One of the first decisions of the new Labor Government when it meets tomorrow will be how to fulfil its election promise to send the Australian Navy south to monitor Japanese whale hunters.
Incoming environment minister Peter Garrett will raise the issue when cabinet holds its first meeting tomorrow after being sworn in by Governor-General Michael Jeffery.
During the election campaign Labor pledged to send the navy or long-range aircraft to gather evidence against Japanese whale hunters in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to use in court action.
"It will be one of the first things raised when cabinet meets," a spokesman for Mr Garrett said. "Using the navy is about heightening the pressure on Japan to stop killing whales."
Meanwhile two young Australians are prepared to risk their lives to stop the whale hunt when their anti-whaling ship leaves for the Southern Ocean on Wednesday.
Carly McDermott, 23, and Stephen Bennett, 24, are part of the 40 crew of the Robert Hunter flying the pirate skull and bones flag, which leaves Melbourne on Wednesday determined to battle the whale hunters.
The sinister looking matt black ship is skippered by Captain Paul Watson, founder of the radical Sea Shepherd group, which has rammed and sunk whaling ships.
Last year the ship clashed violently with Japanese whaling ships, colliding in mid-ocean with the whaling mother ship with its secret weapon - a "can opener" attached to its deck to slice open the hull of other ships.
Japanese whale hunters will arrive in the Southern Ocean in coming weeks to start killing more than 1000 whales, including 50 fin whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 935 minke whales.
"We are not going there to protest and wave banners; we are going there to stop them killing whales," Mr Bennett, from Perth, said.
"We are not a protest ship. We are going to uphold the law. What they are doing is illegal and against international treaties. We will do whatever we have to do to shut them down."
Mr Bennett said he hoped the navy would force the whale hunters to go home, but he doubted it.
"All they have to do is uphold international law and get them out of the whale sanctuary. It doesn't make me feel safer if the navy is there. We will do what we have to do regardless."
Ms McDermott, of Essendon, will be on the bridge.
"We will be at sea for two months. I hope it won't come to a physical clash and everyone will be safe. It's my first time at sea and I will be learning, but it is scary," she said.
"I think it will be exciting but a little bit of fear is good. What they are doing is illegal and immoral and somebody has to stop them."
Captain Watson will be at war with Greenpeace as much as the whale hunters.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza will also be shadowing the whale fleet as it heads south.
Greenpeace says Captain Watson's confrontational tactics only result in Japan digging in its heels.
Greenpeace chief executive Steve Shallhorn said non-violence was the most effective way to stop whaling.
"We go down to the Southern Ocean to stop whales from being killed and we do that by putting ourselves between the whale and the harpoon," Mr Shallhorn said.
But Captain Watson makes no apologies.
"You don't sit there and watch a whale being harpooned and killed and do nothing except take its picture," he said.
"Basically, they're producing whale snuff flicks. How many more whales do we have to see die?"
MORE kangaroos should be slaughtered and eaten to help save the world from global warming, environmental activists say.
The controversial call to cut down on beef and serve more of the national symbol on our dinner plates follows a report on curbing greenhouse gas emissions damaging the planet.
Greenpeace energy campaigner Mark Wakeham urged Aussies to substitute some red meat for roo to help reduce land clearing and the release of methane gas from flatulent cattle and sheep.
"It is one of the lifestyle changes we can make," Mr Wakeham said.
"Changing our meat consumption habits is a small way to make an impact."
The eat roo recommendation is contained in a report, Paths to a Low-Carbon Future, commissioned by Greenpeace and released today.
It also coincides with recent calls from climate change experts for people in rich countries to reduce red meat and switch to chicken and fish because land-clearing and burping and farting cattle and sheep were damaging the environment.
They said nearly a quarter of the planet's greenhouse gases came from agriculture, which releases the potent heat-trapping gas methane.
Report author Dr Mark Diesendorf said reducing beef consumption by 20 per cent and putting Skippy on the dinner plate instead would cut 15 megatonnes of greenhouses gases from the atmosphere by 2020.
``Kangaroos do not emit greenhouse gases. They are not hooved animals either so they don't damage the soil,'' Dr Diesendorf said.
