Enormous pumice “raft” arrives on Australia’s east coast - from Great Barrier Reef to northern New South Wales

7 News, 21 August 2020:

An enormous pumice “raft” has arrived on Australia’s east coast, bringing with it new marine life that could help with the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef.

The massive floating sheet of volcanic rock was first spotted by Australian sailors on August 9, 2019, days after an underwater volcano is believed to have erupted near the Pacific island of Tonga.

Australian sailors Michael Hoult and Larissa Brill said at the time they encountered volcanic rocks “made up of pumice stones from marble to basketball size such that water was not visible”.

The raft is more than 150 square kilometres in surface area - almost three times the size of Sydney Harbour or about 8000 football fields.

It is now crashing into Australia’s east coast between Townsville and northern New South Wales.

Pumice is a lightweight, bubbly rock, formed when frothy magma cools suddenly.

The rock can float on the surface of the water and it often houses tiny reef-building animals.

Associate Professor Scott Bryan, collecting pumice on North Stradbroke Island. Credit: Anthony Weate/QUT

“Each piece of pumice is a rafting vehicle,” Queensland University of Technology geologist Scott Bryan said in a statement.

“This is about a boost of new recruits, of new corals and other reef-building organisms, that happens every five years or so.

“It’s almost like a vitamin shot for the Great Barrier Reef.”.....

How can you tell when Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is spinning voters a line? He opens his mouth and speaks. How do you know when his decision is flawed? He announces it with a flourish.

It's hard to understand why Scott Morrison chooses to lie so often when he must know how easily he is caught out.

It is easier to understand why he is so frequently attracted to dubious characters - he is the type of overly confident self-important man who is often identified by such individuals as an easy 'mark'.

On the morning of Wednesday 19 August 2020……

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, media release, 19 August 2020:

Australians will be among the first in the world to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, if it proves successful, through an agreement between the Australian Government and UK-based drug company AstraZeneca.

Under the deal, every single Australian will be able to receive the University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for free, should trials prove successful, safe and effective…..

Scotty From Marketing played dress-ups to make his vaccine announcement
Mask & full lab coat
IMAGE: ABC News, 20 August 2020

ABCNews, 19 August 2020:

Australians are a step closer to accessing a coronavirus vaccine for free, after the Federal Government secured a major international deal to produce a vaccine frontrunner locally, should trials succeed.

Amid rising pressure to lock in supply of a coronavirus vaccine, the Government has signed an agreement with UK-based drug company AstraZeneca to secure the potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University, if its trials prove successful.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said if the vaccine succeeded, the Government would manufacture it immediately and make it free for all Australians.

"The Oxford vaccine is one of the most advanced and promising in the world, and under this deal we have secured early access for every Australian," he said……

In the evening of Wednesday 19 August 2020….

The Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2020: 

"Drug company AstraZeneca says Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claim he has reached a deal to secure 25 million doses of the Oxford University vaccine is not true."

Then there is the pharmaceutical company Morrison named....

Corporate Research Project, 4 February 2017:

London-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is the result of the 1999 merger of Britain’s Zeneca, a spinoff of the old Imperial Chemical Industries specializing in cancer medications, and Sweden’s Astra AB, which was best known for the ulcer and heartburn medication Prilosec. Since that deal, the combined company has been embroiled in numerous controversies over illegal marketing, product safety, anticompetitive behavior and tax avoidance. 

Advertising and Marketing Controversies 

In 2003 federal officials announced that AstraZeneca had pleaded guilty to criminal and civil charges relating to the illegal marketing of the prostate cancer drug Zoladex. The company agreed to pay $355 million, consisting of $64 million in criminal fines, a $266 million settlement of civil False Claims Act charges, and a $25 million settlement of fraud charges relating to state Medicaid programs. AstraZeneca, which agreed to enter into a corporate integrity agreement with the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had been accused of giving illegal financial inducements such as grants and honoraria to physicians.

In 2004 a coalition of consumer groups filed suit against AstraZeneca in a California state court, arguing that advertising for the company’s acid reflux drug Nexium misled consumers into thinking that it was superior to AstraZeneca’s Prilosec. The company had introduced Nexium to replace Prilosec as the latter drug was losing its patent protection. The case, along with a related one filed in Massachusetts, is pending. 

