Poznan: Tipping my hat to the Australian youth delegation and their international counterparts

With around one hundred and eighty-seven countries represented at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Poland this week predictably at loggerheads about the details on how to proceed to combat the worst effects of climate change through an enduring treaty, I take some comfort from the voice of youth.
It might not be a globally inclusive voice and I suspect that in many respects it is a somewhat elitist voice (and I can't help nostalgically thinking they aren't a patch on the 60s mob), but this a young voice speaking loudly and clearly to the rest of the world - p#ss or get off the pot!
I just hope that Rudders and Co are really listening and Penny Wong formally embraces this perspective rather than just paying lipservice to it at the Ministerial Roundtable yesterday.

Crikey reports:

20 young Australians have come to Poznan, Poland for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change as part of the Australian Youth Delegation. Mostly self funded, we have travelled here to make sure the youth voice is heard on climate change and to ensure that world leaders step up and stop dangerous climate change. This delegation has been hosted by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), a coalition of over 20 youth organisations working on climate change issues around Australia....

The Australian Youth Delegates at the United Nations conference are calling on the government to set emission reduction targets of over 40% by 2020 to safeguard their future and the future of Pacific Islands...

A group of young people from over 50 countries attending the UN Climate Negotiations in Poland have achieved an extraordinary feat today: negotiating an international statement based on the "survival principle" and getting senior negotiators to sign their countries up to it.

Over 80 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Costa Rica, Tuvalu and Bangladesh, as well as leading experts on climate change including Australia's Tim Flannery, Sir Nicolas Stern and Nobel prize winner Dr. Rajendra Pachauri have signed on to the statement that a global climate change agreement must "safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples".

For a conference that has otherwise been a bland non-event, this statement has resonated widely with delegates. Many nations have placed a "survival" placard handed out by the youth delegates over their country's name placards.

These young delegates had joined adult national representatives at the Poznań conference on Thursday to hear the UN Secretary-General outline its objectives:

First is a workplan for next year's negotiations. I am glad that an agreement has already been achieved. Second, you need to sketch out the critical elements of a long-term vision. We need a basic framework for cooperative action starting today, not in 2012. Within this framework, industrialized countries must set ambitious long-term goals, coupled with midterm emission reduction targets.

Developing countries need to limit the growth of their emissions as well. To do so they will need robust financial and technological support -- not just promises, but tangible results. Adaptation will be key, including risk reduction and management. Change must be integrated with strategies for development and poverty alleviation. One without the other means failure for both. The world's poorest should not suffer first and worst from a problem they did least to create.

Third, we must recommit ourselves to the urgency of our cause. This requires leadership -- your leadership. Yes, the economic crisis is serious. Yet when it comes to climate change, the stakes are even far higher. The climate crisis affects our potential prosperity and our peoples' lives, both now and far into the future.

Message to Political Leaders: Consider Our Future
It's Getting Hot In Here, DC - 8 Dec 2008
In every possible way we, as an International Youth Delegation representing over 50 nations, are trying to make the case that the time is running out to ...

Alta. oilsands criticized at UN summit
Canada.com, Canada - 23 hours ago
A Canadian youth delegation attending the UN climate-change conference in Poznan, Poland, set up a photo display, scrutinizing Alberta's environmental ...

Poznań: The Maturing of the Youth Contingent
Worldwatch Institute, DC - 10 hours ago
Answer: they are both the voice of the international youth delegation, an increasingly vocal, organized, and perhaps bureaucratized presence at the ongoing ...

The Climate Crisis Waits for No One
Solomon Times Online, Solomon Islands - 10 Dec 2008
Leah Wickham, a Greenpeace volunteer from Fiji, who is part of a youth delegation to Poznan, said countries like Australia had not demonstrated political ...

The thrills and spills of carbon-reduced travel
The Age, Australia - 5 Dec 2008
Australian Youth Delegation overland team Nic Seton, 22, of the Gold Coast, Anna Keenan, 23 of Brisbane, Jack Fuller, 23 of Melbourne, Oliver Cashman, ...

Obama being asked what did he know and when did he know it

First he supposedly discussed the disposition of his soon to be vacant Senate seat and then he did not, according to conflicting statements from Barack Obama and his transition team.

Not a propitious start to the president-elect's response to the fact that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevitch was arrested this week for allegedly conspiring to 'sell' a Senate seat.
Especially in light of Obama's political support of Blagojevich in the past.

The direct result of this mixed response can be found in posts such as 7 Blago questions for Obama.

