Author: Neville

Veteran British actor Richard Briers dies aged 79

Updated 14 minutes ago

Photo:National treasure: Briers poses with his CBE medal after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. (Reuters/Pool: Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Map: England
British actor Richard Briers, best known for the 1970s TV sit-com The Good Life but also for his Shakespearean roles, has died at the age of 79.

The actor, who spent a lifetime on the stage, had recently spoken publicly of battling a serious lung condition for years, saying that “the ciggies got me” after a lifetime smoking habit.

He said his health was failing after being diagnosed with emphysema five years ago even though he gave up smoking 10 years ago.

“I was diagnosed five years ago and didn’t think it would go quite as badly as it has,” he told a newspaper last month.

“I used to love smoking. It’s totally my fault.”

His agent said he died on Sunday at his London home.

Briers’s career ranged from television, to theatre, to film and radio with the actor, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, making his West End debut in the late 1950s.

In The Good Life, he played alongside actress Felicity Kendal as a married couple who decide to drop out of the rat race and try out a life of self-sufficiency.

His film credits included A Chorus Of Disapproval in 1989 and Watership Down in 1978 in which he was the voice of Fiver.

He also narrated the children’s cartoon series Roobarb and Custard.

But he won wide acclaim for his Shakespearean work after joining Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company.

He appeared in a list of Branagh’s films including Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet.

Briers, who was married with two daughters, was awarded an OBE in 1989 for services to the arts.

Branagh paid tribute to Briers, telling reporters: “He was a national treasure, a great actor and a wonderful man. He was greatly loved and he will be deeply missed.”

Actor Stephen Fry on Twitter described him as “the most adorable and funny man imaginable”.

Beware knives of March

Date February 19, 2013 400 reading now

Comments 87
Vote
Read later

Mark Kenny

Senior political correspondent

View more articles from Mark Kenny

inShare.
Pin It
submit to reddit
Email article
Print
Reprints & permissions

.

.

Gillard trending down: Pollster

Worrying numbers for the Gillard government in the first Fairfax/Nielsen poll of 2013. John Stirton discusses the results.
Autoplay OnOff
Video feedback
Video settings

Labor MPs say a showdown between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd is inevitable and could come as early as three weeks from now as rattled Labor MPs digest the latest, devastating poll for the government.

Faith in the Prime Minister’s 2013 re-election strategy has evaporated after the primary vote slipped back to 30 per cent in the latest Herald-Nielsen poll, erasing recent gains and widening the lead of the Coalition to 17 points.

After spending time in their electorates canvassing the mood of their constituents, MPs will return to Canberra on March 12. Some are grimly accepting that the leadership question may again have to be visited.

History repeats … a show down between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd is speculated to come as early as three weeks from now. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

That could throw the September 14 election timetable into doubt and potentially put at risk the stability of Labor’s majority in the House of Representatives.

Advertisement

Most senior ministers contacted on Monday appeared to be sticking with the Prime Minister but many said the numbers in the poll could not be ignored.

”It’s simple arithmetic,” said one. ”We can’t go to an election with these numbers.”

Asked if the situation would come to a head when Parliament resumed, one minister responded: ”I don’t see how it can’t”.

He said he remained loyal to Ms Gillard but conceded there had been a discernible shift in momentum towards Mr Rudd in the past fortnight.

However, he also said Mr Rudd’s case for the leadership had been undermined as MPs in marginal seats recognised his public utterances as self-serving and destructive.

The Arts and Regional Development Minister, Simon Crean, an outspoken critic of Mr Rudd in last year’s leadership ballot, was one of the few to go on the record about Mr Rudd.

Mr Crean, himself a former Labor leader, said: ”I don’t think it’s a question of telling him to shut up,” he said. ”I think it’s a question of ensuring that he stays on the issue, rather than just having the perception that it’s a thinly disguised effort to promote him as the alternative leader.”

Labor MPs were rocked by the poll, which showed the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, ahead of Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister, jumping nine points to 49 per cent with her support slipping by five points to 45 per cent.

