'Un-Islamic' book
trial opens in Malaysia
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Bookstore raids raise
concerns about the rule of law in the southeast Asian state.
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Since 1971, 1,517 books and other
publications have been banned in Malaysia [AP]
|
It was a quiet
Wednesday evening towards the end of May when Malaysia's religious
authorities paid a surprise visit to the Borders bookshop in one of Kuala
Lumpur's more upscale shopping malls.
The three officers
from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, better known by its
Malay language acronym JAWI, were courteous but brought with them 20 other
men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves and taking pictures on
their mobile phones. The officers asked the employees whether the shop was selling
Allah, Liberty and Love, the newly released book by New York-based
Canadian academic Irshad Manji.
Understandably, the
staff, dealing with a raid by the religious authorities for the first time,
was nervous. They lead the men to the shelf where the offending book was on
display. After confiscating a couple of copies, the officials asked for the
manager.
Stephen Fung, a
Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslim, who buys the books and distributes them to
the six Borders branches in and around the capital, was the first to speak to
the men. But then they asked to see the most senior Muslim member of staff.
The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a 36-year-old Malay woman
planning for her wedding and in the midst of a marriage course at her local
mosque, happened to be on shift.
Accusations
"They singled out
the Malay women and asked them if they were married," Borders Books'
Chief Operating Officer Yau Su Peng told Al Jazeera. "Those who said
they were single were then accused of being a lesbian. Some were in
tears."
Nik Raina and Fung
were then ordered to appear at JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so,
Nik Raina's lawyer was turned away, denying her a right to counsel that's
enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.
All this happened even
though at the time, on May 23, Allah, Liberty and Love wasn't
actually banned.
Some groups had
expressed disquiet about the book and Borders had been forced to cancel a
"meet-the-author" session with Manji earlier in the month following
threats of violence, but no fatwa had been issued. Borders said it had been
given no indication that there was a problem with selling the book. Indeed,
it was on sale at other shops in the same shopping complex.
With its Muslim Malay
majority and large communities of non-Muslim Chinese, Indian and indigenous
people, Malaysia has long prided itself on its ethnic diversity and religious
tolerance. For decades, Shariah courts, with jurisdiction over the personal
lives of the country's Muslims, have operated alongside the civil system with
the Federal Constitution as the country's supreme legal document. But as
Islam has become increasingly politicized and the religious authorities more
assertive, the system has come under increasing strain.
Religious authorities
'emboldened'
The case "is
symptomatic of an alarming trend in which religious authorities have become
increasing emboldened by the lack of proper oversight and a secular
'leash'", Azrul Mohd Khalib, who writes a column for the online
newspaper the Malaysian Insider and works on HIV/AIDS
issues, told Al Jazeera.
Nik Raina is charged
with distributing a book that's offensive to Islam, even though her job
doesn't involve choosing the books for the store or stacking the shelves. Due
in court on Tuesday, she faces not only the prospect of a 3,000 ringgit fine
($1,000) and a two-year jail term, but a criminal record. "There was no
fatwa, no communication, not even so much as a phone call," Yau said.
"Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's a Muslim."
The Borders raid took
place nearly three weeks before the Home Ministry's Publication and Quranic
Text Control Division published the ban, declaring the book "prejudicial
to morality and public order". JAWI, which ultimately reports to
the Prime Minister's Office, says it doesn't need a court order to raid a
bookshop like Borders if it suspects it's selling "un-Islamic"
material. It's a view that's echoed by Jamil Khir Baharom, Minister in the
Prime Minister's Department and the man responsible for Islamic affairs in
the government.
Lawyers acknowledge
that laws governing the religious authorities in individual states are quite
broad. But there is skepticism about the charges that have been brought.
"It seems the
religious authorities have had to find someone who is a Muslim within the
Borders organization to be charged," said lawyer Andrew Khoo, the
co-chair of the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee. "The
question is whether the appropriate person has been charged or whether she's
the unwitting scapegoat of people trying to enforce the unenforceable."
