Pike River Mine! A Victim of Reganomics or Rogeronomics?

Pike River Mine! A Victim of Reganomics or Rogeronomics?

New Zealand is a fairly advanced country with a strong mining community.

Four days ago a blast happened at Pike River Mine. Since then no one was allowed to be anywhere near the mine. All we have heard was profit oriented ‘spin’. During these tragic days, no one has conducted a realistic investigation and took a pragmatic decision.

Neighboring Australia is worst! This country is full of notorious spin doctors and lacks media outlets. They have conducted a few Dixie Dorothy interviews with no substance and in short they kept us in total darkness!!

Why is it so? Is it because of Reganomics or Rogeronomics?

During the 80s Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pierre Trudeau, Bob Hawke and Roger Douglas ventured out to weaken the union movements and strengthen the big corporations. Consequently, the Duty of Care Provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Acts were compromised in many countries including Australia and New Zealand.

Today, I would like to ask about the culture and practice of the Duty of Care Provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Acts or lack of it in this tragedy.

Did anyone cut the corner to maximise the profit and bungles continued to cover up these anomalies?

Taxi

Public invited to share thoughts with New Zealand miners' families

• From: news.com.au
• November 23, 2010 11:20AM
• 21 comments

Family, friends and work colleagues comfort each other near the mine site. Picture: Mark Mitchell / New Zealand Herald Source: Supplied

Families are becoming more anxious with each passing day, with rescue efforts hampered by toxic gas. Picture: Mark Mitchell / New Zealand Herald Source: Supplied

• Pictures: NZ mine explosion
• Trapped teen on first day at job
• Missing miner's loving last message

AS hopes fade for the 29 trapped miners in New Zealand, messages of hope and support continue to pour in for their anxious families.

For Pip Timms, mother of Jason Dunbar, the youngest of the 29 miners, it's been an incredibly difficult time waiting for news from the Pike River Mine as she prepares herself for the worst.

"Friday night was the turning point for me. When I saw the shaft bent over the way it was ... I just thought 'nah'. Because of my understanding of it ... I knew that it was a pretty extensive, big blast."

Ms Timms's partner, brother-in-law and nephew all work in the mines, in a part of New Zealand where other job opportunities are scarce.

"His first goal was to get there and he did that and then his next goal, which he spoke to me about last week, was to go to Australia" where there is big money to be made in mining on the back of a Chinese-led resources boom.

Related Coverage

• Mine blast lasted 52 seconds Herald Sun, 20 minutes ago
• Mine vision shows force of blast Adelaide Now, 2 hours ago
• Hopes fade for miners as robot breaks down The Australian, 3 hours ago
• Rescuers brace for mine deaths NEWS.com.au, 4 hours ago
• WA sends mine rescue robot Perth Now, 7 hours ago

The teenagers' family joins others, including Australians Josh Ufer's and Willy Joynson's, in an anxious wait for news of their loves ones.

The Beaconsfield miners have shared their hopes that the men in the Pike River mine will be rescued, adding they understood the reasoning for not sending rescuers into a potentially dangerous environment.

"They put Todd and I in that position and we said, 'No, no, don't anyone risk their lives to get us out'," said Brant Webb. "We were a bit shit scared that if a rescuer died they wouldn't come for us. They could've probably had us out within the first few hours, but you don't want people risking their lives."

For the many family members currently waiting in limbo to see if their loved ones will be coming home alive it's an agonising process.

Last night, Stanley Joynson was on his way to New Zealand to maintain a vigil for his brother.

In a tragic twist, Mr Joynson and his wife Kim were getting ready to return to Queensland.

The couple's photo albums and other personal items had already been shipped across the Tasman.

Share your thoughts and feelings with the miner's families by making a comment below.

21 comments on this story

King Dashrath! Lord Rama!! King of Lanka Ravana!!!

King Dashrath! Lord Rama!! King of Lanka Ravana!!!

King Dashrath! Is he a historical figure of just mythical one? Either way, can anyone present any historical records please?

Is it possible for Hanuman (Monkey) to construct a bridge between India and Sri Lanka?

Is it also possible for human (Lord Rama) to stand on top of Hanuman and fight king of Lanka Ravana?

Kingdom of Lanka is in Sri Lanka or Ayodhya of India?

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

Kaikeyi demands that Dasaratha banquish Rama from Ayodhya

Dasharatha (Sanskrit: दशरथ, IAST Daśaratha, Khmer: Dasarath, Malay: Dasarata, Burmese: Dasagiri, Yuan: Dattaratthah, Tamil: Tiyataran, Thai: Thotsorot, Lao: Thotarot, Chinese: 十车王)^[1][2] was a king of Ayodhya of the Ikshvaku dynasty whose life story is narrated principally in the Hindu epic Ramayana. He was a descendant of Raghu and was the father of Rama, the heroic prince of the Ramayana and an avatara of the god Vishnu according to Hindu tradition. Dasharatha had three wives namely, Kaushalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi. Rama was the son of Kaushalya, Lakshman and Shatrughna were the sons of Sumitra, and Bharata was the son of Kaikeyi.

