If you browse CNN's website, you will notice that stories from Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the Pacific Ocean are published under the section Asia.
CNN.com is the only website I know of that lumps Australia and Pacific nations under Asia. Other news websites, such as BBC News, will publish news about Australia under a section called Asia-Pacific instead. It makes you question CNN's commitment to responsible, accurate and factual reporting.
The response from Peter Garrett, Australia's new Environment Minister, on questions about Australia's support for short term cuts to greenhouse gas emissions was all too familiar:
"I think that most importantly, we are committed to constructive negotiations. That is the important message here, we're committed to constructive negotiations."
Rudd leaves us in no doubt about our "commitment" at the Bali conference:
"The objective of Bali is to start the process of negotiations for the next couple of years to bring about a real outcome to deal with excessively dangerous climate change."
Rudd has ruled out endorsing short term targets for greenhouse gas emissions without even setting foot on Bali.
Until Rudd is serious about making a commitment to targets for greenhouse gas emissions, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol can be regarded as nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
This raises some doubts about how committed the Labor Party truly is to tackling climate change, an issue upon which it sought to differentiate itself from the Liberal Party in the last election campaign.
Editorial from AdelaideNow...: End this climate of uncertainty
Here is another bandwidth waster that has been doing the rounds in Facebook:
Please look at the picture,(Above)read what his mother says, then forward this message on. My 15 year old boy, Evan Trembley, is missing. He has been missing for now two weeks. Maybe if everyone passes this on, someone will see this child. That is how the girl from Stevens Point was found by circulation of her picture on tv. The internet circulates even overseas, South America , and Canada etc. Please pass this to everyone in your address book. With GOD on his side he will be found. "I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE. It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone knows anything, please contact me at: HelpfindEvanTrembley@yahoocom. I am including a picture of him. All prayers are appreciated! It only takes 2 seconds to forward this. If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get!!
[...photo...]
You can rest easy, because Evan Trembley is alive and well, as reported on Snopes.com.
You should always be suspicious of any message that asks you to forward it on to other people. Chain messages are a dumb way of appealing for public support in finding a missing person.
Investigating whether a chain message is a hoax is very simple. Just copy and paste the entire contents of the message into the Google search box. If it is a known hoax, any information about it is likely to be one of the first items to appear in the list of results.
Recently, the following message has been forwarded from user to user all over Facebook:
Whats wrong here
AAA
BBB
CCC
DDD
EEE
FFF
GGG
HHH
III
JJJ
KKK
LLL
MMM
NNN
OOO
PPP
QQQ
RRR
SSS
TTT
UUU
VVV
WWW
XXX
YYY
ZZZ
Did you know that 80% of UCSD students could not find the error above? Repost this with the title "what's wrong here", and when you click "post ", the answer will be really obvious.
Judging by the number of posts to discussion forums about the question in this chain message, it has left many people bewildered.
Instead of staring at the pattern trying to identify an irregularity and giving yourself eye strain, consider what might have been the intentions of the author who created this chain message. The author claims that the answer will somehow be revealed if the message is posted again, which of course is nonsense.
There is no error in the pattern and the message is a prank. The author has created a chain message that spreads rapidly while perplexing users with a question that they cannot answer.
In the world's most isolated city with over 1 million inhabitants, some are making a 3300km journey to Sydney on the opposite side of the country seeking a change of lifestyle. While Perth, or Dullsville as it is dubbed, is seen as an ideal place to study by parents of overseas students who want their children to be free of the distractions typical of city life, we have to wonder how Perth earned this unenviable title and what is driving away young professionals who will give reasons other than just the better opportunities that are offered elsewhere.
Perth is a clean and beautiful city and many of its residents would not want to live anywhere else. However, there are also many who want to call some other place home. On most days the CBD becomes virtually a ghost town in the evening, and except for Friday and Saturday night, the majority of clubs, pubs and bars in Northbridge - Perth's entertainment precinct - are either closed or have few customers.
Many sense a lack of vibrancy in the atmosphere of this city, and upon careful consideration, the underlying reasons for this may not be as simple and obvious as they at first seem.
What Is Meant By Dull?The meaning of dull depends on the individual's perspective. Some Perth residents will have no idea what the proponents of change are seeking that the city does not already have. The proponents of change themselves will have differing ideas on what is needed to make the city more vibrant. However, most of these people would like to see more facilities and changes to laws that are conducive to social activity.
Does Size Matter?With 1.5 million inhabitants, Perth is indeed small when compared to the world's largest urban agglomerations:
Agglomeration Population Tokyo 33.6 million Seoul 23.4 million Mexico City 22.4 million
Size certainly does make a difference, and the larger cities do tend to be more exciting, simply because there are more things to see and do.
