             THE BRAILLE MAIL

            April 1994 edition

 This is the 33nd edition of The Braille Mail, a community 
project providing access to the news for the print disabled by 
Queensland Newspapers, Bowen Hills, Brisbane. Telephone 
(Brisbane) 2526354.

  Braille printing by the Hong Kong Society for the Blind. The 
hardcopy Braille edition is flown free of charge to Australia by 
Cathay Pacific Airways.

 All editorial inquiries to Bob Howarth in Brisbane on 252 6354. 
Publisher: Mr John Cowley, Managing Director, Queensland 
Newspapers.

 This 14,860-word hardcopy Braille edition is distributed through 
Braille House, 507 Ipswich Road, Annerley, Brisbane. The text of 
this edition is also available in disk and dial-up form in ASCII 
format through the Queensland Blind Association's Computer Users' 
Group bulletin board "Flying Blind" and the Access Australia 
electronic bulletin board run by the Queensland Spastic Welfare 
League (inquiries 358 8011). It is also available on the "Bush 
Telegraph" bulletin board of the Royal Victorian Institute for 
the Blind in Melbourne. It is available in compressed form on 
these bulletin boards using the program PKUNZIP to unpack it.

 This experimental large-print version has also been produced by 
staff of the Editorial Technology Department of Queensland 
Newspapers using the program Microsoft Word on an IBM compatible 
486 computer.

                          what's inside
Editor's Note
 A more "correct" world      
 Picture it: Women at work and men at home      
 Death of the magnificent coral reefs      
 Australia becoming a divided society says analyst      
 Dangerous trade for local caterers      
 Remember, the customer is always right      
 The final fling      
 PMS - a vicious cycle      
 THE GALLIPOLI SAMURAI      
 Australia's cat wars      
 The apathy of bystanders      
 The new South Africa      




                          EDITOR'S NOTE

 Once again we have more stimulating reading 
ranging from ecology, social issues, columnist Lawrie Kavanagh 
stirring up a hornet's nest on caning naughty teenagers, to 
humourist Dave Barry writing about how the customer is always 
right -especially when he has an army armoured tank - to a look 
at how the new South Africa has changed from the old.

 We also have some good news this month. The Braille Mail has 
been awarded the Gold Award of the International Newspaper 
Marketing Association for the Best Community Promotion for 
newspapers with circulations greater than 80,000 copies. The 
judge, the famous author and advertising guru Bryce Courtnay, 
commented that this very publication deserved every 
encouragement. We welcome feedback from readers.

 - signed 

BOB HOWARTH, 

Editor
Ends Item

The Courier-Mail March 28, 1994:
A more "correct" world

Political correctness has become the catch-cry of the 1990s. The 
term, which loosely refers to the movement towards non-offensive 
and equitable language and behaviour, is the subject of fierce 
intellectual debate around the world.  SHANE RODGERS reports:


MODERN language and behaviour are fast becoming a minefield: 
watch what you say, watch what you do and try not to upset 
anyone.

 The so-called political correctness movement has permeated the 
boardrooms, living rooms and classrooms of Australia in an 
unprecedented fashion over the past five years.

 Gender, age, race and religious sensitivities have resulted in a 
virtual rewriting of the accepted rules of speech and conduct as 
scholars, educators, interest groups and governments search for a 
more "correct" world.

 But in our haste to treat everyone fairly and equally, has the 
whole thing gone too far? Have we stifled free speech, undermined 
freedom and equality and attached negative connotations to 
expressions and actions never designed to  cause offence?

 For some, the quest for correctness is a natural progression for 
a caring society trying to do the right thing by all its members. 
For others, it is do-gooding gone mad or a form of social 
engineering designed to reprogramme people away from their 
traditions and natural behaviour.

 Historian and social commentator Geoffrey Blainey is one of many 
now speaking out against the "correctness" trend.

 While he believes much of it is a passing fad, he is concerned 
at the potential damage to the democratic institutions of free 
speech and free elections.

 "I think it has become very difficult to debate some issues," he 
said this week. "Many of the people who see themselves as 
politically correct say there's only one answer and so there can 
be no debate.

 "I also think the idea that new words will change conceptions 
and attitudes is very naive. It's based on a idea that if you 
suddenly invented a new language and forced its use on people, 
all prejudices would automatically  vanish. That is not so."

 Professor Blainey said there was a view in universities now that 
selection committees and the like had to have some positions 
filled by women.

 This, he believed, was based on an assumption that men sitting 
as a group would necessarily make different decisions from a 
group of women.

 Such a notion was not proven, he said, and the distorting of the 
selection  process ran against the "strong principles" of 
democratic elections.

 "One of the disappointing things is that the stronghold of the 
movement for political correctness is within certain faculties 
and departments within universities," Professor Blainey said.

 "The very institution that is supposed to promote free speech 
and debate is becoming a choker of free speech and discussion."

 That said, Professor Blainey does see occasional short-term 
benefits from special use of language. An example of this was the 
term "new Australians" which was useful in its day to remove the 
stigma from migrants but was seldom used now.

 He said "correct" terminology fell down when long and clumsy 
words were introduced which undermined the efficient use of the 
language.

 "I think in intellectual circles, political correctness is a 
very powerful force," Professor Blainey said.

 "I think a lot of it is done unthinkingly at the moment. A lot 
of what they do is highly irrational."

 Former high-profile television presenter and broadcaster Jane 
Singleton takes an opposing view.

 She believes particular use of language does lead to actions and 
there is nothing improper about forcing people into more 
acceptable speech and behaviour.

 "It would be nice if everyone became tolerant and supportive 
without laws and regulations," she said.

 "Unfortunately, people in wheelchairs only get action because 
laws say they must have equal access to buildings and Aborigines 
have got only part of the way towards equality because some 
people have said this is just not good enough.

 "When some people talk about do-gooders, it has become a slang 
rather than a commendation. I find it rather odd that people who 
try to do good are regarded this way."

 Ms Singleton, who is president of the Media, Entertainment and 
Arts Alliance and the Australian Consumers Council, said it was 
not incumbent on a person at  the receiving end of particular 
comments to interpret whether they were designed to cause 
offence.

 "Freedom of speech does not give you the right to vilify 
others," she said. "I think people who wish to express themselves 
should work out ways of saying it that do not cause offence.

 "I don't think this is a passing fad. Language is changing all 
the time. My kids use language that I don't use. Change is okay. 
I don't see why the language shouldn't change."

 Ms Singleton said moves towards equality and fairness did not 
have to stifle free speech because it was only an issue when 
behaviour or language vilified or offended someone.

 Unwanted sexual attention, for example, was harassment but there 
was nothing wrong with welcome attention.

 It was also possible to have a vigorous debate or give forceful 
opinions, but still use acceptable language.

 Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Zrinka Johnston 
believes laws against discrimination are often lumped unfairly 
under the banner of political correctness.

 "I see the enactment of these laws as reflecting very strongly 
people's views as reflected at the ballot box," she said.

 "They are also confirmation of the commonly accepted view that 
we should give everyone a fair go."

 Ms Johnston said there was a wide spectrum of attitudes in the 
community and accepting the language of equality would take 
longer for some people than others.

 In five or six years, most of the gender and race-neutral terms 
were likely to be uncontroversial.

 Ms Johnston said an example of this was the title "Ms" which 
once attracted attention but was now in common usage.

 In contrast, some of the suggested alternatives for words like 
fat, short and tall were "just silly".

 "Not everything that is unfair is discriminatory," Ms Johnston 
said.

