Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts

Apr 6, 2010

Stupid Americans? Send Them to China | china/divide

by C. Custer on April 2, 2010

So says President Obama, who is working with Chinese officials to ensure that the US sends 100,000 students to China over the next four years. The number of Americans studying in China has been rising steadily on its own, but what is the point of this? That’s a vast generalization, of course, but take it from someone who spends all day every day with American kids — they know nothing about the world outside the US.

When I say “nothing” I want you to understand exactly what I mean, so here are some examples. I asked my students what language they speak in Australia. Less than half of them knew for sure, several thought “Australian”, and one of them said French. I asked them what continent China was on, and only around half of them got it right. Several of them wrote “China”. I could go on, but you’ve heard these statistics before. That’s because they are true. American students are woefully, woefully ignorant of the world outside their iPods.

As some of you know, I teach Chinese and History at a boarding school in New England, so my students tend to be privileged. They have grown up with more and better access to education than the average American. Many of them have traveled abroad with their parents before. By all accounts, they ought to be performing better than the average American on simple questions like the ones I asked them, which makes their abject failure even more worrisome. Obviously, my “study” was not at all scientific and my sample size far too small, but this is a blog, so I’m going to make the point anyway: Americans don’t know anything about other countries.

More worrisome than that, though (after all, as a teacher, isn’t that kind of my fault) is that at least among my students, I believe there is a complete lack of empathy for those outside the US’s borders, especially those in faraway places like Asia. Students act as though historical events were plot points in a movie, and their writing further betrays that conceptually speaking, they do not perceive the places we are talking about as real.

I probably don’t have to explain why that’s a problem in the long term. Now, maybe kids are all like this, or have always been like this. I wouldn’t know. But I do think I understand why Obama wants to send 100,000 Americans to China. They aren’t all going to come back speaking Chinese fluently, ready to join the CIA’s China analysts pushing desks in Virginia. But they are all going to come back with a real sense that there is a world outside the US. They’re going to come back with friends, business contacts, and experiences — real life experiences, not classroom knowledge — that turn the Sino-American policy debate into something that seems real and important. Say what you will about Obama, but at least when it comes to China, it seems like he’s not planning to throw the whole “mutual understanding” thing under the bus.

But I am extremely tired, and it’s possible this line of reasoning makes no sense, so, what do you think?

Feb 23, 2010

Kevin Rudd says Australia faces major terror threat

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned that his country is now under a permanent and increased threat of militant attack.

He also announced plans to fingerprint and face-scan visitors from 10 high-risk countries.

Mr Rudd said there was a growing threat from Islamist radicals born or raised in Australia.

Last week, five Australians of foreign origin received heavy sentences for conspiring to launch a jihadist attack.

Home grown

Mr Rudd said that many "home-grown terrorists" were inspired by what he called international jihadist narratives, as he released a new report compiled by intelligence agencies.

"The threat of home-grown terrorism is now increasing," he said.

"This white paper is clear: some of the threat we now face comes from the Australian-born, Australian-educated and Australian residents."

Al-Qaida-linked groups in Yemen and Sudan are the new centre of threat internationally, the policy paper says, and the risks posed by Afghanistan and Pakistan remain high.

The paper says that, despite Indonesia's successes against terrorism, the Jakarta hotel attacks of last July point to an ongoing threat there.

No escape

"Terrorism continues to pose a serious threat and a serious challenge to Australia's security interests. That threat is not diminishing," Mr Rudd said.

"In fact, the government security intelligence agencies assess that terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia's security environment. These agencies warn that an attack could occur at any time."

Australian David Hicks, captured in 2001, spent five years in Guantanamo

Australia will spend A$69m ($62m; £40m) on new biometric facilities and will set up a national control centre to co-ordinate efforts to fight extremism.

The government also plans to work with communities to stamp out radicalism by helping all ethnic groups integrate better with mainstream society.

Last week five Australian citizens of Lebanese, Libyan and Bangladeshi origin were jailed for up to 28 years for gathering weapons in preparation for an attack on an unknown target.

In August, five men with alleged links to Somalia's al-Shabab militants were arrested and charged over an alleged plot to attack a Sydney military barracks.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said about 40 people have been arrested in Australia on terror charges since 2000.

"Whilst the numbers are small... it only takes one to get through," he said, adding that the techniques used by home-grown militants were evolving.

