which carries Bolt's columns, to see how heavily the Murdoch promise "to weave this issue into our content" is already being fulfilled.

Has Andrew Bolt whined and wailed and demanded more debate in the pages of his own newspaper, in opposition to the stand taken on climate change taken by Rupert Murdoch?

Of course not.

Bolt only takes pot shots at the easy targets.

When Rupert Murdoch gave his now famous speech on May 9 about acknowledging the reality of climate change, and announced his plans to restructure all his media operations to reduce News Corp's carbon footprint, Andrew Bolt claimed that he wouldn't be cowed and he would continue to hammer the 'Climate Change Is Real' crowd for being a bunch of gullible drogues.

But Bolt has been cowed, of course. And it only took a couple of weeks, punctuated by a Bushesque five week long holiday.

When Bolt now writes about the climate change "preachers" he chooses his targets very, very carefully. He says little, or nothing, about the Howard government's embracing of climate change as an election issue, or President Bush's proposals to reshape American industry and the economy to become more 'green'. And he certainly does not attack Rupert Murdoch.

For years, those trying to warn of the very real dangers and threats of climate change were called mentally ill by Bolt. If they weren't mentally ill, they were "hysterical". Or they were falling victim to "the "warming faith", "the irrational faith", or the "new apocalyptic faith".

Here's Bolt on May 3, referring to global warming as :

"...a religion that already shows signs of falling apart."

Here's Bolt on Thursday, May 8 :

"I repeat, it’s a religion, and with that old-time hook - Repent, for the end of the world is nigh..."

Here's his boss, Rupert Murdoch, on May 9 :

'Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats."

Yeah, we all had a great laugh over that one.


Sometimes, when not being particularly creative, Bolt referred to what Rupert Murdoch was in the process of embracing as "the global warming scare".

True believers were all "cultists" and, my personal favourite, they were busy promoting "the most superstitious pagan faith of all".

As Rupert Murdoch cranks up the anti-global warming promotions and campaigns through his TV shows, newspapers and cable stations across the world, Bolt now calls those fighting global warming merely "preachers" and "planet wreckers", which is so comic as to be all but harmless.

When he's particularly hepped up, Bot might even lash out with a claim that some anti-global warming advocate is an "Alarmist". But that's about as far as Bolt will go these days.

He might truly believe that climate change is some vast left-wing conspiracy to help clear cities of pollution and create new energy industries, but Bolt is not going to accuse his own boss, Mr Murdoch, of being insane and hysterical and a member of a superstitious pagan cult.

Bolt clearly wants to keep his very well paid job, and if he has to tone down the rhetoric, stifle his conspiratorial beliefs and swallow his pride and dignity to do so, then that's exactly what he will do. Over and over and over again.

Bolt must be thanking all the gods that his beloved prime minister, John Howard, is only a few months away from losing the election.

When Kevin Rudd takes control of Australia, Bolt will be re-born. No longer will he have to play along and praise the prime minister at every turn, and make silly excuses for hundreds of very clear and obvious failures of judgement and downright open deceit of the Australian people, as Howard did again and again through the years Bolt has been writing and blogging for Rupert Murdoch's once firmly pro-Howard Australian media.

By the end of the year, Bolt will likely have a whole host of federal Labor politicians in power to attack and smash and trash and flail, and he will finally be able to let go of the 'Global Warming Is A Superstitious Pagan Faith' nonsense, just as Murdoch now wants him to.


Andrew Bolt Attacks : "Hating Howard To Death"

Rupert Murdoch's Speech, May 9 : "Climate Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats"

Andrew Bolt Anticipates An Australian Terror Attack So Howard Can Display "His Firmness" In Dealing With The Aftermath