SEMA4 MEDIA

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Burma death toll much higher than reported

Potentially deadly games of cat and mouse went on for hours around the barbed-wire barriers in a city terrified of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in crushing an uprising.
Few Buddhist monks were among the crowds, unlike in previous days, after soldiers ransacked 10 monasteries on Thursday and carted off hundreds inside.

OCEAN METHANE

Methane 'belch' theory gets boost

Scientists have found a series of vents in the Nordic Seas that may have burped enough methane to cause massive global warming 55 million years ago.
The early Eocene Period witnessed a dramatic increase in temperature, which was triggered by a sudden surge of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
But just where these gases came from has been something of a mystery.Nature magazine reports the discovery of gas vents dating from the right time and which could represent the source.

THE QUICKENING

Does ocean methane pose a risk?

Methane trapped as hydrates in ocean floor sediments represents an important reservoir of carbon, an untapped energy source, and a potential “time bomb”. There is growing evidence that this methane has been and could again be released during times of rapid climate warming.

Now, using a new biomarker to examine historical records, researchers from the University of Bremen in Germany suggest that continuous and widespread methane release could have a profound and lasting effect on aquatic ecosystems and the carbon cycle.

FAIR COP

NZ police let public write laws

New Zealanders have been given the chance to write their own laws, with a new online tool launched by police.
The "wiki" will allow the public to suggest the wording of a new police act, as part of a government review of the current law, written in 1958.
Police say they hope to gain a range of views from the public on the new law before presenting it to parliament.

DICK HEAD

Condoms infected with AIDS claims archbishop

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with the HIV virus deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

NEWS FLASH

Sky News gets it right.

YELLOW SQUARE

Twenty-Five Years of Post-it Notes

The invention that prefigured email, hypertext, and the digital revolution.

HOT IDEAS

Some facts

1. The Peltier–Seebeck effect, or thermoelectric effect, is the direct conversion of thermal differentials to electric voltage and vice versa.
Related effects are the Thomson effect and Joule heating. The Peltier–Seebeck and Thomson effects are reversible (in fact, the Peltier and Seebeck effects are reversals of one another); Joule heating cannot be reversible under the laws of thermodynamics.

2. A voltage exists between two ends of a metal bar when a temperature difference exists in the bar.

3. A compass needle is deflected when a closed loop is formed of two metals with a temperature difference between the junctions. The metals respond differently to the temperature difference, which creates a current loop, which produces a magnetic field.

4. There's a lot of water in the air. It rises to a height of almost 100km. You feel it in high humidity, but there's almost as much invisible moisture in the air above the Sahara or the Nullarbor as there is in the steamy tropics.



Whisson Windmill

The water that pools beneath an air-conditioned car, or in the tray under an old fridge, demonstrates the principle: cool the air and you get water. And no matter how much water we might take from the air, we'd never run out. Because the oceans would immediately replace it.

Using the sun and the wind to extract water from the air

CRYPTOZOOLOGY

The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La bête du Gévaudan) was a mysterious wolf-like creature that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan (modern day Lozère département), in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from about 1764 to 1767.

An estimate based on official documents gives over 198 attacks, including 36 wounded and 88 dead.

The creature's reported method of killing was unusual for a predator, often targeting the head, and ignoring the usual areas targeted by predators, including the legs and throat. Often the head was crushed or removed. It also seemed to target people over farm animals, reportedly having an aversion to cattle; many times it would attack someone while cattle were in the same field.

The Beast's preference towards women and children is perhaps due to their working the country-side farms in pairs or even alone, making themselves easier targets. Men, however, tended to have objects that could be used as weapons and often worked the fields in groups.

Blogged with Flock

LIFE, JIM

Hegelian Dialectic

Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage.
For Hegel, the whole of history is one tremendous dialectic, major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as slavery to self-unification and realization as the rational, constitutional state of free and equal citizens.
The Hegelian dialectic cannot be mechanically applied for any chosen thesis. Critics argue that the selection of any antithesis, other than the logical negation of the thesis, is subjective.
Then, if the logical negation is used as the antithesis, there is no rigorous way to derive a synthesis. In practice, when an antithesis is selected to suit the user's subjective purpose, the resulting "contradictions" are rhetorical, not logical, and the resulting synthesis not rigorously defensible against a multitude of other possible syntheses. The problem with the Fichtean "thesis — antithesis — synthesis" model is that it implies that contradictions or negations come from outside of things.
Hegel's point is that they are inherent in and internal to things.

