Australia on The Huffington Post

Australian Dives Face-First Into Deadly Irukandji Jellyfish

2009-12-04T11:12:06Z

SYDNEY — A man dove face-first into an extremely venomous, peanut-sized jellyfish in waters off northeast Australia and medics flew him to a hospital intensive care unit to treat the potentially fatal sting, officials said Friday.

The 29-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was on a yacht Thursday off northeast Queensland state. As a precaution, he was wearing a full-length "stinger suit," a lightweight version of a wetsuit that covers everything but the face, feet and hands and helps protect against venomous jellyfish that are common in northern Australia's waters during the Southern Hemisphere summer.

Australia's Carbon-Trading Legislation Fails

2009-12-02T15:01:20Z

SYDNEY — Australia's Senate on Wednesday defeated the government's plan to implement a carbon pollution trading system to fight global warming, dashing hopes of setting an example for other nations at U.N. climate change talks next week.

The scuttled proposal would have placed Australia alongside the European Union and a handful of other places that have or are considering "cap-and-trade" systems to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and burnished Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's international reputation as a leader on the issue.

Ben Lee: In Praise of the Working Artist

2009-12-02T13:51:43Z

I first came to Los Angeles to make an album in 1996. Having grown up in Australia, I had a very romantic, and probably not uncommon, view of Hollywood as one giant star-making machine. I wanted to make meaningful, important and successful records that meant a lot to a lot of people. The type of success I envisioned likely had its genesis as a 14-year-old watching Motley Crue videos, and though the details of the fantasies escape me now, I'm sure they more often than not contained limousines with Jacuzzis in the back and a bevy of topless females.

As I matured (somewhat) from early-adolescent heavy metal fan into a young folky singer-songwriter, the aesthetic of the success I chased became a little more refined -- I now wanted four-star reviews in Rolling Stone, to be surrounded by artistic, successful friends and invited to the coolest parties. However, the emotional quality or feeling that I was chasing remained the same: glamor. A glamor that would remove me from my ordinary life and drop me into an extraordinary one.

I'm now 31 and have been making music for over half my life. I have experienced some moderate success, but nothing that would threaten Justin Timberlake. Back home, in Australia, my songs are sometimes played on the radio and I'm a bit of a household name, but here in the U.S. I play to a niche market of music-fans who dig pop melodies and some smarty-pants sensitivity in their lyrics. The glamor that I was chasing hasn't really shown up except peripherally (I dated a movie star in my early 20s, was the support act to some bands that headlined arenas, and am friends with a few relatively successful people). I have built a career on being a "working artist" -- someone that loves what they do and gets paid enough to keep doing it.

Most of my friends in Los Angeles could also be labeled "working artists." Whether musicians or actors, stylists or directors, songwriters or screenwriters, they are people who have carved out an often tiny corner of the pop culture landscape for themselves and, while they wouldn't necessarily be troubled for autographs in the Midwest, have continued to make their small but generous contributions to the cultural landscape we live in.

I've come to see the working artist as a noble calling. Everyone loves glamor, after all, it's easy to love. Who doesn't want lots of attention, yes men, and great tables in restaurants? But to really love a craft and to dedicate oneself to it year after year, with the full knowledge that becoming Brad Pitt or Jay-Z or Scorsese just might not be in your cards, seems a whole lot cooler to me now. I love the idea that at the end of the day, Los Angeles is full of "people making stuff," and they intend to keep on making stuff, whether the world showers them with praise or not.

Evie Wyld, British Bookseller, Wins UK Literary Prize

2009-12-01T12:12:57Z

Evie Wyld, 29, defeated rivals including Aravind Adiga, who took the Man Booker last year, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Orange Prize victor two years ago, to take the 5,000 pound John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best work of literature by a UK or Commonwealth writer aged 35 or under.

Kangaroos May Hold Skin Cancer Cure: Study

2009-12-01T08:30:04Z

SYDNEY (AFP) -- Kangaroos may provide the key to a potential treatment to prevent skin cancer, Australian scientists said on Monday.

