On 10 July, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft flew by much-cratered asteroid 21 Lutetia at a closest distance of 3,162 km, returning superb pictures. Luteria is quite large — 130 km in length and may be 4.5 billion years old. Rosetta raced past the asteroid at 15 km/s completing the flyby in just a minute. Lutetia has been a mystery; it has characteristics of the 'C-type' asteroid, a primitive bodies from the formation of the Solar System, and of the 'M-type', associated with iron meteorites thought to be fragments of the cores of much larger objects.
The flyby marks the attainment of one of Rosetta's main scientific objectives. The spacecraft will now continue to a 2014 rendezvous with its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will then accompany the comet for months, from near the orbit of Jupiter down to its closest approach to the Sun. In November 2014, Rosetta will release Philae to land on the comet nucleus.
The pictures of 21 Lutetia reminded me at once of the "McHoo asteroid" which I saw as a boy in Eagle magazine. [Dan Dare pilot of the future : Safari in space. Eagle vol. 10 no. 7, 14 February 1959.]
Last night was the television broadcast of the final of the 2010 RAW Comedy Grand Final, held in Melbourne in April.
The first of the 13 contestants was Luke Heggie. He simply stood at the microphone with his hands in his pockets and reeled out one liners, with that one essential requirement for a comedy show — he was funny. The funniest in fact; he won the competition. I agree with the judges who said that Luke was a much deserving winner, with many jokes in his five minute spot. I and they liked his laid back style. Mr Heggie won a trip to compete in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
One of two special mentions went to Ronny Chieng who was funny most of the time.
Other than that, it was pretty much down hill all the way. Problem was, most of the other contestants weren't very funny at all, and most were boringly rude or crude (sigh). I didn't laugh. And these were the best of hundreds of entrants?
David Humphries explains the excruciating boredom of this election campaign, the "Battle of the bland" with some quotes (SMH 24 Jul 10):
Australian National University politics professor John Warhurst who say that both Abbott and Gillard, "Both run the risk of not allowing their instincts to see the light of day." "Each is much more flamboyant and interesting than they are allowed to show. A lot of Labor people don't know what Julia Gillard is about."
Mungo MacCallum: "They haven't got the guts to say anything, they're running so scared."
Campaigns, says MacCallum, are in the hands of the "usual suspects — economists, psephologists, astrologists, personal trainers, homeopaths, absurd reliance on focus groups". These "cut the balls off every known process of politics", says MacCallum, and "you end up with policies intended to offend nobody and therefore do nothing".
Andrew Hughes, a ANU specialist in political marketing says the Prime Minister is keeping the campaign as lacklustre as she can because "she's in the box seat and wants as smooth a race as possible". "Julia Gillard doesn't want you to think about it too much because that might get voters thinking more about 'brand Abbott', and you don't want consumers too interested in rival brands."
"Certainly Gillard doesn't want voters thinking too deeply about some of her assurances," Humphries concludes. Above all the goal is "don't offend, even if being all things to all people risks being nothing to anyone. "
Dealing with hecklers once was part of an astute leader's skills. A woman heckler at working-class Williamstown, in Melbourne in 1954, told Bob Menzies she wouldn't vote for him if he was the archangel Gabriel. "If I were the archangel Gabriel, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my constituency," Menzies shot back. He was the last PM in office when public meetings and radio broadcasts were the chief means of communication with the electorate.
Gough Whitlam was at Blacktown when another woman heckler interrupted his discussion of a plan to sewer western Sydney by demanding incessantly where he stood on abortion. "In your case, I'd make it retrospective," Whitlam told her. Imagine the furore that would be unleashed by such prime ministerial utterances today.
Sad that weve become so wimpy. No one can make even the slightest mistake. No one can change their mind. Politics is pickled and preserved in blandness. The 24-hour cycle makes risk-taking impossible.
Sixty years ago, Menzies and Ben Chifley did battle over control of the national means of production, over left versus right tensions tearing the world apart. The picture was big. Finding room for differentiation was easy.
We'd be better off with Beazley or Costello, thinks Greg Sheridan in in The Australian (22 Jul 10):
So far this has been a very low-quality election contest. It represents a serious regression in Australian politics, with less genuine policy discussion or commitment than ever before. Neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott has offered more than a thought bubble on national security or foreign affairs. . . . Both Gillard and Abbott are deficient in similar ways as national leaders. Both are running as opposition leaders against the Rudd government, a bizarre position for Gillard, who now seems exempt from all responsibility for the fiascos of the past three years . . . [W]e have two competing national leaders who are just about untutored in the key aspects of modern government. And it shows.
