Tuna Baron Hagen Stehr

The preferred fish of the Japanese is sashimi.

Hagen Stehr is an interesting man. He served with the French Foreign Legion and was also in the German merchant navy. He jumpd ship in Port Lincoln and married Anna, his wife of 49 years with only a pair of blue jeans and one pound in his pocket. He joined a group of tough migrant fisherman and went hunting for the bluefin tuna. Gone are the days when boats would leave Port Lincoln harbour without navigation lights to get the jump on the opposition. They carried rifles on board and often shot at other boats in a bid to claim the prized catch. They were catching so much tuna that Stehr knew it couldn't go on forever so he had a dream - tuna propogation. The Americans tried to do it but couldn't, the Japanese wouldn't even try and the Europeans spent about 70 million euros and failed. Now his Clean Seas Tuna are propogating bluefin tuna in a land-based tank and he has established the first successful tuna farm in the world.

He was home in Adelaide when he got a telephone call from his chief scientist with the news that their $60 million gamble had finally paid off. "Big fella, you'd better come back" Morton Deichmann said to 6 foot 1 inch Hagen. With tears in his eyes, he jumped in his old Landcruiser and drove like a man possessed to Port Lincoln, over 500 kms away, to see the fertilized eggs with his own eyes.

"They said you couldn't keep tuna for longer than six or eight months, but we proved we can keep them for 10 years. But we had a lot of problems - white pointers, seals, disease and bad weather but all the fish came through. We now have technology to replicate the conditions of the tuna schools as they travel around the coastline. It sounded impossible and they said it couldn't be done but we did it" he said.

He needed help to lift big tuna from the ocean into the onshore facility so he called on his ex-Vietnam chopper pilot buddies to help. It wasn't an easy job but they did it, they lifted tuna from three miles out to sea and brought them to shore. The next step was to get them to spawn. The scientists said you would have to keep them for at least three years to make them sufficiently relaxed to spawn but they did it in three months.

And here's the amazing thing which sounds unbelievable - they replicated the tuna's journey in the wild. These amazing fish swim 320 kms south of Port Lincoln, then head west outside the continental shelf into streams that run west to east. They round the coast at the bottom end of Australia and then head slowly north past Fremantle, Geraldton and Broome and up to the spawning area. After that they come back down the West Australian coast and all the way back to Port Lincoln. And the fish never leave the tank the whole time, they have replicated the different temperatures and seas which all takes place in the tank. Unbelievable.

He admits to having a stubborn German streak and knows that people called him an arrogant bastard at the beginning but he knew it was just a matter of time. Like most founders of mighty industries, Stehr managed everything himself until the company was listed and is now a director. "You have to have deep pockets" he said.

Clean Seas plans to produce 25000 fish this year and 10,000 tonnes by 2015.

A Crime of Passion

There's a theory I tend agree with about romantic relationships- one partner loves more than the other. And should the loved one transfer their affection to someone else, the pain is so acute and the hurt so deep, they lose all sense of reason. The French call it crime passionell or a crime of passion.


Cameron Neil Cook 44 was a respectable lawyer and former policeman. He had his wife followed and when the private investigator showed him footage of her with another man, he went bezerk. Consumed with jealousy and rage, he tried to drown them both by driving off a pier.


He went out and bought chains, a knife and padlocks. He gave their 7 year old son a sleeping pill so he wouldn't hear, bashed his wife and tied her ankles. Then he chained them both inside their car and drove off a pier, his plan being to kill them both. He flew off the end of the pier and through a steel fence with such force, it went flying and almost hit a fisherman before the car plunged into the water. Somehow his wife was able to free herself and was found bleeding with the chains still wrapped around her. Cook was also rescued and taken into custody.


Love can be a very dangerous emotion for some people and this man loved too much. If you give your love utterly and completely to someone without holding something back, you take a big risk. If your beloved walks out, there's nothing left in reserve and you collapse in a screaming heap. It happened to Glen Close in Fatal Attraction when she put the child's rabbit in a pot and cooked it, loving someone too much makes some people do terrible things.


Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth took into account Cook's good character as a police officer and government prosecutor with no previous history of violence, but sentenced him to 15 years with a minimum of 10. He was overheard at one of his court appearances saying "When I get out of here, I'll do the job properly".

Mistakes of War

We heard the tragic news that ten children, eight schoolboys from one family, were killed because of faulty intelligence. They died last December when troops raided a mountain compound, thinking they were known insurgents. They weren't and Nato says the raid should never have been authorised.

Two men whose children and other relatives were killed provided pictures of their dead sons, a sketched map of the compound and copies of the compensation claim forms signed by local officials. Their story was supported by Western military forces. Farooq Abdul Ajan lost eight members of his family in the raid, two sons, two brothers, three nephews and a cousin.

Anger is growing over civilian casualties. The Independent Human Rights Commission said that 63 civilians have died in the past 2 weeks. Assadullah Wafa, who led an Afghan investigation into the incident, said that relatives would get $2,000 compensation for each person killed. What an insult.

We can't shrug off these tragic events as being part of the ugliness of war, these mistakes have got to stop.

Internet Libel

People think they can make defamatory statements on an internet forum and get away with it, believing they are anonymous. Wrong, WA legal counsel Martin Bennett said yesterday that they can be hunted down and found.

"There has been an increasing proliferation of internet chat sites where people feel free to hide their identities and make defamatory comments about companies and their executives and directors" he said.

Someone made nasty comments last November under pseudonyms on the stockmarket forum HotCopper website. They related to technology security company Datamotion Asia Pacific Limited and it's Perth-based Chairman Ronald Moir. One posting appeared under the pseudonym "witch". Datamotion and Mr Moir hired Mr Bennett to find him.