While the Republican National Committee is ecstatic according to the New York Daily News:

And they are singing. Here's the release Alex Conant sent out this morning:

All - In light of the arrests in Illinois today, please recall the below points:

Obama Has Advised The Blagojevich Campaign And Endorsed Him For A Second Term:

Obama Advised Blagojevich On His Victorious Gubernatorial Run. "That year, [Obama] gained his first high-level experience in a statewide campaign when he advised the victorious gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich, another politician with a funny name and a message of reform." (Ryan Lizza, "Making It," The New Yorker, 7/21/08)

Obama: "If the governor asks me to work on his behalf, I'll be happy to do it." (John Patterson, "Senator Says He's Still Willing To Help Blagojevich Despite Hiring Concerns," Chicago Daily Herald, 7/27/06)

Obama Endorsed Blagojevich For A Second Term. "Obama, who endorsed Blagojevich for a second term nearly 18 months ago, said he's ready to help Illinois democrats in the upcoming elections." (John Patterson, "Senator Says He's Still Willing To Help Blagojevich Despite Hiring Concerns," Chicago Daily Herald, 7/27/06)

Obama: "We've got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois." (Deanna Bellandi, "Illinois Democrats Talk Unity But Don't Show It," The Associated Press, 8/16/06)

It seems that The Chicago Way may yet come back to haunt the Obama presidency and, it's quite possible that damage control is already geared towards a plea deal with Blagojevich so that the case does not go to a full trial where claims and speculation could drag Obama's name further into this tangled web.

All of which will make Obama's scheduled press conference later today rather interesting.

While Senator Conroy is busy saving the world from purr-verts, governments run rampant over the Internet...

Wikileaks reported on 16 November 2008:

Between Friday night and Sunday morning, a massive deletion operation took place at the European Internet address register (RIPE) to scrub references to a cover used by Germany's premier spy agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND.

The cleanup operation comes the night after Wikileaks revealed over two dozen covert BND networks provided by T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom). The IP addresses were assigned to an unregistered company at a Munich-based PO box linked to T-Systems.

T-Systems purged the RIPE database of all addresses exposed by Wikileaks, moving the addresses into a several giant anonymous "Class B" address pools.

The move comes just a few hours after T-Systems Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) contacted Wikileaks to demand removal of an internal T-Systems memo listing the BND cover addresses. Wikileaks refused and T-System did not respond to requests for further detail by the time of writing.

Yet an investigation into the addresses over the weekend reveals key information about the BND's Internet activities. Findings include the removal of information on the BND's own German Wikipedia entry--which stated that the Goethe Institute was sometimes used as BND cover, visits to websites including the Russian government and a Berlin escort agency (perhaps for "honey traps"), as well as crawling the Internet for terrorism related topics, such as the assassination of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Website references reveal that in 2006 numerous hosters of Internet websites complained about out of control "data mining" robots from two of the BND-linked IP addresses. One of the hosters ran a popular discussion forum on counter-terrorism operations.

The integrity and transparency of the RIPE system is not assisted by the T-Systems deletion. German citizens may wonder at the double standard. At a time when the population's Internet addresses are being recorded by ISPs under laws derisively referred to as "Stasi 2.0", the "real Stasi"—the BND, has had the largest telco in Germany scrub its addresses from the European record within 24 hours of their exposure.

In August Wikileaks revealed the 2006 Shaefer report's missing pages on how German intelligence infiltrated Focus magazine. The censored pages remain unreported in the German press and in particular Focus magazine.

Did the Howard years leave us dribbling idiots?

For $25 you can buy a book which tells everyone just how successful school chaplaincy programs can be.
Joelle even has a blog to promote her book which reportedly speaks openly of miracles.

According to Caroline Overington at The Australian last weekend:
"GOD has cured at least one state school student of attention deficit disorder and another of asthma, according to interviews with chaplains employed in 2850 schools under a $165 million federal government program.
The Lord has also made it stop raining at a state school assembly in Queensland and performed other miracles to bring state school children to Jesus.
One chaplain was able to "fix the head" of a disruptive student by placing his hands upon the boy's head, and praying for him.
These and other miraculous claims are included in a book about the national school chaplaincy program, which was introduced by the Howard government in October 2006."

Now who'da thunk it. John Howard - miracle worker sitting at the righthand of Hughie!
Obviously the Scripture Union didn't, because they stated that they no longer endorse the book and gently repudiated its author.
Except of course that the top article touting the book on the first Google search page on 6 December was at (ya guessed it) The Scripture Union.