Matthew Mitcham, Scantily Clad on Canvas

2009-11-30T17:00:34Z

Olympic diving gold medalist Matthew Mitcham is immortalized in a new,
Baroque-inspired painting by Ross Watson, now on exhibit at Australia's
National Portrait Gallery. Plus: See the photos that inspired the painting.

Julia Moulden: Banks Giving: Now That's The Holiday Spirit!

2009-11-28T08:37:00Z

Why is "Banks Giving" a headline we never expect to read? And isn't it time we acted in unison to do something about that?

Like you, I've grown increasingly uneasy about the money financial institutions are making. And the obscene bonuses paid to senior people (you can be sure that tellers aren't in line for such excess).

I've been wondering what the average person can do - in addition to sending clear messages to our leaders. An interesting story out of Australia (written by Keith Bradsher of the New York Times) shows the power of activism. After years of complaints by small business (retailers and restaurants), banks and credit card companies reduced merchant fees. The story also shows the limits. As fast as regulators came up with restrictions, banks came up with new fees. It's a vicious (and I do mean vicious) circle.

I started thinking about all of this in New Radical terms. Instead of waiting for someone else to solve the world's problems, New Radicals say, "I can do it!". And they come up with positive, constructive, and hopeful approaches. So, if straightforward activism (viz Australia) has its limits, what else can we do?

Can we get off the financial grid altogether?

I'm not talking about the proverbial mattress or even local trading coupons. I'm looking for ideas that work in our 21st century world. I want to hear about smart, sustainable financial alternatives. Has anyone started a "good" bank - and, if so, why haven't we all heard about it? What other options are out there, or in the works? I've been writing about "good" venture capitalists, including the SOCAP conference last September in San Francisco (which was attended by every major financial institution - they know something's up). What about day-to-day banking? Mortgages? Credit cards?

What are you doing? What have you heard about? How can a new breed of financial institution help bring our ailing world back to full health? How might we encourage the banks of today to start thinking like the banks of tomorrow? How can we help them see that we exist not only for ourselves but also for each other? Because, well, that's what this holiday season is all about.

Please share your thoughts by commenting below. As always, I invite you to email me at JULIA (familiar symbol) wearethenewradicals (symbol) (COM).

Julia Moulden is on tour, talking about the New Radicals. She doesn't leave home without them.

Australia Welcomes Giant Pandas With Giant Party

2009-11-27T22:48:19Z

ADELAIDE, Australia — Two giant pandas from China were welcomed to Australia on Saturday with gifts of bamboo and a city party before settling in to their new home, a 25-acre (10-hectare) natural enclosure at the Adelaide Zoo.

Four-year-old male Wang Wang and 3-year-old female Fu Ni are on loan to the zoo for 10 years as part of a joint research program, and their arrival comes amid slightly strained relations between China and Australia.

Australian Camels To Be Shot After Invading Town

2009-11-26T09:20:06Z

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia — Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies.

The Northern Territory government announced its plan Wednesday for Docker River, a town of 350 residents where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region.

Amazon Eve, Tall Model, Towers Above Others

2009-11-25T23:58:39Z

A model named Amazon Eve recently appeared in the Australian magazine Zoo Weekly. She has a beautiful face and figure, but it's her height that makes her stand out the most. According to Eve's MySpace page, the American model is 6' 8'' and 30 years old. In her Zoo Weekly photo shoot, high heels make her look even taller. She towers over a fellow model in her Zoo spread. The shorter woman's head barely reaches Eve's chest.

Watch footage from the photo shoot:

Stephen McBride, Australian Man, Blames Scientology For Brother's Suicide

2009-11-23T10:02:27Z

CANBERRA, Australia — A man who blames the Church of Scientology for his brother's suicide added his voice Monday to calls for an Australia Senate inquiry into the religion.

Belfast-born Stephen McBride, 35, flew from the west coast city of Perth to Canberra on Monday to support a senator's call for an inquiry into the church.