It followed a poor start to the election year for Labor, which was marred by policy and political errors, the failure of the mining tax, and the prominent emergence of Mr Rudd even as he called on people to ”take a cold shower” over the leadership.

Mr Rudd was in Victoria on Monday for what his office described as ”private” functions and was not commenting on the polls. He holds a decisive lead over Ms Gillard as preferred ALP leader, 61 per cent to 35, according to the poll.

Ms Gillard refused to discuss the poll on Monday as she spruiked the government’s latest initiative, the $1 billion ”Industry and Innovation Statement”.

Senior Liberals welcomed the poll findings just months before the election, but played down claims it was the result of Mr Abbott hiding his negative side.

The manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, said the Coalition’s 17-point lead on primary votes showed Mr Abbott had what voters want.

Follow the National Times on Twitter

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/beware-knives-of-march-20130218-2enj0.html#ixzz2LIF5Zapi

Dead in the water: O’Farrell buries coal seam gas plans

Date February 19, 2013 29 reading now

Read later

Sean Nicholls

Sydney Morning Herald State Political Editor

View more articles from Sean Nicholls

Follow Sean on TwitterEmail Sean

inShare.
Pin It
submit to reddit
Email article
Print
Reprints & permissions

.

No-go zones … Barry O’Farrell. Photo: Lee Besford

THE NSW government has caved in to community and political pressure over coal seam gas, announcing a ban on all activity within two kilometres of residential areas and industry clusters, such as horse breeders and wine producers, across the state.

It has also announced that the Chief Scientist and Engineer, Mary O’Kane, will review all coal seam gas activity in NSW, including the effect on water catchments, and report on any risks by July.

The decision, endorsed by cabinet on Monday night, follows a surge in community anger that forced the energy company AGL to suspend plans to drill for coal seam gas beneath thousands of homes in south-western Sydney.

It comes just a fortnight after the federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, set up coal seam gas as an election issue by attacking the state government’s approval regime and threatening to use federal powers to intervene before the September 14 poll.

Advertisement

The Premier, Barry O’Farrell, said suburbs, country towns and other urban areas would become ”no-go zones for CSG activities”.

”Families in residential areas should not have to worry about their quality of life being affected by the noise, visual impacts and other effects of coal seam gas mining,” Mr O’Farrell said.

The ban will apply to any coal seam gas proposal that has yet to be approved under the Environment Protection and Assessment Act or the Petroleum (Onshore) Act.

The decision, in effect, ends AGL’s plans, which had been strongly opposed by the state MP for Campbelltown, Bryan Doyle, and the federal Liberal MP for Macarthur, Russell Matheson.

On Saturday, the federal Coalition’s energy and resources spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, called on the state government to adopt the Queensland government’s policy, which bans coal seam gas wells within two kilometres of towns with more than 1000 people.

The state Resources and Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher, responded by saying NSW already had the most stringent controls in the country.

As part of a package of reforms, the Environmental Protection Authority will be appointed as the lead regulator of environmental and health effects of coal seam gas activity in NSW, which will also need to hold an Environment Protection Licence.

The EPA will be in charge of compliance and enforcement and empowered to revoke licences if breaches are detected.

A new Office of Coal Seam Gas Regulation will be established.

Mr O’Farrell said the Chief Scientist’s review would ”provide an evidence base to support better understanding of the CSG industry in NSW and identify any gaps in the management of risks arising from CSG activities”.

He said Ms O’Kane would also consider how to manage the impact of coal seam gas activity on residential properties in non-urban areas.

The NSW government has battled criticism from community, farming, environmental and industry groups since it announced its new rules for coal and coal seam gas activity last year. Industry groups said the new rules added a layer of expensive red tape.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/dead-in-the-water-ofarrell-buries-coal-seam-gas-plans-20130218-2eniw.html#ixzz2LICkAioR

Canada and the US: Sea-Level Rise vs. Keystone XL

Like it?

5

comments
5

Posted February 17, 2013

Keywords: Carbon and De-carbonization, Sustainability, Environmental Policy, Environment

1

36

0

37

.

Recently glaciologist Jason Box of Ohio State University explained how humans have set in motion 69 feet of sea level rise; one of the most damaging consequences of climate change.

