Journoz: Updates for Australian Journalists

No effort for energy

Click a country on a map and a report on that country will tell you all about the energy situation there. Are they producing coal? Oil? Gas? Are they importing? Exporting? How is the economy there faring? All this information is available at the click of a mouse from the Energy Information Administration, a statistical agency of the US Department of Energy. You can get oil prices from 1970-2004 (those were the days ...) Custom reports (including country comparisons, and a vast array of options) can be requested and are delivered online within seconds. Find the site at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/.

Moving earth

Just about everyone online has downloaded Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/), if only for the fun of seeing their own rooftop or street. Another freebie is the Earth Science World ImageBank (http://www.earthscienceworld.org/imagebank/), a service from the American Geological Institute (http://www.agiweb.org/) to provide geoscience images to anyone who wants them. Images include volcanoes, beaches (good if you're feeling stressed!), glaciers, landslides, fossils, waterfalls and weather -- even coral on the Barrier Reef.

Country data

The OECD (http://www.oecd.org/) provides a number of links to country information not generated from its own sources. The page, called External links to macroeconomic reports and data, provides a number of different reports for 30 countries including Australia. You can also get links to data on the world economy or on the European Union. The Australian information includes macroeconomic data, projections, speeches and financial market data so it's a useful one-stop shop. Find it at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/9/33813816.html. The OECD site also has vast resources of information about Australia.

Quite a lot of information for free

The Chicago Manual of Style is online at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/. This is the fifteenth edition of this guide and you can use it for nothing if you register. It has a Q&A section, too, and seems to be dipping into questions of etiquette and manners as well as quote marks, proper citation behaviour and apostrophes.

Finding people

PeopleSearch (www.peoplesearch.com.au/) is new to me, but might be worth checking out as it's an Australian site for finding people's email addresses and other details. The site describes itself as a new searchable and categorized directory of Australian people search resources. While it is obviously handy to be able to hunt for people by name, the twin curses of spam and identity theft have made many people duck for cover when it comes to posting their details or email addresses online. Having had to close one email address because of the deluge of spam, I certainly hope PeopleSearch has no listing for me! Anyway, it covers a range of people finder tools, from adoption search, missing persons, and phone and address tools to public records, information brokers and gumshoes.

New in search

Factbites (http://www.factbites.com/) is a new search tool that works more on the content of what you are seeking than whether the site the information can be found at is popular. It aims to provide contextual results so you'll see your search terms in a sentence on the site rather than just as isolated words. It uses a lot of encyclopaedias as sources so you get snapshots of topics. Once you have results, you are offered further categories to try as well to narrow things down.

From the horse's mouth

DocuTicker is a daily update of new reports and other research culled from various US sources, including think tanks, research institutes, and government agencies. It's a pretty mixed bag, done in the form of a blog, but it's searchable. Could be a good source of story ideas.

Direct to UK Government

The red is enough to make you gag, but the UK government's new Directgov gateway to information is still useful. You can find governments A-Z, both local and central, find information by topic, and there is info sorted by categories of users such as parents, motorists, carers and so on. It's at http://www.direct.gov.uk/.

Online terrorism

Media organisations regularly claim that terrorists use the Internet to plan attacks as well as for recruiting or linking up with members. How true is this claim? Is Osama Bin Laden really online? A report from the US Institute for Security Technology Studies (http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/), entitled Examining the Cyber Capabilities of Islamic Terrorist Groups, looks at these issues in detail. According to the report, "There is clear, factual evidence that Islamic terrorist groups are using information technologies to facilitate propaganda, recruitment and training, fundraising, communications, and targeting operations." The full report can be downloaded for free from https://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/TAG/cyber-capabilities-terrorist.htm.

Report archive

Australian Policy Online (www.apo.org.au/) is expanding its archive of reports and papers back to 2000, as well as including some major reports from 1998 and 1999. By late July, the archive will have grown to more than 1,400 items. There are also more than 200 articles in the COMMENT & ANALYSIS archive. You can access the reports archive via the TOPICS button on the left-hand side of APO's front page. For those seeking to identify or contact research organisations, use the MEMBERS button to find the organisations who contribute research to the site.