 "I think a lot of those sort of terms are caused by modern 
advertising techniques rather than governments or anti-
discrimination laws."

 Ms Johnston said Australia was nowhere near the situation at 
Antioch College in Ohio where students had to ask specific 
permission at every stage of a romantic contact.

 "The cases of sexual harassment we deal with are usually very 
clear and obvious and involve a very obvious power imbalance," 
she said.

 "I guess with romantic attachments and involvements, you're 
talking about a far more equal power situation."
Ends Item 
 

The Courier-Mail April 4, 1994

KAVANAGH ON MONDAY COLUMN:

USA gives a picture of 
Australia's future

By LAWRIE KAVANAGH

CRIME in the United States should be of great concern to 
Australians because in it we can see an accurate picture of what 
Australia can expect just a short way down the road.

 The US gives us a very accurate picture of what we will be like 
in all aspects of society but, as I've pointed out before, we are 
too stupid, too politically correct, to learn from their 
mistakes.

 So some day soon Australia will see the latest US crime, violent 
car-jacking, which has left a trail of tourists murdered 
recently, the latest two young Japanese men.

 The crime is a big worry to law-abiding Yanks, particularly 
those in the tourist industry like hire car companies.

 To help reduce the risk of tourist car-jacking many rental 
companies have removed logos from their cars so as not to have 
confused tourists sticking out like sore thumbs.

 Leading rental company Avis has even installed panic buttons 
that will signal an emergency to authorities.

 I read all about it in The Courier-Mail on Saturday, right next 
to a story about that 18-year-old American facing six strokes of 
the cane in Singapore for 16 acts of vandalism over a period of 
10 days.

 Poor kid. It was his first offence . . . well, the first 16 
offences for which he has been caught.

 It was a very interesting story. Naturally the US is outraged, 
from  President Clinton down, that one of its citizens, 
particularly one so young, is to be subjected to this barbaric 
Singaporean abomination.

 Why, no less than the State Department in Washington is to bring 
pressure to bear on Singapore because it "believes caning is an 
excessive penalty for a youthful, non-violent offender who 
pleaded guilty to reparable crimes against  private property".

The poor kid's mother is petitioning just about everyone, even 
ex-president George Bush.

 And quite right, too. 

Caning should not be countenanced for one second in any civilised 
country, particularly one like the United States where the civil 
rights of every American citizen are enshrined as if stitched 
into Old Glory herself, fluttering up there through the dawn's 
early light.

We can be thankful for that because, with our penchant for doing 
every thing American, such barbaric punishment as caning will 
never darken our reputation as a country where the rights of the 
individual are more precious than gold.

 It's hard to imagine in this enlightened age that anyone, even a 
thick-headed Singaporean, would not realise that punishment, 
particularly physical punishment, is no deterrent to crime. On 
the contrary, corporal punishment will only lead to more 
violence.

 You only have to look at the track record of both countries. 

 Why, in Singapore they are so draconian they punish people for 
throwing matches in the gutter. They have ordinary citizens so 
cowed, so afraid to stand up for their civil rights, that today 
Singapore is the cleanest city in the world. How disgusting.

 They are so tough on criminals, like that poor young American, 
that today Singapore is probably one of the safest cities in the 
world in which to stroll.

  Can you beat that?

 Now take a look at the United States of America, and in a lesser 
way Australia, where it is every citizens' right to do what we-
bloody-well-please and bloody-tough-luck for anyone who happens 
to be standing in the way.

 Sure, some people get traumatised and maybe have to be put in 
jail occasionally, but we make it as pleasant as we can for them 
because it's not their fault when you look at the society we've 
created for them.

 The victims, what about the victims, you ask? Sure, sure, it's 
tough on them, but if they weren't standing around minding their 
own business they wouldn't be dead or injured or be poorer for 
the experience, would they, eh?

 I mean, is that good old civil libertarian democracy at work or 
what, I ask ya?

 And here are these Singaporeans taking umbrage at the United 
States of America, land of the free, lecturing them on crime and 
punishment.

 What next, you may well ask? I'll tell you what. Last month they 
had a referendum in Singapore asking citizens what values they 
thought appropriate for their country and they came up with five:

 1. Love, care and concern for family. 2. Mutual respect. 3. 
Filial piety. 4. Commitment. 5. Responsibility.

 And now the dumb bastards are going to push those old-fashioned 
values through every aspect, every institution of Singaporean 
life.

 Whatever happened to modern standards? Whatever happened to 
civil liberties where you can do what you like, when you like, 
and stuff the other bloke? It sure ain't the American way . . . 
or the Aussie way.

 Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 7, 1994:

Picture it: Women at work and men at home

By DALE SPENDER

WHEN my mother was married, she wasn't allowed to work. That was 
not because my father wouldn't let her. He didn't think a woman's 
place was solely in the home, particularly when there were no 
children there, and not much furniture either for that matter.

 In fact, they could have used the money, but there were laws 
against married women going out to work. 

 It usually comes as a shock to young women today to find that, 
as late as the 1960s, there was what was called "a marriage bar". 
Not that it applied to both parties in the marriage.

 It applied only to women, who were barred from work once they 
were wed. Women public servants, especially teachers, were hit 
hard.

 According to my mother, there were a lot of secret marriages in 
those days. Well, who would want to tell the world that they had 
become a wife if it meant they had to take their pay packet and 
go home?

 With married women kept out of the workforce, it was pretty easy 
for men to argue that they deserved a family wage. After all, 
they had wives and children to keep, didn't they?

 This was one way that sex differences in pay were 
institutionalised even though they were grossly unfair. Men 
didn't have to prove that they had dependants in order to get the 
family wage, and women couldn't get it, even when they had family 
- parents and children (and sick husbands) - to support.

 By the end of the 60s, the system was being strained to breaking 
point. Women started to demand equal pay and, like men, the right 
to work regardless of their marital status. We all know what has 
happened since then.

 Instead of a marriage bar, we now have laws against 
discrimination in the workforce. It has to be said that women 
have been much more successful at getting the jobs than getting 
the same money as men. This isn't just in Australia, but the 
world over. (In Japan, the average wage of a woman is only half 
that of a man, while in Sweden it is nine-tenths).

 When women started on their quest for equality in the job 
market, no one could have predicted the astonishing changes that 
would take place, and so quickly.

 Thirty years after the rumbles of discontent, The Economist 
magazine reports that in the United States, women now comprise 46 
percent of the workforce and the rate is increasing every year. 
This is in stark contrast with a century ago when women comprised 
only about 17 percent of the paid workforce.

 Men have been the breadwinners for a very long time in Western 
society, but the experts predict this is not going to be the case 
in the near future. According to The Economist, "on present 
trends, the typical worker in some rich countries will be a woman 
by the 21st century". This scenario has enormous implications.

 Could it be that within the space of a few short years we are 
going to have a society in which the average man doesn't go to 
work? (And will this inequality in the work place make a 
difference to the present inequalities in domestic arrangements?) 
What sort of family policies do the political parties have in the 
pipeline to deal with the financial and psychological 
consequences of men at home?

 The "success" of women isn't the result of "taking men's jobs", 
despite some of the accusations that have been made. The 
traditional areas of women's work have expanded. Jobs have gone 
from the manufacturing industries, which employed mainly men; at 
the same time, there has been growth in the service areas.

 There are more jobs in education, social work and health care, 
and they have gone mainly to women.

 This is happening in Australia where most of the new jobs have 
women's names on them. Much of the work is part-time, which is 
one factor and a reason that women's rates of pay are lower on 
average; it is also a reason that some men don't want the work.

