October 13, 2010
BEIJING: Liu Xia, the wife of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, has been asked by her husband to accept the award in Oslo on his behalf.
In her first interviews since Liu was awarded the prize on Friday, Ms Liu said prison authorities had started providing her husband with better food while she faces restrictions on whom she can meet. She must be accompanied by a police escort whenever she leaves her home.
In an interview with The Times Ms Liu said her husband had not the slightest expectation the Chinese authorities would allow him out of prison to collect the award. ''I can't get out of the door of my own apartment, let alone the door of the country,'' she told The Times.
China has blocked Western officials from meeting with Ms Liu, interrupted her phone communication and kept her under effective house arrest, acting on its fury over the award.
China said yesterday awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu would not influence the country's political system. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said: ''Some politicians from other countries are trying to use this opportunity to attack China.''
The comments came as Liu's lawyers said they were considering asking for a retrial of the jailed dissident. ''If some people try to change China's political system in this way and try to stop the Chinese people from moving forward, that is a big mistake,'' Mr Ma said.
As China retaliated, United Nations analysts and human rights campaigners called on Beijing to free Liu from prison.
He was permitted a brief, tearful meeting in prison with his wife on Sunday and dedicated the award to the ''lost souls'' of the 1989 military crackdown on student demonstrators.
The Australian Parliament will next week vote on a motion calling for Liu's release, in a move that could further anger Beijing.
The ALP chairman of the foreign affairs parliamentary subcommittee, Michael Danby, said he would put forward a resolution calling for Liu's release and repeal of his 11-year sentence.
''The proposed resolution … will call for the release of Mr Liu Xiaobo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize,'' Mr Danby said. ''We think he should be released altogether.''
The resolution will call on Parliament to congratulate Liu for winning the prize and for his ''long and non-violent struggle'' for fundamental rights in China.
Associated Press, Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Lord works in multiple ways for mine survivors
Rory Carroll
October 13, 2010
SAN JOSE MINE: It is the race within the race. While rescuers inch towards the trapped miners, the first of whom are due to be freed about 2pm Sydney time today, rival churches tussle over the miracle in the making.
Evangelical, Adventist and Catholic clerics are vying to stamp their own particular faith on a surge in religious fervour as the drama nears a climax in Chile's Atacama desert.
The three Christian denominations have each claimed credit for what they say is divine intervention in the survival - and imminent rescue - of the 33 men who have spent 68 days underground.
Rescuers test a capsule similiar to the one that will be used to liberate the trapped miners.
''God has spoken to me clearly and guided my hand each step of the rescue,'' Carlos Parra Diaz, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, said.
''He wanted the miners to be rescued, and I am his instrument.''
Metres from where he spoke, Caspar Quintana, the Catholic bishop of Copiapo, prepared an altar to celebrate an outdoor mass for a small congregation of miners' relatives and a phalanx of TV cameras. ''God has heard our prayers,'' he said. ''I have received encouragement from all over the world. Let us give thanks.''
Relatives of a trapped miner, Carlos and Tabita Galleguillos, wait for news from the mine.
A litte further up the hill of Camp Hope, the improvised settlement of miners' families, rescuers, government officials and media, an evangelical preacher, Javier Soto, wandered from family to family with a guitar and songs of praise. ''He listens to the music,'' the pastor said, gesturing to the sky.
Each church has reported a rise in religious faith in Chile and beyond, with candlelit vigils and online communities following preparations to extract the miners one by one in a capsule.
But the Seventh Day Adventist, Diaz, has had some victories. He mobilised colleagues to find miniature Bibles to fit into the ''pigeon'' tubes that deliver supplies to the men. ''I do macro work. I am pastor to all.'' The other churches, he said, did ''micro'' work.
Guardian News & Media
October 13, 2010
SAN JOSE MINE: It is the race within the race. While rescuers inch towards the trapped miners, the first of whom are due to be freed about 2pm Sydney time today, rival churches tussle over the miracle in the making.
Evangelical, Adventist and Catholic clerics are vying to stamp their own particular faith on a surge in religious fervour as the drama nears a climax in Chile's Atacama desert.
The three Christian denominations have each claimed credit for what they say is divine intervention in the survival - and imminent rescue - of the 33 men who have spent 68 days underground.
Rescuers test a capsule similiar to the one that will be used to liberate the trapped miners.
''God has spoken to me clearly and guided my hand each step of the rescue,'' Carlos Parra Diaz, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, said.
''He wanted the miners to be rescued, and I am his instrument.''
Metres from where he spoke, Caspar Quintana, the Catholic bishop of Copiapo, prepared an altar to celebrate an outdoor mass for a small congregation of miners' relatives and a phalanx of TV cameras. ''God has heard our prayers,'' he said. ''I have received encouragement from all over the world. Let us give thanks.''
Relatives of a trapped miner, Carlos and Tabita Galleguillos, wait for news from the mine.
A litte further up the hill of Camp Hope, the improvised settlement of miners' families, rescuers, government officials and media, an evangelical preacher, Javier Soto, wandered from family to family with a guitar and songs of praise. ''He listens to the music,'' the pastor said, gesturing to the sky.
Each church has reported a rise in religious faith in Chile and beyond, with candlelit vigils and online communities following preparations to extract the miners one by one in a capsule.
But the Seventh Day Adventist, Diaz, has had some victories. He mobilised colleagues to find miniature Bibles to fit into the ''pigeon'' tubes that deliver supplies to the men. ''I do macro work. I am pastor to all.'' The other churches, he said, did ''micro'' work.
Guardian News & Media
Evolutionary scientists ask what comes next: the lizard or the egg?
Deborah Smith SCIENCE EDITOR
October 9, 2010
SYDNEYSIDERS need look no further than under a pot plant or rock in their backyard to see evolution in action.
The little three-toed skinks that are likely to dart out are at a halfway stage in their transformation from egg-layers to lizards that give birth to live young.
Their relatives in the north of the state, in the colder highlands west of Coffs Harbour, have already made the change, and deliver live babies.
The Sydney skinks still lay eggs, in the old fashioned way. But they retain the eggs longer than normal inside their bodies by reducing the thickness of the shells so the embryos can obtain more nutrients to survive, new research shows.
Michael Thompson, a zoologist at the University of Sydney, said it was extremely rare to catch evolution occurring midway during the process. ''This is an absolutely fascinating lizard.''
The skinks, Saiphos equalis, are very common in Sydney, but may not be spotted often because they are nocturnal.
Only two other species in the world, also lizards, are known to have members with different methods of reproduction.
The study comparing the eggshell thickness of the Sydney and northern NSW skinks was carried out by a team led by James Stewart of East Tennessee State University and including Professor Thompson, and is published in the Journal of Morphology.
Live birth has evolved many times in different species, including in our ancestors, and the unusual Sydney reptiles can throw light on aspects of this process, as well as on cancer, Professor Thompson said.
A member of the Sydney team, Bridget Murphy, has found the skinks that give birth to live young have a very powerful form of a protein that encourages the growth of blood vessels to the embryo.
The protein has only been found elsewhere in pre-cancerous human cells. Tumours require big blood supplies, and it may be that the evolution of live birth led to an increased risk of cancer, Ms Murphy said.
Research on the protein could lead to new ideas about how to treat cancer, promote wound healing or the regeneration of blood vessels in heart patients.
Live birth in reptiles is more common in colder climates, because it is safer for the young to remain inside the body rather than be exposed to the weather.
The Sydney researchers now plan to study a third population of the skinks that live on the coast in northern NSW.
October 9, 2010
SYDNEYSIDERS need look no further than under a pot plant or rock in their backyard to see evolution in action.
The little three-toed skinks that are likely to dart out are at a halfway stage in their transformation from egg-layers to lizards that give birth to live young.
Their relatives in the north of the state, in the colder highlands west of Coffs Harbour, have already made the change, and deliver live babies.
The Sydney skinks still lay eggs, in the old fashioned way. But they retain the eggs longer than normal inside their bodies by reducing the thickness of the shells so the embryos can obtain more nutrients to survive, new research shows.
Michael Thompson, a zoologist at the University of Sydney, said it was extremely rare to catch evolution occurring midway during the process. ''This is an absolutely fascinating lizard.''
The skinks, Saiphos equalis, are very common in Sydney, but may not be spotted often because they are nocturnal.
Only two other species in the world, also lizards, are known to have members with different methods of reproduction.
The study comparing the eggshell thickness of the Sydney and northern NSW skinks was carried out by a team led by James Stewart of East Tennessee State University and including Professor Thompson, and is published in the Journal of Morphology.
Live birth has evolved many times in different species, including in our ancestors, and the unusual Sydney reptiles can throw light on aspects of this process, as well as on cancer, Professor Thompson said.
A member of the Sydney team, Bridget Murphy, has found the skinks that give birth to live young have a very powerful form of a protein that encourages the growth of blood vessels to the embryo.
The protein has only been found elsewhere in pre-cancerous human cells. Tumours require big blood supplies, and it may be that the evolution of live birth led to an increased risk of cancer, Ms Murphy said.
Research on the protein could lead to new ideas about how to treat cancer, promote wound healing or the regeneration of blood vessels in heart patients.
Live birth in reptiles is more common in colder climates, because it is safer for the young to remain inside the body rather than be exposed to the weather.
The Sydney researchers now plan to study a third population of the skinks that live on the coast in northern NSW.
Hezbollah to welcome Iran leader to Lebanon
ASON KOUTSOUKIS
October 13, 2010
BEIRUT: THE Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, can expect a rapturous welcome when he arrives in Lebanon today for a two-day visit that will underscore Iran's broadening regional influence and aggravate tensions with Israel.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese loyal to Hezbollah are expected to gather along the airport highway to welcome Mr Ahmadinejad as he makes his way to central Beirut, where he will be formally received by the President, Michel Suleiman.
Over the past 10 days Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist political and paramilitary organisation, has erected hundreds of billboards along the highway bearing Mr Ahmadinejad's portrait and carrying a message of welcome in both Arabic and Farsi.
After signing a series of trade and economic agreements with Lebanese leaders, led by the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, and laying a commemorative wreath in Martyrs Square in Beirut, Mr Ahmadinejad is scheduled to appear at a rally this evening in the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut before an anticipated crowd of up to 100,000 people.
Despite statements to the contrary, Hezbollah's elusive secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah - who has been seen in public only twice in the past two years - is expected to appear on stage with Mr Ahmadinejad.
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, declared yesterday that Mr Ahmadinejad's arrival in Beirut would herald a new era of Lebanese sovereignty.
''It is an expression of friendship and support to Lebanon as a resistance army, its people and institutions,'' Mr Qassem said.
''The visit came upon the invitation of President Michel Suleiman, which means Lebanon wants Ahmadinejad to visit in order to strengthen ties with the Iranian republic.
''We want to tell the whole world that we're proud of our friendships and ties with resisting countries.''
Tomorrow Mr Ahmadinejad will visit Shiite strongholds in the south of the country. He will inspect several villages destroyed during Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel.
Speculation is rife that Mr Ahmadinejad will also travel to the locked ''Fatima Gate'', the symbolic border crossing to Israel that is the site of regular anti-Israel protests and stone throwing from Lebanon to Israel.
Mr Ahmadinejad will attend a number of ceremonies in his honour just a few kilometres from the border that are intended to celebrate Hezbollah's ''victories against the Israeli enemy''.
In a speech at the weekend, Mr Nasrallah said he wanted to formally thank Iran for helping to rebuild Beirut's southern suburbs and funding the postwar reconstruction in south Lebanon. ''Where did this money come from? From donations? No, frankly from Iran,'' he said.
Hezbollah officials estimate they have spent up to $1 billion in aid from Iran on rebuilding areas destroyed in the 2006 war.
Mr Nasrallah also boasted Hezbollah had rebuilt its military arsenal and stockpiled up to 40,000 rockets in anticipation of any future conflict with Israel - a figure that neither US nor Israeli officials dispute.
October 13, 2010
BEIRUT: THE Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, can expect a rapturous welcome when he arrives in Lebanon today for a two-day visit that will underscore Iran's broadening regional influence and aggravate tensions with Israel.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese loyal to Hezbollah are expected to gather along the airport highway to welcome Mr Ahmadinejad as he makes his way to central Beirut, where he will be formally received by the President, Michel Suleiman.
Over the past 10 days Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist political and paramilitary organisation, has erected hundreds of billboards along the highway bearing Mr Ahmadinejad's portrait and carrying a message of welcome in both Arabic and Farsi.
After signing a series of trade and economic agreements with Lebanese leaders, led by the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, and laying a commemorative wreath in Martyrs Square in Beirut, Mr Ahmadinejad is scheduled to appear at a rally this evening in the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut before an anticipated crowd of up to 100,000 people.
Despite statements to the contrary, Hezbollah's elusive secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah - who has been seen in public only twice in the past two years - is expected to appear on stage with Mr Ahmadinejad.
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, declared yesterday that Mr Ahmadinejad's arrival in Beirut would herald a new era of Lebanese sovereignty.
''It is an expression of friendship and support to Lebanon as a resistance army, its people and institutions,'' Mr Qassem said.
''The visit came upon the invitation of President Michel Suleiman, which means Lebanon wants Ahmadinejad to visit in order to strengthen ties with the Iranian republic.
''We want to tell the whole world that we're proud of our friendships and ties with resisting countries.''
Tomorrow Mr Ahmadinejad will visit Shiite strongholds in the south of the country. He will inspect several villages destroyed during Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel.
Speculation is rife that Mr Ahmadinejad will also travel to the locked ''Fatima Gate'', the symbolic border crossing to Israel that is the site of regular anti-Israel protests and stone throwing from Lebanon to Israel.
Mr Ahmadinejad will attend a number of ceremonies in his honour just a few kilometres from the border that are intended to celebrate Hezbollah's ''victories against the Israeli enemy''.
In a speech at the weekend, Mr Nasrallah said he wanted to formally thank Iran for helping to rebuild Beirut's southern suburbs and funding the postwar reconstruction in south Lebanon. ''Where did this money come from? From donations? No, frankly from Iran,'' he said.
Hezbollah officials estimate they have spent up to $1 billion in aid from Iran on rebuilding areas destroyed in the 2006 war.
Mr Nasrallah also boasted Hezbollah had rebuilt its military arsenal and stockpiled up to 40,000 rockets in anticipation of any future conflict with Israel - a figure that neither US nor Israeli officials dispute.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Beijing cracks down on peace prize celebrations
Jonathan Watts
October 12, 2010
BEIJING: More than 30 Chinese intellectuals have been detained, warned or placed under house arrest in a crackdown to stifle any celebration of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the imprisoned democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo.
Among those facing restrictions are the laureate's wife, Liu Xia, who was reported missing after she visited her husband in Jinzhou prison on Sunday.
Yesterday Ms Liu tweeted that she had visited her husband and found he was told on Saturday that he had won the award. She told reporters he cried and dedicated his prize to the ''dead spirits of Tiananmen''. She is now under house arrest.
''The reaction of the authorities is predictable and stupid. They have tried to block the flow of information on the internet, detain people and cut telephone communications,'' said Zhang Yu, the head of the writers in prison committee at the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, in Stockholm.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee announced in Norway on Friday that this year's winner was Liu, a former literature professor who co-drafted the Charter 08 campaign for increased political liberties in China.
The US President, Barack Obama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, and a former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, were among the world leaders who commended the decision, but the Chinese government has responded with fury.
The foreign ministry summoned the Norwegian ambassador and declared the decision a ''blasphemy'' and an insult to the Chinese people. Censors cut foreign broadcasts and police have been mobilised to choke any sign of domestic support for Liu.
About 20 of those affected were at a celebration party in Beijing on Friday night that was broken up by police. Three are now under eight days' administrative detention for ''disturbing social order''. The others are under house arrest or heightened surveillance.
''There are two police outside my apartment building. I can't go out,'' Liu Jingsheng, a recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, said. ''This kind of thing happens from time to time in Beijing during the People's Congress and other politically sensitive periods, but it is tougher now.''
A lawyer, Teng Biao, said police prevented him from meeting journalists and warned him not to talk about the award or attend a celebration banquet.
The Independent Chinese PEN Centre, of which Liu was a member, appears to have been targeted. The group's deputy secretary-general, Jiang Bo, is one of at least 10 members who have been warned. Two are under house arrest and one, Zhao Changqing, has been detained for eight days.
Supporters hope Ms Liu will collect the prize on behalf of her husband at the ceremony in Europe later this year. If she was then denied re-entry to China, they say this might set the stage for authorities to release her husband from jail so he could join her overseas.
The scenario seems optimistic given the Chinese government's recent unwillingness to release political prisoners. But the award has inspired hope.
Guardian News & Media; Telegraph, London
October 12, 2010
BEIJING: More than 30 Chinese intellectuals have been detained, warned or placed under house arrest in a crackdown to stifle any celebration of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the imprisoned democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo.
Among those facing restrictions are the laureate's wife, Liu Xia, who was reported missing after she visited her husband in Jinzhou prison on Sunday.
Yesterday Ms Liu tweeted that she had visited her husband and found he was told on Saturday that he had won the award. She told reporters he cried and dedicated his prize to the ''dead spirits of Tiananmen''. She is now under house arrest.
''The reaction of the authorities is predictable and stupid. They have tried to block the flow of information on the internet, detain people and cut telephone communications,'' said Zhang Yu, the head of the writers in prison committee at the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, in Stockholm.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee announced in Norway on Friday that this year's winner was Liu, a former literature professor who co-drafted the Charter 08 campaign for increased political liberties in China.
The US President, Barack Obama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, and a former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, were among the world leaders who commended the decision, but the Chinese government has responded with fury.
The foreign ministry summoned the Norwegian ambassador and declared the decision a ''blasphemy'' and an insult to the Chinese people. Censors cut foreign broadcasts and police have been mobilised to choke any sign of domestic support for Liu.
About 20 of those affected were at a celebration party in Beijing on Friday night that was broken up by police. Three are now under eight days' administrative detention for ''disturbing social order''. The others are under house arrest or heightened surveillance.
''There are two police outside my apartment building. I can't go out,'' Liu Jingsheng, a recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, said. ''This kind of thing happens from time to time in Beijing during the People's Congress and other politically sensitive periods, but it is tougher now.''
A lawyer, Teng Biao, said police prevented him from meeting journalists and warned him not to talk about the award or attend a celebration banquet.
The Independent Chinese PEN Centre, of which Liu was a member, appears to have been targeted. The group's deputy secretary-general, Jiang Bo, is one of at least 10 members who have been warned. Two are under house arrest and one, Zhao Changqing, has been detained for eight days.
Supporters hope Ms Liu will collect the prize on behalf of her husband at the ceremony in Europe later this year. If she was then denied re-entry to China, they say this might set the stage for authorities to release her husband from jail so he could join her overseas.