HOW IT WORKS

wIckePEDIA

The Global Elite controls the Brotherhood and the world using what Icke calls a "pyramid of manipulation," consisting of sets of hierarchical structures involving:

banking
business
the military
education
the media
religion
drug companies
intelligence agencies and
organized crime.

At the very top of the pyramid are what Icke calls the "Prison Warders," who are not human. He writes that: "A pyramidal structure of human beings has been created under the influence and design of the extraterrestrial Prison Warders and their overall master, the Luciferic Consciousness. They control the human clique at the top of the pyramid, which I have dubbed the Global Elite."

Icke cites the Holocaust, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of events financed and organized by the Global Elite.

British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, "Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level.

These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public ('something must be done'), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place." Icke refers to this as problem-reaction-solution, a  variation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's "Hegelian Dialectic".

PICTURE THIS

Lomos: New take on an old classic

a bizarre-sounding meeting in 1995 between Mr Putin and a group of Austrian photography experimentalists today underpins a growing photographic movement that occupies the narrow space between the worlds of art and commerce.Then mayor of St Petersburg, the man who would soon be Russian president gave an audience to the Austrians to hear their pleas.They had recently started selling refurbished Soviet-era cameras from the Leningrad Optics and Mechanics Association (Lomo) to enthusiasts around the world.


Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr


The Flickr Founders

Tom Sawyer got it right. Why paint a fence when you can get your friends to do it for you for free? He would have been the perfect new-media mogul. Spending time and money creating content on the Internet is so hopelessly dated, so dotcom, so very, very 1.0. The secret of today's successful Web 2.0 companies: build a place that attracts people by encouraging them to create the content—thereby drawing even more people in to create even more stuff. The poster child of this Sawyeresque business model is the photo-sharing site called Flickr.

Caterina Fake, 37, an art director turned marketing whiz, and her Web designer husband Stewart Butterfield, 33, hatched the idea after an engineer at their fledgling online-gaming company devised a cool hack that let anyone share a photo on the Web fast and effortlessly.

Shedding light on Flickr

A global gallery was not what the Flickr founders intended, but Fake sees how events like Hurricane Katrina can lead to instant photo collections that are visible worldwide.

TORTURED MINDS

New machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain'

Its makers claim this infernal machine is the modern face of warfare. It has a nice, friendly sounding name, Silent Guardian.

When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings. It can throw a wave of agony nearly a kilometre.

Anyone in the beam's path will feel, over their entire body, an agonising sensation. In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments. They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks.

[The word "medieval" is shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.]

ANDROMEDA STRAIN

The meteorite, which left an impact crater 20m wide and 5m deep, is causing a wave of illness.

Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'

A meteorite has struck a remote part of Peru and carved a large crater that is emitting noxious odours and making villagers ill.

A fireball streaked across the Andean sky late on Saturday night and crashed into a field near Carancas, a sparsely populated highland wilderness near Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia, witnesses said.

The soil around the impact crater appeared to be scorched, with what appeared to be chunks of lead and silver around the site, and there was a "strange odour", a local health department official, Jorge López, told Peru's RPP radio.

Later the farmers complained of headaches and vomiting. Police who went to investigate the crater were also stricken with nausea, prompting authorities to dispatch a medical team that reached the site today. At least 12 people were treated in addition to seven police officers who required oxygen masks and rehydration.

MONKEY BUSINESS

India to go ahead with 'sacrilegious' sea lane

The Indian Government says it will go ahead with a controversial plan to build a sea lane in the Bay of Bengal despite a storm of protest from Hindus who say it will destroy a sacred site.
The project would allow ships to navigate the southern tip of India instead of skirting around Sri Lanka, cutting the journey between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal by more than 30 hours.

It would mean dredging sand banks that the Hindu epic Ramayana says were built by an army of monkeys to allow the god Ram to cross the narrow strip of sea between India and Sri Lanka and rescue his kidnapped wife.