As a company Borders can't be charged, and neither can Fung. JAWI's officers
admitted as much as they handed Fung a summons.
After Nik Raina had
been charged and a date set for the Shariah hearing, Borders learned it had
secured a judicial review to challenge the raid in the civil court. The
hearing was set for a couple of weeks before the Shariah case. But then JAWI
asked to have its hearing brought forward, a move it said was in the public
interest. JAWI did not respond to emails or phone calls requesting comment on
the raid and its aftermath.
Book seizures
It's not only Borders,
a company controlled by ethnic Chinese business tycoon Vincent Tan, which has
turned to the civil courts. The publisher of the Malay language edition of
the book, ZI Publications and its owner/director Ezra Zaid, also sought a
judicial review. As with Borders, at least 20 people turned up at ZI's offices
looking to seize the book. "The concern for me, and especially for my
staff, was the legal jurisdiction in which they were operating," he
said.
Raman Krishna has run
Silverfish Books in a Kuala Lumpur suburb since 1999. It's a small operation specializing
in Malaysian books and the kind of writing that isn't on the bestseller
lists. JAWI visited Silverfish on June 1. While the two officers were polite
and showed Raman the gazette of the soon-to-be published ban when he asked to
see it, they warned him that if he had any Muslim staff on the payroll they
would be at risk of prosecution if the book were discovered.
"The other part
of this is censorship by harassment," Raman said in an interview at his
shop. "We have a name for it, 'budaya samseng' - a culture of
gangsterism. It's absurd. No civilized society would tolerate this. I don't
understand why Malaysians do."
After JAWI's visit,
Borders wrote to the appropriate ministers to express their concern over the
circumstances of the raid and the continued prosecution of Nik Raina. It's
not just Nik they're concerned about.
The company, which
bought the rights to the Borders' name when the US parent company folded,
employs 150 people, 77 per cent of them Muslim. It has yet to receive any
response, although the consequence of Nik Raina being found guilty could have
serious implications for all Malays simply trying to earn a living; whether
an ethnic Malay crew member serving wine to a non-Muslim passenger on a
Malaysia Airlines flight or a waiter serving food to non-Muslim Malaysians
during Ramadan fasting hours.
"We have the
government rhetoric of Malaysia being a progressive democracy and a center
for moderate Islam, but then you have the political action on the ground, the
lack of political will to tackle issues like this and a backsliding into
medieval times," said Imtiaz Malik Sarwar, a constitutional expert and
lawyer who's representing ZI Publications and Ezra. "It's very
worrying."
Change in focus
Borders' attempt to
delay Tuesday's proceedings in the Shariah Court until the completion of the
judicial review was unsuccessful. Citing the Constitution, High Court Judge
Rohana Yusuf said the civil courts didn't have the authority to intervene in
a Shariah case. But she also noted a seeming "lack of good faith" on
the part of JAWI and said she was confident the Shariah Court itself would
grant a stay of proceedings.
A delay would help
ease some of the unease surrounding the case and show the kind of legal
co-operation that lawyers such as Khoo say is necessary for a dual system to
work effectively. But the question of jurisdiction remains a difficult one.
Where other countries have found a dual system unworkable, Malaysia has
persevered, often by steering away from difficult debates over where
jurisdiction ultimately lies.
A couple of decisions
at the end of July, one of them backing an earlier ruling to lift a ban on a
book about women and Islamic law, have raised hopes that the civil courts are
becoming more assertive. What started off as a surprise raid by the religious
authorities on an unsuspecting bookshop may finally force a discussion few
have been willing to risk.
There "needs to
be some acknowledgement of how the rule of law works in this country",
said Ezra. "There's a lawlessness in which they are operating. All we
want to know is where our civil liberties end and where they begin. And, if
I'm a Muslim, where does Shariah intercede. This really is a litmus test of
the veracity of our legal system."
Irshad Manji is not
the only writer to find her works banned in Malaysia. Lebanese-American poet
Khalil Gibran, Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie, polemicist
Christopher Hitchens and Peter Mayle, a British writer best known for his
tales of expatriate life in France, have all had books banned in the past
four decades.