In many contexts Abbott is brave as a lion, but he seems to have a reluctance to do the boring nuts-and-bolts policy work of politics, and in this campaign he is running against his own beliefs and his party's values. Courage in politics mostly means policy courage. Neither Gillard nor Abbott is demonstrating courage, knowledge or competence in the critical areas of national policy. We deserve a better politics than this.
So it's tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
Except for Bob Brown and the Greens, that is. Which is why he's not invited to tonight's debate. He's not bland enough. Too risky. He might win.
Permit me to agree with the Greens' spokesperson Christine Milne (Friday 23rd July 2010).
Prime Minister Gillard's climate change policy announced today is an excuse for more delay on the climate crisis, the Australian Greens said today.
"Prime Minister Gillard is showing a complete lack of leadership on the climate crisis," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said. "The Greens stand ready to work with a re-elected Gillard government to deliver a carbon price fast, and the community is clamouring for action, but the Prime Minister is making excuses for more delays instead of embracing the opportunity. Ms Gillard's announcement today does nothing to give certainty to business. Meanwhile, China is moving fast towards a carbon price and India already has a tax on coal, leaving Australia far behind.
What we have heard from the Prime Minister is recycled rhetoric from the past four years, a repeat of Labor's old failed climate approach, not any commitment to real action. Ms Gillard's talkfest is nothing more or less than trying to re-educate the community about the fatally flawed emissions trading scheme. We already have 150 people being elected right now to debate and make decisions on climate change — it's called Parliament, Prime Minister.
Leadership on climate would have seen the Prime Minister saying 'no more coal'. Instead, her promise on emissions standards for coal fired power stations is meaningless. There are 12 coal fired power stations on the books for Australia right now and Prime Minister Gillard's promise will not apply to these. The UK recently dropped its commitment to making new coal fired power stations 'carbon capture ready', acknowledging that it was meaningless. Instead they have committed to building no more coal fired power stations unless and until carbon capture is proven and adopted.
Whilst the Greens welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of $1billion for the renewable energy grid, this is a drop in the ocean over 10 years. Compares it to the $2.5 billion already allocated to carbon capture and storage and it is patently nowhere near what is needed to drive a renewable energy revolution.
For all of this year, the government has argued that it will not move on a carbon price because it does not have the Senate numbers to do so. Prime Minister Gillard is now saying that she will not support the Greens' proposal for a carbon levy even the Greens and Labor have the numbers to deliver one in the new Senate because we have to wait for her talkfest to finish.
The community will not accept that excuse.
It appeasr I'm not alone in agreeing that the PM is doing little or nothing. The Ageeditorial today:
PM evades on climate change
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard hasn't reinvented the wheel. But she's gone as close to that exercise in fatuity as she possibly can, by announcing a "citizens' assembly" made up of "real Australians" to consider proposals for a carbon-emissions trading scheme and other responses to climate change. There already is a representative assembly whose job it is to deliberate on changes in the law. It's called Parliament. And, unlike the assembly Ms Gillard has in mind, it is democratically elected. So why does the Prime Minister want to take from the people's chosen representatives the role of debating and scrutinising measures aimed at dealing with the most serious issue confronting the planet?
Ever since Ms Gillard assumed the Labor leadership, and with it the prime ministership, she has talked evasively on climate policy. In her first news conference, she acknowledged the urgency of the need to reduce carbon emissions, and pledged that she would "reprosecute" the case for setting a carbon price. But this could not be achieved, she said, without first building a national consensus on the issue. As The Age has noted before, however, this approach is as likely to produce more of the present paralysis on climate policy as it is to result in real change. The only matters on which consensus is ever likely to be achieved are those that are uncontentious, which is why democratic politics is not about consensus. It is about building majorities, and if the Prime Minister is as committed to reprosecuting the case for pricing carbon as she purports to be, she should be making that case now, in the election campaign. Instead, however, she has effectively chosen to defer the matter again — and treated this country's elected institutions with contempt in doing so.
Ms Gillard is obviously sensitive to this sort of criticism, because in announcing the new citizens' assembly she said: "It is vital to be clear what I mean by that community consensus — I do not mean that government can take no action until every member of the community is fully convinced." Yes, Prime Minister. But why then speak of consensus? And why, instead of campaigning forthrightly on the need for an emissions trading system, tell voters that anything that might involve unpalatable changes in their way of life will be vetted by what amounts to a glorified focus group?