The lowdown

If you had to dig up something on Brett Whiteley, Kakadu or women in politics on deadline, where would you go? The government's Culture and Recreation portal (www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/) has a section called Articles that gives brief overviews of aspects of Australian history and culture, along with links to sites that would provide greater detail. They cover everything from the Archibald Prize to zoos. Have a look at www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/.

Development scorecard

The latest World Development Report from the World Bank is called World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work For Poor People. Find it chapter by chapter at http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr2004/text-30023/. The 2005 report will be called Improving the Investment Climate for Growth and Poverty Reduction. Find information on all reports, future and past (back to 1992), at http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/. These annual reports cover a range of key development issues such as basic services, poverty and sustainable development.

Navigating the shallows?

If the meaty part of the Web is the Deep Web, what does that make the rest of it? The Shallow Web? Whatever - there's a whole lot of it and finding information is still a tricky business. A very long article on Effective Web searching can be found at http://www.deepwebresearch.info/. 80 pages plus but you're sure to find something handy in there.

Deep but not unfathomable

If you suspect there is more information on the Internet than search engines retrieve for you, it's time to discover the Deep Web. The Deep Web is the new name for what used to be called the invisible Web - so-called because the information stored in there was invisible to Internet search engines. Why so? Much of it is stored in databases that search engines cannot crawl, either because the information is password-protected or because it is dynamically generated in response to queries and doesn't last long enough to be crawled like an HTML page can be. Think of the phone book - a search tool can tell you the White Pages exist but can't look up a number for you - you need to be on the site itself to run the query. The Deep Web is full of such database-style sites where you need to use the site's search technology to find information. Why bother? The Deep Web contains some of the most useful information online - databases, directories, statistics, full text legislation and court decisions, full text news archives, image and film databases, lists and rankings and so on. How to fathom it all.? Have a look at Bright Planet's Deep Web White Paper at www.brightplanet.com/technology/deepweb.asp. The paper is also available for download as a PDF (www.brightplanet.com/pdf/deepwebwhitepaper.pdf). You'll get a good grounding here. The best finding tool for what's in the Deep Web is DirectSearch (http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm). A Deep Web research blog is at www.deepwebresearch.info/. Another useful updater is DirectSearch's Gary Price's ResourceShelf blog (www.resourceshelf.com/)

What's in a FTA?

After all the argy-bargy about the PBS, sugar and what will be on TV or at the movies if it goes through, what does the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement actually say? Find out at http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/text/index.html. What's up there is only in draft, and may be subject to change or negotiation.

Walking the talk

If you've ever wondered what a Pyrrhic victory is, or been unsure what a cappella singing is, then the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is for you. It covers all sorts of cultural references. Bone up here and you too can appear cultured and erudite (witty is up to you). It's from 2002 and is available through the Bartleby collection of online reference books. You might find it easier (and more fun) to browse here rather than search, but both are offered. Find it at http://www.bartleby.com/59/.

What it's worth

"Studies by AIIM and the Ford Motor Company estimate that knowledge workers spend 15–25% of their time on nonproductive information–related activities" - that's a lot of wasted time. A new report from IDC, a global market intelligence agency, called The high cost of not finding information shows that companies lose out in lost sales or poor decision-making when information flow is inefficient or insufficient. For a company with 1000 knowledge workers, this amounts to $2.5 - $3.5 million wasted annually. Read the full report at http://monkey.biz/Content/Default/Support/Resources/IDC_TheHighCostOfNotFi ndingInformation_1510.pdf.

Good news - for a change

Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) has been awarded a grant from the Australian Research Council (http://www.arc.gov.au/) under its "Linkage – Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities" program. The grant money will mean APO being able to add major reports from the past five years to its archive and establish resource pages on topical policy-related issues. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter at http://www.apo.org.au/.

