Top StoriesMay’s sharp fall in jobless numbers added to the greenness of the ‘recovery’ (or less bad) thesis; overnight June’s unemployment figures were so awful that they could have stunted at least, the wavering shoots.
The torch waits quietly for its moment in the Canberra sun
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The Olympic Torch is currently resting comfortably in a Canberra hotel after its flight from Jakarta. That’s more than you’ll be able to say for Canberrans tomorrow morning, given torch relay organisers have cleverly designed the route to ensure the maximum number of workers in the Parliamentary triangle and what passes for the CBD in these parts will be blocked or delayed from reaching their workplaces. Canberrans have been told to get to work by 8.15am. Prepare for a Public Service-wide productivity surge tomorrow. You have to hand it to the Keystone Cops of the AFP. Given plenty of encouragement to lock the place down and handed $2m to waste, they’ve erected kilometres and kilometres of metal barricades. There are literally tens of thousands of these things lining central Canberra at the moment, and some fencing contractor must have struck it filthy rich.
The AFP have also inexplicably “closed” Lake Burley Griffin for most of tomorrow. While this will doubtless prevent the planned marine assault by the Royal Tibetan Navy, it has infuriated businesses that make their living from running cruises and, one assumes, that mob who rent out those pedal boats that are compulsory experiences for any tourists enjoying our fine city. And it’s not too late for yet another twist in the saga of the flame attendants, whom John Coates revealed today wouldn’t be staying on the bus but would be running alongside the torch – all the better to throw their bodies around it, as the Chinese Ambassador suggested last night, although he later claimed he’d been “misrepresented”, presumably by his own mouth, since that’s exactly what he said. Not to worry, though, because he’s taken the precaution of bussing in Chinese students to run their own interference with anyone daring to protest. China’s Foreign Ministry have warned against protests in Canberra because the torch “belongs to the whole world”. That the corrupt thugs who run China (latest effort – dispatching a boatload of weapons to fellow despot Bob Mugabe) object to expressions of dissent even in other countries is no surprise. But let’s get over this fetishisation of the Olympics. Year after year the same faces, the Kevin Gospers and John Coateses who are apparently on the Olympics gravy train for life, stand up to declare that it’s all about the sport, or world peace, or the youth of the world. In fact it’s a giant media event designed to generate massive revenue which, this time around, is being employed to promote one of the world’s most brutal regimes. And you can see where these sports administrators come from. Just about every athlete or sports person parrots the same lines about sport having nothing to do with politics or, for that matter, morality, as if sports – professional, international sport, in all its cash-generating glory – is somehow a priori disconnected from basic ethics and standards of civilized behaviour. For those planning to have a crack at disrupting the relay, or who just want to marvel at some wonderful security overkill, the event kicks off at 8.30am tomorrow morning. The location? Reconciliation Place. That’s Olympian-level irony. |
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17 Comments
Curiosity quiz: Why the silence from western media and politicians over Chian’s arms shipment to Mugabe? Are they all Manchurian candidates and grovelling apologists for the world’s biggest dictatorship, like our PM Rudd?
Tony, why the media support for the US to send hellfire missiles to Israel to keep murdering more and more Lebanese civilians and fire on fleeing Australian citizens?
Now in 1956 we still had the white Australia policy, in 2000 we had thousands of innocent human beings locked in cages in the desert and aborigines living in 4th world conditions.
Since then we have invaded and occupied two nations who had not harmed us, cheered when Israel decided to invade and murder more of their neighbours and we dare to pretend we have a human rights record worth protection.
Do you people know the meaning of the word hypocrite?
For the record it is estimated that 1.2 million Tibetans have died in nearly 50 years, 1.2 million Iraqis are believed to have been killed in 5 years. Is it OK and not a violation of human rights when we do it?
This writer is not really into the spirit of the occasion, is he? I suggest a couple of years in a re-education institution will clear his muddled, un-sportmanlike thoughts.