"We are now seeing emerging the potential so-called lone wolf escapade where we don't have sophisticated planning but an individual is seduced by the international jihad and as a lone wolf does extreme things," he told ABC radio.

He said the 10 countries to face more stringent entry procedures would not be named yet. "There may be a diplomatic effort required in regards to some of those countries, as you would expect," he said.

Australia is a close ally of the United States. It was among the first to commit troops to US-led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It has not suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil, but 95 Australians have been killed in militant bombings in neighbouring Indonesia since 2001.

Nov 16, 2009

Australian Leader Apologizes for Child Migrants - NYTimes.com

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By MARK McDONALD

The children were gathered up by the tens of thousands, some of them as young as 3, taken from single mothers and impoverished families in Britain, then sent abroad for what was supposed to be a better start in life. What they found was isolation, physical and sexual abuse, and what the prime minister of Australia said Monday was “the absolute tragedy of childhoods lost.”

In an emotional address in Canberra, with many in the audience weeping, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a national apology for Australia’s role in child migrant programs that forcibly brought an estimated 150,000 British youngsters — known in Australia as the Lost Innocents — to Australia, Canada and other parts of the Commonwealth. The programs ended about 40 years ago.

“We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter of our nation’s history, and we come together today to offer our nation’s apology,” Mr. Rudd said. “The truth is this is an ugly story and its ugliness must be told without fear or favor if we are to confront fully the demons of our past.”

He said Australia was “sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation, and the cold absence of love of tenderness of care.”

A 1998 report by the British Parliament said that the child migrant program helped relieve financial burdens on Britain’s social service agencies. Also, the report noted, “a further motive was racist: the importation of ‘good white stock’ was seen as a desirable policy objective” that would “maintain the racial unity of the Empire.”

The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, is expected to add Britain’s apology soon.

Mr. Rudd also expressed regret Monday about the so-called Forgotten Australians, those children who were placed in state institutions — and suffered there — during the 20th century. A 2004 Senate report said more than 500,000 children were placed in foster homes and orphanages during the last century. Many of those children, the report said, were abused.

“The truth is,” said Mr. Rudd, “a great evil has been done.”

“Today is your day,” said the opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who also spoke at the Canberra ceremony. “Today we acknowledge that with broken hearts and breaking spirits you were left in the custody — you can hardly call it care — of too many people whose abuse and neglect of you made a mockery of the claim you were taken from your own family for your own good.”

Rod Braydon, 65, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he was 6 years old when he was raped by a Salvation Army officer. It was his first night in a Melbourne boys’ home.

“When we reported this as kids, we were flogged to within an inch of our lives, locked up in dungeons and isolation cells,” Mr. Braydon said.

He reportedly has received a cash settlement from the Salvation Army and has sued the Victoria state government.

John Hennessey, 72, from Campbelltown, near Sydney, was a former child migrant who cooperated with the 1998 British parliamentary inquiry. On Monday, he told The A.P. he was 6 when he was sent from a British orphanage to a boys’ school in Western Australia.

Mr. Hennessey still speaks with a stutter that was caused, he said, by a savage beating he received from an Australian headmaster when he was 12. He said his transgression was stealing grapes from a vineyard because he was hungry.

Sep 5, 2009

BBC - Delays hit Aboriginal homes plan

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By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney

A report into an ambitious housing scheme for Australia's Aboriginals has found that not one dwelling has been built in the year since it began.

The A$660m (US$562m; £342m) scheme is designed to address chronic housing problems in Aboriginal communities.

The project aims to construct 750 homes in the Northern Territory and refurbish hundreds of others.

Officials blamed "administration problems" for the delays - which prompted one minister to quit.

The slow pace of this ambitious programme to help Aboriginal families almost brought down the Northern Territory government when a former minister quit in disgust at the lack of progress.

A review has recommended that federal agencies take more control of the scheme and that administration costs be reduced.

“ Our First Australians deserve better than a cubby house or a dog house ”
Nigel Scullion Senator

It has all been an embarrassment to the government of Kevin Rudd in Canberra and his indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, who has insisted that the building work will be completed within budget and on time by 2013.

Critics, though, are not convinced.

Nigel Scullion, a conservative senator for the Northern Territory, says the whole affair has been a disaster.

"The minister has taken absolutely no responsibility for this.

"This was a fundamental of Kevin Rudd's undertaking and promises to indigenous people of Australia and he has failed and it has failed under the leadership of Jenny Macklin.