 Of course, what we think about work and pay depends on 
circumstances. We now have a younger generation that has adapted 
amazingly and realistically to their reduced job prospects. But 
what will be the consequences of women at work and men at home?

 Something tells me that it won't necessarily be good news for 
women. Unless there are drastic changes on the home front, we 
could see in the 21st century the typical man with a life of 
leisure, and the typical woman being the worker. It wouldn't be 
progress.

 EDITOR'S NOTE: Dale Spender, author and academic, is deputy 
convener of the Queensland Women's Consultative Council.

 Ends Item



The Sunday Mail April 10, 1994:

Death of the magnificent coral reefs

By BEN CROPP

TEN percent of the world's magnificent coral reefs are already 
dead and scientists predict that a third will be dead within 20 
years - and two-thirds within 40 years.

 It is a disaster happening right on our tropical doorstep, 
caused by man's polluting ways. I've been diving on these reefs 
for the past 40 years, and it saddens me to see these wonderful 
coral reefs slowly dying.

 The island of Okinawa is my first stop on a world tour to assess 
the global state of coral reefs.

 Mack Okada, a diving buddy for 20 years, is my guide. We return 
to the coral reefs at the World Marine Expo site, where I dived 
18 years ago with Mack. I remember the reef well, remarking to 
Mack then that Japan's Okinawa was truly a beautiful coral reef.

 My wife, Lynn, and I are devastated as we flipper down. The 
coral reef is dead. There are no fish, just a graveyard of coral 
skeletons covered in algae.

 We dive further along Okinawa's fringing reef and see more 
devastation. The once live garden is now 98 percent dead. The 
remaining 2 percent are little clumps of regrowth, but they will 
soon die.

 Mack introduces me to local diver Yoshimine, who shows me 
graphic pictures of the demise of Okinawa's corals, which he has 
been documenting for the past 20 years.

 A picture tells a thousand words. A coral outcrop is very much 
alive in a photo Yoshimine snapped in 1972. The second photo 
taken in 1990 shows the same coral outcrop very dead.

 He has shown these graphic photos to the government and they 
deny that Okinawa's coral reef is dead. How then did a 130-
kilometre fringing reef totally die? The answers are obvious when 
you look at Okinawa's massive over-development.

 When Japan reclaimed Okinawa from the USA in 1972, they set 
about bringing it up to the standard of mainland Japan. Six 
billion dollars a year went into massive, ill-conceived 
development and the coral reefs were forgotten.

 Okinawa's rivers are sorely degraded. Most have been transformed 
into cement-lined drains and are rivers without life.

 We went to Tokashiki Island in the Kerama Group, 20 nautical 
miles west of Okinawa. Mack wanted to show Lynn and I an unspoilt 
coral garden. The corals were beautiful, like the gardens I 
remembered at the Expo site 18 years ago.

 The locals have so far rejected government offers for massive 
development here. Kerama's corals can be saved, Okinawa's cannot 
- the damage is too great.

 Dr Clive Wilkinson, of the Australian Institute of Marine 
Science, is a world authority on the dying coral reefs of the 
world and the causes of pollution.

 "Places like South-East Asia and the Caribbean are the biggest 
problem," he said at his office in Townsville.

 "Philippine reefs are in a really bad state. The Japanese reefs, 
particularly those around Okinawa, are gone.

 "Many of the reefs on the Caribbean - Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican 
Republic - are in a really bad state and I'd add to that Florida, 
India and the east coast of Africa."

 Next stop is Thailand, which has extensive fringing coral reefs.

 Thailand is also an industrial giant and mega tourist 
destination with big problems.

 Lynn and I booked into one of the luxury hotels fronting Pattaya 
Beach. The luxury along the beach is deceiving - I could smell 
the raw sewage in the water. No one swims at Pattaya Beach as the 
sea is too polluted.

 It was here that I saw my first example of coral bleaching, a 
white patch on a brain coral that seemed at first to be like a 
cancerous growth.

 Koh Samui Island is the newest of Thailand's tourist resorts. 
It's a beautiful island, crowned with coconuts and even trained 
monkeys to toss the nuts down.

 But like Thailand's other resorts, the hotels crowd the beaches 
in a continuous line. The smell of raw sewage pervades my 
nostrils.

 In the few years since Koh Samui has become a mega resort, the 
water table has been totally polluted and everyone drinks bottled 
water.

 Professor Suraphon Sudara is Thailand's foremost authority on 
coral reefs.

 "It's a pity," he said. "Actually, a few years ago the corals 
around here were very, very good, but when we have development, 
particularly tourist development, that causes a lot of 
interaction to the reef."

 Back in Australia, I went out to our Great Barrier Reef and 
thankfully saw it was still in good shape. It and some of the 
remote Pacific Island reefs may well be the surviving third of 
the world's coral reefs in the next 40 years.

 We have degraded some areas, mostly around the tourist resort 
areas of Heron Island, Green Island, Magnetic Island and 
Whitsunday group. As I said, tourist resorts and coral reefs do 
not mix.

 Thankfully, most of the resorts are now installing tertiary 
treated sewerage plants - a must for all coastal and island 
communities.

 I swam around the leaking sewerage pipe running across the reef 
flat at Green Island and saw corals dying, covered in algae.

 The new tertiary plant in the centre of the island is an eyesore 
and nesting birds had to move elsewhere, but at least it will 
reduce the euthrophication of the corals when it becomes 
operational soon.

 The Great Barrier Reef has always survived natural predators - 
Crown of Thorns starfish, myriads of fish that chew the corals 
and devastating cyclones.

 This largest of all coral reefs has experienced 145 cyclones 
this century, each cutting a path of destruction. Damaged reefs 
recover within a few years, a decade at the most, unless man-made 
stress factors inhibit their growth.

 The Reef has also survived some of the earliest damage inflicted 
by man. Taiwanese poachers wiped out many of the giant clams up 
to a decade ago.

 Reef walkers crunched corals underfoot and laid bare some areas 
by failing to turn back overturned rocks. All the hidden 
creatures and exposed corals die.

 The biggest risk to the Reef is a major oil spill and it is 
inevitable this will happen.

 Dr Wendy Craik, of The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 
has calculated that there is a 93 percent likelihood of a major 
oil spill within 20 years and a 48 percent likelihood within the 
next five years.

 Along the coast, from the Daintree River to Gladstone, the 
inshore coral reefs are dying fast - 80 percent are gone.

 I can remember beautiful coral gardens at Magnetic Island and 
The Whitsunday Group. They are no more. Sewerage and agricultural 
run-off are the main cause.

 Gladstone's massive harbour development spews pollution far 
offshore. Polmaise Reef, 20 nautical miles off the coast, has 
changed from a live coral reef to endless, waving seaweeds.

 This is euthrophication - nuisance algae growth competing 
successfully with the corals for space. Even at Heron Island, 40 
nautical miles offshore, the water visibility has dropped to half 
of what I remember back in 1970. If pollution can reach this far, 
the Reef is in danger.

 Its saving grace is that the Reef does lie well offshore, away 
from most of the coastal pollution and we have an efficient 
watchdog in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which 
manages and monitors the reef.

 Yes, we will save our Great Barrier Reef, but our inshore 
fringing reefs appear doomed. I boarded the charter vessel, 
Elizabeth E, and we headed far out into the Coral Sea, 250 
nautical miles off the Queensland coast.

 A multitude of coral cays, emeralds in a rainbow sea, are home 
to countless nesting sea birds and green turtles lumbering up the 
beaches to lay their eggs.