The scenario seems optimistic given the Chinese government's recent unwillingness to release political prisoners. But the award has inspired hope.
Guardian News & Media; Telegraph, London
Afghans wonder why opium crackdown has not worked
Dan Oakes DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
October 12, 2010
MORE than half the fields in the area surrounding the main Australian base in Afghanistan are growing opium poppies, as coalition forces struggle to wean locals off the lucrative crop.
Afghans have apparently questioned why troops and police have failed to crack down on the semi-open sale of the poppies, according to a non-governmental organisation.
Allied forces in Oruzgan province have had some success in convincing locals to grow wheat, fruit and saffron, but opium poppies are still the province's biggest cash crop.
The Liaison Office says in its report: ''Locals find it hard to comprehend why military forces or Afghan National Police have not intervened into poppy cultivation on sale so close to the district centre of Tarin Kowt, and blame it on corruption.
''There are indeed allegations that several pro-government strongmen, and not just the insurgency, are involved in the drug trade.
''Furthermore, the fact that there are semi-open poppy bazaars in both Deh Rawud and Tarin Kowt adds to the perception of impunity.''
The report says that as long as opium fetches higher prices than other crops, it will be difficult to stamp it out. But locals in Tarin Kowt have said that more farmers would be growing opium if the coalition forces had not provided them with alternative crops.
Locals have also said the recent floods in wheat-producing areas of Pakistan represent an opportunity to steer farmers towards other crops, as the world price of wheat will undoubtedly rise.
The report was more optimistic about the general economic conditions in the three of Oruzgan's seven provinces controlled by the coalition forces. It points to the growth of the number of businesses in Tarin Kowt bazaar from 900 to 2000 within the past four years covered in the report, which analyses the period of Dutch control of the province.
There has also been a doubling in the number of media outlets in the province, with five radio stations, a TV station and two combined TV and radio stations broadcasting, and every district is connected to a mobile phone network.
October 12, 2010
MORE than half the fields in the area surrounding the main Australian base in Afghanistan are growing opium poppies, as coalition forces struggle to wean locals off the lucrative crop.
Afghans have apparently questioned why troops and police have failed to crack down on the semi-open sale of the poppies, according to a non-governmental organisation.
Allied forces in Oruzgan province have had some success in convincing locals to grow wheat, fruit and saffron, but opium poppies are still the province's biggest cash crop.
The Liaison Office says in its report: ''Locals find it hard to comprehend why military forces or Afghan National Police have not intervened into poppy cultivation on sale so close to the district centre of Tarin Kowt, and blame it on corruption.
''There are indeed allegations that several pro-government strongmen, and not just the insurgency, are involved in the drug trade.
''Furthermore, the fact that there are semi-open poppy bazaars in both Deh Rawud and Tarin Kowt adds to the perception of impunity.''
The report says that as long as opium fetches higher prices than other crops, it will be difficult to stamp it out. But locals in Tarin Kowt have said that more farmers would be growing opium if the coalition forces had not provided them with alternative crops.
Locals have also said the recent floods in wheat-producing areas of Pakistan represent an opportunity to steer farmers towards other crops, as the world price of wheat will undoubtedly rise.
The report was more optimistic about the general economic conditions in the three of Oruzgan's seven provinces controlled by the coalition forces. It points to the growth of the number of businesses in Tarin Kowt bazaar from 900 to 2000 within the past four years covered in the report, which analyses the period of Dutch control of the province.
There has also been a doubling in the number of media outlets in the province, with five radio stations, a TV station and two combined TV and radio stations broadcasting, and every district is connected to a mobile phone network.
MacKillop cancer prayers 'betray a false thinking'
Amy Corderoy
October 12, 2010
THE celebration of Mary MacKillop's miracle cancer cures is a worrying example of the lack of scientific literacy in the community, says an expert in evidence-based medicine.
The question is not whether the NSW mother Kathleen Evans recovered from her cancer after praying to MacKillop but how many others prayed and did not go into remission, said Chris Del Mar, a professor of primary care research at Bond University.
Professor Del Mar said popular acceptance of MacKillop's miracle was part of a wider problem of people not understanding scientific and mathematical methods, exemplified by newspapers printing horoscopes and people using alternative medicines that had little evidentiary support.
"These things betray a false thinking that is not limited to Mary MacKillop or religion," Professor Del Mar said.
Research had also shown people were more likely to take notice of things which supported their beliefs.
"We are very good at making positive associations in our brains," he said.
"If a black cat walks in front of you, you think it is going to be unlucky or lucky depending which way your superstition runs. Then when something unlucky or lucky happens you will attribute it to that cat".
An associate professor at the University of Sydney medical school and a medical oncologist for 15 years, Nicholas Wilcken, said he had four patients who had defied his expectations in the past 10 years.
Two had gone into remission and two had lived far longer than expected.
"Personally … I don't think it is terribly helpful to say that it is because someone prayed to a God who said 'well normally I would make one thing happen but now I will make something else happen'," he said.
Putting too much emphasis on religion and positive thinking could make patients feel continued sickness was their fault. But all patients needed hope, and that often came from religion.
"The problem is when it becomes completely unrealistic when people who … have a short time to live are not doing things they need to do," he said.
The chief executive of the Cancer Council, Ian Olver, said the jury was still out on whether praying helped with cancer.
"But there are a myriad of anecdotal reports of praying helping,'' he said.
Professor Olver said spiritual well-being was an important predictor of quality of life.
"My own view is that prayer as an adjunct to conventional medical treatments is fine," he said.
October 12, 2010
THE celebration of Mary MacKillop's miracle cancer cures is a worrying example of the lack of scientific literacy in the community, says an expert in evidence-based medicine.
The question is not whether the NSW mother Kathleen Evans recovered from her cancer after praying to MacKillop but how many others prayed and did not go into remission, said Chris Del Mar, a professor of primary care research at Bond University.
Professor Del Mar said popular acceptance of MacKillop's miracle was part of a wider problem of people not understanding scientific and mathematical methods, exemplified by newspapers printing horoscopes and people using alternative medicines that had little evidentiary support.
"These things betray a false thinking that is not limited to Mary MacKillop or religion," Professor Del Mar said.
Research had also shown people were more likely to take notice of things which supported their beliefs.
"We are very good at making positive associations in our brains," he said.
"If a black cat walks in front of you, you think it is going to be unlucky or lucky depending which way your superstition runs. Then when something unlucky or lucky happens you will attribute it to that cat".
An associate professor at the University of Sydney medical school and a medical oncologist for 15 years, Nicholas Wilcken, said he had four patients who had defied his expectations in the past 10 years.
Two had gone into remission and two had lived far longer than expected.
"Personally … I don't think it is terribly helpful to say that it is because someone prayed to a God who said 'well normally I would make one thing happen but now I will make something else happen'," he said.
Putting too much emphasis on religion and positive thinking could make patients feel continued sickness was their fault. But all patients needed hope, and that often came from religion.
"The problem is when it becomes completely unrealistic when people who … have a short time to live are not doing things they need to do," he said.
The chief executive of the Cancer Council, Ian Olver, said the jury was still out on whether praying helped with cancer.
"But there are a myriad of anecdotal reports of praying helping,'' he said.
Professor Olver said spiritual well-being was an important predictor of quality of life.
"My own view is that prayer as an adjunct to conventional medical treatments is fine," he said.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Obesity problem is bigger than we think, despite GDP benefits
October 6, 2010
I have bad news and good about the O-word. Although there has been a suggestion in some quarters that the media got over-excited about the ''obesity epidemic'', a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - unlikely to be a purveyor of faddish enthusiasms - has confirmed the seriousness of the problem.
The report says obesity is worsening throughout the developed world and becoming the top public health concern. One in two people is now overweight or obese in almost half the developed countries. In some, two out of three people will be in trouble within 10 years.
In Australia, 61 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, making us almost as fat as the Americans. In 20 years, our overweight rate has risen faster than in any other developed country. It is projected to rise another 15 per cent in the next 10 years.
And the good news? It's saving taxpayers money.
Although healthcare spending for obese people is at least 25 per cent higher than for someone of normal weight, and increases rapidly as people get fatter, severely obese people are likely to die eight to 10 years earlier, so their shorter lives mean they incur lower healthcare costs over their lifetime. It's even greater than the saving on smokers.
If you don't like that, try this. As measured by gross domestic product, obesity is a win-win-win situation. The more you eat the more you add to GDP and the profits of businesses. If the messages of advertising and marketing make you self-conscious about your overweight, everything you spend on fancy diets, gym subscriptions etc adds to GDP.
And then when you damage your health, everything you, the government and your health fund spend on trying to keep you going adds to GDP. Even when you die prematurely that won't count as a negative against GDP, although the absence of your continued consumption will be missed.
Get the feeling there's something amiss?
Two of our greatest campaigners on obesity are Garry Egger, the professor of lifestyle medicine at Southern Cross University and the founder of GutBusters, and Boyd Swinburn, professor of population health at Deakin University.
They've written a book, Planet Obesity, which takes a rather different tack. Since obesity is endemic, it can't be dismissed as the product of gluttony and sloth on the part of a few individuals.
Obesity has been rising since the 1980s. Before then it was rare. Clearly, it's a product of our modern lifestyle, of the way we organise our society.
We're getting fatter for a host of interacting reasons. According to the OECD report, the supply and availability of food altered remarkably in the second half of the 20th century, brought about by big changes in food production technologies and an increasing and increasingly sophisticated use of promotion and persuasion.
The price of calories fell dramatically and convenience foods became available virtually everywhere, while the time available for traditional meal preparation from raw ingredients shrank as a result of changing working and living conditions.
''Decreased physical activity at work, increased participation of women in the labour force, increasing levels of stress and job insecurity, longer working hours for some jobs, are all factors that, directly or indirectly, contribute to the lifestyle changes which caused the obesity epidemic,'' the report says.
See what this is saying? The rise in obesity is a product of the success of capitalism and the technological advance it fosters and exploits.
So far, those who haven't tried to blame the problem on the weakness of individuals have treated it as an unfortunate byproduct of modern life, needing to be remedied in some way so we can carry on as usual.
Egger and Swinburn see it very differently, not as a disease but as a signal. ''It's the canary in the coalmine, which should alert us to bigger structural problems in society,'' they say.
Obesity and the health problems it often brings - type 2 diabetes, heart disease - are part of a rise in chronic conditions, including respiratory disease and many forms of cancer, that could eventually end our ever-increasing longevity, or at least make our longer lives far less pleasant.
People in developed countries have been getting taller and heavier since 1800. For almost all that time, our weight gain has made us healthier but in recent decades it's greatly accelerated and is now making us unhealthy.
So what's the signal Egger and Swinburn say the obesity epidemic is sending us? That we've passed the ''sweet spot'' - the point where everything's fine, the point of equilibrium, as an economist would say.
Until fairly recently, economic growth was making us unambiguously better off. Making us more secure, more prosperous and, because of scientific advances, improving our health. But now we've overshot the sweet spot and continued economic growth is starting to worsen our health.
It's a similar story with global warming. Economic growth and rising affluence - much of it based on the burning of fossil fuels - was fine as long as the world's sinks could absorb all the extra carbon dioxide we were pumping into the atmosphere.
But now we've passed that point, partly because we've been cutting down and clearing forests and other sinks, greenhouse gases have built up and are adversely affecting the climate. Should we fail to reverse this trend, much worse lies in store.
Egger and Swinburn say the trouble with humans is their tendency to overshoot by trying to maximise, rather than optimise, good things such as economic growth and plentiful food.
So the question is how long it will take us to recognise the signal that famine has turned to feast and too much feasting is bad for us. But however long it takes us, our trusty GDP meter will continue assuring us we're doing fine.
Ross Gittins is Sydney Morning Herald economics editor.
I have bad news and good about the O-word. Although there has been a suggestion in some quarters that the media got over-excited about the ''obesity epidemic'', a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - unlikely to be a purveyor of faddish enthusiasms - has confirmed the seriousness of the problem.
The report says obesity is worsening throughout the developed world and becoming the top public health concern. One in two people is now overweight or obese in almost half the developed countries. In some, two out of three people will be in trouble within 10 years.
In Australia, 61 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, making us almost as fat as the Americans. In 20 years, our overweight rate has risen faster than in any other developed country. It is projected to rise another 15 per cent in the next 10 years.
And the good news? It's saving taxpayers money.
Although healthcare spending for obese people is at least 25 per cent higher than for someone of normal weight, and increases rapidly as people get fatter, severely obese people are likely to die eight to 10 years earlier, so their shorter lives mean they incur lower healthcare costs over their lifetime. It's even greater than the saving on smokers.
If you don't like that, try this. As measured by gross domestic product, obesity is a win-win-win situation. The more you eat the more you add to GDP and the profits of businesses. If the messages of advertising and marketing make you self-conscious about your overweight, everything you spend on fancy diets, gym subscriptions etc adds to GDP.
And then when you damage your health, everything you, the government and your health fund spend on trying to keep you going adds to GDP. Even when you die prematurely that won't count as a negative against GDP, although the absence of your continued consumption will be missed.
Get the feeling there's something amiss?
Two of our greatest campaigners on obesity are Garry Egger, the professor of lifestyle medicine at Southern Cross University and the founder of GutBusters, and Boyd Swinburn, professor of population health at Deakin University.
They've written a book, Planet Obesity, which takes a rather different tack. Since obesity is endemic, it can't be dismissed as the product of gluttony and sloth on the part of a few individuals.
Obesity has been rising since the 1980s. Before then it was rare. Clearly, it's a product of our modern lifestyle, of the way we organise our society.
We're getting fatter for a host of interacting reasons. According to the OECD report, the supply and availability of food altered remarkably in the second half of the 20th century, brought about by big changes in food production technologies and an increasing and increasingly sophisticated use of promotion and persuasion.
The price of calories fell dramatically and convenience foods became available virtually everywhere, while the time available for traditional meal preparation from raw ingredients shrank as a result of changing working and living conditions.
''Decreased physical activity at work, increased participation of women in the labour force, increasing levels of stress and job insecurity, longer working hours for some jobs, are all factors that, directly or indirectly, contribute to the lifestyle changes which caused the obesity epidemic,'' the report says.
See what this is saying? The rise in obesity is a product of the success of capitalism and the technological advance it fosters and exploits.
So far, those who haven't tried to blame the problem on the weakness of individuals have treated it as an unfortunate byproduct of modern life, needing to be remedied in some way so we can carry on as usual.
Egger and Swinburn see it very differently, not as a disease but as a signal. ''It's the canary in the coalmine, which should alert us to bigger structural problems in society,'' they say.
Obesity and the health problems it often brings - type 2 diabetes, heart disease - are part of a rise in chronic conditions, including respiratory disease and many forms of cancer, that could eventually end our ever-increasing longevity, or at least make our longer lives far less pleasant.
People in developed countries have been getting taller and heavier since 1800. For almost all that time, our weight gain has made us healthier but in recent decades it's greatly accelerated and is now making us unhealthy.
So what's the signal Egger and Swinburn say the obesity epidemic is sending us? That we've passed the ''sweet spot'' - the point where everything's fine, the point of equilibrium, as an economist would say.
Until fairly recently, economic growth was making us unambiguously better off. Making us more secure, more prosperous and, because of scientific advances, improving our health. But now we've overshot the sweet spot and continued economic growth is starting to worsen our health.
It's a similar story with global warming. Economic growth and rising affluence - much of it based on the burning of fossil fuels - was fine as long as the world's sinks could absorb all the extra carbon dioxide we were pumping into the atmosphere.
But now we've passed that point, partly because we've been cutting down and clearing forests and other sinks, greenhouse gases have built up and are adversely affecting the climate. Should we fail to reverse this trend, much worse lies in store.
Egger and Swinburn say the trouble with humans is their tendency to overshoot by trying to maximise, rather than optimise, good things such as economic growth and plentiful food.
So the question is how long it will take us to recognise the signal that famine has turned to feast and too much feasting is bad for us. But however long it takes us, our trusty GDP meter will continue assuring us we're doing fine.
Ross Gittins is Sydney Morning Herald economics editor.
We owe our Afghan war weary an explanation
Lynda Voltz
October 7, 2010
The recent death of Jeff Shaw, the former NSW attorney-general, reminded me of what a driving force the anti-Vietnam war movement had been for the Australian political left. Jeff Shaw and many of his contemporaries on the left joined the Labor Party as part of this movement and changed the ALP forever.
As an ex-soldier and now a member of the NSW Parliament, I often reflect on the defining role the Vietnam War played. Yet Australia has now been involved in the war in Afghanistan for longer than the Vietnam conflict. But protest and debate about the war in Afghanistan have been fairly muted.
Perhaps the wounds from the Vietnam anti-war movement – felt especially by the soldiers who were unfairly tainted after their return – still run deep and have tempered the protest movement. But it does raise questions about what has happened to the progressive left and where it stands on the Afghanistan war.
Why is it only now that a federal Labor government has agreed to a debate on this war and where has the leadership of the left been all the time?
It is clear enough that the end of the conflict is nearing. The US President, Barack Obama, has set a timetable to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by July 2011 if the conditions are right on the ground.
But if the left supported intervention in Afghanistan, how can they so easily allow the West to walk away? There is little doubt the war in Afghanistan is going backwards.
Afghanistan has no infrastructure, industry or educated population, and some 80 per cent of its people are illiterate. Even the President, Hamid Karzai, seems resigned to the inevitable, breaking down in tears and lamenting that his three-year-old son will be forced to become a foreigner to get an education.
Military direction has been a problem since the beginning, with only glimpses of hope. On entering the conflict, few considered the differences between the Pashtuns, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
All were pursued. Nor were there any early attempts to engage those who may have wished to give up fighting. The Pashtuns have fought battles for thousands of years, living by a tribal code that centres on the concept of honour and the obligations of revenge and sanctuary. There was also little reason for US policymakers to believe that Ronald Reagan's “freedom fighters” would not be willing to die to see off another Western power.
From the start, Afghanistan was seen as a military encounter. But hardened by war over millenniums, built on distinct cultural norms, populated by warlords and with an intense aversion to foreigners on their land, it was always going to be an uphill struggle.
The government of Afghanistan is increasingly seen as corrupt and dysfunctional, a government that has failed to provide peace, security or a better standard of living. According to a report by the Secretary-General to the United Nations Security Council, the deterioration in Afghanistan's security has continued, with last year being the most volatile year since 2001. In January this year, the number of security incidents was 40 per cent higher than the previous January.
On average, there were seven assassinations and the same number of abductions every week. Last year was the worst ever for civilian fatalities with a total of 2412 civilian deaths recorded, and this year's figures are looking as if they will be worse.
Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the US has spent $US500 billion there, most of it on war. But during this time there has barely been any debate or protest from the progressive left.