"And I cannot understand why Mr Rudd would allow her to stay and preside over the second stage of this complete and unmitigated disaster.

"Our First Australians deserve better than a cubby house or a dog house."

The delays mean that the amount of money earmarked for each new dwelling has been cut by 20%.

For generations, poor housing has blighted many Aboriginal communities.

Australia's original inhabitants often suffer squalid and over-cramped living conditions which contribute to the 17-year gap in life expectancy between them and their non-indigenous counterparts.

Aug 27, 2009

UN Representative Criticizes Australia's Aboriginal Policies as Racist - VOA

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By Phil Mercer
Sydney
27 August 2009

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A U.N. representative says Australia's intervention in dozens of troubled Aboriginal communities is discriminatory and breaches the country's international human-rights obligations.

The U.N. special investigator on indigenous people, James Anaya, says that Aborigines in Australia face entrenched racism. He says the government's controversial intervention in dysfunctional communities in the Northern Territory continued to discriminate against Aborigines.

Two years ago troops, medical staff and social workers were deployed in an attempt to combat violence and rampant abuse of children in some aboriginal communities. Racial discrimination laws were suspended to allow the controversial policy to be implemented.

Alcohol and pornography were banned in the communities and indigenous residents were forced to spend a portion of their welfare payments on essentials such as food.

Some activists say the measures violate human rights because they only target Aborigines.

James Anaya, special Rapporteur for the UN Human Rights commission (2008 File)

Anaya, an American professor of human rights law, says he agrees with that assessment.

"These measures overtly discriminate against aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatize already stigmatized communities," he said.

Anaya just completed a 12-day tour to learn more about Australia's most disadvantaged community. Indigenous groups, church leaders and social justice organizations requested his visit.

Anaya is the first U.N. investigator on indigenous people to visit Australia's aboriginal communities. He congratulated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for the historic apology he made last year to the country's original inhabitants for past injustices.

Anaya also welcomed calls for a new national body to represent Australia's Aborigines, which will need government approval.

Tom Calma, from the Australian Human Rights Commission, proposed the body, saying it will give the disadvantaged a powerful voice.

"It is a historic day. It is a day when as aboriginal and Torres Strait people we begin a new journey when we express our determination to put our futures in our hands," he said.

A recent study has found the gap between non-indigenous Australians and their aboriginal neighbors was growing in areas such as child abuse and domestic violence. Aborigines also are more likely than other Australians to suffer from a variety of health problems, including chemical addiction, and their average life span is 17 years less.

Prime Minister Rudd said it was "a devastating report" on an unacceptable situation.

General health in Timor-Leste: self-assessed health in a large household survey

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Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

Volume 33 Issue 4, Pages 378 - 383

Published Online: 4 Aug 2009

Jaya Earnest ¹ Robert P. Finger ²

¹ Centre for International Health, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia ² Centre for International Health, Curtin University of Technology, Perth and Department of Ophthalmology, Bonn University, Bonn, Germany

Correspondence to:
Dr Jaya Earnest, Associate Professor and Postgraduate Research Co-ordinator, Centre for International Health, Curtin University of technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA, 6845. Fax: (08) 9266 2608; e-mail: J.Earnest@curtin.edu.au

KEYWORDS

health • Timor-Leste • self-assessed • conflict • displacement • migration

ABSTRACT

Objective: Timor-Leste is one of the world's newest nations and became a democracy in 2002. Ranked 150 out of 177 in the 2007 UNDP Human Development Index, the country has the worst health indicators in the Asia-Pacific region. The objective of this study was to collect and analyse data on subjectively assessed general health, health service use, migration and mobility patterns.

Methods: The data collection involved recording self-reported status of general health using a structured questionnaire. The survey was administered to 1,213 Timorese households in six districts using a multi-stage random cluster sampling procedure. Basic descriptive statistical analyses were performed on all variables with SPSS version 13.

Results: More than a quarter (27%) of respondents reported a health problem at the time of the survey. Only approximately half of respondents assessed their health to be good (53%) or average (38%). Barriers reported in the uptake of healthcare services were no felt needed; difficulty in accessing services and unavailability of service.

Conclusions: Results reveal that Timor-Leste needs a more decentralised provision of healthcare through primary healthcare centres or integrated health services. Trained traditional healers, who are familiar with the difficult terrain and understand cultural contexts and barriers, can be used to improve uptake of public health services. An adult literacy and community health education program is needed to further improve the extremely poor health indicators in the country.

