Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Reuters Investigates:
No room at the Inn … but maybe a job in the Outback
By Rebekah Kebede
You wouldn't think you'd have to make hotel reservations months ahead of time in Karratha, a small, dusty town on the edge of the Outback a 16-hour drive from Perth, the nearest city. But with Australia’s commodities boom, Karratha is bursting at the seams and nowhere is it more apparent than when trying to find a place to stay.
(Above photo: A kangaroo stands atop iron ore rocks outside the remote outback town of Karattha in Western Australia. Reuters/Daniel Munoz)
About two weeks ahead of my trip up to Karratha, to do a special report on Australia's hunt for foreign labour, all hotel rooms within a 60-km radius were fully booked and after more than 20 calls, the travel agent was still coming up empty.
A few more desperate calls turned up a couple of rooms in a town called Roebourne, about 30 minutes away from Karratha at the Ieramugadu Inn, an old motel, which like many others in the area, had become worker accommodations as Karratha struggles to house the influx of labour into town. The bill came to over $200 a night—just shy of what it costs to book a room with a view of the Opera House in Sydney. The amenities at the Ieramugadu were somewhat different: a complimentary can of bug repellent, tin-foil covered windows to keep out the light for those on night shift, and a view of a truck parking lot through a hole in the tin foil.
from Tales from the Trail:
Clinton dispels bikini wrestling myths in Australia
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would like the world to know: the United States is not about wearing bikinis and wrestling all day.
Clinton took her personal diplomacy to Australia's airwaves, braving a popular radio comedy team who grilled her on potato chips, reality tv and the diplomacy of barbecues.
Clinton's appearance on the Hamish and Andy show was part of her effort to get in front of as many foreign audiences as possible, and the official transcript released by the State Department makes for some bizarre reading.
For one, Clinton had to dispel some unrealistic notions of American life as conveyed by popular reality shows such as "Keeping up the Kardashians".
"If you look at American TV as much of the rest of the world does, you would think we all went around wrestling and wearing bikinis. I mean, that's what you would think we spend our entire day," Clinton said.
Not even a bit of the day? Clinton wouldn't be drawn.
First of all Hamish and Andy don’t grill anyone… they’re non-political soft comedians.
Secondly no-one in Australia thinks the US is about bikinis and wrestling. When we think America we think guns, war, money, Jerry Springer and loud, dumb, arrogant people… the same as everyone else thinks..
from Andrew Marshall:
Risks to watch in Asia: Country guides
For Reuters analysis of risks to watch in Asian countries, kept updated in real time and with graphics and video, click on the links below.
from Environment Forum:
Crustaceans rule!
Ever wondered what kinds of wildlife dominate the world's seas and oceans? Now there's an answer, at least in terms of the number of species in different categories. It's not fish. It's not mammals. It's crustaceans!
A mammoth Census of Marine Life has revealed that nearly one-fifth, or 19 percent, of all the marine species known to humans are crustaceans -- crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, barnacles and others far too numerous to mention here. The census didn't count the actual numbers of animals beneath the waves -- that would have been impossible -- but it did count up the number of species in 25 marine areas. The aim is to set down a biodiversity baseline for future use.
It took 360 scientists to figure this out. Their findings were posted on Monday in PLoS ONE, an open-source peer-reviewed online scientific journal. An even more fulsome list will be out in October.
For now, there's plenty of data to chew on: of the 25 marine areas around the world that were examined, Australian and Japanese waters were the most biodiverse, with nearly 33,000 species in each of these locations. The oceans off China, the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico round out the top five most biodiverse marine regions.
After crustaceans, mollusks (like squid, octopus, clams, snails and slugs) rank second in terms of the number of species found in these regions, with 17 percent. Fish, including sharks, make up 12 percent of species. After that, it's one-celled micro-organisms at 10 percent; algae and other plant-like organisms at 10 percent; segmented worms at 7 percent; sea anemones, corals and jellyfish, 5 percent; flatworms, 3 percent; starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea cucumbers, 3 percent; sponges, 3 percent; mat or "moss animals," 2 percent; sea squirts, 1 percent.
The rest are lumped together as "other vertibrates" -- including whales, sea lions, seals sea birds, turtles and walruses -- at 5 percent, and "other invertibrates" at 2 percent. So some of the best-known of marine creatures make up only a tiny part of the seas' biodiversity.
The Mediterranean has the most invasive species, creatures that aren't native, most of which arrived through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. Most "cosmopolitan" of species -- those that appear in more than one marine region -- are microscopic plants and animals at the tiny end, and seabirds and marine mammals at the large end of the scale.
China holds Rio trial behind closed doors
The trial of four Rio Tinto employees began early on a chilly, gray Monday morning in Shanghai, when four police vans in a convoy led by a cruiser with flashing lights swept the defendants to the courthouse well before 7 am.
Quick glimpses from outside the modern courthouse are all that most outsiders will get.
The case has concerned foreign investors since the four were detained last summer at the height of tense iron ore price negotiations between Rio Tinto, other miners, and Chinese steel mills. Even Chinese reporters who normally cover court proceedings have not been let into this trial. Passes were handed out last week to only a few Chinese media outlets. No foreign reporters were allowed in. Australian diplomats avoided making any statements as they passed through a security scanner on their way to observe part of the trial against Stern Hu, an Australian citizen and the head of Rio Tinto’s iron ore team in China. China has refused to allow the Australians access to a “closed” portion of the trial, which deals with alleged infringment of commercial secrets. That refusal has revived questions about how China defines “secrets”.
