Muslim school sacks teacher who wanted national anthem

A MUSLIM school has banned the national anthem at assemblies and sacked the teacher who asked for it to be played.

Australian International Islamic College teacher Pravin Chand was sacked last month, four months after his proposal for students to sing Advance Australia Fair was ruled to be against the "Islamic view and ethos".

A memo sent to teachers in July also announced "the singing of the anthem will be put on hold".

Yesterday, the Brisbane school denied it had banned the national anthem at assemblies.

The school chairman, Imam Abdul Quddoos Azhari, said students sang the national anthem "at every function, on every occasion".

But Mr Chand, whose version of events was backed by a second teacher, said he had not heard the anthem once this year.

"No national anthem, to me, means no integration with Australian kids," he said.

"Western values (at the school) are a no-no.

"It's like a paramilitary camp, that place."

Mr Chand's employment was terminated by the college board on the ground that he was "not fitting into the school's ethos".

Outgoing principal Azroul Liza Khalid, who started at the school in July, said she had not heard the anthem at assembly, although it was played on two or three other occasions.

Ms Khalid said she was told by a board member not to play the anthem, or any songs, on a Friday because it was a holy day. In July, school assembly day was moved from Monday to Friday.

The revelations follow a public outcry over a plan by the same Brisbane college to open another campus.

A vocal crowd draped in Australian flags and playing local rock anthems accused the college of promoting segregation, anti-Australian values and even terrorism.

Muslim leaders said the protests were "un-Australian" and claimed religion should not be used as a reason to protest against a school.

Local Education Minister Rod Welford's spokeswoman indicated it was unlikely a public school had ever banned the national anthem.

"It's not compulsory for schools to play the national anthem," she said.

"There's an expectation it would be played on formal occasions when the Australian flag is being raised."

A Catholic education spokesman said: "I'm absolutely confident that no Catholic school has ever banned the playing of the national anthem and never will".

The future of the proposed 60-pupil college at Carrara will be decided by Gold Coast City Council next year.

James O'Loan Herald Sun 5 Dec 2008

Victoria - on the move BACKWARDS 101

Motorists spend a day a year behind the wheel

MOTORISTS are spending an extra day a year behind the wheel because of government inaction on transport.

A typical driving commuter spends almost two weeks - about 336 hours - a year going to and from work.

When the Labor Government was elected in 1999, the same driver would spend only 12 days and 17 hours in the car every year for the same trip.

Tell us about your traffic nightmares below

Peak-hour average speeds have fallen dramatically in the past decade, while the Bracks and Brumby governments have been in office.

The average speed in morning peak has fallen from 37.5km/h in 1999-2000 to 34.8km/h in 2007-08.

In the afternoon, it's down from 41.4km/h to 37km/h.

The Government yesterday refused to confirm details of the transport plan revealed in yesterday's Herald Sun, except that two extra lanes would be squeezed on to the West Gate Bridge.

The bridge's lanes will be 40cm narrower than the current 3.5m width, and the emergency lane will make way for moving traffic.

Roads Minister Tim Pallas said a previous plan to introduce reversible lanes had been dumped. "(This) is better, it's safer and less costly," he said.

The $240 million project will strengthen the bridge's outer edges and install suicide prevention barriers.

Mr Pallas said the capacity of the road, which carries 160,000 vehicles a day, would increase by 50 per cent.

"This is a medium-term solution, and additional capacity will need to be built into our east-west movements," he said. "I'm not going to confirm or deny any aspects of what might be in the transport plan."

But Mr Pallas hinted that the plan, to be released next week, would include some form of east-west road.

"Melbourne has an unsustainable reliance, into the long term, on the West Gate Bridge," he said.

A road tunnel assisting the movement of freight out of the ports area is likely to be included in the package.

Transport insiders have tipped that the complete tunnel, linking with the Eastern Freeway as suggested by Sir Rod Eddington, will not be on the immediate agenda.

The Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry said any delays were putting off the inevitable.

These projects included an underground rail from Caulfield to Footscray and the removal of level crossings.

VECCI has also called for the Frankston Bypass, which the Government has already confirmed, and the northeast connector from Greensborough to Ringwood.

Plans to narrow the lanes on the West Gate were attacked yesterday by Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder. "What a load of hogwash," he said.

The Government needed to build a new road linking the east and west to ease congestion rather than attempt to cram more motorists on to the West Gate Bridge.

"It would appear the east-west connection has been taken off the agenda so around about a million-plus people living in the eastern suburbs are now stuck with a car park," he said.

Ashley Gardiner, Herald Sun 5 Dec 2008

Court systems 'hampering right to know'

The public's fundamental right to know is being threatened by inconsistent and unnecessary procedures in many of Australia's courts, a new report has found.