Since 1971, some 1,517
books and other publications have been added to Malaysia's banned list. Along
with magazines and newspapers, books are also monitored for content. Pictures
are sometimes blackened out with marker pen or pages removed altogether.
Operating under the
Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, the Publication and Quranic Text
Control Division is in charge of the process. It decides which publications
are allowed to be sold and which are deemed too dangerous for the Malaysian
public to see. As Malaysia battled a Communist insurgency, early bans focused
on Communism and politics. In the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the predictable
bans on adult magazines, kung fu caught the censors' attention. These days,
sex and religion are the most sensitive subjects.
Peter’s Comment
Malaysia’s claim to
star status as a model of democracy and racial and religious tolerance seems
to be fading.
When I visited
Malaysia briefly in the nineties I believed the propaganda. To me country and
people appeared friendly to tourists and the diverse cultures seemed to be
co-existing in harmony. Everywhere I went I found smiling faces.
However, since the
nineties I have come to realize that all may not be as it seems in Malaysia.
I can recall a political trial that went through the courts a few years ago
that, to the rest of the world, was a farce that was stage-managed to
eliminate a political threat. In a true democracy the courts are totally
independent of politics.
Now as I read of this
latest witch-hunt by religious zealots, I am reminded of another vital facet
of democracy; the state must be completely free of any kind of religious
dominance. A religion dominated state cannot be a democratic state.
It would seem that
Malaysia must be about the last country in the world to discover the real
effect of banning books; a ban will only serve to guarantee more sales all
around the world and even more sales to Malaysians.
This blog is sponsored by Gypsy Books
Will our books now be banned in Malaysia
for speaking out?
PO Box 110, Ngatea 3541, New Zealand
Print books: http://www.gypsybooks.co.nz
For E-readers: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search
|
The Asker Trilogy, Highway America, The New Zealand Tour Commentary, The Life and Times of Freddie Fuddpucker
Monday, August 6, 2012
MALAYSIAN CENSORSHIP
NEW ZEALAND GREEN
Jailed
New Zealand dope grower vows to sell again
By Mike Dinsdale
10:32 AM Monday Aug 6,
2012
Photo / Thinkstock |
A man who walked into
Whangarei police station with a number of cannabis seedlings he had been
cultivating has vowed to continue defying the country's drug laws when he is
released from prison.
But police said they
will continue to take action against anybody growing drugs and the man can
expect to be arrested if caught.
Brian Borland, 56, has
been sentenced to six months' jail after pleading guilty to one charge of
cultivating cannabis and one of breaching special release conditions after he
went into Whangarei Police Station with up to 39 cannabis seedlings on June 1.
It was initially
reported that Borland went to the police station to hand himself in on
outstanding warrants and as he had nowhere to live took the plants with him,
asking police if they could look after them for him. The plants were destroyed
and he was charged with their cultivation.
He appeared in Kaikohe
District Court on July 17 where he pleaded guilty to the charges and was sent
to Ngawha Prison for six months. He will be released before the end of this
month due to the time he had already spent in custody.
But an unrepentant Borland
said he would continue to defy the country's marijuana laws when he was
released.
"When I experienced
the joys of cannabis for the first time in 1973 it wasn't illegal ... it was
banned the following year in 1974," he said.
"I could not see
any reason why it should be banned, 38 years later I still feel the same
way."
Borland said dope
prohibition had only made many thousands of ordinary Kiwis criminals, and
claimed there were up to 700,000 people in the country who smoked the drug
regularly.
However, relieving
Whangarei police area commander Inspector Tracy Phillips said officers had a
responsibility to enforce the law, and that includes illicit drug cultivation,
dealing and manufacturing.
"Cannabis is
prolific in Northland and has negative impacts on our communities, particularly
our young people," Mr Phillips said.
"It is also
associated with other criminal activities such as burglary and violence. If
anyone is caught growing or dealing in this or other drugs then we will take
action."