Details of the citizens' assembly proposal are sketchy, but the Prime Minister has said that assembly members would be representative of the broader population in age ranges and geographic origin, and chosen by an independent authority. She has not said what that authority would be, or how it would make its choices. Nor has she explained who will be on the expert commission that will explain the science of climate change, or how that will be chosen. Worst of all, in her public utterances she is content to appear blithely indifferent to the redundancy of all this new apparatus. The government already has available to it the advice of the CSIRO, and other scientists working in universities and research institutes. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are well known, and mischievous attempts to undermine the credibility of those findings, such as the so-called University of East Anglia emails affair, have persuaded only those already disposed to see human-induced climate change as a myth. The great majority of the world's climate scientists think otherwise, and the evidence of successive opinion polls is that most Australian voters do, too. Ms Gillard does not have to build a majority for effective action on climate change. It already exists. She does, however, need to summon up the resolve to take that action.
[. . .] The Prime Minister knows the case for emissions trading. She should be taking a plan of action, not procrastination, to this election.
The Australian Greens, whom I support, are looking for donations to get this advertisment shown on TV. I'm not sure whether it works or merely puzzles.
Ross Gittins is not my favourite commentator, but he makes a good point this morning (SMH 14 Jul 10).
Excuse me, but what's the tearing hurry? We've had a new Prime Minister for five minutes, but we're being rushed off to an election before we can get her measure. Why? Is there a fear, if the election were delayed until October, the gloss would have worn off and we'd see Julia Gillard in a less hopeful and flattering light? Is the new leader's fleeting honeymoon all that stands between Labor and electoral defeat? Is Labor's record in government that bad? Is Tony Abbott such a formidable opponent?
I'm not impressed by what we've seen of the Gillard government so far. We've seen the triumph of political expediency over good government. From her first day she's left little doubt three running political sores — the mining tax, resentment of boat people and the vacuum left by Labor's abandonment of its emissions trading scheme — needed to be staunched quick smart if the government's re-election were to be secured.
But what hasty, amateurish patch-up jobs we've seen. Wayne Swan has fudged up figures purporting to show the revenue cost of the deal done with the three biggest mining companies was minor, whereas sharemarket analysts are saying the extra tax to be paid by the companies will be minor. Then we had the fearful muddle over the Timor solution the Timorese hadn't agreed to, and now we're getting the climate change policy you have when you don't have a climate change policy.
The trouble with all this is it's terribly reminiscent of Kevin Rudd.
Just so.
Gittins asks, "So what are Gillard's priorities?" I rather hope that it will no longer be the Prime Ministers priorities, but the government's priorities that we are asked to assess when we vote. And we know enough of those to make our choice. Its not Gillard that I'll be voting for our against, it will be the Australian Labor Party.
The Rt Revd Dr Brian Castle, Bishop of Tonbridge, reminds that Anglicans continue to be victims of Zimbabwe's forgotten persecution.
As I left the Anglican church in a suburb of Harare, my Zimbabwean host said: "Don't forget us." Yet the persecution of Anglicans in the diocese of Harare, which is spreading, is being seen and remembered by few Christian communities across the world. My hosts do not worship in the fine building that was built by the Anglicans themselves—some told me that they even made the bricks with their own hands, freely and willingly giving their labour as a gift to God—but in a colourful marquee in a supporter's garden.
The marquee is so packed that some have to worship outside; the joy, energy and silences in the worship are indicators of the depth of commitment to God and each other. But not far beneath the surface is the pain of being exiles, forced from the spiritual home, built to the glory of God, that is rightly theirs.
Like all the congregations in the city and surrounding areas, they have been forced out of their place of worship by the police on the orders of Nolbert Kunonga, former bishop of Harare and avid supporter of Robert Mugabe. Kunonga was elected bishop in 2001, but his increasingly pro-Zanu-PF political stance alienated many Anglicans and he withdrew himself from the church in 2007, taking the church's assets with him, including cars, clergy houses and access to churches.
There have been long and costly legal wrangles, but the courts are reluctant to rule that these assets, illegally held by Kunonga, do not belong to him.
[Zim Dailyreported on 5 May 2010 that Zimbabwe's partisan Supreme Court had declared ZANU-PF apologist Bishop Nolbert Kunonga and his board of trustees legitimate and granted them control of all properties belonging to the Anglican Diocese of Harare.]