From the start, the West, particularly the US, needed an exit strategy. But if the US understood the failings of Vietnam, having watched the fall of Saigon, then the progressive left should also have understood this lesson.
While debate rages on troop numbers and whether or not to engage – a decision that should consider the casualties our own troops may sustain – we owe our soldiers in Afghanistan a better deal than letting them fight a war without a thorough plan that includes infrastructure for nation building, education and industry.
Whether Afghanistan was a failure of the right or a failure to take heed of history, the left cannot absolve itself of complicity.
Lynda Voltz is a Labor MP in the NSW Parliament and spent almost a decade as a soldier in the army.
LYNDA VOLTZ
October 7, 2010
The recent death of Jeff Shaw, the former NSW attorney-general, reminded me of what a driving force the anti-Vietnam war movement had been for the Australian political left. Jeff Shaw and many of his contemporaries on the left joined the Labor Party as part of this movement and changed the ALP forever.
As an ex-soldier and now a member of the NSW Parliament, I often reflect on the defining role the Vietnam War played. Yet Australia has now been involved in the war in Afghanistan for longer than the Vietnam conflict. But protest and debate about the war in Afghanistan have been fairly muted.
Perhaps the wounds from the Vietnam anti-war movement – felt especially by the soldiers who were unfairly tainted after their return – still run deep and have tempered the protest movement. But it does raise questions about what has happened to the progressive left and where it stands on the Afghanistan war.
Why is it only now that a federal Labor government has agreed to a debate on this war and where has the leadership of the left been all the time?
It is clear enough that the end of the conflict is nearing. The US President, Barack Obama, has set a timetable to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by July 2011 if the conditions are right on the ground.
But if the left supported intervention in Afghanistan, how can they so easily allow the West to walk away? There is little doubt the war in Afghanistan is going backwards.
Afghanistan has no infrastructure, industry or educated population, and some 80 per cent of its people are illiterate. Even the President, Hamid Karzai, seems resigned to the inevitable, breaking down in tears and lamenting that his three-year-old son will be forced to become a foreigner to get an education.
Military direction has been a problem since the beginning, with only glimpses of hope. On entering the conflict, few considered the differences between the Pashtuns, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
All were pursued. Nor were there any early attempts to engage those who may have wished to give up fighting. The Pashtuns have fought battles for thousands of years, living by a tribal code that centres on the concept of honour and the obligations of revenge and sanctuary. There was also little reason for US policymakers to believe that Ronald Reagan's “freedom fighters” would not be willing to die to see off another Western power.
From the start, Afghanistan was seen as a military encounter. But hardened by war over millenniums, built on distinct cultural norms, populated by warlords and with an intense aversion to foreigners on their land, it was always going to be an uphill struggle.
The government of Afghanistan is increasingly seen as corrupt and dysfunctional, a government that has failed to provide peace, security or a better standard of living. According to a report by the Secretary-General to the United Nations Security Council, the deterioration in Afghanistan's security has continued, with last year being the most volatile year since 2001. In January this year, the number of security incidents was 40 per cent higher than the previous January.
On average, there were seven assassinations and the same number of abductions every week. Last year was the worst ever for civilian fatalities with a total of 2412 civilian deaths recorded, and this year's figures are looking as if they will be worse.
Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the US has spent $US500 billion there, most of it on war. But during this time there has barely been any debate or protest from the progressive left.
From the start, the West, particularly the US, needed an exit strategy. But if the US understood the failings of Vietnam, having watched the fall of Saigon, then the progressive left should also have understood this lesson.
While debate rages on troop numbers and whether or not to engage – a decision that should consider the casualties our own troops may sustain – we owe our soldiers in Afghanistan a better deal than letting them fight a war without a thorough plan that includes infrastructure for nation building, education and industry.
Whether Afghanistan was a failure of the right or a failure to take heed of history, the left cannot absolve itself of complicity.
Lynda Voltz is a Labor MP in the NSW Parliament and spent almost a decade as a soldier in the army.
LYNDA VOLTZ
'How to die' becoming as important a question as 'how to live'
October 7, 2010
BOB Brown's post-election call for a conscience vote on the territories' right to pass euthanasia laws has been criticised for being a distraction from issues that really matter to the average Australian.
But such criticism misses the likelihood that the 21st century may well be the one where ''how to die'' becomes as important a question as ''how to live''.
Advances in medical care have transformed our relationship to dying. Medical technology will continue to blur what we mean by death and its relation to our lives, foreshadowed by extraordinary cases such as 41-year-old American Terri Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state for more than 15 years. A prolonged legal and political battle eventually led to the stopping of tube feeding in 2005, and her death.
A much less publicised case was played out in Australia in 2003. The New South Wales Supreme Court ruled that treatment could be withdrawn from Isaac Messiha, a 75-year-old man whose life was supported by ventilation and tube feeding after he suffered severe brain damage from a stroke.
It is a difficult discussion to have in a society that has so little exposure to death and dying in comparison with previous generations. The average young Australian may face death only through their pets or when they travel to other parts of the world, especially countries with Hindu traditions where bodies are sometimes cremated on the street.
Half of all deaths now occur in hospitals, three times the rate of 20 years ago. Several colleagues of mine working in intensive care complain that their job is increasingly about prolonging vegetative states and delaying inevitable death.
The greatest proportion of health costs is in the period surrounding death. Much of it is consumed by machines plugged into electrical outlets - respirators, feeding tubes and defibrillators. The longer we live, the longer we take to die.
While euthanasia is the most discussed, there is a spectrum of actions that hasten death, from withholding treatment to physician-assisted suicide. One that happens every day in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes is when medications such as morphine are increased to alleviate debilitating pain, causing the patient to stop breathing and die. It is something I have undertaken myself.
With the growing pressure on Western health budgets, there is a greater urgency to debate issues such as rational suicide, a controversial topic within psychiatry, a field in which all suicide is generally seen as a disturbance of the mind.
Rational suicide has also been called balance-sheet suicide, suggesting that sane individuals can objectively weigh the pros and cons of continued life, and then decide in favour of death. Views vary from the act being the ultimate expression of one's autonomy to it being morally reprehensible.
Christopher Ryan, a psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Hospital who specialises in mental disorders among the medically ill, ensured that the original Northern Territory legislation stipulated a psychiatric review before euthanasia. He believes in the concept of rational suicide but considers it extremely rare. He thinks depression or demoralisation usually overlies the decision.
Physicians, by contrast, appear to believe ill patients often choose to hasten death for rational reasons. Studies in 2008 in Oregon and the Netherlands, regions where euthanasia is legal, show that in the Netherlands only 4 per cent of patients were referred for psychiatric evaluation. The rates were similar in Oregon.
The studies found that physicians placed a greater weight on the importance of existential issues such as loss of dignity and feelings of being a burden. Such feelings have been shown to be particularly relevant to dying patients' will to live.
Studies of dialysis patients show that the incidence of depression was not greater in patients who withdrew from the treatment. A key factor for them was the importance of maintaining control, a finding consistent with many patients in Oregon who chose euthanasia. Doctors working with cancer patients have emphasised similar personality characteristics in patients seeking to accelerate their deaths.
Suicide rates among the elderly in Australia, especially the group over 75 years old, have steadily grown in the past two decades. They are now considered one of the highest risk groups. It is difficult to know what proportion could have been saved with appropriate treatment, as many do not seek medical help.
But while suicides among young people are always considered tragedies, attitudes are more ambivalent about the elderly, suggesting the lay public may have a stronger belief in rational suicide than many mental health professionals.
Western attitudes to death have progressed from it being a public and familiar event, to it being the moment when our souls are up for judgment, to present attitudes of material finality. We need a greater understanding of how and why people make certain decisions surrounding their deaths, not to mention greater reflection on the process itself.
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar and writer.
BOB Brown's post-election call for a conscience vote on the territories' right to pass euthanasia laws has been criticised for being a distraction from issues that really matter to the average Australian.
But such criticism misses the likelihood that the 21st century may well be the one where ''how to die'' becomes as important a question as ''how to live''.
Advances in medical care have transformed our relationship to dying. Medical technology will continue to blur what we mean by death and its relation to our lives, foreshadowed by extraordinary cases such as 41-year-old American Terri Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state for more than 15 years. A prolonged legal and political battle eventually led to the stopping of tube feeding in 2005, and her death.
A much less publicised case was played out in Australia in 2003. The New South Wales Supreme Court ruled that treatment could be withdrawn from Isaac Messiha, a 75-year-old man whose life was supported by ventilation and tube feeding after he suffered severe brain damage from a stroke.
It is a difficult discussion to have in a society that has so little exposure to death and dying in comparison with previous generations. The average young Australian may face death only through their pets or when they travel to other parts of the world, especially countries with Hindu traditions where bodies are sometimes cremated on the street.
Half of all deaths now occur in hospitals, three times the rate of 20 years ago. Several colleagues of mine working in intensive care complain that their job is increasingly about prolonging vegetative states and delaying inevitable death.
The greatest proportion of health costs is in the period surrounding death. Much of it is consumed by machines plugged into electrical outlets - respirators, feeding tubes and defibrillators. The longer we live, the longer we take to die.
While euthanasia is the most discussed, there is a spectrum of actions that hasten death, from withholding treatment to physician-assisted suicide. One that happens every day in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes is when medications such as morphine are increased to alleviate debilitating pain, causing the patient to stop breathing and die. It is something I have undertaken myself.
With the growing pressure on Western health budgets, there is a greater urgency to debate issues such as rational suicide, a controversial topic within psychiatry, a field in which all suicide is generally seen as a disturbance of the mind.
Rational suicide has also been called balance-sheet suicide, suggesting that sane individuals can objectively weigh the pros and cons of continued life, and then decide in favour of death. Views vary from the act being the ultimate expression of one's autonomy to it being morally reprehensible.
Christopher Ryan, a psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Hospital who specialises in mental disorders among the medically ill, ensured that the original Northern Territory legislation stipulated a psychiatric review before euthanasia. He believes in the concept of rational suicide but considers it extremely rare. He thinks depression or demoralisation usually overlies the decision.
Physicians, by contrast, appear to believe ill patients often choose to hasten death for rational reasons. Studies in 2008 in Oregon and the Netherlands, regions where euthanasia is legal, show that in the Netherlands only 4 per cent of patients were referred for psychiatric evaluation. The rates were similar in Oregon.
The studies found that physicians placed a greater weight on the importance of existential issues such as loss of dignity and feelings of being a burden. Such feelings have been shown to be particularly relevant to dying patients' will to live.
Studies of dialysis patients show that the incidence of depression was not greater in patients who withdrew from the treatment. A key factor for them was the importance of maintaining control, a finding consistent with many patients in Oregon who chose euthanasia. Doctors working with cancer patients have emphasised similar personality characteristics in patients seeking to accelerate their deaths.
Suicide rates among the elderly in Australia, especially the group over 75 years old, have steadily grown in the past two decades. They are now considered one of the highest risk groups. It is difficult to know what proportion could have been saved with appropriate treatment, as many do not seek medical help.
But while suicides among young people are always considered tragedies, attitudes are more ambivalent about the elderly, suggesting the lay public may have a stronger belief in rational suicide than many mental health professionals.
Western attitudes to death have progressed from it being a public and familiar event, to it being the moment when our souls are up for judgment, to present attitudes of material finality. We need a greater understanding of how and why people make certain decisions surrounding their deaths, not to mention greater reflection on the process itself.
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar and writer.
Futile US crusade for democracy
Malcolm Fraser
October 5, 2010
The Liberal Party has said - predictably - that Australia should send more troops to Afghanistan. The party should learn more from past mistakes.
The Australian commitment is already much greater for our size than that of most NATO countries. As each month passes, Afghanistan reminds me more and more of past failures in which we have supported the US militarily.
The first was Vietnam. It was not an obligation under ANZUS. It was specifically stated that ANZUS did not apply. The bare bones of the ANZUS commitment is limited geographically and is also limited to a commitment to consult. It is not a commitment to defend. It is a markedly different treaty to NATO.
During Vietnam, the Cold War was still raging; communism was regarded as monolithic. The Soviet Union still appeared outward, thrusting and aggressive. That dominated American decision-making over Vietnam and Asia.
With more than 485,000 American soldiers, more than 47,800 Koreans and more than 6800 Australians, and with 798,000 in the South Vietnamese army, it was not possible to stop the victory of the North. A significant element in the conflict was that an alien army was seeking to impose or to insert a government, which to many Vietnamese appeared foreign and against Vietnam's interests.
With fewer resources, totalling 120,000 soldiers, the US and NATO are seeking to impose a style of government on Afghanistan foreign and alien to that country's history and culture. Certainly there are some believers, but in Vietnam the best efforts of the US, and the South Vietnamese themselves, were not able to establish a leadership that could inspire and fill the South with motivation and commitment. The same critique can be made of President Hamid Karzai and those around him.
Indeed, it appears that Karzai is seeking to establish, on the sidelines, talks with elements of the Taliban - elements one hopes could be weaned from al-Qaeda.
The original invasion of Afghanistan was legal; it was authorised by the United Nations Security Council because the Taliban were sheltering al-Qaeda. That government was quickly destroyed.
Then the objective of American policy changed. It was no longer merely to hunt al-Qaeda, it was to establish a Western-style democracy in Afghanistan. The purpose of hunting and destroying al-Qaeda became secondary. If resources available had been fully committed to the original purpose, America and her allies might well have been successful.
This change of direction was totally consistent with neo-conservative thinking in the US, which had been responsible for taking America into a disastrous war in Iraq. The story about weapons of mass destruction was never true. I cannot believe that those in authority did not know that they were going to war on a public falsehood.
In their Statement of Principles issued in 1997, the neo-conservatives argued that America would be safe only when the world was democratic. It was America's duty to achieve that by persuasion if possible, if not by force of arms. Democracy would be so attractive in Iraq that it would spread and create a new Middle East. The presumptions and arrogance behind that thesis are astounding but they dominated US policy in the Bush years. That thinking also dominated the change of direction in relation to Afghanistan.
Every new general who has been sent to Afghanistan has said, "Give me more troops; with a change of strategy we will win." Every new general in Vietnam made exactly the same comment. Every general was wrong.
It is too early to make a final judgment about Iraq, but America is in a state of withdrawal. Garrison and training are her remaining tasks. Just over six months after the election there is still no government.
It is a moot point whether the training role in Iraq is any more effective than in Afghanistan, but we are told 50 per cent or more of those trained by the Americans drift away, back to villages or to join the Taliban. We do not know.
In Iraq, the Sunnis were clobbered and in many ways silenced when Americans turned the full wrath of their military machine against them in Fallujah. After that, there was a change in Sunni tactics. They were more co-operative, but for what purpose? To try to get America out faster?
Today, the bombings and killings across Iraq continue. The war is meant to be won, but whose war, and which war? There is certainly no peace as we would understand it. The Americans will not return. They have established their exit strategy. All American troops will be out of Iraq by the end of November 2011. Once the Americans are finally out will it be a peaceful place or will it revert to vicious sectarian combat?
It is worth noting that Ed Miliband, the new leader of the British Labour Party, said, with refreshing honesty, "I do believe we were wrong. Wrong to take Great Britain to war in Iraq. We need to be honest about that."
What is going to be the position in Afghanistan? How many still believe a viable democracy can be established? Fighting is fiercer than at any time since the initial invasion. The casualties are heavier. The Taliban are stronger. We can see the lines of the exit strategy. We have trained the Afghans. There has been an election. This is victory, it is over to them. But what kind of victory, and what will happen when NATO forces leave?
Why does the Liberal Party want to send more forces to this conflict? It has become a gross diversion from the fight against international terrorism. It is also an extreme expression of arrogance to believe that we can establish a democratic system, which took the best part of 1000 years to evolve, in a country such as Afghanistan.
Malcolm Fraser is a former Liberal prime minister.
October 5, 2010
The Liberal Party has said - predictably - that Australia should send more troops to Afghanistan. The party should learn more from past mistakes.
The Australian commitment is already much greater for our size than that of most NATO countries. As each month passes, Afghanistan reminds me more and more of past failures in which we have supported the US militarily.
The first was Vietnam. It was not an obligation under ANZUS. It was specifically stated that ANZUS did not apply. The bare bones of the ANZUS commitment is limited geographically and is also limited to a commitment to consult. It is not a commitment to defend. It is a markedly different treaty to NATO.
During Vietnam, the Cold War was still raging; communism was regarded as monolithic. The Soviet Union still appeared outward, thrusting and aggressive. That dominated American decision-making over Vietnam and Asia.
With more than 485,000 American soldiers, more than 47,800 Koreans and more than 6800 Australians, and with 798,000 in the South Vietnamese army, it was not possible to stop the victory of the North. A significant element in the conflict was that an alien army was seeking to impose or to insert a government, which to many Vietnamese appeared foreign and against Vietnam's interests.
With fewer resources, totalling 120,000 soldiers, the US and NATO are seeking to impose a style of government on Afghanistan foreign and alien to that country's history and culture. Certainly there are some believers, but in Vietnam the best efforts of the US, and the South Vietnamese themselves, were not able to establish a leadership that could inspire and fill the South with motivation and commitment. The same critique can be made of President Hamid Karzai and those around him.
Indeed, it appears that Karzai is seeking to establish, on the sidelines, talks with elements of the Taliban - elements one hopes could be weaned from al-Qaeda.
The original invasion of Afghanistan was legal; it was authorised by the United Nations Security Council because the Taliban were sheltering al-Qaeda. That government was quickly destroyed.
Then the objective of American policy changed. It was no longer merely to hunt al-Qaeda, it was to establish a Western-style democracy in Afghanistan. The purpose of hunting and destroying al-Qaeda became secondary. If resources available had been fully committed to the original purpose, America and her allies might well have been successful.
This change of direction was totally consistent with neo-conservative thinking in the US, which had been responsible for taking America into a disastrous war in Iraq. The story about weapons of mass destruction was never true. I cannot believe that those in authority did not know that they were going to war on a public falsehood.
In their Statement of Principles issued in 1997, the neo-conservatives argued that America would be safe only when the world was democratic. It was America's duty to achieve that by persuasion if possible, if not by force of arms. Democracy would be so attractive in Iraq that it would spread and create a new Middle East. The presumptions and arrogance behind that thesis are astounding but they dominated US policy in the Bush years. That thinking also dominated the change of direction in relation to Afghanistan.
Every new general who has been sent to Afghanistan has said, "Give me more troops; with a change of strategy we will win." Every new general in Vietnam made exactly the same comment. Every general was wrong.
It is too early to make a final judgment about Iraq, but America is in a state of withdrawal. Garrison and training are her remaining tasks. Just over six months after the election there is still no government.
It is a moot point whether the training role in Iraq is any more effective than in Afghanistan, but we are told 50 per cent or more of those trained by the Americans drift away, back to villages or to join the Taliban. We do not know.
