Hitler was a time traveller!

News.com.au commits an historic blooper on 6 December 2013:

This military hospital was built in 1989 to house tuberculosis patients, and Adolf Hitler recovered there after being injured in the 1916 Battle of the Somme. It was a busy hospital in the 1920s but after WWII the soviets took control of Beelitz-Heilstätten and used it to treat Soviet soldiers stationed in the area. Once they withdrew in 1994 it was left empty.

Where is Dr. Who when you need an infamous war criminal safely contained within the correct time stream? Obviously somewhere Rupert Murdoch could find him, because when I checked later that same day the paragraph had been emended by 91 years.

How do you know when the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association is not telling the truth? It posts on its web site

Excerpt from a Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) news and media web page dated 5 December 2013 :

Some commentators continue to grab the wrong end of the pineapple when assessing the impact of liquefied natural gas exports on greenhouse gas emissions.

Singling out LNG production with scant regard for Australia’s wider industrial processing and power generation sectors provides a remarkably narrow view of a big picture and one which ignores the role cleaner forms of energy, such as natural gas, play in helping reduce greenhouse emissions.....

The Dept. of Environment’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory March 2013 quarterly update states:

Annual emissions for the year to March 2013 are estimated to be 557.0 Mt CO₂-e. This represents zero growth in emissions when compared with the year to March 2012. For the year to March 2013, there was a decline in emissions from electricity (section 2.1), reflecting lower electricity demand and changes in the generation mix. This decline was largely offset by an increase in fugitive emissions (section 2.4), resulting from increased production activity in the coal mining and natural gas sub-sectors....

Fugitive emissions occur during the production, processing, transport, storage, transmission and distribution of fossil fuels such as black coal, crude oil and natural gas. Emissions from decommissioned underground coal mines are also included in this sector. In the year to March 2013, fugitive emissions accounted for 8% of Australia’s national inventory.

Fugitive emissions from fuel extraction have increased 3.8% in trend terms in the March quarter 2013.

Annual emissions in this sector have increased by 12.7% over the year to March 2013. This annual increase was driven by a 6.3% increase in raw black coal production and a 12.9% increase in production of natural gas...... [my red bolding]

Will the Abbott Government's headlong rush towards the TPP treaty result in Australia having permanent status as a minor client state?

There is a very important reason why Choice has positioned this advertisement in the national newspaper The Australian on 5 December 2013 - and that is this country's legal status as an democratic, autonomous sovereign state.

Choice has this petition online:

Dear Minister, 

We are concerned with the lack of transparency in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, and are calling on the federal government to release the text. 

We do not believe that the TPP should restrict the Australian Government’s ability to make decisions on public health, food labelling, energy and copyright. 

Consumers and the general public have the right to know what is on the table in the TPP. 
Please bring us to the table and release the text to the TPP before it is signed. 


Yours sincerely,

You can sign choices petition here.

The neo-conservative Abbott open for business Government's spin on the secretive TPP in 2013:

TPP Meetings 19-24 November 2013, Salt Lake City

Chief negotiators for the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement countries have reported significant progress after six days of intensive meetings in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Working with key subject-matter experts, the lead TPP negotiators resolved a substantial number of outstanding issues, including with regard to intellectual property, cross-border trade in services, temporary entry, environment, market access, state-owned enterprises, investment, financial services, sanitary and phytosanitary issues, government procurement, labour, e-commerce, legal issues, technical barriers to trade and rules of origin.

The work of the chief negotiators this week has significantly narrowed the number of issues to be addressed directly by the TPP Ministers at their upcoming meeting in Singapore.

Discussions among TPP negotiators will continue in the coming days to further set the stage for a productive meeting among the TPP Ministers on 7-10 December 2013.

Bandjalang People gain Native Title on NSW North Coast

Tears and cheers after the court judgment was announced

Photograph from Valley Watchdog

On 2 December 2013 two longstanding native title applications were finally determined by the Federal Court of Australia in Bandjalang  People No 1 and No 2 v Attorney General of New South Wales [2013] FCA 1278:

NSD 6034 of 1998

THE COURT DETERMINES THAT:

Existence of Native Title

1.           Native title exists in relation to:

(a) each of the areas of land and waters described in Schedule One, to the extent that each falls within the external boundaries of the claim area as described in Attachment B to the Further Amended Claimant Application in the Proceedings (which is reproduced as Schedule Three to this Consent Determination) ("External Boundaries"); and

(b) all land between the mean high water mark and the mean low water mark within the External Boundaries

(c) collectively the areas described at (a) and (b) above are the "Consent Determination Area".

Native title holders

2.            Native title is held by the Bandjalang People who are Aboriginal persons who are:

(a) the biological descendants of:

(i) King Harry, Jack Wilson, Susannah mother of Frank Jock Jnr, Michael “Mundoon” Wilson, George James, Eliza Breckenridge, Jack Breckenridge, Frank Jock Jnr, Ada Jock, Gibson Robinson, Grace Bond; and

(b) persons adopted or incorporated into the families of those persons (and the biological descendants of any such adopted or incorporated persons) and who identify as and are accepted as  Bandjalang  People in accordance with Bandjalang  traditional laws and customs.