Northland is the cannabis
capital of the country, with a third of the marijuana plants seized and
destroyed by police in six-month long, nationwide operations targeting drug
growers and dealers grown in the region.
Peter’s Comment
Borland, who police must regard as a bit of a bore, may have
a point about whether or not the law should change.
But breaking the law is not the way to seek change. Borland
should think about becoming the local Member of Parliament, but then some would
say that Parliament already has an over-supply of bores.
So perhaps the best course of action for Mr Borland will be
to demonstrate that he can behave rationally while partaking of the weed. From
all accounts, he hasn’t done that yet.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
MEMORIES OF PAST WEATHER
New study links current events to
climate change
WASHINGTON (AP) — The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat
that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in
recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new
statistical analysis from a top government scientist.
A cumulonimbus, or anvil cloud Photo: National Geographic |
The research by a man
often called the "godfather of global warming" says that the
likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was
rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the
study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what's
happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change.
"This is not
some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Hansen
told The Associated Press in an interview.
Hansen is a scientist
at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at
Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist who has called for
government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was
published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change
skeptics.
However, several climate
scientists praised the new work.
In a blunt departure
from most climate research, Hansen's study — based on statistics, not the more
typical climate modeling — blames these three heat waves purely on global
warming:
—Last year's
devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.
—The 2010 heat waves in Russia and
the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.
—The 2003 European
heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly
in France.
The analysis was
written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have
seared much of the United States this year. But Hansen believes this too is
another prime example of global warming at its worst.
Continued below . . .
Continued below . . .
Don't be alarmed by climate change alarmists
Relax with a good book
The new research
makes the case for the severity of global warming in a different way than most
scientific studies and uses simple math instead of relying on complex climate
models or an understanding of atmospheric physics. It also doesn't bother with
the usual caveats about individual weather events having numerous causes.
The increase in the
chance of extreme heat, drought and heavy downpours in certain regions is so
huge that scientists should stop hemming and hawing, Hansen said. "This is
happening often enough, over a big enough area that people can see it
happening," he said.
Scientists have
generally responded that it's impossible to say whether single events are
caused by global warming, because of the influence of natural weather
variability.
However, that
position has been shifting in recent months, as other studies too have
concluded climate change is happening right before our eyes.
Hansen hopes his new
study will shift people's thinking about climate change and goad governments
into action. He wrote an op-ed piece that appeared online Friday in the
Washington Post.
"There is still
time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious
time," he wrote.
The science in
Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew
Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia
who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate
scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.
"Rather than
say, 'Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you
can say is, 'How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global
warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global
warming," Weaver said.
Peter’s
Piece
We’ve heard all this before. It’s the same old recycled trash.
Climate has always been changing and always will change, but
the notion that the change is man-made is not logical. Climate change comes
naturally in cycles that can last months, years, decades, centuries and millenniums
and with much greater extremes than anything experienced during man’s time on
the planet.
Hansen talks about a supposed recent increase in extreme
weather events and I can understand that people will fall for that argument. He
is depending on peoples flawed memories of past events. We tend only to
remember one hot summer, one cold winter, or one severe tornado or other
serious happening.
But the fact remains that the highest temperatures ever
recorded date from the early twentieth century rather than the late twentieth
or twenty-first centuries. Similarly, world records for wind, floods, thunder storms and
tornadoes were recorded before most of us were born.
Hansen will call me a skeptic. I call him an alarmist.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
ON THE ROAD IN AUSTRALIA
Australian road train driver
Australia is about the
size of the U.S., but most of our people live within ten miles of the sea in a
handful of cities. The inland of Australia is made up of a few cattle ranches
which they call cattle stations. They are hundreds of square miles in size, but
because the land is so dry and there is not much water, few cattle are spread
over a lot of land. Most of the land is still unused government land.
Railways are few and far
between in central Australia. There is no freeway from coast to coast. The
numbers of cars are few and the roads are narrow with one lane in each
direction. When you get two trucks passing each other, they are only a few feet
apart.