Finding organisations

The online version of the YellowPages (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/) is a great place to identify organisations for a round. Say you are looking for a charity in Adelaide, just enter the term Charity in the WHAT box and Adelaide in the WHERE box and, when you search, you will get a local list of organisations, some of which may also publish Web addresses to assist in online research. The online WhitePages (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/) are also a winner as both directories allow you to search for contacts anywhere in Australia.

Research and journalism - closing the communication gap?

Bridging the gap between eggheads in academia and hacks in media can be a challenge. Poynter (http://www.poynter.org/) has a column on the topic at http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=54&aid=44477. Columnist Geneva Overholser suggests several ways to help the two groups come closer -

1. A coordinating body to act as a clearinghouse for and translator of complex research
2. A good distribution method for research news
3. The industry – both media owners and journalists - needs to value good research
4. A good list of research issues that journalists want to hear about

What else is needed? Have your say by clicking the Comment button below.

Insurance figures

As insurance business goes increasingly global, facts and figures need to be centralised for ease of access. The International Insurance Fact Book does this job and is relatively easy to use - go in by individual country or use the world overview or rankings. It's at http://www.internationalinsurance.org/. There is a lot of information there which should be handy for any journo writing this kind of news.

Deep background

Worth more than a passing glance are the Parliamentary Library's excellent and very detailed Research Notes. Recent notes have included titles as diverse as The Double Dissolution: Questions and References, Dollars and Sense: Trends in ASIO Resourcing, Hezbollah in Profile, Regulation of Private Health Insurance Premiums and Is there Adequate Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Contracts?. The list for Notes for 2003 is at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/Index.htm, but Notes back to mid-1995 are archived online, making this a valuable source of good research.

US Geo-Data

The US Government has just launched a new geosciences and mapping portal. From the site : 'geodata.gov is a web-based portal for one-stop access to maps, data and other geospatial services that will simplify the ability of all levels of government and citizens to find geospatial data and learn more about geospatial projects underway.' See for yourself at http://www.geodata.gov/.

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/

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.

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.

Moral panics about immigration

After Four Corners' Woomera report this week, many people must be wondering exactly why refugees, immigration and asylum seekers have become such incendiary issues. In a paper, Challenges to Sovereignty : Migration laws for the 21st century, presented at the 13th Commonwealth Law Conference in Melbourne, Catherine Dauvergne looks at the causes of the ‘moral panic’ around these issues. She states: "I begin this story by explaining the relationship between national sovereignty and migration laws over their reasonably brief history. I then talk about three intersecting phenomena which are emblematic of the relationship between migration law and sovereignty at this point in time: refugee law, illegal migration, and the pursuit of the best and the brightest. Finally, I finish by speculating about how the challenges to sovereignty presented by these phenomena lead to particular types of migration law responses." The introductory section is at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00302.shtml, with a link to the full paper (in Word format) at http://www.sisr.net/apo/Challengesfinal.doc.

The rich get handouts

It's barely news that the rich are getting richer, but journalists owe it to their readers to make a noise when well-off people get tax breaks and concessions that those lower down the income scale need more but can't get. The Australian Council of Social Service claims John Howard's government is supplying "well-off welfare" worth $7.2 billion to the top 20-25% of taxpayers. The decisions that delivered this windfall include the private health insurance rebate, the 'baby bonus' and tolerance of tax avoidance through private companies and family trusts. Read the full report (it's in Word, so save and virus-scan it first) at http://coss.net.au/news/upload/info345_waste_analysis_final.doc.

Environmental contacts

Journos on environmental rounds might want to add these Cooperative Research Centres to their contact books -

• CRC for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
• CRC for Australian Weed Management
• CRC for Biological Control of Pest Animals
• CRC for Catchment Hydrology
• CRC for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management
• CRC for Conservation and Management of Marsupials
• CRC for Freshwater Ecology
• CRC for The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
• CRC for Greenhouse Accounting
• CRC for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity
• CRC for Sustainable Tourism
• CRC for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management
• CRC for Tropical Savannas Management
• CRC for Waste Management and Pollution Control
• CRC for Water Quality and Treatment

All the way with the USA?