Some court rulings, such as a decision that churches be used at different times by different groups, are flagrantly ignored by the former bishop, who has the power to summon police to support his cause.
A small number of priests followed Kunonga and have remained in their vicarages mustering only a handful of people into church on Sundays. Kunonga has described Mugabe as a prophet and, like Mugabe, wanted to cut off links with the west and change the Anglican church into a mouthpiece for Zanu-PF. He failed in this and was told by the Church of the Province of Central Africa that he was no longer a bishop, and has since taken every opportunity to identify the Anglican church with the Movement for Democratic Change. This has attracted the ire of Mugabe's Zanu-PF.
In Harare, arrest, threats and beatings can be the rewards of Christian commitment. Congregations meet in a variety of locations. As well as in tents, worship may take place under trees, in street squares and in supporters' gardens. But nowhere is safe. One priest told me how his congregation of 1,000 was given permission by the authorities to meet close to the church building but, when they did so, 21 canisters of tear gas were fired into the gathering as they were worshiping, a group of women were detained for four days and he himself was arrested.
At the recent Bernard Mizeki festival, an annual gathering in honour of Zimbabwe's first martyr, a heavily armed police force prevented the pilgrims from gaining access to the shrine, despite public assurances of safe passage from a government minister. The festival took place in a nearby showground, where the largest gathering in recent memory was witness to the fact that persecution and harassment strengthen the Christian faith.
The Anglican church's persecution at the hand of the Zimbabwean government points to disarray within as well as the inexplicable influence of a disillusioned former cleric. What is also inexplicable is the way in which the plight of Zimbabwe's courageous Anglicans has been ignored by so many. "Don't forget us," said my Zimbabwean host.
CAMRA Inc. presents the Wilhelm Quartet from the Royal Academy of Music, London
Marciana Buta (violin), Margaret Dziekonski (violin), Glen Donnelly (viola), Hetty Snell (cello), with Colin Forbes (piano).
Beethoven - String Quartet in F minor Op. 95 'Serioso'
Schumann - String Quartet in A major Op. 41 no. 3
Brahms - Piano Quintet in F minor
Saturday 31 July 7.30pm
Pre-concert talk by members of the Wilhelm Quartet: 7.10pm
at St Philip's Church, cnr Moorhouse & Macpherson Sts, O'Connor.
$35 / $30
As part of an IHT special on net worth (18 May 10), which I read while on holiday in Thailand, Anne Bagamery recommended five check points on "How to Retire Comfortably"
Choose your venue wisely. Where you are living when you retire need not be where you end up, but moving gets harder as time goes on. If you move to reduce costs, factor all of them in: Low property prices may not make up for high health-care costs, rising property taxes or travel expenses to see family.
Know your benefits. Many pre-retirees have an outdated idea of how much theyll have in pension income and how much health care will cost. But laws and policies change, generally not to the benefit of retirees. Sit down at least a year in advance with a benefits expert and get the correct, up-to-date information.
Have a cushion handy. The best insurance against rising costs is to have liquid assets set aside to throw off income or draw down in an emergency. Salt away as much as you can in the years leading up to retirement. Do not count on being able to sell illiquid assets, like real estate, in an emergency, as the market may be against you just when you need it most.
Lowball your budget. Living below your means is the best way to ensure that you do not outlive your money. Even if your pension is lower than your final salary, aim to keep monthly expenses at least 25 percent below your monthly fixed income, at least at first. Bank the rest to add to your cushion (see above).
Stay out of debt. Paying interest, otherwise known as rent on money, is a bad idea when you are earning a salary. On a fixed income, it is positively foolish. Before you retire, pay off credit cards and other consumer debt. Once retired, don't take on any more unless you can pay it off easily each month.
No.s 2, 3, 4 and 5 — Check.
No. 1 — Hmmm. Where is the best place for us to be in retirement? Right where we are seems OK for now.
In her brief but finely crafted address to the United Nations General Assembly on 6 July 2010, the Queen spoke with the authority and wisdom that comes from a lifetime of service as Head of the Commonwealth of 54 countries.
New challenges have also emerged which have tested this organisation as much as its member states. One such is the struggle against terrorism. Another challenge is climate change, where careful account must be taken of the risks facing smaller, more vulnerable nations, many of them from the Commonwealth.