With thousands of miles
of road between the cities and few hills to cross, the Australian Road Train
makes good sense. The normal road train is made up of three, 44-foot trailers
with a twin axle turn table dolly under the front of the trailer hooked up to
the back of the trailer in front of it with a ring feeder and a dolly bar. The
load is 120 tons, spread over the three trailers. The normal road train is made
up of three trailers, but in the mining game they haul six trailers or more.
For training to get a
road train license you have to be over 18 years old and you start with what's
called a TAFE course that is held at a collage. I am an old-time driver that
has not done this course, but from what I have been told you learn everything
from how to tie ropes to how much air to put into the tyres--you notice we
spell tyre differently to Americans. After a passing the TAFE course, you then
have to do a heavy truck-driving test on the road.
It is one thing to get a
license, but another thing to get a job driving a road train. You have to get a
permit from a company that will give you a job. So, it is a catch 22. No one
will give you a job unless you have experience and unless you know someone who
will give you a go at it; it is hard to find a job driving a road train.
The best way is to start
driving small trucks and do that for a number of years. Then start driving
bigger trucks. As you progress, then someone will let you loose with a road
train. There's no quick way.
Most of the trucks
(tractors) we use are U.S. makes. The big two are Mack and Kenworth. They have
to be made to road train standards (which listing all those details would take
all day). The chassis are made stronger with more cross members and the chassis
are not allowed to be too long, so you do not have room for big sleeper cabs.
We have to double the number of air tanks, plus add more fuel tanks on both
sides and lots more.
In Australia, you can
drive four hours without stopping then you must stop for half an hour. You
cannot drive for more than 12 hours in one day, but most drivers break
regulations every day. A driver has a logbook to fill out, but that means
nothing. It's called the "book of lies."
These days a lot of
trucking companies run two drivers to each truck. While one drives the other
one rests, that way they can go straight through.
Continued below:
Continued below:
Available now from Smashwords
There are some differences
in terminology. In Australia truck drivers are called "truckies" not
truckers. The tractor is called a "prime-mover" not a tractor. (A
tractor in Australia is what a farmer uses to dig up his field to grow his
crop.)
Most trucks have fuel
for at least one thousand miles because, as you leave the big cities on the
coast and head into the outback, the price of fuel goes up. There are truck
stops every 150 miles and most of these are small compared to American truck
stops. They seat ten or so people. The food is home-style cooking: steak and
eggs, plus burgers and fries (what we call chips). It's simple food, not
conveyer-belt food.
The wages are not too
bad for Australian truckies. They earn around 600 a week. The average wage in
Australia for other blue-collar jobs is about 375 a week. There are two
Australian dollars to one U.S. dollar.
Australia is very large
and its seasons are the reverse of the U.S. December is the start of our summer
so Father Christmas is pulled by kangaroos not reindeer. In the south, the
summer is hot and dry, and the average temperature is about 95 degrees F with a
lot of days just over 100. In the winter, the weather is mild and I have never
seen snow. The north has just two seasons, the wet and the dry, with a yearly
average of 95 degrees. The middle of Australia is always dry and hot, but can
be freezing at night during winter.
As to what you see
driving in Australia, near the coast there is normal farmland, but in the
outback you do not know what you will see next. At night there are lots of
kangaroos. They are heavy on most roads and that's why our trucks have big
"roo bars" on the front. It is not unusual to hit four or five
kangaroos on one trip and they can do more damage than you think.
In the daytime you see a
lot of wildlife--birds, big eagles and falcons; emus, which are big flightless
birds; snakes; wombats, which are a bit like a fat dog; and dingos.
The good part of doing
the job is that there is no boss looking over your shoulder all day and every
trip is different. You are so far away that you have to do your own thing. You
have to be a jack-of-all-trades. If the truck stops running, you have to try
and get it going by yourself. Help is hundreds of miles away.
The bad part about the
job is that you have a timetable to keep and you are paid only when you are
running. If you breakdown and have to wait for someone to come hundreds of
miles to get you going, you do not get paid for the waiting time. But it's a
good time to catch up on your sleep.