Australia’s alliance with America is examined in a new paper from the Asialink Centre at the University of Melbourne. The paper asks these questions: What are the benefits and costs to Australia’s defence interests in the contemporary era of the alliance, which is now over 50 years old? And what are the implications for Australia’s foreign policy relationships in Asia? Read the full paper at http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/cpp/policypapers/pauldibb.pdf.

Cities boom

If you live in Bombay or Dhaka, get used to overcrowding now because things are only going to get worse. People who live in Osaka or London - feel free to stretch - growth in your cities is slowing down. Wired News has this story, The Geography of Change, which claims that by the end of this century, 50% of people will live in cities (it was 10% at the start of the 20th century). By far, the greatest city growth will be ouside the developed world. Read the full story and see the visuals at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/atlas_spc.html.

It involves reading but ...

... if you're interested in the Middle East and what will happen post-Iraq War, then ebrary's collection of around 100 free online books on the topic may have some useful information and background. Find the collection at http://middle-east.ebrary.com/. Titles include Neighbors, Not Friends : Iraq & Iran after the Gulf Wars, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, and Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle Eastern Policy. Note: The 'freeness' of the material relates to online reading only - printing or saving any of the texts costs a small fee per page. Also you will need to download the ebrary reader software - this only took a minute or so to download and install and works very well.

HIH collapse

The Royal Commission into the collapse of HIH Insurance is the subject of a Research Note by the always excellent Parliamentary Library. See it at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2002-03/03rn32.pdf. If you don't want a PDF file, go to the Research Notes main page (http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/Index.htm) and get it in HTML.

Gulf War II: Iraq 2003

The Parliamentary Library has released a new eBrief, Gulf War II: Iraq 2003, at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/FAD_Ebrief/Iraq_e-brief1.htm. It covers everything from the initial resolution 1441 to where we are now with post-war Iraq.

Go here FIRST?

Need a chronology? Want information on arms sales or peacekeeping missions? Have a look at FIRST (Facts on International Relations and Security Trends), a free-of-charge database service (a joint project of the International Relations and Security Network and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). The site consists of a number of integrated databases of information from research institutes around the world. It covers international relations and security, such as facts 'on armed conflicts and peace keeping, arms production and trade, military expenditure, armed forces and conventional weapons holding, nuclear weapons, chronology, statistics and other reference data'. Check it out at http://first.sipri.org/.

Dictionary definitions

I've got one at home and use it all the time but, till now, I was unaware that you could search the Collins Dictionary online. The company is definitely hiding its light under a bushel on this one, with the dictionary housed at what looks like a generic all-purpose dictionary/translation site called WordReference (http://www.wordreference.com/). Only after you type in a word and get the results does the Collins logo appear. To make things even harder, the English Definition section, which is where you check spellings and definitions of words, is at the very bottom of a list of options, all of which are about translation. Once you type in a word, you get the phonetic pronounciation, the etymology and the meaning. This version is based on the 2000 print version of the Collins English Dictionary.

Home grown journals

Journals Australia, an initiative of the Australian Public Intellectual Network, showcases Australian journal publishing by providing an alphabetical list of publications. Information on each title available includes cover images, excerpts, tables of contents, guidelines for contributors, subscription information, links to journal Web sites, ordering instructions and contact details. See more at http://www.journals-australia.com/. Content is quite diverse - Australian Book Review, Eureka Street, Australasian Plant Pathology, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia and Westerly.

Knowledge work - what it took to get there

Pathways to Knowledge Work, a report created by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, is based on Census data from the latest two censuses, 1986 and 2000. It examines the changes in the occupational structure of the Australian labour market and identifies the fastest growing occupations as well as those in decline. The full report, in PDF, is at http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/proj/nr0022.pdf.

Annual report on UK online activity

The third in a series of annual reports on the state of the UK online nation can be found at http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/oee/oee.nsf/sections/
esummit-ukoannrep/$file/indexpage.htm. The site states: 'The report is structured around the three central pillars of our strategy: Business; Government; and People. It describes achievements over the last year, our commitments for the year to come, and our future strategy for UK online.'