The Queen avoids political controversy. All the more remarkable, therefore, that she should speak of climate change. The Queen, for one, accepts the reality of global warming as beyond political controversy.
It was remarkable to me that even at my junior level, chaos in the former Prime Minister's office and work methods had a significant impact on my work and well being. Therefore I welcome Leonore Taylor's report in the Sydney Morning Herald (8 July 10) that:
Julia Gillard has promised the nation's top mandarins she will rein in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and that it will no longer have the over-bearing role it had under Kevin Rudd — implicitly criticising the way the bureaucracy operated under her predecessor.
At a lunch with departmental secretaries two weeks ago on her first full day in the job, Ms Gillard said advice and expertise across the bureaucracy would be respected and her department would go back to its primary function of co-ordination and providing her with advice, rather than trying to initiate and oversee all main policies.
Sources say she told the officials she understood the past three years had been difficult for many of them and that the processes of government had not always worked efficiently.
Under Mr Rudd's leadership many public servants complained that the prime minister's office was chaotic and had become a bottleneck, and that his department — which expanded enormously over the past three years — had assumed too much power.
Taylor also notes that:
Ms Gillard has also reorganised her office to allow government processes to work more methodically. . . . Many senior public servants have said that in recent years they held back paperwork until Mr Rudd was overseas and Ms Gillard was acting as prime minister because she dealt with it more quickly.
No doubt Prime Minister Gillard is keeping some departments busy as she 'clears the decks' for an election. But that's the job. We wait to see how reasonable and efficient she is in the way she uses the Australan Public Service.
In Eureka Street (8 Jul 10) Andrew Hamilton ponders "The strengths and shortcomings of Church apologies". In the churches", he says "pastoral letters go back a long way. So does scepticism about the value of carefully prepared words." Paul warned of the mismatch between rhetorical eloquence and the Christian message. Jesus advised against pre-prepared words. James wrote about the dangers of the human tongue.
"Given this history, one can understand the ambivalence about letters and the inclination to avoid reading them, " Hamilton says. Letters of apology are powerful symbols. They require their writers to take a position and stand to it. They speak of requires strength, make the writer vulnerabile, and can be "extraordinarily effective". But, "However much we might want it, no symbol nor letter of apology can write the slate clean." "Words are powerful symbols, but the hungry and the injured do not live by words alone."
In the Catholic Church such an apology is a public act of confession, which includes the commitment to seek reconciliation, to make reparation where possible, and not to sin again. The symbol presupposes that the Church is more than a collection of individuals, that its members are accountable to one another, and that that the Bishop has the responsibility to act on its behalf.
Which brings me to my question about all this. I'm at a loss to understand how an institution is able to apologise. Institutions—companies, governments, nations, and churches—do not have souls or minds, people do. (If the church universal, the Body of Christ, has a 'soul', that inner being is the Holy Spirit, who, unlike church people, is sinless.)
Institutions do not sin, people do. If a company breaks the rules, the directors must apologise and, most likely, resign. If members of a church are sexually abused, the people responsible should be dealt with and culpable leaders should personally apologise and, most likely, resign. Evil doers who are dead are dead, and will receive the judgment and mercy of God. We cannot apologise for them.
In the Anglican church we employ a collective confession each Sunday: "Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do: we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves; we repent and are sorry for all our sins."
I often challenge myself to say:
"I have sinned against you . . .
"I have not loved you . . .
"I have not loved my neighbours . . . I repent . . .".
It seems more authentic.
I acknowledge that Prime Minister Rudd's apology to Australia's "stolen generations", for example, was a powerful moving step forward on the path to reconciliation. Even at the time, however, I wondered how he could apologise for any one else but himself and those who had invited him to do so on their behalf. I guess that was most of us.
Some perspectives on the asylum-seeker debate, circulated by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
The vast majority of people seeking asylum in Australia arrive by plane.
95% of asylum seekers arriving by boat are found to be genuine refugees.
Just 3441 asylum seekers were given refugee status in Australia last year, roughly 1% of the total migration program for that year (they were not all boat people).
In comparison, around 50,000 people over-stayed their visa last year alone — mostly people with business, student or holiday visas.
Australia only accepts 1% of the worlds' refugees.
It is not illegal to arrive in Australia seeking asylum.
We had hoped that Australia had moved past this. The Greens believe that, in the country of the fair go, we should be able to embrace a decent and compassionate attitude to refugees.