Kangaroo Tries To Drown Dog, Attacks Owner

2009-11-23T08:05:35Z

MELBOURNE, Australia — A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.

Rickard said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur's Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater.

Sarah Holewinski: Bad Math in Afghanistan: Deaths vs. Compensation

2009-11-21T18:00:00Z

Nobody's manning the calculator at NATO.

This year is on track to be the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the war began in 2001. Yet Oxfam just reported that of the 700 Afghans they interviewed just 1% received any compensation or apology for the harm done to them.

War never delivers clean numbers. But no matter how you look at these, something doesn't add up.

International forces acknowledge that civilians are key to their mission but still haven't figured out a coordinated way to help Afghan war victims. Just months ago, General McChrystal specifically endorsed a collective policy of compensation in his 60-day assessment of the Afghan war, but NATO is still dragging its heels.

To break this down into real terms: If your home is accidentally bombed by a Coalition airstrike, you may get compensation for the loss of property. But you likely won't. If your son is shot at a checkpoint by, say, a European, you may get some money. You may even get more than if your house was destroyed. Or you may get nothing at all.

Is this really the right way to respect the population? To win them over?

Some states like the U.S., Canada and Australia are relatively good about offering compensation when Afghans are caught in their crossfire, and are getting better about not making knee-jerk denials following tragic incidents. But the international coalition includes 26 NATO, 10 partner and 2 non-NATO countries. Taken together, their efforts to address civilian suffering are horribly scattered -- ad hoc, slow and under-used to the point that most Afghan civilians receive nothing for their losses.

The fact remains there is no coordinated system or even uniform guidelines for addressing civilian harm among international forces. Survivor's pleas for apologies, investigations and assistance have been largely met with silence. That's a big missed opportunity for respecting and establishing stability among the Afghan population.

There's a big NATO gathering coming up in early December, where all of the big decision makers will gather in Brussels to discuss Afghanistan.

How about finally addressing the human cost of this war for Afghans?

Australia fires rage amid heat wave

2009-11-20T06:30:59Z

Country battles bushfires across three southern states amid record temperatures.

Church Of Scientology Accused Of Torture And Forced Abortions In Australia

2009-11-18T15:51:59Z

The church of Scientology has entered another international controversy this week as Nick Xenophon, an independent Australian politician, tabled a number of controversial letters about the church to the Australian Senate.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the letters contain allegations of "forced abortion, torture, perjury and financial coercion."

As Xenophon presented the letters to the Senate, he said "Scientology is not a religious organization, it is a criminal organization that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs," reports The Guardian.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd acknowledged that he would consider a parliamentary inquiry into the church, whilst The Australian reports that the letters have been handed over to the police for investigation.

The Australian revealed the contents of one letter:

Senator Xenophon tabled a letter from Perth man Aaron Saxton, in which he admits to torture and blackmail while working for the Church of Scientology in Australia and at its American headquarters between 1989 and 1996.

The Daily Mail has details of another allegation:

Another letter tabled by Mr Xenophon was from a former executive director of the church's Sydney branch, Carmel Under, who claimed a cover-up of child abuse. She alleged that in the mid-1980s a trainee Scientologist counsellor had been molesting his stepdaughter, but church officials persuaded the girl to lie about the abuse to welfare officials.

The church responded with a statement saying the letters were "about as reliable as former spouses are when talking about their ex-partner".

The controversy comes less then a month after the church was convicted of fraud in France.

Kylie Approved: Gay Bondi Beach Flash Mob

2009-11-18T02:15:25Z

Over the weekend, Sydney's Bondi Beach was the site of a flash mob, led by legendary Aussie drag queen Joyce Maynge.

Read more: Sydney-Australia, Australia, Home News

William Horden: God Is One Mind

2009-11-16T13:48:29Z

There is One Mind and each of us is one of Its Ideas.

Not just us humans, however. The animals, plants, mountains, and rivers. The stars and atoms, galaxies and electrons. Everything is an Idea of the One Mind.

