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N T H I S I S S U E
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Objectives News and Views Pacific Islands Radio
It's Time To Chat!
T H E V I E W
_____________________________________ Jane's Oceania Home Page
News and Views
Welcome everybody to this
special edition of
our Newsletter for
July/August 2012. I must
say that it is just great to
be back in touch
with everybody after
our last Newsletter January/
February 2012
.
It has been quite sometime since we
have
been
in touch due to my other commitments
and
it is just great to be back in touch again.
As
always, please let me take this
wonderful
opportunity to very sincerely
wish everybody
the very best with
good health, prosperity,
happiness,
peace
and harmony.
Once again, please join me in
extending
a very
warm and sincere
Oceania-Pacific
Island welcome to the
wonderful number
of our new
members who have joined us since
our last Newsletter! Words cannot
adequately
express
my deepest appreciation and
gratitude
for your most welcome and kind
support.
I would most sincerely like to
welcome you all on board! May you find your
stay
and
time with us to be
enjoyable, mutually
beneficial
and most rewarding!
For those many people who have
written in,
I have heard you all with my
heartfelt
gratitude, in many Forums,
e-mails,
Blogs, etc.
Be assured that you
were and still
are always in
my loving thoughts
and prayers.
We've all been together for a
long time now and
we shall continue together,
hopefully for the long
haul, in sharing our mutual love
and feelings about
our mutual goal -
Oceania/Pacific Islands!
Right now, I am so pleased to be
able to advise
that, at
present, many undertakings are
now in
place and our monthly
Newsletters should again
be available to all of you
in a revised format,
-
starting next month,
August 2012! Looking
forward to
seeing you all then!
If I may say that at this time,
I have, fortunately,
been able to gather
much relevant material and to
undertake new lines of research
to be shared in our
upcoming monthly Newsletters for
which I am
proposing
to introduce in a new updated
format.
OBJECTIVES
The objective of our Newsletter is
to
promote worldwide the Pacific
Islands
and, in particular, the island
people. In
addition, the intention of the
Newsletter
is to aid in the preservation of our
island
culture, history, genealogy,
mythology,
ethnology, anthropology and customs,
including rituals and lifestyles.
In doing this, the Newsletter shares
and
makes available a wide selection of
rare,
historical and contemporary
postcards,
along with extensive picture
galleries of the
countries and the people of Oceania.
These
are still being extensively upgraded
and are
of tremendous interest and value to
people
who are interested in the history of
Oceania, as well as to our
Oceania/Pacific
Island people who wish to gain a
greater
appreciation of their beautiful
island heritage.
http://www.janeresture.com/oceania_resources/postcards.htm
NEWS AND VIEWS
There have been quite a number of
exciting
changes both in place and planned
for Internet
Radio since our last Newsletter and
it is now my
utmost and great pleasure to be able
to share some
of these with you.
Firstly, regular listeners will have
no doubt noticed the
new Station layout introduced by
Live365. This new layout
is certainly most colourful and
vibrant as well as much
easier to navigate and to listen to.
It incorporates the
Station Logo as well as the cover of
the CD being played
and presents our Radio Station in a
most exciting and
professional manner.
Our incomparable host Live365.com of
our Pacific Islands Radio
Stations has also advised
broadcasters that they will shortly
be introducing a facility to allow
basic broadcasts to incorporate
Live broadcast segments into their
programming. Consequently,
this allows us to open quite a few
exciting possibilities such as
live news broadcasts and request
programs. No doubt, I will
certainly let you know when this
exciting facility becomes
available in the very near
future.
PACIFIC ISLANDS RADIO - UPGRADE TO
CD QUALITY FM
I am
very pleased to be able to share
with you all, our many
good and loyal listeners worldwide,
that the recent upgrade
of our beautiful Pacific Islands
Radio to CD quality FM Stereo,
coming to you all in 64kbps, has
greatly enhanced our beautiful
Pacific Islands/Oceania music. This
has certainly allowed our
music, performed by our many very
talented artists, to be heard
and enjoyed by our worldwide
audience to its best advantage.