Sadly, both Labor and Liberal are once again locked in a race to the bottom, opting for harsh new policies for asylum seekers. Both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Liberal Leader Tony Abbott want to re-visit off-shore processing of asylum seekers. Both leaders want policies that 'deter' asylum seekers from asking Australia for protection with policies that will be harder on refugees and more harmful to children in detention. The Greens believe this is wrong. We recognise that the small number of people who arrive by boat seeking protection deserve to have their case heard and be treated humanely. Fleeing persecution is not an orderly process. We need a system that recognises this while still assessing who has a genuine reason and right to protection and who does not. Those found to be refugees should be welcomed into our community and those who are not must be returned home safely.
SMH journalist Lenore Taylor, perceptive as usual, had it right when she wrote (7 Jul 10) that
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott have an identical aim: to get their name and the words "tough" and "boat people" into the same sentence.
The fact that neither has a thought-out "tough" policy that would actually stop asylum seekers risking their lives to find a new home is apparently beside the point.
No country in the world has one of those and in any event none of this is really about the fears or circumstances of the alleged "flood" of asylum seekers arriving on our shores. It is entirely about the fears of the swinging voters. With an election campaign perhaps just 10 days away, our politicians are not focused on the Indian Ocean but on the marginal seats.
The Prime Minister made an excellent case yesterday as to why there is really nothing to fear from the current rate of boat arrivals, but then gave her full support to all the decent Australians who were fearful nonetheless. She tapped right in to their resentment by insisting refugees should not get an "inside track to special privileges", without providing any evidence that they ever have.
Likewise, Abbott, "didn't have answers either."
Abbott was tapping in to voters' fears, too. The Coalition, he said, would do "whatever it takes to keep our borders secure and our country safe". He didn't explain how asylum seekers pose a threat to our safety.
Taylor rightly concludes that "neither leader is in a hurry to explain how their very, very tough policy would actually work."
It's possible that Dr Jeffrey John may become the next Bishop of Southwark. Although Dr John, the Dean of St Albans, is understood to be celibate, in line with Church of England teaching, he has registered a civil partnership with his long-term companion Grant Holmes.
The Crown Nominations Committee has been meeting to select two names to go forward in order of preference to Prime Minister David Cameron, whose recommendation will be placed before the Queento be approved by the Queen.
Philip Giddings and Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream have said that, "Given the contested state of the Anglican Communion, an appointment which does not meet those requirements in the Church of England would bring to an end any hope there might be of holding the Communion together."
The appointment of Dr John would meet the "requirements of the Church of England".
I doubt nevertheless that it is worthwhile or necessary for the so-called Anglican Communion to "hold together" in its present dilapidated state. Why bother? Our oneness in Christ or as a family of Anglicans does not require or depend on a supra-national organisation in which the power rests with disputatious senior clerics.
The arguments about Israel's land and sea blockade of Gaza made me wonder what happened to Gaza's airport.
Airports in Palestine, including Gaza, were important stops in the prestigious network of Imperial Airways. Palestinian Airways, founded in July 1937 by Pinhas Rutenberg, began with flights between Haifa and Lydda using 2 Shorts S.16 Scion 2 planes. Palestine Airways ceased its operations in August 1940 and its aircraft were taken-over by the Royal Air Force during the second world war.
During the fifties and sixties, there were no air services to Gaza while flights to the West Bank were operated through Jerusalem's Kolundia Airport (JRS). Regional flights were flown to JRS by several Arab airlines, most of the traffic being carried by those registered in Jordan. The Six Days war in 1967 saw Kolundia airport taken over by the occupation.
An international airport in the Palestinian Authority's territory was difficult for Israel to accept for both security and symbolic reasons. Israeli restricted possible sites to the Gaza strip and required close and direct Israeli supervision. Construction of the Yasser Arafat International Airport [GZA] was the best that could be accomplished before a peace agreement. Work started in January 1996. The costs were mainly covered by donations from Japan, Europe and Morocco. Located near Rafah, GZA had a single runway that could handle most airliner types including the Boeing 747 and was designed for up to 700,000 passengers yearly.
Palestinian Airlines began operating from Port Said in January 1997 with two Fokker F-50s donated by the Dutch government and a Boeing 727 donated by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The airline transferred its base to GZA and started operating scheduled flights from Gaza in November 1998, flying to Amman and Cairo. Two De Havilland Dash-8s were purchased in order to reinforce regional frequencies and two Canadair Regional Jets were ordered and there were plans for the lease or purchase of 3 Boeing 737s in order to expand the network towards Athens, Rome, Frankfurt, Paris and London. Palestinian Airlines' highest level of operation was in the Summer of 2000. Other airlines flying to GZA at that time Russavia, Tarom, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian and Egyptair.