Research finders

The Australian's Higher Education section reported on Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) on Wednesday and also on another source of Australian policy debate, the Australian Public Intellectual (API) Network. Use it to find policy debate, experts and new academic publishing. It's at http://www.api-network.com/.

Report card

The IMF has just released its World Economic Outlook, April 2003, at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2003/01/index.htm. It's had some coverage in the news so get the full story. For our region, there is a section entitled: Asia-Pacific Region: Has Growth Become Less Reliant on Global Developments? . Maybe more importantly, the site also provides access to the Global Financial Stability Report, released in March, at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/gfsr/2003/01/index.htm.

Policy sources

The Australian's Higher Education section reported on Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) on Wednesday and also on another source of Australian policy debate, the Australian Public Intellectual (API) Network. Use it to find policy debate, experts and new academic publishing. It's at http://www.api-network.com/.

Australian research

Just remember to check back with Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) regularly for news updates and announcements of recently released research. It's a goldmine of story ideas for journalists.

Creative Brisbane?

Commissioned by the Brisbane City Council, the Brisbane's Creative Industries 2003 Report defines the city's creative industries, looks at employment in the sector, identifies strengths and weaknesses and examines financial dimensions such as government funding. The full text report is at http://www.creativeindustries.qut.com/research/cirac/documents/bccreportonly.pdf.

How would the US rate?

The US State Department has released the 2002 Country Reports on human rights practices. See them at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/. Areas covered include Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East and North Africa, South Asia and Western Hemisphere. The US is not covered. However, Human Rights Watch's 2003 World Report is at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/.

How would the US rate?

The US State Department has released the 2002 Country Reports on human rights practices. See them at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/. Areas covered include Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East and North Africa, South Asia and Western Hemisphere. The US is not covered. However, Human Rights Watch's 2003 World Report is at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/.

Trade in 2003

Staff of the Parliamentary Library have produced a new paper on National Interests, Global Concerns: the 2003 Foreign Affairs and Trade White Paper. Find it in HTML at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib23.htm or in PDF at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib23.pdf.

Weasel words?

A lot of people are saying a lot of things about Iraq and war and a good place to track down these speeches and announcements is the Speech and Transcript Center at http://www.freepint.com/gary/speech.htm. Speeches are organised by date, with the latest first.

A thoroughly non-alarming alert

Welcome to a new alerting service called GoogleAlert (not an offical Google site). This service emails you when new items matching terms you have selected are added to the Google database. Unlike many such services that email borderline results, GoogleAlert really delivers, and it's an easy way to stay on top of what's new without having to check back constantly. You can choose multiple terms. You have to register to get the service which can be found at http://www.googlealert.com/.

Bio-terrible

The News Content and Issues Project of the US Radio and Television News Directors Foundation has published a handy booklet, available for PDF download, entitled Bioterrorism: A Journalist's Guide to Covering Bioterrorism at http://www.rtnda.org/resources/bioguide.pdf. With luck, you'll never need it, but it's good to know it's available. And at 56 pages, it's not a lightweight read, covering possible bioweapons, where to get information, when bioweapons have been used, and the treaties that govern their use. There is also a glossary.

New to me

Who else has seen News MediaNet? It's at http://newsmedianet.com.au/, and you can find out about advertising, demographics, case studies, research and lots more about all of News Corp's Australian newspapers.

It's not over yet for the UN ...

... or so says Keith Suter at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00226.shtml. He believes the UN Security Council will survive the current crisis.

Housing boom ... or bust?

The housing boom has not been good news for low income people, says the Brotherhood of St Laurence in a report at http://www.bsl.org.au/pdfs/Changing_Pressures_Feb03.pdf. It claims the low stocks of affordable housing are creating a housing stress crisis.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2003

The report, at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/, provides an assessment of human rights practices in 58 countries. The period covered is from November 2001 to November 2002.

