Australian Envoy Tries to Downplay Racial Email Scandal

Article first published as Australian Envoy Tries to Downplay Racial Email Scandal on Blogcritics.
 

     It is another manifestation of racism, rampant in Australia. Racial attacks on Indian students have been recorded high in number in Melbourne, Victoria of Australia for last two to three years. Indian students studying in Melbourne are also high in number as compared with other cities in Australia. So, Victoria police are expected to be more sensitive towards racial issue that has been haunting the state. But, the Victorian police have proved otherwise.

Email Scandal

     Top Victorian Police officials are caught in a sting operation conducted by an Australian newspaper “the Herald Sun,” joking about a video that showed an Indian passenger travelling on the roof a train being electrocuted when he was contacted with high-tension wire. The video was circulated by Victorian police officers joking, “It could be a way to fix Melbourne’s Indian student problem.”

     The NDTV news web site reported on October 9, 2010 that some of the highest rankings officers had been implicated in the scandal that also involved pornographic material. At least fifteen officers will be dealt with disciplinary hearing in the coming weeks, Herald Sun report was quoted as saying by the NDTV news. The emails probed by Ethical Standards Department’s Operation Barrot contain pornographic, homophobic, racist and violent material.

Downplaying

     After the Australian High Commissioner to India, Peter Varghese, was handed a demarche by the Indian foreign ministry on Saturday, he condemned the incident as “offensive and unacceptable.” But, he went on to say that the incident involved two police officers, neither of them were senior police officers. He added that he did not think we should tar the entire Victorian police with the action of two police officers.

Has Unfair Downgrading by Rating Agencies Exaggerated Europe Debt Crisis?

Article first published as Has Unfair Downgrading by Rating Agencies Exaggerated Europe Debt Crisis? on Blogcritics.

The IMF expressed concerns over high vulnerability of sovereign balance sheets to growth shocks, releasing its semi-annual “Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR)” today, September 5, 2010. The report said the recent sovereign debt crisis in Europe highlighted increased vulnerabilities of banks and sovereign balance sheets emanating from the Euro crisis. Though mature economies are transitioning from temporary support to self-sustaining private demand, the policy makers must stick with fiscal tightening and regulations unless private demand becomes more self-sustainable.

The IMF is still not ready to advocate the withdrawal of fiscal support, (termed nicely as “temporary support” in the report) unless the “still-impaired financial sector” is proven to be out of risk from its toxic mortgage debt assets. Until then Fiscal tightening measures have to be continued, and of course, without caring for working class people’s protests and agitations, at the cost of budget spending for the people.

Government Role in Recovery
 

The IMF report acknowledged the role of the governments in recovery from the financial crisis. It said in its report, “To a large extent, the apparently modest capital needs of U.S. banks reflect the large scale of government-sponsored enterprises and other government interventions without which those needs would have been substantially higher. This highlights the extent to which risk has been transferred from private to public balance sheets, as well as the need to address the burden placed on public institutions.”

Even as recognizing this, the IMF looks for self-sustaining private demand where private demand is still based on temporary support from the government. The governments need to interfere where private firms that are “too-important-to-fail,” (referring “too big to fail”) fail to deliver, but private firms do not come to rescue the government from the difficulties of maintaining fiscal discipline and from lacking funds for social welfare measures. Even then, the governments are inclined to resort to spending cuts, withdrawal of welfare measures, wage freezes, benefit cuts and so on.

CWG Village Threatened with Used Condoms

Until now, the Commonwealth Games organizers have faced criticism for shortcomings in arrangements made at the venues of CWG and Athletes’ village. Now the blame turns to the athletes who complained on quality of arrangements in Athletes’ village for another reason.

Somehow, the Indian authorities could regain the tarnished image with the amazing cultural performance on the inaugural day, but it remains to be seen how they are going to resolve the problem of clogged drains.

Clogged Drains

Now the authorities are facing somewhat a peculiar problem. The village has been provided with at least 8,000 free condoms to prevent unwanted infections. Four thousand condoms are said to be picked up already, within four days of the beginning of the event. The problem is not about scarcity of condoms but with used condoms.

The used condoms are flushed in the toilets into the drains choking the drainage system in the village. The CWG authorities are happy that the condoms are being used, but worried that they are not able to find an easy way to clear the clogged drains.

Accolades

Once the games are begun the organizers won applauds for winning race against time in making quick arrangements. The army built the collapsed foot over bridge within four days. Inaugural session concluded with everyone’s satisfaction. Indian athletes are performing well placing India at the second place in medals tally.

No Berlusconi Day in Italy

No Berlusconi day was observed in Italy on 2nd October 2010. The people were angry over the corruption scandals erupted recently. Thousands of protestors marched across Italy to express their denial of the leadership of their Prime Minister Berlusconi.

Italian Prime Minister was accused of subverting justice system in his favor. No-B day was observed once last year on December 5, 2009 protesting against sexual scandals unleashed to an extent that his wife Veronica declared she was giving divorce to her husband.

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