He asked HotCopper for the real name of "witch" plus two others under different names but they refused, so he took court action forcing them to turn over their files. But the registered membership name turned out to be false. He won't say what he did next, but it was pretty clever because he found the culprit, a Mr Graeme Gladman and he was found responsible for Datamotion and Mr Moir being "brought into hatred, contempt and ridicule and thereby suffered damage".

It was resolved last week with Mr Gladman agreeing to pay $20,000 damages and $10,000 costs. He also had to apologise and promise he won't publish any more defamatory statements.

It's so easy to be brave with words when you think no one knows who you are. If you stay on a forum long enough, you will find there are a minority of people who enjoy hurting others with words, they just can't resist it, thinking they are safe. Not any more. Mr Bennett has launched two more cases of brave men/women hiding behind an anonymous name, both are pending before the WA Supreme Court.

Graeme Gladman is founding principal and creator of BrandQuest. Also creative director of Myer/Grace Brothers, Beaurepairs, Amcal Chemists, Mazda, BP, OPSM, Katies, Bendigo Bank, Commercial Union Insurance and Optus, just to name a few. He is partner and Managing Director of his internationally-owned Advertising Agency Batey Gladman.

Britain says sorry for child migration scheme

10 year old twins on their way to Auckland, New Zealand

Prime Minister Rudd says sorry and comforts a victim

Gordon Brown will apologise tomorrow for the UK's role in the child migration scheme which sent thousands of children to Australia and Canada who suffered terrible abuse. The Prime Minister is due to express the Government's regrets about the program in a statement to the House of Commons. Sixty survivors have been flown to London to hear the statement in person.


The scheme ran from the 1920's through to the 1960's and an estimated 150,000 poor children aged from 3 to 14 were sent away to a better life but many ended up in foster homes, orphanages and religious institutions. Children were told their parents were dead and parents weren't informed where their children were, I can't imagine why they would insist on such a harsh rule.


Survivors told that on arrival, they were seperated from brothers and sisters, and had to endure physical and sexual abuse from their carers. How excited these happy children must have been, embarking on a new adventure, being told about the blue skies and sandy beaches of Australia, only to have their lives ruined by sexual predators and constant beatings. It must be a terrible thing to have no one to stand up for you, no mother or father, sisters or brothers, just a child alone in a strange country which made them so very vulnerable. Gordon Brown is expected to announce support for those affected. A black spot in our history books for both countries.

A group of children at Melrose house near Parramatta in 1953

The New Poor of America

Someone called it the Great Recession and for 15 million unemployed Americans, their suffering could go on for years. Most have no savings and are getting close to the end of their unemployment benefits. Who would have believed that a tragedy like this could befall the richest nation on earth. This is one of the 713 comments made in response to the article in the New York Times today.

Welcome to my world. 62 years old, and apparently now permanently unemployable because I'm 'overqualified' - the new euphemism for too old. Forget my resume and former career, I aged out of that but for very rare freelance gigs. Forget any new one because no one is hiring anyone over 50 if they don't have a very unique talent. Savings gone, last dime gone, no benefits of any kind (did I mention that old means uninsurable?) and no state agencies that will help with rent or anything except food and slightly lower utilities if one doesn't have minor children. Now it's borrow from friends who know they might never get it back. So much for working all your life if you didn't make millions doing it and put it all in a sock.

Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment cheques before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration's proposal to extend the payments.

Jean Eisen 57 has been out of work for 2 years, she used to sell beauty salon products. With no unemployment cheque left, she has survived on local food banks for her groceries and has learned to live without drugs for high blood pressure and cholesterol. With no health insurance, she has turned to religion for solace and hope. She and her husband have to survive on his $1595 monthly disability cheque and the rent on their apartment is $1380 a month. "We are looking at the very real possibility of being homeless" she said.

What a tragic state of affairs, middle-class Americans suddenly as poor as church mice, and God forbid they get sick from all the stress, with no health insurance, they can't afford it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?em

Muslim Cleric Sent Home

Robert McClelland

Sydney based Iranian cleric Mansour Leghaei has been given 28 days to leave the country. ASIO has been saying for years that he is a security risk so why did Attorney-General Robert McClelland write two glowing character references for him? It seems he wrote them when he was a back-bencher way back in 1997. He described the sheik as an asset to the Australian and Muslim communities.

On Friday, the Migration Review Tribunal didn't agree with him and upheld a decision by the Immigration Department denying him a residency visa and his bridging visa has been cancelled. For more than ten years, he's been in court fighting not one, but two ASIO reports saying that he was in fact a security risk. Finally the Appeals Court agreed and he's on his way home.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans' spokesman said "The Department will seek to engage with Mr Leghaei in the coming weeks to facilitate his departure." he said. The decision also applies to his wife and one of his adult children which means their bridging visas will also be cancelled in 28 days. At least one of his children was born in Australia.

Tiger Wood's I'm Sorry Speech

It was hard not to laugh out loud watching Tiger Wood's 'I'm sorry' speech on Friday, the whole orchestrated episode was like a black comedy sketch. He was completely devoid of emotion, no tears, no quivering bottom lip, and most of all, no sincerity - just a cold fish reading a script. It was obvious to me that this man didn't mean one word he was saying. And watching his mother fawning over him at the end was pitiful, she shouldn't have been there at all, no one can condone this man's behaviour, least of all his mother, and she was doing that just by being there.