Nature and extent of native title rights and interests

3.            Subject to paragraphs 4 to 9 inclusive the nature and extent of the native title rights and interests held by the Bandjalang People in the Consent Determination Area identified in Schedule One, are the nonexclusive rights set out below:

(a) the right to hunt, fish and gather the traditional natural resources of the Consent Determination Area for non-commercial personal, domestic and communal use;

(b) the right to take and use waters on or in the Consent Determination Area;

(c) the right to access and camp on the Consent Determination Area;

(d) the right to do the following activities on the land:

(i) conduct ceremonies;

(ii) teach the physical, cultural and spiritual attributes of places and areas of importance on or in the land and waters; and

(iii) to have access to, maintain and protect from physical harm, sites in the Consent Determination Area which are of significance to the Bandjalang  People under their traditional laws and customs.

AND

NSD 6107 of 1998

THE COURT DETERMINES THAT:

Existence of Native Title

1.            Native title exists in relation to each of the areas of land and waters described in Schedule One, to the extent that each falls within the external boundaries of the claim area as described in Attachment B to the Further Amended Claimant Application in these proceedings (which is reproduced as Schedule Three to this Consent Determination) ("External Boundaries") (“Consent Determination Area”). Each of the areas described in Schedule One is to be taken to include any creek occurring within its boundaries.

Native title holders

2.            Native title is held by the “Bandjalang People” who are Aboriginal persons who are:

(a) the biological descendants of:

(i) King Harry, Jack Wilson, Susannah mother of Frank Jock Jnr, Michael “Mundoon” Wilson, George James, Eliza Breckenridge, Jack Breckenridge, Frank Jock Jnr, Ada Jock, Gibson Robinson, Grace Bond; and

(b) Persons adopted or incorporated into the families of those persons (and the biological descendants of any such adopted or incorporated persons) and who identify as and are accepted as Bandjalang People in accordance with Bandjalang  traditional laws and customs.

Nature and extent of native title rights and interests

3.            Subject to paragraphs 4 to 7 the nature and extent of the native title rights and interests held by the Bandjalang People in the Consent Determination Area identified in Schedule One, are the nonexclusive rights set out below:

(a) the right to hunt, fish and gather the traditional natural resources of the Consent Determination Area for non-commercial personal, domestic and communal use;

(b) the right to take and use waters on or in the Consent Determination Area;

(c) the right to access and camp on the Consent Determination Area;

(d) the right to do the following activities on the land:

(i) conduct ceremonies;

(ii) teach the physical, cultural and spiritual attributes of places and areas of importance on or in the land and waters; and

(iii) to have access to, maintain and protect from physical harm, sites in the Consent Determination Area which are of significance to the Bandjalang People under their traditional laws and customs.

Click on maps to enlarge

Australian Prime Minister Abbott and Immigration Minister Morrison left with red faces

By 5 December 2013 asylum seeker boats had been arriving at the rate of one boat every four days during the first 78 days of the Abbott Government’s term in office.

If the failure of the Coalition’s Stop The Boats election promise was not embarrassment enough for the Prime Minister and Immigration Minister, this media report on the same day would have left them in little doubt that their gung-ho Operation Sovereign Borders was fast becoming  a joke:

A boat carrying about 25 asylum seekers seekers has made it to Christmas Island without being detected.

Christmas Island's shire councillor Gordon Thomson says a group of about 25 asylum seekers have been living on a remote beach on the south-eastern side of the island since their boat sank on Monday.

Mr Thomson says the group was only detected when some of the asylum seekers were spotted walking along a main road into town earlier today.

"This morning eight or nine people walked up onto one of our main roads from Dolly Beach - the eight or nine people are probably Rohingya," he told the ABC.

"There are another 15 or 16 people still on Dolly Beach who are part of that group, so the total number is about 25.

"Their boat has sunk and they have been living on Dolly Beach since Monday.

"We're told that when offered water and food, they weren't thirsty and they weren't that hungry, so they seem to have survived quite well since Monday.

"They've obviously decided to have a look around on day four."

Mr Thomson says the asylum seekers found on the road have been taken into immigration detention.

"There was a mad scramble [about] 11:30am ... the police and the customs and they went up to pick people up," he said.

"I assume that somebody has driven along the road and has seen the group of people walking along the road and called the cops.

"No one is injured, no one has been lost - that's the information at the top of the road.

"We're yet to hear the details from the group that's still on the beach, but the group that has been taken into detention gave that information to police and that's all the information the police have been able to give me."

A search is underway for the rest of the group...

Just one of the many reasons why Metgasgo Limited's share price is still in the doldrums

This is the Metgasco Limited Price History Chart at close of business on 5 December 2013:

This is The Woop Woop March coming to the Australian Parliament House on 3 December 2013: 

The Daily Examiner and The Northern Star announce the protesters arrival:

Ballina Shire Advocate on 4 December 2013 telling the world why they were there:

A PAIR of Glenugie land- owners rode horses to Parliament House in Canberra yesterday to protest Metgasco coal seam gas operations near their property.

Joined by 10 others over a 74-day journey from Grafton, Colaria owners Mick and Donna Franklin hit out at CSG exploration on neighbouring properties......

Mr Franklin said he did not have Metgasco tenements over his land, but he was worried about the impacts exploration on a property next door might have.

One of his greatest concerns was that CSG operations might impact his property's spring water supply.

"I own my land, and I don't owe anything to anyone - I simply want to be able to live on my land without anyone coming on and trying to drill on it," he said. "We came all the way down to Canberra to show the politicians we did not want CSG to impact on our land and water."

While this was ABC News covering the beginning of the protest ride: 

Anti coal seam gas protesters take to horse back to deliver message to Canberra