Public/private partnerships

Good idea? Bad idea? The Parliamentary Library has prepared a Research Note at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2002-03/03RP01.pdf on the topic to explain what they mean.

Ethanol in cars

The Parliamentary Library has also prepared a Current Issues Brief on Ethanol in petrol at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/cib/2002-03/03cib12.pdf.

Canberra bushfires - the blame game

Jack Waterford, editor-in-chief of the Canberra Times ponders the rush to find someone to blame for Canberra's bushfires at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00211.shtml.

Ask a silly question ...

... or a sensible one. Ask Now, a new collaborative online Australian reference service from the state and national libraries in Australia, is waiting to hear from you. Try it out at http://www.asknow.gov.au/. You can ask anything you like and a reference librarian will try to answer it. Worth a try for those quick look up questions, or for more complicated information needs.

Help for the drought-affected

The Centre for Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University has produced a paper, Developing equitable and affordable government responses to drought in Australia, which can be read at http://cepr.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP455.pdf.

Drought research

The NSW Parliament has produced a research paper on drought at http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/PHWebContent.nsf/PHPages/ResearchBf142002?OpenDocument.

Bali, terrorism and Australia

Full text papers from Australian Policy Online's recent forum on this issue are available at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00175.shtml.

Old newsreels

Pathe newsreels can be searched online now at British Pathe (http://www.britishpathe.com/). The site says 'you can preview items from the entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970'.

Reviewing our Asian engagement

The full text of Professor Tony Milner's Radio Australia Asia-Pacific Lecture, Reviewing our Asian engagement, delivered on 11 November, is at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00167.shtml.

New Parliamentary Library publications

The Parliamentary Library has developed a criminal law internet resource guide at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/law/crimlaw.htm that provides links to Australian criminal law sites and to related sites abroad. You can find information on terrorism, war crimes and firearms.

ASEAN plus 3 and Cunningham by-election

The Parliamentary Library have released a research note on ASEAN plus 3 at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2002-03/03rn19.pdf. They have also produced a research note on the Cunningham by-election at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2002-03/03rn18.pdf.

Feeling pressured and time poor?

Apparently, it's all your own fault. Or so says the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, in a new document, The Time-Pressure illusion at http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/dp/DP115.pdf. The authors say that "much of the time that people devote to paid and unpaid tasks is over and above that which is strictly necessary".

See how you're going

If you want to know what ranking Google assigns your Web site, you can download Google Monitor, a program that will find and track the ranking of your site or any other Web address in Google search results. Find it at http://download.com.com/3000-2181-10154563.html?tag=lst-2-11. You will have to download and install the program on your own computer before you can use it.

New drug trafficking report

UNESCO has just released "Globalisation, Drugs, and Criminalisation: Final Research Report on Brazil, China, India, and Mexico" at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001276/127644e.pdf. More information about the report and the research behind it is at http://www.unesco.org/most/globalisation/drugs_1.htm. Among other things, the 409-page report covers money laundering, criminal organisations, research and policy.

Protocols for Indigenous communities

MessageStick, the ABC's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Online section, has produced a protocol journalists should use when communicating with indigenous communities at http://www.abc.net.au/message/proper/. There is other useful information at the site. Thanks to Dan Van Blarcom for the tip.

Asylum seekers

Get the Senate Select Committee on Certain Maritime Incident at http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/maritime/report/contents.htm - all about the Tampa crisis and the 'children overboard' controversy. Also, Tony Kevin's http://sievx.com/ site asks whether the Australian Government contributed to the deaths of 353 asylum-seekers.

Australian charities portal

A new portal for charities is at http://www.auscharity.org/. The site has an alphabetical list of registered Australian charities and links through to an abbreviated version of the Giving Trends in Australia Report, 2001.

Philanthropy Australia is a national membership organisation for grantmaking trusts and foundations. Use the links section to find community organisations and other charitable or grantmaking bodies. The site includes a Glossary of Philanthropic Terms and Fact Sheets about different sectors. There is also a downloadable paper on Charitable Institutions and Trusts - Income tax issues. Find the site at http://www.philanthropy.org.au/.