The airline was grounded in October 2000 following the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and was forced to move to El Arish International Airport in Egypt when on on December 12th 2001 GZA was bombed by the Israeli army and the control tower destroyed. On 10 January 2002, the US$60 million runway was completely destroyed by the Israeli army, shattering hopes for the resumption of flights to the airport.
Not much chance of a Berlin style airlift, sadly. Meanwhile, the airport staff are waiting (picture above).
Tom Speight, writing for The Commonweal (14 June 10) makes it clearer than I have read anywhere else, that BP was willfully and culpably negligent in bringing about the circumstances that allowed the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Every oil or gas rig ought to be able to anticipate, and prepare for, the kind of problems that led to the spill (gas "burps," equipment malfunctions, operator error). Such an offshore well, drilled at such a depth, obviously posed a big risk, and it should not have been drilled without contingency plans, proven shutoff methods, and back-up equipment sitting on the shelf, ready to be used. After all, blowouts happen even in well-developed and comparatively stable oil and gas fields, and recent years have seen several underwater blowouts off the coasts of Mexico and Australia. Since the oil and gas beneath the seabed are under such intense pressure that oil oozes out of natural seeps against the pressure of five thousand feet of ocean (measured in tons per square inch), this kind of drilling can be like punching a hole in a pressurized propane tank. . . .
BP's entire drilling operation was shoddy. The seals on the blowout preventer—the device designed to keep oil and gas from spurting out of the well—disintegrated a month before the accident and were never repaired. There was no acoustic failsafe switch, a device that could have triggered the blowout preventer and shut the well off even after electrical power was lost and the rig was destroyed (though of course this would have helped only if the blowout preventer was in working order to begin with). There was no backup blowout preventer, and there was no spill-response unit on standby. BP's representative on the rig ordered the Transocean drilling crew to remove some of the drilling mud from the borehole and replace it with seawater, which would have allowed BP to begin producing oil and gas from the well sooner, but which also left the well unable to contain the high-pressure oil and gas. . . .
"No one could have foreseen this" is a shabby excuse. Blowouts do happen. Thousands of books have been written on oil-rig safety, and many of the safety measures or redundancies that could have saved the Deepwater Horizon are mandatory on oil rigs off the coasts of other countries. Acoustic switches used to be mandatory on drill rigs in U.S. waters, until the Bush administration dropped the requirement, and they are still mandatory in most countries that drill.
Speight goes on to mention BP's very bad safety record in the Unites States and to argue for "consistent, legally enforced measures" to manage the risks involved.
As Mark Speeks sets out in The Tablet, the Gulf of Mexico spill highlights ethical concerns about drilling for oil in some of the most fragile ecosystems on earth. There are also serious concerns for pension funds that hold BP shares.
It is arguable whether the major oil companies match the criteria for an ethical investment. With many of the most obvious and easily accessible sites for drilling in production or exhausted, the oil industry is encroaching on remote pristine areas of outstanding beauty worldwide, threatening such areas as the Canadian Arctic tundra, once too difficult to reach.
While the companies promise to behave responsibly, no matter the efforts to minimise risk, the threat to the environment is ever present while the profit motive often places a limit on safety measures. And, of course, as the world gropes for a viable alternative, oil will remain for some time to come the essential lubricant for all our economies.
At least it can be said that oil is essential for transport and the manufacture of our medicines, fertilisers and many other products. There are other products that are more questionably ethically, such as tobacco and alcohol and dubious fanatical instruments.
Ethical investors can perhaps feel like sheep surrounded by wolves, uncertain whether the necessity of investing wisely for the short and long term means surrendering or compromising their most cherished beliefs. Indeed, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples that he was sending them out in exactly those terms. The remedy Jesus recommended was to be "as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves". . . .
The conundrum of being in the world and yet not of it creates a constant tension. . . . A Christian approach to ethical investment should not seek to withdraw from the world, fearful of contamination, but recognise that there are no pure choices and engage in the battle. . . . Justice, love and the common good are not ideas that should be banished from the boardroom but embraced. Moreover, a profound sense of responsibility for our actions and their effect on the environment is no mere box-ticking exercise but a humble recognition of our stewardship of creation. . . . In practice, it means attending shareholder meetings and asking questions. It means seeking out like-minded shareholders so that resolutions can be placed on the agenda for voting. It means not re-electing directors who don't listen to their shareholders. It means understanding a company's articles of association. It means agitating for meetings with management and boards. It also means using the press. . . .