It is difficult for some of us to say "God thinks each of us into being" without feeling like we're falling back on childhood Sunday school stories. The aftereffects of coming to terms with the need to break out of naive belief systems can cause us to knee-jerk away from pat answers and anything resembling the old bearded patriarch sitting in Heaven.

I know I don't care for the word God unless I really work it into a fuller frame of reference.

I met an Aborigine in the Outback many years ago who asked me, as we sat on a red rock in the middle of nowhere smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and baking like lizards in the mid-morning sun, "What are you going to be when you die?"

I confessed I'd never thought about it quite like that and passed the ball back to him. He replied, blowing a cloud into the sky: "Out there," he said, pointing deeper into the desert, "there is a hidden stream coming out of a mountain. It runs through great red boulders and between giant white gum trees. Every morning a breeze washes up that ravine and every evening a breeze washes down that ravine. I will be that breeze that runs down the ravine in the evening when I die."

I took this in, adding it to what little I already knew, and asked, "So the red boulders and gum trees and breeze that runs up the ravine in the morning and the stream itself--all those are your relatives and other loved ones?" To which he merely nodded matter-of-factly, as if I'd asked if he'd seen any sand lately.

The first law of thermodynamics is that matter-energy can neither be created nor destroyed--only transformed. The laws of nature are no different than any of the other Ideas within the One Mind. They all reflect one another in the Indra's Net world view: existence is an infinite net with a perfect jewel at each of its knots and the net is arranged so that each jewel reflects every other jewel and is reflected by every other jewel, all at the same time that the whole of the jewels is reflected in every one of the jewels.

My friend in the Outback had grasped the axle of existence. As an Idea in the One Mind of what he calls Dreamtime, he can neither be created nor destroyed, merely transformed. He saw, too, that each of the Ideas--ravine, stream, boulders, trees, wind, humans--is equal, interchangeable in form, eternally incarnating in new bodies of the Beloved, light reflected among all the infinite jewels of the Mind Net.

Nowadays we have the neo-animist movement which uses the phrase "other-than-human-persons" to reflect the worldview of the presence of the One Mind. It is a

... phrase coined by Irving Hallowel, Influenced by the Ojibwe of southern-central Canada. It refers to the widest possible community of living beings. For example, in the Ojibwe Language not only are humans, animals, fish, birds, and plants living, relational beings, but so too are objects-persons such as rocks and certain weather systems (the thunder-beings). The word spirits is sometimes attached to other words, as in rock spirit or tree spirit, to suggest that some rocks or trees are different from others. Hallowell's phrase has gained currency because it does not misrepresent the indigenous thought and experience that some rocks, trees, and storms, act as persons: that is, as relational, intentional, conscious, and communicative beings. This worldview and lifeway is now being called animism (Graham Harvey and Robert J Wallis: Historical Dictionary of Shamanism)

This leap of faith, away from seeing the world as dead matter and all its plants and animals as mindless resources, carries us into a new appreciation of the emotional connectedness with the sacred. Far from experiencing our life as alienated beings in a hostile world, we find ourselves in the ever-moving center of an omnipresent sphere of communion. The atoms and electrons that make up my body are fourteen billion years old. They come from other humans, animals, plants, soil, water, air, other planets, the sun, other stars. They make up this body but they come from the very Big Bang itself, just like all the other Ideas in the One Mind. And, just like all the ideas in my mind have a life of their own and intermingle to form more complex ideas, the Ideas in the One Mind have a life of their own and intermingle, electrons and cells and growing flesh and consciousness itself arising from the ever-evolving array of more complex Ideas.

A rabbi long ago was asked, "What is the secret of life?" To which he replied, "Everything is God. Live well. Die easy."

Everything is God. I champ at the bit at this. Until I put it in terms of neo-animism.