Trading places

The International Trade Centre, a joint UNCTAD/WTO project, has a load of useful trade and export information. There are country trade analysis tables such as the Trade Performance Index, National Export Performance, National Import Profile, Trade Statistics, and so on. The site also has publications, online databases and directories that can be searched for statistics, directory information and overviews. Find it at http://www.intracen.org/.

What's it like being a migrant?

The settlement experiences of new migrants from the National Institute of Labour Studies, at Flinders University tells how it is for new arrivals. Go directly to that PDF file at http://www.dimia.gov.au/research/publications/lsia/settle_exp.pdf.

Cost of raising children

All they need is love ... and $450,000 - the joint AMP/NATSEM research into the costs of having kids is at http://www.ampgroup.com/group/ampgroup.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle
/B20.10.4+22941+Natsem+Report+Oct.pdf/$FILE/B20.10.4+22941+Natsem+Report+Oct.pdf. Or get it from Australian Policy Online at http://www.apo.org.au/.

Another recent post is The settlement experiences of new migrants from the National Institute of Labour Studies, at Flinders University. Go directly to that PDF file at http://www.dimia.gov.au/research/publications/lsia/settle_exp.pdf.

Terrorism in Southeast Asia

A new e-brief from the Parliamentary Library has been released on this topic at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/FAD/sea.htm. The e-brief, Terrorism in Southeast Asia, includes information on terrorist groups in the region.

Journos and the Net

The Virtual Trail: Political Journalism on the Internet is a 78-page report from the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, based at George Washington University in the US. It claims journos spend more than two hours a day online. Find it at http://www.ipdi.org/virtual_trail.pdf.

US energy consumption

If anyone needs US energy consumption figures, use the Annual Energy Review 2001 from the US Energy Information Administration at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/contents.html. This includes full data, from 1949 onwards, for many different types of fuels, including petroleum, natural gas, nuclear energy and coal. There are also tables on end user consumption which might be handy for any Kyoto Protocol stories. An analysis of Australia's energy resources and consumption is at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/australi.html. This link is also in the energy section of OzGuide.

It's probably worse over there

A new report, Crime in the United States - 2001 is online at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/01cius.htm. It has tons of tables and statistics and comes from the FBI.

Bosnia, Lebanon and others

The Human Development Report 2002, called Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World, was published in July. Since then further region-specific reports have been launched, including new ones on Bosnia and Lebanon. The Bosnian one looks at major critical areas, such as privatisation, unemployment, the grey economy, corruption, education, social welfare, health, pensions, gender equality and crime, while the Lebanon one focuses on globalisation and its effects. Find all HD reports at http://hdr.undp.org/.

Constructing knowledge societies

Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education is a recently released report from the World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/), on the role of education in economic development. It is available in PDF and is 232 pages long. http://www1.worldbank.org/education/tertiary/documents/Constructing%20Knowledge%20Societies.pdf

Doing 'bisnis' in Russia and other newly independent states

BISNIS is the US Government's primary market information center for US companies exploring business opportunities in Russia and other newly independent states. It would be useful for anyone reporting on this area. Lots of industry, country, research, tenders and event information here as well as news, money, etc. http://www.bisnis.doc.gov/.

New Yahoo! Industry Center

Yahoo! has created an Industry Center for news, announcements, research and background on 17 industries, including telecommunications, biotechnology and drugs, semiconductors, automotive and aerospace and defence. This service is international in scope and includes news, events, a calendar, press releases, the top 10 companies per industry, research reports, industry profiles, market summaries and so-called 'industry buzz'. Find it at http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/. Thanks To Gary Price's VAS&ND for the news.

Selling Telstra

The Federal Parliamentary Library produced a paper called Budgetary Implications of Selling Telstra - A Ready Reckoner on 24 September 2002. Unfortunately, the use of this research is restricted to Senators, Members and Parliamentary staff only - time to lobby to see it? http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/hotissues.htm.