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We humans appear to be propelling Earth into a “new normal” through soaring carbon emissions, deforestation, ocean acidification, and a laundry list of other assorted global impacts. 40 years ago The Limits to Growth, written by a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published by The Club of Rome, broke a modern taboo: it suggested that growth itself might be the problem.

Kenneth Boulding, the founder of general systems theory, thought the view that economic growth can continue forever, to be a view held only by "madmen and economists".

Richard Heinberg's latest book goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes.

Richard said in an ABC interview: “We are replacing regular conventional oil – which made economic growth happening during the 20th century – with harder-to-produce, more expensive-to-produce and environmentally risky tar sands, shale oil and ultra deep water oil. The problem is that these things are slow to come online and in the meanwhile regular conventional oil is declining.”

Are humans heading to a vortex of no-return through unsustainable economic, technological and human growth? It's seems to be the case!

"Although I have heard the argument that Christians do not riot violently in the street every time a work comes out making fun of Christianity (Life of Brian, Piss Christ etc), I think that maybe they would if Muslims rolled into Western states in tanks, put us under curfew, told us how to run our countries and went about privatising our government oil companies..."

Western states aren't theocracies, like Muslim States under sharia law. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistian, Malaysia, and Mauritania are Islamic theocracies. The Vatican City is the only Christian theocracy, although its laws are still limited to the secular laws of Italy.

Read more: What Countries use the Theocracy in todays world? at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Countries_use_the_Theocracy_in_todays_world#ixzz26xS3lSSn

Read more: What Countries use the Theocracy in todays world? at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Countries_use_the_Theocracy_in_todays_world#ixzz2709j7eP7

Read more: What Countries use the Theocracy in todays world? at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Countries_use_the_Theocracy_in_todays_world#ixzz270B0c0bQ

Editorial comment: Each of the above three pages is different to the other two, yet the content in each is almost the same. Why this is so is not clear to me.

Most of the laws in these countries are loosely based on Sharia, or the Islamic law. Australia’s political system is based on the Westminster system used in Great Britain. In essence, Westminster is the name given to the system of parliamentary democracy used in countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This does not mean the law of the land requires any person to believe the Bible or to be a Christian. It means that the principles of government in Australia are justice, mercy and lawfulness understood in terms of the Christian ethics - however far from the ideal they are in practice.

There are no ‘Christian Nations’, just some nations where there is a higher percentage of Christians like USA, South Korea, and some emerging African Nations like Ghana. Australia is a secular nation with a Christian foundation in the Westminster system and common law.

Christian minorities aren't having tanks rolled into their territories, having oil resources stolen, and have curfews forced onto them. However, the grip of Islam and Muslim extremism in Africa and the Middle East means growing persecution of Christian minorities. There are now more than 300 million Christians who are either threatened with violence or legally discriminated against simply because of their faith — more than any other religion. While there are some Middle Eastern countries with limited government protection for religious diversity, China, North Korea and Malaysia, through India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Christians are subjected to legalised discrimination, violence, imprisonment, relocation and forced conversion. Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision. The rising influence of Islamists has frequently been accompanied by increased harassment of Christians, ranging from bureaucratic inconvenience to terrorist attack. Syria regards itself as a secular state. Support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad from Christian communities has turned this religious minority into a target for Islamist rebels.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Christians have become a target for fundamentalist fanatics, and around 2,000 Christians have been killed.

This human rights crisis is happening on one of the largest scales the world has ever seen. It's reported that roughly 100-200 million Christians are living under persecution at any one time. That makes it the largest religious human rights crisis in the world.

In 2011, 350 churches were burned down and 510 Christians were killed in Nigeria by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group.

On the other hand, the United Nations indicates that there are 800,000 Rohingya Muslims without citizenship in Myanmar. Reports state that Rohingya Muslims represent a large percentage of the displaced individuals in Myanmar. The Indian Muslims are persistently under persecution and harassment only because they are Muslims. Endless persecution has resulted in a process whereby the Indian Muslims are fast moving towards ruination culturally, educationally, economically, socially and politically.

Over half of the world's more than 10 million refugees are in Muslim countries while 9 million of the total of over 26 million IDPs worldwide are displaced in the Muslim world, including over 800,000 newly displaced as a result of the 'Arab Spring' uprisings.