 Water visibility is 50 metres, unbelievably clear. The corals 
are absolutely pristine, so remote from any polluting source.

 Dr Wilkinson urged me to go back to the Caribbean. He said I 
would be shocked by the changes since I was last there filming, 
20 years ago.

 Looking at glossy, glorifying underwater photos in skindiving 
magazines, enticing tourist brochures, and James Bond-type exotic 
locations, I've simply accepted the Caribbean is still the same 
as I knew it 20 years ago. What a shock!

 Key Largo is the first of the large, low cays in the Florida 
Keys.

 Canal housing estates probe like fingers into the limestone 
island and 25,000 septic tanks seep raw sewage through the porous 
limestone into the canals and out to sea. The nutrient discharge 
is enormous.

 I went on board the dive boat El Capitan. As we sped along the 
narrow mangrove passage, the boat's wake, along with a dozen 
others, rolled waves into the fragile mangrove system, no doubt 
creating havoc with the swamp creatures.

 Long scars criss-crossed the shallow sea grass beds from 
thoughtless boaters who took a short cut. My first impressions 
were poor, and this is a national park.

 We tied up to a mooring buoy at Grecian Rocks. The ranger guide 
gave us a spiel on how to take care of the corals so that our 
next generation would see them as we see the corals today.

 I jumped in and was shocked by the desolation before me - 
pitiful dead branches of elkhorn corals looked depressingly 
grotesque. There were few live corals, mostly 80 percent dead and 
covered with algae - a forest of skeletons.

 This is a marine park created in 1960, with general rejoicing 
that this American treasure would be preserved for future 
generations.

 Tuck and Alice Biays are expert underwater photographers who 
came to the Florida Keys 25 years ago.

 "The filming then was absolutely exquisite," they said. "The 
colours of the coral reef were magnificent, the water was clear. 
It was a wonderful place to show people what a vibrant, living 
coral reef is like.

 "You can see out on the reefs today the result of pollution. The 
water is yellow and the deterioration of what was once so 
magnificent.

 You hurt inside - it does make you want to cry."

 My next Caribbean stop was in Jamaica, where I had pleasant 
memories of wonderful diving and pretty coral reefs in 1960.

 The tourists flock to the north coast of Jamaica, to Montego Bay 
and Ocho Rios, where a line of plush hotels covet the beaches.

 The beach side of one large hotel is glamorous. A holiday 
atmosphere prevails and tourists swim, sunbake and drink rum 
cocktails in obvious luxury.

 But behind this hotel is an open drain, a sewer, carrying raw 
sewage and garbage directly into the coral lagoon.

 Next, on to Barbados, beaches sparkling white and the lagoon 
waters clear, and 100 nautical miles from the nearest island. 
It's the western-most island in the Caribbean, virtually out in 
the Atlantic Ocean.

 Barbados is too lovely a place to spoil, but spoilt it is. Dr 
Wilkinson sees most of the Caribbean as a disaster area.

 "Governments in these countries can legislate for coral reef 
protection, but that legislation is ineffective without public 
support and without the ability to enforce the legislation," he 
said.

 "Most of these countries are too poor to enforce the 
legislation. So we are talking about a real collapse in the 
Caribbean reefs, and only a few around the periphery will be left 
there in 30 to 40 years' time."

 What does the future hold for the world's coral reefs?

 In Australia, the GBRMPA has an ambitious 25-year plan which 
will ensure the Reef will be around for a very long time.

 Most of the uninhabited island reefs in the Coral Sea and the 
Pacific will see little change, and will retain their pristine 
reefs.

 All the rapidly-developing, tourist-oriented countries of South-
East Asia and the Caribbean are moving towards the extinction of 
their coral reefs.

 Dr Wilkinson feels we probably need something like the Antartic 
Treaty, a multi-nation treaty to protect those reefs and conserve 
them.

 "They are mankind's resource, they're our treasure. We need to 
look after them and guard them," he said.

 Some countries will stem the polluting cause and see their coral 
reefs slowly regenerate. Others, like Okinawa and Barbados may 
never have live corals again. The damage is simply too great. The 
coral reef, in all its wonder and beauty, may be for them, only a 
memory.

Ends Item




The Courier-Mail April 12, 1994:

Australia becoming a divided society says analyst

AUSTRALIA was fast becoming a society where the poor and jobless 
ran riot and the rich lived behind bars, a leading economic 
analyst said yesterday.

 Professor Helen Hughes said working Australians were enjoying 
their best living standards ever while more than 1 million people 
were "shut out of the good life" by unemployment.

 The level of joblessness was getting higher with each recession 
and, without remedial action, would top 12 percent when the next 
recession hit.

 "That's getting very dangerous," Professor Hughes said. "That 
sort of division within society is not very healthy.

 "You end up with one group of underprivileged poor whose kids 
start to drop out and get into drugs and crime and you have the 
rich who are living behind bars."

 Professor Hughes said the education system was producing many 
young people       unsuited to work.

 Many boys in particular "come out hoons, don't have the three Rs 
and have behavioural problems and can't settle down to jobs".

 Professor Hughes, author of economic and industry reports for 
the Federal       Government, is director of a new Full 
Employment Project which began last week.

 The project, a joint exercise of the Institute of Public Affairs 
and Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, aims to 
achieve an unemployment rate of no more than 3 percent within 
five years.

 Professor Hughes said even the most optimistic economic growth 
forecasts put unemployment at about 7 percent by 2000.

 At that level, numbers of long-term unemployed would remain high 
and many young people leaving school now could not expect a job 
this century.

 Already 30 percent of adults under 30 did not work and people 
who were unemployed at 50 did not expect to get another job 
before retirement.

 "What sort of life are they going to have?" Professor Hughes 
said.

 "They've got kids at school and a mortgage and suddenly the 
bottom has fallen out of their world.

 "There are kids in Australia who haven't had a Christmas for 
three years. They are the ones who are doing worst at school and 
are likely to be cut out of employment next time around."

 Professor Hughes said to achieve full employment Australia 
needed to be far more flexible with its working hours, remove 
penalty rates for nights and weekends and work capital equipment 
harder.

 She said workers should get higher wages - but only in a more 
efficient economic environment where productivity was greater.

 Instead of working people longer hours, she believed machines 
should operate for at least two shifts a day - increasing the 
output from the investment and employing more people.

 Firms were shutting down early and on weekends because of 
penalty rates and not employing extra people because of the high 
costs of putting them on.

 "If we just got rid of shift work and weekend rates we could 
double the tourist industry in Queensland," Professor Hughes 
said.

 She said Australians were once among the top-paid workers in the 
world but had fallen to about 15th place, largely because of 
inflexibility over when people could work.

 Benefits were similar to the minimum wage and the added costs of 
working meant many people were better off financially if they 
stayed at home.

 "I know people who want to go to work but can't afford to," she 
said.

 Ends Item




The Courier-Mail April 13, 1994:

Dangerous trade for local caterers

By MEGAN TURNER

ROBERT McVickers sleeps and works with a gun by his side.

 He is the managing director of Queensland company Morris 
Catering, the Yatala-based caterers who have a $100 million 
contract to supply food to UN peace-keeping troops in Somalia.

 The company is turning over $1.5 million each week - more than 
it makes from its Australian contracts in a year.

 But prosperity comes at a price. In October, Tyson Morris, the 
21-year-old son of company founder David Morris, was shot by 
Somali gunmen - a retaliatory action organised by a disgruntled 
former employee sacked for stealing bread - and more recently two 
Cambodian employees, one of them David Morris's personal 
bodyguard, were also killed.

