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June 27, 2003

G8 Information Centre

The G8 countries (France, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia and Canada) meet regularly to talk (and be protested at), and the G8 Information Centre at the University of Toronto has preserved a lot of the material produced from such meetings in a range of languages. The site at http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/ stores a huge collection of materials, from summit documents and speeches to policy analyses, G8 news and scholarly writings.
Posted by belinda at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)

On the brink

There are little red spots all over the Biodiversity Hotspots world map and each spot is a place where biodiversity is seriously threatened, such as the Karoo in southern Africa. You can search, browse or use the map to get the info at http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/
Posted by belinda at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2003

Science and more science

Got a technical sports question? Try the Australian Sports Science Directory (http://www.ais.org.au/lsas/ssd.htm), which provides a searchable database of Australian sport scientists. You could also check out some well-organised scientific information at the Federal Government's new Science Portal (http://www.science.gov.au/). It will link you to research databases and directories, research by sector or topic, research organisations in higher education, government, medicine and biotechnology, research grants, government policies on specific issues such as biosecurity and to tools such as ResearchFinder.
Posted by belinda at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2003

One in five Aussies is high

According to Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute (http://www.tai.org.au/), one in five Australians use drugs to improve their mental well-being. Not just prescription drugs either - alcohol and illicit drugs are also regularly used as psychological props. Read the full report, Comfortable, relaxed and drugged to the eye-balls, which he compiled from unpublished ABS (http://www.abs.gov.au/) data, at http://www.tai.org.au/Publications_Files/Papers&Sub_Files/drug%20use.pdf
Posted by belinda at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

Workplace agreements

For anyone wanting hard data on workplace agreements, ACIRRT's Workplace agreements survey 2001: analysis of results will be useful. The document is a survey of Australian workplaces in seven target industry groups, and aims to provide insight into the agreement-making process in Australian businesses. It came out of a three-year collaborative partnership between ACIRRT University of Sydney and Australian Business Limited. Read the full report (in PDF) at http://www.acirrt.com/pubs/WP85.pdf.
Posted by belinda at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)

Deterrence doesn't solve anything

Peter Mares told a Victorian Department of Justice Forum on Refugees, entitled Human Rights and the Construction of an Australian Identity, that the partial success of deterrence policies in the West won’t stop the world refugee crisis from deepening. The full text of the speech is at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00330.shtml. It is part of an APO (http://www.apo.org.au/) Refugee Special for World Refugee Day.
Posted by belinda at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

Media diversity matters

Jock Given argues on Australian Policy Online that concentration of media ownership will damage diversity. He argues: "The domestic restrictions that are argued to have cramped the global ambitions of Australia’s restless mini-moguls don’t seem to have kept Rupert Murdoch at home, or Britain’s Daily Mail Group (which owns about a third of the country’s commercial radio stations) or Singapore's Singtel (which controls Optus) away." Read the full opinion piece at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00333.shtml
Posted by belinda at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2003

Conference on the Public's Right to Know

One date to put in your diary should be October 17-19, 2003, which is when the 3rd National Conference on the Public Right to Know will be held at the University of Technology, Sydney. This is the third in a series of annual conferences organised by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (http://acij.uts.edu.au/). These conferences discuss the concept and application of the Public Right to Know. The conference will combine academic and non-academic presentations and examine the importance of free communication within and between journalism, media, the arts, government, the academy, organisations and the community. Details can be got from the web site at http://acij.uts.edu.au/pr2k/index.html
Posted by belinda at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

New media

Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times Digital, gives his views on old and new media to journalism.co.uk. In response to the question, "Will new media overtake traditional media?" he says, "New media couldn't totally replace traditional media, but electronic delivery will become more and more important both for commerce and for the consumer. Smart phones will, I predict, particularly change news delivery." He also covers the question of what the Net can do that print can't - namely, that the Net "goes everywhere and it's very difficult to stop", it's "much better than print at reader input", it "carries digital data regardless of its form", is "not constrained by newsprint, either in form or in the cost structure of the business" and "you can slice and dice content in almost unlimited ways." The full interview is at http://www.journalism.co.uk/profile2.html.
Posted by belinda at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

