Australia's rain may have moved to Antarctica - New Scientist

Australia's 40 yr drought linked to heavy snowfall over Antarctica

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527474.800-australias-rain-may-have-moved-to-antarctica.html

The Killer 'Jetski' warship set to tackle pirates - developed by US and Australian shipbuilders

January 6, 2010 - 11:32AM

A new shore-hugging warship developed by US and Australian shipbuilders will be commissioned next week - and fighting pirates could be one of its first missions.

"It is a jet ski," said US Navy Commander Curt Renshaw.

Built for use in coastal or littoral waters, the 128-metre trimaran can reach sprint speeds of more than 45 knots (83 km/h).

"The faster you go, the more stable it tends to get," said Renshaw, who previously commanded the USS Patriot, a mine-clearing ship, off the coast of Japan.

He said the size, speed and stability of USS Independence make it ideal for chasing down modern-day pirates.

The ship has an advanced computer system that allows the engines, weapons and other systems to be operated from anywhere on board, even from a laptop in Renshaw's stateroom.

The Independence will be commissioned on January 16, almost exactly four years after General Dynamics and its subcontractor, Australia's Austal Ltd , began work on the craft, called a Littoral Combat Ship.

Renshaw and a crew of 40 will move on board about two weeks after the commissioning, when the ship enters active service.

Accepted by the Navy last month, Independence is one of two rival designs for a new class of more agile, cheaper warships.

Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) first LCS ship, a more traditional monohull, went into service in late 2008 and has sailed more than 8000 nautical miles. The USS Freedom is due to deploy for the first time this year, in the Caribbean and then in the East Pacific, two years earlier than planned.

Lockheed and General Dynamics are now locked in competition for 10 more ships after the Navy decided last year to proceed with just one version of the new ship.

The LCS ships were designed for three main missions -- detecting mines, fighting smaller surface craft, and anti-submarine warfare. But the idea was always to make the ships more able to respond to changing military needs, such as anti-piracy, counter-narcotics and even disaster relief.

Both LCS models operate with far fewer crew members than earlier warships. They use satellite broadband connections to allow certain tasks -- like keeping track of food stores on board -- to be done more efficiently from shore.

The reduced crew size will be a major change for the Navy in coming years, and means that everyone on an LCS must essentially be able to do any job on board, Renshaw said.

It has also prompted some unusual ideas, he said, such as possibly using robotic vacuums like those built by iRobot (IRBT.O), freeing sailors for more important jobs.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/jetski-warship-set-to-tackle-pirates-20100106-lt2u.html?autostart=1

Australia exits America's orbit after crisis

December 28, 2009

Whether you look back over the past year or forward to the coming decade, you reach the same conclusion: it's the developing countries of Asia and elsewhere that now do most to drive the world economy and most to influence our economy's growth.

Our biggest forecasting mistake this year was assuming that if the mighty United States economy was stuffed, we would be too. Wrong.

It was an easy mistake to make because for a long time such an assumption worked well. But the clearest lesson from the world recession - which, globally, did turn out to be the worst recession since the Great Depression - is that the US no longer makes Australia's world go round.

Had so many economists not had an almost mystical view of the power of the world's largest economy to influence our future, we might not have been so sure we were in for a terrible time this year.

This is a particular vice of people in the financial markets because developments in US financial markets undoubtedly do dominate developments in the global financial market, which makes it easy to assume the same must hold for the real economy.

But even on the financial side we got the wrong end of the stick this year. I think Dr Philip Lowe of the Reserve Bank was the first to observe that the ''global financial crisis'' is a misnomer. ''It hasn't been a crisis in all financial systems around the globe,'' he said in November.

Rather it's been a crisis in the financial systems of many of the advanced countries of the North Atlantic - the US and Europe. There's been no crisis in the financial systems of Asia (or Australia).

And while virtually all countries were adversely affected by the sudden fall in business and consumer confidence after the failure of Lehman Brothers, the plunge in international trade and the rise in borrowing costs, it's pretty much only the North Atlantic economies that have had severe recessions.