Read more: Islam, international law and the protection of refugees and IDPs of 1 June 2012 at http://www.readperiodicals.com/201206/2733712001.html#ixzz26xbd1GUp

Disrupting and invading already saturated nations, already facing threats to their food and political security and social fabric, is like opening a Pandora's box. What follows is human rights abuses, displacements, resentments, conflicts for land and ideologies, and historical feuds. Never more in the history of our planet has PEACE and STABILITY been more essential.

There are the forces who have long opposed the rule of Assad based on faith. Assad is an Alawite, a mystical sect based on Shiite Islam that held most of the ruling offices as a minority in Syria. Nearly three-quarters of Syrians are Sunni, and some consider the Alawites to be non-Islamic.

In Iraq around 60% of all Christians have fled. Also, in Saudi Arabia not one single Christian church or Buddhist temple is allowed. Ten million Coptic Christian minority in Egypt now faces greater Sharia Islamic law and persecution. The iron grip of religious extremism is an wakening force, being propagated by illegal wars.

Syria of Assad is a place where Alawites, the Druze, Christians, Sunni Muslims, secularists, socialists, and others, are (were) part and parcel of society. Also, Afghanistan and Iraq were SECULAR societies which were overthrown by America and its allies. Egypt is now entering a stage of GROWING Sharia Islamic law and anti-Christian persecution. The Obama administration WELCOMED the demise of more liberal forces which have been replaced by the “radical Sunni Islamic Arab Spring.”

Syria which was multi-ethnic and multi-religious and secular – but then Obama insisted on supporting an opposition which isn’t unified and whereby radical Sunni Islamists were waiting in the wings in order to take power. This is despite the fact that this nation, Syria, was LIGHT-YEARS ahead of pro-Western supported nations like Saudi Arabia – with their religious Sharia laws. Syria shames nations like Turkey where Christians and Alevi Muslims suffer such blatant discrimination.

Assad and the government of Syria are fighting to maintain the sovereignty of Syria and the military of this nation, which is multi-religious. The losers are always moderate and secular Muslims, and Christians, such as those who make up the vast majority of Palestinians and Syrians. There's hatred for Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that some Sunnis reject as not being Islamic at all.

Those battling the secular Bashar al-Assad regime are NOT trying to create a “democracy” with “human rights” for all. Instead, they are waging so-called "holy war,” to build an Islamic dictatorship under Sharia law as part of an emerging international Muslim system. As The New American and several other sources, including U.S. officials, have documented for months, a large percentage of the Western establishment-backed fighters are actually openly affiliated with al-Qaeda.

U.S.-backed Syrian Opposition Linked to Bilderberg, CFR, Goldman Sachs & George Soros of 16 Jul 2012 at http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/12084-us-backed-syrian-opposition-linked-to-bilderberg-cfr-goldman-sachs-george-soros

Financiers of the slaughter — Western governments, Arab dictatorships, and wealthy elites — will almost certainly escape accountabilty.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict and over 250,000 have fled Syria, according to the U.N.

Read more: Human Rights Group Says Syrian Opposition Committing War Crimes of 17 Sep 2012 at http://www.businessinsider.com/syrian-opposition-committing-war-crimes-2012-9#ixzz26la34iWS

Around half of the rebel fighters in Syria are foreign Islamists who aren’t interested in toppling the Assad regime. Instead, they’re seeking to implement SHARIA LAW throughout the country, according to a prominent French doctor.

­The co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, discovered some interesting information while treating Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo. He says the fighters aren’t focused on the fall of the Assad regime. Instead, they have their eyes on a different kind of prize – implementing SHARIA LAW throughout the country.

According to all contemporary schools of Islamic jurisprudence, converting to another religion is a crime punishable by death, in accordance with the Prophet Muhammad's command: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” All around the Muslim world, an assertive, combative, and expansionist Islam is newly energized. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians from Syria is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters like Robert Fisk demonize those same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.

The 2011 State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom refused to list Egypt as “a country of particular concern,” even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. The Obama administration played politics by failing to acknowledge this terrorist behavior.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution of 24 May 2012

Never before in the history of our planet is peace more important. Overpopulation, draconian monotheism, rising enforcement of sharia laws, declining democracies, and religious intolerance is an awakening deep set powers and rebellion, and spreading the dis-ease of unrest. It fosters rebellion, hatred, suffering, division and persecution.