WHIPPED BRAIN

Addict paralysed by nitrous oxide bulb

The Medical Journal of Australia has revealed a young woman recovering from a heroin addiction has been paralysed by sniffing nitrous oxide from whipped cream charger bulbs.
Dan Lubman from the Orygen Youth Health Centre says most users on the party scene consider the use of the bulbs, or 'nangs', to be safe.
He says it is tragic that the woman, who was on a methadone program and malnourished, was badly hurt by her 20-bulb-a-day habit.

ANOMYMOUS POLICE

Badgeless APEC police cleared

New South Wales police officers who took off their identification badges during APEC protests will escape punishment after a police inquiry found they feared the pins on the badges could be used against them.
Photographs taken during the main APEC protest on Saturday, September 8, showed officers wearing badgeless uniforms.

The revelation sparked public criticism, including suggestions police were told not to wear their name tags so protesters could not identify them.

MERCENARY ATTITUDES

US probes Blackwater shooting amid Iraqi fury

US officials will investigate a shooting incident in Baghdad involving the US security firm Blackwater in which eight people were killed, the State Department said.
The move came after Iraqi authorities cancelled the operating licence of the North Carolina firm, which offers personal security to US officials working in Iraq.
On Sunday, a US diplomatic convoy protected by Blackwater was involved in a shootout in Baghdad's Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood which killed at least eight people and wounded 13.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned what he called the "criminal" response of the convoy's Blackwater guards. The US embassy said the convoy had been been attacked by insurgents.
"The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.
"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Litvinenko suspect wants to be Russian president

The Russian wanted by Britain on suspicion of killing Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko says he will stand for election to parliament and would like to become president of Russia.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB security service officer, said he would represent the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), which is headed by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
He denied seeking the immunity from prosecution that election to parliament would give him. Russian prosecutors have said there was no basis for a criminal case against him, he said.

British prosecutors want to extradite Lugovoi from Russia to face trial in London for the murder of Mr Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital on November 23 last year after receiving a dose of radioactive polonium-210, a rare and highly toxic isotop.

TRUTH BE TOLD

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
In his long-awaited memoir Greenspan, a Republican whose had an 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve, aired his views on the 2003 Iraq invasion:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.
Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

THE LIST GROWS ... 5 July 2007

Australia 'has Iraq oil interest'

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.
He said maintaining "resource security" in the Middle East was a priority.
But PM John Howard has played down the comments
The remarks are causing heated debate as the US-led Iraq coalition has avoided linking the war and oil.

MONSTERS AMONG US

Sofia Rodriguez Urrutia Shu

Man pleads guilty to girl's murder

A 22-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering an eight-year-old girl at a Western Australian shopping centre
Sofia Rodriguez Urrutia Shu's body was found in a disabled toilet cubicle.
Original charges of wilful murder and sexual assault were withdrawn after a review of evidence available.
The man pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of murder and will be sentenced next month, potentially to a jail term with a minimum of between seven and 14 years.

[The girl was with her mother and siblings in the centre but was allowed to visit the toilet alone.]

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Russia arrests 10 over murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya

A group suspected of killing the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was led by an ethnic Chechen organised crime boss, Russian authorities said.
Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general, also told a press conference that the killers included serving government officers.
"The group was headed by a leader of a Moscow criminal group of Chechen origin," Mr Chaika said. "We have evidence that this group took part in the killing of [the US journalist] Paul Klebnikov ... Unfortunately, this group included retired and acting interior ministry and FSB (Federal Security Service) officers.

Her last incomplete article, published in October 2006, contained allegations of torture by pro-Russian Chechen security forces. Her newspaper, Noveya Gazeta, carried eyewitness accounts and photos of people with injuries said to have been sustained under torture.

Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya.

POLICE STATE

APEC security crackdown was world standard (sadly)

Fifty-two-year-old accountant Greg McLeay claims he was pushed to the ground and arrested on Friday after walking in front of an APEC motorcade.
He was strip-searched and spent 22 hours in custody before being released on bail.
Police told him it was his fault his 11-year-old son, who was with him at the time, would be left on the street unaccompanied.