Only by answering how the world could be different can Christians engage honestly with big business. It isn't enough to be an Elijah denouncing the powers that be when there are few, if any, alternatives. . . . Preferential ethics has no place in the Christian lexicon. Situational ethics have. Risks and bad consequences can—and must be—accepted once it is understood that sin is part and parcel of a world that struggles to become the Kingdom of God. . . . The Christian vocation is to engage in each individual battle: making sure that better decisions are made and more precautions are taken.
Doesn't look much does it? Especially compared the spectacular pictures from the Hubble telescope of which we've seen so many. But the the dot in the top left of this 2008 picture is now confirmed by researchers of the Gemini Observatory as the first of a planet outside the solar system.
It was taken by the Observatory's adaptive optics system in infrared light and shows the star 1RSX J160929.1-210524 and its planet. The planet is eight times the mass of Jupiter and orbits more than 300 times farther from the star than our Earth is from the sun.
System 1RXS J160929.1-210524 is unusual as the planet's extreme separation from the star challenges common planetary formation theories. The host star, which has an estimated mass of about 85 percent that of our sun, is located approximately 500 light-years away in a group of young stars called the Upper Scorpius Association that formed about 5 million years ago. The planet has an estimated temperature of over 1,500 °C, explained by its relatively young age.
The research, also to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, were led by David Lafrenière of the University of Montreal Department of Physics and a researcher at the Center for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec. Lafrenière and his colleagues won Canada's 2009 NSERC John C. Polanyi Award for their capturing of the first-ever image of a planetary system outside of our own solar system. Since 1RXS 1609, several other 'exoplanets' have also been found.
I find it intriguing that we can learn so much about relatively small objects so far away.
What reason could Julia Gillard possibly have for personally opposing same-sex marriages? As Labor leader she can claim to be upholding party policy, even though the ALP in her home state of Victoria has voted overwhelmingly to end that policy. But as a "personal" stance, her opposition to gay people marrying is inexplicable.
She is an atheist, so it can't be because she believes God ordained marriage as a holy sacrament and condemns homosexuality as a sin. She has no children, so it can't be because she believes there's an obligatory link between procreation and the right to marry.
She is in a de facto relationship, so it can't be because she opposes legally recognising different types of relationships. She is a female leader, so it can't be because she believes in some kind of profound biological difference between the sexes. And as our first female Prime Minister, she can't believe that discrimination in the past justifies discrimination into the future.
Why then, in the list of Gillard's often-stated personal values — belief in equality, choice, inclusion — is there a caveat that says "except if gay couples want to make a lifelong commitment"?
Gillard's opposition to marriage equality will be deeply disappointing to the 60 per cent of Australians who believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry and the 80 per cent of same-sex partners who believe they should have the right to marry. It is particularly frustrating and embarrassing at a time when same-sex marriages are allowed in an increasing number of places overseas. . . .
[M]ost ordinary Australians will continue to scratch their heads over the fact that there is no conceivable reason, even the weak reasons other political leaders put forward, why our new Prime Minister would violate all her own principles to personally oppose two men or two women tying the knot. Their conclusion will be that the real reason for Gillard's "personal" view must be entirely political and therefore quite cynical.
Read it all. Croome shows that, given that she is un-religious, none of the arguments Ms Gillard might advance for her views stand up.
On 10 July, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft flew by much-cratered asteroid 21 Lutetia at a closest distance of 3,162 km, returning superb pictures. Luteria is quite large — 130 km in length and may be 4.5 billion years old. Rosetta raced past the asteroid at 15 km/s completing the flyby in just a minute. Lutetia has been a mystery; it has characteristics of the 'C-type' asteroid, a primitive bodies from the formation of the Solar System, and of the 'M-type', associated with iron meteorites thought to be fragments of the cores of much larger objects.
Last night was the television broadcast of the final of the 
CAMRA Inc. presents the
The arguments about Israel's land and sea blockade of Gaza made me wonder what happened to Gaza's 
Doesn't look much does it? Especially compared the spectacular pictures from the Hubble telescope of which we've seen so many. But the the dot in the top left of this 2008 picture is now 