I suppose the sponsors will all come back to him and he'll continue to play some of the best golf the world has ever seen but something's different, the world now knows what type of man he really is and all the money in the world can't buy back respect.

Terrorism in Australia

Prosecutors said a group of five Muslim men had stockpiled dangerous chemicals, firearms and ammunition as part of a plan to wage an Islamist jihad against the Australian people. Why? Because Australia is one of the countries taking part in the assaullt on terror and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. They hold the government responsible for this invasion of their lands and the deaths of hundreds of civilians in both countries. The arrests in 2005 followed tip-offs from gun shop owners and hardware stores, they became suspicious when the men ordered unusually high amounts of chemicals and guns. This week they were sentenced.


Convict No 5 was born in Australia and from the age of 16, the young Muslim boy went fishing most Friday and Saturday nights down at the ferry wharf at Abbotsford with his friend, local shopkeeper Tony. Tony described himself as a Catholic Chinese from Papua New Guinea. Abbotsford isn't a Muslim suburb, more multi-cultural. Tony said he was a good kid from a large family of eight boys and four girls and he genuinely liked him. The second last time saw him as a free man, he hardly recognised him. He was wearing a long robe and trying to grow a beard. Tony laughed and told him he was wearing a dress and he laughed too, not the least offended. Apart from his outward appearance, Tony told the court he saw nothing that would indicate his sudden turn to extremism and he went on to give him a good character reference. Fast forward five years, he's now 21 and unaware that his phone is tapped when he's recorded as saying "I will kill John Howard".

Convict No 1 is married with 6 children. He was born in Lebanon 44 years ago and came to Australia when he was 11. He completed year 10 at Bankstown High and has 11 siblings, all living in Australia. He was a metal fabrication apprentice with the Water Board, then did mechanical engineering and completed a rigging and crane driver course. He went into a family business working on structural steel sites. He started reading extremist material and believed what they said - if Muslim lands were attacked (Iraq and Afghanistan) it was his duty to respond. He got 28 years with a minimum of 21.


Convict No 2 was born in Lebanon in March 1973 and came to Australia when he was 3. He's on record as saying "Your democracy is full of hyprocrisy, we worship Allah, sharia law is going to rule the land, go and learn it because you are going to be ruled by it". He got 27 years with a minimum of 20. Two years after his arrest, his wife and son moved to Jordan.


Convict No 3 was also born in Australia and is the nephew of Convict No 2 and I think it's fairly obvious that he was influenced by his uncle. He was born in Australia on February 23 1977. His parents were divorced when he was 12 and his mother was left to bring up the children. When he was 18 he developed a strong interest in the Koran and by 1999 he was attending the Mussalah prayer hall in Lakemba twice a day. In October 2001, he attended a Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan and returned in 2002. His wife and child visit him every week in gaol. He got 26 years with a minimum of 19 years and six months.


Convict No 4 was born in Bangladesh on 24 August 1969, the youngest of 12 children. He was 20 when he arrived in Australia. His English was poor and he went to Bondi Junction for lessons. He was bothered by the alcohol and drug culture he became exposed to and the discipline of Islam appealed to him. He worked as a cleaner at the InterContinental Hotel and learned fish-filleting and opened a business in Lakemba which failed. He married a woman who converted to Islam and they have 4 children. He named his eldest son "Jihad" meaning "struggle" and his last job was working in a butcher's shop in Lakemba and he worked hard to make ends meet. By 2004 he had met Convicts 1, 2 and 3 and was praying regularly at the Mussalah prayer room. The only defendant to take the stand he said that when the west invaded Afghanistan he regarded Australia as "the enemy" and expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden. He got 26 years with a minimum of 19.


Convict No 5 - the young fisherman from Abbotsford. He was born in Australia on 22nd July 1984, one of 12 children. He did not do well at school and developed a drug habit and was expelled in year 9. He completed the equivalent of the School Certificate at TAFE. He set up his own business of building and repairing computers. He got into bad company and his family encouraged him to break away from his friends who were using drugs and alcohol. An elder brother, who had been in jail, took him to the mosque and insisted he pray five times a day. He met his brother's friends who became his co-offenders. Unaware that his phone was tapped, he was speaking to Convict No 2 when he said "I will kill John Howard". During a police search of his home he said "Youse are going to be put into a fire by Allah" and that "Allah will put a curse on the wives and children of unbelievers and send diseases. Youse can all rot slowly" he said. Justice Whealy said Convict No 5 willingly joined the conspiracy, although at a later stage he left a few weeks before the arrests were made. The judge gave him 23 years with a non-parole period of seventeen years and three months, the lightest sentence of the group.


Keysar Trad, founding chairman of the Islamic Friendship Association said "We see a lot of anger out there, anger at the violence against Muslim countries, anger that Muslims are blamed for troubles". He's also concerned that this week's severe sentences will drive that anger underground.


The names of the offenders have been suppressed, presumably to protect the wives and children left behind. Familes of the men have received death threats and eggs have been thrown at houses. One relative said "People drive by screaming at us and swearing, they beep their horn and tell us to back to our country. But this is my home" she said.


Justice Anthony Whealy said the men remained dangerous and unrepentant, appearing to "wear their imprisonment like a badge of honour". They waved to the cameras as they were escorted back to gaol after the sentencing.

Thursday's court ruling brings an end to the longest terrorism trial in Australia's history - a period of 181 days.

Mensa International

Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It's a non-profit organization open to people who score 98% or higher on a supervised intelligence test.

Roland Berrill, an Australian Barrister and Dr Lancelot Ware, British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa in the UK in 1946. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership being a high IQ. The name comes from two Latin words: mens which means mind and mensa which means table - a round table of minds.