Police allege he assaulted an officer, resisted arrest, entered a restricted area and disobeyed a police command. [Full video 9 minutes]

HUMAN MENAGERIE

Zoo is a great place to watch a feral species

My daughter and I decided to take advantage of some recent spring weather and visit the zoo.
Outside the zoo she observed that there were elephants painted on the walls but, as she knew from previous visits, there were none inside.
The pachyderm has long been her favorite mammal and she always complains about this obvious shortcoming ... especially knowing that I was fortunate enough to see the great Samorn before his demise.
The spear tipped pikes on the entrance gates have been shielded with plastic following the grizzly impaling of a young man who attempted to climb over them one night.
The point of the pikes has been lost, in all senses, and the gates are now much easier to climb.
Inside the zoo, our first stop was the great apes.
One "enclosure" (not cage) was empty but had recently been used to exhibit human beings.
There was a life-size cut-out of a bald man with a banana on his head with a caption that he represented the world's most dangerous species.
The fine weather had brought specimens of that species out in force ...
mostly wearing track suits emblazoned with car names and pushing obnoxious mini-bogans around in a fleet of small wheeled machines.
Over by the mating hippos I saw a woman drag her kid away, saying to the father "he doesn't need to see that".
Another mum explained, "they are doing something dirty ...
making babies".
Confusing? Dirty? No. Smelly? Yes. The zoo odours were particularly fecund that day.
I don't know what the fuss was about: it was all happening underwater with just a couple of sets of nostrils showing.
My musings were interupted by a bird-like screech, it was a parent insisting her brat look at the llamas ...
actually deer.
And yet another mum was happily cuddling a "possum" until a zoo volunteer told her it was a rat.
In a burst of balletic movement she handed the animal back and recoiled 10m in horror.
Moments later I saw a father point out a tree to his mostly adoring family saying, "And this is a claret ash".
At this, a teenage daughter sighed heavily and said "Oh my god ...
dad, the sign says Australian red cedar."
It was about then I imagined the Emperor Nasi Goreng building the Great Wall to keep rabbits out of China.
Visit the zoo ... it's a great place to watch people.

BUSH'S BRAIN

Bush backs 'Austrian troops' at 'OPEC' during "Sidney" conference

Gaffe-prone US President George W Bush confused APEC with OPEC and transformed Australian troops into Austrians in a series of blunders in Sydney on Friday.
Mr Bush's tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of the APEC leaders summit.

[Bush's itinerary media release had him enjoying the sights of "Sidney" ... whoever he is.]

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Nuclear missiles mistakenly flown across US

There has been a major security blunder in the United States involving nuclear weapons.A B-52 bomber flew across the country after being mistakenly loaded with nuclear warheads.
The nuclear armed cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto the B-52 bomber's wings, before its three-hour flight last week from North Dakota to Louisiana.

OSCILLATING UNIVERSE

Before the Big Bang

"With only massless ingredients left, the universe loses track of time because it's just photons around and they don't care about it. So we can look at this picture in the future as well, and in the remote future, again, the universe loses track of time.
"I'm going to try and show you what this crazy scheme is. Here we have a cartoon of our universe expanding out indefinitely, and by two tricks we can represent this initial state, a nice smooth boundary, and the final state by another. These are just mathematical tricks for the moment, but as far as the matter in the universe is concerned, it doesn't even know the boundary is there because it has lost track of time.
"So here's the crazy idea. I'm considering that that universe phase is just one phase out of a succession of phases. I'm going to refer to these things as eons. This is our eon, if you like. That's our Big Bang, that's our remote future. This remote future will be the Big Bang of the next eon. This Big Bang was the other side of this boundary of the remote future of the previous eon." - Roger Penrose

NEVADA TRIANGLE

Fossett search reveals old wrecks

Rescuers searching for the adventurer Steve Fossett in the Nevada desert have found old wrecks of planes, some of them from crashes decades ago.
After six days of intensive searches, rescuers have not found any sign of Mr Fossett's plane, instead they spotted six planes which crashed in the desert in earlier years.

SWORN OFFICERS

APEC security crackdown was world standard (sadly)

Fifty-two-year-old accountant Greg McLeay claims he was pushed to the ground and arrested on Friday after walking in front of an APEC motorcade. He spent 22 hours in custody before being released on bail. Police say he allegedly assaulted a police officer.