With our Playlists being constantly
arranged and updated, for
your listening pleasure, with new
and exciting artists (including
those talented artists from other
islands worldwide), you are all
invited to share in this most
exciting cutting-edge presentation
Oceania-Pacific Islands coming to
you 24/7 in 64kbps FM Stereo!
Wherever you are, I wish you all the
very best. Please enjoy!
The following are items in
this Newsletter for
July/August 2012:
At this time, I am just so excited to
let you know that
I have so much to share with you all in
our future
editions. However, I am very pleased to
be able to
include below just
a little exciting
news on the enhancement
and preservation of indigenous art in
Australia as a preview
of the very many exciting things and
happenings to come your
way in our future Newsletters.
THE EARLY ART OF ARNHEM LAND
Archaeologists working at a
remote site in Arnhem Land
have made a discovery that
establishes early Aborigines
as among the most advanced
people in human evolution.
Arnhem Land is an Aboriginal
homeland sacred to its
people. It occupies about
97,000 square kilometres of
forests and spectacular
rivers and gorges east of
the Northern Territory
capital of Darwin.
http://www.janesoceania.com/australia_aboriginal_art/index1.htm
FANNING
ISLAND HISTORICAL PICTURES
The
following historical and
cultural images were kindly
provided by Ron Healey and
comprise photographs taken
by his Father, Laurie Healey
who
was on Fanning Island for
some four years up until he
returned to New Zealand in
1942. Laurie Healey was a
great singer, pianist and
guitar player and the
guitars in the photographs
(below) were hand made by
one of the islanders with
hand painted scenes of the
camp on them.
Laurie Healey often spoke of
watching the Japanese ships
sailing through the passage, and
of course wondering if they were
to be invaded. Laurie also
mentioned that they decided to
adopt as much as possible the
island way of life and dress and
the buildings were built in the
native style to make it appear
that there were no troops on the
island. The gun was camouflaged
to look like coconut trees in a
plantation.
Laurie Healey was posted to
Fanning Island with the New
Zealand Expeditionary Force. To
some extent he acted as the
official photographer and
processed all his photos
himself.
We are very thankful to
Ron Healey for making
available the following very
important historical
and cultural images of
Fanning Island, with our
very best wishes and
blessings always. ... Jane
Resture
Madagascar was
colonised by a few dozen
Indonesian women 1200
years ago, according to
scientists who have
probed one of the
strangest episodes in
the human odyssey.
Anthropologists are
fascinated by
Madagascar, for the
island remained aloof
from mankind's conquest
of the planet for
thousands of years. It
then became settled by
mainland Africans and
Indonesians, whose home
was 8000 kilometres
away.
A recent study
published in the British
Journal Proceedings
of the Royal Society B.
looked for markers
handed down in
chromosomes through the
maternal line, in DNA
samples offered by 266
people from three ethnic
Malagasy groups.
Twenty-two per cent of
the samples had a local
variant of the
''Polynesian motif'', a
tiny genetic
characteristic that is
found among Polynesians,
but rarely in western
Indonesia. In one
Malagasy ethnic group,
one in two of the
samples had this marker.
The study
suggested that around 30
Indonesian women founded
the Malagasy population.
The study focused on
mitrochondrial DNA,
which is transmitted
only through the mother,
so it does not exclude
the possibility that
Indonesian men also
arrived with the first
women
Linguistically,
Madagascar's inhabitants
speak dialects of a
language that traces its
origins to Indonesia.
Most of the lexicon
comes from Ma'anyan, a
language spoken along
the Barito River valley
of south-eastern Borneo,
a remote, inland region,
with a smattering of
words from Javanese,
Malay or Sanskrit.
Other evidence of early
Indonesian settlement
comes in the discovery
of outrigger boats, iron
tools, musical
instruments such as the
xylophone and a
''tropical food kit'',
the cultivation of rice,
bananas, yams and taro
brought in from across
the ocean.