So what is the purpose of Mensa? Firstly to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research into the uses of intelligence; and to provide a stimulating, intellectual and social environment for its members. But that might be a bit hard for its newest member, William Potter who is 3 years old and has an IQ of 140.

He loves solving word puzzles on his computer, playing with calculators and has already learned some Chinese and Spanish. At the moment he's into map reading and sits with a map on his knee when he goes out in the car with his parents, and tells them when to turn.

His mother, Lyn Goldstraw, runs a toy business from home and send packages all over the world. When he asked his mother where the places were, she bought him a globe and he quickly learnt all about countries and their capital cities. When he gets bored he tells his mother he's had enough play now and wants to learn.

I wonder if having a gifted child is a blessing or a curse. His father David, an electrician said when he started nursery school he went straight to a clothes peg and hung up his coat, he'd spotted his name written above it. William's parents call him a miracle child because he was born in April 2006 with a club foot and was thought to have Downs Syndrome. Although he has a Downs relative, tests prove that he doesn't have it and treatment has cured his club foot.

His parents haven't mentioned anything about his intelligence, worried he may be bullied or made to feel different. There is little help available for parents with gifted children and they are pleased that he's now a member of Mensa, hopefully he'll be able to solve the problems of the world one day with other highly intelligent folk. And just maybe they'll come up with something wonderful.

Dalai Lama and China

Two Nobel Peace Prize winners will sit down today in the White House to discuss a very tricky subject - Tibet and China. Beijing pleaded with President Obama not to show support for the Dalai Lama by meeting with him, but their official objections were ignored. The White House has said that he will be received as a spiritual leader, and has nothing to do with politics - but we all know that it has. And to make matters worse, President Obama has given arms worth $6.4 billion to Taiwan, a country that China has always considered their own and vows to take back one day.

The Chinese own more US government debt than any other nation - about $800 billion worth, and they pay them $50 billion a year just in interest. So things are not going well between the two super powers. Dare we ask if America is worried about ever being able to pay it back?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/15/eveningnews/main5660868.shtml

Can you drink too much water?

Health experts have been telling us for years to drink more water but how much is too much? Dawn Page, a healthy 42-year old living in the UK wanted to lose some weight. She went to a nutritionist and started on a detox diet which involved cutting down on her salt intake and drinking 6 pints of water a day. After seven days she collapsed and had an epileptic fit which left her brain damaged. Now she can't speak properly and her memory has gone.

Then there was the physically active footballer Andrew Thornton, a 44 year old who fell into a coma and died from swelling of the brain. He drank 17 pints of cold water and after excessive vomitting, he collapsed and died of a heart attack triggered by over-consumption of water.

Young people at Rave parties who take Ecstacy get desperately thirsty and have died from drinking too much water. In 2007, 22 year old fitness instructor David Rogers died after his first London marathon from being over anxious to re-hydrate. Actor Anthony Andrews collapsed after a West End performance in 2003 after drinking 17 pints of water but recovered in hospital. Artist Andy Warhol died when only 58 in 1987 when a New York hospital gave him too much fluid which led to water intoxication.

Water overdose or hyponatremia is when too much water comsumption dilutes vital salts and minerals in the body. Cells and organs swell up which increases pressure in the brain and the body can shut down. Because the brain in confined inside the skull, it hasn't any room to expand and once it's enlarged by 6%, it hits bone and starts to compress against the skull which results in convulsions, coma, brain damage and death.

So be very careful when you re-hydrate after exercise and avoid detox diets that involve drinking lots of water and eating only fruits and vegetables with minimal salt - it's a recipe for disaster. And check the colour of your urine, if you are drinking too little, it will be dark but if its the colour of pale straw, it's just right.

Cellar Monster Josef Fritzl

When I first heard about this evil man, I couldn't believe how his daughter Elizabeth could survive for 24 years in total darkness under the ground, never being able to see the sun or the moon. And how he would visit her almost every night for sex and made her perform sex acts that he'd seen on his porn movies. She should have gone insane, but she didn't and my first thought was please God, don't let his defence lawyers plead insanity. But that's exactly what they did - he's living out a reasonably comfortable life in a psychiatric hospital in Austria.

Now he's sending Elizabeth begging letters, he wants money to embark on a legal career, to study to be a lawyer and he only needs a few thousand to get him started. In all his letters, there is never a hint of an apology or any sign of regret.

Elizabeth is building a new life for herself with her six surviving children sired by her father. His wife was shattered by what he'd done and has even changed her name, she now lives alone in a small flat in Linz. She wasn't allowed to take any possessions from the 66-room house, it's been sealed by the court as Fritzl has debts of over 4 million dollars that must be settled.

But there was a problem between Elizabeth and her mother. She was furious with her for taking her father back after he was convicted of rape many years ago when she was a little girl - if she had made a stand against him then, maybe her life would have turned out differently.

Hated by other inmates, he's had numerous death threats. He's alone in a single cell for nearly 24 hours a day and his food is pushed through a small slot in the door. Doctors say he's not a suicide threat which is a good thing because he mustn't be allowed to take the easy way out. He needs to stick around and suffer for as long as possible. Not that he's doing much suffering, he's probably sailing through the day on happy pills, nothing like the suffering he inflicted on his poor unfortunate daughter for 24 years.

Elizabeth has just passed her driving test and is looking for a car. She is proud of her children who all go to school and are doing well. She received about $100,000 in back child payments and has no financial problems so far. Felix, the little boy who was only six when he was rescued had police in tears when he pointed to the moon and asked "Does God live there?"