In Iraq, the Sunnis were clobbered and in many ways silenced when Americans turned the full wrath of their military machine against them in Fallujah. After that, there was a change in Sunni tactics. They were more co-operative, but for what purpose? To try to get America out faster?
Today, the bombings and killings across Iraq continue. The war is meant to be won, but whose war, and which war? There is certainly no peace as we would understand it. The Americans will not return. They have established their exit strategy. All American troops will be out of Iraq by the end of November 2011. Once the Americans are finally out will it be a peaceful place or will it revert to vicious sectarian combat?
It is worth noting that Ed Miliband, the new leader of the British Labour Party, said, with refreshing honesty, "I do believe we were wrong. Wrong to take Great Britain to war in Iraq. We need to be honest about that."
What is going to be the position in Afghanistan? How many still believe a viable democracy can be established? Fighting is fiercer than at any time since the initial invasion. The casualties are heavier. The Taliban are stronger. We can see the lines of the exit strategy. We have trained the Afghans. There has been an election. This is victory, it is over to them. But what kind of victory, and what will happen when NATO forces leave?
Why does the Liberal Party want to send more forces to this conflict? It has become a gross diversion from the fight against international terrorism. It is also an extreme expression of arrogance to believe that we can establish a democratic system, which took the best part of 1000 years to evolve, in a country such as Afghanistan.
Malcolm Fraser is a former Liberal prime minister.
Invasion of the body snatchers
October 7, 2010
They're in our beds and on our heads. Ainslie MacGibbon reports on the bugs, lice, mites and maggots that are getting under our skin.
We may not want to think about it too much but there is a war that is being waged on our skin, in our hair, in our bedclothes and our carpets. The enemy? Bugs that are invading our personal space, spurred on by our heavy-handed use of insecticides throughout the last century.
An infestation of most of the culprits is not life-threatening - even though some, like dust mites, have been shown to trigger asthma and eczema. But they can make your life a misery.
BED BUGS
''Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite'' is an adage many people are finding hard to heed these days. In North America bed bugs are giving themselves a bad name - and a misnomer - by cropping up in theatres, planes and places generally reserved for tourists and shoppers, such as the Empire State Building, Nike Town and Victoria's Secret.
Stephen Doggett, a senior scientist at Westmead Hospital, recently returned from a meeting of bed bug experts in the US, where it was revealed one in 10 people in New York are now exposed to bed bugs.
Doggett says bed bug infestations are becoming more common in Australia, but there is anecdotal evidence that the numbers have stabilised since a 4500 per cent increase was reported between 2000 and 2006.
Doggett attributes this to Australia acting more swiftly than other countries. A code of practice for pest managers to minimise the impact of bed bug infestations was released in 2006 and the Bed Bug Management Policy for Accommodation Providers was released in May by the Institute for Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Westmead Hospital. The institute have even given bed bugs their own website: www.bedbug.org.au.
The bed bug population almost disappeared worldwide in the 1950s, mainly due to the widespread use of DDT, which was subsequently deemed unsafe. A total ban on DDT was imposed in Australia in 1987 but these bugs developed a resistance to it after just a few years of exposure. Affordable travel in recent decades has opened the world up to the masses - and for bed bugs, too. Eco-travel to places that once relied heavily on DDT has aided the spread of resistant bugs. The market in second-hand furniture is also a factor.
But it is only now that a worldwide response is gaining momentum.
Adult bed bugs are wingless and about the same size and colour as an apple seed. The junior nymphs are a lighter cream colour and harder to see.
Doggett says bed bugs bites range from a red dot to a weal, a swollen red mark about the size of a 20 cent coin. Many people do not react on first exposure, and reaction can be delayed by up to 14 days.
A bed bug bite is generally more severe than a mosquito bite, and can develop into a rash if there are multiple bites.
But bed bugs do not transmit infectious diseases, although the constant scratching can lead to infection and inflammation, and some people report asthma reactions.
"Spotting is another common indicator - they are quite gregarious creatures who like to hang out together, and so poo together - leaving dark spotting on sheets or along mattress seams and the spotting occurs in groups,'' Doggett says.
To check for bed bugs, pull beds away from walls because they like darker areas. Remove bedding to look for spotting or live bed bugs on mattress seams. And try to prevent environments where bedbugs can establish, such as cracks and crevices, loose wallpaper and gaps in skirting boards. Carpet also allows more places to hide, he says.
While stressing that bed bugs are impossible to prevent, Doggett says there are ways to minimise risk.
"When you arrive at a hotel, never put your bag on the bed without inspecting the area first. Don't unpack clothes into drawers, and suitcases can be placed in a large plastic bag, then discard the plastic bag when leaving. Bed bugs are increasingly common throughout the entire hotel industry. Hotels near airports are a big problem as guests often stay only one night so there is a large turnover and people then get on a plane," he says.
Control of bed bugs is difficult - it costs about $1000 a residence in NSW to eliminate bed bugs. Due to resistance, removal is a complex combination of treatments, including labour- intensive processes such as steaming and vacuuming.
"Over the past few years there has been a large rise in bed bug infestations in low-income housing. Recognising the problem of cost in socially disadvantaged areas is important as they could act as future bed bug reservoirs,'' Doggett says.
Housing NSW pays for bed bug control in its properties and Doggett says the department should be congratulated for this. ''It is a much more difficult issue in the US because of the vast number of people who are under the poverty line, and poverty is a risk factor,'' he says. Because of the high number of people in apartments in New York - 80 per cent of New Yorkers live in apartment buildings - it is quite easy for bed bugs to spread from one unit to another.
Bed bugs also cause psychological distress because of an associated stigma that relates to poor housekeeping and hygiene, Doggett wrote in an article in Australian Family Physician last year. This was exacerbated by the fact that the bugs often bite on the face and neck, affecting a person's self-esteem and employment performance or prospects.
HEAD LICE
About one quarter of primary school children in NSW have a head lice infestation when screened, according to NSW Health.
"Incidence peaks in the middle primary years - years 3 and 4 - and more girls are affected. And it's not about personal hygiene: lice like clean hair just as much as dirty hair. It is a perennial problem that is very unlikely to go away," says Vicky Sheppeard communicable disease and immunisation manager at Sydney West Area Health Service.
Live lice are visible, and eggs, called nits, (usually brown) often stick to hair behind the ears and around the hairline, close to the scalp.
There is no preventative treatment available for head lice. Sheppeard recommends the comb and conditioner method to treat head lice. Coating the hair with conditioner will stun the active lice and affect their breathing for around 20 minutes, enough time to use a fine-tooth "lice" comb to remove adult lice and eggs.
Like any head lice treatment, this method needs to be repeated in a week to catch nymphs that have emerged from unhatched eggs.
"This method is as effective as any other treatment and there are no toxicity issues," Sheppeard says.
If a commercial head lice preparation is chosen, Sheppeard says the directions should be followed as commercial insecticides are toxic. It can be tempting to increase the dose if a preparation does not appear to be working, but this will not enhance efficacy.
Commercial preparations are intended to kill head lice, she says, so "if you notice lice are still moving around, these lice could be resistant to this particular treatment, so you need to choose a product that has different active ingredients".
Head lice have not been shown to transmit any infectious agents, according to NSW Health, and the most likely harm caused by them is from the inappropriate use of chemicals in an attempt to treat them. There is no public health directive saying children must be sent home from school if an infestation is discovered, but children should be treated before the next school day.
Despite being extremely common among primary-aged students, treating an infestation is time-consuming and can be costly if repeated lice treatments are used. Having lice used to carry a stigma and was associated with poverty and uncleanliness. Now it is one of the most common childhood experiences.
DUST MITES
Dust mites have been found as far afield as a research station in Antarctica and on the Mir space station. House dust mites have been associated with allergies, respiratory ailments and dermatological complaints. They do not bite, but harbour strong allergens in their bodies as well as in their excreta and their shed skins.
Dust mite numbers are reduced at high altitudes and in dry climates. They favour homes with warm temperatures. Dust mites dislike strong light and will hide when exposed.
According to the book Dust Mites by Dr Matthew Colloff, a senior research scientist at the CSIRO, dust mites are found in almost every home in carpets, bedding, fabrics and furniture. As well as providing a habitat for the mites, house dust also contains their food source: shed human skin scales. Dusting, vacuuming, making beds and any other activity that causes settled dust to become airborne allows dust mite faecal pellets, which contain allergens, to be suspended in the air, then inhaled. Conservatively, at least 100 million people are affected by house dust mite allergies worldwide, such as asthma, rhinitis or atopic dermatitis. Despite the growing recognition of this major public health problem, there is still no simple, effective and generally applicable strategy for dust mite control.
Regular washing of bedding, soft toys and furnishings removes more than 95 per cent of allergens, but will not kill dust mites. Reducing soft furnishings and non-carpeted flooring will help reduce mite allergens. Other methods such as chemical sprays, air filtration, or negative ion generators, are of little help.
MAGGOT DEBRIDEMENT THERAPY
Unlike bed bugs, head lice and dust mites, maggots are becoming the golden-haired larvae of medical entomology. An article in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy published this year says due to antibiotic resistance and increasing problems with wounds worldwide, maggot debridement therapy (MDT) has been undergoing a renaissance in modern medicine.
MDT is the placement of disinfected maggots into a wound to cleanse the wound bed and promote healing. Maggots are left on the wound for 48 to 72 hours and the therapy has at least two confirmed beneficial effects: the removal of necrotic tissue and the removal of pathogenic bacteria. Maggot secretions could even have potential as a future drug candidate scaffold for other applications besides the topical treatment of infected wounds, the article says.
The bugs are likely to be in demand for some time as ageing populations and a rise in diseases such as diabetes have contributed to an increased incidence of chronic wounds.
An article published last year in the Australian journal Wound Practice and Research says MDT has proved effective for healing bed sores, venous stasis ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, non-healing traumatic and post surgical wounds and burns.
The main fly species used worldwide in MDT is the sheep blowfly, Lucilia sericata. In the past four years, the Medical Entomology Department at Westmead has supplied disinfected maggots for patients in many major hospitals across Australia. The article says MDT is predicted to increase in the future, and despite making some patients' skin crawl, it is valuable as a simple, quick and economical method to cleanse and heal stubborn wounds.
Co-author of the article and clinical nurse consultant at Royal Hobart Hospital, Anne Smith, has treated 80 patients with MDT. "I have had only one negative response. I think that's because the parts of the body we mainly use maggots on is lower limbs; that's not a personal part of the body, it is a little bit removed," she says.
Smith contacts the entomology division at Westmead to order maggots, which arrive by courier three to five days later. Smith says "the wound is dressed so there is no tickling or crawling sensation. Maggots can reach areas too delicate for a scalpel, around nerves and tendons and secrete enzymes that liquefy dead tissue".
Smith visits patients and relatives each day before the maggot application so they can ask questions and any anxieties can be resolved. "Patients have been quite excited by the day of maggot arrival," she says.
They're in our beds and on our heads. Ainslie MacGibbon reports on the bugs, lice, mites and maggots that are getting under our skin.
We may not want to think about it too much but there is a war that is being waged on our skin, in our hair, in our bedclothes and our carpets. The enemy? Bugs that are invading our personal space, spurred on by our heavy-handed use of insecticides throughout the last century.
An infestation of most of the culprits is not life-threatening - even though some, like dust mites, have been shown to trigger asthma and eczema. But they can make your life a misery.
BED BUGS
''Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite'' is an adage many people are finding hard to heed these days. In North America bed bugs are giving themselves a bad name - and a misnomer - by cropping up in theatres, planes and places generally reserved for tourists and shoppers, such as the Empire State Building, Nike Town and Victoria's Secret.
Stephen Doggett, a senior scientist at Westmead Hospital, recently returned from a meeting of bed bug experts in the US, where it was revealed one in 10 people in New York are now exposed to bed bugs.
Doggett says bed bug infestations are becoming more common in Australia, but there is anecdotal evidence that the numbers have stabilised since a 4500 per cent increase was reported between 2000 and 2006.
Doggett attributes this to Australia acting more swiftly than other countries. A code of practice for pest managers to minimise the impact of bed bug infestations was released in 2006 and the Bed Bug Management Policy for Accommodation Providers was released in May by the Institute for Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Westmead Hospital. The institute have even given bed bugs their own website: www.bedbug.org.au.
The bed bug population almost disappeared worldwide in the 1950s, mainly due to the widespread use of DDT, which was subsequently deemed unsafe. A total ban on DDT was imposed in Australia in 1987 but these bugs developed a resistance to it after just a few years of exposure. Affordable travel in recent decades has opened the world up to the masses - and for bed bugs, too. Eco-travel to places that once relied heavily on DDT has aided the spread of resistant bugs. The market in second-hand furniture is also a factor.
But it is only now that a worldwide response is gaining momentum.
Adult bed bugs are wingless and about the same size and colour as an apple seed. The junior nymphs are a lighter cream colour and harder to see.
Doggett says bed bugs bites range from a red dot to a weal, a swollen red mark about the size of a 20 cent coin. Many people do not react on first exposure, and reaction can be delayed by up to 14 days.
A bed bug bite is generally more severe than a mosquito bite, and can develop into a rash if there are multiple bites.
But bed bugs do not transmit infectious diseases, although the constant scratching can lead to infection and inflammation, and some people report asthma reactions.
"Spotting is another common indicator - they are quite gregarious creatures who like to hang out together, and so poo together - leaving dark spotting on sheets or along mattress seams and the spotting occurs in groups,'' Doggett says.
To check for bed bugs, pull beds away from walls because they like darker areas. Remove bedding to look for spotting or live bed bugs on mattress seams. And try to prevent environments where bedbugs can establish, such as cracks and crevices, loose wallpaper and gaps in skirting boards. Carpet also allows more places to hide, he says.
While stressing that bed bugs are impossible to prevent, Doggett says there are ways to minimise risk.
"When you arrive at a hotel, never put your bag on the bed without inspecting the area first. Don't unpack clothes into drawers, and suitcases can be placed in a large plastic bag, then discard the plastic bag when leaving. Bed bugs are increasingly common throughout the entire hotel industry. Hotels near airports are a big problem as guests often stay only one night so there is a large turnover and people then get on a plane," he says.
Control of bed bugs is difficult - it costs about $1000 a residence in NSW to eliminate bed bugs. Due to resistance, removal is a complex combination of treatments, including labour- intensive processes such as steaming and vacuuming.
"Over the past few years there has been a large rise in bed bug infestations in low-income housing. Recognising the problem of cost in socially disadvantaged areas is important as they could act as future bed bug reservoirs,'' Doggett says.
Housing NSW pays for bed bug control in its properties and Doggett says the department should be congratulated for this. ''It is a much more difficult issue in the US because of the vast number of people who are under the poverty line, and poverty is a risk factor,'' he says. Because of the high number of people in apartments in New York - 80 per cent of New Yorkers live in apartment buildings - it is quite easy for bed bugs to spread from one unit to another.
Bed bugs also cause psychological distress because of an associated stigma that relates to poor housekeeping and hygiene, Doggett wrote in an article in Australian Family Physician last year. This was exacerbated by the fact that the bugs often bite on the face and neck, affecting a person's self-esteem and employment performance or prospects.
HEAD LICE
About one quarter of primary school children in NSW have a head lice infestation when screened, according to NSW Health.
"Incidence peaks in the middle primary years - years 3 and 4 - and more girls are affected. And it's not about personal hygiene: lice like clean hair just as much as dirty hair. It is a perennial problem that is very unlikely to go away," says Vicky Sheppeard communicable disease and immunisation manager at Sydney West Area Health Service.
Live lice are visible, and eggs, called nits, (usually brown) often stick to hair behind the ears and around the hairline, close to the scalp.
There is no preventative treatment available for head lice. Sheppeard recommends the comb and conditioner method to treat head lice. Coating the hair with conditioner will stun the active lice and affect their breathing for around 20 minutes, enough time to use a fine-tooth "lice" comb to remove adult lice and eggs.
Like any head lice treatment, this method needs to be repeated in a week to catch nymphs that have emerged from unhatched eggs.
"This method is as effective as any other treatment and there are no toxicity issues," Sheppeard says.
If a commercial head lice preparation is chosen, Sheppeard says the directions should be followed as commercial insecticides are toxic. It can be tempting to increase the dose if a preparation does not appear to be working, but this will not enhance efficacy.
Commercial preparations are intended to kill head lice, she says, so "if you notice lice are still moving around, these lice could be resistant to this particular treatment, so you need to choose a product that has different active ingredients".
Head lice have not been shown to transmit any infectious agents, according to NSW Health, and the most likely harm caused by them is from the inappropriate use of chemicals in an attempt to treat them. There is no public health directive saying children must be sent home from school if an infestation is discovered, but children should be treated before the next school day.
Despite being extremely common among primary-aged students, treating an infestation is time-consuming and can be costly if repeated lice treatments are used. Having lice used to carry a stigma and was associated with poverty and uncleanliness. Now it is one of the most common childhood experiences.
DUST MITES
Dust mites have been found as far afield as a research station in Antarctica and on the Mir space station. House dust mites have been associated with allergies, respiratory ailments and dermatological complaints. They do not bite, but harbour strong allergens in their bodies as well as in their excreta and their shed skins.
Dust mite numbers are reduced at high altitudes and in dry climates. They favour homes with warm temperatures. Dust mites dislike strong light and will hide when exposed.
According to the book Dust Mites by Dr Matthew Colloff, a senior research scientist at the CSIRO, dust mites are found in almost every home in carpets, bedding, fabrics and furniture. As well as providing a habitat for the mites, house dust also contains their food source: shed human skin scales. Dusting, vacuuming, making beds and any other activity that causes settled dust to become airborne allows dust mite faecal pellets, which contain allergens, to be suspended in the air, then inhaled. Conservatively, at least 100 million people are affected by house dust mite allergies worldwide, such as asthma, rhinitis or atopic dermatitis. Despite the growing recognition of this major public health problem, there is still no simple, effective and generally applicable strategy for dust mite control.
Regular washing of bedding, soft toys and furnishings removes more than 95 per cent of allergens, but will not kill dust mites. Reducing soft furnishings and non-carpeted flooring will help reduce mite allergens. Other methods such as chemical sprays, air filtration, or negative ion generators, are of little help.
MAGGOT DEBRIDEMENT THERAPY
Unlike bed bugs, head lice and dust mites, maggots are becoming the golden-haired larvae of medical entomology. An article in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy published this year says due to antibiotic resistance and increasing problems with wounds worldwide, maggot debridement therapy (MDT) has been undergoing a renaissance in modern medicine.
MDT is the placement of disinfected maggots into a wound to cleanse the wound bed and promote healing. Maggots are left on the wound for 48 to 72 hours and the therapy has at least two confirmed beneficial effects: the removal of necrotic tissue and the removal of pathogenic bacteria. Maggot secretions could even have potential as a future drug candidate scaffold for other applications besides the topical treatment of infected wounds, the article says.