Japan has been very weak, but its problems are mainly of domestic origin. In Europe, the former communist countries have been hard hit. The Economist's Intelligence Unit has produced growth forecasts for almost 200 countries in 2010 and ranked them from fastest to slowest.

Of the 12 countries expected to continue contracting, nearly half are in Eastern Europe. Of the world's 20 slowest-growing countries, 15 are in Europe overall.

By contrast, of the 20 fastest-growing countries, five are from East Asia: China (8.7 per cent), India (6.5 per cent), Sri Lanka (6.4 per cent), Vietnam (6 per cent) and Bangladesh (5.6 per cent).

After it became clear that China's exports had been hit by the crisis, many people ridiculed the earlier theory that China had ''decoupled'' from the developed world. But though no country can be completely decoupled in a globalised economy, this year has seen the decoupling theory vindicated.

The sceptics imagined that China's growth depended on its exports to the North Atlantic. The believers were confident an economy of the size (and potential size) of China could and would switch to domestic demand-oriented growth when the need arose. It did.

People who overestimate the global influence of America and the other North Atlantic economies tend to underestimate the size and dynamism of the developing countries in general, and Asia in particular.

They don't adequately appreciate that there's a lot more to Asia than China, or even China and India. South Korea is a big economy, for one. They don't realise that a lot of world trade is trade within Asia - and only some of that trade ultimately depends on exports to the North Atlantic.

To disabuse you of the notion that the US makes the world go round, consider these figures from the International Monetary Fund. In 2008, the US economy grew by 0.4 per cent, whereas the world economy grew by 3 per cent. This year, the US is expected to contract by 2.7 per cent, whereas the world will contract by just 1.1 per cent.

Next year the US is forecast to grow by 1.5 per cent, whereas the world should grow by 3.1 per cent. And get this: if you weight the various countries according to their share of our exports, our trading partners are forecast to grow by 3.7 per cent.

That's how far we are from the American orbit. The four most important destinations for our merchandise exports this year have been China, Japan, South Korea and India. The fifth largest was the US.

Just six years ago, the US ranked second, but was first overtaken by China, then Korea and then, just recently, India. The four large Asian trading partners now account for about 55 per cent of our total exports of goods. Add the rest of Asia and you get to about 70 per cent.

It's not just that we've become more oriented towards Asia. It's also that the developing countries in general, and Asia in particular, now account for a much bigger share of the global economy and especially the growth in the global economy.

Lowe is correct in concluding that our medium-term economic prospects are more closely linked with those of Asia than ever before.

Fluctuations in Asia's business cycle are also likely to have a bigger effect on the dynamics of our cycle.

Scott Haslem, chief economist at UBS, has challenged my statement last Monday that ''this time last year, virtually all economists were as sure as sure could be that … Australia was in for a severe recession''.

I stand corrected. This time last year most business economists were expecting a mild downturn. Their move to a more pessimistic view came later as the official forecasts were revised down.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-exits-americas-orbit-after-crisis-20091227-lg7x.html

Almost 200 Saltwater Crocodiles Captured In Australia - in concern for the safety of residents

Thursday, 24 December 2009, 06:34 CST

Officials say Australian rangers seized almost 200 saltwater crocodiles this year in concern for the safety of the residents.

196 of the deadly reptiles were picked up in the northern city of Darwin, the largest a 16 foot male.

Regional director of Conservation and Wildlife, Brett Easton, told AFP, "Once captured they are taken to a crocodile farm where they live a long and lazy life."

The government removed 190 "salties" last year from waterways near residential, recreation and swimming areas. Easton said some of the crocodiles were found too close to residential areas, such as storm drains and swimming areas.

Easton said flooding in the wet season has allowed the crocs to move more freely through areas they would usually avoid.

"In the Northern Territory we all live fairly close to water and saltwater crocodiles are not unusual in our waters," he said.