According to a survey commissioned by the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., anxiety about immigration is more acute in Britain than in any other European country surveyed. And, as in the rest of Europe, in Britain—where the Muslim population has increased by seventy-four per cent, from 1.6 million to an estimated 2.8 million since 2001—concern about immigration is often a euphemism for concern about Islam.

Read more England, Their England - The failure of British multiculturalism and the rise of the Islamophobic right. of 4 July 20123 at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/04/110704fa_fact_collins#ixzz26ljQWtm1

The great "multicultural" ideal of people from different cultural/ethnic/religious/idealistic/political backgrounds being able to celebrate their differences, but overwhelm the mainstream nation's culture and at the same time live harmoniously with "diversity" is being questioned. It's an oxymoron - to be a nation based on differences! Global forces inevitably infiltrate and disrupt and spill over within nations.

The drive for energy, economic growth and power is prying open forces against human rights and tolerance. Moreover, the U.S. economic woes are part of a growing world economic crisis. The Bush Doctrine of promoting economic growth and economic freedom promises to help countries facing economic crisis and to help countries prevent them, but the administration's actions show that it will use economic crises to push the interests of American capitalism.

Eight people have been arrested and six police injured after protesters clashed with police in Sydney's CBD.

The NSW premier says the violence at a Sydney Islamic protest is an 'unacceptable face of multiculturalism'.

THE Prime Minister and NSW Premier have condemned yesterday's violent Islamic protest that has horrified the nation, saying it represented 'the unacceptable face of multiculturalism' and was not 'the Australian way'.

A child with a poster demanding that those who insult Mohammed should be beheaded is particularly chilling. "I absolutely condemn the violence that we saw yesterday on the streets of Sydney," Ms Gillard said. "There is never any excuse for violent behaviour.

Meanwhile Barry O'Farrell told Sky News: "What we saw yesterday was the unacceptable face of multiculturalism," "I'm just horrified by what I saw."
Mr Abbott said newcomers to Australia were not expected to surrender their heritage but were expected to surrender their hatreds. Maybe fostering hatred is part of their heritage?

While some people of Muslim background may be shrinking in horror of the violence, the big picture of global Islam is one of dis-rest, violence and disruption. This is not about The Salvation Army, Orthodox Jews, or Buddhists.

There are cracks appearing in the great and lofty ideal of multiculturalism. Not only have some European leaders pronounced the “end of multiculturalism,” but some governments have challenged the Schengen agreement, by bringing back border checks in response to the influx of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East.

On 14th August a group of Muslims living in Norway, called Ansar al-Sunna, expressed their desire not to mix with infidels "and your dirty values ??and attitudes", including women allowed to walk around "half-naked", promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse. They requested to be handed over a largely Muslim neighbourhood in Oslo, Grønland, "which we can control completely with our own ministers, border guards, police and legal system governed by Sharia law, and prohibit the wickedness you stand for which is contrary to Allah's Laws".

Multiculturalism assumes that people can leave their past religious and political alliances, contrary to ours, but at the same time cherry-pick those that are acceptable to continue? People come with packages, and the amount of discernment needed is beyond what humans are capable of.

It was clear the very nature of British society was being changed by a new kind of uncontrolled mass immigration — and without the British people ever having been asked whether they supported the policy.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2104550/Mass-immigration-Labour-tried-destroy-Britishness.html#ixzz26gCLRnW2

UK Communities Secretary Eric Pickles plans to signal an end to the policy of multiculturalism. Instead, children will be educated in a "common culture".

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45495/immigrants-must-learn-english-and-join-common-uk-culture#ixzz26gBgiXHH

500,000 unchecked people were let in to Britain via Eurostar between 2007 and last year, while countless so-called students were just nodded through. Former Labour Home Office and Downing Street adviser revealed that mass immigration was a deliberate policy by the Left to change the social fabric of the country and to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’.

Immigrants will be expected to learn English and understand the British way of life, the government was due to say today when it unveiled its new strategy on integration. He says. "If we are to remain a country where people of different backgrounds feel at ease and get along, we need more confidence in our national traditions".

The bogus notion of multiculturalism was designed to open the door to mass immigration, and end national unity, common values, assumed normal lifestyles, and support population growth. It assumes people can be united by their differences, rather than by their common backgrounds and collective national memories and values.

