* Police support laws legalising brothels * Shuttle inspection, has NASA killed another 7? * Taser the mentally ill * Teen girls want .. plastic surgery * Rudd backflip on Iraq noted * GM crop desirable to all, but Greens
Police support laws to legalise brothels from news.com.au POLICE have welcomed proposals to decriminalise and regulate West Australian brothels, in a move due to be debated in the state parliament in the next month.
WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty will introduce legislation into state parliament when it resumes next week which would allow brothels to operate legally.
Prostitution is not prohibited in Western Australia but it is illegal to manage a brothel and live off the earnings of prostitution.
The laws are archaic and need to be changed, Mr McGinty said.
"Prostitution is an unfortunate fact of life,'' Mr McGinty said.
"The new laws which we will be introducing to parliament in the next month will see brothels regularised, to the extent that we accept the reality that they are there and what we want to do is give local government the power to regulate where they are located and how they operate.
"We want to give the police the power to properly control activities that might be crime-related but most importantly we don't want the absurd situation of the police being required to turn a blind eye to any illegal activity.
"It is unlawful to manage a brothel, it is unlawful to live off the earnings of a prostitute, both of those are archaic laws.''
A Police Royal Commission in WA recommended the laws be changed to avoid the possibility of police corruption in terms of turning a blind eye to something illegal but unenforceable, Mr McGinty said.
Organised Crime Detective Superintendent Kim Porter said the advent of new prostitution laws would be welcomed.
"The police have certainly been in a difficult position for quite some time, trying to deal with issues that have been not particularly clear in terms of legislation,'' Det Supt Porter said.
"It is very clear that it is an offence to manage a brothel, it's an offence to live off the earnings of prostitution, but there have been difficulties in dealing with other aspects of prostitution.
"This new legislation will give us some ability to deal with those matters and I understand there is a review of that act after two years.''
Here is an idea, posed long ago, why not legalise prostitution and drugs. Let the state manage each. Public service run everything so much more efficiently, eh? (sarcasm)
NASA to scrutinise shuttle shield damage from news.com.au ASTRONAUTS on the International Space Station are set to examine and measure a troublesome gash in the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield, by using a camera and a laser atop a robotic arm.
The 56-square-centimetre gouge near a landing gear hatch was apparently made by a piece of ice that broke off the shuttle's external fuel tank 58 seconds after Wednesday's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The laser device will provide the exact measurement and depth of the gash so NASA engineers can decide whether repairs are need, for which the Endeavour mission would be prolonged to allow for an additional spacewalk.
Endeavour's mission was initially planned for 11 days, with three space walks.
NASA may extend the mission by three days, and add a space walk, after they test a new system that transfers electricity from the ISS to the orbiter, prolonging the life of the shuttle's batteries.
Separately, if NASA decides that the damaged shuttle tiles need fixing, an additional space walk is possible.
NASA on Saturday studied pictures of the damage taken on Friday, while two astronauts completed the first spacewalk of the shuttle's 11-day mission.
Mission specialists Rick Mastracchio of the United States and Canadian Dave Williams spent six hours, 17 minutes installing and activating a new, 1.58-ton segment for the International Space Station that the Endeavour had delivered.
The two astronauts attached the Starboard 5 truss segment to the Starboard 4 segment, with the help of shuttle pilot Charles Hobaugh, who from inside the ISS operated the station's robot arm holding the 3.37 x 4.24-metre truss.
They also retracted a radiator on the Port 6 truss, which will be moved and attached to the Starboard 5 truss during a future mission, replaced a defective gyroscope on the ISS and installed an external stowage platform.
Back on Earth, meanwhile, National Aeronautics and Space Administration experts analysed 296 pictures of Endeavour's heat shield taken during a routine inspection Friday just before the orbiter docked with the ISS.
In addition to the gash, small white marks were also visible on other thermal tiles surrounding the damaged area, mission manager John Shannon said.
He said NASA was trying to estimate the extent of the apparent damage, which will not be exactly determined until a closer inspection is carried out with the ISS robotic arm bearing a high-resolution camera and laser device.
The ice that caused the damage presumably was formed by humid air coming in contact with the cold surface of the shuttle's fuel tank, which holds super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel for the takeoff and is jettisoned before orbit is reached.