P.S. Indian narrators say that the above are “epic” tales and not history.

Jewish Women Must Seat Behind Bus

Jewish Women Must Seat Behind Bus

Woman beaten on J'lem bus for refusing to move to rear seat

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus.

By Daphna Berman

A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe beating."

Shear, an American-Israeli woman who currently lives in Canada, says that on a recent five-week vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to the Old City to pray at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom.

"Every two or three days, someone would tell me to sit in the back, sometimes politely and sometimes not," she recalled this week in a telephone interview. "I was always polite and said 'No. This is not a synagogue. I am not going to sit in the back.'"

But Shear, a 50-year-old religious woman, says that on the morning of the 24th, a man got onto the bus and demanded her seat - even though there were a number of other seats available in the front of the bus.

"I said, I'm not moving and he said, 'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' Then he spat in my face and at that point, I was in high adrenaline mode and called him a son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of. Then I spat back. At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off. I was fighting back and kicked one of the men in his privates. I will never forget the look on his face."

Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair covering, "one of the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but he wouldn't give it to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the aisle."

'Stupid American'

Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong."

According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident, Shear's account is entirely accurate. "I saw everything," he said. "Someone got on the bus and demanded that she go to the back, but she didn't agree. She was badly beaten and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried to fight back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone was stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I couldn't call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He stopped once, but he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the Kotel [Western Wall], she was beaten badly and I helped her go to the police."

Shear says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she did not even know that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also says that sitting in the front is simply more comfortable. "I'm a 50-year-old woman and I don't like to sit in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a public bus."

"It is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a public entity and enforce their will without going through due process," she said. "Even if they [Haredim who want a segregated bus] are a majority - and I don't think they are - they have options available. They can petition Egged or hire their own private line. But as long as it's a public bus, I don't care if there are 500 people telling me where to sit. I can sit wherever I want and so can anyone else."

Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in the back. "They'll probably claim that she attacked them first, but that's totally untrue. She was abused terribly, and I've never seen anything like it."

Word of Shear's story traveled quickly after she forwarded an e-mail detailing her experience. She has been contacted by a number of groups, including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women's forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).

In the coming month, IRAC will be submitting a petition to the High Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry over the issue of segregated Egged buses. IRAC attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski is in touch with Shear and is considering including her in the petition.

Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is not actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that Shear's story is further proof that the issue requires legal clarification. About 30 Egged buses are designated as mehadrin, mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate this. "There's no way to identify a mehadrin bus, which in itself is a problem," she said.

"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a mehadrin line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [the gender segregation] even on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part of the danger," she said.

On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit through the rear door, and the seats from the rear door back are generally considered the "women's section." A child is usually sent forward to pay the driver.

The official responses

In a response from Egged, the bus driver denied that Shear was physically attacked in any way.

"In a thorough inquiry that we conducted, we found that the bus driver does not confirm that any violence was used against the complainant," Egged spokesman Ron Ratner wrote.

"According to the driver, once he saw that there was a crowd gathering around her, he stopped the bus and went to check what was going on. He clarified to the passengers that the bus was not a mehadrin line and that all passengers on the line are permitted to sit wherever they want on the bus. After making sure that the passengers returned to their seats, he continued driving."

The Egged response also noted that their drivers "are not able and are not authorized to supervise the behavior of the passengers in all situations."

Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Avner Ovadia said in response that the mehadrin lines are "the result of agreements reached between Egged and Haredi bodies" and are therefore unconnected to the ministry.

A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police said the case is still under investigation.

Racist Shock Jocks Are Blocking the Airwaves of Australia

Racist Shock Jocks Are Blocking the Airwaves of Australia

Further to Population Debate in Australia and The Hungry Mile to Barangaroo racist media outlets of Australia including 2UE midnight to dawn shock jock refuses to discuss about What Do You Know About The Northern Territory Intervention? (below).

They talk about democracy, free speech, lucky country, … and they basically talk to themselves. You won’t hear from many indigenous, migrant, Arab or Muslim origin Australians in those programs! Most of them will be silenced at the switchboards. The useless Australian Communication and Media Authority and other fancy name organisations are paper tigers only!

They won’t allow us to talk about Phony Tony (Tony Abbott) = Pauline Henson on Steroid and Julia Gillard is John Howard in Drag either!

Faruque Ahmed

Moderator

Free Australia Now

Mobile: 041 091 4118, Email: union_faruque@yahoo.com.au

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

What Do You Know About The Northern Territory Intervention?

The former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard managed to win two un-winnable elections by using irrational and illogical fear and paranoia based on prejudice and bigotry. His last bastion was the Northern Territory Intervention at the expense of Aboriginal people. Yet, after all of this vicious and creative propaganda:

1. Not one person was prosecuted for sexual abuse.

2. Not one hospital was built.

3. Not one school was built.

Media outlets of this country do not want to talk about this issue! According to many credible sources, this debacle is costing Australia more than $A680 millions already!!