Two-thirds of respondents felt positive about temporary migrant worker schemes.
Australians feel warmest towards New Zealanders, then Britons, Singaporeans and Japanese.
More than two-thirds were optimistic about Australia’s economic performance overseas.
Respondents were more confident about Australia’s security than they were in early 2005.
Source: brisbanetimes
Edmund Tadros, August 31, 2007
IF THEY were undercover they stood out like a loud shirt after an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.
The burly men in dark glasses milling about the edge of a meeting of activists in Sydney yesterday were not about to blow their cover to the media.
One in dark glasses and a cap, sitting on a bench with nothing edible in his hands or mouth, said he was just trying to have lunch when asked if he was a police officer. And another taking photographs simply scooted off when a Herald photographer snapped him.
Meanwhile, speakers from the Greens and the Stop Bush Coalition protest group complained about police hampering their right to protest.
Alex Bainbridge, from the Stop Bush Coalition, said the group would take the police to court if they were stopped from marching from Town Hall to Hyde Park on Saturday, September 8.
As reported by the Herald last week, police have repeated that protesters will not be allowed to enter part of the route and have suggested an alternative route.
Mr Bainbridge is also angry that police have ruled out a high school students’ protest on Wednesday, even though it would not go near the APEC-declared areas.
And Sylvia Hale, from the NSW Greens, is angry police have said no to a rally in Martin Place on Friday.
The Greens senator Kerry Nettle demanded that police provide details of a black list of people not allowed into the APEC-declared zone.
A group of non-government organisations is setting up an alternative media centre instead of throwing its weight behind the protests. The centre will be staffed by Greenpeace, the Climate Action Network Australia, GetUp!, Tearfund, Caritas and the Christian World Service to give an alternative view of the summit.
If security is high for APEC, it was not for yesterday’s protest meeting. The only uniformed police presence outside Governor Macquarie Tower was a single officer. She spent most of her time taking notes, and when three street performers dressed as police officers confronted her, she took no action.
Source: SMH; Photograph: Quentin Jones – Lying down for their beliefs … protesters from the Stop Bush Coalition.
Damien Murphy | September 2, 2007
DISPLAYING the mercy of rulers from distant lands and distant times, the State Government will release people serving periodic detention in Sydney jails during the APEC forum in case prison beds are needed for protesters arrested if demonstrations turn violent.
Wags are saying that as Sydney’s hotels have heaps of room – especially the luxury end of the business – there was no need for the Government to have acted so hastily as the hotels could have been used as temporary accommodation for the miscreants.
Block bookings of rooms for APEC delegations that unexpectedly failed to appear have caused the oversupply of rooms. But accommodation in regional NSW has been nearly booked out as Sydneysiders plan to take advantage of the public holiday and head to the bush or coast.
Melbourne and the Gold and Sunshine coasts have also benefited from a sudden influx of bookings.
Two years ago Sydney hoteliers were contacted by the Federal Government and asked to reserve thousands of rooms for the summit.
But the expected 6000 delegates from the 21 APEC nations have not materialised. Instead, only about 4000 have said they are coming to town.
However, the NSW Tourism Minister, Matt Brown, looked on the bright side, saying bookings in regional NSW were up by 30 per cent, largely due to a promotional campaign.
"Encouraging residents to get out of the city … helps ease the pressure on Sydney, which will endure road closures and heightened security," he said.
However, the Americans are coming, big time.
The President, George Bush, will arrive with three jumbos – Air Force One, a back-up and another 747 for hangers-on – carrying more than 700 people, including the official party, presidential advisers and staff, medical staff, cooks and security, and journalists.
Then there are transport planes bringing in the presidential helicopter, Marine One, a backup, a fleet of motorcade vehicles including Secret Service Chevrolet Suburbans, an ambulance and … a back-up motorcade.
When the inaugural APEC meeting was staged in 1989, it was a much smaller world with delegates from the then 12 member nations enjoying a cosy late spring in Canberra.
APEC has since grown as if it were on steroids. Not only can Canberra not cope with the influx of leaders, delegates, staff, journalists and security workers but the fear of terrorism and globalisation have changed the way APEC operates.
The cost of this week’s forum is expected to top $330 million, of which $170 million will be spent on security, which includes 22 explosive detector dogs at $90,000 an animal, police checks on the 22,000 people involved in the event, which includes about 1500 media, local hospitality workers, as well as the Sydney Children’s Choir.
The State Government has also spent $600,000 on a water cannon.
