Just completed my final assignment using that as a case study. 4 years is disgusting. What's worst was his Murder charge got downgraded to Manslaughter.

I feel so sorry for the parents.

I dunno about 15 years for just 'hanging around' bikie gangs, but it's still entirely disproportionate.

Tripped balls when I remembered that Thomas Kelly was one of our forumers. Different bloke though.

Apparently the Governor has instructed the prosecution to appeal.

In cases like this I not only support the death penalty but encourage slow, torturous death.

There's no cure for being a right C*nt to society so he should have his organs harvested and sent to a meat processing plant.

You mean, bigger than the abolition of slavery or the prohibition of alcohol, that's big, wow!

Prohibition was a far bigger deal than the decriminalisation of marijuana. Prohibition made mobsters millionaires overnight, marijuana will have no such repercussions.

Also, source or GTFO.

I wonder how they will let it be used if it is legalised cause if I remember correctly it is a very efficient and cheap product for making paper and the like.

That's Hemp, not Marijuana. If they're going to legalise Hemp for industrial use then there will be stipulations on the THC levels of the plant and where and how it can be farmed.

Man nails testicles to Red Square to protest Russian crackdown on rights

November 11, 2013 - 5:20AM

Moscow: A Russian performance artist has been hospitalised after stripping naked and nailing his testicles to a Red Square cobblestone in protest against the Kremlin's crackdown on political rights.

A video of the graphic action, available on Russian websites, shows artist Pyotr Pavlensky sitting naked outside Lenin's Mausoleum being covered with a blanket by police officers while horrified passers by look on.

The state-run RIA Novosti news agency says Mr Pavlensky was taken to a police station after being treated in a central Moscow clinic.

The Saint Petersburg-based artist said in a statement posted on the Grani.ru website that he was trying to draw attention to Russian society's inaction in the face of the development of a police state.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/man-nails-testicles-to-red-square-to-protest-russian-crackdown-on-rights-20131111-2xah2.html#ixzz2kKK8sx1k

China announces sweeping reforms, loosens one-child policy

November 15, 2013 - 11:19PM

Philip Wen
China correspondent for Fairfax

China will relax its long-standing one-child policy and abolish a controversial labour camp system, according to a key reform roadmap announced by the ruling Communist Party.

China will allow couples to have a second child if one of the parents is an only child, according to the document released on Friday.

There was also a pledge to abolish the “re-education through labour” system as part of efforts to improve human rights and judicial practices.

The document, which outlines 60 policy aims split into 16 different categories, also said the government would seek to reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty.

Advertisement
China’s top leaders emerged from a four-day conference in Beijing on Tuesday, promising key economic and social reforms, including a promise to allow market forces to play a “decisive” role in its economy.

The gathering, known as the Third Plenum, had also decided to reduce "step by step" the number of crimes subject to the death penalty, Xinhua added.

The deeply unpopular labour camp system, known as "laojiao", is largely used for petty offenders but is also blamed for widespread rights abuses by corrupt officials seeking to punish whistleblowers and those who try to complain about them to higher authorities.

Under the scheme, people can be sent for up to four years' "re-education" by a police panel, without a court appearance.

It was introduced in 1957 as a faster method of handling minor offences.

A 2009 United Nations report estimated that 190,000 Chinese were locked up in such facilities.

Life in the camps can vary widely, but many prisoners face extremely long work days manufacturing goods or doing agricultural work, the Duihua Foundation, a US-based rights group, said in a report.

Pressure for change in the system has been building for years.

The national parliament has considered reforms to the system since at least 2005 but not passed related legislation.

In a high-profile case in August last year, Tang Hui, a mother from central Hunan province, was sentenced to a labour camp for petitioning repeatedly after her 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute.

Tang had sought accountability for police officers that she said aided the culprits. She was freed after just over a week following a public outcry.

The next month a man in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing -- who served two years in a labour camp for mocking an aggressive campaign that put thousands of people behind bars -- was ruled by a local panel to have been sentenced unlawfully.

After China's new leadership under Xi Jinping took charge of the Communist party in November last year, speculation about possible reform mounted.

State media said in January that the system would be abolished, but the reports were swiftly deleted and replaced with predictions of reform, with few details and no timetable.

Four pilot cities replaced re-education through labour with a system called "illegal behaviour rectification through education", the Beijing News said later, without explaining the differences between the two systems.

Premier Li Keqiang said at a major gathering of the national parliament in March that details might be unveiled by year's end.

It was not immediately clear Friday how it would be replaced.

But analysts say the abolition of the system could face resistance as local governments profit from products made by camp prisoners and rely on the punishment to keep social order.

with AFP

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-announces-sweeping-reforms-loosens-onechild-policy-20131115-2xmz2.html#ixzz2kikneSoS

16 NOV 2013 - 4:08PM
British PM says climate evidence growing

British Prime Minister David Cameron says evidence is growing that climate change is causing more severe weather events.
Source AAP

British Prime Minister David Cameron says there is growing evidence that climate change is causing catastrophic events such as the huge storm that killed thousands of people in the Philippines.