There are other factors that contribute to the vibrancy of a city, however. Take for example Gold Coast City, famous for its expanse of surfing beaches, high rise apartments and theme parks, such as Warner Bros. Movie World. It is home to just 550 thousand. Gold Coast City owes its success as a popular tourist destination to geography, which attracted investment in tourist and entertainment facilities.
However, you do not need good beaches to create an exciting city, and Perth has good beaches anyway (even though they are not ideal for surfing).
Food and Entertainment FacilitiesWhat can you do in other cities but not in Perth?
There is always a pub nearby. The hard part is choosing which one to go to.
There are nightclubs to cater to a range of tastes, including dance, R&B, house, rock and retro. They are concentrated in Northbridge, the CBD and Fremantle.
There is a wide variety of restaurants reflecting the multiculturalism of Australia, including Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French and Italian, just to name a few.
The cafes are plentiful. You see them everywhere you go in the CBD and Fremantle, and they can be found in many locations throughout the metropolitan area.
Aside from the above, the facilities exist for many other social activities, including watching movies on the big screen, pool, gambling and karaoke.
While Perth does have amusement and theme parks, it is debatable whether they can be considered world class. Perth would benefit from an amusement park with the same type of attractions as Disney Land in Los Angeles, but such a facility would not transform the atmosphere of Perth on its own, because it would not provide a regular social venue for local residents. The boost to tourism would be more significant, because it would encourage greater investment in the infrastructure and entertainment facilities that are needed to make Perth a more vibrant city.
Do the existing facilities just need to be bigger, better and greater in number in the capital of Australia's richest state? One would have to think not; presently, it is a meaningless proposition because on most nights almost all the social venues in the CBD are either closed or do not attract many customers. One would not describe the CBD as just dull six nights of the week; almost everywhere it is dead, eerily so. Visitors are left asking "Where can I get something to eat?". While there are restaurants (many of which only offer fast food) open in the evening, they are few and far between and lone visitors can be forgiven for not wanting to wander around the dark abandoned streets late at night searching for them. The few restaurants and nightclubs that are open for business tend to lie in obscure places where people are unlikely to find them on their own.
There are many restaurants and cafes open in Northbridge on every night of the week, but to get to these places one has to make a trek over the railway line which separates it from the centre of Perth's business activities. Some might argue that having a separate precinct exclusively for dining and entertainment is desirable, since it keeps the booming dance clubs and drunkards away from Perth's office blocks, but a lot of important business is done in restaurants and cafes outside normal business hours.
ShoppingVisitors might think that the exodus from the city centre at dusk is simply a lifestyle choice which fits popular stereotypes of Australian culture. It can be considered a choice, but not one made by individual retailers and shoppers.
The Retail Trading Hours Act 1987 was introduced by the state government with the aim of assisting small retailers against competition from larger businesses by restricting opening hours depending on the size, type and location of the business. Standard trading hours are as follows:
The Perth and Fremantle tourism precincts have expanded trading hours:
Small retail shops that meet a certain criteria may trade 24 hours of the day. The Act also allows 24 hour trading for filling stations. Retailers falling under the special retail shops category, such as pharmacies, video stores and duty free stores, are permitted to trade longer hours.
To the frustration of many consumers, the legislation has made many items such as clothes, electrical appliances and homewares generally impossible to obtain outside standard hours (or expanded hours in tourism precincts) because small businesses offering such products during these hours are simply not viable.
It is highly likely that the restricted trading hours of retailers would at least partly explain why other businesses such as cafes are legally permitted to remain open outside these hours but must close because they have too few potential customers. Consequently, there is little left to attract people into the CBD in the evening apart from a few convenience stores, fast food outlets and Internet cafes.
The Big Picture: Urban DesignMost of the discussion on transforming Perth that receives attention in the media appears to concentrate on the CBD and adjacent areas. It is easy for people to accept and appreciate the benefits of change in this part of the city. There is no question that the vitality of the city centre is important, but there are other issues that have an impact on the city's social structure.
The urban geography of Perth is characterised by urban sprawl and one of the world's highest dependencies on the automobile for transport. The highly segregated land use has resulted in suburbs featuring low-density, homogeneous residential areas serviced by large shopping centres. Urban sprawl is a phenomenon that became particularly evident in Australian and American cities after World War II and has been the subject of numerous studies.
Evidence exists that the car dependent lifestyle which is a fundamental characteristic of urban sprawl not only has an adverse impact on the environment, physical health and the economy, but also on social capital, or the benefit delivered by social networks. The only form of face-to-face interaction drivers have with people outside the car is road rage.
Reducing dependence on the private automobile is not a simple matter of increasing funding for public transport. Perth's urban geography has already made it one of the most costly cities to service in the world when measured as a percentage of Gross Regional Product.
Planning the city so that people spend less time behind the wheel and there is more space and money available for entertainment facilities and the services that support them can only make the CBD and surrounding suburbs more exciting places to live.