 Last month, Wayne Hargreaves, a former New Zealand who now lives 
on the Gold Coast, and a Kenyan cook were taken hostage. The six 
young Somali kidnappers _ locally known as "snappers" - 
eventually traded the men for a small parcel of food following 
14-days of tense negotiations spearheaded by Morris and 
McVickers.

 The pair were held 14 days after ransom demands of $200,000, $1 
million and finally $5000 were rejected.

 McVickers: "We always felt capable of our own ability to get 
them out even though we're caterers. It came down to an ability 
to manage people, I believe."

 The tally so far: three dead, eight wounded, two kidnapped - and 
the danger is likely to increase when Morris begins delivering 
food to troops outside the company compound.

 McVickers, who made a brief visit to the Yatala operation last 
week, said: "The risks are high but so too are the rewards.

 "We'd trade it all for the life of Tyson back, of course we 
would, but the  opportunity to extend the company is tremendous.

 "Sure, we've got regrets but we knew the risks and we're not a 
bunch of cowards who go running every time something happens."

 Most of the company's Australian employees are in their mid-20s; 
they're a mixed bunch, some have military backgrounds, others are 
there for the adventure. They include cooks, kitchen managers, 
electricians, refrigeration mechanics, farming consultants. Most 
work 10 to 14-hour days, seven days a week.

 According to McVickers, they are "reasonably renumerated" - 
danger money is built into their package - and have an unrivalled 
excuse to save. They have access to an armoury within the company 
warehouse - UN-registered rocket-propelled grenades, machine-
guns, teargas. 

 "This is not cowboys and Indians stuff," McVickers cautions.

 "This is serious, serious business."

 So why does the company continue to operate amid such danger?

 "We have a contract," is the simple answer. 

 Morris Catering was established at Yatala by David Morris in 
1977. Having already catered to 16,000 UN troops in Cambodia in 
1991, Morris, with the support of Austrade on behalf of the 
Australian Government, snaffled the Somali deal. It comprised an 
$83 million contract to feed 29,000 troops plus the opportunity 
to earn $17 million hiring out company aircraft, cranes and a 
100-tonne coastal freighter to the UN.

 The contract was a coup for the relatively small Queensland 
company; Bruce Coyle, senior trade commissioner for Austrade in 
Washington, described it as "an amazing document . . . like a 
regular shopping list except in thousands of kilos".

 The company is also involved in other private enterprise 
projects.

 It sees a long-term future in the fishing and telecommunications 
industries and already provides Mogadishu's sole telephone 
system, called Tycom in memory of Tyson Morris.

 The catering contract runs until November but there are roll-
over provisions.

 McVickers doesn't believe the Somalis really want peace. "They 
accept as part of their Muslim faith that they live a life of 
poverty and misfortune and wait for their death because their 
next life is where they'll be rewarded.


 "Some Somalis are very good friends but there are some who would 
whack you on the head and steal the gold out of your teeth if 
they could."

 Because of chronic unemployment, jobs with Morris Catering are 
much sought after by the Somalis. Management is continually 
receiving death threats from those who've missed out on jobs and 
from disenchanted employees made redundant.

 "You can't think they're not going to hurt you, they bloody will 
because they're desperate people. You can get someone killed in 
Somalia for $20, that's how much a hit costs.

 "We're peace-keeping people, for goodness sake - we're supposed 
to be here to help them."

  Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 18, 1994:

HUMOUR with Dave Barry of the Miami Herald, Florida

Remember, the customer is always right

TODAY'S consumer topic is: How to resolve a dispute with a large 
company.

 If you're a typical consumer - defined as "a consumer whose mail 
consists mainly of offers for credit cards that he or she already 
has" - chances are, sooner or later, you're going to have a 
dispute with a large company.

 You're going to call the company up, and you're going to wind up 
speaking with people in a department with a friendly name such as 
Customer Service. These people hate you.

 I don't mean they hate you personally. They hate the public in 
general, because the public is forever calling them up to 
complain.

 I know whereof I speak. I used to be (I am not proud of this) a 
newspaper editor.

 This was at a paper in West Chester called (I am not proud of 
this, either) the Daily Local News. We came out daily, and we 
specialised in local news.

 For example, when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency, we 
sent reporters out to the shopping mall to badger randomly 
selected shoppers into having an opinion about this. 

 Our big headline was "Local residents react to Nixon 
resignation". As though they really were reacting to it, as 
opposed to trying to find the right colour bedsheets.

 This was the way we treated all news.

 One spring day I made the editorial decision to put a photograph 
of some local ducks on the front page. At least I thought they 
were ducks, and that's what I called them in the caption. But it 
turned out that they were geese. 

 I know this because a whole lot of irate members of the public 
called to tell me so.

 They never called about, say, the quality of the schools, but 
they were rabid about the duck versus goose issue.

 It was almost as bad as when we left out the horoscope.

 I tried explaining to the callers that, hey, basically a goose 
is just a big duck, but this did not placate them. Some of them 
demanded that we publish a correction. For whom? The geese?

 By the end of the day I was convinced that the public consisted 
entirely of raging idiots. (This is the fundamental underlying 
assumption of journalism.)

 This is what people who answer the phone at, for example, the 
electricity company, go through every day with an endless stream 
of calls from people who are furious that their electricity got 
turned off just because they failed to pay their bill for 297 
consecutive months, or people asking questions like: Is it okay 
to operate a microwave oven in the bathtub?

 Let's say that you have a genuine problem with your electricity 
bill. The people in Customer Service have no way of knowing that 
you're an intelligent, rational person.

 They're going to lump you in with the whining non-rocket-
scientist public.


 As far as they're concerned, the relevant facts, in any dispute 
between you and them, are: They have a bunch of electricity; you 
need it; so shut up.

 This is why, more and more, the people in Customer Service won't 
even talk to you. They prefer to let you interface with the 
convenient Automated Answering System until you die of old age.

 So is there any way that you, the lowly consumer, can gain the 
serious attention of a large and powerful business? I am pleased 
to report that there is a way, which I found out about thanks to 
an alert reader, Jim Ganz junior, who sent me an Associated Press 
news report from Russia.

 According to this report, a Russian electricity company got into 
a billing dispute with a customer and cut off the customer's 
electricity.

 This customer happened to be a Russian army commander. So he 
ordered a tank to drive over to the electricity company's office 
and aim its gun at the windows. The electricity was turned right 
back on.

 On behalf of consumers everywhere, I want to kiss this arsenal 
commander on the lips. I mean, what a great concept.

 Imagine how much more seriously your complaint would be taken if 
you were  complaining from inside an armoured vehicle capable of 
reducing the entire Customer Service department to tiny smoking 
shards.

 Perhaps you are thinking: "But a tank costs several million 
dollars, not including floor mats. I don't have that kind of 
money."

 Don't be silly. You're a consumer, right? You have credit cards, 
right?

 Perhaps you are thinking: "Yes, but how am I going to pay the 
credit card company?"

 Don't be silly. You have a tank, right?

 Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 19, 1994:
The final fling

 Tomorrow Barbra Streisand begins her first concert tour in two 
decades when she takes the stage for four sell-out concerts in 
London. WILLIAM CASH reports:


 SHE is quickly gaining the name, Miss Nitpicker. In Washington 
for a White House dinner last year, she complained that the 
marble floor in her hotel suite was too cold for her bare feet.