Footage from Saturday's protest shows an officer repeatedly punching a protester while he is on the ground.

Sworn police officers removed their identification badges before confrontations with protesters, a claim New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says will be investigated.

New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell denies officers were too heavy-handed and says people who feel they have been treated unfairly by officers can make a complaint.

Who are the police and who are they meant to be? A police force is meant to be a subgroup of the community it is sworn to protect.

Community Police a Foundation for Restorative Justice
Community Policing is a new philosophy of policing based on the concept that the Police and citizens working together in creative ways can solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder and general neighborhood conditions.

OH, THE HUMANITY

Security officer on the roof of the Sydney Opera House one of the snipers among the thousands of security officers deployed.

Apec security leaves bitter taste in Sydney

The normally good-humoured head of TTF Australia, a powerful tourism and transport lobby group which had lent strong support to Sydney's hosting of the 21 Pacific Rim leaders, like many, is incensed by what he regards as the needlessly aggressive and restrictive policing.
It carried a heftier security price tag than the 16-day-long 2000 Olympics and led to the construction of the 5km "great wall of Sydney".
"I'm so embarrassed and annoyed. Where was the sense of proportion? We replaced Olympic volunteers with riot squads," he says.
"Somebody in the security operation got very carried away with their own self-importance, and nobody in the state or federal government counterbalanced them.
"It was totally and utterly disproportionate."
[BBC]

HUMMER BUMMER

Couple attacked after admiring Hummer

Police are investigating the assault of a couple in the city early this morning.
The man and woman were admiring a silver-coloured Hummer vehicle in a secure car park in Melbourne.
The occupants of the Hummer – a mid-30s caucasian man with a tattoo of a cross on his right forearm and a man of Asian appearance – attacked the couple with a crowbar.

[Comes with the territory.]

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Excerpts from Bin Laden video

A video tape which US experts believe is from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released just days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.



How does a guy living in a cave get hold of beard dye? What happened to the grey streaks?

Previous video appearance.
 

SQUASHED ANTS

Distant space collision meant doom for dinosaurs

A 10-kilometre wide meteorite struck Mexico's Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago.
That catastrophe eliminated the dinosaurs, which had flourished for about 165 million years, and many other life forms, and paved the way for mammals to dominate the Earth and the eventual rise of humankind, many scientists believe.
The impact is thought to have triggered a worldwide environmental cataclysm, expelling vast quantities of rock and dust into the sky, unleashing giant tsunamis, sparking global wildfires and leaving Earth shrouded in darkness for years.

POLICE POWER

Chief constable zapped by Taser

Video footage shows North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom being supported by two officers as he is shot in the back with a Taser by a third officer.
He makes what he described as a "strangulated yell" as he is zapped for 1.5 seconds, and tells his officers: "That was long enough, thanks".
Speaking to camera afterwards, Mr Brunstrom - who recently passed his force's fitness test - said: "What was it like? Not pleasant, is the answer".
He added: "I was completely incapable of movement. I would have fallen if I hadn't been supported by my colleagues.
"I very strongly advise you, if faced by an officer and a Taser, that you follow the instructions of the nice police officer, because you will not enjoy the consequences of disobedience."

RIGHTS TRASHED

Police want court order against APEC protesters

New South Wales Police will today seek a Supreme Court order to prevent the biggest APEC protest planned for this Saturday.
Police have been in discussions with the Stop Bush Coalition for weeks over their proposed route for a protest march this Saturday.
There is a clear signal today that those negotiations have failed, with police confirming they will take the issue to the Supreme Court.
The group's leader, Alex Bainbridge, says police gave him a letter last night to say he would receive a court summons today.
Mr Bainbridge says the group is ready to take on the legal challenge.
"We have lawyers that are prepared to work with us because they also believe in the rights of the democratic protests," he said.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Scientists Find Alfvén waves in Solar corona

Scientists for the first time have observed elusive oscillations in the sun's corona, known as Alfvén waves, that transport energy outward from the surface of the sun.
The discovery may give researchers more insight into solar magnetic fields, eventually leading to a better understanding of how the sun affects Earth's atmosphere and the entire solar system.