Moses stands on the holy mountain and is confronted by a burning bush. He doesn't recognize it, so it announces itself, "Am That I Am." I get it now. We are all standing on the holy mountain. We are everywhere confronting the radiance of spirit-in-matter announcing it's uncreated and indestructible presence, I Am That I Am. I get it now. It is all a burning bush and it is always speaking to us. May we continue to learn to better attune our senses to its voice.

What will I be when I die?

I'm still working on the answer. But it goes without saying that it involves sinking deeper into the spirit-matter that miraculously makes up the One Body of this One Mind that is thinking me.

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Kevin Rudd, Australian PM, Apologizes For Kids Shipped From Britain To Colonies

2009-11-16T09:07:24Z

CANBERRA, Australia — When John Hennessey was 10 years old, he was sent from a war-weary Britain to an orphanage in Australia, where he was told food was plentiful and children rode kangaroos to school.

Instead, he was beaten and sexually abused, leaving him emotionally scarred and with a stutter that persists 60 years later.

After 50 years, the 'lost innocents' shipped from home win apology

2009-11-15T19:15:26Z

Thousands of British children sent to populate Australia in what was later described as "one of the most disgraceful periods in post-war politics" will be given an official apology from Kevin Rudd, the country's Prime Minister, in Canberra today. Gordon Brown will also try to make amends to the Britons who were shipped to several former colonies, including Canada.

Read more: Canberra, Australia, Canada, Home News

Lori Pottinger: A Good Week for Rivers

2009-11-12T14:50:41Z

It’s been a bad week for dams – and a very good one for the
world’s rivers.

In Queensland, Australia, river protectors thrilled to the
news today that their long fight to Save the Mary River from the ravages of a large dam is, finally, over. The
nation’s Environment Minister announced the rejection of the proposed Traveston
Dam due to its ''unacceptable impacts on matters of national environment
significance.''

The river-endangering dam would likely have killed off a few
endangered species (including a lungfish species that has been around since the dinosaurs roamed the earth), flooded
farmland, and dewatered the river for miles. The Sydney Morning Herald said,
“By stopping the dam, experts said, [Peter] Garrett had made the biggest
decision by an environment minister in 10 years of national environment laws.”
Residents of the Mary Valley, 160 kilometres north of Brisbane, had for three
years fought the dam with everything they had – from horseback protests to
long-distance canoe trips to a widespread grassroots PR campaign that saw every
fence post and farm building in the Mary River valley sporting signs to Save the Mary.

These dogged and inspiring activists succeeded in creating a
national debate on the dam, and shone a bright spotlight on the project’s
flaws. Valley residents had been on edge for three years; now, they can get on
with their lives – and take immense pride in their accomplishment to save a critical
watershed.

Halfway around the world, in Mexico, equally inspiring
community activists have prevailed in their fight to prevent a bad dam project
planned near Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico. In late October,
the governor of Jalisco State announced the cancellation of the Arcediano
Dam.
The dam was expected to bring serious health risks for the three million
people who would drink its water, since its source – the highly polluted
Santiago River – is the recipient of large amounts of untreated domestic and
industrial wastewater. In 2001, the National Water Commission called the
Santiago unsuitable to supply drinking
water.

It’s the second such announcement in Mexico this year; in
May the Mexican press reported that another big dam – this one near Acapulco –
is being postponed. Since 2004, thousands of local farmers have been fighting
the construction of La Parota Dam
in Guerrero state. They staged blockades, protests and legal actions, and
often faced violent police repression in return.

Further
south, Brazil, now on the verge of massive damming of the Amazon, may be
slowing its dam boom down a bit as well. This week, a judge suspended the licensing process
for Brazil’s biggest dam, the huge Belo Monte hydropower project, and
ordered new public hearings on the project. Past public hearings on the
contested project broke down in protests in September after it became clear the
process was a sham. The judgement buys some time for
activists working to raise concerns about the dam’s true costs, and its huge
impacts on one of the world’s most important river systems.