 At her New Year Las Vegas shows at the newly opened MGM Grand 
(her first public concerts in 22 years), she sharply criticised 
the hotels suites and room service from the stage. She made her 
hosts squirm by sniffing about the hotel-theme park's reported 
$1-billion price tag: "What did you spend it on? The carpets?"

 For her four London concerts, Wembley Arena is to be fully 
carpeted because Streisand thought it would be too draughty 
otherwise.

 Before choosing London as the curtain-raiser for her forthcoming 
16-show American tour, she dispatched her manager, Marty 
Erlichman, on a mission to scrutinise - down to the hotel suite 
locks - eight other European cities for Streisand suitability.

 While such extraordinary nitpicking causes huge irritation for 
those who have to work in her shadow, there is no doubting that 
Streisand, who last performed in London 28 years ago, inspires 
incredible loyalty from her army of fans. 

 All 26,000 Wembley Arena tickets sold in hours, and were 
available on the black market for exorbitant prices the next day.

 At her Las Vegas concerts, which earned her a record $20 million 
for just two  nights, touts sold prime seats for $3000.

 When the lines opened for the US tour last week, America's 
Ticket Master recorded its biggest response, with more than five 
million calls logged in the first hour.

 The official reason for her return to live performance is that 
she has now conquered her stage fright. This dates back to 1967, 
just after the Arab-Israeli War, when she reportedly received a 
terrorist death threat before her famous free Central Park 
concert in front of 130,000 people.

 She forgot her lines and vowed never to sing live again. Yet 
there is more to it than nerves. The main reason is to do with 
guilt and the desire to give something back. 

 According to Randall Riese, author of the new Streisand 
biography, Her Name Is Barbra, it is no coincidence that she has 
chosen to start her tour in  London.


 During her last London appearance, the 1966 stage version of 
Funny Girl, the 24-year-old superstar unexpectedly became 
pregnant with her first child. At a cost of $1 million, she was 
forced to cancel a five-week, 20-city tour of America and a whole 
generation of her most loyal fans never heard her sing live.

 After the 1967 terrorist threat, Streisand shied away from the 
public and led an increasingly lonely, Garboesque existence cut 
off from her fans, her family and her Brooklyn background.

 As her superstar fame and wealth rocketed, she split up with 
Elliot Gould and had a succession of failed or fleeting 
relationships with Warren Beatty, Don Johnson, Ryan O'Neal, 
Steven Spielberg and hairdresser-turned-mogul Jon Peters.

 The perfect relationship has always seemed to elude her. On 
holiday in London last summer, she made front-page news simply by 
watching her friend, 23-year-old Andre Agassi, play at Wimbledon.

 The romance quickly foundered, although Agassi, along with Liza 
Minnelli, is credited with persuading Streisand to go back on 
stage.

 Like many people who are successful and rich, but whose 
emotional lives are starved, she channelled her talent and highly 
charged emotional energy into her work, political causes, 
fundraising and multimillion-dollar art and property collections.

 She bought luxury houses as though playing a game of Monopoly, 
purchasing five neighbouring houses in Malibu to prevent anyone 
living nearby. But she hardly ever lived there, turning the 
complex into a museum. She once admitted that she collected 
because objects were less disappointing than people.

 Streisand's tragedy for most of her life has been that she is 
never really able to enjoy her fans or her spectacular success.

 She is a mess of contradictions, which explains why she is so 
popular with her fans.

 Uncharitable as it may sound, they identify fiercely with such 
tear-jerking, love songs as Memories and The Way We Were precisly 
because Streisand is an emotional loser.

 At last, her life seems to be changing. After giving away the 
$16-million Malibu complex to a Santa Monica conservation 
charity, she recently sold her Art Deco collection.

 Perhaps she feels she has reached her singing career menopause 
and wants to have a final fling with her fans before finally 
hanging up her microphone.

 The American shows, and the London preview, are significant 
because they repeat many of the locations of the 1966 cancelled 
tour and also take her back to the places which helped start her 
career.

 "She really wants to enjoy her success now," says biographer 
Riese. "That was why she did Vegas in the New Year - she used to 
hate Vegas. But she needed to prove that she had overcome her 
fears before moving on." 

 When the tour is over, that will probably be it: she will 
concentrate on trying to become a great film director.

 Streisand likes Britain. She once reportedly said that if George 
Bush was re-elected, she would move there. Some, however, are 
grateful for Bill Clinton for keeping her away.

 When she last performed there in Funny Girl, she was predictably 
demanding, ordering that her dressing room be redesigned, that no 
other cast member could dress on the same floor and that a 
theatre staircase be reserved for her exclusive use.

 She has always had to be the biggest and best. When asked by a 
reporter about the success of the Beatles, Streisand snapped 
back: "I'm paid more. I get as much for me, one person, as all 
four of the Beatles." 

 Today, she is said to have a clause in her $60-million Sony 
contract that guarantees her a royalty rate higher than any other 
performer on the company books.

 Her forthcoming trip to London amounts to a Hollywood state 
visit in her new role as Friend of Bill Clinton and Washington 
lobbyist.

 Streisand has never hidden her political interests and once 
considered running for Senate. She religiously reads The 
Economist and her Manhattan apartment boasts the complete works 
of Thomas Jefferson.

 It's a long way from the girl who never went to college and used 
to boast that her reading was limited to Women's Wear Daily and 
her own reviews.

 It should be taken as a mark of respect, as well as a measure of 
her enduring insecurity and hyper-sensitivity to criticism, that 
her enemies, of which there are many, won't talk about her on the 
record.

 More surprisingly, her official publicists prefer not to be 
quoted.

 One reason that Streisand has been vilified, and only lately has 
gained Hollywood's respect as a director, is plain snobbery. Many 
people see her as a depressing symbol of everything that is 
wrong, bad and boring with middle-class American culture.

 Streisand always thought that her amusing light comedy What's 
Up, Doc? was not worthy of her talent. She wanted to make serious 
films that would validate her in Hollywood. But she blew her 
chance by going on to make a collection of generally mediocre 
films over 20 years.

 The best, by far, was Prince of Tides, which helped her come to 
terms with her miserable childhood and the memory of her 
neglectful step-father. Despite her desperate attempts to win his 
approval, which stretched to grovelling at his feet with his 
slippers, she remained ignored and felt unwanted. 


 His love went instead to her step-sister Roslyn, who was deemed 
to have a better voice. Streisand has never really forgiven her 
family or recovered from her lack of love. Her step-sister Roslyn 
Kind today works as a struggling cabaret and nightclub singer 
while Streisand is worth about $120 million. 

 Her mother lives in an unassuming flat on the fringes of Beverly 
Hills, living off a modest $1000-a-month allowance from 
Streisand.

 Roslyn has recently said that her one wish in life would be to 
share a stage with her sister. Streisand's spokesman said that 
the chances of this happening on the forthcoming tour were 
negligible.

 Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 22, 1994:
PMS - a vicious cycle

It's real. It happens every month. It's PMS - but women face a 
dilemma in dealing with its many aspects. RUTH LAMPERD reports:


THERE was only one time in every month that a dirty sock on the 
floor could lift the roof.

 For three weeks of every four, she'd just roll her eyes, click 
her tongue and put the offending article in the wash basket.

 But it was the remaining week, the week before "that time of the 
month" that the misdemeanour caused a hurricane. Doors slammed, 
voices raised to shouting and, for the life of them, they 
couldn't work out why.

 Actually, not even the medical experts can agree on what causes 
pre-menstrual syndrome, commonly referred to as PMS or PMT.

 People are still debating whether it's a physiological problem 
or purely a socially engendered "excuse" for women to let loose.