Dr Diesendorf said he was aware of the controversy encouraging people to eat Australia's national emblem would create, but that kangaroo was very healthy and low in fat.
``There's a small sub-set of environmentalist who see the kangaroo as a cuddly animal which should be left alone. They are entitled to their view but more and more people are moving towards eating it.''
Roughly three million kangaroos are killed and harvested for meat each year. They are shot with high-powered guns between the eyes at night.
Australians eat about a third of the 30 million kilograms of roo meat produced annually. The delicacy is exported to dozens of countries and is most popular in Germany, France and Belgium.
The Greenpeace report has renewed calls for Victoria to lift a ban on harvesting roos for food.
Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia spokesman John Kelly said roos invading farmers' crops were already being illegally shot.
"They are being culled and left to rot," Mr Kelly said.
Kangaroo meat sold in Victoria is imported from interstate.
Australia's kangaroo population has halved to 25 million in the past five years as the drought has taken a toll on breeding and the animals' food sources, Mr Kelly said.
Under a quota system, 10 to 12 per cent can be killed for the meat and leather industry. Aerial surveys estimate their numbers.
Today's report by Dr Diesendorf, from the University of NSW, says greenhouse gas emissions need to be slashed by at least a third by 2020 to avoid a climate change catastrophe.
His recommendations include:
REDUCING beef consumption and increasing kangaroo meat production.
CUTTING gas and coal production.
HALTING land clearing and deforestation.
SHIFTING to renewable energy such as wind power and bioelectricity from crop residues.
"The world is currently on track to experience runaway global warming with average temperatures soon to exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Dr Diesendorf said.
"We face a catastrophe unless there is urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30 per cent by 2020."
A major report by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology released this month warned average temperatures will rise 1C by 2030 and could increase as much as 5C in Australia by 2070 unless global greenhouse emissions are cut dramatically.
Following an invitation for Telegraph readers to submit their designs, a broad range of interesting suggestion were sent in.
At first most of the readers' flags were sent from within the UK, but then a
Japanese website offered to help.
"We heard the news of the Union Jack problem," they wrote.
"We believe that our new ideas will help."
Telegraph readers' new Union flag designs
Others were more subtle re-workings of the original Union Jack design
The designs ranged from the sober and sensible to the frankly comic.
The debate began when Wrexham MP Ian Lucas said the current design does not represent Wales's "true place in the Union".
In a Commons debate he said: "I believe that the Union flag should change now to reflect the four nations of the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales."
He added: "Let the debate begin, let the rest of the world know that the iconic symbol of the United Kingdom may change and that the reason that it will change is that we have a new constitutional settlement that affords Wales its true place in the Union."
≪telegraph.co.uk :
By Richard Holt :
Last Updated: 2:03pm GMT 30/11/2007≫
The President issued a statement overnight congratulating Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party on their victory.
"The United States and Australia have long been strong partners and allies and The President looks forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship," a spokesman for Mr Bush, Gordon Johndroe, said.
≪ The Age Company Ltd. :
Anne Davies, Washington correspondent :
November 25, 2007 - 9:28AM≫
Thinking of teaching English in Hokkaido in Japan's most livable city, Sapporo? How about historic Hakodate or scenic Asahikawa with its large national park? Well, whatever you do, make sure that you make EC your absolute last choice for employment in Hokkaido.
Don't be confused by the name:
ECC: legitimate English school using professional materials
EC: a complete joke run by lunatic slave-masters that use so-called original lessons which are actually complete garbage.
EC's reputation is so bad in Hokkaido that they don't even bother recruiting teachers there. They interview in Tokyo or try to get people from overseas (especially Canada) because anyone who knows about the school would never work there.
Let's go through the process of becoming an EC teacher and then show you some of the fun in store for you when you finally have the "privilege" to work for this joke of a school.
(1) Training (???)
