From research on pork and peace to an obesity explosion, it's enough to drive us to drink
- The Australian
- December 12, 2012
HE said supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel sent a "message of unacceptability for Israel's expansionist policies and militarism". "The message has not been clear enough from many governments, including Australia's, and that has contributed to the problem," Mr Lynch said."By withholding our co-operation on an institutional level, we are doing our bit to make up for that."
That's the Australian government that allocated $500,000 to fund Lynch's discipline, peace studies journalism; University of Sydney website, September 12:
(TO) carry out research over three years to establish criteria based on peace journalism for a global standard in news reporting about conflict. The project is intended to strengthen the credentials of peace journalism both as a research agenda and an instrument for media reform advocacy. It will seek to elaborate and define standards of fairness and accuracy of representation, and examine what kinds of news are psychologically harmful and beneficial to readers and audiences.
Peace or pork research? Lynch urges a ban on US troops exercising in Queensland; ABC radio, April 2009:
WE are happy to associate ourselves with the call by the Sydney Peace Foundation for the Queensland government to decline to allow in these thousands of American troops, because it seems to have slipped out of the headlines for some reason but there's an ongoing public health emergency here. Now the world is facing its worst influenza pandemic since 1919 with an outbreak of swine flu.
There's a lot of fat in these figures. Butterfly Foundation announcement yesterday:
THE total social and economic impact of the estimated 913,986 Australians who have an eating disorder this year is $69.7 billion.
Talk about binge eating. ABC news yesterday:
THAT figure contrasts with the last official estimate of the problem, carried out in 2003 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which said the number of sufferers was 23,464.
So what is to be done? The Butterfly Foundation has an idea:
COUNSELLING, often on a long-term basis, is an integral component of treatment. However, a number of survey respondents complained about the government capping psychology sessions at a maximum of 10 per year . . . Given the high productivity costs of eating disorders . . . it is possible that increasing the visit cap may have little adverse impact on the net commonwealth budget position.
That will please the Treasurer, who still expects a surplus. The Australian yesterday:
WAYNE Swan has stuck by the midyear economic review projection of a budget surplus . . . He said he did not deal with "hypothetical situations" when asked about the impact of lower commodity prices on revenues.
They're not so optimistic in Tasmania. Finance Minister Scott Bacon on Monday, announcing increased government spending and a bigger deficit:
UNFORTUNATELY, the strong Australian dollar continues to put pressure on Tasmania's export and import competing sectors.
Tanked teens are in trouble, Deakin University's Peter Miller warns; ABC radio's AM yesterday:
YOUNG people are fuelling up on alcohol before heading out so they can save money.
The answer is to increase what everybody pays; Miller on AM:
ONE possible solution is to make the practice less affordable by charging bottle shops a levy and increasing their prices. Cheap liquor from the very large packaged liquor outlets contributes to harm . . . But it doesn't actually contribute to any of the measures that ameliorate that harm.
No comments:
Post a Comment