Bullying for Life

Yesterday, a 12 year old boy Elliot Fletcher was stabbed to death in the school toilets of St. Patrick's College, a prestigious boys school in Brisbane. A 13 year old boy who stabbed him ran away, bleeding from a self-inflicted wound to the neck. Paramedics tried desperately to save him but he later died in hospital. Rumour has it that the perpetrator was a victim of bullying and he brought the knife to frighten his tormentors and last night he was charged with murder.

What is a poor parent to do when their son/daughter is bullied at school? As far as I can see, there are only two alternatives, the kid accepts his/her fate and tries to keep out of their way or they stand up to them. Yeah, right. How can you turn a mild-mannered, gentle-natured kid into some sort of fighting machine, you shouldn't even try. You can't expect the teachers to know what's going on every minute of the day, they all look like little angels in the classroom. Somehow they have to hand over the responsibily to kids in every grade to alert teachers when they spot a problem. I think the kids are well aware of who's being bullied and by whom.

There's a forum I belong to that thrives on bullying and when people get really nasty, that's when everyone jumps on to see what happens. I read an article yesterday about an Aussie journalist who said he turned into a monster on an ononymous forum, and when he stood back and looked at how aggressive he'd become, he was appalled. Was he a school bully I wonder, probably yes. I know a middle-aged man who is a very successful bully, he's subtle about it but in the end he gets exactly what he wants and people around him are oblivious. The fact that he not only has a big personality but is also big in stature, helps his cause immensely. We've all come across the bully in the workplace and the most annoying thing is that they are usually very successful - when they walk into a room, everyone notices. He's funny and makes people laugh and his workmates ingratiate themselves to him which is sickening to watch but no one is game enough to do anything about it.

So bullies sail through life on the crest of a wave but if there's any justice in the world, someone some day with stand up to them, highly unlikely but probable. Rewind 50 years in Australia when there were no knives and guns at school, the boys would fight it out with their bare knuckles. Now girls as well as boys are tearing eachother apart and after the death of Elliot Fletcher yesterday, schools in Australia will never be quite the same again.

Nembutal

The banned drug Nembutal is being used by young people to commit suicide and fifty one people have died from the drug in the last 10 years. Philip Nitschke, head of Exit International has promoted the drug as the "peaceful pill" and gives advice to elderly people with terminal illnesses or chonic pain on how to end their lives.

Ages of the 51 deaths are as follows: six in their 20s, eight in their 30s, five in their 40s, fourteen in their 50s, three in their 60s, ten in their 70s, three in their 80s and two in their 90s. Coroners found that eight people had got the drug from overseas but in most cases, the source was unknown.

People can download Exit's instructions from the Peaceful Pill handbook which has been published on line in the USA since the drug was banned in Australia in 2007. But here's the bit to keep us all in line. In Australia, it's illegal to use a telephone, fax, email or the internet to discuss or research assisted suicide. Downloading the handbook carries a maximum of $110,ooo fine but no one has been charged with the offence so far. There is also a twenty five year jail sentence for importing the drug or a $550,000 fine. We all remember what happened when Qantas pilot Graeme Wylie who had Alzheimers, asked for help to die, his wife went to jail and a family friend who went to Mexico to get the drug for him commited suicide.

Dr Nitschke said he wasn't surprised that Australians had either bought the drug from veterinary clinics overseas or received it in the mail after ordering it online. It all sounds so easy but I wonder if it is.

President of Dying with Dignity Victoria said it was very regrettable that young people had used the drug to end their life. He suspects that some may have had psychological problems rather than chronic pain or terminal illness.

For help or information visit beyondblue.org.au or call Lifeline on 131 114

Peter Garrett, Mr Midnight Foil

After the Rudd Labor Party won office in 2007, Peter Garrett was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts.

He was a rock singer with the famous Australian band Midnight Oil, the band identifying strongly with environmental causes. He was President of the Australian Conservation Foundation for many years and was also on the international board of Greenpeace.

When he was elected, he said he would push environmental causes from within the Labor Party but would "abide by ALP Caucus". To many, that meant that he had sold out his principles as far as the environment was concerned. He was called a "turncoat" and betrayer of his former beliefs when he became a 'Team Player' of the Labor Party. He showed his true colours when he told voters not to vote for the Greens but to vote for Labor in the 2006 Victorian State Election and leader Bob Brown was understandably furious. He also gave support to the Gunns company in Tasmania when they wanted to build the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in the beautiful Tamar Valley. And how could an environmentalist put his seal of approval on the expansion of South Australia's Beverley uranium mine in 2008 when the Australian Conservation Foundation were appalled.

Monique Podmore didn't want to get involved in the Rudd government's $2.4 billion roof insulation program, she just wanted to get better. Suffering from agonising burns which will affect her for the rest of her life, she grieves for her boyfriend Matthew Fuller 26, who was electrocuted beside her last October, just days after they took up a job offer to lay reflective foil mats in Brisbane homes.

"I wanted to stay out of it, I'm only 19 and don't know how it all works. But I still don't understand how it all happened, who made the decisions, and who rushed in, it just seems that no one cares and all they thought about was the money".

"I thought he was having a fit or something, I grabbed him and got thrown into the air. I was lying there struggling to breathe with pain I never felt before. There was no safety training, no warning that it could be dangerous, we would not have gone up into those ceilings if we had known".

Peter Garrett is strutting around with 'it's not my problem' attitude that is infuriating. No hint of an apology to the families who lost their sons, no contrition. Today he can't even be bothered to attend a safety meeting being held in Canberra with electrician heads, he's got other, more important things on his agenda.