Two people, including a young girl, were killed in crocodile attacks this year.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1803127/almost_200_crocodiles_captured_in_australia/index.html


RELATED:

Saltwater crocodiles have been pictured jumping clear out of the murky water in Australia to catch their food.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6838895/Crocodiles-jump-out-of-the-water-for-food.html

NewYorkTimes.com | Apology Opens Wounds of British Migrant Program - Abusive orphanages in western Australia

British children working at a farm near Parramatta, Australia, in 1953. One British migrant recalled, “We were told it was the land of milk and honey.”

Published: November 22, 2009

LONDON — Laurie Humphreys, at least, had the advantage of being a teenager — if anything about being uprooted from family and homeland in 1940s Britain and sent 12,000 miles to brutal and often sexually abusive orphanages in western Australia could be called advantageous.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, left, during a ceremony last week to apologize for the program.

Mr. Humphreys was 14, old enough to understand at least some of what was happening to him.

Others among the boys and girls known in Australia as the “lost innocents” were as young as 3, children abandoned by single mothers or impoverished families, placed into institutional care in Britain, then transported across the world, often without parental consent, with certificates bearing wrong names and birth dates, and falsely noting that they had no living parents or siblings. FULL ARTICLE>>>>

The Sydney Morning Herald | Koala numbers in free fall

KOALAS are rapidly vanishing from the Australian bush,and there may be as few as 43,000 left on the mainland, according to the biggest national survey of their populations attempted.

The Australian Koala Foundation said its research showed the furry icons were suffering from urban development and climate change, and that the Federal Government should list the species as vulnerable.

The group, which used data from more than 1000 forest surveys, said the mainland population had fallen to between 43,000 and 80,000. The number of wild koalas in NSW, where they are already listed as vulnerable, could have dropped to as few as 8000, the group said.

FULL STORY

ABC.net.au | National Tidal Centre show sea levels along Western Australia's coast are rising at a rate double that of the world average

Sidney Morning Herald | ASEAN free-trade deal finally gets the go-ahead

October 26, 2009 -

AFTER almost five years of talks, Australia will enter into a free-trade agreement with ASEAN countries, covering about $112 billion goods and services.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, yesterday announced the agreement would take effect from January 1. Negotiations for the trade deal, Australia's largest, began in March 2005.

''The entry into force of this massive new free-trade agreement for Australia as of 2010 is a big step forward for Australia, it is good for the Australian economy, it is good for jobs, and that is why this Government is pleased to have been part of this negotiation, pleased to have brought this negotiation to a successful conclusion,'' Mr Rudd said.

The agreement spans 12 countries and over 600 million people and covers about 20 per cent of Australia's two-way trade. FULL STORY

SHANGHAI Xinhua | Group of 251 scientists from China, Australia & Russia begin research expedition on ice breaker "Snow Dragon" to Antarctica

A group of 251 scientists, workers and logistics staff from China, Australia and Russia began the half-year-long research expedition in the icebreaker Xuelong, or "Snow Dragon." SHANGHAI, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- One would head to China's Kunlun Station located at Dome A, the highest point on the continent at 4,093 meters above sea level, where more research equipment would be installed for astronomical observation.

The other to the Grove Mountains some 400 kilometers away from the Zhongshan Station to collect meteorolites and conduct other scientific research. From 1998 to 2006, China has made four trips of scientific research to the mountains and collected 9,834 meteorolites, making the country boast the third largest collection of meteorolites in the world.

The scientists were expected to return to Shanghai on April 10 next year.

China launched its first expedition to the Antarctic in 1984 and has set up three stations there. According to the Polar Research Institute of China, the Chinese have made nearly 4,000 visits to the South Pole during the past 25 years.

The University of Queensland, Australia | Australian continent to blame for Samoa, Sumatra quakes

Image of Australian tectonic boundary (red line). The two area's circled are hypothetical hot-spots which if a earthquake occurred at could cause a tsunami that would threaten the Australian east coast.

The recent earthquakes in the Pacific and Indonesia have one University of Queensland researcher questioning whether the two are related.

Dr Huilin Xing from UQ's Earth Systems Science Computational Centre (ESSCC) said the motion of the Australian tectonic plate probably caused one of the quakes, then the other.