Get the picture

Moving History is a new site that provides a guide to the United Kingdom's twelve public sector moving image archives. Use the site to see what's in the different archive collections. There are more than 100 film and video clips available to give a taste of what's in store. The Moving History site is at http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/
Posted by belinda at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2003

ATSIC on a knife edge

ATSIC's future is not looking very rosy, so have a look at the Federal Parliamentary Library's Make or Break? A Background to the ATSIC Changes and the ATSIC Review to get some background on the issues. The file is available in PDF (http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib29.pdf) or HTML (http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib29.htm).
Posted by belinda at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

Celebs top 100

Forbes has compiled the celebrity top 100 at http://www.forbes.com/static_html/celebs/2003/index.shtml. According to the list, Jennifer Aniston is no. 1 and Eminem is no. 2, ahead of Tiger Woods, Tom Hanks and the Rolling Stones. Older lists back to 1999 are also available if you're interested in who's slipped off the fame-o-meter. Memo to would-be famous - be an actor, athlete or model - it's the quickest way. Most of these famous people come from these groups.
Posted by belinda at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

European Online Journalism awards

NetMedia, which sponsors an annual conference on digital journalism and multimedia, has just announced the nominees for its European Online Journalism awards. BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) gets a nod as does the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (http://www.ipwr.net/). Read more at http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/shortlist.asp.
Posted by belinda at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

Dayparting?

People want different things from news sites at different times of the day. In the morning, they want breaking news and sports updates; in the afternoon and evenings, they are more interested in what time the local movie starts, job listings or the classifieds. This trend is called Dayparting (why?), and online news sites can satisfy customers by tailoring their offerings according to the time of day. Read the full story at Online Journalism Review at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/aboutojr/1055792590.php.
Posted by belinda at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2003

Growing your own job

Mark Glaser, a columnist at Online Journalism Review, has written a piece called One-Man Blogs Prove There Is Money to Be Made by Online Journals, which should give aid and encouragement to those who want to make themselves heard online and earn a buck in the process. Successful blogs sum up news, provide links, throw in some commentary and often do some useful original reporting. Read the full piece at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1055879147.php. If you want to see how it's done, Glaser's column this week rates the most influential blogs at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1056050270.php.
Posted by belinda at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2003

Digital TV and media ownership

The Parliamentary Library has issued an e-brief on digital television and datacasting before as well as one on media ownership regulation in Australia. Both have now been updated so deserve a fresh look as some of the issues have changed. The digital TV one is at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/INTGUIDE/SP/Digital_television.htm and the media ownership one is at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/INTGUIDE/SP/media_regulations.htm.
Posted by belinda at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

How long has it been going on?

The ever-excellent Parliamentary Library has produced a new chronology, Australia and refugees, 1901–2002, at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/chron/2002-03/03chr02.pdf. It provides a brief overview of Australia’s intake of refugees (more than 600,000 people altogether) and refugee policies from 1901 on. There are some accompanying statistical tables.
Posted by belinda at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)

Cut to the chase

Deloitte Consulting has released some jargon-busting software, called Bullfighter, to help improve business communications. Anyone can use it - even business journos - to try to eliminate the incomprehensible. The software bolts on to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and can be downloaded for free from Deloitte's site at http://www.dc.com/insights/bullfighter/downloads.asp. The New York Times has a story (registration required) called New software flags verbiage in business documents at http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-life-language.html.
Posted by belinda at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2003