The bugs are likely to be in demand for some time as ageing populations and a rise in diseases such as diabetes have contributed to an increased incidence of chronic wounds.
An article published last year in the Australian journal Wound Practice and Research says MDT has proved effective for healing bed sores, venous stasis ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, non-healing traumatic and post surgical wounds and burns.
The main fly species used worldwide in MDT is the sheep blowfly, Lucilia sericata. In the past four years, the Medical Entomology Department at Westmead has supplied disinfected maggots for patients in many major hospitals across Australia. The article says MDT is predicted to increase in the future, and despite making some patients' skin crawl, it is valuable as a simple, quick and economical method to cleanse and heal stubborn wounds.
Co-author of the article and clinical nurse consultant at Royal Hobart Hospital, Anne Smith, has treated 80 patients with MDT. "I have had only one negative response. I think that's because the parts of the body we mainly use maggots on is lower limbs; that's not a personal part of the body, it is a little bit removed," she says.
Smith contacts the entomology division at Westmead to order maggots, which arrive by courier three to five days later. Smith says "the wound is dressed so there is no tickling or crawling sensation. Maggots can reach areas too delicate for a scalpel, around nerves and tendons and secrete enzymes that liquefy dead tissue".
Smith visits patients and relatives each day before the maggot application so they can ask questions and any anxieties can be resolved. "Patients have been quite excited by the day of maggot arrival," she says.
Russia votes to ban psychics
October 7, 2010
MOSCOW: Russian legislators backed a bill banning the country's faith healers, witches and assorted sorcerers from advertising their services in a potential blow to the booming business.
Faith healers and the like cause ''moral and physical harm to the people and economic harm to the country'', wrote legislators proposing the bill, which was passed in an initial reading.
Russians often turn to folk healers and fortune-tellers to solve problems and tabloid newspapers fill pages with ads for ''psychics'' who promise to return cheating husbands, cure alcoholism and bring business success.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Advertising of esoteric services in the mass media means that ''charlatans attract a lot of clients without giving any guarantees, and sometimes engage in fraud'', the bill's authors said.
The Duma needs to vote for a draft in three readings before it is signed by the president and becomes law.
Esoteric healers outnumber doctors in Russia, and the annual turnover of the business was close to $US2 billion ($2.07 billion), said the Duma deputy Tatyana Yakovleva, who sits on the parliamentary health committee.
''The number of healers has reached 800,000 people, while there are only 620,000 medical doctors,'' said Ms Yakovleva, calling claims by some to cure cancer and AIDS ''criminal''.
''It's ridiculous to treat toothache by dangling a rat's tail near your cheek,'' she said.
A survey carried out by Levada independent polling agency in August found that 20 per cent of Russians have visited alternative healers for their problems and only 10 per cent have ever seen a psychotherapist.
Televised psychic sessions were prevalent in Russia in the 1990s, with some of the more popular psychics standing for legislative offices.
One of Russia's national channels, TNT, runs a popular primetime show Battle of the Psychics where contestants use alleged psychic abilities to solve various puzzles.
The Orthodox Church welcomed the move and called for a campaign to warn the public on the dangers of using psychics. "Many destroyed lives are on their conscience," Vsevolod Chaplin, a church spokesman told the state news agency RIA-Novosti.
Agence France-Presse
MOSCOW: Russian legislators backed a bill banning the country's faith healers, witches and assorted sorcerers from advertising their services in a potential blow to the booming business.
Faith healers and the like cause ''moral and physical harm to the people and economic harm to the country'', wrote legislators proposing the bill, which was passed in an initial reading.
Russians often turn to folk healers and fortune-tellers to solve problems and tabloid newspapers fill pages with ads for ''psychics'' who promise to return cheating husbands, cure alcoholism and bring business success.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Advertising of esoteric services in the mass media means that ''charlatans attract a lot of clients without giving any guarantees, and sometimes engage in fraud'', the bill's authors said.
The Duma needs to vote for a draft in three readings before it is signed by the president and becomes law.
Esoteric healers outnumber doctors in Russia, and the annual turnover of the business was close to $US2 billion ($2.07 billion), said the Duma deputy Tatyana Yakovleva, who sits on the parliamentary health committee.
''The number of healers has reached 800,000 people, while there are only 620,000 medical doctors,'' said Ms Yakovleva, calling claims by some to cure cancer and AIDS ''criminal''.
''It's ridiculous to treat toothache by dangling a rat's tail near your cheek,'' she said.
A survey carried out by Levada independent polling agency in August found that 20 per cent of Russians have visited alternative healers for their problems and only 10 per cent have ever seen a psychotherapist.
Televised psychic sessions were prevalent in Russia in the 1990s, with some of the more popular psychics standing for legislative offices.
One of Russia's national channels, TNT, runs a popular primetime show Battle of the Psychics where contestants use alleged psychic abilities to solve various puzzles.
The Orthodox Church welcomed the move and called for a campaign to warn the public on the dangers of using psychics. "Many destroyed lives are on their conscience," Vsevolod Chaplin, a church spokesman told the state news agency RIA-Novosti.
Agence France-Presse
Rabbis deliver Korans to torched West Bank mosque
October 7, 2010
BEIT FAJJAR, West Bank: Two settler rabbis have delivered a box of Korans to a West Bank mosque that had been torched by vandals, in an unusual peace gesture welcomed by Palestinians.
The rabbis, Menachem Froman and Aharon Lichtenstein, who live in Jewish settlements near Bethlehem, paid a solidarity visit to the mosque in Beit Fajjar and donated a dozen copies of the Muslim holy book.
The visit on Tuesday came a day after people driving a car with Israeli licence plates drove into Beit Fajjar and sprayed Hebrew graffiti all over the mosque before setting it alight.
Solidarity ... Menachem Froman holds a Koran at the Beit Fajjar mosque.
Several hundred Palestinians cheered as the two rabbis arrived at the mosque in bulletproof Land Rovers accompanied by Israeli soldiers. They were met by the mosque's imam and the governor of Bethlehem, Abdul Fattah Hamayel, who gave them a tour of the damaged mosque.
''I am sorry and ashamed,'' Rabbi Lichtenstein told Palestinians in the damaged mosque. ''There are people who set fires and commit violence on both sides. We are looking for a way to be partners of those of us and you who believe in the possibility of peace, and want to reach peace.''
The attack came at a tense time, with peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians on hold after Israel resumed settlement construction in the West Bank.
Witnesses said six armed men in a white car drove into Beit Fajjar at 3am and spray-painted Hebrew-language insults on the walls of the mosque before setting it alight.
The Israeli military described the attack as a ''grave and serious incident''. The office of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had ordered the security forces to ''act firmly to quickly uncover the criminals and bring them to justice''.
Israel's Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said that ''whoever perpetrated this act is a terrorist in every sense of the word, whose sole intention is to hurt the chances of achieving peace and dialogue with the Palestinians''.
Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post
BEIT FAJJAR, West Bank: Two settler rabbis have delivered a box of Korans to a West Bank mosque that had been torched by vandals, in an unusual peace gesture welcomed by Palestinians.
The rabbis, Menachem Froman and Aharon Lichtenstein, who live in Jewish settlements near Bethlehem, paid a solidarity visit to the mosque in Beit Fajjar and donated a dozen copies of the Muslim holy book.
The visit on Tuesday came a day after people driving a car with Israeli licence plates drove into Beit Fajjar and sprayed Hebrew graffiti all over the mosque before setting it alight.
Solidarity ... Menachem Froman holds a Koran at the Beit Fajjar mosque.
Several hundred Palestinians cheered as the two rabbis arrived at the mosque in bulletproof Land Rovers accompanied by Israeli soldiers. They were met by the mosque's imam and the governor of Bethlehem, Abdul Fattah Hamayel, who gave them a tour of the damaged mosque.
''I am sorry and ashamed,'' Rabbi Lichtenstein told Palestinians in the damaged mosque. ''There are people who set fires and commit violence on both sides. We are looking for a way to be partners of those of us and you who believe in the possibility of peace, and want to reach peace.''
The attack came at a tense time, with peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians on hold after Israel resumed settlement construction in the West Bank.
Witnesses said six armed men in a white car drove into Beit Fajjar at 3am and spray-painted Hebrew-language insults on the walls of the mosque before setting it alight.
The Israeli military described the attack as a ''grave and serious incident''. The office of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had ordered the security forces to ''act firmly to quickly uncover the criminals and bring them to justice''.
Israel's Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said that ''whoever perpetrated this act is a terrorist in every sense of the word, whose sole intention is to hurt the chances of achieving peace and dialogue with the Palestinians''.
Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post
After nine years of war and the loss of thousands of lives - including 21 Australians - the Taliban finally talk peace
Karen DeYoung, Peter Finn and Craig Whitlock
October 7, 2010
Taliban representatives and the government of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, Afghan and Arab sources say.
The talks, which come as Afghanistan marks the ninth anniversary of the invasion by coalition forces, including Australia, follow inconclusive meetings, hosted by Saudi Arabia that ended more than a year ago.
While emphasising the preliminary nature of the discussions, the sources said that for the first time they believe that Taliban representatives are fully authorised to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organisation based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
''They are very, very serious about finding a way out,'' one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.
Although Omar's representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.
Australia has about 1550 soldiers in Afghanistan. Since the war started, 21 Australians have been killed, including five since the election was called.
The Taliban leadership knows ''they are going to be sidelined,'' one source said. ''They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control … All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.''
A half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the talks agreed to discuss them on the condition of anonymity. All emphasised the preliminary nature of the talks, even as they differed on how specific they have been. All expressed concern that any public description of the meetings would undercut them.
''If you talk about it while you're doing it, it's not going to work,'' said one European official whose country has troops in Afghanistan.
Several sources said the discussions with the Quetta Shura do not include representatives of the Haqqani group, a separate faction that US intelligence considers particularly brutal.
The Haqqani group is seen as more closely tied to the Pakistani intelligence service than the Quetta Shura, based in the south-western Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
But one Afghan source, reflecting tension between the two governments, said Pakistan's insistence on a central role in any negotiations has made talks difficult even with the Quetta group.
The Washington Post
October 7, 2010
Taliban representatives and the government of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, Afghan and Arab sources say.
The talks, which come as Afghanistan marks the ninth anniversary of the invasion by coalition forces, including Australia, follow inconclusive meetings, hosted by Saudi Arabia that ended more than a year ago.
While emphasising the preliminary nature of the discussions, the sources said that for the first time they believe that Taliban representatives are fully authorised to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organisation based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
''They are very, very serious about finding a way out,'' one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.
Although Omar's representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.
Australia has about 1550 soldiers in Afghanistan. Since the war started, 21 Australians have been killed, including five since the election was called.
The Taliban leadership knows ''they are going to be sidelined,'' one source said. ''They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control … All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.''
A half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the talks agreed to discuss them on the condition of anonymity. All emphasised the preliminary nature of the talks, even as they differed on how specific they have been. All expressed concern that any public description of the meetings would undercut them.
''If you talk about it while you're doing it, it's not going to work,'' said one European official whose country has troops in Afghanistan.
Several sources said the discussions with the Quetta Shura do not include representatives of the Haqqani group, a separate faction that US intelligence considers particularly brutal.
The Haqqani group is seen as more closely tied to the Pakistani intelligence service than the Quetta Shura, based in the south-western Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
But one Afghan source, reflecting tension between the two governments, said Pakistan's insistence on a central role in any negotiations has made talks difficult even with the Quetta group.
The Washington Post
Galaxies found in our own backyard
Deborah Smith SCIENCE EDITOR
October 7, 2010 - 6:27AM
THEY are the Wollemi pines of the universe: galaxies that astronomers thought only existed about 10 billion years ago, when the cosmos was young, but which have been found to still exist in our own backyard.
Andy Green, a research student, discovered the extremely rare galaxies in the nearby universe using two telescopes in NSW.
The galaxies are disc shaped, like our Milky Way, but are very turbulent, with many new stars still forming in them.
Mr Green, of Swinburne University, said that understanding how stars are born is one of the most basic, unsolved problems in astronomy.
The nearby turbulent galaxies he found are like living fossils, and it will be much easier to study star formation in them than in the distant, ancient galaxies.
"The Wollemi pine is a fantastic analogy," he said, referring to the trees that were known only from fossils until a small number were discovered growing in the Blue Mountains in 1994.
A research paper by Mr Green and his colleagues, including his PhD supervisor, Karl Glazenbrook – the first Mr Green has published – features on the cover of the journal Nature.
Previously, astronomers observing galaxies in the early universe had found that about two-thirds of them were massive rotating discs in which the gas was moving in a much faster and more tumultuous manner than in most galaxies today.
Up to 100 stars equivalent to our sun were forming each year in these galaxies.
It had been thought this extremely rapid star formation was fuelled by cold streams of primordial gas – which was abundant in the young cosmos – continually falling into the hot gas in the galaxies.
But the new research challenges this thinking, because there are not large amounts of gas available today.
Mr Green used two telescopes at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran to observe nearby star-forming galaxies, of which 11 were found to be as turbulent as the ancient ones.
The research on these rare galaxies suggests that when stars are born the energy released creates turmoil in the gas around them. "Turbulence affects how fast stars form, so we're seeing stars regulating their own formation," he said. "We still don't know where the gas to make these stars comes from, though."
October 7, 2010 - 6:27AM
THEY are the Wollemi pines of the universe: galaxies that astronomers thought only existed about 10 billion years ago, when the cosmos was young, but which have been found to still exist in our own backyard.
Andy Green, a research student, discovered the extremely rare galaxies in the nearby universe using two telescopes in NSW.
The galaxies are disc shaped, like our Milky Way, but are very turbulent, with many new stars still forming in them.
Mr Green, of Swinburne University, said that understanding how stars are born is one of the most basic, unsolved problems in astronomy.
The nearby turbulent galaxies he found are like living fossils, and it will be much easier to study star formation in them than in the distant, ancient galaxies.
"The Wollemi pine is a fantastic analogy," he said, referring to the trees that were known only from fossils until a small number were discovered growing in the Blue Mountains in 1994.
A research paper by Mr Green and his colleagues, including his PhD supervisor, Karl Glazenbrook – the first Mr Green has published – features on the cover of the journal Nature.
Previously, astronomers observing galaxies in the early universe had found that about two-thirds of them were massive rotating discs in which the gas was moving in a much faster and more tumultuous manner than in most galaxies today.
Up to 100 stars equivalent to our sun were forming each year in these galaxies.
It had been thought this extremely rapid star formation was fuelled by cold streams of primordial gas – which was abundant in the young cosmos – continually falling into the hot gas in the galaxies.
But the new research challenges this thinking, because there are not large amounts of gas available today.
Mr Green used two telescopes at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran to observe nearby star-forming galaxies, of which 11 were found to be as turbulent as the ancient ones.
The research on these rare galaxies suggests that when stars are born the energy released creates turmoil in the gas around them. "Turbulence affects how fast stars form, so we're seeing stars regulating their own formation," he said. "We still don't know where the gas to make these stars comes from, though."
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
How to survive a 530-metre wall of water
Paul Tatnell
October 6, 2010 - 3:21PM
So you are the captain of a boat and you are faced with a 530-metre wall of water, the size of the World Trade Centre, and you only have seconds to act - what do you do?
Well, according to a new book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, it is best to charge straight at it, hoping you make it over.
Or if you are one of a few crazy surfers who travel the world seeking the ultimate wave, you could always strap in and hope for the best.
The new book uncovers the phenomenon of "rogue waves", which can peak at well over 30 metres, and are said to sink large ships, smash oil rigs and, like shown in a recent video, cause havoc to luxury cruisers.
Then there are the rogue waves of legend, such as one in Alaska in 1958, which some believe reached 530 metres.
The book's author Susan Casey writes that giant rogue waves have been, until recently, debated because scientists did not believe they existed.
And much of that disbelief came because there were very few people who had seen one.
As Ms Casey told online magazine Salon "people who encountered 100-foot [30.5-metre] rogue waves generally weren't coming back to tell people about it" while anyone who spoke of survival "were thought to be exaggerating".
But improvements in technology, better weather radars and accurate laser measuring devices have allowed scientists to understand freak waves and measure them properly.
"In 1995, there was a well-recorded incident on this oil platform in the North Sea. On a day when there were 38-foot seas, an 85-foot wave popped up and battered the platform. It was measured by laser. That's when the scientists really turned to one another and said: 'What's going on out here?' she told Salon.
"By the laws of basic ocean physics and oceanography, that shouldn't happen."
Australian wave expert Tom Shand, who works at the University of NSW Water Research Laboratory, said rogue waves were almost impossible to predict.
Dr Shand said that rogue waves occurred "because you basically get a group of very steep waves travelling together ... and as they move along as a group they pass energy into a wave in the middle of the group and that leads to a very high and steep wave".
"A rogue wave is dangerous in the fact that it is so much bigger than other surrounding waves and not predicted by normal forecasts and so [it] can catch people and boats off-guard," he said.
"It's worth drawing the distinction between extreme waves and rogue waves. Rogue waves, as described above are waves more than twice as big as 'expected'.
"Extreme waves are consistently large waves caused by very large, rare events such as the recent storm south of Tasmania. Really large waves will occur when a rogue wave occurs during an extreme event ... The probability of this occurring at the same location as an observer - a boat, oil rig or wave buoy is low, but possible."
Dr Shand said the largest wave "officially" recorded was in 1933.
"I think the largest 'official' wave remains measured by the USS Ramapo in 1933 in the North Pacific - 112 feet measured by triangulation from the ship's bridge. They measured a 25.6-metre wave on the Draupner oil platform off Norway in 1995 and a 27.7-metre wave in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Ivan in 2004," he said.
"There are many reported incidents where ships are damaged or capsized but quantifying the exact wave height is difficult."
But in her book, Ms Casey details epic tales of waves that have gone down in legend, which she claims includes the 530-metre monster in 1958, the size of the World Trade Centre.
"That was the largest wave ever recorded. It took place in Lituya Bay, a finger bay in Alaska," she told Salon.
"In this case, there was a big eruption on the nearby Fairweather Fault, which thrust parts of Alaska 47 feet in the air. Tonnes and tonnes of rock and ice went plunging down steep hillsides into this bay - it was like dropping a paving stone from a ladder in a bathtub.
"So here comes this 1740-foot splash wave. Scientists were able to determine exactly how big the wave was, because the forest and mountainsides were absolutely shaved.
"Three boats were anchored there at the time. Two of the boats had the presence of mind to go straight at it, which is really counter-intuitive but is the only way you survive. You have to get over the back of the wave before it crests. If you get caught in the lip, you're just going to be dead. That's what happened to the third boat."
Ms Casey said cruise ship operators were also becoming worried about waves getting bigger.