The two quakes, measuring 8.0 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, occurred off the coasts of Samoa and Sumatra on September 29 and 30.

“From the observations, there were similar correlations of the quakes in the different places,” Dr Xing said.

“For two great earthquakes to occur within hours in such a way, it is abnormal.”

Dr Xing said since the start of 2004 there had been about 40 earthquakes measuring greater or equal to 7.0 on the Richter scale, along the boundary of the Australian plate.

These earthquakes have resulted in almost 240,000 fatalities, with the most devastating accounting for 228,000 after a resulting tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.

“From research, we can expect that if an earthquake is larger than magnitude 6.5 there may be a tsunami,” Dr Xing said.

In the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, Dr Xing's team started to study the Sumatra region as a high-risk zone for seismic and tsunami activity.

Using advanced computer simulation software, which had been developed by Dr Xing's team over the past seven years, they predicted three large Sumatran earthquakes.

Dr Xing said in the light of so much activity occurring at the edge of Australian plate, Australia was also under threat from earthquakes and tsunamis.

“Australia is mostly surrounded by subduction zones,” he said.

These zones are notorious for subduction earthquakes where one plate moves under another, pushing it and all of the water above it up. Such an earthquake was responsible for the 2004 tsunami.

“If a large subduction earthquake occurred in the deep water regions such as south of New Zealand or west of the Solomon Islands, it would impact the eastern coast of Australia.”

He said a shallow earthquake generated the Samoan tsunami, where the Australian plate and the Pacific plate convergence relatively with each other, causing four to six metre waves.

The ESSCC conducts research on the mechanics and physics of solid Earth processes on all scales using supercomputer simulation and by applying the methodologies of geophysical fluid and solid mechanics.

Sydney Morning Herald | Danger zone just a stone's throw away

DANGER is all around us. While Australia sits pretty in the middle of a large continental plate, our slow drift to the north-east causes chaos, encircling us in a massive ring of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

''We've got the most active areas in the world to our north and east,'' said Gary Gibson, a seismologist at Environmental Systems and Services in Melbourne. ''We are in the centre of the seismological world.''

Out near Samoa, our plate meets its match - the mighty Pacific plate that is thrusting westward under ours at a rate of 86 millimetres a year.

North near Sumatra, the opposite is happening. It is being dragged under the Sunda plate with about 65 millimetres a year disappearing almost straight down to be recycled deep in the earth.

While these movements at plate boundaries sound minuscule, their impact is colossal, as shown by the two unrelated events this week, on one day: the magnitude 8.1 earthquake and local tsunami near Samoa, and the magnitude 7.6 earthquake near Panang.

Earthquakes and tsunami have long racked our region, and despite new technologies to detect them, some ancient wisdom needs to be revived to survive, say scientists. FULL STORY

Australia | Boom and Bust, Australia Next?

http://www.energyefficienthomedesign.com.au/2009/09/boom-and-bust-australia-next/

Previously I’ve commented on the crash of the US$; where America started as a world saviour (or was it just our first taste of spin-doctoring) when they entered the second world war.

September 27, 2009 - Americans (and for that matter the rest of the world) were warned by USA President Eisenhower that corporations and the military were positioning themselves to take over, however, the relief of the war ending probably made people less concerned, the lessor of to evils.

But ‘world hegemony’ is not new, where tribes expanded and took over new territories.

The way the Americans did it was by a) disbanding the League of Nations and funding the United Nations, which basically was a group who drew new lines and divided the world up amongst themselves and as the USA was the major funder, the US% became the world’s reserve currency, the measuring stick and for every transaction, they took their cut.

However, greed being what it is, the new found wealth meant they could ‘afford’ more (usually at other people’s and countries expense as the USA has less than 5% of the world’s population yet uses over 25% of the world’s resources); as the population grew, so too did the need for more income to pay for the additional hangers-on.

But reality is that everything is finite; there is only so much potable water on the planet, arable soil and the energy and materials to make fertilizers; growth or more importantly population growth is required to drive demand and as more money was created by various schemes in America, this soon outstripped the real money; people no longer are able or willing to borrow from their future to buy stuff today.