The Great Pacific Garbage
Patch mentioned in my
previous blog has sadly been
joined by garbage from the
Japanese tsunami. This
garbage joins this ocean of
debris, including basketball
shoes, ice hockey gloves, a
motorbike, golf clubs, and
a football belonging to a
Japanese schoolboy. These
are just some of the
estimated 4.8 million tonnes
of debris swept into the sea
by the terrible tsunami in
Japan, bits of which have
already washed up on the
shores of Alaska and Canada.
Around two-thirds of
it sank off the coast of
Japan, but the rest is
now drifting across the
Pacific towards North
America, stretching
across an estimated 6300
kilometres of ocean.
Much of it will swirl
around for ever in the
fabled garbage patch in
the north Pacific.
The problem with the
Great Pacific Garbage
Patch is that it's hard
to spot. Most of it
consists of tiny bits of
plastic, forming a thin
and constantly shifting
film on the surface of
the ocean. Garbage
patchologists say it's
twice the size of
Texas, and has been
likened ''a big toilet
that never flushes''.
Indeed, there is
little indigenous
pollution, yet
smaller islands and
reefs of Hawaii for
example, are
littered with
fishing lines,
bottle tops, Lego
pieces, golf tees,
plastic bottles,
toothbrushes,
cigarette lighters,
syringes, tyres,
petrol cans and
plastic dinosaurs,
swept there by the
currents of the
north Pacific
subtropical gyre.
The patch formed
due to oceanic
gyres—rotating
systems of ocean
currents that have a
whirlpool-like
effect on debris. In
the center, there is
very little current,
leaving all the
plastic stuck in one
giant spot. Similar
garbage patches have
formed in the
Atlantic Ocean and
in the Southern
Hemisphere, although
the Pacific Ocean
patch is believed to
be the largest and
most-studied.
Experts disagree
on where most of the
plastic comes
from—some have
estimated that 80
per cent of it comes
from land sources,
others say more of
it is from shipping
junk—but they agree
there's little the
public can currently
do about it. While
plastic breaks down
into smaller pieces,
it never fully
decomposes, so
what's left behind
in the ocean is
there indefinitely.
At the moment it is
simply not cost
effective to skim
the surface of the
ocean to remove this
garbage.
No one can blame the
Japanese for the latest
surge of garbage,
however, for the great
tide of crap that is
flooding the Pacific,
the rest of us will have
to carry the can.
MIGALOO ON THE MOVE
Migaloo, the white humpback
whale is heading north to
Queensland's warmer waters.
Whale watching cruises on
the Gold Coast have been
booked out this weekend,
with Migaloo, the white
humpback, expected to pass
the tourist strip as the
herds make their annual
migration north.
After being spotted at
Coffs Harbour several days
ago, Sea World calculates
Migaloo will arrive in
waters off the Gold Coast
today or tomorrow.
David Robertson, general
manager of Sea World Whale
Watch, says no one knows how
fast the big whale is
swimming.
"It all depends on his
mood and whether he's with a
mate, or courting," he said.
"If he's making a beeline
straight for the Barrier
Reef he could be travelling
at six to eight knots but if
he's playing or mucking
around he could slow down to
four knots."
The last sighting of
Migaloo off the Gold Coast
was on July 1, 2009.
"He might go out very
wide, he might come past at
night. It's just the luck of
the draw," Mr Robertson
said.
"And of course there is
another white whale which is
thought to be Migaloo's
offspring out there too. It
was filmed at Airlie Beach
last year heading south and
it's a juvenile, probably
one or two years old."
As many as 17,000
humpbacks are thought to be
making their way up the east
coast of Australia this year
to the warm breeding grounds
of the Great Barrier Reef,
with the population
increasing at about 10 per
cent each year.
"It's like a schoolies
week for whales. Everyone
goes a little bit crazy and
it's all the teenagers who
are leaping out of the water
and putting on a great
show."
GLOBAL WARMING - CLIMATE CHANGE
AND THE GEOSPHERE
If we think about climate change
at all, most of us do so in a
very simplistic way: so, the
weather might get a bit warmer;
floods and droughts may become
more of a problem and sea levels
will slowly creep upwards.