Also in 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that AstraZeneca’s full-page newspaper advertisements defending the safety of its Crestor cholesterol medication were “false and misleading.” The warning letter sent by the agency to AstraZeneca took issue not only with what the company said about the drug but also the way it represented the FDA’s position on Crestor. 

In 2010 the U.S. Justice Department announced that AstraZeneca would pay $520 million to resolve allegations that it illegally marketed its anti-psychotic drug Seroquel for uses not approved as safe and effective by the FDA. Under the terms of the settlement, $302 million of the total was to go to the federal government and $218 million to state Medicaid programs. Among other things, the company was accused of having paid doctors to give speeches and publish articles (ghostwritten by the company) promoting those unapproved uses. AstraZeneca agreed to sign a corporate integrity agreement regarding its future behavior. In 2011 AstraZeneca settled a related Seroquel case brought by state governments by agreeing to pay another $69 million. 

Product Safety 

In 2002 AstraZeneca said it would put a more conspicuous warning label on its lung cancer drug Iressa after several patients in Japan suffered pneumonia and some died. 

In 2003 researchers at the University of Illinois-Chicago released the results of research concluding that AstraZeneca’s Seroquel and two other schizophrenia drugs made by other companies created an elevated risk for diabetes. Subsequently, more than 25,000 lawsuits were filed against the company. In 2010 the company said it would pay a total of $198 million to settle those cases. That same year, the UK’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority found that AstraZeneca had failed to adequately describe the risks of Seroquel in an advertisement for the drug in a medical journal. 

In 2004 the watchdog group Public Citizen urged the federal government to ban AstraZeneca’s new cholesterol drug Crestor because of evidence linking it to the life-threatening muscle condition rhabdomyolysis. Noting that the company had not submitted timely reports to the FDA on some two dozen serious adverse reactions to Crestor, Public Citizen also called for a criminal investigation of the company. A 2005 study performed at Tufts University found that Crestor users had more serious side effects than those taking other cholesterol drugs. 

Also in 2004, an FDA review of AstraZeneca’s new blood thinner Exanta questioned the safety and effectiveness of the drug.

Pricing and Anticompetitive Behavior

......In 2003 the European Commission accused AstraZeneca of misusing patent rules to shield its ulcer drug Losec (Prilosec in the United States) from generic competitors. The company was charged with having misstated the year the drug was introduced in order to make it eligible for an extension of its exclusivity rights. In 2005 the commission fined AstraZeneca 60 million euros, a penalty which was upheld by the European Court of Justice in 2012.

In 2007 a federal judge ruled in a national class action case that AstraZeneca and two other companies had to pay damages in connection with overcharging Medicare and private insurance companies. The judge singled out AstraZeneca for acting “unfairly and deceptively” in its pricing of prostate cancer drug Zoladex. AstraZeneca was later hit with a $12.9 million judgment. In 2010 AstraZeneca agreed to pay $103 million to settle a national lawsuit accusing the company of overcharging for Zoladex and Pulmicort Respules asthma medication.

In 2009 AstraZeneca was one of four drug companies that entered into a settlement agreement under which they agreed to pay a total of $124 million to settle charges that they violated the federal False Claims Act by failing to provide required rebates to state Medicaid programs. AstraZeneca’s share of the total settlement amount was $2.6 million.....

Read the full history of this company's behaviour here.

Juice Media comments on "State of the U.S. Union" 2020

https://youtu.be/dpIkl2QnJeI

THEJUICEMEDIA – 98.9% “genuine satire”: covering Government shitfuckery and the most pressing issues of our time – written & created by Giordano in a backyard home-studio in suburban Melbourne, Australia – on Wurundjeri/Kulin land. 

Giordano Nanni is a historian, writer and satirist. He completed a PhD in history, writing about settler-colonialism, and published two academic books (The Colonisation of Time and Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country) – after which he realised he could be more useful as a human by communicating beyond the world of academia. Which led him to embark on a number of other projects… 

The Honest Government Ads has become an indispendable public service for translating the mountains of bullshit coming from our duly elected governments, into simple and honest ads that everyone can understand. The series focuses on the shitfuckery of the Australian Government, but we also regularly feature the work of other shit governments around the world.  