More than 3600 people are confirmed dead after Typhoon Haiyan - one of the biggest on record - swept through last weekend, with the toll expected to rise.

In a stark warning to sceptics within his own Conservative party on Friday Mr Cameron said even those who doubted the "very certain" message being given by scientists should accept it was right to take action as insurance against future climate shocks.

"I am not a scientist but it's always seemed to me that one of the strongest arguments about climate change is that even if you are 90 per cent certain, or 80 per cent certain, or 70 per cent certain - if I said to you that there was a 60 per cent chance your house might burn down, you would take out some insurance," he told reporters during a visit to Sri Lanka.

"We should think about climate change like that.

"Scientists are giving us a very certain message but even if you are less certain than the scientists, it makes sense to take action in terms of trying to prevent and to mitigate.

"I'll leave scientists to speak for themselves about the links between this and other events and climate change.

"The evidence seems to me to be growing."

Pressure to abandon green measures has been growing, with figures outside and inside Cameron's party increasingly vocal on an issue he has publicly championed.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said people should "accept that the climate has been changing for centuries", following the publication of a high-level international report that gave the strongest warning yet of the reality of climate change.

"What it is saying is that it is something we can adapt to over time, and we are very good as a race at adapting," he said.

The Philippines' lead negotiator at the UN climate summit said the disaster must act as a push for international action.

Naderev Sano said: "To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of your armchair."


http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/11/16/british-pm-says-climate-evidence-growing?

Better send this to Tony. A tory saying it exists would make his head explode

Read: Chinese economy is slowing.

Murder is wrong.

It's the old conundrum of killing one to potentially save the lives of many.

The end does not justify the means of getting to that end.

Did killing Arafat really save lives?
Even if Arafat was still involved in killing people right up to his death surely he was just replaced by someone else.

We'll probably never know one way or the other, but it's a possibility is all.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/11/21/00/46/aust-embassy-in-jakarta-braces-for-protest

Wankers.

Edited by iridium1010: 21/11/2013 06:13:26 PM

Glad my friends have all just left Bali.

As if Indonesia would have guts to take on Australia and by extension the US. :lol:

Anyway, why should we care about what some backwater country thinks? Just cut off their aid if they get pissy. :lol:



Edited by 433: 21/11/2013 08:28:34 PM

Madness

Very much so. But you know, accusations of spying by the previous labour government is perfectly just recourse to war. These people are mad.


Edited by MVFCSouthEnder: 21/11/2013 09:44:35 PM

The US wouldn't touch this with a barge poll. Apart from the current US President spending his childhood in Indonesia, the US pretty much helped shape Indonesia into what it is today supporting the anti-communist purges of the 1960's. Add the fact that the last thing the US want to do is piss off yet another Muslim nation and it's pretty clear Australia is on its own in this spat.

Who needs to tap phones anyway when Abbott suggested there are times when torture is acceptable?

Hardly relevant.



Perhaps even more irrelevant.


Pretty much every Muslim nation on Earth is mad at the US. They won't care if another one joins the ranks.

Besides, look up ANZUS.



Edited by 433: 22/11/2013 12:15:35 AM

I think you guys have got confused, 443 was talking about the guy who wanted to wage war on Australia?

Imonfourfourtwo was talking about this incident in a non militarily way?

Edited by iridium1010: 22/11/2013 12:19:47 AM

The USA would help Australia but they probably would be very annoyed that Australia somehow managed to get attacked by Indonesia. However it is not going to happen, neither side is stupid enough to start a war.

Ok, so just to clarify:
- Australia is caught spying on Indonesia just like they've been caught doing to Australia multiple times.
- Indonesia has been caught in multiple human rights violations in the last decade
- Indonesia has been caught supporting people smuggling TO AUSTRALIA in the last 12 months.
- Indonesia continues to mooch off Australia aid.

And the Indonesian public are out burning Australian flags and calling for war because Australia are the bad guys. Fuck they're mental.

I still say we threaten to cut their aid and watch them turn into pussycats.

I was gonna post something similar but couldn't be stuffed with the shit storm.

Just to add to your list we almost went to war with them in the 90s and Indonesia don't allow journalists free entry into West Papua.

But the inclined leftists on this forum want us to bend down and kiss their arse. This is global politics, not domestic issues, you play a completely different kind of game on this stage.

The guy calling for war must be a complete moron as it is a war they would lose in a matter of weeks, oh and only complete scum burn other countries flags.



Edited by iridium1010: 22/11/2013 08:19:54 PM

Has appeasement ever worked?

Kinda hope Indo does so we have an excuse to beat the shit outta them, maybe then they'll shut the fuck up.

Edit: A condition for the peace treaty would be that they accept all asylum seekers. Would be glorious.

Edited by 433: 22/11/2013 08:19:25 PM