Implications: Key lessons that emerged were the importance of understanding cultural mechanisms in areas of protracted conflict and the need for integrated health services in communities.

Aug 26, 2009

Recession threatens families in Cambodia

Layoffs among parents augur a rise in child labour: experts.

Photo by: Sovan Philong

Fourteen-year-old bookseller Vichet waits for customers along the riveside on Tuesday.

A STEEP decline in Cambodia's garment exports for the month of July has forced officials to reassess the strength of the global economic downturn and its impact on the country, as child welfare experts warn that the Kingdom's most vulnerable citizens - its children - may have the most to lose.

Official figures released Tuesday showed a 26.4 percent plunge in garment exports for July compared with a year ago and a 17.5 percent slide from June, - the latest in a series of grim economic indicators that prompted an admission by the head of the Cambodian Economic Association that the worst of the crisis could still be ahead.

Standing in the path of that slide, says Bill Salter, head of the International Labour Organisation's subregional office in East Asia, are Cambodia's children.

"The trend threatens to push 200,000 people back into poverty and erect new financial obstacles in front of children trying to access education,"
Salter said Tuesday during the launch of a national workshop studying the impact of the global economic crisis on child labour.

An estimated 40 percent of children aged between 7 and 17 years are currently engaged in some form of child labour, the group ChildFund Australia said in June.

Child labour rising
ILO officials said earlier this year that the number of children working in hard-labour conditions in Cambodia had grown from an estimated 250,000 in 2002 to about 300,000 this year.

The government has acknowledged the risks facing children, especially as families dependent on the garment sector - the Kingdom's largest industrial employer - suffer job losses or salary cuts that could prompt them to pull children out of school and into the workforce.

Cambodia's garment sector, which accounts for about 90 percent of the Kingdom's total exports, has borne the brunt of an economic downturn that can be linked directly to the rising numbers of children being forced into work, the ILO's Salter said, as cash-strapped families increasingly view education as a financial burden.

Veng Heang, director of the Department of Child Labour within the Ministry of Labour, said the link between the global crisis and child labour was no surprise.

"We knew that the economic crisis would impact children," he said Tuesday, adding that a rise in instances of child begging, scavenging and domestic labour would not be unexpected.

Warnings over deteriorating child welfare came amid protests by thousands in the garment sector over slashed pay.

More than 70,000 garment workers have been laid off since the crisis began, industry analysts say, with another 100,000 under threat in the next two years.

Nearly 3,000 employees at the Sky High Garment Factory in Daun Penh district went on strike on Monday to protest drops in their salaries, inadequate working conditions and unexpected work stoppages.

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Aug 17, 2009

Somalis Gather to Discuss Racism, Alienation in Australia

By Phil Mercer
Sydney
17 August 2009

Mercer Report - Download (MP3)

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Young Somali immigrants say they face racism and feel unwanted in Australia. Their problems have drawn more attention since four men from Somali backgrounds were charged with planning a suicide attack on an army base in Sydney.

Community groups say that Somali refugees often are stuck in a kind of "no-man's land" between their own culture and mainstream Australia.

The Somali immigrant community suffers high unemployment. Many refugees have problems learning English or experience the lingering effects of torture and trauma. Alienation can leave some vulnerable to the influence of criminals and extremists.

Others complain of racism from mainstream Australia.

Young Somalis wrapped up a meeting Sunday to discuss these issues in Melbourne, where a series of counter-terrorism raids were carried out earlier this month.

Kamal Mohamed, who is a student, says the arrest of four Somali-born Australians in the raids will only heighten society's suspicions of him and his peers.

"Before this issue happened, terrorism claims and all that, we were slowly integrating, but now we're not integrating, it's just full stop now, there's no integration, because people have already judged us," he said.

Police also are investigating allegations that some young Somalis have traveled back to Africa from Australia to fight for radical Islamic groups.

Tens of thousands of African refugees have resettled in Australia - most arriving from Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Liberia and Somalia.

This year about 13,500 refugee visas will be issues and while millions of dollars are spent by the government helping newcomers to adapt to life in a strange, new country.

Despite efforts to help the transition, some African refugees have been accused of forming gangs, harassing women and committing violent crime.

Community leaders admit that a small minority has gotten into trouble but they say the majority has nothing but respect for Australian laws and customs.