An insulation layer on the tanks is supposed to prevent icing.
The US space agency has carefully inspected the orbiter's protective thermal tiles during each of the missions that have followed the shuttle Columbia disaster of February 2003.
Columbia's crucial protective heat shield was pierced by a piece of insulating foam that peeled off its external fuel tank during liftoff.
The breach resulted in the shuttle disintegrating into a ball of fire as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Endeavour docked on Friday with the ISS bringing seven astronauts, including 55-year-old Barbara Morgan, the first school teacher in space.
Ms Morgan's space mission came 21 years after the shuttle Challenger launch explosion in 1986 killed another woman intended to become the first teacher-astronaut, Christa McAuliffe
Taser stuns faeces-smeared man from news.com.au POLICE have used a stun gun to subdue a man who smeared himself with faeces and blood after being thrown out of a Gold Coast nightclub.
Officers were called after a security guard was assaulted by a man who had been evicted from the club in Orchid Avenue, Surfers Paradise, around 3.30am (AEST) today.
By the time officers arrived, the man had undressed himself and covered his entire body in faeces and blood, police said.
When he refused to co-operate with police, officers used a Taser weapon, which delivers a short-lived electric shock, to subdue him.
A 34-year-old Brisbane man, charged with bodily harm and obstructing police, is due to appear in Southport Magistrates Court on August 27.
Secret report backs GM crops from news.com.au A CONFIDENTIAL report has recommended farmers be allowed to plant genetically modified crops so they can compete in the world market, Sky News reports today.
The July report by the Department of Agriculture says GM crops pose no danger to human health and the environment and should be implemented as soon as possible to help Australian farmers stay competitive.
Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran, who is leading the push for GM crops, is backing the report despite bans in all states except Queensland.
New South Wales and Victoria are expected to lift the bans following support for GM crops by farming groups and the CSIRO.
The Victorian Government bans canola, the only crop not to have received approval by gene technology authorities.
"GM canola offers some solutions to the current problems conventional canola faces in Australia and is likely to make an important contribution to farming systems," the federal government report states.
The findings have dismayed experts who say the GM crops could be detrimental to human health and the environment.
Greenpeace Australia spokeswoman Louise Sales said she was alarmed.
"They (GM crops) lead to the creation of even stronger weeds which require even stronger pesticides," she said.
A recent survey commissioned by the Department of Industry found public support for GM crops had risen in the past two years.
Quarter of teen girls want plastic surgery By Tamara McLean A QUARTER of teenage girls in Australia say they would get plastic surgery if they could, and two per cent have already gone under the knife, a survey has revealed.
A new study of drug, sex and surgery trends among 4000 girls aged 11 to 18 has found most are unhappy with their bodies in general - and their weight in particular.
Almost 60 per cent wanted to be lighter on the scales, and 45 per cent said they knew someone with an eating disorder, according to the report published today in the teenage magazine Dolly.
One in four of those questioned - 27 per cent - would get plastic surgery if they could, and two per cent already had.
Dr Jenny O'Dea, associate professor of child and adolescent health at the University of Sydney, said while this figure may appear small, it was actually very significant.
“That's 80 girls in the 4000 questioned who had had some kind of procedure, and that's concerning,” said Dr O'Dea, who speculated that these would most likely be “boob jobs”.
“I think the whole trend towards plastic surgery is very worrying because there's a big myth that it can actually build true self-esteem.
“In the long term, what makes teenage girls really happy are their friends, their relationships and what they do with their lives - nothing to do with how they look.”
She said many of these girls would carry their worrying self-image issues into adulthood and would instil these same messages in their own children.
“That is why more needs to be done to try to break this cycle,” Dr O'Dea said.
The survey also gives a picture of drug use, showing that three per cent have tried the party drug ice, five per cent had swallowed an ecstasy pill and 13 per cent have smoked marijuana.
Only 13 per cent admitted smoking cigarettes.
Meanwhile, about half said they drink alcohol, with one in five confessing to having done something they regret while they were drunk.
When it comes to relationships, almost one in four teen girls were sexually active.
Over one third of these sexually active girls said they didn't use condoms, but it was unclear whether they used other forms of protection, like the contraceptive pill.