Alfvén waves, transverse incompressible magnetic oscillations, have been proposed as a possible mechanism to heat the Sun's corona to millions of degrees by transporting convective energy from the photosphere into the diffuse corona.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Rabble-proof fence

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Sydney is a poitical event being held in a democratic country, but the increasing fever in pitch of threats of violent protest has lead to the virtual banning of any protest and the use of the words "protesters" and "terrorists" in the same breath.

The security crackdown will shut down the city. A 5.5km exclusion fence of huge concrete blocks and cyclone mesh has been erected, 500 gaol cells have been evacuated to make way for mass arrests. Even Meals on Wheels has been cancelled for the Friday.

Australia's government has spent $169m (US$138m) on security for the event over six years.

The State Government Transport Minister John Watkins says the security barrier "[is] a big, ugly, strong fence and it's there to keep protesters out and to protect against terrorism".

That means the fence has been designed to keep out those who belive in democratic rights (eg to air dissenting political opinions) and those who don't believe in the democratic process: in short, everybody except the ruling elite.

Sydney will be in virtual lockdown with some roads and train stations closed, many shops shut and Friday declared a public holiday to encourage residents to leave the city for the weekend.

Despite the 5.5km fence, the constant overflight by jet fighters, virtual lockdown of the city, and the presence of thousands of armed police and soldiers, an official threatened protesters "who interrupt the normal running of Sydney" with tough punishment.

THE MONTHS BEFORE

NSW Govt says APEC great for Sydney's profile

May 3, 2007: Earlier this week, Deputy Premier John Watkins said the conference would lock down the city and provide nothing tangible for the people or business of Sydney. Mr Iemma has contradicted the claims.
"The benefits to the city are the obvious benefits of the city's profile," he said.
But he has supported Mr Watkins' warning about the level of the disruption that the event is expected to cause.




'Ring of steel' blockades Sydney
As the wall was being erected, a police helicopter flew overhead, large numbers of police patrolled the city on pushbikes, in vehicles and on foot while several coasted around the harbour on jet skis.
"We think this wall is unnecessary and shouldn't be there. It's dividing Sydney in two," says a protester.

In stark contrast to the security wall, APEC organisers have erected colourful street banners and flower beds to welcome the visiting officials.

APEC 'security wall' undemocratic: Greens

Aug 2, 2007: The incoming New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, says details about security fencing for the APEC summit in Sydney will be made public soon.
Mr Scipione has refused to confirm rumours the barrier will be made of high reinforced concrete almost 3m high and will be used to cordon-off several blocks of central Sydney from Circular Quay. He says any measures being planned by authorities are necessary.
Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon, says no part of Sydney should be fenced off. She said the fence would be "symbolic that this [Iemma] government does not understand peaceful protest which is such a critical part of a healthy democracy - this fence is not needed".

More APEC restrictions announced

Aug 24, 2007: Additional areas in the Sydney CBD, eastern suburbs and the airport have been added to the list of restricted zones for next month's APEC summit.
The Government has revealed the RAAF base at Richmond, Sydney Airport, parts of Kirribilli, areas of Bondi and four major hotels in the city will today be officially-gazetted declared zones for the APEC conference.
The Deputy Premier, John Watkins, says the decision gives police additional powers to stop and search and move people on in those areas. "This enables the police to exercise greater power and a level of control," he said.
He also warned Sydneysiders to expect "significant disruptions" in the CBD from Saturday September 1 to Monday September 10, due to the US President's decision to arrive two days earlier.

1500 ADF personnel to provide APEC security

Aug 29, 2007: Security operations during APEC will involve 1500 Australian Defence personnel. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the New South Wales Police signed a memorandum of understanding outlining the state police role as the primary security agency.
Brigadier Andrew Smith says the ADF will provide unique security services to help support the event."
That includes Black Hawk helicopters, some FA18 hornet fighter aircraft divers on the harbour, some other Royal Australian Navy Ships, some specialist search teams from the Army Reserve and a special operations task group," he said.
The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, says several of the delegations attending the APEC summit have applied for certificates to carry guns in Australia.
A familiarisation flight over the Harbour Bridge and Goat Island by an SA18 involved an aircraft travelling at 420kmh at an altitude of 1000 metres.