Aug 12, 2009

Asia’s Economic Recovery Begins to Pick Up Steam

By BETTINA WASSENER

HONG KONG — Has Asia’s economic recovery reached a turning point?

Recent economic data, some unexpectedly good results from companies around the region, early signs of some new hiring, and a stock market rally that has defied most analysts’ expectations would seem to indicate that perhaps it has.

On Tuesday, economic reports from Singapore, the Philippines, Australia and China provided the latest fuel for hopes that Asia was on track for a recovery that would outpace that of Europe and the United States and give the region more economic and political clout.

Even in Japan, which is mired in its deepest recession in decades, the central bank’s governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, struck an upbeat note after a rate-setting meeting on Tuesday.

“Asian economies seem to be growing at a faster pace,” he said, according to Reuters. “Since the spring, the financial system has also been improving. The overall direction is heading toward improvement.”

Still, Asia has depended heavily on government stimulus projects. Exports remain weak, and a renewed downturn in the West — the primary market for Asian goods — or a turnaround in the rise in Asian stocks, could pose major risks.

But these days, economists see an improved economy. “Things certainly look better than they did three months ago,” said Simon Wong, regional economist at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong.

All through the crisis that engulfed the world financial system and tipped much of the world into recession last year, Asia has had a major advantage: Its banks steered clear of the complex financial instruments that caused some Western banks to collapse. Asian governments and companies were in relatively sound financial health, having repaired their finances only recently after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

Asia’s export-dependent economies suffered badly when consumers and companies in the United States and Europe curtailed purchases, leading to a collapse in Asian exports late last year. But over all, Asia has recovered more rapidly than most analysts had dared to hope, as governments spent heavily to lift their economies.

In recent weeks, companies like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung have reported better — or at least less bad — results for the quarter from April through June. Hyundai Motor even reported a record quarterly profit.

Although many companies are continuing to cut jobs, job recruiters in Asia say they see evidence that some companies are adding staff again. “It’s been a very tough 10 months, but over the past six or seven weeks, we’ve seen a modest upturn in jobs activity in banking — albeit from a very, very low position,” said Nigel Heap, managing director for the recruitment firm Hays in Sydney. “We’re cautiously optimistic that the worst is over in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

China in particular has stood out in Asia. After years of double-digit growth, the Chinese economy stumbled this year. A giant spending package, deep interest-rate cuts and much greater lending by state-controlled banks have pulled the economy back to a healthy level of growth in recent months.

Data for July, released by the statistics office on Tuesday, illustrated the point: Industrial output, an indicator of broader growth, rose 10.8 percent from a year earlier, while retail sales gained 15.2 percent.

Although the rise in output was less than expected, and exports took a further hit, economists at Goldman Sachs say they believe that China could return to growth of more than 10 percent as soon as next year. This week, Goldman raised its forecast for full-year growth for China to 9.4 percent. That was up from the 8.3 percent previously projected and higher than the government’s 8 percent target. For 2010, the economists say they expect China to expand by 11.9 percent.

Not all economists agree that the picture is quite as rosy. For one thing, China’s policy makers now face a delicate balancing act. A spike in property and equities markets —the Shanghai stock index is up about 80 percent this year— has led many to worry that another bubble is in the making. Analysts say the authorities now have to scale back bank lending to deflate price spikes without choking growth.

Data on Tuesday showed that bank lending dropped off sharply in July, but so far most economists remained relaxed.

“We believe that investment in the coming months will continue to be well supported by lending that has already taken place,” Tao Wang, a economist at UBS in Shanghai, said in a note.

Exports, which account for about a third of China’s economy, remain depressed, sinking 23 percent in July from a year earlier. The decline was smaller than economists had expected, and indicated that external demand was steadily recovering, Qing Wang, China economist at Morgan Stanley, said in a note. But it nevertheless showed that overseas demand for Asian-made goods remained well below the level of a year ago.

At the same time, the pace of recovery is uneven across Asia.

In Australia, business confidence is at the highest level in almost two years, and the central bank has indicated that it could raise interest rates.

By contrast, Japan remains in a deep recession. “The global economy has suffered a great shock,” said Mr. Shirakawa, the central bank governor. “We can’t expect to see an impressive recovery.”

The key question now is what happens “beyond the near-term,” said Mr. Wong, the Standard Chartered economist.

“We’ve seen a short-term rebound,” he said. “The question is what happens longer term — how will countries like China and Indonesia switch from export-dependent to something else? There are still lots of uncertainties about that.”

