Critical Times

ABC Radio National
PM - Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 18:30:00
Reporter: Stephen Long

MARK COLVIN: When it comes to the economy, we’ve been living in a long boom, one of the longest ever, in fact.

All good things though come to an end, and today the central bank for central banks is warning that the world could be headed for another Great Depression.

The Bank for International Settlements says these may appear to be in benign economic times, with low inflation and strong growth.

About 10,000 people have marched through the streets of Launceston in northern Tasmania to protest against a planned $1.5 billion pulp mill.

The vocal crowd chanted anti pulp mill slogans and waved banners.

By ABC Science Online Anna Salleh

Diseased honey bees could threaten billions of dollars worth of honey production and pollination if they breach Australia’s border controls, beekeepers say.

The Australian Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC) expresses its concerns in a submission to a Federal Government inquiry on the industry.

One of the diseases Australian beekeepers are particularly concerned about is caused by the mite Varroa destructor, which has been killing bees in New Zealand.

Peter Mac

Climate change has forced governments to seek alternatives to the generation of power from traditional coal-fired power stations, which produce large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2). In view of this, should a nuclear power industry be introduced into Australia?

The Prime Minister has made it crystal clear that he favours the introduction of nuclear fission or “clean coal” (CO2 capture and geosequestration), for Australia’s future electric power generation. Both these approaches are backed by extremely strong sectors of capital.

MOTHER EARTH IS CRYING

On the 07/07/07, Yungarri Knuppanunka Aunty Sue Charles Rankin, Aboriginal Mother and Grandmother from the Kulin Nation, (Melbourne, Australia) in her fiftieth year will set off from Kaurna Country (Adelaide, South Australia), to walk a journey of 1,500 kilometers to Uluru in Australia’s Northern Territory to bring world-wide focus on Mother Earth changes and the continued deplorable treatment and living conditions of Aboriginal Peoples in the homelands of her Ancestors.

Our people say if country is sick, people are sick. We have forgotten that we are all connected,
we no longer listen to our Mother Earth and each other in a healthy manner.

Thousands of protesters have rallied in Indonesia’s Central Java, calling on the Government to abandon plans to build a nuclear power plant on the outskirts of their city.

The Government, under increasing pressure to improve energy supplies to the world’s fourth most populous nation, plans to built its first plant on the foothills of Mount Muria, a dormant volcano on the north coast of Java island.

Police say nearly 4,000 local residents, students and anti-nuclear activists have taken to the streets in the city of Kudus, about 30 kilometres from the volcano.

At the Palace Cinema, Rundle Street, Adelaide

3pm

Sunday 17 June

NoWar presents a film fundraiser

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

Tickets: $15 waged; $10 unwaged

Phone: 0414 773918 to book your ticket.

“I sat breathless through the final minutes of the documentary ‘OilCrash’, maybe the ultimate feel-bad apocalyptic film ever made and the one true knockout at SXSW this year.”Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.

Various strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been suggested, especially by corporate monopolies concerned about future investments and maintaining their rate of profit. Will either carbon trading or a carbon tax really reduce emissions; will biofuel be a good alternative to fossil fuels?

There are plenty of dire warnings about the effects of climate warming in the coming decades. They argue that greenhouse gases will need to be reduced significantly over the next fifty years, or the world will become a miserable place.

A broad protest movement has emerged in Australia against the coming Talisman Sabre war games in Queensland, involving 14,000 US troops, along with dozens of warships, bombers and fighter planes.

Australia’s smaller military contingent will play its usual supporting role to US forces, with a few ships and submarines, a battalion or two of soldiers and a few obsolete aircraft. With so much of Australia’s military forces already committed to the service of the Empire in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be hard to scrape together a credible presence.

A United Nations report claims the Earth’s ice is melting at an accelerated rate, potentially affecting several million people.

The report was released in time for today’s World Environment Day events.

“The futures of hundreds of millions of people across the world will be affected by declines in snow cover, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost and lake ice,” the Global Outlook for Ice and Snow report says.

Fourteen US soldiers have been killed in the last three days in Iraq, mainly in roadside bombings, the US military has said.
Four soldiers died in a single blast during search operations north-west of Baghdad on Sunday, the military said.

On the same day, two US soldiers were killed and five wounded in two separate roadside blasts.

AUSTRALIA
Smoking was banned on Manly, one of Australia’s most famous and picturesque stretches of surfing beach, in May 2004.

Other Sydney areas – including the world-famous Bondi Beach – are reported to be considering following suit.

Smoking is already banned in all airports, government offices, health clinics and workplaces in Australia.

By Zoe Smeaton
BBC News

Smoking cannabis can cause severe lung damage
The holes in Samantha Wilson’s lungs are getting bigger.
There is no cure for her illness and if it continues to get worse it will eventually kill her.

Samantha is 37 and has emphysema, a progressive condition normally associated with older people who have smoked tobacco regularly throughout their lives.

The melting of the planet’s ice due to climate change will be the central theme of World Environment Day, celebrated annually on June 5 and this year hosted by the Arctic town of Tromsoe in Norway.

Melting ice offers some of the clearest evidence of global warming, and this year’s choice of host city was no coincidence, with the picturesque Norwegian town nestled in the Arctic, a region which is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet and where the effects are already visible.

“The Arctic and Antarctica may be the Earth’s climate early warning system – feeling the heat first – but we know it does not end there,” the head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Achim Steiner, said.

Mike Rueden of rural Seymour keeps bees to sell the honey.

Scientists are calling for urgent research funding to help Australia’s beekeeping industry fend off a serious threat to its livelihood.

The varroa destructor mite from the United States has the potential to wipe out the industry, as well as the $4 billion worth of crop pastures that rely on bees for pollination.

Denis Anderson from the CSIRO says even the best quarantine will not keep the mite out of Australia and the consequences will be widespread.