So what does someone do if they can’t get the money they need to keep the system going … well in the USA’s situation, they just borrow more and if they can’t borrow it, they just print more and of course others looked away, but the doubt is there.

The Arab states were looking to the ‘Gulf’ as a new / replacement currency similar to the Euro; China – now the most affluent country – is looking for ways to have the Yuan as a more stable reserve currency and we see various fluctuations where we compare the AUS$ to the US$ but more importantly the Yen and the Euro; the English £ will soon follow the US$. Full Story

6.0 magnitude earthquake hit 195 km (120 miles) NNE of Macquarie Island, Australia - Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 01:59:31 PM at epicenter

The Australian | How freak wave hit secret submarine mission of HMAS Farncomb

A FREAK wave in the dead of night triggered one of the most serious and sensitive accidents in the recent history of the Royal Australian Navy.

The rogue wave crashed into the side of the Collins Class submarine HMAS Farncomb, sweeping five crew members off the top of the boat and into stormy seas.

Those involved knew immediately this was no ordinary naval accident and that it would be no ordinary rescue. HMAS Farncomb was far from home on a covert intelligence-gathering mission in Asia.

What happened next has been held closely by the navy's top brass for more than two years.

READ MORE>>>>

Latest news stories updated from NEWS.com.au network - September 14, 2009 12:00pm CDT

Sex slave accused set almost $35m bail
3:01am THE convicted US rapist accused of kidnapping a young girl and holding her for 18 years has had bail set at $US30 million ($34.79m) and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Pirates finally release ship and crew
2:35am SOMALI pirates have freed a Greek-owned merchant vessel and its 21 Filipino crew, five months after hijacking it in the Gulf of Aden, a maritime watchdog says.

Ukraine set to block Elton John adoption
1:41am POP star Elton John's bid to adopt a HIV-infected Ukrainian child will be rejected, according to a government minister.

US detainees get right to seek freedom
1:21am THE Pentagon is to give some 600 prisoners held in the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, the right to challenge their detention, Defence Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said today.

The Australian | Slow-motion disaster - Leak in oil rig belching up to 400 barrels of crude oil into the Timor Sea off Australia

THERE was plenty of backslapping in Perth yesterday over the final approval for the $43 billion Gorgon gas project, but another story involving Australia's oil and gas industry continues to paint a different picture. The West Atlas drill rig has been belching up to 400 barrels of light sweet crude oil a day into the Timor Sea off Australia since a leak developed in a well deep below the ocean floor.

Along with unknown quantities of methane gas and condensate, as much as 1215tonnes of oil may have seeped into the sea since the blowout almost four weeks ago.

PTTEP Australasia, the Thai-owned company that operates the wellhead platform 250km northwest of the Truscott air base in Western Australia's Kimberley region, has put in place a complex and highly technical operation to plug the leak.....

RELATED:

OIL SLICK IN THE TIMOR SEA
An oil rig in the Timor Sea began leaking oil and gas on August 21, 2009, and fuel continued to spill into the sea in the first week of September.
* http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=40123&src=nha
*** MODIS(Terra) image from Sep 03, 2009 (Posted on Sep 08, 2009 3:06 PM)

Energy-Daily.com | Australians Overtake Americans For CO2 Output As Chinese Emissions Soar

Bloomberg.com | Australia May Pass U.S., Become Second-Biggest Gold Producer

Australia may surpass the US in gold production this year as new mines boost output to meet demand that's driven the metal 13 percent ...

Australia should join Antarctic space race

A topographical map of the locations of planned observatories in Antarctica including the recently discovered Ridge A. Photo: UNSW

Australian scientists have discovered the coldest, driest place in the world on Australian soil and they say this could be the hub for a new generation of advanced astronomy.

The area known as Ridge A is deep in the heart of the Australian Antarctic Territory - about 1000 kilometres from the South Pole - and following the investigations of a joint US-Australian research team possesses all the characteristics of a perfect setting to build a space observatory.

READ MORE....