Aug 4, 2009

Australia Detains Terror Suspects

Australian police have arrested four people in the city of Melbourne after uncovering what they say was a plot to launch a suicide attack.

The group was planning to carry out the attack on an army base, police said.

More than 400 officers were involved in searching 19 properties across the city before dawn on Tuesday.

The suspects are Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese descent; one man, aged 25, has been charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist act.

Nayaf El Sayed, from the Glenroy district of Melbourne, was remanded in custody until 26 October.

He did not enter a plea or apply for bail, and refused to stand for the magistrate in court.

His lawyer told the hearing: "He believes he should not stand for any man except God."

Police were granted extra time to question three others - Saney Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed.

A fifth man, who had been detained earlier, was also being questioned about the alleged plot.

'Sobering'

"Police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and [are] allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia," a police statement said.

"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed," said Tony Negus, acting chief commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

Holsworthy Barracks on the outskirts of Sydney was one of the planned targets, according to police.

The attack would have been the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil, Mr Negus added.

"Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwa or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia," he said.

Prosecutors told the court they had evidence some of the men had taken part in training and fighting in Somalia.

They also said there were phone conversations, text messages and surveillance footage, including footage of one of the suspects outside the Holsworthy army base, linking the suspects to an alleged attack.

The court heard the men planned to seek a fatwa, or religious ruling, to support an attack on the Holsworthy army base.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "The sobering element of today's development is the reminder to all Australians that the threat of terrorism is alive and well, and this requires continued vigilance on the part of our security authorities."

The country's security level is unchanged at medium, where it has been since 2003.

The police said the raids followed a seven-month operation involving several state and federal agencies.

Police believe those arrested are linked to the Somali-based al-Shabab group, which seeks to overthrow the weak UN-backed Somali government and is believed to have links to al-Qaeda.

Jul 26, 2009

Chinese Hack Film Festival Site

Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia's biggest film festival over a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

Content on the Melbourne International Film Festival site was briefly replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans on Saturday, reports said.

In an earlier protest on Friday, Beijing withdrew four Chinese films.

Melbourne's The Age newspaper says private security guards have been hired to protect Kadeer and other film-goers.

She is due to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels, on 8 August.

'Vile language'

Chinese authorities blame Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress, for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang - charges she denies.

“ Hey, we're an independent arts organisation and it's our programme! ”
Richard Moore Head of the Melbourne International Film Festival

Earlier this month, around 200 people died and 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and settlers from China's Han majority.

Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005. In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.

Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, told the BBC that he had come under pressure from Chinese officials to withdraw the film about Kadeer and cancel her invitation to the festival.

He said the attacks on the festival's website began about 10 days ago.

"We've been subjected to a number of these attacks and we can see behind the scenes on our website that there are hundreds, well, if not thousands, of people from outside of Australia trying to get into our website and trying to damage us," Mr Moore told the BBC's World Today programme.

"This has been going on... since obviously the call from a Chinese consular official who told me in no uncertain terms that I was urged to withdraw this particular documentary from the film festival and that I had to justify my actions in including the film in our programme," he went on.

"Hey, we're an independent arts organisation and it's our programme!"

He said police were investigating the website attacks, which appear to come from a Chinese internet address.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/8169123.stm

Published: 2009/07/26

Jul 23, 2009

Radical Cleric Bashir Claims CIA Staged Jakarta Bombings

Candra Malik

Radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. (Photo: Adek Berry, AFP)

Radical Cleric Bashir Claims CIA Staged Jakarta Bombings

Solo. Hard-line Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir on Wednesday blamed the US Central Intelligence Agency for Friday’s bomb attacks on two hotels in Jakarta.

“It’s the CIA, just like in the Bali bombings. The CIA directed the Mujahideen who wanted to take ‘jihad’ action,” said Bashir, who now leads the Jemaah Ashorut Tauhid, an umbrella group for Islamic groups advocating Shariah law.

Bashir left the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) he had founded and chaired for years after disagreements with other leaders of the group and founded the Anshorut Tauhid in September, 2008.

In his first public comments following Friday’s blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, Bashir said the CIA aimed to arouse hate against Islam, to get Islamic preachers arrested and Islamic study groups disbanded.

However, Bashir clarified, “I am not a bomb expert. I know nothing about it.”

The elderly cleric also reiterated that the Jemaah Islamiyah — a group that authorities said he had led and was an Al Qaeda-linked regional terror network responsible for bomb attacks in the past few years — did not exist.