Kleine-Levin Syndrome

Louise Ball, a 15 year old girl in the UK has just be diagnosed with a very rare disorder called Kleine-Levin Syndrome. Her parents call her Sleeping Beauty because she sleeps for two weeks at a time. She's had to miss out on school exams, dancing lessons and she once slept right through a family holiday.

It all started with a bad dose of the flu. She was very sick for about a week but didn't recover properly from it. Her mother said "We found out that it was the start of a sleep mode which comes before deep sleep. She started to fall asleep at school and began muttering things that didn't make any sense, as though she was talking in her sleep.

Her parents were beside themselves when she started sleeping for ten days at a time. She would sleep deeply for 22 hours and then her parents would wake her up, just long enough to give her some food and take her to the toilet, then she would fall straight back to sleep again.

After many visits to doctors and hospitals who had no idea what was wrong, a consultant Paediatric eventually diagnosed her with Kleine-Levin Syndrome. It's a rare form of periodic hypersomnia, periods of prolonged sleep.

Although the doctors are having some difficulty finding the right drug for Louise, the latest medication seems to be working, she hasn't fallen asleep for about 7 weeks. Naturally, her parents were frantic that she would fall so far behind in her schoolwork, she wouldn't pass her exams. Then there was the added worry of whether she could stay awake long enough to finish them. They will be seeking help and understanding from her school.

For more information visit KLS Foundation at http://www.klsfoundation.org/

Iran

It was the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran and I thought I must be dreaming when I saw thousands of people in Azardi Square waving and shouting support for President Ahmadinejad. How could this be, just months ago there was a sea of green protestors in the streets shouting for his demise. All opposition leaders and their planned protests were silenced and the Green movement is shattered and demoralised, they were simply out-manoeuvred.

So where did all these people come from? The President had them all bussed in to fill Azardi Square with thousands of smiling, happy people, shouting their support. The President wanted the world to know that Iran has produced its first stock of 20 per cent-enriched uranium and that Iran is now a nuclear state. What a complete farce and how naive can he be to think that the world press wouldn't find out what's really going on over there.


The London Times said today "The regime disrupted mobile, email and text messaging services but the opposition managed to post some mobile telephone phone clips on the internet. They showed supporters chanting "Death to the Dictator" ripping down a poster of the Ayatollah and burning a Basiji's motorbike.


It's been a setback for the Green movement. One demonstrator said "People wonder where this movement is going. They show up every few weeks and get beaten, but to what end? We have lost our fear but we need to know where to go with our new-found courage".


Like the rest of the world, I was hoping the Green movment would prevail in Iran, take power and free the people. It's not looking likely at the moment.

Alternative Medicine

Patricia Booth, a British civil servant was in the Old Bailey yesterday in a bid to prove that Chinese medicine ruined her life. She was in her mid-40's when she visited a Chinese herbalist in 1997. She was in good health and had a very successful job but she had spots on her face and traditional medicine had failed her. The conventional doctor's answer to her problem was long-term anti-biotics and she was naturally looking for a healthy alternative. That alternative resulted in kidney failure and cancer.


She took the medicine from Chinese Herbal Medical Centre in Chelmsford, Essex for five and a half years. They advertised their remedies as 'safe and natural without any side effects'.


In February 1997 she and her husband visited the premises for a consultation. She was taken to a room where an elderly Chinese man was introduced to her as a doctor. She was given herbs to boil up and drink but the taste was so 'horrible', she went back and was given some pills instead. This time she didn't see the elderly 'doctor' but met a Mr Wu. And this is where her common sense should have kicked in - Mr Wu told her to take a cap-full - about 30 pills - three times a day. Hello? Here's an intelligent woman in charge of a large government department, who didn't think that this doseage was excessive? She returned to the shop every 10 days or so, buying two or three bottles from Susan Wu with the dose decreasing over time. She took them for five and a half years without a second thought because her spots cleared up completely.


Five years later in 1992. she wasn't feeling well and hadn't been for some time. In 2003 she went for a blood test which showed she was suffering from chronic long-term kidney failure and she had to start dialysis in 2003. When she was put on the list for a kidney transplant, she developed cancer and had to have major surgery to remove her uninary tract and kidneys.


The trial continues. There is a need and acceptance of alternative medicine and it is firmly entrenched in our society today but this case is a warning to many who wouldn't think twice about taking medicine from someone with no medical qualifications.


Be careful out there, this is too high a price to pay for a few spots.

Heart Attack Grill

The owner of Heart Attack Grill in Arizona, Jon Basso, is suing another restaurant called Heart Stoppers for pinching his idea about a coronary-inducing menu. Quadruple Bypass burgers and flatliner fries are described as a taste "worth dying for" and customers who finish the biggest burger, get wheeled out in a wheelchair.

The lawyer for Heart Stoppers said that Heart Attack Grill sold high calorie food that is bad for you and will basically kill you but his client's restaurant is more like an actual medical facility.

Both restaurants display heart monitors and waitresses are dressed like nurses. There is also free food for customers weighing more than 160 kilos.

Only in America!

Australia's Rising Debt and Barnaby Joyce

Senator Barnaby Joyce 42, is the Senate leader of the National Party and is also the Opposition's Finance Spokesperson. He's considered to be extremely independent and crossed the floor 19 times under the Howard Government. He's a very likeable character, not the least bit like an accountant, a bit blustery, stutters a little and once worked as a bouncer.

In his maiden speech to the Senate in August 2005, he expressed his desire to see the enormous power of the two main supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths reduced to give small business a fair go. A Catholic, his greatest goal in public life would be to ban the "unfortunate carnage" of abortion.