A coalition of major media organisations has repeatedly voiced frustration at being denied court documents or blocked from reporting on court cases by vague and indefinite suppression orders.

The organisation, Australia's Right to Know (ARK), released its most recent publication: The Review of Suppression Orders and Access to Court Documents in Australia.

ARK, representing 12 media organisations, canvassed the views of court reporters, media lawyers, court registrars and public information officers in its 121-page report.

News Ltd chairman John Hartigan accused the legal system as being part of the problem.

"The judiciary is often critical of media reports of court proceedings," he said.

"But the issue is that reporters are being hampered in getting quick and accurate information from some courts."

Journalists are routinely denied evidence tendered in court even though state and federal laws deem the information to be in the public domain, the report's author Prue Innes said.

"There are huge interstate variations. We might only guess why this might be but we're unable to say."

Various laws already exist to protect the identity of witnesses, including sex-abuse victims, children and undercover police officers.

But legal teams on both sides apply for suppression orders for many other reasons so as not to prejudice current or future trials.

The number of suppression orders made in Australia grew from 607 in 2006 to 678 in 2007.

However, the lack of a formal register of the orders suggests the actual figures could be much higher, Ms Innes said.

ARK said according to the NSW judicial system, only nine orders were made in the first half of 2008, and all of them came out of the Supreme Court.

"There were doubtless others made but as statistics are not kept the picture is incomplete," the report said.

The majority of orders had no sunset clause and many were so vague that media organisations were limited in what they could write, it said.

The ARK report recommends suppression orders be clear, specific and with no wider scope than necessary.

Whenever possible orders should include a sunset clause so they expire automatically or should otherwise state why the order should be indefinite.

Courts that do not have a public notification system for suppression orders should establish one.

On the issue of media obtaining court exhibits, the report recommends "courts adopt a procedure based on a presumption of access" so journalists receive the requested documents promptly.

"It's not a lot of use getting stuff days or weeks out from the event," Ms Innes said.

The report also recommends trialling the use of television cameras in court cases and the use voice recorders by journalists to assist with accurate reporting.

No laws exist to prohibit such devices leaving the decision to the judge.

The ABC's managing director Mark Scott said it was time to step out of the dark ages.

"It's absurdly old-fashioned that we still have to rely on artists' sketches of defendants, and scrum for images outside court," he said.

14 Nov 2008

Aussie retail staff among top thieves

Australian retail staff have the world's greatest propensity for theft from their employer, costing the industry almost $3 billion, a survey finds.

The second annual Global Retail Theft Barometer found Australian retailers experienced the world's highest rate of employee theft and fraud and that the illegal activity cost the sector almost $3 billion over the past 12 months.

The cost of employee theft - or "shrinkage loss" - as it is termed in the industry, is usually passed on to consumers.

The survey estimated that the shortfall cost each Australian household almost $426, the equivalent of two weeks of grocery shopping for the average household.

The study was prepared by the Centre for Retail Research, England and was published on Tuesday by Checkpoint Systems Inc, a supplier of radio-frequency electronic article surveillance systems to prevent stock loss.

Checkpoint managing director Mark Gentle said Australian retailers rarely addressed internal theft despite investing heavily in different security systems to prevent stock loss from external sources.

"Australia is sophisticated in its approach to shrinkage and a lot of work has gone on aimed at external theft," Mr Gentle said.

"This has reduced customer shop lifting by 2.05 per cent compared to last year, now the challenge is what do we do with internal theft."

Mr Gentle said the cost of retail shrinkage was borne by consumers.

"Whilst shrink is a serious threat to retailers' bottom lines, the hidden tax on consumers is an additional unfair hit, especially as they are already dealing with the strain of tightening household budgets during the economic downturn."

The study found that employee were surprisingly consistent in their choice of goods to thieve, regardless of geographic region.

They favoured razor blades, shaving products, cosmetics, face creams, perfumes, alcohol, fresh meat/expensive foodstuffs, infant formula, CDs and DVDs, fashion, electronic games, cellular phones and watches.

Retailers estimated that, on average, they lost between two and five per cent of the value of new product lines to theft.

Popular products such as Harry Potter books, electronic games and recent DVDs experienced loss levels of up to eight per cent, causing supply shortages.

The theft survey was based on data from a confidential surveys of 920 large retailers worldwide, with combined sales of $US814 billion ($A1.22 trillion).

money.ninemsn 11 Nov 2008

Technically, the statement above (Aussie retail staff among top thieves) by the mass media is deliberately misleading (false).

Corporate Crime is Australia's largest financial burden. The problem generally is that what makes light in the mass media, is only a fraction of what is going on behind closed doors.

Examples of this are as follows are only a small part of the bigger picture.