Editorial comment: Whilst the writer is correct to be concerned about high immigration and the corrupting influence of multiculturalism, in recent years most Moslems in Syria and Lebanon have set an example in tolerance that is not often matched by Christians. This includes the defence of Syrian Christians against fundamentalist Islamist terrorists, funded by the US, NATO, Arab dictatorships and Israel, by the Government of President Bashar al-Assad. President al-Assad is an Alawite Moslem. More information can be found on Global Research and the YouTube Channel of the Syrian Girl.

Subject was: Please note...

Please note that the 'earless dragon' found at Darling Downs in QLD is NOT the same endangered Tympanocryptis pinguicolla species as found in the ACT and areas of NSW (predominantly Cooma region). Refer to Conservation Genetics and species status of an endangered Australian dragon, Typanocryptis pinguicolla (Reptilian: Agamidae) Melville et al. 2007, Cons Genet.

This particular species of Tympanocryptis faces an uncertain future due to many factors, and has been declining rapidly over the last few years.

I do not necessarily agree with the kangaroo culling, but just because it is an "ugly" reptile or a seemingly unimportant "bug" like the golden sun moth, does not mean it is any less important than a furry face.

Don't forget how intimately things are connected in nature...including the impact on natural populations (both positive & negative, both on dragons & kangaroos) of humans.

Perhaps some of our politicians could be outsourced and replaced by some administrative talent from overseas. It could be cheaper for Australia, and allow incumbents to be performance assessed regularly and their futures based on it.

The import of fresh fruit and vegetables, and other produce in competition with Australian farmers and primary industry, is undermining the jobs and economy of Australian citizens.

According to poll by The Weekly Times, 84% of participants do not agree with the sale of Cubbie Station. The envy of China's economic wealth is so overwhelming that they will grovel to please them, even selling off large chunks of our sovereign land and natural assets. Due to the system of preferences, even voting does nothing to swing from the sameness of the Libs and Labs. Once we become the southern state of China, and literally part of the "Asian Century", then maybe then the land grabs will end.

Dick Smith is right - we should support Australian made. The Australian government is totally committed to globalizing our nation, our land, our production and our assets, so why not put up the job of running our nation, democratically, to international tender?

See also: Could Cubbie Station have remained in Australian hands? on Brisbane ABC Local Radio 612 and add your comment. - Ed

A lot of politicians are suffering from short-term-ism, or myopia, and megalomania. It's in epidemic proportions. They are all good at promoting big sell-offs, grand infrastructure building innovations, globalizing our natural and man-made assents, and making short-term windfalls at the expense of taxpayers and the future.

Once their party loses government, their responsibility ends. The desalination plant is an example. The public of Victoria will be forced to pay for the desal plant, whether we need it or not. Due to massive population growth during a time of drought, the Labor party under Bracks and Brumby made the knew-jerk decision to develop water from the sea, at Wonthaggi. With our dams nearly full, we don't need it.

There needs to be a delinking of population growth from economic growth. It's the no-brainer was to increase the size of our economy, but ignoring the implications and flow-on effects and costs in the future. It's a symptom of myopia, and one-dimensional thinking.

Private companies exist for profits, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is beyond their responsibilities. The sell off of our public transport, gas and fuel, electricity generators and distributors, communications and water infrastructure places them in private hands, doomed to used for profits, not for the benefit of the wider community.

The short-term thinking of Jeff Kennett, John Brumby, and the Baillieu government will haunt us in the future.

There should be treatment/retirement/therapy for our politicians, and psychological assessment before potential politicians are allowed to be elected into government. Symptoms of myopia, tunnel-vision thinking, megalomania and those with a penchant for "growth" and "big" should be filtered out before they inflict their grandiose ideas onto the public - who end up bearing the enormous costs of privatisation, growth-addition and all the "shortages" that follow.

See also: Beyond Blue and Mr Kennett of 16 August, also posted onto johnquiggin.com about how this destroyer of livelihoods and instigator of mass poverty professes to care about those who suffer from depression. - Ed

Thank you Sheila and the team at CanDoBetter and of course thanks to Hans Brunner for the fabulous article. I also appreciate Bandicoot's comments and feel humbled to be compared to Paul Watson. you are right; whistleblowers and activists are persecuted and their/our main crime is trying to stop cruelty in a world that would rather ignore it and focus on greed and ambition. At least there are many people who can see through the lies and who support those doing their best to make the world a better place. Without animals we have no world, especially without top-order predators. Keep up the great work, everyone. Jennifer

LIBERAL great Sir Rupert Hamer would be ''horrified'' and ''surprised'' at what the Baillieu government was doing to Melbourne's green wedge areas, according to Sir Rupert's daughter.