The Rudd Government got very upset with Barnaby yesterday when he cast doubt on whether or not Australia could repay its mounting debt. He also mentioned a few days ago that America may have to default on its crippling debt. Kevin Rudd was so outraged by these two statements, he wants him sacked.

Australia's net debt is budgeted to peak at $153 billion in 2014-15 and is about 9% of gross domestic product which is chicken feed when compared to the US figure of 85% and Britain at a staggering 92%. I think it would be fair to suggest that America may well have trouble repaying their debt - it's frightening, almost as bad as the UK's. It makes you realise just how well our country is ticking along.

Kevin Rudd stands by his decision to spend his way out of the recession and takes credit for keeping it at bay. This fact can't be disputed because we don't know what would have happened if he hadn't sent all those cheques out to everyone for Christmas.

Just because the country is cruising along nicely, doesn't mean we shouldn't keep a close eye on our rising debt, and there sure is plenty of it, more and more being announced every day.

Death of an Australian Politician

Malcolm Turnbull has an impeccable pedigree but not a lot of common sense. Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, merchant banker, writer, he was named again last year as one of Australia's richest men. Up until December last year, he was Leader of the Opposition but he was beaten in a leadership spill by one vote. Now Tony Abbott has the job and Malcolm's not happy Jan.

And to prove he's not happy, he made a speech on Monday about how Tony Abbott's Emissions Trading Scheme is a farce and the Rudd government's plan is just what the country needs. The irony seemed to be lost on Malcolm as he stood there, committing political suicide. The Coalition made sure that the chamber was almost empty when he rose to his feet and what a pathetic picture he made. His speech was covered by cctv throughout the halls of Parliament House, but no one was watching.

But it gets worse, as he said he would, Malcolm crossed the floor on Thursday to vote with the government on their ETS Bill. I wonder if he will resign and go back into banking or law, or will he sit on the back bench waiting for another chance to wreak havoc for the Liberal Party, you just never know with this man, he's not used to coming second to anyone or anything. To show such disloyalty to his own party is unforgivable and it's rather a sad thing to see a man once respected by many, now regarded with contempt.

The White Cliffs of Dover

It's a terribly sad thing to see, a country so desperate to sell anything of value in a bid to reduce their crippling debt. But it gets worse. Gordon Brown wants to sell the Port of Dover to the French.

There is so much history associated with Dover, we all remember the famous war song 'There'll be blue skies over, the white cliffs of Dover'. What ever is he thinking?

But the dour Scot is hell bent on halving Britain's deficit in four years and this is just one of the publicly owned assets he's got his eye on for privatization. The rest of Britains major maritime ports were sold off in 1991 but Dover missed out because they were building the Channel tunnel.

It's now up to the people of England to raise merry hell about it and make him find another way to stop the country from going down the plughole.

No childcare for some in China

The world was shocked last week to see a little two-year old boy chained to a pole in China. It seemed a cruel thing to do until we learnt that his father Chen Chuanliu, had no other choice but to take his son to work, his wife being too ill to care for him and no other family members able to help out.


Chen Chuanliu is an unlicensed rickshaw cyclist in Beijing, taking fares all over the city while the boy's mentally disabled mother collects rubbish from the streets. They secured their son with a padlock around his ankle because their four year old daughter Ling was 'stoken' from them last month.


The father is a migrant worker, an out-of-towner, and according to China's laws, the boy and his family have no rights to free healthcare or education and other social security benefits. What little money he and his wife can scrape together goes on rent and food which is expensive.

Now a local kindergarten nursery boss in Beijing has come forward and offered to give Jindang three years free childcare. Fate has intervened for this lucky family but I wonder how many others are in a similar position.

But there is more heartache for Chen Chuanliu, his four year old daughter Jinghong vanished on the 22nd of January. After leaving her playing with friends, when he returned, she had disappeared. They were too poor to have a photograph of the child so the police only have a description to go on. That's why the desperate father decided to padlock his son to the pole, he couldn't risk losing him as well.

It's not unusual for children to go missing in China. Although slavery is illegal, there are an estimated 27 million people throughout the world, mainly children, in conditions of slavery.

Spencer Tunick - Photographer of Nudes

The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras have commissioned Spencer Tunick to photograph 2000 people on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Fifteen hundred people have already registered online to get their gear off but they are expecting some last-minute dropouts for the photo shoot on 1st March, sometimes volunteers have second thoughts.

He started photographing nudes on the streets of New York in 1992. I think you'll agree with me that the figures are not remotely sexual, he sees them as a living sculpture and calls his works "flesh architecture".

But he ran into trouble, Mayor of New York Giuliani hated him and threatened to cut off funding to the Brooklyn Art Gallery who staged his controversial work.

The Mayor was so upset about the public nudity, he sent the police in whenever Tunick tried to stage a shoot. He was arrested five times on flimsy charges which were all later dismissed.

In 1999 he'd had enough, he sued New York City. He won in the Federal Court but after an appeal it went to the Supreme Court who also ruled in his favour. But the Mayor wouldn't give up and continued to refuse permits for a shoot anywhere in New York.

But by then cities from around the world pleaded with him to come to their country and he's now toured the world many times. The 1st March is the first day of autumn, I hope it won't be too cold for everyone doing the full Monty for art.

Death and Dying

Tonight, Sir Terry Pratchett, famous author, will speak on the BBC and call for assisted suicide to be legalised. Sir Terry's impassioned plea will come as he delivers the Richard Dimbleby lecture on BBC1, extracts of which have been released in advance.