The “good” news is, it may take a 1000 years or longer to produce this much increase but the insurance company Allianz has identified as much as $28 trillion in coastal infrastructure at risk by 2050.

A report released by the Province of British Columbia in December noted the cost to Metro Vancouver alone to protect against this threat could be as high as $9.5 billion.

A study lead by Yadu Pohkrel determined “The drawing of water from deep wells has caused the sea to rise by an average of .77 millimetres every year since 1961,” which is about 42 percent of the total.

A recent BC study confirmed Dr Pohkrel’s finding and notes low lying crop lands in B.C. are at risk as a consequence. It further notes, “about half of British Columbia’s food supply is imported, much of it from California, which has suffered from drought and is projected to become even more reliant on groundwater as precipitation declines due to climate change.”

As The Frontier Centre for Public Policy pointed out in a paper Water, Water Everywhere But Canada Won’t Sell It, “the average annual rainfall of 33 feet at Link Lake sends enough water into the Pacific Ocean to meet all of California’s water needs for the next 20 years”.

There are numerous other sites around the province nearly as well endowed.

Wikipedia has a section on Water exports from Canada to the US at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_export. I suspect the existing prohibitions against these schemes would evaporate if they were approached as sea level proposals because:
1.the outflows contribute to sea level rise,
2.pumping aquifers to counter drought compounds the sea level problem,
3.Canadian food supplies are at risk due to the miss match,
4.the damage from sea level rise will be costly, and
5.water sales would be a lucrative enterprise.

It makes little sense to be drowning in excess while the source of much of your food supply dessicates.

Perhaps this is the quid pro quo Prime Minister Harper needs to offer President Obama as political cover for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Perhaps two pipelines are better than one with the irrigation from the one offsetting the emissions of the other. As the Kansas State University Soil Carbon Center demonstrates, land based photosynthesis extracts close to a net 50 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

Perhaps we have to duplicate the rectification of the Canadian/US mismatch globally.

Preparing for Climate Change-Induced Weather Disasters

Feb. 16, 2013 — The news sounds grim: mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer.

——————————————————————————–

Share This:

12

See Also:

Earth & Climate
•Weather
•Severe Weather
•Global Warming

Science & Society
•Environmental Policies
•Disaster Plan
•World Development

Reference
•Storm surge
•Weather
•Consensus of scientists regarding global warming
•Catastrophe modeling

However, we can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters with a variety of measures, according to Stanford Woods Institute Senior Fellow Chris Field.

Field will discuss how to prepare for and adapt to a new climate at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Boston. Field’s talk, “Weather Extremes: Coping With the Changing Risks,” will be part of a symposium called “Media: Communicating Science, Uncertainty and Impact” on Feb. 16.

While climate change’s role in tornadoes and hurricanes remains unknown, Field says, the pattern is increasingly clear when it comes to heat waves, heavy rains and droughts. Field explains that the risk of climate-related disaster is tied to the overlap of weather, exposure and vulnerability of exposed people, ecosystems and investments.

While this means that moderate extremes can lead to major disasters, especially in communities subjected to other stresses or in cases when extremes are repeated, it also means that prepared, resilient communities can manage even severe extremes.

During the past 30 years, economic losses from weather-related disasters have increased. The available evidence points to increasing exposure (an increase in the amount and/or value of the assets in harm’s way) as the dominant cause of this trend. Economic losses, however, present a very incomplete picture of the true impacts of disasters, which include human and environmental components. While the majority of the economic losses from weather-related disasters are in developed world, the overwhelming majority of deaths are in developing countries.

Withstanding these increasingly frequent events will depend on a variety of disaster preparations, early warning systems and well-built infrastructure, Field says. The most effective options tend to produce both immediate benefits in sustainable development and long-term benefits in reduced vulnerability. Solutions that emphasize a portfolio of approaches, multi-hazard risk reduction and learning by doing offer many advantages for resilience and sustainability. Some options may require transformation, including questioning assumptions and paradigms, and stimulating innovation.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Ian Macdonald and former union boss John Maitland might be selling assets before ICAC makes a call on charges

ANDREW CLENNELL STATE POLITICAL EDITOR
The Daily Telegraph
February 18, 201312:00AM

Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
Email
Share

0

The Orange property owned by former NSW minister Ian Macdonald. Source: Supplied

DISGRACED ex-minister Ian Macdonald and former union boss John Maitland are selling their large rural homes ahead of an ICAC inquiry into allegations Mr Macdonald set up a mining licence that benefited his mate to the tune of $10 million.

