Global News Journal

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.

Cattle Rustling, Pythons and Boogie Angola Style …. the best reads of May

Climate health costs: bug-borne ills, killer heat Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health. These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start.

Spain rearranges furniture as economy sinks

Moving a 17-metre high monument to Christopher Columbus 100 metres down the road is how the Spanish government is interpreting the advice of John Maynard Keynes. The economist once argued it would be preferable to pay workers to dig holes and fill them in again, rather than allowing them to stand idle and deprive the economy of the multiplier effect of their wages.

Picking up the pieces from Afghanistan’s war

U.S. gunners scanned a lush Afghan valley from their helicopter, as a  white van containing a badly burned baby inched toward another Black Hawk waiting at the army outpost. Eight soldiers had flown into the heart of hostile eastern Afghanistan, in a convoy of one air ambulance and one “chase” helicopter for protection, to collect 18-month-old Amanullah who knocked a pot of scalding water over his legs, penis and scrotum.

In Brazil, extreme weather stokes climate worries

No one could say they hadn’t seen it coming. The sand dunes had been advancing for decades before they swallowed the houses of families in Ilha Grande, an island in Brazil’s Parnaiba river delta. Standing on a dune that covers his old home, one man describes the landscape of his childhood — cashew trees as far as he could see. Not a dune in sight.

Sex, drugs and toxic shrubs: the best reads of March

Cubans indulge baseball mania at Havana’s “Hot Corner”

For all the shouting and nose-to-nose confrontations, visitors to Havana’s Parque Central might think they had walked into a brawl or counter-revolution … but here in the park’s Hot Corner,  the topic almost always under discussion is baseball, Cuba’s national obsession.

Iraq’s orphans battle to outgrow abuse

At night, Salah Abbas Hisham wakes up screaming. Sometimes, in the dark, he silently attacks the boy next to him in a tiny Baghdad orphanage where 33 boys sleep on cots or on the floor. Salah, who saw both his parents blown apart in a car bomb, can never be left alone at night.

Colombian soccer club tries to forget cocaine past

Colombian soccer champions America de Cali are first to admit cocaine dollars had a hand in their sporting heyday. But after years of paying the price, they’re trying to wipe the slate clean … Cali’s mayor is leading a campaign to have the team removed from a U.S. anti-drugs blacklist.

from Africa News blog:

Keeping pirates at bay

There are some expectations that piracy in the Gulf of Aden is about to tail off for a bit. It appears that pirates don't like rough weather any more than anyone else does.

Exclusive Analysis, a political risk consultancy, has conducted a detailed study of incidences of maritime hijacking in order to give its insurer clients the heads up about when and under what circumstances piracy is most likely to occur. It has told the International Underwriting Association of London that the arrival of the monsoon in the Gulf of Aden about now usually keeps pirates on shore. Not so for Somalia, where the waters are generally calmer at the moment. Technically, it is when the Sea Scale hits 5 or 6, that is, rough to very rough.

Weather was not the only factor thrown up by the study when it comes to keeping pirates at bay. Among an array of conditions, it found that ships that have freeboards -- the distance from waterline to deck -- of six metres or more have a lesser chance of being hijacked.

One pirate ship, apparently, was found with a five metre ladder on board -- a hint as to how far they are prepared to go, or at least climb.