Alliance defends Melbourne's 'lungs' of 30 Aug 2012 by Jason Dowling at www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/alliance-defends-melbournes-lungs-20120829-2513q.html

Historic Mornmoot - on 124 hectares - was at one stage owned by Neville Young of the Young & Jackson's Hotel, and more recently by David Leighton, founder of the Leighton Group. In Whittlesea, in Melbourne's north, the green wedge-zoned property is expected to make way for a series of housing estates.

Legitimate native species will be pushed to the edge of extinction. While there's a certain amount of redundancy in Nature, digging up grasslands, impacting on wetlands and fragile coastal areas is like deliberately popping the "rivets" that hold together our ecological foundation - and existence.

Once too many rivets on a plane's wing pop, it means impending disaster. The same is for our biodiversity services - the "rivets" that hold our life-support system together are being destroyed.

Richmond office sale breaks record price of 1 September 2012 by Marc Pallisco at www.smh.com.au/business/property/richmond-office-sale-breaks-record-price-20120831-255va.html

It's an invasion by stealth into protected zones. There's no "logic" to it but a crazed gluttony for growth.

Melbourne's population obesity is spilling over and creeping into buffer zones previously protected by the Hamer government in the 1960s. "Planning" in State governments now is a synonym for fast-tracking building permits for developers and their allied supporters. Without a belt or any boundary, and without firm buffer zones to infrastructure, housing and more concrete, Melbourne is being destroyed as a liveable and sustainable city. The "shortages" of public transport, public services, schools and jobs are actually an overshoot of immigration-driven population growth - something that is targeted to continue next year!

Excess non-concessional contributions tax

I received a Notice of assessment – year ended 30 June 2010 this month for Excess non-concessional contributions tax $65,472.35 DR, as a result of implementation of Statement of Advice by Industry Fund Financial Planning, financial year 09/10.

Industry Fund Services (iffp.com.au) are reviewing my complaint to determine what they are prepared to do or otherwise about the ATO fine directed against me.

The Australian Taxation Office told me I had to pay the amount owing by due date 3 September 2012.

Senator Mathias-Cormann, Shadow Assistant Treasurer & Shadow Minister for Financial Services & Superannuation office advised me not everyone who receives similar notice of assessment are paying up through appeal.

Two questions at least: Are Industry Fund financial planners mindful of ATO guidelines and / working on behalf of the Australian Taxation Office?

Another problem is that most of the asylum seekers are Muslim. While most of them are no doubt moderate, there is little evidence of them integrating. Christian minorities all around the Muslim world—especially women and children—are being abducted, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and/or enslaved. Western nations largely take religious liberty for granted. Unfortunately, people of faith, especially Christians, face far more restrictions and suffer persecution.

Islamic community leader and Imam of the local mosque, Sheik Taj al-Din Hilaly, demanded that a Muslim candidate be automatically given electoral preselection over his opponent in the Labor Party, rather than submit to the normal ballot process. The then premier Bob Carr instantly rebuffed this demand, stating that preselection was a democratic process and was not decided upon ethnic or religious criteria. However, it is only a matter of time until seats in parliament are won by Muslims, whose voting will not be governed by the requirements of their electorates, but most probably by the demands of their local mosques.

In France, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Britain and many other secular western nations, Muslims use their growing numbers to intimidate non-Muslims.

In 1996 the unemployment rate of Muslims in Australia was 25 per cent, compared to eight per cent for United Kingdom and Irish-born, and nine per cent for the Australian-born and national total. This is in spite of the fact that the Muslims' skill levels were almost equivalent both to the Australian-born and the national total.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils wants Muslims to be able to marry, divorce and conduct financial transactions under the principles of sharia law. Latest research has found that while polygamy is unlawful, mainstream law accommodates men who arrive in Australia with multiple wives and gives some legal standing to multiple partnerships that originate in Australia.

A bitter dispute between siblings came before the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra this year, when a daughter of a devout Muslim woman demanded she receive the same inheritance as her brothers. The citizenship pledge makes clear that becoming a citizen means obeying Australian laws and upholding Australian values. A sheik and Muslim leaders said sharia was already being used to end hundreds of marriages a year. Sharia is also being used by imams in cases of business disputes and neighbourhood fights.