As if to
show just how in-the-dark Brazil’s dam builders are, the Belo Monte ruling came
the same day as a huge regional blackout, caused by a flawed transmission
system from Brazil’s huge Itaipu Dam. The outage left a third of Brazil’s
population in the dark. According to Associated Press, "It is at least the fourth time since 1985
that Brazil has suffered a massive power outage involving transmission lines
from Itaipu."

Dams were also in the news in California this week. The
Golden State has been all abuzz over a new water plan, pushed by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger and recently passed behind closed doors by the Legislature. The
plan is intended to correct some of the biggest problems with our
over-engineered water supply system. But critics say the plan goes too easy on
agricultural interests
(our biggest water user), and that there are better alternatives to
the planned engineering projects.
The Governator’s proposal to build new big water-storage dams and a
canal to ship water to Southern California go against the tide
of river restoration sweeping the country – including, most recently, a plan to
remove four destructive dams on the Klamath River on the California-Oregon
border. These dams have been killing fish and harming water quality for decades. In fact, the new water plan has a devious twist: It would grant money to help bring down the dams, but could harm the main tributary of the Klamath with greater water withdrawals. Let's hope California's river lovers can find some inspiration from these global victories, and mount a campaign to improve our water system without damaging new dams.

But that fight will come another day. For today, here's to the activists in Australia and Mexico who fought so well to protect their rivers. We raise our water glasses to you: To Rivers! To Water! To Life!

Koalas Could Go Extinct

2009-11-10T10:59:46Z

Australia's koalas could be wiped out within 30 years unless urgent action is taken to halt a decline in population, according to researchers.

NY's Men in Tights Take Sydney by Storm

2009-11-10T09:15:59Z

Men in tights never looked so good. New York's all-male ballet company hits the stage again.

Should All Drug Use Be Made Legal?

2009-11-06T17:30:33Z

Should All Drug Use Be Made Legal?

Although the media sporadically reports on major narcotic raids, the general consensus about the war on drugs is that small battles will not win this war. Despite all the money spent on drug enforcement worldwide, illicit drugs are still relatively cheap and widely available. Increasingly drugs are being viewed as a social problem rather than strictly a legal one.

So is it time to rethink traditional approaches to the illegal drug industry? Countries like Portugal and Argentina are forging ahead with drug reforms, but will Australia follow suit?

In this panel from the provocative Festival of Dangerous Ideas the argument is put forward that decriminalization and regulation would be the best solution to addressing the problems associated with drugs.
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Location: Sydney, Australia, Sydney Opera House,

Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/2009/10/04/Should_All_Drug_Use_Be_Made_Legalr

Lachlan Murdoch Buys Mansion For $21 Million (PHOTOS)

2009-11-06T11:49:32Z

Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan has just bought the former French consulate in Sydney's eastern suburbs for $23 million Australian dollars, or roughly $21 million US dollars. He is reported to have outbid Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman for the property.

The 4,097 square-meter grand Georgian estate, situated at 93 Victoria Road in Bellevue Hill, is called Le Manoir and boasts "6 bedrooms, self-contained quarters, 2 studies, 5 bathrooms, guest powder room, versatile living and sitting rooms, stunning reception hall, 3 car garage, drive-way forecourt, multiple store rooms, fireplaces, polished timber floors, large internal laundry and commercial size kitchen."

The real estate listing also describes the lavish setting:

Secluded at the end of a private drive-way, the home is surrounded by sprawling North East gardens, sunny terraces, tennis court and a swimming pool. Superb Georgian architecture and 3.6 metre ceilings exude grandeur and elegance, while also offering an abundance of space for family living and entertaining on a lavish scale.

Lachlan Murdoch and his model/actress wife Sarah have two young boys and are expecting a third child.

See the photos — and judge if it's worth the pricetag — below (photos via):

Plague Of Kangaroos Has Australian Farmers Under Seige (VIDEO)

2009-11-05T19:04:59Z

Australian farmers are under siege from a kangaroo plague as the animals flood into towns looking for food. Their grazing land has been ravaged by drought "local television footage shows shows kangaroos on the streets, in the parks and backyards, with many hanging around into the morning."

WATCH: