Beyond travel, a trans-Tasman bubble is an opportunity for Australia and NZ to reduce dependence on China

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Hongzhi Gao, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Monica Ren, Macquarie University

When it comes to our economic over-reliance on China, New Zealand consumers need look no further than their most popular big box chain, The Warehouse. The familiar “big red shed” sourced about 60% of its home brand stock from China in 2017 – and a further NZ$62 million in products directly through offices in China, India and Bangladesh in 2019.

In Australia, many major chain stores as well as online retail giant kogan.com are in a similar position. Reliant on China for much of what they sell, including exclusive home-brand items, they are part of what has been described as the world’s most China-reliant economy.

The COVID-19 crisis has thrown Australian and New Zealand businesses’ dependence on China into stark relief. With countries reportedly competing with and undercutting each other to secure desperately needed medical supplies from China, many are now waking up to their economic exposure to a single manufacturing giant.

Understandably, discussions about creating a “trans-Tasman bubble” between Australia and New Zealand have focused on kick-starting economic activity in the short term, particularly through tourism. But both countries also need to take a longer-term view of boosting economic activity – including through increased manufacturing and trade integration.

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The statistics support this. In 2018, 20% of global trade in the manufacturing of “intermediate” products (which need further processing before sale) came from China. Chinese manufacturing (including goods made from components made in China) also accounted for:

• 35% of household goods
• 46% of hi-tech goods
• 54% of textiles and apparel
• 38% of machinery, rubber and plastic
• 20% of pharmaceuticals and medical goods
• 42% of chemical products.

Australia and New Zealand are no exception, with China the number one trading partner of both. Australia earned 32.6% of its export income from China in 2019, mostly from natural resource products such as iron ores, coal and natural gas, as well as education and tourism.

Inside a Bunnings store in Australia: many of the shelves would be empty without goods sourced from China.
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From New Zealand, 23% of exports (worth NZ$20 billion) went to China in 2019, and much of the country’s manufacturing has moved to China over the past 20 years. The China factor in New Zealand supply chains is also crucial, with a fifth of exports containing Chinese components.

Supply shortages from China

The world is now paying a price for this dependence on China. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 there has been volatility in the supply of products ranging from cars and Apple phones to food ingredients and hand sanitiser packaging.

More worryingly, availability of popular over-the-counter painkiller paracetamol was restricted due to Chinese factory closures. This is part of a bigger picture that shows Australia now importing over 90% of medicines and New Zealand importing close to NZ$1.59 billion in pharmaceutical products in 2019. Overall, both countries are extremely vulnerable to major supply chain disruptions of medical products.

For all these reasons, a cooperative trans-Tasman manufacturing strategy should be on the table right now and in any future bilateral trade policy conversations.

The big red shed: New Zealand’s Warehouse chain sources 60% of its products from China.
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Australia depends less on Chinese trade than some might think

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Opportunities for Australia and NZ

Rather than each country focusing on product specialisation or setting industrial priorities in isolation, the two economies need to discuss how best to pool resources, add value and enhance the competitive advantage of strategic industries in the region as a whole.

Currently, trans-Tasman trade primarily involves natural resources and foodstuffs flowing from New Zealand to Australia, with motor vehicles, machinery and mechanical equipment flowing the other way. Manufacturing is skewed towards Australia, but closer regional integration would mean increased flows of capital, components and finished products between the countries. We have seen this already in the primary and service sectors but not much in the manufacturing sector, especially from New Zealand to Australia.

Medical technologies and telecommunications equipment manufacturing (both critical during the pandemic) stand out as potential new areas of economic integration. In that sense, it was heartening to see major medical tech companies such as Res-Med Australia and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare in New Zealand rapidly scale up their production capacities to build respiratory devices, ventilators, and other personal protective equipment products.

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These brands enjoy a global technology edge, smart niche positioning and reputations for innovation. We need more of these inside a trans-Tasman trade and manufacturing bubble.

China still vital but balance is crucial

Key to successful regional integration will be the pooling of research and development (R&D) resources, mutual direct investment, subsidising R&D and manufacturing in emerging markets with profits from another (such as China), and value-adding specialisation in the supply chain. For example, Tait Communication in New Zealand recently invested in a new facility based in one of Australia’s largest science, technology and research centres.

Together, we can make a bigger pie.

None of this means cutting ties with China, which will remain the main importer of primary produce and food products from Australasia for the foreseeable future. And Chinese exports will still be vital. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare sells its products in about 120 countries, for example, but some of its key raw materials suppliers are Chinese.

Getting this dynamic balancing right will be key to Australia and New Zealand prospering in the inevitably uncertain – even divided – post-pandemic global business environment. And you never know, maybe one day we’ll see a “made in Australia and New Zealand” label in the aisles of The Warehouse and Bunnings.

Hongzhi Gao, Associate professor, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Monica Ren, Lecturer/ Assistant Professor, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The smoke from autumn burn-offs could make coronavirus symptoms worse. It’s not worth the risk

MomentsForZen/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Don Driscoll, Deakin University; Brian Oliver, University of Technology Sydney; Courtney Alice Waugh, Nord University; Marcel Klaassen, Deakin University, and Veerle L. B. Jaspers, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

It’s hard to forget the thick smoke plumes blanketing Australia’s cities and towns during the black summer. But consecutive days of smoke haze can also come from planned burns to reduce fuel loads, and fires set after logging.

Expanding planned burning is often touted as a way to mitigate the risk of bushfires rising with climate change. But the autumn burn-off season is bad news for the COVID-19 pandemic, as smoke exposure can make us more vulnerable to respiratory illnesses.

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In fact, doctors in the Yarra Valley, Victoria, are campaigning for better air quality monitors. They argue burn-offs are a serious health risk during this pandemic, particularly with asthma inhaler stocks in limited supply.

Yes, planned burns can be useful, but they offer limited protection from bushfires and, right now, they pose an immediate health risk. It’s a reasonable bet that planned burning will do us more harm than good in 2020.

The same can be said of other sources of smoke, including from logging regeneration burns, wood heaters, backyard burn-offs and burning fossil fuels.

How does smoke from bushfires hurt our lungs?

Smoke pollution from the black summer may have killed more than 400 people, and sent 4,000 people to the hospital.

Bushfire smoke includes fine particles – less than 2.5 micrometers in size (one micrometre is a ten-thousanth of a centimetre) – that can reach to the ends of our lungs and enter the bloodstream. They compromise our immune system, weakening our antiviral defences.

Smoke also has a toxic mix of metals and organic chemicals that include known carcinogens. Even short term exposure increases hospital admissions and ambulance call-outs in Australia for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, cardiovascular attacks and other health effects.

It’s not just humans – health impacts from smoke extends to wildlife, with smoke reducing their ability to mount an immune response and increasing their stress.

The ecological effects of smoke can also compromise animal survival, including making it harder for them to forage.

Exacerbating COVID-19

Smoke exposure causes inflammation in the lungs, as does coronavirus infection. But it’s a not a simple equation; they likely act in a synergistic way with complex interactions.

Recent studies have linked worse outcomes of COVID-19 infections with long-term cigarette smoking and air pollution, both of which have similar chemical components to wood smoke.

New research from the USA shows average air pollution with one extra microgram of fine particles per cubic metre is associated with a 15% higher death rate from COVID-19.

In other words, if COVID-19 has a base death rate of about 1 in 100, and fine particles in air pollution span from near one microgram/litre to higher than 12 in major urban centres, then the death rate could more than double to 2.65 per 100 infections.

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Bushfire smoke is everywhere in our cities. Here’s exactly what you are inhaling

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Research into other viral infections shows just two hours of exposure to smoke can make people more susceptible to respiratory infections. But what we’re uncertain about is if short term exposure to smoke would illicit the same dire consequences – dramatically higher death rates – as there appears to be with long-term exposure to air pollutants.

What’s more, men could be more at risk than women. Men find it harder to fight off the flu than women, and prior exposure to wood smoke can make flu symptoms worse in men.

Planned burning is under pressure

The amount and pattern of planned burning is under pressure to change. Some commentators are campaigning for increased planned burning, but others are asking for less, and the Victorian firefighter chief has said it’s no silver bullet.

While planned burns aim to reduce wildfire, it’s not yet clear whether this will ultimately alter the amount of smoke over communities.

On the one hand, planned burns could pump more smoke into the atmosphere than wildfires because
larger areas need to be burned, smoke can build up and hang around for longer, and planned burns could produce more toxic smoke by burning wetter fuels.

On the other hand, planned burns have lower severity and are more patchy than wildfires, so burn less of the vegetation in a given area, potentially producing less smoke.

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What about protection? Planned burns can make firefighting easier for a few years after fire. But current rates of planned burning give little protection for houses when wildfires are driven by extreme weather.

Planned burns within a few hundred metres of houses can give protection but must occur frequently, such as less than every five years. We shouldn’t expect towns to endure local smoke pollution this often.

A matter of timing

In the context of COVID-19, the seasonal timing of fires is also important.

Flu risk is lowest in the summer months, and COVID-19 might peak in late winter. This means smoke from wildfires in summer may have less impact than smoke from planned burns in autumn and spring.

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How does bushfire smoke affect our health? 6 things you need to know

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The coming summer is unlikely to bring a repeat of last summer’s fires because so much forest is already burnt.

So, even if COVID-19 spills over into 2021, the compounding smoke risk from wildfires is likely to be lower than smoke from planned burns in autumn and spring.

Not worth it

All things considered, it’s not worth the health risk to conduct planned burns, logging regeneration burns or other burning this year while the pandemic continues to sweep through the country, particularly in areas close to towns such as the Yarra Valley.

Still, whether or not planned burns will change our total exposure to smoke from bushfires, the effects of climate change are definitely bringing more fire and with it more smoke.

This means we can expect to have to deal with interactions between virus risks and smoke risks more often in the future.

Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University; Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney; Courtney Alice Waugh, Associate Professor in Immunology and Disease, Nord University; Marcel Klaassen, Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair in Ecology, Deakin University, and Veerle L. B. Jaspers, Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Malcolm Turnbull shelves emissions reduction target as leadership speculation mounts

The government has shelved any move to implement the 26% reduction in emissions because it cannot get the numbers to pass legislation in the House of Representatives.
AAP/Mick Tsikas

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Malcolm Turnbull has announced the government will shelve any move to implement the 26% reduction in emissions because it cannot get the numbers to pass legislation in the House of Representatives.

The desperate attempt to quell the rebellion in his ranks comes as Turnbull’s leadership is under mounting pressure, with speculation about a leadership bid sooner or later from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

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But Turnbull told a news conference that Dutton had been at Monday morning’s leadership meeting and “has given me his absolute support”.

“I enjoy the confidence of cabinet and of my party,” he declared.

In a package of changes to the National Energy Guarantee, Turnbull announced the government would move for extraordinarily strong measures to be available against companies that do not give consumers a fair deal, including ultimate divestment.

The government has retreated from Turnbull’s Friday compromise move of implementing the 26% reduction target by regulation. That idea, aimed at denying critics the opportunity to cross the floor, sparked a fresh backlash from Coalition MPs who thought it would make it easier for a Labor government to increase the target.

“Our policy remains to have the emissions intensity standard in the legislation,” Turnbull said at a news conference.

But “as John Howard said, politics is governed by the iron laws of arithmetic and in a House of Representatives with a one seat majority, even with strong support in the party room, if a small number of people are not prepared to vote with the government on a measure then it won’t get passed. So that’s the reality.”

He said the government would bring the target legislation forward “where and when we believe there would be sufficient support in the House of Representatives and obviously in our party room to progress this component of the scheme”.

Turnbull has been frantically seeking any means to pacify his critics, as Tony Abbott and other hardliners are determined to use the energy issue to try to bring him down.

However, it is unlikely his latest move will satisfy his most trenchant opponents. Critics such as Eric Abetz are broadening their attacks on Turnbull to call for government policy changes in other areas, including immigration.

Turnbull admitted he had not personally spoken to Labor to determine whether it would support the emissions legislation, which would give it the numbers in the House.

The shelving of the emissions legislation could cause the Labor states – yet to sign off on the National Energy Guarantee – to walk away from the broad NEG scheme.

Under the initiatives to try to drive down electricity prices announced by Turnbull, a “default market offer” would be set, from which all discounts would be calculated.

“Consumers will be able easily to compare offers from different companies and recognise when they’re being ripped off or when they’re getting a fair deal,” Turnbull said.

He said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimated that for average customers on an inflated standing offer, the savings on moving to a new default market offer could range between $183 and $416 a year. For the average small to medium business the move could save between $561 and $1457.

Turnbuil said the ACCC would be given new powers to “step in where there has been abuse or misuse of market power.

“In the most egregious cases of abuse, additional powers will be conferred on government to issue directions on operations, functional separation and even, as a last resort, divestiture of parts of the big power companies,” Turnbull said.

At his news conference, where he was flanked by Treasurer Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, Turnbull rejected a reporter’s suggestion that he had just delivered Tony Abbott’s policy. Abbott has wanted the emission target dropped and Australia to walk away from the Paris climate agreement.

“Our energy policy remains the same, but we are not going to present a bill into the House of Representatives until we believe it will be carried,” Turnbull said.

“We obviously need the support of sufficient of our colleagues to get it passed and that means, you know, substantially all of them.”

On Paris, he said: “We are parties to the Paris Agreement and the government has committed to that”.

The president of the Queensland Liberal National Party, Gary Spence, is urging MPs from Queensland – a vital state at the election – to replace Turnbull with Dutton.

Meanwhile, Western Australian Liberal senator Linda Reynolds strongly backed Turnbull, telling Sky she “absolutely” believed he would be prime minister at the election.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce welcomed the government’s crackdown on power companies saying it was a good outcome. He was particularly pleased with the divesture power, which meant “if you play up, we can break you up”. Turnbull had shown his “capacity to listen”.

Throwing his weight behind the revised package, Joyce said “it’s a great move today.” Asked on Sky about the leadership, he said “I don’t think changing prime ministers looks good.” He also dismmissed Spence’s call for a move to Dutton saying the parliamentary wing should not be confused with the branch members.

Monday 2:33pm

UPDATE: Nationals enthusiastic about revisions but energy industry is critical

The Nationals have swung in strongly behind the revised package.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and his senior ministerial colleagues held a joint news conference to back the enhanced measures to attack high prices.

Nationals who previously had been dissidents, including former prime minister Barnaby Joyce, made separate supportive comments.

The fact the backbench Nationals have been brought back into the tent is important for Turnbull, because it leaves the Liberal hardliners more isolated.

The Nationals are particularly enthusiastic about the commitment to embrace the ACCC recommendation for the government to underwrite investment in projects for new dispatchable power undertaken by new players.

Although the recommendation is technology-neutral, the Nationals see this as a pathway for new coal projects. Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie said: “I’m not afraid to say the C-word: coal, coal, coal is going to be one of the areas we invest in.”

Queensland Nationals backbencher George Christensen, said: “We have a new energy policy thanks to a band of ‘Liberal National rebels’ who stood firm and fought for common sense.”

Christensen said: “What has been announced this morning puts price reductions first and foremost, so pensioners struggling to pay their power bills come before the ‘feel good’ Paris Agreement.”

Another Nationals backbencher, Andrew Gee, welcomed “plans to abandon the National Energy Guarantee”. “It shows that if you stand up and be counted you can actually make a difference, but it’s disappointing that it took this long”.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten labelled Turnbull “truly a white flag prime minister”. “Every day it is a new policy
from the government, a new policy not designed to lower energy prices but just for Mr Turnbull to keep his job from his enemies,”

“Mr Turnbull has demonstrated that he is not the leader this nation needs. Real leadership is about fighting
for the principles you believe in. Real leadership is about not always giving in to your enemies every time they disagree with you,” Shorten said.

Labor states and the ACT were scathing.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said: “I’m not sure Malcolm Turnbull knows what the NEG is anymore – or if it still exists.”

“We’ll carefully consider whatever energy policy emerges out of the infighting going on up in Canberra.”

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said “what we are seeing today is energy policy in free fall”.

The ACT minister for Climate Change, Shane Rattenbury said the federal government had now completely capitulated on emissions and climate change, and abandoned the Paris Climate Change commitments.

“The NEG is dead. It was hailed as a policy to address the ‘trilemma’ of prices, reliability and emissions reduction. Instead, Federal energy policy is being determined by the worst, climate change denying elements of the Liberal Party,” Rattenbury said.

The Australian Energy Council’s chief executive, Sarah McNamara, criticised the government’s announcement, saying it “has left the most critical policy, the National Energy Guarantee, in limbo.

“Re-regulation of electricity prices and aggressive market interventions are not the long-term answer to high energy prices,” she said.

“The NEG and policy stability remain the long-term solution to bringing down prices.”

McNamara said that “replacement investment demands bipartisan policy and the lack of it remains the biggest drag on the energy market.”

“This is policy with no consultation,” she said.
“Re-regulation has the very real potential to damage competition and confidence.”

McNamara said increasing the ACCC’s powers to allow divestment of private assets was not supported by the ACCC’s own report.

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The Council represents 21 major electricity and downstream natural gas businesses operating in competitive wholesale and retail energy markets. They collectively generate the overwhelming majority of electricity in Australia.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Despite a reduction in executions, progress towards the abolition of the death penalty is slow

At the moment, at least 21,919 people are known to be facing death sentences around the world.
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Amy Maguire, University of Newcastle

Amnesty International has released its latest figures on the use of capital punishment globally. In 2017, at least 993 executions were carried out in 23 countries. At least 2,591 death sentences were issued across 53 countries.

At the moment, at least 21,919 people are known to be facing death sentences around the world.

In some ways, bizarrely, these figures are a source of hope. Fewer executions were carried out and fewer death sentences passed in 2017 than in 2016. The year saw a reduction in the number of executions in cases of drug crime.

According to Amnesty, these developments:

…confirmed that the world has passed a tipping point and that the abolition of the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is within reach.

Why should the world move towards death penalty abolition?

From a human rights perspective, capital punishment is indefensible. It violates the right to life. It constitutes a cruel and inhuman punishment.

Capital punishment can also be regarded as torture, both in terms of the methods used and the years that many prisoners spend waiting on death row. Torture is prohibited under international law.

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There is no remedy for execution if a person is later exonerated. Innocent people have been executed in the past and efforts continue to free wrongly convicted people from death row.

On a more pragmatic level, capital punishment lacks deterrent value. It is also a costly punishment to impose, at least in justice systems that seek to meet the requirements of a fair trial and the right to appeal.

As Amnesty reports, the countries that imposed capital punishment in 2017 represent a shrinking minority – 23 of 193 UN member states. Yet Amnesty’s report reveals some worrying truths, and demonstrates how far the world still has to go before the death penalty is abolished.

Gaps in the data

Some countries, most notably China, treat death penalty data as a state secret. For this reason, Amnesty International has not published estimated figures for the death penalty in China since 2009.

Yet it is reported that China executes more people annually than all the other retentionist countries worldwide. Amnesty International is confident that thousands of executions are carried out in China each year.

The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide aims to provide comprehensive data on the global application of capital punishment, including for countries like China that do not release figures on executions.

Although the Cornell Centre also refrains from estimating figures for China, it concurs that China executes thousands of people each year, and issues thousands more death sentences. Unlike those retentionist countries that permit many levels of post-sentencing appeal, in China people are typically executed immediately after sentencing, or within two years.

Inconsistencies in application of capital punishment

Almost all executions carried out in 2017 were imposed in just five countries: China (estimated thousands), Iran (507+), Saudi Arabia (146), Iraq (125+) and Pakistan (60+). In each of these countries, there are peculiar aspects of the practice that highlight the challenges of promoting abolition where the death penalty is entrenched.

Amnesty reports that executions were carried out in China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in cases where confessions were extracted through torture.

In China, while it is not common practice, some death sentences continue to be delivered in public. In Iran, public executions were carried out in at least 31 cases.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia impose mandatory death sentences for some crimes, execute juveniles, and fail to meet minimum fair trial standards.

Several retentionist states impose the death penalty in cases that do not meet the “most serious crimes” threshold under international law. For example, some “capital” crimes in China, including bribery and embezzlement, would not attract the death penalty in other retentionist states.

In Iran and Pakistan, blasphemy and insult to the prophet of Islam are punishable by death. In Saudi Arabia, adultery can attract a death sentence. Iraqi law permits capital punishment for kidnapping.

Amnesty also raises concerns regarding aspects of the practice in countries such as the United States and Japan, both of which continue to execute people with mental illness and intellectual disability.

Drug crime and capital punishment

Of ongoing concern is the use of the death penalty in drug cases. Fifteen countries implemented or imposed capital punishment for drug crimes in 2017. Iran executed more than 200 people convicted of drug offences.

Australia took a strong public stand against the death penalty for drug offences when it sought clemency for “Bali Nine” members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Yet the pair were executed in April 2015, and Indonesia continued with drug-related executions in 2016.

Although fewer executions were imposed for drug crimes in 2017, extrajudicial killings have been commonplace in the Philippines’ “War on Drugs”. Under President Duterte’s inhumane anti-drug strategy, more than 12,000 Filipinos have been killed to date.

Harm Reduction International raises the concern that Duterte’s regime could be normalising the killing of people for drugs. Such a development could encourage the retention of the death penalty in drug cases in the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia’s advocacy for death penalty abolition

In the aftermath of Chan and Sukumaran’s executions, the Australian government was galvanised to review its advocacy for the abolition of capital punishment.

The subsequent parliamentary inquiry delivered 13 recommendations to enhance Australia’s advocacy, several of which I have discussed previously.

The government delivered its response to these recommendations in March 2017 (10 months after the inquiry report was published). Several recommendations were accepted or accepted “in principle”, with the government noting new or pre-existing efforts to undertake actions recommended by the committee.

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Read more:
As Indonesia conducts more executions, Australia’s anti-death-penalty advocacy is still lacking

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However, the government did not accept the recommendation to amend Australian Federal Police (AFP) guidelines in ways designed to prevent future Bali Nine-type situations. It explicitly rejected the recommendation that the AFP refuse to share information with foreign law enforcement partners in relation to drug crimes, in the absence of guarantees that capital punishment would not be sought or imposed.

Australia has since been elected to the UN Human Rights Council for a three-year term. One of its voluntary pledges to the council was to continue strong advocacy for global abolition of capital punishment.

In order to meet this pledge, Australia could helpfully re-engage with the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry. Australia can, and should, do more to contribute to the ongoing effort to achieve global abolition of capital punishment.

Amy Maguire, Senior Lecturer in International Law and Human Rights, University of Newcastle

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ukraine: Latest Persecution News

The link below is to an article reporting on the reduction in religious freedoms in the Ukraine.

For more visit:
http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue17691.html

Sterilize the unfit says British professor David Marsland

The mentally and morally “unfit” should be sterilized, Professor David Marsland, a sociologist and health expert, said this weekend. The professor made the remarks on the BBC radio program Iconoclasts, which advertises itself as the place to “think the unthinkable,” reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

Pro-life advocates and disability rights campaigners have responded by saying that Marsland’s proposed system is a straightforward throwback to the coercive eugenics practices of the past.

Marsland, Emeritus Scholar of Sociology and Health Sciences at Brunel University, London and Professorial Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Buckingham, told the BBC that “permanent sterilization” is the solution to child neglect and abuse.

“Children are abused or grossly neglected by a very small minority of inadequate parents.” Such parents, he said, are not distinguished by “disadvantage, poverty or exploitation,” he said, but by “a number or moral and mental inadequacies” caused by “serious mental defect,” “chronic mental illness” and drug addiction and alcoholism.

“Short of lifetime incarceration,” he said, the solution is “permanent sterilization.”

The debate, chaired by the BBC’s Edward Stourton, was held in response to a request by a local council in the West Midlands that wanted to force contraception on a 29-year-old woman who members of the council judged was mentally incapable of making decisions about childrearing. The judge in the case refused to permit it, saying such a decision would “raise profound questions about state intervention in private and family life.”

Children whose parents are alcoholics or drug addicts can be rescued from abusive situations, but, Marlsand said, “Why should we allow further predictable victims to be harmed by the same perpetrators? Here too, sterilization provides a dependable answer.”

He dismissed possible objections based on human rights, saying that “Rights is a grossly overused and fundamentally incoherent concept … Neither philosophers nor political activists can agree on the nature of human rights or on their extent.”

Complaints that court-ordered sterilization could be abused “should be ignored,” he added. “This argument would inhibit any and every action of social defense.”

Brian Clowes, director of research for Human Life International (HLI), told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that in his view Professor Marsland is just one more in a long line of eugenicists who want to solve human problems by erasing the humans who have them. Clowes compared Marsland to Lothrop Stoddard and Margaret Sanger, prominent early 20th century eugenicists who promoted contraception and sterilization for blacks, Catholics, the poor and the mentally ill and disabled whom they classified as “human weeds.”