Global issues, like terrorism and the environment, were a concern for 78 per cent of the sample, while 85 per cent worried about achieving at school.
Peer pressures were also a reality for many, with 70 per cent of girls confessing they had been bullied.
Bronwyn McCahon, editor of Dolly, said while it was an exciting time to be a teen “there's no doubt the challenges facing young girls today are greater than ever”.
Rudd's Iraq flip 'an election stunt' from news.com.au OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd reversed his position of supporting Australian involvement in Iraq because of the upcoming election, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says.
A leaked letter from Mr Rudd to Prime Minister John Howard showed the federal Labor leader had backed Australia's involvement following the Gulf war.
The letter suggested five measures Australia could adopt to help in reconstruction.
"Now, of course, he has suddenly changed his position. He is the leader of the opposition and we are getting close to an election," Mr Downer said on Channel 9 today.
Mr Rudd's letter to Mr Howard was written in March 2003 when he was Opposition foreign affairs spokesman.
In March 2004, then opposition leader Mark Latham declared that if elected, a Labor government would bring Australian troops home from Iraq by Christmas.
Mr Rudd now says Australian involvement in Iraq was a major foreign policy blunder.
Mr Downer said the Latham Diaries made clear that Mr Rudd was unhappy, astonished and angered by his leader's sudden policy change on Iraq back in 2004.
"I don't think that was ever Kevin Rudd's position. Kevin Rudd is now the person who wants to be the prime minister of our country, so he is the one who should be under scrutiny," he said.
"He has chopped and changed his position on this issue as he, of course, does on everything just out of political convenience, just because a pollster and public relations company have told him to."
Polls indicate widespread opposition to Australian involvement in Iraq.
Mr Downer said public opinion was more complex than the polls suggested and he did not believe there was widespread support for Australia just abandoning Iraq.
"I think the public understands only too well that if you suddenly walked away overnight from Iraq ... if you just pulled everybody out of Iraq, particularly, of course, the Americans, the place would descend into a mass civil war that could drag in neighbouring countries.
Police support laws to legalise brothels
ReplyDeletefrom news.com.au
POLICE have welcomed proposals to decriminalise and regulate West Australian brothels, in a move due to be debated in the state parliament in the next month.
WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty will introduce legislation into state parliament when it resumes next week which would allow brothels to operate legally.
Prostitution is not prohibited in Western Australia but it is illegal to manage a brothel and live off the earnings of prostitution.
The laws are archaic and need to be changed, Mr McGinty said.
"Prostitution is an unfortunate fact of life,'' Mr McGinty said.
"The new laws which we will be introducing to parliament in the next month will see brothels regularised, to the extent that we accept the reality that they are there and what we want to do is give local government the power to regulate where they are located and how they operate.
"We want to give the police the power to properly control activities that might be crime-related but most importantly we don't want the absurd situation of the police being required to turn a blind eye to any illegal activity.
"It is unlawful to manage a brothel, it is unlawful to live off the earnings of a prostitute, both of those are archaic laws.''
A Police Royal Commission in WA recommended the laws be changed to avoid the possibility of police corruption in terms of turning a blind eye to something illegal but unenforceable, Mr McGinty said.
Organised Crime Detective Superintendent Kim Porter said the advent of new prostitution laws would be welcomed.
"The police have certainly been in a difficult position for quite some time, trying to deal with issues that have been not particularly clear in terms of legislation,'' Det Supt Porter said.
"It is very clear that it is an offence to manage a brothel, it's an offence to live off the earnings of prostitution, but there have been difficulties in dealing with other aspects of prostitution.
"This new legislation will give us some ability to deal with those matters and I understand there is a review of that act after two years.''
Here is an idea, posed long ago, why not legalise prostitution and drugs. Let the state manage each. Public service run everything so much more efficiently, eh? (sarcasm)
ReplyDeleteNASA to scrutinise shuttle shield damage
ReplyDeletefrom news.com.au
ASTRONAUTS on the International Space Station are set to examine and measure a troublesome gash in the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield, by using a camera and a laser atop a robotic arm.