New police powers come into force

Aug 30, 2007: New police powers come into force today, allowing officers to stop and search anyone trying to enter a restricted zone.
The police centre in Surry Hills is also now fully operational, with a wall of video screens showing live shots of the city's streets.
Exclusion notices are also being sent out from today to individuals considered by police to be a security threat.
"The police are ready and they have the equipment the powers and the training needed to protect our citizens and our guests," Mr Iemma said. "The Police Minister, David Campbell, has defended the measures, saying violent protests are being planned.

PROTESTS BANNED
APEC protesters say the police are being unreasonable in their continued opposition to the Stop Bush Coalition's planned route during the September 2-9 conference. Police and protest organisers met again today and failed to reach an agreement on the route.
A student demonstration on the Wednesday has not been allowed to march.
The Greens have been told they are not allowed to have a stationary action with 21 people inside Martin Place.

["It's a shocking thing to see these leaders come here and not talk about the plight of workers in their own countries, not stand up to multinational companies and say, 'Enough - we want our citizens, our families, our workers treated with dignity and respect.'" - ACTU president, Sharan Burrow]

Sydney locks down for APEC meeting

Aug 30, 2007: Sydney is in lock down amid fears of violent protests and terrorist strikes.
Many of the city's top tourist attractions, including the Sydney Opera House, will be hidden behind a 5.5m long, 2.8m high steel and concrete fence.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says 3500 police and 1500 counter-terrorism and special force soldiers will protect US President George W Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other "dignitaries".
Police have purchased a water cannon for the event, cleared enough jail cells to hold 500 demonstrators, and converted 30 buses into mobile holding cells that can also be used as street barricades. Mounted officers would not be used because of an outbreak of the highly-contagious equine influenza but dogs will be brought in to screen the crowds.
"The intelligence that has been coming through would cause us to prepare for a mass arrest arrangement," Incoming New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said.
The military will enforce an 80-kilometre no-fly zone around the city with F/A-18 fighters and Blackhawk helicopters, while navy divers and patrol boats guard Sydney Harbour.
"We are planning a peaceful protest but the police are making it very difficult and being very provocative," StopBush organiser Alex Bainbridge said.
"They're basically treating us like terrorists and denying our democratic right to protest."
NSW Greens politician Lee Rhiannon described the city centre fence, which is designed to withstand attack from an explosives-laden car, as "an absolute insult (to) the process of democracy".
But Prime Minister John Howard said the protesters had only themselves to blame for the tough measures.

Police blacklist IDs those banned from city

Aug 31, 2007: Greens Senator Kerry Nettle is calling on the Federal Government to reveal its role in the creation of a black list of APEC protesters.
Senator Nettle said "I want to know about what involvement Federal Police and ASIO had in determining which people should be excluded from being able to be in Sydney".
"This black list has been drawn up with no regard for the courts - there is no judicial oversight for determining whether people should be on that list people.
"If they find out they are on it, [they] have got no right of appeal."

Police Minister David Campbell says people on an exclusion list for the APEC week will be contacted by police to be told they are not allowed to enter the restricted APEC zones.
The Minister said police will contact individuals and say "'We believe that you are an excluded person'."

Roads will be closed within restricted zones and police will have more power to search people.
The names and photographs of about 30 on the blacklist were published in a Sydney newspaper.

Scipione takes over as NSW Police Commissioner

Sep 1, 2007: Andrew Scipione has taken over as NSW's 21st Police Commissioner, officially succeeding Ken Moroney at midnight. Mr Scipione's swearing in has been postponed until the summit is over.

"If you intend to come here and protest violently, you should realise that we're going to be very hard on you," he said. "...if you've got that in mind, you can understand that we'll be looking to take you into custody and putting you into a cell and putting you before a court," he said.

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NSW drug arrests skyrocket

The latest crime report for New South Wales shows the number of people being caught in possession of cocaine and amphetamines is up by 60%. The quarterly crime report, released today, shows 359 people were arrested for cocaine possession in the year leading up to June, up by about 150 on the previous year.
The director of the state's Bureau of Crime Statistics, Don Weatherburn, says "These changes are not just indicative of a crackdown by police, I think they're indicative of a growing problem".