"Lloyd's of London is actually quite concerned about cruise ships. One of the guys said to me: 'This is a high concentration of risk. You've got 5000 people on boats that are getting bigger and bigger and they're going into gnarlier and gnarlier places.'
"They're all over Antarctica now, for example. Recently, one of the hardier cruise ships got hit by a 100-foot rogue wave and all of its navigation equipment got knocked out and windows got broken.
"During another recent cruise in Antarctica, all the people ended up in the water, which isn't a good situation. By the grace of god, there was another boat nearby."
Ms Casey also spent time with legendary big wave surfer Laird Hamilton, which included getting up close to 30-metre waves.
She believes that rogue waves will become more common as sea levels rise and temperatures increase.
"It's one of our most powerful forces of nature and it's basically unknown to us. That's a pretty precarious situation, especially if you consider that 60 per cent of the global population lives within 30 miles [48 kilometres] of the coastline," she told Salon.
"When the tsunami hit in 2004, people were asking, 'What's a tsunami? What do you mean a wave came ashore?'
"People acted like it had never happened before, but they actually happen pretty regularly."
Dr Shand said researchers were now looking at whether waves were getting bigger around Australian coast lines.
"While buoy records aren't showing a significant change one way or the other, a number of studies are suggesting more large Southern Ocean events like the one we had recently," he said.
October 6, 2010 - 3:21PM
So you are the captain of a boat and you are faced with a 530-metre wall of water, the size of the World Trade Centre, and you only have seconds to act - what do you do?
Well, according to a new book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, it is best to charge straight at it, hoping you make it over.
Or if you are one of a few crazy surfers who travel the world seeking the ultimate wave, you could always strap in and hope for the best.
The new book uncovers the phenomenon of "rogue waves", which can peak at well over 30 metres, and are said to sink large ships, smash oil rigs and, like shown in a recent video, cause havoc to luxury cruisers.
Then there are the rogue waves of legend, such as one in Alaska in 1958, which some believe reached 530 metres.
The book's author Susan Casey writes that giant rogue waves have been, until recently, debated because scientists did not believe they existed.
And much of that disbelief came because there were very few people who had seen one.
As Ms Casey told online magazine Salon "people who encountered 100-foot [30.5-metre] rogue waves generally weren't coming back to tell people about it" while anyone who spoke of survival "were thought to be exaggerating".
But improvements in technology, better weather radars and accurate laser measuring devices have allowed scientists to understand freak waves and measure them properly.
"In 1995, there was a well-recorded incident on this oil platform in the North Sea. On a day when there were 38-foot seas, an 85-foot wave popped up and battered the platform. It was measured by laser. That's when the scientists really turned to one another and said: 'What's going on out here?' she told Salon.
"By the laws of basic ocean physics and oceanography, that shouldn't happen."
Australian wave expert Tom Shand, who works at the University of NSW Water Research Laboratory, said rogue waves were almost impossible to predict.
Dr Shand said that rogue waves occurred "because you basically get a group of very steep waves travelling together ... and as they move along as a group they pass energy into a wave in the middle of the group and that leads to a very high and steep wave".
"A rogue wave is dangerous in the fact that it is so much bigger than other surrounding waves and not predicted by normal forecasts and so [it] can catch people and boats off-guard," he said.
"It's worth drawing the distinction between extreme waves and rogue waves. Rogue waves, as described above are waves more than twice as big as 'expected'.
"Extreme waves are consistently large waves caused by very large, rare events such as the recent storm south of Tasmania. Really large waves will occur when a rogue wave occurs during an extreme event ... The probability of this occurring at the same location as an observer - a boat, oil rig or wave buoy is low, but possible."
Dr Shand said the largest wave "officially" recorded was in 1933.
"I think the largest 'official' wave remains measured by the USS Ramapo in 1933 in the North Pacific - 112 feet measured by triangulation from the ship's bridge. They measured a 25.6-metre wave on the Draupner oil platform off Norway in 1995 and a 27.7-metre wave in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Ivan in 2004," he said.
"There are many reported incidents where ships are damaged or capsized but quantifying the exact wave height is difficult."
But in her book, Ms Casey details epic tales of waves that have gone down in legend, which she claims includes the 530-metre monster in 1958, the size of the World Trade Centre.
"That was the largest wave ever recorded. It took place in Lituya Bay, a finger bay in Alaska," she told Salon.
"In this case, there was a big eruption on the nearby Fairweather Fault, which thrust parts of Alaska 47 feet in the air. Tonnes and tonnes of rock and ice went plunging down steep hillsides into this bay - it was like dropping a paving stone from a ladder in a bathtub.
"So here comes this 1740-foot splash wave. Scientists were able to determine exactly how big the wave was, because the forest and mountainsides were absolutely shaved.
"Three boats were anchored there at the time. Two of the boats had the presence of mind to go straight at it, which is really counter-intuitive but is the only way you survive. You have to get over the back of the wave before it crests. If you get caught in the lip, you're just going to be dead. That's what happened to the third boat."
Ms Casey said cruise ship operators were also becoming worried about waves getting bigger.
"Lloyd's of London is actually quite concerned about cruise ships. One of the guys said to me: 'This is a high concentration of risk. You've got 5000 people on boats that are getting bigger and bigger and they're going into gnarlier and gnarlier places.'
"They're all over Antarctica now, for example. Recently, one of the hardier cruise ships got hit by a 100-foot rogue wave and all of its navigation equipment got knocked out and windows got broken.
"During another recent cruise in Antarctica, all the people ended up in the water, which isn't a good situation. By the grace of god, there was another boat nearby."
Ms Casey also spent time with legendary big wave surfer Laird Hamilton, which included getting up close to 30-metre waves.
She believes that rogue waves will become more common as sea levels rise and temperatures increase.
"It's one of our most powerful forces of nature and it's basically unknown to us. That's a pretty precarious situation, especially if you consider that 60 per cent of the global population lives within 30 miles [48 kilometres] of the coastline," she told Salon.
"When the tsunami hit in 2004, people were asking, 'What's a tsunami? What do you mean a wave came ashore?'
"People acted like it had never happened before, but they actually happen pretty regularly."
Dr Shand said researchers were now looking at whether waves were getting bigger around Australian coast lines.
"While buoy records aren't showing a significant change one way or the other, a number of studies are suggesting more large Southern Ocean events like the one we had recently," he said.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Hotel's 'death ray' burns Las Vegas sunbathers
October 4, 2010 - 12:40PM
MGM Resorts International is taking the heat for an intense beam of searing desert sunlight, jokingly dubbed the "death ray", that some hotel guests say poses a risk of severe burns to bathers lounging poolside.
The beam is actually a concentrated reflection of solar rays bouncing off the gleaming glass facade of the concave-shaped, high-rise Vdara hotel and condominium, which opened on the Las Vegas "strip" in December.
Local media, as well as some hotel staff and guests, have come to refer to the reflection as the "death ray", but MGM Resorts officials prefer to call it a "solar convergence phenomenon".
The Aria Hotel-Casino is at the heart of CityCenter, a 67-acre complex of hotels, condominiums and retail on the Las Vegas Strip and the most expensive private construction project in US history.
"The refraction moves across the pool deck over a period of 90 minutes," company spokesman Gordon Absher said. "It's never in the same place from day to day or week to week because the sun is changing its elevation in the sky."
MGM Resorts, which owns the property, has sought to correct the problem by installing a high-tech solar film over each of the 3000 glass panes covering the south facade of the Vdara to scatter the rays.
But the concentrated sunlight remains hot enough at certain times, in certain spots, to melt plastic and singe hair, said William Pintas, 49, a Chicago lawyer and Vdara condo owner who first encountered the effect after a dip in the pool.
When his head started burning, he thought it was from chemicals in the pool.
"So I just lay down in the chair, and that's when my back and the back of my legs started burning, and I ran under a nearby umbrella. And I'm under the umbrella and there is no shading from the light or heat," he recounted. "It was the strangest thing."
Pintas said he could even smell his hair starting to burn.
Astonished and angry, he alerted hotel staff, then called the local newspaper to draw attention to the problem.
Absher said MGM Resorts was "now looking into further mitigation procedures", including more umbrellas, additional foliage or shade structures.
He said not everyone had complained. On cooler days, he said, he had seen sunbathers deliberately lay their blankets on the convergence spot for additional warmth.
But Pintas said he worried that, sooner or later, someone would be seriously burned if they fell asleep in the path of the ray, even if under an umbrella, because, as he found, the concentrated light could penetrate the shade.
"In Vegas, people are out drinking the night before, so it's not hard to imagine people being unconscious there under an umbrella," he said.
Reuters
MGM Resorts International is taking the heat for an intense beam of searing desert sunlight, jokingly dubbed the "death ray", that some hotel guests say poses a risk of severe burns to bathers lounging poolside.
The beam is actually a concentrated reflection of solar rays bouncing off the gleaming glass facade of the concave-shaped, high-rise Vdara hotel and condominium, which opened on the Las Vegas "strip" in December.
Local media, as well as some hotel staff and guests, have come to refer to the reflection as the "death ray", but MGM Resorts officials prefer to call it a "solar convergence phenomenon".
The Aria Hotel-Casino is at the heart of CityCenter, a 67-acre complex of hotels, condominiums and retail on the Las Vegas Strip and the most expensive private construction project in US history.
"The refraction moves across the pool deck over a period of 90 minutes," company spokesman Gordon Absher said. "It's never in the same place from day to day or week to week because the sun is changing its elevation in the sky."
MGM Resorts, which owns the property, has sought to correct the problem by installing a high-tech solar film over each of the 3000 glass panes covering the south facade of the Vdara to scatter the rays.
But the concentrated sunlight remains hot enough at certain times, in certain spots, to melt plastic and singe hair, said William Pintas, 49, a Chicago lawyer and Vdara condo owner who first encountered the effect after a dip in the pool.
When his head started burning, he thought it was from chemicals in the pool.
"So I just lay down in the chair, and that's when my back and the back of my legs started burning, and I ran under a nearby umbrella. And I'm under the umbrella and there is no shading from the light or heat," he recounted. "It was the strangest thing."
Pintas said he could even smell his hair starting to burn.
Astonished and angry, he alerted hotel staff, then called the local newspaper to draw attention to the problem.
Absher said MGM Resorts was "now looking into further mitigation procedures", including more umbrellas, additional foliage or shade structures.
He said not everyone had complained. On cooler days, he said, he had seen sunbathers deliberately lay their blankets on the convergence spot for additional warmth.
But Pintas said he worried that, sooner or later, someone would be seriously burned if they fell asleep in the path of the ray, even if under an umbrella, because, as he found, the concentrated light could penetrate the shade.
"In Vegas, people are out drinking the night before, so it's not hard to imagine people being unconscious there under an umbrella," he said.
Reuters
Our cheatin' hearts
October 2, 2010
Cheating is public image enemy no 1. But why are we so obsessed with adultery, asks Judith Ireland.
Barely a week goes by without some celebrity, politician or sports star being tarred with the infidelity brush. Whether they are family men, leading ladies or sporting legends, there is a media storm so morally indignant that nothing is left in its wake except tattered reputations and a pile of screaming headlines.
Tiger Woods may have had the biggest bang but there's no shortage of sinners lining up behind him, from TV mechanic Jesse James and England footballer Wayne Rooney to Labor politician John Della Bosca and US Senator John Edwards. Yet while public figures can survive drug busts (Kate Moss), weird sex tapes (Paris Hilton), punch-ups (Russell Crowe) and blood diamonds (Naomi Campbell), woe betide anyone who is caught wandering into infidelity town. Cheating is public image enemy No. 1.
According to psychologist and writer Dr Kylie Ladd, infidelity is a "hot-button issue". "We love it, we can't read enough of it and yet there is such condemnation of it," she says. Cooking author Julie Powell discovered this first-hand with the release of her latest book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, which explores her affair with an old college flame. "What I was not prepared for was the depth of the anger … commenters on my blog called me a 'soiled, narcissistic whore' and accused me of defiling the institution of marriage,'' she wrote in The Guardian.
We certainly place a high premium on faithfulness. In the 2005 Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships, some three-quarters of the 19,000 people surveyed viewed affairs in committed relationships as "wrong". A 2007 Gallup poll found Americans are more accepting of polygamy, suicide and the death penalty than adultery. Monogamy, we are told, is not only morally right - it's the way nature built us. As Sydney University sexologist Dr Patricia Weerakoon and her son, Presbyterian minister Kamal Weerakoon, told a recent Melbourne conference on religion: "Our bodies are wired to operate best with one sexual partner for life."
But if we are honest with ourselves, do such strong stances against infidelity belie a less monogamous reality? Doth the lady protest too much? And should she even be protesting in the first place?
It's not as though Tiger is the only one doing it. Statistics on the rate of infidelity are notoriously varied, but research indicates it is far from a fringe activity. The 2009 Great Australian Sex Census, based on some 9000 responses, found 47 per cent of male and 44 per cent of female respondents had been unfaithful in some form. The National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago suggests that between 15 and 18 per cent of marriages experience infidelity but other polls put the figure as high as 70 per cent.
You only have to look at the rise of dating sites for married people to see how popular infidelity is. Earlier this year, website Ashley Madison launched in Australia with the slogan: "Life is short, have an affair." With more than 6.5 million users worldwide, as of August there were more than 312,000 Australian members, of which about 40 per cent were women. "I am not sure there is any topic as conflicted as this one," says founder and chief executive officer Noel Biderman.
The hypocrisy pot has been stirred anew by research suggesting life-long monogamy is not the status quo for human beings. In Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, psychologist Christopher Ryan and psychiatrist Cacilda Jetha (who are married to each other) argue we aren't as far removed from those randy apes as we like to think. For 2 million years, casual sexuality was the norm for our ancestors, who also shared food, shelter and protection. The advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago meant sexuality became associated with property, turning our natural sexual inclinations on their head.
According to Ryan and Jetha, "deep conflicts rage at the heart of modern sexuality". Using evidence from archaeology, anthropology and biology, they argue that sex has been thoroughly mixed up with concepts of love and marriage, resulting in sky-high divorce rates, passionless unions and an overreliance on porn, relationship counselling and Viagra to prop up the whole thing. Ryan notes that since the book was released in July, he has received 15 to 20 emails a day from relieved individuals who always thought there was "something wrong" with them because their eyes (or hands) wandered elsewhere.
It's certainly a sociologically interesting time to be committed. In one sense, the concept of one all-consuming, committed love runs right through our cultural consciousness. "We assume we're going to live happily ever after," says Kate Figes, author of Couples: The Truth. "We look at [marriage] to make everything OK." In another sense, there's never been more incentive or opportunity to stray. For the first time in history, human beings are easily living into their 80s and beyond. A marriage today, kicking off at the average age of 28 or 30, should technically last about 50 years - a long time to maintain happily ever after. At the same time, Western culture is hell-bent on encouraging everyone's individual destinies and happiness. We spend huge swathes of our lives at work, away from loved ones, while technology connects us to different ideas, worlds and people in clicks.
After spending a year as a mistress-for-hire and experiencing infidelity in her own life, Holly Hill, the author of Sugarbabe, thinks we need to rewrite the monogamy rule-book. Arguing that men in particular "need to get their rocks off", Hill suggests it would be healthier to be upfront about it and negotiate infidelity with our partners. "It's better to walk the dog on a leash than let it escape through an unseen hole in the back fence," she says.
While recently promoting the US edition of Sugarbabe, Hill managed to incense both sides of the political fence by arguing we can't take infidelity so personally. While advocating that couples start having a "conversation" about their sexual and emotional needs, she has been successfully practising what she preaches for two years. Both Hill and her partner can sleep with other people, provided he doesn't spoon his lovers and she doesn't wear the outfits he buys her in front of other men.
Despite the fact that there's nothing particularly new about infidelity (as Helen of Troy and King David can attest), our discussions about it tend to proceed along narrow lines. As in the cases of Woods or James, the offending parties are seen as some sort of romantic Antichrist and the whole affair is viewed as an unmitigated disaster. However, there is a growing body of writing and research dedicated to examining what an ambivalent world infidelity can be.
Motivated by an interest in why people make the choices they do and how they live with them, Dr Kylie Ladd has explored infidelity in the essay collection Naked: Confessions of Infidelity and Adultery and the novel After the Fall, about two couples dealing with the aftermath of an affair. Imagining Naked would be a fairly salacious book, Ladd and co-editor Leigh Langtree were surprised that many of the 500-plus stories they received weren't predominantly about sex; tales really revolved around themes of self-esteem, happiness and boredom, "about who they were as a person and what they needed".
While Naked was a sadder book than Ladd expected, there were also many positive stories. One man told of reconnecting with his creative spark through an online affair; another woman discovered new aspects of her personality; another acknowledged that her and her husband's affairs saved their marriage.
Great literary representations of infidelity, such as Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and The English Patient, might like to resolve things in a dramatic tragic act, but Ladd says, "I do believe there is a lot [of infidelity] going on and it's not all ending in planes and trains crashing and poisoning.''
Similar nuances are also explored by Figes in Couples, based on 120 interviews with couples of varying ages, stages and persuasions. Figes notes that even though some relationships don't survive the blast of an affair, others emerge out the other side, with "a deeper intimacy". She suggests our "sanctimonious" stance on fidelity belies an insecurity about our relationships. With people today able to have sex, kids and a material life without marriage, "all the old reasons for [it] don't exist any more". With nothing else left, fidelity is held up as the prime symbol of marriage, to try to assure its survival in a world of raunchy temptation and easy divorce.
But maybe we should relax a little. With writers such as Lori Gottlieb arguing in Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough that we need to lower our partner-selection standards, Figes wonders if we should lower our expectations once we're actually in the relationship. Perhaps the idea that we get all our physical, emotional and intellectual needs from one person all the time is setting ourselves up to fall. Ryan similarly questions the modern-day romance narrative. After living on and off in Europe for 20 years, his American homeland seems incredibly "adolescent". The French might have affairs without too much ado but America's Hollywood-ish idealism about coupling makes it impossible for people to think outside the square of monogamy.
So every time we fly into paroxysms of outrage over high-profile infidelity, we are backing ourselves further into a corner. For many of us, promoting full-time fidelity is also the sexual equivalent of the brassiere calling the knickers lacy.
Apart from good, old-fashioned guilt, Ladd wonders if tall-poppy syndrome is at play in our condemnation. "Do we love it that Sandra Bullock got brought back to earth [by her cheating husband]? Does it reassure us that our lives aren't so bad?" For Figes, the public reaction serves to reassure us we're on the right track.
"It's a way of shoring up the social norms," she says. "This outrage helps people believe what they're trying to do is right."
Contemporary reactions to infidelity suggest we are extremely uneasy about the gold standards we are attempting to live up to in our romantic and sexual lives. We want the monogamous fairytale, but remain fascinated with the concept of our own individual destinies, wherever that might lead. All the while, biology lurks somewhere just below the surface, waiting to turn it all upside down.