I’m speechless! I thought that our brave leader, backed by Mick Kelty, had decreed that security in the national capital was an Oz affair. In a way the Olympics arn’t all that bad as a means of high-lighting the brutal Chinese regime . Sports tragics, who had previously never thought of Tibet or Zimbawbe, might just start wondering if China is giving them a fair go.
Hmm, I don’t know Tony…maybe it’s because the British have been supplying arms to Zimbabwe for the last 30 years (excepting occasional and minimal short-lived sanctions), so it might appear to be incredible double standards.
the ABC covered it tony, fairfax newspapers covered it. The London Independent and UK telegraph covered it.
the shipmment never got to Zimbawe because of a union boycott in Durban.
Marilyn — thanks for my daily laugh. Next you will be telling us that Tiananmen Square did not happen and Iraq did not invade Kuwait and that Iraq did not lobb scuds into Israel…..
Gee Noddy, lot’s of long bows to the Olympic flame don’t you think? Going back how far to justify our racist whining?
Since Tianamen Square Israel occupied Lebanon another 11 years and then bombed the country to bits 2 years ago, and they have continued to occupy Palestine for another 19 years and slaughter thousands of people.
We have invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq and so on. Hypocrites we are.
I think it might be fun to turn up to the torch relay in a dark suit, with dark sunnies, wearing and obvious hands-free mobile head-set, and photograph as many as possible of the Chinese students/ government agents recruited/ cajoled into supporting the relay. This should make them feel right at home
Any foreign military spies making records or menacing Australian residents should be arrested and locked up. Apparently they have no diplomatic immunity, no security role or authorisation and actually work for a terrorist organisation known as the DRC - Sandy Logan we have a job for you there at the Dept of Immigration. You will have crowds cheering your lads on too. Feel free to cancel thousands of Chinese student visas too. And deduct points from their business migration applications. Throw the book at them!
Tony, I have read quite a few articles about this subject. Not huge headlines, I agree, but it certainly has been reported. Perhaps if you were to take off your rabid right-wing blinders you may discover said articles.
Bernard: are you serious? You mean this whole pathetic circus is slugging the tax payer $2m. Ch*ist! what the hell is being taken out of the public purse?
I find it strange that the Chinese with their several thousand years of diplomatic intrigue, to be acting like a bunch of goons and thugs ; no doubt using the same bully boy tactics they used in Tibet. So much for sophistication. The great Chinese sages would be turning in their graves.
If Australia capitulates, and it will, to the Chinese demand of allowing the presence of the boys in blue trackies onto Australian soil we will look like the third world species we are. Kevin Rudd, the Chinese want our mineral wealth, they’ll get over their little fit of pique. I’m surprised that so many Chinese studying in Oz have failed to get the message.
Mr. Keane! You are on fire of late! The two paragraphs beginning: “Year after year the same faces, the Kevin Gospers and…’” and ending ” is somehow a priori disconnected from basic ethics and standards of civilized behaviour” crystallize the essential problem. We owe our fellow man far more than we owe starkly money mongering professional sport. The Olympics sadly are little more than a ‘public relations’ opportunity for a regime rather than a celebration of human potential hosted by a nations amongst the family of nations. I applaud the response to the to the torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco
I hope Venise that in regard to the first of your comments below, it would have been obvious that Tony must already have taken off his “rabid right-wing blinders” to “discover said articles”. It is also equally obvious that you, in fact, wear the rabid left wing equivalent!
fireworks at 6 roads blocked at 8 nearly ran over a Tibetan who walked out on to the road. and we paid money for this!!!!
Talk about a waste of time, energy and money this silly torch procession is costing and for what? Some people appear to some sort of quasi-religious significance to it..
By all means let the host country light an Olympic flame at the main stadium if they choose the rest is pure bullshit.
It is now so commercialized that it is all about the money to the participants,and the IOC through TV rights. Having said all that I will watch as much as possible on TV as will billions of others, and fotunately the time zones mean that it won’t mean staying up all night.