“It’s wrong to say that Jemaah Islamiyah has been fragmented into two groups, the first being the original group and the second being the Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid. As far as I know, Jemaah Islamiyah is just an Islamic study group in Egypt,” he said.

Just like in the Bali bombings in 2002, Bashir was convinced that jihad networks in the country did not have the capability to make sophisticated bombs.

“Up till now, my opinion is that whoever believes that Mukhlas was the one who designed the Bali bomb is truly an idiot. The Bali bomb was a CIA design,” he said, referring to one of the three men convicted of masterminding the Bali bomb attacks and executed by firing squad.

He said the same thing applied to Friday’s attacks. “I think it’s not that easy to go in an out from the hotel carrying a bomb, even if it was brought in piece by piece. So, I have my own reason in saying that it must be the CIA’s plan to discredit Islam,” he said.

“The CIA, the US and Australia will not win. They actually fear us. Let’s see. Al Qaeda is just a small group but it terrifies them.”

However, Bashir also said that he did not condone the bombings. Citing the Koran, he said a war must be preceded by a formal declaration. “If they just exploded a bomb without any declaration of war, then it is not in accordance with ‘shariah’ or Islamic rule. That’s my opinion . . . so they [the Mujahideen] could be wrong in their action,” he said.

He added that even in a war, civilians, especially women and children, must not be killed. “Even if they are kafir, they cannot be murdered. If they get involved, even in thought, they must be killed,” he said.

He added that the Al-Mukmin Islamic Boarding School that he cofounded in Ngruki, Central Java, was not a source of terrorists.

Two of the key Bali bombers were alumni of the school, as was the suicide bomber in the 2003 Marriot bomb attack.

Jul 14, 2009

Information Resources to Help Researchers Get Funding

From a Summary:

As far back as the mid-1600s, philanthropy was in play in Western society. Nancy K. Herther examines the growth of foundations and granting organizations and looks at the problems institutes of higher learning, powerhouses of research production within the U.S., are encountering using the evolving funding process.

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Jul 1, 2009

Singapore Dissident: Goh Chock Tong's Fear Is Real

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yesterday, I had written about Goh Chock Tong's disappointment over the serious brain drain of young educated Singaporeans to Western Countries. In fact the numbers that leave are not just every 2 out of 3 graduates of Singapore high schools going abroad to study. There is ten fold multiplier effect which causes the relatives, families and friends of the overseas Singaporean to join him abroad, thereby swelling the figures that leave ten fold.

This huge brain drain of the talented from Singapore must be quite obvious to Goh Chock Tong and his friend Lee Kuan Yew.

Students born brought up and educated in Singapore would know nothing other than Singapore, a place where they have to cram for their studies, where they fear to speak openly against the government, where their Asian culture of submission to authority makes them incapable of questioning authority and where on the whole they live a cowardly introverted fearful submissive lives.

But when they go to Australia for instance, they suddenly begin breathing a whiff of fresh air. The country is open, the people speak openly without fear of anyone, the newspapers are free to publish the truth, they are free to publicly protest and criticize and where the people are generally happier and more contented. Suddenly, the Singaporean export, falls in love with Australia. If only he had known earlier, he says, he would have left Singapore long ago. But, sadly, he did not know. But better late than never, now he knows. And he begins to hate Singapore for what it is, he begins to hate the tyrant Lee Kuan Yew who made him live like the dummy all these years, and he is glad he is free of that steamy intolerant crowded island.

And he transmits this message to all his relative and friends in Singapore. He tells his parents in Singapore to join him in Australia, he tells this to his brothers and sisters, to his relatives and friends. And then the family, the relatives, their friends tell it to theirs and so on, and the chain cumulative effect gets under way.

From the initial student who had gone abroad to study, you now have scores of others who have similarly left Singapore thanks to him.

This is what we call the multiplier effect. And this is what is happening. And this is draining Singapore of it's talent. And this is something Goh Chock Tong or his master Lee Kuan Yew can do nothing to stop.

Lee Kuan Yew can of course turn Singapore into another Cuba or North Korea sealing it's borders to prevent escape. Unfortunately for him if were to do that, it will only precipitate the calamity even further.

He did appear dejected in the picture in the Straits Times. It is quite clear that he has reason to be. This is what happens to all dictatorships. Their arrogance catches up to them.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel:

510 657 6107

Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/