How unis should be governed

With the governance of Australian higher education in Brendan Nelson's sights, it's interesting to look at the recently published Review of New Zealand Tertiary Education Institution Governance for comparison. The NZ review specifies needed improvements such as "clarifying the roles and responsibilities of Councils and their members, improving the balance between Councils, Chief Executives and Academic Boards, sharing of good governance practice across the sector, and optimising the role of stakeholders in tertiary governance". The review is at http://governance.canberra.edu.au/the_institute/Institute_publications.html
Posted by belinda at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

Taxing question

ACOSS says we're not overtaxed here in Australia, and they have a new report and a media release at http://www.acoss.org.au/tax/ to back up that assertion. According to the report, we pay less income tax than our US counterparts and Australia is one of the lowest taxing countries among the developed nations.
Posted by belinda at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2003

A business top 40

What are the top 40 wired companies in the world? What do they do? And how do they affect us? Find out in Kevin Kelleher's article, The Wired 40, on Wired. He claims the top 40 are reshaping the global economy. Top players include Google, Yahoo!, Nokia, eBay and IBM. Companies that fell out of the top 40 this year include News Corporation and AOL Time Warner. Read the full piece at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/40main.html.
Posted by belinda at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

Phonecam nation

The use of phone cameras to snap all kinds of pictures in all kinds of places has been written up by Xeni Jardin in Wired in a piece called Phonecam Nation. With the Rene Rivkin jail snap and the worries about phonecams in changing rooms, it's timely to look at the issues. The story is at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/start.html?pg=2.
Posted by belinda at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2003

Who's got your DNA?

The full text of the Australia Law Reform Commission's "ALRC 96 Essentially Yours: The Protection of Human Genetic Information in Australia" can be found at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/alrc/publications/reports/96/. It covers everything from genetic screening and testing, tissue samples, insurance and employment, to privacy, discrimination and ethics.
Posted by belinda at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)

The Webbys

The latest winners of the Webby Awards can be seen at http://www.webbyawards.com/main/webby_awards/winner_list.html. Good to see BBC News winning as people's choice for best news site. MoveableType (http://www.moveabletype.org/), the software that powers this blog, was also a winner for best practice. The Webbys were the idea of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (http://www.iadas.net/), which sought to honour the sites that Internet users visit daily for information, entertainment, and services.
Posted by belinda at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

Conflict directory

A new directory is always a handy tool for journos needing new contacts. The Directory of Organizations for Conflict Prevention in Asia and the Pacific is an online source list of NGOs, United Nations' organisations, intra-governmental bodies and other international bodies involved in conflict prevention in Asia and the Pacific. It's at http://www.conflict-prevention.org/.
Posted by belinda at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

When the earth moves

When an earthquake hits, where would you go for information? The US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program may not be a bad start,as it covers 'breaking' news on current quakes such as the June 7 quake in PNG that measured 6.6 on the Richter scale. The site is at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/. Closer to home, Geoscience Australia covers quakes from all over too. Their quake page is at http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/listQuakes.
Posted by belinda at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2003

PDF papers - a threat to online news?

J.D. Lasica has a piece, Are Digital Newspaper Editions More Than Smoke and Mirrors?, on this issue. According to Lasica, "About 90 newspapers worldwide now publish digital editions -- exact replicas of printed newspapers or magazines that users can read on their computer screens." If you have never seen a PDF paper, believe me that the quality is terrific (better than print) and some digital newspaper platforms, such as NewsStand (http://www.newsstand.com/), which produces a PDF version of the Australian, offer functionality such as keyword search, that makes the paper easy to scan or search, especially as backfile builds up and you can search across several days' issues. But does it mean the end of free online news? It well might. Read more at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1054780462.php.
Posted by belinda at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2003

Free trade? No, thanks

In Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) this week, economist John Quiggin argues that Australia should not have a free trade agreement with the United States. If we sign up for one, we'll be committed to US terms on issues such as copyright and pharmaceuticals, he says. Read more at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00313.shtml. Also at APO and related to the free trade agreement, Jock Given's piece, Trade, culture and friends: new meaning for an old story, looks at the historical insight into the relationship between culture and trade.
Posted by belinda at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

Blogs - a protester's best friend?