Evidence reveals, however, that
our planet is an almost
unimaginably complicated beast,
which reacts to a dramatically
changing climate in all manner
of different ways; a few - like
the aforementioned -
straightforward and predictable;
some surprising and others
downright implausible. Into the
latter category fall the
manifold responses of the
geosphere. In this context, the
term geosphere is used to refer
to the densest parts of earth,
which consist mostly of rock and
regolith. The geosphere consists
of the inside of the Earth. In
modern texts, geosphere refers
to the solid parts of the Earth
and is used along with
atmosphere, hydrosphere, and
biosphere to describe the
systems of the Earth.
The world we inhabit has an
outer rind that is
extraordinarily sensitive to
change. While the earth's crust
may seem safe and secure, the
geological calamities that
happen with alarming regularity
confirm that this is not the
case. In Britain, we only have
to go back a couple years to
April 2010, when the the
ice-covered Icelandic
volcano brought European air
traffic to a grinding halt. Less
than a year ago, our planet's
ability to shock and awe headed
the news once again as the east
coast of Japan was bludgeoned by
a cataclysmic combination of
megaquake and tsunami, resulting
- at a quarter of a trillion
dollars or so - in the biggest
natural-catastrophe bill ever.
In the light of such events, it
somehow seems appropriate to
imagine the earth beneath our
feet as something that tosses
and turns periodically in
response to various pokes and
prods. Mostly, these are
supplied by the stresses and
strains associated with the
eternal movement of a dozen or
so rocky tectonic plates across
the face of our world. Changes
in the environment too, however,
have a key role to play in
influencing the earth’s behaviour,
as growing numbers of geological
studies targeting our post-ice
age world have suggested.
Between about 20,000 and 5000
years ago, our planet underwent
an astonishing climatic
transformation. Over the course
of this period, it changes from
the frigid wasteland of deepest
and darkest ice age to the -
broadly speaking - balmy,
temperate world upon which our
civilisation has developed and
thrived. During this
extraordinarily dynamic episode,
as the immense ice sheets melted
and colossal volumes of water
were decanted back into the
oceans, the pressures acting on
the solid earth also underwent
massive change. In response, the
crust bounced and bent, rocking
our planet with resurgence in
volcanic activity, a
proliferation of seismic shocks
and burgeoning giant landslides.
The most spectacular geological
effects were reserved for high
latitudes. Here, the crust
across much of northern Europe
and North America had been
forced down by hundreds of
metres and held at bay for tens
of thousands of years beneath
the weight of sheets of ice up
to 2700 meters thick. As the ice
dissipated in soaring
temperatures, the crust popped
back up like a coiled spring
released, at the same time
tearing open major faults and
triggering great earthquakes in
places where they were
previously unheard of. Even now,
the crust underpinning those
parts of Europe and North
America formerly imprisoned
beneath the great continental
ice sheets continues to rise at
a far more sedate rate.
As last year's tsunami in Japan
most ably demonstrated, when the
ground shakes violently beneath
the sea, a tsunami may not be
far behind. These unstoppable
walls of water are hardly a
surprise when they happen within
the so-called ring of fire that
encompasses the Pacific basin
but in the more tectonically
benign North Atlantic their
manifestation could reasonably
be regarded as a bit of a
shock.
Volcanic blasts too can be added
to the portfolio of postglacial
geological pandemonium; the
warming climate being greeted by
an unprecedented fiery outburst
that wracked Iceland as its
frozen carapace dwindled, and
against which the recent ashy
ejaculation from the island's
most unpronounceable volcano
pales.
The huge environmental changes
that accompanied the rapid
post-glacial warming of our
world were not confined to the
top and bottom of the planet.
All that melt water had to go
somewhere, and as the ice sheets
dwindled, so the oceans grew. An
astounding 52 million cubic
kilometres of water was sucked
from the oceans to form the ice
sheets, causing sea levels to
plummet by about 130 metres. As
the ice sheets melted so this
gigantic volume of water was
returned, bending the crust
around the margins of the ocean
basins under the enormous added
weight, and provoking volcanoes
in the vicinity to erupt and
faults to rupture, bringing
geological mayhem to regions
remote from the ice's polar
fastnesses.
The breathtaking response of the
geosphere as the great ice
sheets crumbled might be
considered as providing little
more than an intriguing insight
into the prehistoric workings of
our world, were it not for the
fact that our planet is once
again in the throes an
extraordinary climatic
transformation - this time
brought about by human
activities. Clearly, the earth
of the early 21st century bears
little resemblance to the frozen
world of 20,000 years ago.
Today, there are no great
continental ice sheets to
dispose of, while the ocean
basins are already pretty much
topped up. On the other hand,
climate change projections
repeatedly support the thesis
that global average temperatures
could rise at least as rapidly
in the course of the next
century or so as during
post-glacial times, reaching
levels at high latitudes capable
of driving catastrophic breakup
of polar ice sheets as thick as
those that once covered much of
Europe and North America. Could
it be then, that if we continue
to allow greenhouse gas
emissions to rise unchecked and
fuel serious warming, our
planet's crust will begin to
toss and turn once again?
The signs are that this is
already happening. In Alaska,
where climate change has
propelled temperatures upwards
by more than 3 degrees Celsius
in the last half century, the
glaciers are melting at a
staggering rate, some losing up
to one kilometre in thickness in
the last 100 years. The
reduction in weight on the crust
beneath is allowing faults
contained therein to slide more
easily, promoting increased
earthquake activity in recent
decades. The permafrost that
helps hold the state's mountain
peaks together is also thawing
rapidly, leading to a rise in
the number of giant rock and ice
avalanches. In fact, in
mountainous areas around the
world, landslide activity is on
the up; a reaction both to a
general ramping-up of global
temperatures and to the
increasingly frequent summer
heatwaves.
Whether or not Alaska proves to
be the "canary in the cage" -
the geological shenanigans there
heralding far worse to come -
depends largely upon the degree
to which we are successful in
reducing the ballooning
greenhouse gas burden arising
from our civilisation's
increasingly polluting
activities, thereby keeping
rising global temperatures to a
couple of degrees centigrade at
most. So far, it has to be said,
there is little cause for
optimism, emissions rocketing by
almost 6 per cent in 2010 when
the world economy continued to
bump along the bottom.
Furthermore, the failure to make
any real progress on emissions
control at last December's
Durban climate conference
ensures that the outlook is
bleak. Our response to
accelerating climate change
continues to be consistently
asymmetric, in the sense that it
is far below the level that the
science says is needed if we are
to have any chance of avoiding
the all-pervasive devastating
consequences.
So what - geologically speaking
- can we look forward to if we
continue to pump out greenhouse
gases at the current
hell-for-leather rate? With
resulting global average
temperatures likely to be
several degrees higher by this
century's end, we could almost
certainly say an eventual
goodbye to the Greenland ice
sheet, and probably that
covering West Antarctica too,
committing us - ultimately - to
a 10-metre or more rise in sea
levels.
GPS measurements reveal that the
crust beneath the Greenland ice
sheet is already rebounding in
response to rapid melting,
providing the potential -
according to researchers - for
future earthquakes, as faults
beneath the ice are relieved of
their confining load. The
possibility exists that these
could trigger submarine
landslides spawning tsunamis
capable of threatening North
Atlantic coastlines. Eastern
Iceland is bouncing back too as
its ice cap fades away. When and
if it vanishes entirely, new
research predicts a lively
response from the volcanoes
beneath. A dramatic elevation in
landslide activity would be
inevitable in the Andes,
Himalayas, European Alps and
elsewhere, as the ice and
permafrost that sustains many
mountain faces melts and thaws.
Across the world, as sea levels
climb remorselessly, the
load-related bending of the
crust around the margins of the
ocean basins might - in time -
act to sufficiently "unclamp"
coastal faults such as
California's San Andreas,
allowing them to move more
easily; at the same time acting
to squeeze magma out of
susceptible volcanoes that are
primed and ready to blow.
The simple reality is that
through our climate-changing
activities we are loading the
dice in favour of escalating
geological havoc at a time when
we can most do without it.
Unless there is a dramatic and
completely unexpected turnaround
in the way in which the human
race manages itself and the
planet, then long-term prospects
for our civilisation look
increasingly grim. At a time
when an additional 220,000
people are lining up at the
global soup kitchen each and
every night; when energy, water
and food resources are coming
under ever-growing pressure, and
when the debilitating effects of
anthropogenic climate change are
insinuating themselves
increasingly into every nook and
cranny of our world and our
lives, the last thing we need is
the very real geological havoc
that will most probably result.
TAHITI PRESIDENT SIGNS HUGE
AQUACULTURE DEAL WITH CHINESE
COMPANY
The
French Polynesian president,
Oscar Temaru, says he has signed
an agreement with a Chinese
company to set up a joint
venture in aquaculture.
Mr
Temaru has revealed that talks
have been held with the Taijin
Jasmin Fund Management
Corporation which he says is
prepared to invest 100 million
US dollars a year over 15 years
to expand the fishing potential
around Hao atoll.
He says
the plan is for the new joint
venture company to be
established in Hong Kong.
Hao
atoll was a key base of the
French military for 30 years
when it used the South Pacific
to test nuclear weapons.
Mr
Temaru has told the Nouvelles de
Tahiti that the Chinese partners
plan to invest huge sums into
research and hatcheries, which
may ultimately boost Hao’s
runway to become an
international airport.
He has
local media that the deal will
need to be discussed with new
French leadership but that no
date has been set.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA ELECTION
Three to six
people are reported
to have been hacked
to death with
bush-style parang
knives in an ambush
near a polling
station as Papua New
Guinea lurches into
the second week of
its troubled
national elections.
The vicious attack
took place near the
Murusapa polling
station inland from
the northern coastal
city of Madang, with
supporters of one
candidate attacking
scrutineers of
another candidate
with parangs while
bystanders fled for
their lives.
In a separate
incident on the same
day, a young girl was
also killed by crossfire
when shooting broke out
near the Porgera gold
mine in Enga province
between armed supporters
of rival candidates.
With the death toll from
clashes during
campaigning and polling
well over 20 people,
tensions are rising as
allegations of cheating
and intimidation fly
between candidates.
Several of the 14
candidates in the Hagen
open electorate of
Western Highlands
province complained to
local election officials
about 7000 ''ghost
names'' they said they
had found on the
electoral roll for the
seat. In addition, in
many provinces large
numbers of people say
they have been
disenfranchised because
their names have been
left off the common
roll.
The candidate who
reported the attack near
Madang, said a whole
village in the Malala
area could not vote
because none were
listed. Candidates also
voiced concern that
corrupt polling
officials and police are
selling left-over blank
voting slips to
candidates, to be filled
in and replace valid
votes.
In the newly-created
Hela province in the
highlands near the $15
billion ExxonMobil
liquefied natural gas
project, supporters of
local candidates rioted
last week when it was
proposed to take ballot
boxes to Mount Hagen for
counting. Officials
relented, and counting
was due to take place
locally in Tari
yesterday with election
monitors from
Transparency
International and the
Commonwealth watching as
closely as possible, and
two police rapid
response teams standing
by.
In the Vanimo-Green
electorate close to the
Indonesian border on the
northern coast, held by
the controversial Deputy
Prime Minister, Belden
Namah, candidates have
petitioned the electoral
commission for extra
security including
Australian and New
Zealand defence
personnel, to counter
vote rigging. The Green
Party candidate Dorothy
Tekwie said the call was
prompted by threats made
against their campaigns,
allegedly by associates
of Mr Namah.
The violence in the
southern highlands and
Enga has prevented
police and army
personnel being moved to
other highland
provinces, causing votes
to be postponed. In
adjacent Jiwaka province
it has been postponed
again to tomorrow
because polling
officials are refusing
to set up booths until
they have been paid for
earlier election duty.
WEST PAPUA
As
violence escalates in West
Papua, one cannot help but
recall East Timor and wonder how
much worse it must get before
Australia, New Zealand and the
international ommunity will
act. Indeed, tensions are at
breaking point in the
easternmost province of
Indonesia after the police
shooting of independence
activist Mako Tabuni.