During a visit to Australia in August last year, British-based anti-sharia law campaigner Maryam Namazie said Australia should learn from Britain's mistake in extending a form of legal recognition to tribunals that use sharia law, not British law, to decide disputes.

The Government and people of the Syrian Arab Republic has maintained a generous open door policy that allowed Iraqi refugees to seek asylum. The tables have turned, and the number of refugees fleeing civil war in Syria has surged to over 200,000, the UN said. The UNHCR says the total reflects an increase of 30,000 in the past week of refugees from Syria going to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Turkey has warned it soon may not be able to cope with the torrents of people now fleeing across the Syrian border and that some refugees may have to remain in Syria itself.

Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil says the West is looking for an excuse for military intervention in his country, a move he says would be impossible.
Jamil said during a visit to Moscow Tuesday that sending Western forces into Syria would lead to a wider war in the Middle East. He dismissed U.S. President Barack Obama's warning about what would happen if Syria were to use chemical weapons, calling it election propaganda.

Syria Says West Looking for Excuse to Send in Troops at http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/08/21/syria-says-west-looking-for-excuse-to-send-in-troops/

Gatilov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, added that, there is growing evidence that the West is delivering massive amounts of weapons to Syrian armed gangs via third-party states.

Syrian forces clash with foreign-backed insurgents in Aleppo at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/20/257247/syria-forces-insurgents-clash-in-aleppo

The number of boat people who reached Australia in the whole of last year was just half the number who crossed from Somalia to Yemen in a single month last August, and in a single day between Syria and Lebanon last month.

Islands of the damned at http://www.peninsulaweekly.com.au/news/world/world/general/islands-of-the-damned/2651479.aspx?storypage=0

António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
" I'm sorry that when one looks at today's world, the first challenge that is clear is that multiplication of new crises that we are witnessing around the world. At the beginning of 2011, we had Cote d'Ivoire; we had Libya; we had Yemen; we had Syria; we had the Horn of Africa, Somalia, with the compounded effect of conflict and the drought; then we had Sudan/South Sudan; Syria becoming much more serious in 2012; and Mali, the most recent one".

"To make it more complicated, there is a shrinking humanitarian space. There is more and more difficulty to accede some of the people that we need to support in different parts of the world...."

National Teleconference: The State of the World’s Refugees: From Indifference to Solidarity at http://www.cfr.org/africa/national-teleconference-state-worlds-refugees-indifference-solidarity/p28444

The refugee problem is accumulating faster than we find solutions - and there are no new frontiers to conquer or settle in our already over-crowded planet. The attack on Syria, aided by foreign forces, will open an already sore wound of human displacement due to conflict.

J'ai trouvé votre message d'une telle information instructive et utile sur ce poste, merci pour le partage de la poste. Editorial comment: This comment thanks us for informing the poster about Syria. This post also contains an advertisement with a link to a site where students are asked to pay for help in research.

The policy of zero immigration of matching emigration with immigration and "accepting into our country only those people who will readily fit into our society, primarily from traditional sources such as Europe and Britain" is a common sense one.

This may seem "racist" but instead of the high ideals of multiculturalism where we all enjoy each other's contribution to society with differences and diversity, it is being used to support high immigration. Some diversity is stimulating and broadening. However, instead of mixing, we end up with monocultures all mainly staying together in family-community clans. The cohesion of society based on diversity is an oxymoron.

" To seek a homogeneous society where we can all live in harmony, free from the ethnic and racial strife caused by social-engineering experiments. End Third World immigration and Muslim immigration, and offer economic assistance to those who wish to be reunited with their people's homeland".

Police have expressed concern over new figures that show Somali and Sudanese-born Victorians are five times more likely to commit crime than the wider community. They're particularly concerned about the violence on occasions and also the age of the individuals involved. The vast majority are under 21 years of age.

It's assumed that simply relocating people from war-torn zones and from cultures/backgrounds that are completely alien will be no hindrance to happy existence in Australia. Of the 25 countries with the highest number of refugees within their borders, 15 are some of the least developed countries in the world.