The fantasy novelist who has Alzheimer's, will call for a tribunal to be set up where people can apply for legal permission to end their lives at a time of their choosing. His proposed tribunal would ensure 'they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and are not under the influence of a third party'. It sounds so simple but it's ever so complex.

Families have eaten into their meagre life savings, taking their relatives to Dignitas in Switzerland because they know that here in Australia, they would face a gaol sentence. And I can understand why. A greedy relative waiting for their inheritance might just slip grandad a few pills or an injection to send him on his way.

Then there's the moral issue of accepting your lot in stoic silence. What makes me so special that I can arrange a pain-free death when others are showing courage, suffering in silence and dying in agony. And of course there is religion and what we have learnt about suicide from the church.

I think the time has come for this difficult subject to be brought out into the open, looked at from all angles and dealt with. Death is one subject we all have in common.

Great Barrier Reef

It was good to see Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbot smiling and speaking politely to one another yesterday on Parliament's first day back. It's hard to describe just how important I believe these two men are in the history of our country, as we sit and wonder how their decisions will impact on our lives.


After lots of evidence to the contrary, I was surprised to hear Kevin Rudd yesterday insist that the Great Barrier Reef could be "destroyed beyond recognition" by global warming. He argued that it would be obliterated in the worst-case scenario if temperatures increased by 4C.


So what's the problem? It's all about coral bleaching which is when corals lose colour due to environmental stress such as increased water temperature or pollution.


But researchers who are supposed to know about these things - our own researchers I might add - say that it's just not ha ppening. The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) tell us that mass coral bleaching was unlikely this summer.


Mr Rudd is quoting from the IPCC 2007 report which predicted that the reef would be subject to annual bleaching by 2030 if climate change continued unchecked, destroying much of its coral cover. After 14 sites were checked, the Townsville based AIMS found only a handfull of "slightly stressed reefs". I would have thought that after the Himalayan alps debacle, he would have changed his tack and been more careful about quoting anything the IPCC puts out.


The leader of AIMS long-term reef monitoring program Hugh Sweatman said "We saw literally a handfull of colonies that were looking pale, mainly in the Capricorn area but you get that every year. So there is no evidence of concerted bleaching across the reef whatsoever". AIMS scientists including Kerryn Jones also find no sign of bleaching.

It's good to know that AIMS is keeping watch and monitoring one of our most treasured assets.

The lonely longing for love

Philip Hunt, a lonely 58 year old man was in a very dark place. For the last few months, his life had become a nightmare and things were so bad that he could only see one way out. So he wrote and note and went to a nearby railway station in Yorkshire and lay down in front of a train.


Before his life fell apart, his future looked bright, he had found a beautiful woman on the internet called Rose and was looking forward to spending the rest of his life with her. Rose was young, rich and beautiful but she needed his help to transfer $2.9 million from Nigeria to the UK and then they could start their new life together. In the end he gave her $100,000. Now the Nigerian scammers have the money and Philip Hunt is dead.


Twice married, the cargo officer re-mortgaed his house, took out loans, ran up overdrafts and begged for cash from his employers after repeatedly transferring money across to Rose's account. In the end, he was so hopelessly bogged down in debt, he commited suicide.


Rose was a very pretty white brunette who said she was living in Nigeria. The romance began slowly at first but after some months, when he was completely hooked, she told him she was ill and desperately needed his help.


But there was more to the elaborate plan than love, there was a business opportunity that couldn't possibly fail. He actually went to London and met two Nigerian men who said they needed money for this new venture so he began wiring over money in December 2008. He even went to his employer and asked to borrow $50,000 but later decided against it and left his job. He left a note for police who found his body and hundreds of emails outlining the huge scale fraud.


A jury at the inquest returned a verdict of suicide. After the inquest a former girlfriend said 'Philip was a quiet and reserved gentleman and he was very intelligent which makes it all the more unbelievable that he fell for this but he was at a low ebb and they got him when he was most vulnerable'.

Loneliness is tragic and very painful, but surely being alone is better than this.

Suicide Body-Bombers

Britain is still on high terrorist attack alert and have discovered that Al Qaeda has found a way to beat the full body scanners at airports, they are surgically inserting bombs inside suicide bombers. They are called the body-bombers. British MI5 picked up the information on internet chat on Arab websites this month.

Male bombers would have the explosive inserted near their appendix or in their buttocks and females would have it inserted inside their breasts. The explosive PETN is placed in a plastic sachet inside the body then the wound is stitched up and allowed to heal. Eight ounces of PETN can penetrate five inches of armour and could easily blow a large hole in a plane. The explosives are detonated by the bomber using a pypodermic syringe to inject Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) through their skin into the explosives sachet.

PETN was used by Richard Reid, the British Al Qaeda shoe bomber when he almost blew up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami in 2001.

In November last year, a Somali man tried to board a flight carrying a syringe, liquid and powdered chemicals but was arrested before take-off. He was carrying the same package as the Christmas Day bomber. With his underpants stuffed with explosives, when he injected the TATP into his body, the detonator fluid set his clothes on fire and he was caught. What a close shave that was. Just to add to the fear of these crazy people, agents think the body-bombers could pretend to be diabetics on planes, trains or buses.

UK Company Smiths Detection International manufacture body scanners designed to pick up chemicals, explosives and drugs at airports and passenger terminals around the world. These include x-ray equipment that could identify body-bombers.

We, the private citizens of the world are all involved in this terrible war on terror, they are making us pay dearly. I've seen brave people on the tv saying they are not affected by the terrorists, they intend to keep on flying, not to would mean they win. Brave words indeed, lets hope we can keep one step ahead of them.