He told LSN, “It does not seem to occur to Marsland that most severe child abuse is committed by people he might consider ‘perfectly normal,’ people like his elitist friends and neighbors.”

“Most frightening of all,” he said, “is Marsland’s dismissal of human rights. In essence, he is saying people have no rights whatsoever, because there is no universal agreement on what those rights actually are.”

The program, which aired on Saturday, August 28, also featured a professor of ethics and philosophy at Oxford, who expressed concern about Marland’s proposal, saying, “There are serious problems about who makes the decisions, and abuses.” Janet Radcliffe Richards, a Professor of Practical Philosophy at Oxford, continued, “I would dispute the argument that this is for the sake of the children.

“It’s curious case that if the child doesn’t exist, it can’t be harmed. And to say that it would be better for the child not to exist, you need to be able to say that its life is worse than nothing. Now I think that’s a difficult thing to do because most people are glad they exist.”

But Radcliffe Richards refused to reject categorically the notion of forced sterilization as a solution to social problems. She said there “is a really serious argument” about the “cost to the rest of society of allowing people to have children when you can pretty strongly predict that those children are going to be a nuisance.”

Marsland’s remarks also drew a response from Alison Davis, head of the campaign group No Less Human, who rejected his entire argument, saying that compulsory sterilization would itself be “an abuse of some of the most vulnerable people in society.”

Marsland’s closing comments, Davis said, were indicative of his anti-human perspective. In those remarks he said that nothing in the discussion had changed his mind, and that the reduction of births would be desirable since “there are too many people anyway.”

Davis commented, “As a disabled person myself I find his comments offensive, degrading and eugenic in content.

“The BBC is supposed to stand against prejudicial comments against any minority group. As such it is against it’s own code of conduct, as well as a breach of basic human decency, to broadcast such inflammatory and ableist views.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph

Assailant in Street Attack in Turkey Ordered Released

Court ignores ‘religious hostility’ of Turk who held knife to Christian’s throat.

ISTANBUL, February 12 (CDN) — An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a jailed Turk who publicly threatened and held a knife to the throat of a Christian he attacked six months ago.

In a ruling on Wednesday (Feb. 10), the Kadikoy Seventh Court of First Instance convicted Yasin Karasu, 24, of making death threats and mounting an armed attack against Ismail Aydin. Shouting to attract passersby as he held a knife to Aydin’s throat on Aug. 3, Karasu had denounced the Christian as a “missionary dog” who had betrayed Turkey by leaving Islam and evangelizing others.

The crime is punishable by four years in prison, but Justice Tahsin Dogan ruled that Karasu should be released unconditionally, without serving the remainder of his sentence.

After the attack last August, the 48-year-old Aydin had declined to press charges against his assailant, who was taken into police custody at the scene. But state prosecutors charged Karasu under criminal statutes for making armed threats, obstructing another’s freedom, and attempted harm with a weapon.

He was then sent to prison for the duration of criminal investigations into the case.

After an initial hearing on Jan. 12, Karasu appeared in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district courthouse this week for a second trial hearing. Arriving in handcuffs from Istanbul’s Metris Prison where he has been incarcerated for the past six months, Karasu erupted in several emotional outbursts as he entered the courthouse with an escort of gendarmerie guards.

At the outset, the prisoner heatedly refused to accept the lawyer his father hired to represent him in court. After a guard removed his handcuffs before he entered the courtroom, Karasu took out of his pocket several handwritten pages, which he said he would submit in his own defense.

Under Turkish law, Karasu’s conviction should have left him with a four-year jail term for his death threats and armed attack on Aydin. But the prosecutor, applying a frequently used law of procedures, cited the defendant’s “respectful behavior, condition and manners in the courtroom in his favor” and declared that Karasu’s good conduct had earned him a one-sixth reduction (eight months) in his sentence.

Together with the six months Karasu has already been jailed, that reduced his four-year prison term to a remaining two years and 10 months.

Nevertheless, the court ruled for Karasu’s unconditional release. The Court of Appeal must approve this sentence, however, and his actual release then must be formally approved in writing by the Administrative Board of Penalties.

“It seems that the judge did not take into account at all that this crime was committed with religious hostility,” one member of the legal committee of Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches told Compass. “That, in my view, should have aggravated the crime and sentence.”

Human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz, after reviewing Wednesday’s court record, agreed.