Human
rights activists report Tabuni
was unarmed when shot six times
by the Australian-trained
Detachment 88 forces. Tabuni was
deputy chairman of the West
Papua National Committee, an
organization advocating
independence and the right to
self-determination under
international law. Tabuni had
also been campaigning for an
investigation into a recent
spate of military killings.
The
shooting follows years of
violence. At least 16 people
have been killed in the past
month, according to human rights
groups, and hundreds of homes
raided, with many burnt to the
ground. Thousands are reported
to be evacuating, seeking refuge
in the forest or heading for
refugee camps in Papua New
Guinea. Credible reports of
human rights violations by
Indonesian security forces have
emerged, including torture,
excessive use of force and
extrajudicial killings.
While most
Australians are proud of our
role in ending 24 years of
bloody Indonesian occupation in
East Timor, we should not forget
it came after a long history of
accepting Indonesian assertions
of sovereignty while ignoring
human rights abuse on our
doorstep.
Like East
Timor, West Papua was annexed by
Indonesia in circumstances that
violated international law.
Comparisons are made, and with
good reason.
Both
territories are made up of
distinct minorities. Both are
rich in natural resources. Both
have struggled for
self-determination. Like East
Timor, West Papua had a UN vote
for self-determination, only the
outcome could not have been more
different.
In 1999,
East Timor got a proper vote and
won independence (not before an
estimated 200,000 Timorese had
died). But in 1969, West Papua
got a sham vote and became part
of Indonesia.
Last
month, East Timor celebrated 10
years of independence or, as the
Timorese say, 10 years since the
international community
recognized their independence.
But an
estimated 400,000 Papuans have
now been killed after more than
40 years of Indonesian
oppression and abuse.
Australia
should, at a minimum, reconsider
military aid to Indonesia and
call for them to allow media and
international organizations
access to West Papua to
investigate abuses and
facilitate peaceful dialogue.
East Timor
should remind us of the hefty
price of turning a blind eye to
repression in the mistaken
belief that it serves stability
in our region.
OCEAN
TEMPERATURE AND QUEENSLAND
(AUSTRALIA) FLOOD
Scientists, in a recent article
published in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters
have reported that abnormally
high ocean temperatures off the
coast of northern Australia
contributed to the extreme
rainfall that flooded
three-quarters of Queensland
over the summer of 2010-11.
A
Sydney researcher ran a series
of climate models and found
above average sea surface
temperatures throughout December
2010 increased the amount of
rainfall across the state by 25
per cent on average. While the
study did not look at the cause
of ocean warming in the region,
a physical oceanographer said
climate change could not be
excluded as a possible driver of
this extreme rainfall event.
Between
December 23 and 28 many places
experienced up to 400
millimetres of rain in a few
days. "That [means] 100
millimetres of rain was
attributable to sea surface
temperatures. While the flooding
occurred during one of the
strongest La Nina events on
record it was insufficient to
produce the extreme rainfall
recorded. The effect of the high
sea surface temperatures coupled
with the impact of a La Nina,
both of which are associated
with above average rainfall over
eastern Australia, plus tropical
cyclone Tasha, combined to
create an extreme weather event.
The
resulting floods stretched
across 1.3 million square
kilometres all the way to
Brisbane, caused billions of
dollars in damage and killed 35
people. Ocean temperatures off
northern Australia were the
highest on record at the time of
the Queensland floods. While the
La Nina event played a big role
in this record ocean warmth, so
too did the long-term warming
trend over the past 50 years.
To
measure the extent high sea
surface temperature contributed
to the rainfall, a regional
climate model was used to
compare the effect of the 2010
December sea surface
temperatures with the sea
surface temperatures from
previous La Nina events. Warmer
sea surface temperatures
increase the amount of moisture
transferred from the ocean to
the atmosphere resulting in the
area from Cairns to south-east
Queensland receiving abnormally high
precipitation. Indeed, increases
in sea surface temperatures can
be attributed to global warming,
the probability of La Nina
events producing extreme
rainfall in the future would no
doubt also rise.
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