The media were all over the recent G8 summit in France. So were bloggers, many of whom blogged live from the protests and submitted photographs captured by their mobile phones. Blogs were a way of presenting the different viewpoints of demonstrators which were largely ignored by a media more interested in scuffles and conflict. Wired News has the story at http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59086,00.html/wn_ascii.
Posted by belinda at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2003

Still there ...

The US Congressional Research Service has looked into the question of whether Al Qaeda is still up and running. The paper, "Al Qaeda after the Iraq Conflict", is available online at http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/21191.pdf and concludes that "for the time being it seems that Al Qaeda (or its successors) has emerged from a period of inactivity and remains a very serious threat, requiring concentrated attention and vigorous countermeasures on the part of its prospective targets."
Posted by belinda at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)

And you thought the World Bank was big ...

When looking at the links on AID/WATCH (http://www.aidwatch.org.au/) today, I found ECA-Watch, a watchdog site for export credit agencies (ECAs). Never having heard of ECAs, I investigated and found this definition at the site: "Export Credit Agencies, commonly known as ECAs, are public agencies that provide government-backed loans, guarantees and insurance to corporations from their home country that seek to do business overseas in developing countries and emerging markets. Most industrialized nations have at least one ECA.
ECAs are now the world's biggest class of public IFIs (international finance institutions), collectively exceeding in size the World Bank Group. Yet, like the World Bank Group 20 years ago, most ECAs have no social and environmental standards. As a result, ECA-backed projects often despoil the environment and disrupt the lives of the communities.
" If you want to keep on top of ECA news, activities and campaigns about them, visit the site at http://www.eca-watch.org/.
Posted by belinda at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

Making online news pay

American Journalism Review has a piece, "Searching for Online Gold", on revenue models for online newspapers. According to the article, the paid subscription model is losing favour. So what else is there to try? Find out at http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3027.
Posted by belinda at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2003

Bank robbing

Everyone is interested in bandits, so a new paper from the Australian Institute of Criminology is timely. Called Bank Robbery in Australia, the paper looks at whether robberies are going up or down. There have been 848 incidents between 1998 and 2002 but not all were armed hold-ups. See the full information at http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi253.pdf.
Posted by belinda at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

Tax expenditures

According to a recent Parliamentary Library Research Paper, a tax expenditure "is a provision of Australian tax law that provides preferential treatment to certain classes of taxpayers or to particular types of activity. Examples are superannuation tax concessions and excise exemption for alternative fuels." Find out where the $30 billion spent on them go at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2002-03/03RP08.pdf.
Posted by belinda at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

ATSIC review

The Parliamentary Library has produced a Current Issues Brief called "Make or Break? A Background to the ATSIC Changes and the ATSIC review". It's in PDF at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib29.pdf. The brief "discusses the recently announced ATSIC changes and the ATSIC review. It also provides a brief overview of ATSIC: including discussion of ATSIC's history, its functions and roles, its structure and governance, its funding arrangements, and its record in accountability."
Posted by belinda at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

Salam Pax at the Guardian

The UK Guardian has signed up Salam Pax, the blogger from Baghad and author of the Where is Raed? blog, as a twice-weekly columnist. Wired News has the story at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59057,00.html/wn_ascii
Posted by belinda at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

Media ownership

With the US FCC set to change US media law, it is timely to see the effects of deregulation elsewhere. Canada deregulated its media 20 years ago, and Online Journalism Review has a piece about it at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/law/1054219939.php. In another OJR piece, columnist Mark Glaser sees the FCC's Review of the Commission's Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to Section 202 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a boost for online media. Read his thoughts (and link to the FCC's report) at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1054167431.php. Poynter has a 5-minute guide to what the FCC's proposed changes mean at http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=35642.
Posted by belinda at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)