 One thing is certain - it's a rare woman who says PMT is just in 
her mind. For her, the spouse, children, boyfriend or workmates, 
it's as real as charging bulls in Spain and sometimes as 
dangerous.

 In 1981, a mother who drove a car at her lover and killed him 
walked free from a United Kingdom court because she had PMS.

 Its use as a reason for diminished responsibility or mitigation 
has yet to make big news in Australia, although there have been 
isolated incidences around the states where it has been claimed 
to reduce sentences.

 Many question how far the excuse of PMS can go in the courts. It 
has been used to work against the sufferer. For example, the 
syndrome has been employed to deny a mother custody of her child.

 Medically, PMS is the recurrence during the seven to 10 days 
before the onset of menses of a combination of verifiable 
physical and emotional symptoms.

 Three things separate PMS from other disorders - the symptoms 
are cyclic, they decrease dramatically after menstruation starts 
and they are severe enough to interfere with normal activities or 
harm relationships.

 Brisbane gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Barbara Hall says 
general practitioners, when faced with a woman suffering PMS, 
will often suggest vitamin B6 and evening primrose oil.

 "There is a suggestion these may help some ladies with some of 
their symptoms," she says.

 Dr Hall says treatment depends entirely on problems the women 
are facing. For example, fluid retention is usually a problem 
associated with PMS, so a GP may suggest the woman take a mild 
diuretic 10 days before her period is due to start.

 They may recommend hormonal regulation of the cycle by putting 
the sufferer on a monophasic contraceptive pill, to abolish the 
"ups and downs" of hormone levels.

 With extreme cases of PMS, involving emotional problems, Dr Hall 
says GPs need to work out if there is an underlying depression 
problem in the first place.

 "They may require anti-depressants if this is the case."

 American researchers have found a signpost pointing to a 
physical cause for PMS. They have found PMS may not originate in 
the reproductive organs but in the brain.

 Research is still in its very early stages, according to Dr Greg 
Boyle, the associate professor of psychology at Bond University.


 "There's still an awful lot to be discovered about the 
relationship between moods and hormones," Dr Boyle says.

 He says one of the major areas of concern about PMS is to what 
degree it is environmentally and genetically determined.

 Results of a study conducted last year by Dr Boyle and Julie 
Aganoff, of the University of Queensland's Department of 
Psychology, suggested women who undertake regular, moderate 
aerobic exercise showed significantly lower levels of negative 
mood states than non-exercisers.

 Dr Boyle says medication can reduce negative symptoms of PMS but 
says a similar result could also be achieved by using a placebo.

 Health information worker for the Brisbane Women's Health Centre 
Ms Ursula O'Brien says care should be taken not to "jump on the 
PMS bandwagon", because of the suggestions that women are 
emotionally ill-equipped to deal with positions of 
responsibility.

 She says PMS is particularly an issue for women from out of 
town.

 "City women have access to all sorts of information and 
different treatments. Country women only have access to a GP who 
may think it is all in their head.

 "Country women who call us are ones who usually don't have a 
sympathetic GP," she says.

 Ms O'Brien says there is no way of denying PMS is a hugely 
political issue.

 "It is being used to say when convenient that women's emotions 
get in the way of their judgment, but often women have valid 
reasons to be angry, so for someone to blame her hormones is just 
a scapegoat."

 The Australian Institute of Criminology reported recently that 
those who are concerned with gender equality are faced with a 
dilemma.

 "Although they do not want the small number of severe PMS 
sufferers to be dismissed as neurotic or charlatans, the primary 
concern is that people might generalise from the few and 
negatively stereotype all women or all those who experience 
premenstrual symptoms," says the report, Women and Crime: 
Premenstrual Issues.

 The danger with this, as with all medical disorders, is that a 
whole class of people with similar maladies can be stigmatised.

 "The days of biological deterministic theories of male 
superiority were recalled with the concern that PMS as a defence 
would revive this perspective with its obvious implications," the 
report says.

 Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 25, 1994:
THE GALLIPOLI SAMURAI

Born in Japan of mixed parentage, educated in England amd 
schooled in revolutionary war, Harry Freame proved one of 
Gallipoli's most daring soldiers. BRIAN TATE recounts Freame's 
colourful exploits:


ON the morning of April 25 1915, one man stood out from the other 
Australian soldiers as they readied themselves on board the troop 
ships at Anzac Cove.

 His uniform was different: at the elbows, knees and inside the 
ankles, it was faced with leather. 

 It was at these points, he explained, that his body came into 
contact with the ground, when he crawled about no-man's land.

 He had also abandoned the standard issue .303 rifle, declaring 
it too cumbersome and unpractical for the ground-level world of 
infantry scouting. Instead, he had a pair of pistols in holsters 
strapped on each hip.

 Unknown to most of his battalion mates, he also carried a small 
back-up revolver in a shoulder-holster under his shirt.

 In a special boot pocket was a bowie knife, a legacy of his days 
fighting for the army in Mexico. To complete this somewhat 
swashbuckling image, around his neck he wore a black-and-white 
patterned, cowboy-style bandanna.

 Laconic Australian soldiers are not easily impressed, but by the 
end of the day, Harry Freame had won the admiration of all his 
comrades.

 Towards late afternoon, the situation for the Anzacs became 
desperate as the Turkish counterattacks gathered momentum.


 A unit of Australian and New Zealand troops, under Captain H. 
Jacobs, found themselves isolated near Pope's Post and Dead Man's 
Ridge.

 Freame volunteered to make the perilous and steep climb up 
Monash Valley to assess the situation for battalion headquarters.

 In the semi-darkness of the early evening and under heavy 
Turkish fire, he crawled towards the marooned men.

 He found them exhausted and desperately in need of water.

  Accompanied by a New Zealander, Freame returned part-way down 
Monash Valley,  obtained water and once more negotiated the scrub 
and Turkish fire to Jacobs and his men.

 Knowing that his commanding officer needed information on the 
position at the head of the valley, Freame then dashed back down, 
drawing fire from the Turks as he went.

 It was not until after making his report that he revealed he had 
been twice hit by sniper fire on his final return run. Only then 
did he obtain medical attention for his wounds.

 For his bravery during this historic day, Freame was awarded one 
of Australia's first Distinguished Conduct Medals of the war.

 Three days later he was promoted sergeant personally by the 
British commander of the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade, 
Brigadier-General H.B. "Hookey" Walker.

 Word of Freame's daring spread along the Anzac trench lines. Men 
spoke of his uncanny and unerring sense of direction, even in the 
total darkness of no-man's land.

 It was said that if a man stood in a field of grass 30 
centimetres high, Freame could negotiate a circle around him with 
a eight-metre radius, without the man seeing any movement.

 Later, Charles Bean, the official historian of Australia in 
World War I, was to describe him as "probably the most trusted 
scout at Anzac".

 So who was this dark-complexioned man with a strange accent, and 
why was he fighting alongside Australians on a rugged Turkish 
coastline?

 His enlistment papers gave his birthplace as Kitscoty, Alberta, 
Canada, so many naturally assumed he was Canadian. Others, who 
had heard of his service in the Mexican army under President 
Porfirio Diaz, believed he was from that country. They were all 
wrong.

 Wykeham Henry Freame was Japanese-born, with an aristocratic and 
probably samurai background.

 His English-born father, William Henry Freame, had left 
Melbourne and his Australian wife and son in the 1870s and 
settled in Japan. The old Japan had begun to fade as the American 
Commander Perry and his "black ships" kicked open its feudalistic 
doors in 1853. 