“This is also a crime against the freedom of religion,” Cengiz said. “This should be another factor to be taken into account, and the sentence should be increased accordingly.”

Karasu had taken Aydin hostage by grabbing him around the neck, holding a knife blade to his throat and forcing him along the street to a busy intersection in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district. Within minutes both TV crews and police arrived at the scene, watching as Karasu wrapped Aydin’s head in a large Turkish flag and continued to taunt him as a traitor to the nation.

“I want to see him set free,” Aydin commented outside the courtroom before this week’s hearing. Aydin, who converted to Christianity 22 years ago, said he had forgiven Karasu.

Aydin said Karasu had made contact with him several times during the year previous to his attack, asking him questions about the Christian faith. He said Karasu, who was unemployed when he attacked him, had experienced emotional problems and depression while completing the last months of his military service.

Karasu’s father, who traveled from Erzurum to attend this week’s hearing, told Compass that he could not understand what had caused his son to launch such an attack against Aydin. Confirming that his son had received psychological treatment in the past, he declared his intention to take him back to Erzurum after his release, so that he could live at home and undergo more psychological therapy.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Uzbekistan: Enormous fines for religious activity continue

Uzbekistan continues to impose enormous fines on people exercising their freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has learned. In total, 33 people are known to have each been fined up to 100 times the minimum monthly salary in April and May.

Fines have been imposed by courts throughout the country, and in some cases appeals against fines have resulted in a reduction. An example was a reduction of fines against six Baptists from 50 times to five times the minimum monthly salary. However in most other cases reductions have not been as significant, for example fine reductions from 80 times to 60, 50 or 40 times the minimum monthly salary.

Official hostility continues towards religious literature, in one case literature was ordered to be destroyed after an “expert analysis” from the state Religious Affairs Committee stated that religious books can “only” be used within the confines of the registered religious communities.

“Believers are deprived of their right to hold any Christian literature in their homes,” Baptists complained to Forum 18. No state officials were willing to discuss the cases.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

EARTH HOUR: A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME???

Earth Hour is to be held this Saturday (March 28) between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm. All you need to do to take part in Earth Hour is simply turn your lights off for the hour between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm on March 28.

Earth Hour began as an annual event in Sydney in 2007, when an estimated 2.2 million buildings switched off their lights for an hour. This year Earth Hour is going global for the second year and is giving people the opportunity to ‘vote’ for either the Earth or global warning. By switching off the lights for an hour a person can ‘vote’ for fighting global warning.

Organisers of Earth Hour are hoping some 1 billion people will ‘vote’ for the Earth and hope to be able to give world leaders 1 billion ‘votes’ for the Earth at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. The conference is the forum in which world leaders will determine policy to supersede the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas reduction.

For more on Earth Hour visit the official website at:

http://www.earthhour.org  

However, is Earth Hour a colossal waste of time? What is really being gained by turning the lights off for an hour once a year? All other electrical devices are still on and a lot of people go for alternative lighting devices that also pollute the environment. Other than awareness of global warming (which I would suggest everyone knows about now and either believes or does not believe – turning off some lights won’t change anyone’s mind on global warming), what does Earth Hour really achieve?

The following Blog post makes for interesting reading:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/earth_hour_crashes_to_earth/

Am I against reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Am I against reducing Global Warming and other associated disasters? Am I anti-environment? The answer to those questions is no! I’m just simply saying Earth Hour is little more than tokenism by most people who are against the Rudd government Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction policies and other policies that actually aim to make a difference.

 

 

BUSHFIRE SEASON HAS STARTED

The bushfire season is off and running in New South Wales, Australia. There have already been several fires in my region of the Mid North Coast.

On Saturday there was a fire just south of Bulahdelah that closed the Pacific Highway for two hours. From what I understand the fire is thought to have begun by a discarded cigarette thrown from a car travelling on the highway.

The fire started at about 3.30 pm and as the fire intensified cars were seen travelling on the wrong side of the highway in a bid to keep clear of the fire. With the thick smoke about this was not the best move to make.

Another fire was burning off the highway near the Karuah Bridge on Monday, again producing thick smoke.

With the massive amount of growth in the bush over the last couple of wet growth seasons, the fuel load is now massive and fuel reduction burns have been limited. With temperatures already peaking in the low thirties (Celsius), the season ahead looks grim.