What To Make Of This...?

Hot and Bothered By More Than The Greenhouse Effect

People got upset when a stripper turned up to a conference dinner for climate change. She was covered in balloons as the male freternity went popping the ballons with pins. Naturally the female participants were offended. The SMH report is here.

Outraged scientists stormed out of a government-sponsored climate change conference dinner in Canberra last night, after the strippers booked as entertainment left them all hot and bothered.

One attendee said many of those who walked out of the dinner at Old Parliament House were women.

"I honestly could not believe my eyes when a woman covered in balloons started prancing around as delirious male scientists popped them with a pin," the person, who asked to remain anonymous, said in an email to smh.com.au.

"This was followed by a series of women on stage dressed in almost nothing making jokes about being ridden."

Red-faced conference organisers today issued an apology for the choice of burlesque entertainment, which was stopped after about 10 minutes of a planned 45-minute routine.

However, shadow environment minister Anthony Albanese has since called for a government investigation.

"This is appalling and completely inappropriate and the Australian government should immediately investigate how on earth this occurred," Mr Albanese said this afternoon.

The dinner was the social highlight of the 17th Australia New Zealand Climate Change Forum.

The three-day event at the Australian National University was sponsored by the Bureau of Rural Sciences at the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Australian Greenhouse Office, an arm of the federal Department of the Environment and Heritage.

The Australian Research Council Research Network for Earth System Science (an education and government networking organisation) and the Managing Climate Variability R&D Program also sponsored the event.

"This is ... supposed to be a gathering of scientists at a government-sponsored event in an already male dominated industry where it is hard enough for a woman to make inroads," the attendee told smh.com.au.

"If this is the Australian Government and male-dominated scientific community's idea of conference entertainment, God help us all."

Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell told smh.com.au he was "appalled" at the inappropriateness of the entertainment . "As soon as I was told about this incident, I directed my department to immediately withdraw the $3000 sponsorship," Senator Campbell said.

Representatives from the Australian Greenhouse Office were among those who walked out.

The woman who starred in the balloon-popping show wearing fish-nets, hotpants, a bustier and a bra was Rebecca Gale, a psychology undergraduate at ANU.

So... it was more like a University student prank. If you got it, you gotta flaunt it girlie. :)
On a more serious note...

Dili In The Dumps As Downer Does His Dirty Deed


Since the changes in the (T)error laws and the weakening of my civil rights last year, I try to avoid politics, but this just needs to be said. Our Government is behaving like a bully. Damn it, I'm quoting it all:

The visit of Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer to East Timor this week is for the purpose of pressuring the East Timor Government into adopting even more reactionary, pro-Australian policies. The Australian Government was behind the recent disturbances in Dili which saw the ouster of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and his replacement by the pro-Australian Jose Ramos Horta.

Downer publicly lectured the East Timor Government on taking more responsibility for maintaining order but the intent of both Ramos Horta and Downer at this point is the undermining of the influence of the Fretilin party.

Fretilin at present holds the majority of seats in the democratically elected East Timor parliament. Elections are due next May.

Recent events in East Timor have dramatically revealed that the coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was only one step towards the far-reaching objectives of its plotters.

The carefully planned escape of Alfredo Reinado with 56 other criminals from a Dili jail last week signalled the start of yet another campaign to create instability and weaken the influence of Fretilin. Ramos Horta, who is no longer a member of Fretilin, demanded that the party "reform" itself and elect a new leadership. Ramos Horta said Fretilin members must "project themselves as a modern, all-inclusive, tolerant party".

It was the multinational force overwhelmingly made up of Australian troops which allowed Reinado to escape, and no sooner was he out of jail — where he was being held on a charge of attempted murder and for starting the disturbances in Dili last May — than he issued a call for a "people’s uprising" against the government. Only a government made up of extreme right-wing forces which would be willing to cooperate fully with the Australian Government will be acceptable to John Howard and his Foreign Minister.

Such political forces already exist among the opposition parties in East Timor, having cooperated in the past with either the Australian, Indonesian or US government agencies.

They will continue to stage incidents — the burning of houses and the murdering of civilians — targeting in particular supporters of Fretilin. Their objective is to create a climate of fear which they hope will enable them to defeat Fretilin at the elections next year.

The timing of the jail break may also be linked to the decision of the UN Security Council to send a 1600 strong UN commanded police force to East Timor to assist in stabilising the situation leading up to the elections. The UN appointed Police Commissioner is already in Dili to take up his peace-keeping mission. Stability is the last thing that the coup plotters want if they are to succeed in creating the necessary tension and fear, and image of a "failed government" or "failed state" in the country.

The decision of the UN Security Council was not to the liking of the Australian Government which argued that the army units from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal under Australian command could do the job and that the activities of the UN should be limited to providing aid for the 70,000 Dili residents who have been turned into refugees in their own country and are still too frightened to return to their homes.

Another important development was the decision of the East Timor Government to apply for membership of ASEAN which could help open many doors for the economic development of East Timor and also provide the country with a very large political support base helping the new nation to maintain its independence and its non-aligned political position in international affairs.

Another significant event was the agreement made by the East Timor government with Cuba to provide about 200 doctors to work in East Timor and for East Timor to send a contingent of students to Cuba for medical training. There is also a possibility that the East Timor government will be represented at the Non-Aligned Summit meeting to be held in Cuba in the middle of this month.

All of these developments are reasons why Alexander Downer, together with his Indonesian counterpart, went to Dili to pressure and threaten the East Timorese Government and to prepare the ground for more disruption leading up to next year’s elections.

It's a drag.