The 56-square-centimetre gouge near a landing gear hatch was apparently made by a piece of ice that broke off the shuttle's external fuel tank 58 seconds after Wednesday's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The laser device will provide the exact measurement and depth of the gash so NASA engineers can decide whether repairs are need, for which the Endeavour mission would be prolonged to allow for an additional spacewalk.
Endeavour's mission was initially planned for 11 days, with three space walks.
NASA may extend the mission by three days, and add a space walk, after they test a new system that transfers electricity from the ISS to the orbiter, prolonging the life of the shuttle's batteries.
Separately, if NASA decides that the damaged shuttle tiles need fixing, an additional space walk is possible.
NASA on Saturday studied pictures of the damage taken on Friday, while two astronauts completed the first spacewalk of the shuttle's 11-day mission.
Mission specialists Rick Mastracchio of the United States and Canadian Dave Williams spent six hours, 17 minutes installing and activating a new, 1.58-ton segment for the International Space Station that the Endeavour had delivered.
The two astronauts attached the Starboard 5 truss segment to the Starboard 4 segment, with the help of shuttle pilot Charles Hobaugh, who from inside the ISS operated the station's robot arm holding the 3.37 x 4.24-metre truss.
They also retracted a radiator on the Port 6 truss, which will be moved and attached to the Starboard 5 truss during a future mission, replaced a defective gyroscope on the ISS and installed an external stowage platform.
Back on Earth, meanwhile, National Aeronautics and Space Administration experts analysed 296 pictures of Endeavour's heat shield taken during a routine inspection Friday just before the orbiter docked with the ISS.
In addition to the gash, small white marks were also visible on other thermal tiles surrounding the damaged area, mission manager John Shannon said.
He said NASA was trying to estimate the extent of the apparent damage, which will not be exactly determined until a closer inspection is carried out with the ISS robotic arm bearing a high-resolution camera and laser device.
The ice that caused the damage presumably was formed by humid air coming in contact with the cold surface of the shuttle's fuel tank, which holds super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel for the takeoff and is jettisoned before orbit is reached.
An insulation layer on the tanks is supposed to prevent icing.
The US space agency has carefully inspected the orbiter's protective thermal tiles during each of the missions that have followed the shuttle Columbia disaster of February 2003.
Columbia's crucial protective heat shield was pierced by a piece of insulating foam that peeled off its external fuel tank during liftoff.
The breach resulted in the shuttle disintegrating into a ball of fire as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Endeavour docked on Friday with the ISS bringing seven astronauts, including 55-year-old Barbara Morgan, the first school teacher in space.
Ms Morgan's space mission came 21 years after the shuttle Challenger launch explosion in 1986 killed another woman intended to become the first teacher-astronaut, Christa McAuliffe
Taser stuns faeces-smeared man
ReplyDeletefrom news.com.au
POLICE have used a stun gun to subdue a man who smeared himself with faeces and blood after being thrown out of a Gold Coast nightclub.
Officers were called after a security guard was assaulted by a man who had been evicted from the club in Orchid Avenue, Surfers Paradise, around 3.30am (AEST) today.
By the time officers arrived, the man had undressed himself and covered his entire body in faeces and blood, police said.
When he refused to co-operate with police, officers used a Taser weapon, which delivers a short-lived electric shock, to subdue him.
A 34-year-old Brisbane man, charged with bodily harm and obstructing police, is due to appear in Southport Magistrates Court on August 27.
Secret report backs GM crops
ReplyDeletefrom news.com.au
A CONFIDENTIAL report has recommended farmers be allowed to plant genetically modified crops so they can compete in the world market, Sky News reports today.
The July report by the Department of Agriculture says GM crops pose no danger to human health and the environment and should be implemented as soon as possible to help Australian farmers stay competitive.
Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran, who is leading the push for GM crops, is backing the report despite bans in all states except Queensland.
New South Wales and Victoria are expected to lift the bans following support for GM crops by farming groups and the CSIRO.
The Victorian Government bans canola, the only crop not to have received approval by gene technology authorities.
"GM canola offers some solutions to the current problems conventional canola faces in Australia and is likely to make an important contribution to farming systems," the federal government report states.
The findings have dismayed experts who say the GM crops could be detrimental to human health and the environment.
Greenpeace Australia spokeswoman Louise Sales said she was alarmed.