Honest Government Ads season 1 (2016-19) 
Honest Government Ads season 2 (ongoing)

Tweet of the Week

Jacinda Ardern took a 20% COVID pay cut but OUR PM says: yeah, I’m paid more than $540k but nah, I’m doing such a good job, you should all just be happy I’m here ... (not the exact quote, but close) https://t.co/hQj0aRFGzm

— Emma Alberici (@albericie) August 18, 2020

Cartoon of the Week

Mark David

Quotes of the Week

"It’s hard to think of a more symbolic rendering of all that is wrong with Australian mainstream intellectual life than the decision by Ita Buttrose and her board to offer Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest the Boyer Lectures, the ABC’s premier series of broadcasts designed to explain ourselves to ourselves. I defended Ita Buttrose when she was appointed ABC chair, but this decision is indefensible." [Tim Dunlop, writing in Meanjin Quarterly, 7 August 2020]

“"Scott Morrison could have picked up the phone to two members of his much-vaunted national cabinet this week, to sort out what was truly a bizarre situation. But he didn’t, and his decision not to says a lot about his approach to the pandemic. Morrison’s reluctance to get involved in the six-day border standoff between New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory betrays a style of governance that oscillates between the passive and the reactive, always with an eye to quarantining himself from culpability.” [Journalist Paul Bongiorno writing in The Saturday Paper, 15 August 2020]

A conga line of #COVIDIOTS - Part 4

NSW Police, News, 16-19 August 2020:

Police in the Riverina region have issued two Penalty Infringement Notices (PINs) in the past 24 hours for non-compliance with COVID-19 Public Health Orders.

As part of proactive compliance operations, officers from Riverina Police District attended a restaurant on Fernleigh Road, Mount Austin, just before 7pm on Saturday (15 August 2020).

After speaking with the 39-year-old male owner, officers conducted a walk-through and established that a COVID Safety Plan had not been completed.

Further, the owner, who was also the chef, claimed to be the designated COVID marshal.

The owner was informed he would receive a $5000 PIN for non-compliance with the Public Health Orders, which was issued yesterday (Tuesday 18 August 2020).

In a separate and unrelated incident, officers from Riverina Police District have been conducting inquiries into suspected non-compliance of self-isolation directions since late last month.

On Saturday 25 July 2020, local police were contacted after a 25-year-old woman, who had arrived in Wagga Wagga from Victoria on Thursday 23 July 2020 on a valid permit, was reportedly not self-isolating.

Police conducted a number of inquiries, including repeat compliance checks, during which it was established she had not been self-isolating.

Officers advised the woman she would receive a $1000 PIN for fail to comply with noticed direction in relation to s7/8/9 – COVID-19 and reminded she must complete the full self-isolation period.

The woman was issued with the PIN yesterday (Tuesday 18 August 2020).

Police continue to appeal to the community to report suspected breaches of any ministerial direction or behaviour which may impact on the health and safety of the community.

Anyone who has information regarding individuals or businesses in contravention of a COVID-19-related ministerial direction is urged to contact Crime Stoppers: https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence. The public is reminded not to report crime via NSW Police social media pages.

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Two people have been issued with Penalty Infringement Notices (PINs) since the last update:

About 6pm on Sunday (16 August 2020), officers from Eastern Beaches Police Area Command responded to reports of a large gathering at Jack Vanny Memorial Park, Maroubra. Officers spoke with a 33-year-old man who was one of the organisers of the event, before the crowd was dispersed without incident. Following inquiries, the man was issued with a $1000 PIN yesterday (Monday 17 August 2020) for fail to comply with noticed direction in relation to s7/8/9 – COVID-19.

On Friday 14 August 2020, a 57-year-old man attended Bourke Hospital with possible COVID-19 symptoms. He was tested for the virus and directed to self-isolate at home. About 3.30pm yesterday (Monday 18 August 2020) the man was located at a friend’s house. Further inquiries revealed the man had attended a local shop the same morning. He was issued with a $1000 PIN for fail to comply with noticed direction.

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Two people have been charged and 19 Penalty Infringement Notices (PINs) have been issued since the last COVID-19 update.