Photo Caption: Cars drive in to the Shanghai Number One Intermediate People’s Court on the morning of Rio Tinto trail March 22, 2010. The trial of four Rio Tinto employees opens on Monday in Shanghai, China’s financial hub, in a case closely watched by investors anxious over the business environment for foreign firms and their Chinese employees. REUTERS/Nir Elias
Opposition needs a wizard in Oz
On the surface, Australia’s opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull won the endorsement of his party when he put his job on the line over his bipartisan support for the PM’s carbon trade plan. ‘Turnbull wins the day’, was the headline on the Sydney Morning Herald website.
But, dig a little deeper, and the picture is in fact quite bleak for the Liberal Party with around 12 months to go before a national election. Within hours of the vote the obituaries for Turnbull’s political career started to appear.
Two things arise from the leadership vote called by Turnbull as a result of an internal Liberal Party revolt over climate policy. First, the count itself. 48-35. This is hardly a vote of confidence in a leader. Second, who was it who managed to secure so many votes against Turnbull? A relative unknown in Kevin Andrews.
The Herald’s Mark Davis writes “the stark reality of today’s vote is that 35 Liberal MPs were so angry at Turnbull they stood ready today to install a plainly politically unviable candidate”. Peter Hartcher in the Herald writes the vote backfired on Turnbull, serving only to highlight an “extraordinary mood of angry, irresponsible recklessness” within the Liberals. He derides what has become an “angry rabble”, a party out of control.
By the end of the Australian summer, pundits are predicting the Liberals could have a new leader, the party’s third in three years. That leaves precious little time to turn around a party that only a couple of years ago had dominated Australian politics for over a decade.
This week, Kevin Rudd celebrated his second year in office. It looks like only a miracle for the Liberals will prevent him from celebrating a second term in office next year. As Shaun Carney writes in the Age, Rudd’s good fortune is yet to run out.
Dust coats Australian outback myth
The huge outback dust storm that swept across eastern Australia on Sept. 23 smothering Sydney in red dirt was a stark reminder that after 221 years of white settlement Australians still only cling to the edge of this harsh island continent.
Australians love to promote the idea that they live in a sunburnt country, of rugged outback cattlemen and ancient Aboriginal culture, but for most Australians it’s a myth.
Australia’s 21.7 million people may live in the world’s driest inhabited continent, with a vast outback interior, but the country is one of the world’s most urbanised societies.
Almost 90 percent of people live in “urban Australia” and 67 percent call one of eight coastal cities home, with Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane dominating.
In fact, the mass desire to live in one of these three cities on Australia’s eastern seaboard has ensured that the nation’s major housing markets did not plummet, like elsewhere in the world, during the recent global financial crisis.
When Australians go on holiday few head inland to the outback, an ancient landscape which Aborigines regard as a living spirit, but pilgrimage to the beach to enjoy hedonistic pursuits.
And when they’re bored of Australia’s beaches they fly overseas to beaches in Fiji and Bali.
There is a vast army of grey nomads out there with their caravans and motorhomes and sometimes tents who would prove how incorrect this article is.
Oz PM Rudd gets an “F” for language
As the U.S. Congress roils over use of the word “liar” against President Barack Obama, Australia is in uproar over the prime minister’s use of the F-word.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, once a diplomat, was this week forced to defend his “robust” language used against a group of unhappy junior lawmakers in his own centre-left Labor Party while slashing back their official pay entitlements.
“I don’t care what you f**kers think!” Rudd told the backbench group, which included three women, in a private conversation later leaked widely to newspapers.
Rudd, talking to reporters ahead of a meeting of G-20 group leaders in the United States, said he had only been making his point clear to members of his own union-based party.
“I think it’s fair to say that consistent with the traditions of the Australian Labor Party, we’re given to robust conversations,” he said. “I make no apology for either the content of my conversation or the robustness with which I expressed my views.”
Unlike in Washington, where standards of political behaviour are closely entwined with ideas of respect, Australia’s parliament functions with a rough-and-tumble unthinkable in the United States, but which can still raise eyebrows.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, was notorious for the parliamentary vitriol he unleashed, famously describing the upper house Senate, now frustrating Rudd’s climate change agenda, as “unrepresentative swill”.
I think the issue is not so much how politicians behave in private meetings but rather how they behave in Question Time where their grandstanding and cheap political and personal shots are at the expense of informed debate.
Newsmaker: Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan will take questions from Thomson Reuters clients on how Australia managed to avoid recession and where the economy goes from here, at 9:15 am AEST on Tuesday (7:30 pm on Monday, EST).
The so-called “lucky country” dodged recession partly because of massive government stimulus, a conservative banking sector and strong Chinese demand for its resources exports, but there are concerns its luck may eventually run out. While other rich nations grapple with record high unemployment, Australia is starting to worry about inflation, a possible housing bubble and an over-reliance on China.
Australia and its neighbours
With the Rudd Labor government now in power for just over a year, it’s worth looking what at has changed in the country’s foreign policy and its security implications for the region. Is the region, particularly Southeast Asia, ready for Australia’s new advances?
Howard’s pragmatism and ‘forward defence’ doctrine over the previous dozen years was unashamedly aimed at garnering an image of being a “considerable power and significant country” (Downer, 2006). Howard’s loyalty to the United States, no-matter-what, was also aimed at banking up some credit with Washington on the security front. Given the concerns of the time over terrorism (in particular the attack on Bali which killed dozens of Australians), one could argue his staunchly pro-American policy was well founded. Moreover, Downer was quite dismissive of past Labor policy on developing a closer relationship with its immediate neighbours. In 2006, he said of Labor: “In effect, they argue for a retreat to regionalism.”
Last week, Rudd spoke of Australia returning to this regionalism. He spoke of the “dawn of the Asia-Pacific century”, “regional engagement” and Australia’s interests in being pro-active about shaping the strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, the Sinologist Rudd is aware he must keep the China and India plates spinning, conscious of their strategic and financial importance to his commodity-driven economy.