Cheating is public image enemy no 1. But why are we so obsessed with adultery, asks Judith Ireland.
Barely a week goes by without some celebrity, politician or sports star being tarred with the infidelity brush. Whether they are family men, leading ladies or sporting legends, there is a media storm so morally indignant that nothing is left in its wake except tattered reputations and a pile of screaming headlines.
Tiger Woods may have had the biggest bang but there's no shortage of sinners lining up behind him, from TV mechanic Jesse James and England footballer Wayne Rooney to Labor politician John Della Bosca and US Senator John Edwards. Yet while public figures can survive drug busts (Kate Moss), weird sex tapes (Paris Hilton), punch-ups (Russell Crowe) and blood diamonds (Naomi Campbell), woe betide anyone who is caught wandering into infidelity town. Cheating is public image enemy No. 1.
According to psychologist and writer Dr Kylie Ladd, infidelity is a "hot-button issue". "We love it, we can't read enough of it and yet there is such condemnation of it," she says. Cooking author Julie Powell discovered this first-hand with the release of her latest book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, which explores her affair with an old college flame. "What I was not prepared for was the depth of the anger … commenters on my blog called me a 'soiled, narcissistic whore' and accused me of defiling the institution of marriage,'' she wrote in The Guardian.
We certainly place a high premium on faithfulness. In the 2005 Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships, some three-quarters of the 19,000 people surveyed viewed affairs in committed relationships as "wrong". A 2007 Gallup poll found Americans are more accepting of polygamy, suicide and the death penalty than adultery. Monogamy, we are told, is not only morally right - it's the way nature built us. As Sydney University sexologist Dr Patricia Weerakoon and her son, Presbyterian minister Kamal Weerakoon, told a recent Melbourne conference on religion: "Our bodies are wired to operate best with one sexual partner for life."
But if we are honest with ourselves, do such strong stances against infidelity belie a less monogamous reality? Doth the lady protest too much? And should she even be protesting in the first place?
It's not as though Tiger is the only one doing it. Statistics on the rate of infidelity are notoriously varied, but research indicates it is far from a fringe activity. The 2009 Great Australian Sex Census, based on some 9000 responses, found 47 per cent of male and 44 per cent of female respondents had been unfaithful in some form. The National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago suggests that between 15 and 18 per cent of marriages experience infidelity but other polls put the figure as high as 70 per cent.
You only have to look at the rise of dating sites for married people to see how popular infidelity is. Earlier this year, website Ashley Madison launched in Australia with the slogan: "Life is short, have an affair." With more than 6.5 million users worldwide, as of August there were more than 312,000 Australian members, of which about 40 per cent were women. "I am not sure there is any topic as conflicted as this one," says founder and chief executive officer Noel Biderman.
The hypocrisy pot has been stirred anew by research suggesting life-long monogamy is not the status quo for human beings. In Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, psychologist Christopher Ryan and psychiatrist Cacilda Jetha (who are married to each other) argue we aren't as far removed from those randy apes as we like to think. For 2 million years, casual sexuality was the norm for our ancestors, who also shared food, shelter and protection. The advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago meant sexuality became associated with property, turning our natural sexual inclinations on their head.
According to Ryan and Jetha, "deep conflicts rage at the heart of modern sexuality". Using evidence from archaeology, anthropology and biology, they argue that sex has been thoroughly mixed up with concepts of love and marriage, resulting in sky-high divorce rates, passionless unions and an overreliance on porn, relationship counselling and Viagra to prop up the whole thing. Ryan notes that since the book was released in July, he has received 15 to 20 emails a day from relieved individuals who always thought there was "something wrong" with them because their eyes (or hands) wandered elsewhere.
It's certainly a sociologically interesting time to be committed. In one sense, the concept of one all-consuming, committed love runs right through our cultural consciousness. "We assume we're going to live happily ever after," says Kate Figes, author of Couples: The Truth. "We look at [marriage] to make everything OK." In another sense, there's never been more incentive or opportunity to stray. For the first time in history, human beings are easily living into their 80s and beyond. A marriage today, kicking off at the average age of 28 or 30, should technically last about 50 years - a long time to maintain happily ever after. At the same time, Western culture is hell-bent on encouraging everyone's individual destinies and happiness. We spend huge swathes of our lives at work, away from loved ones, while technology connects us to different ideas, worlds and people in clicks.
After spending a year as a mistress-for-hire and experiencing infidelity in her own life, Holly Hill, the author of Sugarbabe, thinks we need to rewrite the monogamy rule-book. Arguing that men in particular "need to get their rocks off", Hill suggests it would be healthier to be upfront about it and negotiate infidelity with our partners. "It's better to walk the dog on a leash than let it escape through an unseen hole in the back fence," she says.
While recently promoting the US edition of Sugarbabe, Hill managed to incense both sides of the political fence by arguing we can't take infidelity so personally. While advocating that couples start having a "conversation" about their sexual and emotional needs, she has been successfully practising what she preaches for two years. Both Hill and her partner can sleep with other people, provided he doesn't spoon his lovers and she doesn't wear the outfits he buys her in front of other men.
Despite the fact that there's nothing particularly new about infidelity (as Helen of Troy and King David can attest), our discussions about it tend to proceed along narrow lines. As in the cases of Woods or James, the offending parties are seen as some sort of romantic Antichrist and the whole affair is viewed as an unmitigated disaster. However, there is a growing body of writing and research dedicated to examining what an ambivalent world infidelity can be.
Motivated by an interest in why people make the choices they do and how they live with them, Dr Kylie Ladd has explored infidelity in the essay collection Naked: Confessions of Infidelity and Adultery and the novel After the Fall, about two couples dealing with the aftermath of an affair. Imagining Naked would be a fairly salacious book, Ladd and co-editor Leigh Langtree were surprised that many of the 500-plus stories they received weren't predominantly about sex; tales really revolved around themes of self-esteem, happiness and boredom, "about who they were as a person and what they needed".
While Naked was a sadder book than Ladd expected, there were also many positive stories. One man told of reconnecting with his creative spark through an online affair; another woman discovered new aspects of her personality; another acknowledged that her and her husband's affairs saved their marriage.
Great literary representations of infidelity, such as Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and The English Patient, might like to resolve things in a dramatic tragic act, but Ladd says, "I do believe there is a lot [of infidelity] going on and it's not all ending in planes and trains crashing and poisoning.''
Similar nuances are also explored by Figes in Couples, based on 120 interviews with couples of varying ages, stages and persuasions. Figes notes that even though some relationships don't survive the blast of an affair, others emerge out the other side, with "a deeper intimacy". She suggests our "sanctimonious" stance on fidelity belies an insecurity about our relationships. With people today able to have sex, kids and a material life without marriage, "all the old reasons for [it] don't exist any more". With nothing else left, fidelity is held up as the prime symbol of marriage, to try to assure its survival in a world of raunchy temptation and easy divorce.
But maybe we should relax a little. With writers such as Lori Gottlieb arguing in Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough that we need to lower our partner-selection standards, Figes wonders if we should lower our expectations once we're actually in the relationship. Perhaps the idea that we get all our physical, emotional and intellectual needs from one person all the time is setting ourselves up to fall. Ryan similarly questions the modern-day romance narrative. After living on and off in Europe for 20 years, his American homeland seems incredibly "adolescent". The French might have affairs without too much ado but America's Hollywood-ish idealism about coupling makes it impossible for people to think outside the square of monogamy.
So every time we fly into paroxysms of outrage over high-profile infidelity, we are backing ourselves further into a corner. For many of us, promoting full-time fidelity is also the sexual equivalent of the brassiere calling the knickers lacy.
Apart from good, old-fashioned guilt, Ladd wonders if tall-poppy syndrome is at play in our condemnation. "Do we love it that Sandra Bullock got brought back to earth [by her cheating husband]? Does it reassure us that our lives aren't so bad?" For Figes, the public reaction serves to reassure us we're on the right track.
"It's a way of shoring up the social norms," she says. "This outrage helps people believe what they're trying to do is right."
Contemporary reactions to infidelity suggest we are extremely uneasy about the gold standards we are attempting to live up to in our romantic and sexual lives. We want the monogamous fairytale, but remain fascinated with the concept of our own individual destinies, wherever that might lead. All the while, biology lurks somewhere just below the surface, waiting to turn it all upside down.
Key to being happy may not be in genes but in your choices
Amy Corderoy
October 5, 2010 - 9:33AM
The sad sacks and Eeyores of the world are not doomed to gloom forever, according to new research that shows happiness is not dictated by genes.
Instead it found your choice of partner and life goals drastically affect your satisfaction with life – overturning the popular theory that happiness is largely decided by personality traits moulded early in life and genetic factors.
Up until now much research had seemed to show even extreme events such as becoming disabled or winning the lottery had little effect on people's happiness, and studies of twins strongly linked happiness to genetics.
But in reality, over the course of their life about 40 per cent of people experienced large changes in their levels of happiness, said the study leader, Bruce Headey, an associate professor at the Melbourne Institute at Melbourne University.
The study, the first to track happiness over a long period, followed 60,000 Germans for up to 25 years.
Over the long-term, happiness was variable, and depended on the life goals and choices of the individual.
People who prioritised their relationship with their partner and children were happier than those interested in career or material success, as were those with altruistic goals such as helping people or being involved in social or political activities.
Working shorter hours did not necessarily lead to happiness, but working a lot more or less than they wanted made people very unhappy.
“It appears that prioritising success and material goals is actually harmful to life satisfaction,” Professor Headey wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Partner choice played a big role. Women were less happy if their partner did not prioritise family goals than if they had no partner, and people with a neurotic partner were far less happy over time. They never got used to their partner's negative emotions, either – even after 20 years of marriage there was no decline in the effects on their happiness.
Doing exercise and being a healthy weight were beneficial, and obesity was strongly linked to unhappiness, particularly for women.
Professor Headey did not know why many people continued to prioritise goals which did not seem to make them happy. "I think people don't often sit down and think about what really makes them happy, and then try to do more of that.”
RECIPE FOR CONTENTMENT
Have a happy partner
Don't be overworked or underworked
Prioritise family and community, and have a partner who does so as well
Don't be materialistic
Don't be obese
October 5, 2010 - 9:33AM
The sad sacks and Eeyores of the world are not doomed to gloom forever, according to new research that shows happiness is not dictated by genes.
Instead it found your choice of partner and life goals drastically affect your satisfaction with life – overturning the popular theory that happiness is largely decided by personality traits moulded early in life and genetic factors.
Up until now much research had seemed to show even extreme events such as becoming disabled or winning the lottery had little effect on people's happiness, and studies of twins strongly linked happiness to genetics.
But in reality, over the course of their life about 40 per cent of people experienced large changes in their levels of happiness, said the study leader, Bruce Headey, an associate professor at the Melbourne Institute at Melbourne University.
The study, the first to track happiness over a long period, followed 60,000 Germans for up to 25 years.
Over the long-term, happiness was variable, and depended on the life goals and choices of the individual.
People who prioritised their relationship with their partner and children were happier than those interested in career or material success, as were those with altruistic goals such as helping people or being involved in social or political activities.
Working shorter hours did not necessarily lead to happiness, but working a lot more or less than they wanted made people very unhappy.
“It appears that prioritising success and material goals is actually harmful to life satisfaction,” Professor Headey wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Partner choice played a big role. Women were less happy if their partner did not prioritise family goals than if they had no partner, and people with a neurotic partner were far less happy over time. They never got used to their partner's negative emotions, either – even after 20 years of marriage there was no decline in the effects on their happiness.
Doing exercise and being a healthy weight were beneficial, and obesity was strongly linked to unhappiness, particularly for women.
Professor Headey did not know why many people continued to prioritise goals which did not seem to make them happy. "I think people don't often sit down and think about what really makes them happy, and then try to do more of that.”
RECIPE FOR CONTENTMENT
Have a happy partner
Don't be overworked or underworked
Prioritise family and community, and have a partner who does so as well
Don't be materialistic
Don't be obese
'Crazy' Twilight hand model pitches for movie part
Christine Kellett
October 5, 2010 - 9:09AM
You wouldn't know it to look at her, but Kimbra Hickey is famous. Mega famous. From the elbows down.
The New York hand model, whose digits feature on the cover of millions of copies of Stephenie Meyer's phenomenally successful Twilight novels, is on a campaign to get fans to look a little higher, pitching for a part in the latest Twilight movie.
Hickey, 40, was paid $310 for her apple-cupping expertise and is now working her connection with the vampire series to break into acting.
According to The New York Post, she stands beside the cash register at her local bookshop to sign autographs and trace outlines of her hands for fans who initially have no idea who she is.
Hickey, who has been branded a "loony" online, also carries a red apple around in her handbag, ready to recreate her famous pose at any moment.
"It was too big of a deal just to let it be," Hickey told the newspaper.
"It was major exposure for my hands. But nobody knew who I was.
"I see people reading [the Twilight novels] on the subway, and I say, 'Those are my hands! I'm a hand model!'
"I'm sure they think I'm crazy - a crazy lady on the subway."
She has also started working the Twilight conventions circuit, selling apple scented hand cream to Twihards.
In a Q & A with fan site Twilight Lexicon, Hickey, dubbed "the Hands of Twilight", revealed the photographer's difficult brief at the Twilight book cover shoot in 2004.
"He wanted my hands to look soft, sweet, and death-like all at the same time," she said. "It was also very important that the inner part of my arms formed a perfect V, for vampire, of course!
"After only a couple of hours we got the winning shot, and now iconic image."
Ironically, Hickey, who is a massage therapist by trade, was cast for the vampire book cover because her hands were "veinless", according to her agent.
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the final installment in the franchise, is being filmed in two parts, with part one due to hit cinemas in November 2011.
"If I could get a little background part, it would be fantastic," Hickey said of the movie. "Even if they only wanted my hands in it."
October 5, 2010 - 9:09AM
You wouldn't know it to look at her, but Kimbra Hickey is famous. Mega famous. From the elbows down.
The New York hand model, whose digits feature on the cover of millions of copies of Stephenie Meyer's phenomenally successful Twilight novels, is on a campaign to get fans to look a little higher, pitching for a part in the latest Twilight movie.
Hickey, 40, was paid $310 for her apple-cupping expertise and is now working her connection with the vampire series to break into acting.
According to The New York Post, she stands beside the cash register at her local bookshop to sign autographs and trace outlines of her hands for fans who initially have no idea who she is.
Hickey, who has been branded a "loony" online, also carries a red apple around in her handbag, ready to recreate her famous pose at any moment.
"It was too big of a deal just to let it be," Hickey told the newspaper.
"It was major exposure for my hands. But nobody knew who I was.
"I see people reading [the Twilight novels] on the subway, and I say, 'Those are my hands! I'm a hand model!'
"I'm sure they think I'm crazy - a crazy lady on the subway."
She has also started working the Twilight conventions circuit, selling apple scented hand cream to Twihards.
In a Q & A with fan site Twilight Lexicon, Hickey, dubbed "the Hands of Twilight", revealed the photographer's difficult brief at the Twilight book cover shoot in 2004.
"He wanted my hands to look soft, sweet, and death-like all at the same time," she said. "It was also very important that the inner part of my arms formed a perfect V, for vampire, of course!
"After only a couple of hours we got the winning shot, and now iconic image."
Ironically, Hickey, who is a massage therapist by trade, was cast for the vampire book cover because her hands were "veinless", according to her agent.
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the final installment in the franchise, is being filmed in two parts, with part one due to hit cinemas in November 2011.
"If I could get a little background part, it would be fantastic," Hickey said of the movie. "Even if they only wanted my hands in it."
Soldiers' ire over court 'shield' ruling
Jason Koutsoukis
October 5, 2010
JERUSALEM: The conviction of two Israeli soldiers over the use of a Palestinian boy, 11, as a human shield during last year's war in Gaza has provoked an angry reaction from fellow combat soldiers who believe their comrades to be "victims of Goldstone".
The reference is to a United Nations report on the war by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone that accused both Israel and the militant Palestinian movement Hamas of committing war crimes.
Several soldiers expressed the view that the two men had been betrayed by the Israel Defence Force senior command.
"They sent us out to fight," said Ofer Ben-Sasson, who served in the Givati Brigade with the two convicted soldiers and was present in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced. "Now they've hung us out to dry, to deal with the results."
The Israeli military court found that the two soldiers overstepped their authority when they forced the boy to open bags they feared could be booby-trapped.
"War is not an excuse to use inappropriate force,'' the judges said in their decision.
''Two soldiers - experienced combat soldiers - used an innocent child to open bags that might have been booby trapped with explosives and acted inappropriately and overstepped their jobs and their military ranks."
The judges said discrepancies in the soldiers' testimony convinced them not to accept the soldiers' side of the story.
Sunday's convictions, which could carry prison terms, are the first serious ones in Israel's criminal investigations into the conduct of its soldiers during the three-week invasion of Gaza invasion aimed at stopping rocket fire at Israeli communities.
October 5, 2010
JERUSALEM: The conviction of two Israeli soldiers over the use of a Palestinian boy, 11, as a human shield during last year's war in Gaza has provoked an angry reaction from fellow combat soldiers who believe their comrades to be "victims of Goldstone".
The reference is to a United Nations report on the war by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone that accused both Israel and the militant Palestinian movement Hamas of committing war crimes.
Several soldiers expressed the view that the two men had been betrayed by the Israel Defence Force senior command.
"They sent us out to fight," said Ofer Ben-Sasson, who served in the Givati Brigade with the two convicted soldiers and was present in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced. "Now they've hung us out to dry, to deal with the results."
The Israeli military court found that the two soldiers overstepped their authority when they forced the boy to open bags they feared could be booby-trapped.
"War is not an excuse to use inappropriate force,'' the judges said in their decision.
''Two soldiers - experienced combat soldiers - used an innocent child to open bags that might have been booby trapped with explosives and acted inappropriately and overstepped their jobs and their military ranks."
The judges said discrepancies in the soldiers' testimony convinced them not to accept the soldiers' side of the story.
Sunday's convictions, which could carry prison terms, are the first serious ones in Israel's criminal investigations into the conduct of its soldiers during the three-week invasion of Gaza invasion aimed at stopping rocket fire at Israeli communities.
Pakistan malaria victims 'may exceed 2 million'
October 5, 2010
ISLAMABAD: More than 2 million cases of malaria are expected in Pakistan in the coming months after the country's devastating floods, aid workers have warned.
Two months into the crisis, large areas remain submerged in southern Sindh province, creating stagnant pools of standing water that, combined with the heat, are powerful incubators of a disease spread by mosquitoes that breed and hatch in the pools. More than 250,000 cases of suspected malaria, including some of the fatal falciparum strain, have been reported, according to the World Health Organisation.
The aid agency Plan International worries the figure will surpass 2 million.