The Chicago Way lives on and Lincoln rolls in his grave

The Borowitz Report this week takes a light-hearted approach to the way politicians of all persuasions are said to do business in the Windy City:

December 9, 2008
Illinois Guv Offers Senate Seat to Arresting Officer
Daring Escape Attempt Caught on Tape

In what is being called one of the most daring escape attempts in the history of law enforcement, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich today offered the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama to the FBI agent who took him into Federal custody this morning.
According to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the astonishing escape attempt occurred moments after Mr. Blagojevich was handcuffed by the agent, who was wearing a wire and captured the entire expletive-laden offer on tape.
"'You can be the [bleeping] junior Senator from [bleeping] Illinois if you let me out of these [bleeping] handcuffs,'" Mr. Fitzgerald read from a transcript. "'And if that mother-[bleeper] Barack Obama tries to [bleep] with me, I'll [bleep] him up.'"
According to Mr. Fitzgerald, "When I say ‘bleep,' he didn't really say ‘bleep' on the tape," adding, "I'm going to keep making that joke until one of you [bleepers] laughs at it."
Gov. Blagojevich has been charged with a laundry list of Federal crimes, including stealing his haircut from the dad on "The Brady Bunch."

Freedom of Information Act vs Commonwealth secrecy laws - who wins?

The Federal Attorney-General has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to riddle him a riddle as it reviews Australia's secrecy laws:

I, ROBERT McCLELLAND, Attorney-General of Australia, having regard to:

• the desirability of having comprehensive, consistent and workable laws and

practices in relation to the protection of Commonwealth information;

• the increased need to share such information within and between governments

and with the private sector;

• the importance of balancing the need to protect Commonwealth information and

the public interest in an open and accountable system of government; and

• previous reports (including previous reports of the Commission) that have

identified the need for reform in this area.

And here is the riddle:

1–1 In light of freedom of information laws and other modern moves towards greater openness and accountability on the one hand, and the current international security environment on the other, are secrecy laws still relevant and necessary?

Is a statutory duty on Commonwealth officers not to disclose information necessary or desirable?

Are general law obligations sufficient and appropriate ways by which the disclosure of Commonwealth information may be regulated?

1–2 Do federal secrecy provisions inhibit unduly the sharing of information within and between law enforcement agencies, governments, and between governments and the private sector?........................

Given that the Freedom of Information Act 1982(Cth) promotes open and accountable government, and secrecy provisions protect Commonwealth information, what should be the relationship between these two regimes?

The answer to these questions (due in October 2009) is of more than passing interest to the mainstream media, bloggers, current or former public servants and whistleblowers generally, as it relates to penalties under the Commonwealth Crimes Act and Criminal Code and intends to consider more widely than just taxation secrecy and disclosure provisions.

Given the inherent tension between a government's desire for secrecy, the democratic need for transparent governance, public interest and personal privacy (as well as the fact that the Rudd Government is not composed of true believers and could often be mistaken for the Liberal Party on some issues) this review and government's response need watching.

Review of Secrecy Laws issues paper can be found here.

Register an interest in receiving ALRC alerts and consultation papers here.

Should you wish to give your own views on the subject, submissions should be sent to:

The Executive Director

Australian Law Reform Commission

GPO Box 3708

SYDNEY NSW 2001

Email: secrecy@alrc.gov.au

Submissions may also be made using the online form on the ALRC's homepage:

www.alrc.gov.au

The closing date for submissions in response to IP 34 is 19 February 2009.

Spending for Australia on the Northern Rivers

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants everyone who receives his extra welfare payment this week to go forth and spend for Australia and so help out the national economy.
Sorry, no can do.

The North Coast Community Housing Company put my rent up this week by more than $100 a week, with little thought as to how this will be paid or whether my welfare benefits will increase to meet this huge impost.

Despite the spin I'm hearing from the company in newspapers and on the radio, the fact remains that I will have to lay aside about $800 of the extra money coming in Canberra's December fiscal stimulus payment until Centrelink makes a decision on the inflated portion of my rent increase.

Regardless of Centrelink's decision I will be expected to pay at least $100-200 over and above 25% of my assessable income in the next month, because the housing company expects me to sub the period between the rent rise and Centrelink's new rent assistance entitlement being paid into my account.
Which makes a mockery of the housing company's claim that I won't ever have to pay more than $10 a week out of my own pocket towards annual rent increases.

That leaves me $600 to spend as and when I choose, which is better than nothing but hardly the Christmas largess that the Prime Minster envisaged for single pensioners.
So local small business and the bigger retail chains will only see a small and very temporary upward blip in their last quarter/first quarter sales figures, because the bulk of my money is likely going to feed the hungry maw of the housing company.

Merry Christmas - ho, ho, ho.

Shocked renter
Northern Rivers

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak@live.com.au for consideration.