For more information on trucking in Australia,
visit Kingsley Foreman's website: www.inselfdefense.net/outbacktowing
Peter’s Comment
The wages quoted above appear to be a few years
out of date. An Australian road train driver in 2012 earns more like $1,500 to
$2,000 AUD a week. Also the exchange rate has changed and US and Australian
dollars are about on a par now.
JET JOCKEYS SING THIS SONG
El Paso City from 30,000 feet
Sing along with Marty Robbins
Great airborne shots in the video
Sing along with Marty Robbins
Great airborne shots in the video
The Franklin Mountains, El Paso, Texas |
Marty Robbins - El Paso City: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J4L4d-rDU0
Interstate 10, El Paso, Texas |
Enjoy
AN INTERNATIONAL DISASTER BODY
New
Zealand's bold plan
to rebuild a city
to rebuild a city
By Kurt Bayer
New Zealand Herald
6:00 PM Monday Jul 30,
2012
A scene from Christchurch on February 22, 2011 when 185 people died |
A covered sports stadium
is the showpiece inclusion in the rebuild blueprint for earthquake-damaged
Christchurch city center announced today.
The much-anticipated
blueprint includes 12 key sites for major facilities, including a new
2000-capacity convention center at a "postcard location" by the Avon
River, a huge aquatic and indoor sports facility, revitalized square with a new
central library, and Ngai Tahu cultural center.
Shops, restaurants, bars
and cafes are expected to line the picturesque river's edge, as well as the
sports stadiums, in a push to make the revitalized city "very much like
Melbourne", according to Prime Minister John Key.
The compact center of a
rebuilt Garden City, designed to "solve the problem of too much land, not
enough demand", will rise from a sweeping space flanked by the twisting
Avon and a leafy, bright "college-campus style" frame.
It will take minutes to
walk from the new city square, to the 35,000-seat covered stadium, which will
have natural, fixed turf. Cycle ways will link historic Hagley Park to
downtown.
The blueprint will
result in a low-rise city, with a maximum height limit on new buildings of 28 meters,
or up to eight storeys, and will be divided into precincts of health, arts and
entertainment, retail, as well as the justice and emergency sectors.
Mr Key and Canterbury
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee officially unveiled the highly
anticipated blueprint this evening.
"As a former Cantabrian
I am delighted to see this plan for new development and to know construction
will soon be underway to rebuild my old hometown," Mr Key said.
The Christchurch Central
Development Unit (CCDU), set up in April by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery
Authority (Cera) to plan the CBD rebuild, was given 100 days to come up with
the blueprint.
The city center was
largely destroyed in the magnitude-6.3 earthquake of February 22, 2011, which
claimed 185 lives.
Investors and developers
say they have been unable to consider any rebuild plans until they knew the
location of the new civic facilities. Mr Brownlee said the recovery plan
contained a blueprint for a smaller, greener, central city that will set
Christchurch apart from any other urban center.
"The plan and its
implementation are being watched by the rest of the world, which has also been
supportive of Christchurch in its time of need," Mr Brownlee said.
"I anticipate a
light, airy, college-campus style feel for the home of numerous innovative
Christchurch companies and public sector agencies."
Mr Brownlee refused to
say how much it may cost, saying only that the Government had allocated $5.5
billion on the earthquake recovery so far and had already spent $2.45b.
The Government will be
working with around 800 city property owners, and will have the powers under
the Cera Act 2011 to compulsorily buy land it needs to make way for key
facilities.
Further details on a new
hospital, advanced technology hub, and a justice precinct are expected to
follow in coming months.
Christchurch Mayor Bob
Parker said the plan was a "bold vision" while the blueprint received
rave reviews from developers and investors at tonight's glitzy launch at the
city council headquarters.
Millionaire city
property owner Antony Gough said the city had been in "uncharted
waters" but now had "a chart to lead the way".
Christchurch Airport
boss Jim Boult believed the new central city would be the envy of similar sized
cities throughout the world.
There were detractors,
however, with about 250 people attempting to disrupt the launch with a vocal
protest outside the council building, with chants including, 'Fix our homes
before the CBD', and 'Mr Key, hear our plea, we need a road to recovery.'
Wider Earthquake
Communities' Action Network (WeCan) spokesman Mike Coleman said today marked
further evidence of a "corporate recovery" while residents in the
eastern city suburbs were being "left to flounder".
"They open up the
champagne bottles for the CBD but there's mere drips of water for the plebs in
the suburbs."
Lindsay Carswell of the
Christchurch Civic Trust welcomed the "bold vision" but questioned
whether it would "actually happen."
Peter’s Comment
A bold, far-sighted plan
but Christchurch will never feel like Christchurch ever again to the people who
survived and still live there.
There is growing
evidence that rescue and recovery from major disasters like Christchurch should
be controlled by an international disaster organization. Events like
Christchurch are just too big for a single nation to cope with.
Many countries sent
teams to Christchurch within hours of the main event on February 22, 2011 and
that help was certainly appreciated. But New Zealanders were in control with
little or no experience of major disasters and the lack of a properly coordinated
international response has left Christchurch and New Zealand with a legacy of
errors, delays and frustrations that the country will have to live with for a
very long time.
All of the above can be
said without pointing an accusing finger at any particular official, politician
or organization. In fact the leadership of Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker, just
to mention one, was and continues to be outstanding.
JETSTAR AUSTRALIA
Has Jetstar’s star fallen?
A Jetstar Airbus A-330 |
Posted on Facebook by Daniel Hazard after flying Brisbane to Sydney, in Australia
I was on the tarmac queuing to board flight DJ189 last
night from BNE to SYD @8:30. It was particularly cold and we would have been
waiting outside for about 8 minutes before we were able to board via the front
stairs. I noticed an elderly lady in a wheelchair waiting at the bottom of the
stairs, in the cold, where there were also strong aviation fumes. I notified
the head steward when I reached the cabin, as I felt it was inappropriate that
someone of that age should be left outside in the cold while the rest of us
able-bodied passengers boarded ahead of her. My comment was treated with
derision and I was informed that the head steward's responsibilities "did
not include anything outside the plane". He did not even attempt to
address my concerns and I noticed that the lady was the very last passenger to
board the plane. I find it hard to believe that Jetstar could not have assisted
this woman to board earlier, or in fact, at all during the boarding process.
Other passengers certainly took notice and it made my trip very uncomfortable
due to the obvious disrespect bestowed on the elderly woman. I am happy to
speak to someone about this further. It was an absolute disgrace.
Peter’s
Comment
Jetstar is a budget subsidiary of Qantas Airways and has
been beset by passenger complaints since its launch a few years ago. They
operate Airbus aircraft with comparatively inexperienced crews. There is even a
website devoted to Jetstar complaints: http://www.dontflyjetstar.com/
However, I flew Jetstar a couple of times without finding
fault other than crammed seating. They were the cheapest at the time so I suppose
you only get what you pay for.
With a good book you can
block out the poor service
PO Box 110, Ngatea 3541, New Zealand
Print books: http://www.gypsybooks.co.nz
For your Kindle: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search
There is another way in which cheapest is not always best
and that is in the choice of aircraft. In some aviation circles there is a
saying: Boeings are designed by experts and can be flown by idiots. Airbuses
are designed by idiots and must be flown by experts. Because most pilots and crew, like passengers,
value their hides most will want to fly in Boeings thereby leaving the Airbuses
to the least experienced crews.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
INDIA AND CLIMATE CHANGE
How
Climate Change and the Monsoons Affect India’s Blackouts
India's blackouts have left nearly 700 million people without
power. The unstable monsoons are adding to demand for electricity—and climate
change could disrupt the summer rains even further.