City of Greater Dandenong Councilor, Peter Brown speaking about the Muslim African refugee crime wave in Dandenong."Australia should not be the repository for global social and ethnic problems in the misguided belief that we can solve them, because as the world population increases beyond the already unsustainable levels more pressure will be placed on Australia to be a universal agent of global multicultural support. We will be doomed to failure... " (from comment on GetUp Campaign update: Pacific Solution Mark II? at http://blog.getup.org.au/2012/08/16/campaign-update-pacific-solution-mark-ii/)

Thousands of people left multicultural Dandenong last year despite the national population boom, says a new report. Dandenong, where two-thirds of people have migrant backgrounds, had a net loss of 2000 in 2010-11. Such is the success of the great ideal of multiculturalism! (from Thousands leave Dandenong despite population boom, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report on migration shows in Herald Sun of 16 August behind paywall)

It costs $80,000 per refugee to bring in each refugee and the budget has blown out to $4.5 billion. Our cities are already in population overload, with traffic at a standstill, homelessness increasing and jobs being slashed due to high competition with cheaper overseas production. It's imagined that Australia is the ideal refuge and we can magically keep accommodating the world's displaced safely, economically and peacefully. It a mis-guided cornucopia ideal.

Trans-locating native animals is fraught with stresses and threats. It's often seen as a "soft cull" as the animals often die after the process. However, it's assumed homo sapiens can simply be trans-located across the planet and thus be expected to smoothly become integrated into a foreign "multicultural" society with diametrically opposed ideals, political system, food, climates, social behaviours and expections, ideals and values.

I am very, very suspicious of any industry which claims a "skills shortage". From talking to people and from reading accounts on the internet, even many highly skilled and experienced Australians, even in industries suffering from supposed shortages, can't easily find work. Anecodotal I know, but when some industry publishes a statement that are experiencing a shortage of so many thousand employees there's a good chance they are just pulling those figures out of thin air.

Why grossly exaggerate these skill shortages? A number of reasons. An excuse to offshore work, or bring in very cheap foreign workers. All the various universities and colleges and dodgy diploma mills need a steady stream of new suckers too. But there's one overarching reason I suspect. It's become a trendy way to boost the reputation of your company. If you supposedly have exhausted the local talent pool, the underlying message is that business must be positively booming.

Despite today's unemployment figures showing a 5.2 per cent jobless rate, in some parts of Australia, youth unemployment is nearing 40 per cent. Fifteen to 24-year-olds now make up more than a quarter of all long term unemployed.

TWO out of five youths in Melbourne’s North West who are out of school are unemployed.

Federal Employment Minister and Maribyrnong MP Bill Shorten

said the Government was working with a wide range of community groups to help get unemployed youths into work.

About one-third of 15 to 19 year olds in areas such as the Sunshine Coast, far north Queensland, north western Queensland and West Moreton were jobless.

Read more: Bleak outlook for Queensland youth trying to enter the workforce of 23 July 2012 at http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-of-living/bleak-outlook-for-queensland-youth-trying-to-enter-the-workforce/story-fnagkbpv-1226432430460 .

Australia's Skills and Workforce Development Needs report said one of the major reasons for the high rate of young jobless was that companies now want fully trained and experienced workers and were not prepared to hire young people and train them. It's easier to by-pass them and source experienced skills and willing workers from developing countries.

The Australian Government is working closely with state, territory and local governments, and regional authorities to provide regional migration programs that support regional development and help supply the skill needs of regional employers.

Kelvin Thomson says "I cannot see how running promotional campaigns to attract skilled migrants is consistent with the Prime Minister’s pre-election statements that she does not believe in a ‘Big Australia’ and that ‘we need to stop and take a breath’. " Workers with real skills in developing countries are more valuable where they are, and we should not try to strip these countries of their best and brightest for our own advantage.

Secondly, our high skilled migration program comes at the expense of skilling and training young Australians

Skills Minister Chris Evans, Industry Minister Greg Combet and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese have all come out in support of the plan to import foreign workers for Gina Rinehart's mining project. Last year the government was considering similar applications for more than 30 other such agreements including for US energy major Chevron, for its Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia.

The media have no agenda in challenging our skilled migration program in the face of our high youth unemployment. Never do we hear a TV or radio presenter interviewing Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, as to why we have such a high - and increasing - skilled migration program at such a time? Or, why is privatization allowing skills to be lost in the first place? Some sectors of temporary employee sponsored skilled migration are unlimited, and after 4 years they are able to apply for PR.

The "immigration" debate stays safely on "boat people" and fails to touch on how many people in Australia are facing hardships of finding accommodation, training, jobs and affordable living standards.