CHARGES INCLUDE:

About 12.30pm on Saturday (15 August 2020), police attended the Albury-Wodonga railway bridge and spoke with a 24-year-old man, from West Wodonga, was who was wanted in NSW on four outstanding warrants.

It’s alleged the man had crossed the border into NSW illegally, with officers also locating and seizing a set of knuckledusters when he was searched.

The man was taken to Albury Police Station where he was charged with the outstanding warrants, along with go onto running lines, resist police, possession of a prohibited weapon, and fail to comply with the Public Health Order.

He was refused bail appeared at Wagga Wagga Local Court yesterday (Sunday 16 August 2020), where he was formally refused bail to appear in Albury Local Court today (Monday 17 August 2020).

In another incident, about 4.20pm on Friday (14 August 2020), a 37-year-old man attended Eastwood Police Station for a meeting. While waiting, the man allegedly coughed directly towards two female officers, aged 30 and 33. He was arrested and taken to Ryde Police Station.

Police will further allege that while in custody the man damaged a station phone during a call.

He was charged with not comply with noticed direction re spitting/coughing – COVID-19, two counts of assault officer in execution of duty, two counts of intimidate police officer in execution of duty without actual bodily harm, and destroy or damage property.

The man was granted conditional bail and is due to appear in Burwood Local Court on Tuesday 25 August 2020.

In addition, 19 people and businesses were issued with PINs. PINS INCLUDE:

- About 12.30pm on Saturday, police were called after a light aircraft, which left Victoria, had landed at Deniliquin Airport. The 61-year-old male pilot did not have a valid permit to enter NSW. He was directed to return immediately to Victoria and was issued with an infringement notice.

- About 11.30am on Saturday, officers from Sydney City PAC were called to a unit on Hay Street, Haymarket, after reports of a party occurring inside. Officers attended and found a gathering in progress with approximately 30 people inside. Officers spoke to the 20-year-old female occupant who told police she booked the premises online. She was issued with a $1000 infringement for failure to comply with noticed direction.

- A man who organised a dance party on the North Coast of NSW last month has been issued an $1000 infringement for ‘Not Comply Noticed Direction’. Police allege the man held the unauthorised party on Saturday 4 July 2020 at Wilsons Creek Road, Wilsons Creek, which attracted an estimated crowd of 1000-1500 people. Following inquiries, the 50-year-old man was issued a PIN on Friday.

- About 10.20pm on Saturday 8 August 2020, officers from Murray River Police District visited a licensed premise on End Street, Deniliquin, where they saw patrons not practicing social distancing. Following inquiries, police issued the licensee – a 65-year-old woman – a $1000 fine on Friday.

- Another licensee of a hotel on Station Place, Wagga Wagga, was also fined $1000 on Saturday, after officers from Riverina Police District identified breaches, including patrons not practising social distancing and an out-of-date COVID safety plan, during a visit on Saturday 8 August 2020.

- On Friday evening, licensing officers from Murray River Police District conducting business inspections spoke with a 54-year-old man at a club in Mulwala, and a 58-year-old woman at a club in Barooga, who were both drinking alcohol and playing gaming machines. Both were from Victoria, with the man entering NSW with a working permit, and the woman entering NSW on a permit strictly stating she was only entering the state to provide care. The man and woman were each issued $1000 PINs.

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Victoria Police, Breaking News, 19 August 2020:

Moorabbin Highway Patrol members grabbed a man for excessive speed, drink driving and breaching Chief Health Officers restrictions in Brighton last night.

Police detected a white BMW sedan on Nepean Highway travelling at 138km/h in a 80km/h zone about 8.10pm.

Police spoke to the driver, a 43-year-old Beaumaris man, who underwent a preliminary breath test.

He was taken to a local station for an evidentiary test where he returned an alleged reading of 0.157%.

His car was impounded at a cost of $878.50 and his licence was immediately suspended for 12 months.

He is expected to be summonsed to appear at a Magistrates Court at a later date for traffic related offences.

The driver was also found to be in breach of the directions issued by the Chief Health Officer and issued a $1652 penalty notice.

The directions by the Chief Health Officer, under the State of Emergency declared in Victoria, have been enacted to help stop the spread of Coronavirus.

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