Tuesday, May 08, 2007

This is not my beautiful house...

The "home invasions" have continued this week, after thieves armed with a gun forced their way into more homes, yesterday and the day before that and the day before that ...in the SE metro region of Perth.

On Friday three houses in Cloverdale and Redcliffe were robbed by the trio, who were armed with a speargun, which they used to shoot one of their victims in the back.

The group struck again on Sunday, and hit another 2 houses in Kewdale and Victoria Park last night, and a similar incident involving four assailants also occurred across town. The bandits got a nasty surprise at one house, when they were chased off by an angry father with a samurai sword, who calmly inflicted only enough injury to frighten the burglars away. His disabled partner suffered a severed tendon, when the crew smashed a front glass window to gain entry.

Some bright spark has picked himself up a 'silver pistol' and is on a stick-up spree - holding up 5 stores in the South-East metro over the last two weeks. The robber - approx 6ft or 180cm and aged in his mid 20s, is said to be becoming increasingly confident and police are concerned that he may hurt someone if he is not caught soon. Last night's jobs included Gosnells Dominos and Civic Video, Belmont at closing time - check out the happy snaps.

Do you know this person?

WAPOL have released an identikit picture of a person alleged to have made two abduction attempts, on school girls in Perth's south-metro area last week.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

More reasons to spend half a million dollars on a Perth 'average house'

In the same stretch that spelt the demise of former working girl Clare Garabedian, and yielded a number of Perth's old-school stick-up merchants, police caught up with some of 'tha Bronx' natural fauna in a raid on a Rivervale Motel last Wednesday. The three suspects were allegedly holding drugs, a variety of firearms & bladed weapons, and stolen goods.

The suburb, which has long been known as a gateway for drugs - with 5 major highways, 2 airports, 1 OMG and a culturally diverse working-class population, hit the limelight as the (former) home of the Postcard Bandit.

Over the last few weeks a number of unusual incidents have plagued the troubled South East metro district.

Last week a carer failed to rescue a disabled woman whose wheelchair got stuck in the tracks while crossing at Carlisle Station - the Public Transport Authority said they felt the 21 second warning should have been adequate time for the disabled woman to remove herself from the path of the express train - which couldn't stop within the allocated 21 seconds.

More cars went missing, while police practised for Barbagallo Raceway's next demo derby.

And tales from the other side...

a hip hop hero, Big Dave, breaks it down with his Raw Stories, for kids living life on the edge.

And in the 'Sphere...a personal trainer fought back to survive repeated callous attacks from a brazen Sydney broad with a potty mouth, a killer right hook and a penchant for medicine balls.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Press Freedom Day 2007

Twenty set down a blistering pace for Press Freedom Day.

The International Federation of Journalists said in the last year, 155 journalists had been murdered, and a further 25 already this year.

For those journalists dedicated to fulfilling the fourth estate, pressure and intimidation by corrupt authorities is continual, regardless of what country you are based in.

However, a number of incursions on press freedom were witnessed in Australia in 2006, by police trawling for public sector sources So the country's drop to 35th on the RSF's Press Freedom Index isn't particularly surprising. RSF also report an increasing trend in the abduction of journalists.

The IFJs' (36 page) Press Freedom Report for the SE Asia region can be found here and head of the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance in his press freedom report talks about "creeping authoritarianism" - I guess that would be the influence of a creepy authoritarian government with an anti-Aunty axe to grind.

Saint Kevin has proposed a free speech policy be implemented, but sadly it will take more than that to undo the deconstruction of the media industry during the 11-year reign of John Howard.

During that time Whistleblower Protection Acts introduced in every state(even by ALP state governments)have offered gaol-time from any public sector whistleblower daring to disclose to anyone other than their own potentially corrupt department heads. The MEAA pleads for leniency on the WB "Protection" laws. McManus and Harvey faced jail for not betraying their source.

Sedition laws were reintroduced(because they were simply so essential).

The potential to stifle dissent a-la McLibel was bandied around in the proposed national defamation laws in addition to anti-terrorism laws which mean anyone anytime can go missing off the street and a journo's phone can be bugged for anything remotely construed as a security threat, without a warrant.

Media ownership laws which allowed a WA print media monopoly, have been opened up for foreign ownership (I can still remember a time when a US accent was rarely heard on the telly) and funding has been cut so much to our national public broadcasters that one has introduced advertising and the other is attempting to fight it off. John's girl took over at the ABC to monitor a 'left-wing bias' & it would appear that the culture of bias may be contagious. Windschuttle is still doing a great job with history control though.

### OSCE reports on conditions in Eastern Europe.

Sadly it would appear that to have a government that will observe the need for the Fourth Estate in a democratic society, journalists may have to exercise a left-wing bias on election day.