Critical Times

Source: The Guardian 27 August, 2008

Denis Doherty and Hannah Middleton

An arms fair — the Asia-Pacific Defence and Security Exhibition (APDSE) — is due to open in Adelaide on November 11 — Remembrance Day. Organisations around the country have called for a Peace Convergence from November 8 to 13 to try to put a stop to this arms bazaar and to have the merchants of death banned for advertising their wares in our country.

South Australia has about 30 percent of Australia’s total military defence and security capital expenditure and the state government wants to increase this, making South Australia the “defence state”.

Poor struggle as rat meat prices soar

The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation puts other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials say.

With consumer price inflation at 37 per cent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.48).

Source: The Guardian 20 August, 2008

Editorial

The media has spilled the beans on a secret Telstra plan to divide and conquer its workforce and to force them into pay-cutting “agreements”. At the same time company CEO Sol Trujillo is getting a $1.5 million boost in pay to bring his total package up to $13.

Source: Green Left

Margarita Windisch
16 August 2008

Victorian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) vice president Noel Washington will now face the Geelong Magistrates Court on September 12. Washington was summonsed on June 19 to appear in court on August 8 for failing to comply with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). Lawyers acting for Washington contested the charges.

Eating rats is the best way for rich and poor people to solve the global crisis of rising food prices, an Indian official said as he unveiled his plan to put rodents on menus.

Regular rat snacks would translate into fewer rodents eating precious grain stocks, 50 per cent of which are lost in the north-eastern state of Bihar every year to the animals, said Vijay Prakash, secretary of the state’s welfare department.

“This will help in mitigating the global food crisis.

Source:The Guardian 6 August, 2008

Editorial

Names are changing all the time. Telecom became Telstra, TAA became Australian Airlines then Qantas, state public transport systems became TransAdelaide, Metro Tasmania, State Transit Authority, and so on. Along with the name changes came fancy logos for immediate brand recognition, in much the same way as the Nike logo is easily identified.

Sharon beder
26 July 2008

Why do we put so much faith in the market to solve environmental problems? Why do we assume that increasing the cost of fossil fuel emissions will reduce their use rather than just increase everyone’s cost of living?

Petrol prices have doubled in the past few years, causing much pain to individual and company budgets. Yet petrol usage has not declined significantly. There has been no mass shift to public transport, no major decline in car sales, no flood of affordable hybrid and electric cars onto the market.