In their advertisement, EC claims that they provide TESL training. This is a complete lie. Nobody with TESL training would come near this place. EC requires all teachers to go through approximately 2 weeks of "boot camp" and if they don't like you after this 2 weeks, they tell you to hit the road. So if you're coming from a foreign country directly to EC, you could be stuck in Japan without a job after two weeks. ADVICE: never agree to more than 2-3 days of training at an English school in Japan unless you are paid full wages. It's only an excuse to pay you nothing for teaching classes. EC gives no salary for the training period and gives a whopping food allowance of 2000 yen/day. They provide housing but the place is a dive and the front desk people are actually spies for EC so if you come back late after drinking or bring a girl or guy back to the room, you will be reported to EC and fired. EC sends Japanese staff members to follow trainees during lunch and dinner breaks. Who knows what they think trainees will do during this time but that's the mentality of the place.
Once training begins, EC tries to screw with your head and destroy any self-respect that you may have so when you actually try and teach EC's garbage lessons, you think you are actually accomplishing something. The first week of training is spent with one of the Japanese managers, usually Mr. Eiichi Yamaya, and the second week is spent with a foreign "trainer".
One of the highlights during the first week of training is practicing the EC method of saying "Hello" to students. First, there is practiced under the watchful eye of said Mr. Yamaya. All you do is say, "Hello" to a poster on a wall, pretending that it is an EC student. The esteemed Mr. Yamaya gives such helpful comments as "You must smile more when saying 'Hello'",
"You must use your diaphragm more", and "Your 'Hello' must come from the heart". After a half hour of this nonsense, you are left alone in the room and told to practice saying "Hello", and only "Hello", for 60 minutes by yourself to the poster on the wall. Some training!
During training trainees are secluded from the staff, forbidden to talk to regular EC teachers, and kept until 10 or 11:00 at night (starting time 9:00 A.M.). Obviously, the reason is that most teachers will tell you that EC is the worst school to work for. MORE ADVICE: try and meet with current teachers from any school at which you are thinking of working. The good schools will be happy to comply. The joke schools, like EC, will not permit it.
The second week of training is done with a foreigner. This is the person that you want to be most wary of. Never confide your true feelings to one of these turncoats who has sold his soul to the devil. Normally, he or she will act like your best buddy, and after spending a week with the Japanese manager, this person will seem like the coolest person in the world. But be warned: don't trust any foreigner who works in some upervisory role at EC. These are lifelong losers who finally have some sense of power and will stab you in the back at any chance.
At EC, foreigners are simply a necessary evil with round eyes and big noses. Most Japanese students like to study English with foreign teachers so the Japanese owners and managers must hire foreigners but any foreign worker will be treated like a piece of meat. While not all Japanese-owned English schools treat their teachers this way, it's best to be careful when looking for work. Usually, the bigger the school, the worse they treat teachers.
EC requires all new teachers to go through a 2-3 month probationary period. This means that EC will not sponsor a work visa nor will they pay the minimum salary required by law, 250,000 yen/month. EC requires that you work using your tourist visa (US) or your working-holiday visa (Canada, Aus., NZ). The reason they do this is that so many teachers quit EC soon after they join because it's such a terrible place to work. MORE ADVICE: try to find out how long the teachers at a school have worked there. If a school has a majority of teachers who have been there 2-3 years, then most likely it is a reputable place. At EC the only people there longer than a year are losers that think they've died and gone to heaven compared to their last job of pumping gas in some hillbilly town.
(2) Now you're an EC teacher
Once you start teaching, you will be amazed at the garbage that EC gives you to teach. Most reputable schools use textbooks and other professionally prepared materials. EC uses "original" lessons that are actually nonsense written by past EC teachers. EC pays its teachers 8000 yen to write a lesson and the only teachers that write any are the money-hungry clowns that don't mind whoring themselves even more than they do by just working at this joke of a school. Most lessons have no value whatsoever and only make the teacher feel like a complete jerk for trying to teach them. After a few months of tearing your hair out trying to teach this garbage, most EC teachers simply lose all self-respect and turn into robots, just spewing out the worthless drivel day after day. The real losers are the students who are seriously trying to learn English and spend US$ 3000 to join this school only to be given completely useless lessons.
If you get sick, EC does not permit you to take paid sick days. If you don't work, then you don't get paid. So naturally, if someone is sick they come to work anyway in order to get paid and the other teachers wind up catching whatever illness the first teacher had. The law in Japan states that workers are entitled to 12 sick days a year, called Yukyu. However, EC illegally disallows its teachers from using this. Recently, a local magazine printed an article about a foreign teacher who had to return to America for two weeks because her mother was dying. She informed EC that she was taking her Yukyu, but when she returned EC fired her without any warning by claiming that many students complained about her poor performance. She is now suing EC for wrongful termination of employment. This teacher had been at EC for over a year and had learned about Yukyu from a teacher at another school. Rumor around Japan is that an English school will fire any teacher who even mentions Yukyu.