Source: The Sun-Herald
The president’s intervention came just weeks after leaks from a White House meeting suggested that Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is understood to favour the use of force, has regained the upper hand over the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who both advocate diplomacy and sanctions to isolate Iran. Mr Cheney reacted with fury when the State Department suggested that negotiations might continue past January 2009, when Mr Bush leaves the White House.
So the question is: did Mr Bush last week set America inexorably on a path to the next war?
Washington officials, with close links to the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, say that the speech was designed as a threat not just to Iran, but to America’s Western allies, along with Russia and China, who have been slow to support – or who have opposed – UN sanctions against Iran. James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation, who helped devise the war-game scenario, said: "It is simultaneously a shot across Iran’s bows and an appeal for the international community to do more to stop or slow Iran’s nuclear programme."
A former White House aide added: "If this creates in the Iranians’ mind a state of fear such that they back off, that helps your diplomacy. Bush is a political poker player. To play poker, you have to know when to bluff."
Mr Bush had another reason for speaking out, too. With General David Petraeus due before Congress on September 11 to report on progress on his "surge" in Iraq, Mr Bush wanted to make the case that a withdrawal from Iraq would boost Iranian influence there – in the hope that this would increase domestic support for his policies.
In Teheran, Mr Ahmadinejad was also quick to make the Iraq connection, but as an impediment, not impetus, to American adventurism. "We have an expression in Farsi which says, ‘Bring up the one that you have given birth to first, then go for another one’," he said. "Let them do what they started in Afghanistan and Iraq then think of other countries." He dismissed threats of military action as "more of a propaganda measure than factual".
"Only in Africa are there angry, tired and hungry farmers," said Adesina. He stressed the need to offer agricultural subsidies because "there is no other agriculture in the world that is not subsidized."
The continent already imports about 25 percent of its food, and one in three Africans suffer chronic hunger, while the population is expected to more than double to 1.8 billion people in 2050, the background statement said.
African agriculture faces such hurdles as unstable governments, outmoded techniques, poor seed stocks, poverty, climates prone to drought and flooding, as well as difficult market access because of poor transportation and trade barriers.
"If you really want to help Africa, build roads, build infrastructure (to get produce to markets). Countries may not build roads, but roads build countries," said Gerard Klijn, managing director of Global Trading & Agency BV, a Dutch company that brokers produce from the developing world.
The conference, with such delegates as 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, brings together public agencies, private investors and government officials to address a broad range of African agriculture topics, including financing, market access, improved crop yields, the role of women and the threat of climate change.
In 2004, Annan called for a revolution to "drive African farming communities from subsistence farming to sustainable modern agriculture and rural transformation."
In 2006, Norwegian government agencies and private industry responded by calling the first Green Revolution conference, and are now hosting the second, which lasts through Saturday.
There are signs of hope.
Last year, Malawi went from a more than 40 percent deficit of maize to a 25 percent surplus due to a new program of government farm subsidies, allowing it to export grain for the first time in a decade.
"This is the first Africa Green Revolution country," said Pedro Sanchez, of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He said government subsidies of 75 percent for fertilizers helped the country double its maize production in one year.
"The government of Malawi had the courage to do the right scientific things," said Sanchez.
He said 1 ton of maize, as international food aid to Africa, costs about $670 (500 euros), while increasing production from African fields by the same amount costs roughly $80 (60 euros).
However, Klijn, of Global Trading, said that rush to increase production can bring risks, such as flooding he recently saw in Malawi because forests were cleared to free up farmland.
"Yes, we want to grow much more but not at the cost of deforestation," he said. Klinj also warned that a sudden explosion in African production could create a glut and a price collapse unless the types of crops are carefully managed.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
This piece of land, a wildlife corridor to Cudgera Reserve, is frequented by endangered flora and fauna, subject to flooding and tidal inundation and is now proposed for a housing estate and – yet another resort!
Wetlands, mangroves, fish nurseries and habitats in abundance – all under metres of landfill – so that a developer who bought the land for a song with full knowledge that it was problematic- can have his shot at multimillion dollar ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION!
The Hobbits will continue to push so as to save HP’s village character and its environment until the fat lady sings and she hasn’t sung yet!
Too many times we have experienced temporary and partial Council/Government action to address developer destruction, only then to see authorities drop the ball – effectively rubber stamping and condoning illegal and unacceptable destructive practices which leave HP and its environment in a continual state of over-development threat. This has to stop once and for all!
The Hobbits will keep a very close eye on what real action is taken to address their concerns and keep you posted. We will call for tabled discussions with the experts employed by Council so we have input into determining the future of our beloved home, consistent with policy and law. We will lobby so that unfettered and unchecked discretions no longer have a comfortable seat in the Tweed Shire!