''The most vulnerable are women and children,'' said its Pakistan director, Haider Yaqub.
The malaria threat is part of a wider health emergency, with more than 20 million people affected by the floods struggling to cope as the winter approaches.
The UN has reported 881,000 cases of diarrhoea, 840,000 cases of skin diseases and almost 1 million cases of respiratory disorders. Dr Dana van Alphen of WHO said: ''There are no epidemics yet … but we have to be very careful.''
The floods have devastated Pakistan's flimsy public health system. Pregnant women are a concern. About 50,000 flood-affected women will give birth in the coming month, with 7500 needing surgery for pregnancy-related complications.
The UN has requested more than $US2 billion ($2.1 billion) to deal with the humanitarian crisis; so far about one-third of that amount has been pledged or donated.
Guardian News & Media
ISLAMABAD: More than 2 million cases of malaria are expected in Pakistan in the coming months after the country's devastating floods, aid workers have warned.
Two months into the crisis, large areas remain submerged in southern Sindh province, creating stagnant pools of standing water that, combined with the heat, are powerful incubators of a disease spread by mosquitoes that breed and hatch in the pools. More than 250,000 cases of suspected malaria, including some of the fatal falciparum strain, have been reported, according to the World Health Organisation.
The aid agency Plan International worries the figure will surpass 2 million.
''The most vulnerable are women and children,'' said its Pakistan director, Haider Yaqub.
The malaria threat is part of a wider health emergency, with more than 20 million people affected by the floods struggling to cope as the winter approaches.
The UN has reported 881,000 cases of diarrhoea, 840,000 cases of skin diseases and almost 1 million cases of respiratory disorders. Dr Dana van Alphen of WHO said: ''There are no epidemics yet … but we have to be very careful.''
The floods have devastated Pakistan's flimsy public health system. Pregnant women are a concern. About 50,000 flood-affected women will give birth in the coming month, with 7500 needing surgery for pregnancy-related complications.
The UN has requested more than $US2 billion ($2.1 billion) to deal with the humanitarian crisis; so far about one-third of that amount has been pledged or donated.
Guardian News & Media
Abstinence makes thirsty beer palates grow fonder
Harriet Sherwood
October 5, 2010
TAYBEH: There was meat grilling on barbecues, children with painted faces, stalls selling crafts and cakes, a stage for live music and even the odd priest wandering about. Everywhere people were clutching glasses of beer in the afternoon sun.
Welcome to the annual beer festival in the West Bank, specifically the village of Taybeh, home to the only brewery in the Palestinian territories.
Around 10,000 people were expected to attend the weekend's Oktoberfest, which would have made it the biggest since the event began in the Christian-dominated village.
It is a mark of the festival's success that it was crammed with food stalls doing a lively trade to Palestinian families (both Muslim and Christian), diplomats, aid workers and tourists.
But it was the eponymous beer itself, briskly selling at 10 shekels ($2.80) for a half-litre glass, that was the star of the show.
Made without additives and using water from the spring of Ein Samia - ''delicious'' in Arabic - it was slipping easily down the throats of thirsty visitors.
Business, according to the brewery's owner, Nadim Khoury, is booming despite the obvious difficulties of operating in an overwhelmingly abstinent Muslim environment. The brewery faces ''many obstacles - religion, culture, occupation, closures'' plus a prohibition on advertising alcohol, Mr Khoury said.
''I'm on my feet 16 hours a day to promote the beer, going door-to-door, bar-to-bar, hotel-to-hotel. It's not easy in this part of the world.''
The firm started brewing beer in 1995 in the optimistic years after the Oslo accords. When the second intifada started in 2000, the brewery faced a crisis.
But output has since tripled to 600,000 litres a year and there are plans to expand. A non-alcoholic version of the beer for the Muslim market has made a good start, said Mr Khoury. He would like to see an end to the expensive ''back-to-back'' system of moving goods from the West Bank into Israel.
The beer has to be unloaded from Palestinian trucks at checkpoints and reloaded onto Israeli trucks, often involving long waits in high temperatures.
At the festival, two young women are listening to a Brazilian band. Nibal, 22, a Christian Palestinian, enjoys drinking Taybeh beer, but Samah, 24, a Muslim, has never tasted the village's famous product.
''But I think the festival is a good thing,'' she says.
Guardian News & Media
October 5, 2010
TAYBEH: There was meat grilling on barbecues, children with painted faces, stalls selling crafts and cakes, a stage for live music and even the odd priest wandering about. Everywhere people were clutching glasses of beer in the afternoon sun.
Welcome to the annual beer festival in the West Bank, specifically the village of Taybeh, home to the only brewery in the Palestinian territories.
Around 10,000 people were expected to attend the weekend's Oktoberfest, which would have made it the biggest since the event began in the Christian-dominated village.
It is a mark of the festival's success that it was crammed with food stalls doing a lively trade to Palestinian families (both Muslim and Christian), diplomats, aid workers and tourists.
But it was the eponymous beer itself, briskly selling at 10 shekels ($2.80) for a half-litre glass, that was the star of the show.
Made without additives and using water from the spring of Ein Samia - ''delicious'' in Arabic - it was slipping easily down the throats of thirsty visitors.
Business, according to the brewery's owner, Nadim Khoury, is booming despite the obvious difficulties of operating in an overwhelmingly abstinent Muslim environment. The brewery faces ''many obstacles - religion, culture, occupation, closures'' plus a prohibition on advertising alcohol, Mr Khoury said.
''I'm on my feet 16 hours a day to promote the beer, going door-to-door, bar-to-bar, hotel-to-hotel. It's not easy in this part of the world.''
The firm started brewing beer in 1995 in the optimistic years after the Oslo accords. When the second intifada started in 2000, the brewery faced a crisis.
But output has since tripled to 600,000 litres a year and there are plans to expand. A non-alcoholic version of the beer for the Muslim market has made a good start, said Mr Khoury. He would like to see an end to the expensive ''back-to-back'' system of moving goods from the West Bank into Israel.
The beer has to be unloaded from Palestinian trucks at checkpoints and reloaded onto Israeli trucks, often involving long waits in high temperatures.
At the festival, two young women are listening to a Brazilian band. Nibal, 22, a Christian Palestinian, enjoys drinking Taybeh beer, but Samah, 24, a Muslim, has never tasted the village's famous product.
''But I think the festival is a good thing,'' she says.
Guardian News & Media
Chinese premier pledges path of democratic reform
Malcolm Moore
October 5, 2010
SHANGHAI: The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, has promised that China will carry out political reform and acknowledged that the need for democracy and freedom in his country is ''irresistible''.
In a rare interview, aired on CNN, he said: ''I believe I and all the Chinese people have such conviction that China will make continuous progress, and the people's wishes and need for democracy and freedom are irresistible. I hope you will be able to gradually see the continuous progress of China.''
He added: ''In spite of some resistance I will advance, within the realm of my capabilities, political restructuring.''
Wen Jiabao ... ‘‘freedom of speech is indispensable’’.
Asked about censorship, Mr Wen, 68, said: ''I believe freedom of speech is indispensable for any country.'' He insisted that there was freedom to criticise the Chinese government on the internet.
He trumpeted the fact that in a country of about 1.3 billion people there were 400 million internet users and 800 million people with mobile phones.
He revealed that he often logged on to the internet.
''I have read sharp critical comments on the work of the government on the internet and also there are commendable words about the work of the government.''
On freedom of expression, he said: ''I often say that we should not only let people have the freedom of speech. We, more importantly, must create conditions to let them criticise the work of the government. And it is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job.''
The Communist Party has ruled without opposition in China since 1949, imprisoning of political activists and dissidents. China made vital economic reforms in the late 1970s, but the party has yet to make accompanying political reforms.
Mr Wen added the caveat that any reforms now ''must be conducted within the range allowed by the constitution and the laws. So that the country will have a normal order.''
The interview marks the third time in recent weeks that Mr Wen has raised the topic of political reform.
At the beginning of last month he said on a visit to Shenzhen that ''without the safeguard of political reform the fruits of economic reform would be lost and the goal of modernisation would not materialise''.
He also called for a loosening of the ''excessive political control'' of the Communist Party.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month he said that ''while deepening economic restructuring, we will also push forward political restructuring''.
Notions in the run-up to the party's 17th National Congress in October 2007 that there might be reforms were dashed when the government chose to focus on stability and security before the Beijing Olympics and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong.
However, Mr Wen's decision to once again air the topic may confirm that reform is back on the government agenda.
Some observers have said that there may be a split between Mr Wen and the President, Hu Jintao, over the issue. Mr Hu has not recently mentioned any prospect of political reform.
''[Mr Wen] admitted there is inner party disagreement over political reform,'' said Victor Shih, a professor of Chinese politics at Northwestern University.
Telegraph, London; Agence France-Presse
October 5, 2010
SHANGHAI: The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, has promised that China will carry out political reform and acknowledged that the need for democracy and freedom in his country is ''irresistible''.
In a rare interview, aired on CNN, he said: ''I believe I and all the Chinese people have such conviction that China will make continuous progress, and the people's wishes and need for democracy and freedom are irresistible. I hope you will be able to gradually see the continuous progress of China.''
He added: ''In spite of some resistance I will advance, within the realm of my capabilities, political restructuring.''
Wen Jiabao ... ‘‘freedom of speech is indispensable’’.
Asked about censorship, Mr Wen, 68, said: ''I believe freedom of speech is indispensable for any country.'' He insisted that there was freedom to criticise the Chinese government on the internet.
He trumpeted the fact that in a country of about 1.3 billion people there were 400 million internet users and 800 million people with mobile phones.
He revealed that he often logged on to the internet.
''I have read sharp critical comments on the work of the government on the internet and also there are commendable words about the work of the government.''
On freedom of expression, he said: ''I often say that we should not only let people have the freedom of speech. We, more importantly, must create conditions to let them criticise the work of the government. And it is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job.''
The Communist Party has ruled without opposition in China since 1949, imprisoning of political activists and dissidents. China made vital economic reforms in the late 1970s, but the party has yet to make accompanying political reforms.
Mr Wen added the caveat that any reforms now ''must be conducted within the range allowed by the constitution and the laws. So that the country will have a normal order.''
The interview marks the third time in recent weeks that Mr Wen has raised the topic of political reform.
At the beginning of last month he said on a visit to Shenzhen that ''without the safeguard of political reform the fruits of economic reform would be lost and the goal of modernisation would not materialise''.
He also called for a loosening of the ''excessive political control'' of the Communist Party.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month he said that ''while deepening economic restructuring, we will also push forward political restructuring''.
Notions in the run-up to the party's 17th National Congress in October 2007 that there might be reforms were dashed when the government chose to focus on stability and security before the Beijing Olympics and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong.
However, Mr Wen's decision to once again air the topic may confirm that reform is back on the government agenda.
Some observers have said that there may be a split between Mr Wen and the President, Hu Jintao, over the issue. Mr Hu has not recently mentioned any prospect of political reform.
''[Mr Wen] admitted there is inner party disagreement over political reform,'' said Victor Shih, a professor of Chinese politics at Northwestern University.
Telegraph, London; Agence France-Presse
China has learnt well from the blunders of Japan and America
October 5, 2010
China is showing that it has learnt a lesson from the ruinous choices made by the world's other two biggest economies. Where Japan and then the US blundered, China is succeeding on the evidence to date.
The consequences are so momentous that these choices have changed the trajectories of the world's greatest powers. Japan's failure should have been the flashing red warning light for everyone else in the world.
Tokyo allowed Japanese real estate and share prices to build up unrestrained into a giant bubble.The world looked on this awestruck, seeing the ever-rising prices as a sign of immense strength. It was, in fact, a sign of disastrous misjudgment. When, in 1989-90, the bubble burst, it permanently enfeebled Japan's economy. The 10 years after the bust were known as Japan's "lost decade". That has now turned into a lost two decades.
Consider this contrast. In the 20 years before the bubble burst, Japan's economy grew at an average of 4.2 per cent a year. In the two decades since? It has barely managed to grow at all, with an annual average of just 0.6 per cent.
Did the US learn from Japan's mistake? Of course not. The world's biggest economy made the same error of the world's second-biggest.
The US allowed the unrestrained build-up of a huge bubble in real estate prices. The bust began in 2005 and gathered pace until, in 2008, it became so big that it brought down the US financial system. One result was the global financial crisis.
Another result is the damage to America's economic vitality. The US economy began recovering but the outlook isn't good in the short or longer term. First, the short term. The initial burst of American recovery is now spent. "In every recession, you accelerate out of it and then after a time you throttle back," says Anirvan Banerji from America's most accurate economic forecaster, the Economic Cycle Research Institute in New York.
"Typically that throttling back comes after a year. This time, guess how long it was? One year, exactly. That deceleration in recovery will continue in the near term. As for next year, the jury is still out but we think there is a significant risk of recession."
This - the dreaded "double dip" - should be no surprise, says Banerji: "If you look at the history of all US expansions in the postwar era, they have been stair-stepping down - every successive expansion gets slower.''
And this is the second point, the longer-term outlook: "The trend rate of American expansion will be slower right through the next decade. And you are much more likely to see growth below zero - a recession - than you were in the past."
Nobody predicts that America's enfeeblement will be as serious as Japan's. But as it struggles under a tremendous burden of private and public debt, it looks to be serious.
"China and India have surged ahead, almost as if nothing has happened," Banerji says. "The gap has closed dramatically. The Great Recession has slammed the Western economies so that their level of economic activity is still below where it was before the recession. A closing of the gap that would otherwise have taken a decade has now happened in two years."
History is accelerating. In just five years, the collective economic bulk of the developing countries will surpass that of the rich countries for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, according to a study published by the World Bank last week.
The biggest "if" attached to this assumption was always China. Beijing has found itself under the same threat that confronted Japan and America - a bubble in asset prices. China faced two big tests. First, would it deal with the problem or succumb to the temptation to simply let it run? After all, the run-up in China's real estate prices has made a lot of people feel very rich.
Overall, national average residential property prices leapt by 70 per cent from 2002 to mid-2010. And in some of the hottest hot spots, apartment prices were doubling in a year.
But Beijing learnt the lesson that Washington failed to heed. In April, the Chinese authorities imposed a double-fisted restraint on property prices at the more expensive end of the market while boosting supply for cheap housing.
China's second big test? Can this policy work? It had a marked effect initially. Nationally, sales of homes fell in May and June. But by August, the boom was back. Nationally, the price of new homes gained 11.7 per cent on average compared to the same period a year earlier.
And the hot spots were burning. China's biggest listed property developer, China Vanke, reported that its apartment sales were up by 84 per cent in Shenzhen and 56 per cent in Guangzhou. The authorities, however, have returned to the market with a new set of restraints. Last week Beijing tightened bank lending criteria. This signals a resolve to deal with the problem. The government seems determined to control the bubble.
If so, China can continue strong growth while the West stagnates under the weight of its own blunders. An adaptive and pragmatic power, China has learnt the big economic lesson of recent history.
Peter Hartcher is the international editor.
China is showing that it has learnt a lesson from the ruinous choices made by the world's other two biggest economies. Where Japan and then the US blundered, China is succeeding on the evidence to date.
The consequences are so momentous that these choices have changed the trajectories of the world's greatest powers. Japan's failure should have been the flashing red warning light for everyone else in the world.
Tokyo allowed Japanese real estate and share prices to build up unrestrained into a giant bubble.The world looked on this awestruck, seeing the ever-rising prices as a sign of immense strength. It was, in fact, a sign of disastrous misjudgment. When, in 1989-90, the bubble burst, it permanently enfeebled Japan's economy. The 10 years after the bust were known as Japan's "lost decade". That has now turned into a lost two decades.
Consider this contrast. In the 20 years before the bubble burst, Japan's economy grew at an average of 4.2 per cent a year. In the two decades since? It has barely managed to grow at all, with an annual average of just 0.6 per cent.
Did the US learn from Japan's mistake? Of course not. The world's biggest economy made the same error of the world's second-biggest.
The US allowed the unrestrained build-up of a huge bubble in real estate prices. The bust began in 2005 and gathered pace until, in 2008, it became so big that it brought down the US financial system. One result was the global financial crisis.
Another result is the damage to America's economic vitality. The US economy began recovering but the outlook isn't good in the short or longer term. First, the short term. The initial burst of American recovery is now spent. "In every recession, you accelerate out of it and then after a time you throttle back," says Anirvan Banerji from America's most accurate economic forecaster, the Economic Cycle Research Institute in New York.
"Typically that throttling back comes after a year. This time, guess how long it was? One year, exactly. That deceleration in recovery will continue in the near term. As for next year, the jury is still out but we think there is a significant risk of recession."
This - the dreaded "double dip" - should be no surprise, says Banerji: "If you look at the history of all US expansions in the postwar era, they have been stair-stepping down - every successive expansion gets slower.''
And this is the second point, the longer-term outlook: "The trend rate of American expansion will be slower right through the next decade. And you are much more likely to see growth below zero - a recession - than you were in the past."
Nobody predicts that America's enfeeblement will be as serious as Japan's. But as it struggles under a tremendous burden of private and public debt, it looks to be serious.
"China and India have surged ahead, almost as if nothing has happened," Banerji says. "The gap has closed dramatically. The Great Recession has slammed the Western economies so that their level of economic activity is still below where it was before the recession. A closing of the gap that would otherwise have taken a decade has now happened in two years."
History is accelerating. In just five years, the collective economic bulk of the developing countries will surpass that of the rich countries for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, according to a study published by the World Bank last week.
The biggest "if" attached to this assumption was always China. Beijing has found itself under the same threat that confronted Japan and America - a bubble in asset prices. China faced two big tests. First, would it deal with the problem or succumb to the temptation to simply let it run? After all, the run-up in China's real estate prices has made a lot of people feel very rich.
Overall, national average residential property prices leapt by 70 per cent from 2002 to mid-2010. And in some of the hottest hot spots, apartment prices were doubling in a year.
But Beijing learnt the lesson that Washington failed to heed. In April, the Chinese authorities imposed a double-fisted restraint on property prices at the more expensive end of the market while boosting supply for cheap housing.
China's second big test? Can this policy work? It had a marked effect initially. Nationally, sales of homes fell in May and June. But by August, the boom was back. Nationally, the price of new homes gained 11.7 per cent on average compared to the same period a year earlier.
And the hot spots were burning. China's biggest listed property developer, China Vanke, reported that its apartment sales were up by 84 per cent in Shenzhen and 56 per cent in Guangzhou. The authorities, however, have returned to the market with a new set of restraints. Last week Beijing tightened bank lending criteria. This signals a resolve to deal with the problem. The government seems determined to control the bubble.
If so, China can continue strong growth while the West stagnates under the weight of its own blunders. An adaptive and pragmatic power, China has learnt the big economic lesson of recent history.
Peter Hartcher is the international editor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)