Waiting for the monsoon in India |
Blame it on the rain—at
least partially. Northern India has been plagued by prolonged blackouts over
the past few days that have left some 600 million
people without regular power. The electrical grid has never
covered the entire country—around 300 million of
India’s 1.2 billion citizens lack access to regular electricity—and isolated
blackouts are common even in urban areas that normally get juice. But the
collapse of the grid this week is something else, spreading to 22 of the
country’s 28 states, with much of the capital of New Delhi plunged
into darkness, hundreds of trains left dead in their tracks and car stalled
thanks to the failure of traffic lights.
Though India’s regular
experience with blackouts make it that much more able to deal with a prolonged
power loss like this one—hospitals, offices and even homes have backup diesel
generators and make frequent use of them—the disaster will make it that much
harder to buy into the idea that the second-most populous country in the world
is ready to compete with China on the global stage. Said Chandrajit
Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry, in a statement:
The electricity supply in India |
As one of the emerging economies of the world,
which is home to almost a sixth of the world population, it is imperative that
our basic infrastructure requirements are in keeping with India’s aspirations.
The developments of yesterday and today have created a huge dent in the
country’s reputation that is most unfortunate.
What’s behind the
blackout? It’s not clear yet, though India’s rickety power grid is hardly
invulnerable to stress. And that stress may be increasing, as growing industry
and personal use in an increasingly rich India—think air conditioners to cool
the subcontinent—outpace India’s ability to actually generate electricity.
And that’s where the
monsoon could become a major problem. The great summer storms—which provide
three-quarters of India’s annual rainfall—came late to the country this year,
leaving much of northern India gripped in a killer drought and
unrelenting heat. While the slow monsoons are unlikely to have directly caused
the blackouts—the rains finally began to fall recently,
enough to reduce temperatures—parched farmers in agricultural areas are turning
to electric pumps in large numbers to bring groundwater to the surface for
irrigation. If the monsoons continue to be erratic and slow in a global warming
future, the demand for electricity to compensate for the heat and the drought
will only increase.
Continued below . . . .
Continued below . . . .
Available from Amazon or Smashwords
But what will climate change do to the monsoons? Like many regional impacts, that’s difficult for scientists to predict, especially since weather data on the monsoons in South Asia is still lacking, as the Economist pointed out in an article last week:
Too little is known about summer weather systems
on the subcontinent. India is short of observation stations, weather planes,
satellites, climate scientists and modelers. The government and foreign donors
are scrambling to make amends. But even with better data, monsoons are
ill-understood once they leave the sea or low-lying land. At altitude, notably,
for instance, approaching the Himalayas, it is far trickier to grasp just how
factors such as wind direction, air pressure, latent heating and moisture
levels interact to deliver monsoon rains.
We do know that India,
like the rest of the planet, has gotten hotter over the past six decades as
man-made greenhouse gases have warmed the atmosphere. All other things being
equal, that should lead to more precipitation—a hotter atmosphere means more
evaporation and can hold more water. For the monsoons, the fact that the land
is heating up faster than the oceans should actually draw in more moisture,
which in turn should mean stronger monsoons. But that hasn’t happened yet.
Peter’s Comment
India is not only the world’s
second most populous country, but it is also growing at a rate that will put it’s
population ahead of China’s within the next few years.
India has long suffered from a
lack of adequate infrastructure and that problem will worsen as the population
explodes and as increasing personal wealth makes greater demands on the
infrastructure.
But now we are lead to believe
that India’s problems could be due to climate change, even though it is admitted
that there is little local data to back that up.
In simple terms, monsoons are
created by a combination of heat and moisture and are generally confined to
tropical regions. Therefore if the world is getting warmer, as we are so often
told, then the monsoons should start earlier rather than later.
But I believe we are often told
anything that will support the theory of climate change. Of particular note is
the alarmist way that everything about climate change is bad. But wait a
minute. Surely some places are going to be better off with a warmer climate.
Why don’t we hear about those places?
Perhaps a majority of places
will be better off with a warmer climate. Doesn’t a substantial part of the
world population take a break during winter in a warmer locale?
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of
the Indian situation is that some people would have them believe that it is beyond
their control to make their country a better place to live and do business.
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