Last night there were calls for Premier Barry O’Farrell to stop the sales or have the proceeds frozen amid concerns the pair may be attempting to move their assets before any possible charges are laid as a result of the ICAC hearings.

Former CFMEU boss Mr Maitland – who made at least $10 million after Mr Macdonald set up the Doyle’s Creek “training mine” without tender in 2008 – is selling his 420ha property at auction on March 16, two days ahead of an ICAC hearing into the deal.

A real estate agent acting for Mr Macdonald confirmed his property in Orange was “under contract”.

The property on Canobolas Rd had been for sale for $960,000. He bought it in 2007 for $675,000.

Recommended Coverage

.

Macdonald linked to coal mine»

DISGRACED former mineral minister Ian Macdonald signed off on an exploration licence renewal for proposed coal mine, documents show.
.

.

Throwing ICAC off the scent»

IAN Macdonald and business partner created “sham” loans as a cover-up for payments made to the former minister, ICAC was told.
..

Agent Jim Oates said: “There’s a contract out on it. I don’t want to comment any more.”

Mr Maitland bought “Tara Park” at Bellbrook, near Kempsey for $1.575 million in January 2011, around the time he made a large windfall by selling out of shares in Doyle’s Creek.

ICAC hearings into the mine lease are set to begin on March 18.

Mr Maitland owns two other large properties – in Western Victoria and outside Kempsey.

Real estate agent Jamie Mainey confirmed it was Mr Maitland’s property for sale and declined to say how much he was seeking.

The property is owned by Mr Maitland’s firm Jonca Investments, the same company which owned shares in NuCoal when the Doyle’s Creek deal came through.

Mr Oates said he “didn’t know” if Mr Macdonald was selling an adjoining property.

In April 2012, a house in Strathallen Ave, Northbridge was sold by Mr Macdonald for $1.2 million.

Greens MP John Kaye demanded action from the Premier on both Mr Macdonald’s and Mr Maitland’s sales.

“I think (Mr) O’Farrell should be on the phone to the crime commission … and say ‘you guys should immediately investigate (Mr) Maitland’s assets and if you come up with a reasonable suspicion there are proceeds of serious crimes you should use your power … and go to the Supreme Court and apply for a freezing order immediately’.”

Opposition Leader John Robertson agreed, saying: “Barry O’Farrell should seek urgent advice on whether the sale of these properties can be stopped.”

ICAC is yet is hand down the findings of its inquiry and no charges have been laid against Macdonald or Maitland.

But Mr O’Farrell refused to intervene last night, a spokesman saying: “The Crime Commission has existing powers in this area and is monitoring the ICAC proceedings closely.”

Mr Macdonald told the ICAC hearings this month that he found himself in dire financial straits when he lost his ministerial job and he owed 80 per cent on his Orange property and 50 per cent on his Northbridge property.

Despite this, he took up an option to buy another large property in Orange in April 2011, buying it for $475,000.

The ICAC has heard Mr Macdonald received “loans” from business partner John Gerathy worth $450,000 over a couple of years and there was no security put on those loans until Mr Gerathy was summoned in May 2012 to produce financial records to ICAC.

There have also been allegations Mr Macdonald received tens of thousands for decisions and that he was to reap $4 million out of a mining deal to approve a mine over Eddie Obeid’s farm.

ICAC Commissioner David Ipp has even referred to the alleged Macdonald payments as “ICAC loans”, telling the commission last week: “We have a saying here that an ICAC loan is a transaction which is a gift but is really described as a loan and which the security documents put in to create a sham, a disguise.”

Mr Maitland and Mr Macdonald did not return calls.