Christopher Skase (Quintex) > $1,000,000,000
Richard Pratt > $750,000,000
Alan Bond > $1,000,000,000
Telstra > $10,000,000 per annum
Rene Rivkin > $50,000,000
Henry Kaye (Eugene Kukuy) > $30,000,000
Steve Vizard $3,000,000

The LARGEST problem is that the court systems supports these types of crimes, and as put by the ABC's 7:30 Report : Alan Bond walks free. A quote taken from ketupa.net/bond.htm states it how it is : "Just one fraud committed by businessman Alan Bond was worth the same amount as every single household burglary committed in Australia over 18 months."

With ALL of the above mentioned individuals, they are SET FREE by the Australian court system.

They are only the people who take the wrap. Behind them there are others that help. If these matters were to be taken seriously, then the people behind them would be exposed, i.e. lawmakers, politicians, business executives.

Teen dead after wild Adelaide brawl

A teenage boy fatally stabbed in a wild brawl in central Adelaide was set upon by two gangs of youths, a witness says.

Another youth is in a critical condition after the brawl involving between 12 to 15 teenage boys, all of African appearance, erupted near the corner of Grenfell Street and St James Place about 3.30pm (CDT) yesterday.

"One of the teenagers has died and one is in a critical condition at the Royal Adelaide Hospital," South Australia Police spokesman Senior Constable Mick Turnbull said.

With many of the youths armed with knives the brawl spilled out across Grenfell Street.

"The fight has proceeded across the road, outside the Fleet Street newsagency (in Grenfell Street) and two teenage boys have been stabbed as a result of the fight involving a group of teenage boys," he told AAP.

A witness, who did not wish to be named, said two large groups of youths chased a boy across the road to the newsagency.

"Soon as they saw the single guy, out came knives, off came belts, and they went for him," one said.

Witnesses at the scene told reporters the fight involved a group of Sudanese youths.

An overseas student said she was inside the newsagency with her elderly parents on their first trip to Australia as the brawl erupted.

"It was terrible. This should not happen in Adelaide," the unnamed woman told News Limited.

"They (her parents) should not see this in Adelaide.

"It's very frightening. Thanks to God they (her parents) were not stabbed."

A man who administered CPR on a wounded boy, believed to be 14 years old, said the scene was chaotic.

"I came around the corner and saw a group of youths running," the unnamed man told News Ltd.

"I don't know where (on his body) he was stabbed, I was doing CPR while I was on the phone calling for help and other people were helping."

A bicycle courier said he used his shirt to stem the flow of blood from one of the wounded boys.

Blood stained the footpath and a window outside the shop, while magazine racks inside were upturned, witnesses said.

Major crimes Detective Inspector Doug Barr called for witnesses to contact police.

"One person has been arrested and is in custody, however, their connection with this incident is sketchy," he told reporters.

"The investigation is still in the very early stages and I'm unable to provide further details about that."

Traffic in central Adelaide was in gridlock for the afternoon peak as major crimes detectives closed the affected section of Grenfell Street to examine the scene.

Grenfell Street did not reopen until about 7pm.

13 Nov 2008

This is what happens when governments import trash from around the world. These people live in OUR community and trash our society, and not where the lawmakers live and work.

Crimestoppers - Retail theft

The Police have recently aired a commercial on National Television about retail theft.

In the commercial they mention that people (singular or in gangs) steal from retailers to the tune of millions of dollars per year.

They also mention that as a result of the thefts, the retailers lost profit is paid for by higher prices of the products in the store, by the community.

Therefore the retailers are NOT inconvenienced in ANY way whatsoever.

Whilst there is no doubt that reducing this type of crime is of benefit to everyone, generally BIG BUSINESS DOES NOT PAY FOR IT. The large retailers, are owned by a few multinationals in Australia.

In a recent matter ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) was notified of a fraud that involved the theft of a large some of monies ($ MILLIONS per annum) by an Australian Telco from its workers, to which ASIC responded (to wipe away any involvement) that it is a contractual matter.

Generally, corporate fraud is supported in Australia, if you're part of the 'gang'.
This 'myth' that the workers have rights, is exactly that, a MYTH.

Billions for the Bankers - Debts to the people.

The current recession is an orchestrated event, staged by the US BANKERS, as previously done in the 30's.

The general mass media, does not write about the wealth and ownership, of the oldest banking family in the world, the Rothschilds who by the 1850's had control of approx. 50% of the worlds wealth.

The US FEDERAL RESERVE is a private entity, that lends money to the government, that makes the people in debt to pay for it. This type of transaction in it's most basic form is fraudulent, and criminal.

If any US President tries to do anything about it, they get SHOT. What usually works for the people is the 'crazed gun man' story.