"They (GM crops) lead to the creation of even stronger weeds which require even stronger pesticides," she said.
A recent survey commissioned by the Department of Industry found public support for GM crops had risen in the past two years.
Quarter of teen girls want plastic surgery
ReplyDeleteBy Tamara McLean
A QUARTER of teenage girls in Australia say they would get plastic surgery if they could, and two per cent have already gone under the knife, a survey has revealed.
A new study of drug, sex and surgery trends among 4000 girls aged 11 to 18 has found most are unhappy with their bodies in general - and their weight in particular.
Almost 60 per cent wanted to be lighter on the scales, and 45 per cent said they knew someone with an eating disorder, according to the report published today in the teenage magazine Dolly.
One in four of those questioned - 27 per cent - would get plastic surgery if they could, and two per cent already had.
Dr Jenny O'Dea, associate professor of child and adolescent health at the University of Sydney, said while this figure may appear small, it was actually very significant.
“That's 80 girls in the 4000 questioned who had had some kind of procedure, and that's concerning,” said Dr O'Dea, who speculated that these would most likely be “boob jobs”.
“I think the whole trend towards plastic surgery is very worrying because there's a big myth that it can actually build true self-esteem.
“In the long term, what makes teenage girls really happy are their friends, their relationships and what they do with their lives - nothing to do with how they look.”
She said many of these girls would carry their worrying self-image issues into adulthood and would instil these same messages in their own children.
“That is why more needs to be done to try to break this cycle,” Dr O'Dea said.
The survey also gives a picture of drug use, showing that three per cent have tried the party drug ice, five per cent had swallowed an ecstasy pill and 13 per cent have smoked marijuana.
Only 13 per cent admitted smoking cigarettes.
Meanwhile, about half said they drink alcohol, with one in five confessing to having done something they regret while they were drunk.
When it comes to relationships, almost one in four teen girls were sexually active.
Over one third of these sexually active girls said they didn't use condoms, but it was unclear whether they used other forms of protection, like the contraceptive pill.
Global issues, like terrorism and the environment, were a concern for 78 per cent of the sample, while 85 per cent worried about achieving at school.
Peer pressures were also a reality for many, with 70 per cent of girls confessing they had been bullied.
Bronwyn McCahon, editor of Dolly, said while it was an exciting time to be a teen “there's no doubt the challenges facing young girls today are greater than ever”.
Psst hey, teenager. I got a quarter .. (Australians don't get this joke, but then it isn't funny).
ReplyDeleteRudd's Iraq flip 'an election stunt'
ReplyDeletefrom news.com.au
OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd reversed his position of supporting Australian involvement in Iraq because of the upcoming election, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says.
A leaked letter from Mr Rudd to Prime Minister John Howard showed the federal Labor leader had backed Australia's involvement following the Gulf war.
The letter suggested five measures Australia could adopt to help in reconstruction.
"Now, of course, he has suddenly changed his position. He is the leader of the opposition and we are getting close to an election," Mr Downer said on Channel 9 today.
Mr Rudd's letter to Mr Howard was written in March 2003 when he was Opposition foreign affairs spokesman.
In March 2004, then opposition leader Mark Latham declared that if elected, a Labor government would bring Australian troops home from Iraq by Christmas.
Mr Rudd now says Australian involvement in Iraq was a major foreign policy blunder.
Mr Downer said the Latham Diaries made clear that Mr Rudd was unhappy, astonished and angered by his leader's sudden policy change on Iraq back in 2004.
"I don't think that was ever Kevin Rudd's position. Kevin Rudd is now the person who wants to be the prime minister of our country, so he is the one who should be under scrutiny," he said.
"He has chopped and changed his position on this issue as he, of course, does on everything just out of political convenience, just because a pollster and public relations company have told him to."
Polls indicate widespread opposition to Australian involvement in Iraq.
Mr Downer said public opinion was more complex than the polls suggested and he did not believe there was widespread support for Australia just abandoning Iraq.
"I think the public understands only too well that if you suddenly walked away overnight from Iraq ... if you just pulled everybody out of Iraq, particularly, of course, the Americans, the place would descend into a mass civil war that could drag in neighbouring countries.
- with the Sunday Telegraph