My personal horror story occurred when I had to enter the hospital for an operation on my elbow. Originally, the doctor suggested that I remain in the hospital for 2 weeks. Upon hearing this, the Japanese manager called the doctor and demanded that I be released after 1 week because "EC is very busy and cannot find a replacement teacher." As mentioned before, at EC foreign teachers are treated like pieces of meat. ADVICE: find out a school's vacation and sick day policy before working for one.
(3) Leaving EC
If you try and leave EC before the expiration of your first contract (1 year), they will try to pressure, threaten, and bully you into staying. They feel that any teacher leaving before one year disgraces their honorable school. One common ploy is to threaten to revoke your work visa by contacting the immigration office and saying that you are unemployed. Most foreigners fall prey to this act and stay a year. ADVICE: any contract that you sign does not require you to work there if you don't want to. So go ahead and quit any school that you don't like. However, one problem is that most apartments require foreigners to have their company act as a sponsor so if you quit, you must either find a new sponsor for your apartment or move.
EC does not want teachers to stay much more than a year or two. By then foreign teachers discover all the nonsense going on at EC and "corrupt" the new teachers. As the woman mentioned above found out, after one year EC will fire you faster than you can say "slavery lives in Hokkaido".
Well, good luck with your job search in Japan and do yourself and the English students in Japan a favor and stay as far away as possible from EC.
（Let's Japan.org : [Submitted by Shawn on Mon, 02/18/2002 - 00:00.])
A secret room hidden behind a bookcase in Kerri and Jason Brown's house was recently discovered to contain so much mold that according to a handwritten note found inside, which started with "You found it!" the previous homeowner moved because of it.
An environmental engineer hired to test the home detected many varieties, including Stachybotrys, a black mold. No mold test was done before they bought the home. Fannie Mae has paid $75,000 for the home, and the Browns plan to sue Century 21.
"It terrified me. I had heard reports of what it does for children, and I was terrified," said Kerri. Both Century 21 and Sue Bakx, the real estate agent, said they were not aware of any mold in the home.
Representatives of Nova teachers spoke to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan today, and the pink bunny costume girl participated (video clip also contains more footage of Sahashi’s super office):
She claims her costume is intended as a “mockery” of Sahashi’s mismanagement, but are TV viewers really going to watch her and take this press conference seriously? When you’re trying to bring notice to a grave and desperate situation in which unpaid employees are broke and starving, don’t clown-up the press conference with a pink bunny costume!
１０日付の中国紙、国際先駆導報によると、同紙などがインターネット上で「隣国の印象」についてアンケートした結果「あまり好きではない国」のトップは韓国（４０．１％）で、２位は日本（３０．２％）だった。
「最も好きな国」のトップはパキスタン（２８．０％）だが、日本（１３．２％）もロシアに次いで３位。日本は双方の設問で上位に入り、関心の高い国といえそうだ。
調査には過去約４カ月間で、約１万２０００人が回答したという。（共同）
≪
The Sankei Shimbun :
2007.12.10 13:22≫
Japanese readers have made an unlikely intervention into the Britishness debate by offering to help solve the row over the future of the Union Jack.
IT系の本をペラペラ捲る。風呂に入って就寝。
○保坂（展）委員 わかりました。
江原啓之さんような方をTVショーとして受け取る以上に本気で心酔してしまっている人を見ると私は、『単なる無知』とは言いませんがおそらく『コールド・リーディング』という言葉も知らない人かも。とは思いますし、普通の読書量を持つ大人はそう思うであろうと思います。
日本に入国する外国人に指紋採取と顔写真の撮影に応じることを義務付ける改正出入国管理・難民認定法が２０日、施行された。テロリストの流入や強制退去処分を受けた者の再入国を防ぐのが主な目的。入国審査に際し、こうした措置を導入したのは米国に次いで２カ国目だ。