ESSENTIAL READING MATERIAL :

Billions for the Bankers - Debts to the People

DHS failed to act on abuse claims

Child protection authorities failed to act for more than a year as a brother and sister in Victoria allegedly suffered daily abuse from a stepfather whose cruelty extended to assaulting the boy's genitals with pliers.

Nine News can reveal Victoria's Department of Human Services was notified of the alleged abuse — which also included beatings with a cricket bat and steel capped boots — at least a dozen times, but failed to act.

Horrified police believe it was only the persistence of teachers that saved the lives of a seven-year-old girl and eight-year-old boy — who cannot be identified for legal reasons — from their abusive stepfather.

Worried school staff first noticed their injuries in September last year. Despite contacting Human Services at least 12 times, they claim their concerns fell on deaf ears.

"It's as if we weren't being heard, as if no one would believe us," one teacher said, speaking anonymously.

As new injuries surfaced, the brother and sister became more withdrawn and their explanations less convincing.

"The things he would say like, 'I fell out of bed' or 'I fell down the stair' or 'I corked my leg' … All of these things as a mother and a teacher for many years, they just didn't add up," the teacher said.

It took more than a year for Human Services to remove the children from the family home.

When they were finally taken into care earlier this month, their bodies were covered in paint, apparently to hide their injuries.

Nine News understands that when doctors examined the girl they found 41 bruises and broken ribs; her brother had 30 bruises, a fractured femur, broken nose, scars on his head and a missing tooth.

Police say the boy also had two operations on his genitals, after his stepfather allegedly assaulted him using pliers.

"I was disgusted. My heart just went to these little children and how ever many other children in the state that it's happening to," the teacher said.

"To think that it has taken so long and what those children have suffered, when if [Human Services] had believed us earlier or had moved on this case earlier, none of these things or very few of these things would have happened to these children."

The Australian Childhood Foundation's Joe Tucci said that what Human Services regards as abuse was out of sync with community standards.

"I don't believe that they act early enough or strongly enough," Dr Tucci said. "I think there's an ideology that still prevails in child protection, which is to keep the family together no matter the cost to the kids.

"I think this is a situation where parents rights have taken precedence over children's rights."

Nine News today contacted DHS about this story. Nine News hopes to bring you their response tomorrow night.

ninemsn 3 Nov 2008

Vic police probed in sex, drugs report

Victorian police have been linked to the operation of an illegal brothel and to corruption involving street prostitutes and drug dealers, a new report says.

The report was written by former Judge David Jones in his role as the special investigations monitor overseeing the Office of Police Integrity (OPI).

The report was tabled on Thursday in the Victorian parliament.

Fairfax newspapers said the report revealed the OPI was investigating allegations including "the theft of goods and controlled drugs from known sex workers, assaults of sex workers and criminal or improper associations with drug dealers, drug users and sex workers".

The allegations also included "the ownership and management of an unlicensed brothel" by police.

The police station involved in the allegations was not named but Fairfax said the small number of police under investigation have worked in the St Kilda area.

One officer has resigned and another has been transferred to a different region.

An 18-month OPI and Victoria Police investigation suggests a few officers may have had free sex with street prostitutes at a hotel and other Melbourne locations, one long-serving officer was part of plans to run a brothel with a criminal, and two officers - one still serving - had long-term sexual relationships with street prostitutes.

There are also claims a policeman raped a street prostitute with a baton and another travelled to Sydney and took illicit drugs with a transvestite.

The revelations have renewed calls for the establishment of safe houses for sex workers in St Kilda, to eliminate corrupt activity between street workers and police.

31 Oct 2008

This is NOTHING NEW. This has been well known for quite some time.

Someone MUST be uncomfortable to somebody else in order for this to come out.

In any event what consequences, if ANY will arise from this?

There are other examples of fraud being committed, and NOTHING is done.

Donut King - Not so sweet

Here is an example where less is better.

Not by choice, but rather the company cutting costs. This move is usually undertaken by accountants.

In an example where IBM-GSA cut costs by ordering a lesser quality coffee for staff, and using smaller cups (in order to save time drinking), the accountants were able to save a couple of million.

When a company this large goes to that extent, you know they're in trouble.

A teaspoon of sugar is supposed to be 4 grams. In this example the weights should show 24 grams for six satchels of sugar.

In this example D.K is saving 20% of the cost of their sugar that YOU pay for.

At the end of the day it's not about anything else, except MAXIMISING PROFITS, at YOUR EXPENSE (in this case less sugar for you IS better).

You cannot do a class action law suit, rather you have to take the matter yourself. Although this example is menial, it is an indication of how tight the law is, so other (larger) corporate crimes cannot be litigated.

Australia's legal system has been closed off better than the initial Anglo-American colony, and is dictated, as in the case of the U.S, by masonic rule.