 William Freame travelled throughout the central Japanese island 
of Honshu, working as an English-language teacher.

 He met and fell in love with Shizu, seventh daughter of the 
house of Kitagawa. In 1885, Shizu gave birth to Wykeham Henry at 
Osaka.

 Freame's early life was one of confusion and complexity. He 
grappled with an up bringing which brought with it both the 
virtues and strengths of his mother's Shinto philosophy and the 
conformity and humanity of his father's Church of England 
rigidity.

 At 15, and fluent in Japanese and English, the young Freame was 
dispatched to England to further his education. In his new-found 
release, he decided to search for a life away from the perplexity 
and persecution that a return to his homeland as an Anglo-
Japanese Christian would guarantee.

 The years between 1902 and Freame's arrival in Australia in 1912 
are clouded.

 It is more than likely that he saw service during the Mexican 
revolutions as an intelligence officer in the forces of President 
Diaz. There is also some suggestion that he travelled from Mexico 
to German East Africa, with an  international group of 
mercenaries.

 Employed as a master scout by the Germans, he may have helped 
the Teutonic colonial rulers put down a native revolt in 1904.

 He apparently returned to Mexico about 1910, just in time to 
learn that Diaz had fallen and that there was now a price on his 
head.

 Escaping by packhorse down the Central American Peninsula, he 
boarded a ship in Chile and sailed for Australia.

 In August 1914, when Australia joined England in its declaration 
of war against Germany, Freame was breaking horses at the 
northern NSW town of Glen Innes.

 As the initial influx of urban recruits who joined up within 
days of the announcement began to slow, the men and boys from the 
country, including Freame, flooded into the cities.


 With the bare military basics under their belts, the men of the 
1st Battalion, Freame among them, set sail from Farm Cove, Sydney 
on the afternoon of Sunday, October 18, 1914. 

 The grand adventure was under way, and the ronin (the Japanese 
word to describe a masterless or freelance samurai) had dedicated 
his sword to a new lord.

 By early May, the 1st Battalion occupied the trenches near 
Courtney's Post and German Officers' Trench.

 It was in this area that Freame carried out some of his more 
audacious scouting and raiding exploits.

 One of these was to become legend among the Australians.

 During his nocturnal meanderings, Freame often came very close 
to the Turkish trenches and on one occasion he entered a Turkish 
trench.

 Confident that none of the defenders would ever suspect that an 
Australian would actually roam among them, he walked along the 
trench, passing many Turks as he went.

 Some looked suspiciously at him, but the brazen Freame simply 
returned their glances as he moved on, gaining valuable 
information.

 Freame's luck ran out when he was challenged by two Turkish 
soldiers who had seen him during his previous visits. He was 
marched to a nearby officer, to whom he formally surrendered his 
two belt pistols and the bowie knife.

 Because of his apparent co-operation and courtesy, he was not 
searched, and his small under-arm revolver went undetected.

 The Turkish officer, described by Freame as "a perfect 
gentleman", was urbanely asked by his prisoner if he spoke 
French.

 Delighted that one of the seemingly uncouth Australians actually 
knew a foreign language, he invited the captured scout to join 
him in coffee and cigarettes.

 For a brief time, the war stood still and the two men spoke as 
equals,       until the Turkish officer glanced ominously at his 
watch.

 He said to Freame, "Well, you have been captured in our lines in 
certain circumstances. You probably know the result." The 
inference was clear and portentous; Freame was considered a spy 
and would be executed. 

 The officer told Freame that he would be taken back under guard 
to headquarters, about 8 kilometres away.

 Escorted by six men, two in front, one on each side and two 
behind, he was marched off to his fate.

 But Freame was not about to die easily. He already had a plan in 
mind. As a soldier, he knew that his escort would begin the march 
with good intentions and with vigilance at its peak. But he also 
knew that, as they became tired, they would begin to relax. 

 As they approached an embankment, Freame reached inside his 
shirt, withdrew the small revolver and fired in a sweep.

 The shots hit both of the front escorts, but missed one of those 
at his side and one at the rear. With four of his guards now 
lying on the ground and the survivors scattering, Freame slid 
down the embankment and eventually made his way back to the Anzac 
positions.

 This story first surfaced in a published article about Freame in 
1931, and reappeared in 1940. No official records have yet been 
found which support it.

 In 1959, Charles Bean wrote: "I have little doubt that it was 
true, for I never knew Freame to exaggerate - at least so far as 
I could judge of his statements."

 Freame's final action on Gallipoli took place at Lone Pine in 
the early hours of August 15.

  During the counterattack, which saw a small section of the 
Australian line fall into Turkish hands, 31 Australians were 
killed or wounded. Among them was Sergeant Freame.

 He sustained a severe gunshot wound to his right arm, which 
fractured his elbow. 

 Freame was evacuated and underwent treatment at Harefield Park 
Military Hospital in England.

 His recovery was slow and incomplete, leading to his eventual 
and reluctant return to Australia. He was discharged medically 
unfit, at the 2nd Military District headquarters in Sydney on 
November 20.

 Freame and his English wife moved to Armidale where they ran an 
orchard. They had two children.


 At the outbreak of World War II, Freame joined Australia 
Military Intelligence, operating as an undercover agent among the 
Japanese community in Sydney.

 In late 1940 he joined an Australian diplomatic mission in Japan 
as a translator. He returned to Australia in 1941 suffering from 
illness.

 He claimed that he had been attacked and garrotted in Japan. He died 
five weeks  later.

FOOTNOTE: 

The author of this article, Brian Tate, a retired 
Australian Federal Police intelligence officer, is writing a 
biography of Harry Freame.

Ends Item

The Courier-Mail April 26, 1994:
Australia's cat wars

MEGAN TURNER reports on the case for and against the domestic 
cat: now in the dock accused of destroying much of Australia's 
delicate wildlife.


"ALL right," said the cat, and this time it vanished quite 
slowly, beginning with the end of the tail and ending with the 
grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

 Many people would see all unwanted moggies go the way of Lewis 
Carroll's  obscenely-satiated Cheshire Cat. But quickly. And 
without that irritatingly smug grin.

 Unfortunately, Wonderland is a fictional utopia, as federal and 
state governments, local councils, veterinarians and animal 
welfare groups know only too well.

 In real life felis domesticus is here to stay, killing about 70 
million Australian natives annually, caterwauling, brawling and 
multiplying . . . providing companionship, aestheticism, a means 
of rodent control and polarising opinion like no other pet.

 About two years ago, University of Adelaide zoologist Dr David 
Paton "officially" informed Australia that its native fauna 
population was suffering at the hands of the cat.

 Since then, various authorities have set their feet upon the 
word treadmill,  a mechanism which, so far, has been adept at 
churning out many words.

 Australia's cat population - estimated to be 3 million owned, 
and anything up to 12 million unowned - has to be controlled. But 
how, and by whom, is a bone of contention lodged in the throats 
of the talkers.

 The National Consultative Committee on Animal Welfare, 
representing state animal welfare ministers, met in Canberra last 
week to fine-tune its Cat Control Programme.

 The committee expects its recommendations - including the 
imposition of a night curfew, desexing and compulsory 
registration of owned cats, and the culling of homeless ones - to 
be law in Victoria by the end of the year, with other states and 
territories following.

 Giving cats a legal status will allow owners to be prosecuted 
and cats to be impounded and destroyed.

 The legislation would be passed at a state level, the 
implementation of the laws left up to individual municipalities 
and shires.

 But animal welfare groups maintain cat control is a matter of 
responsible cat ownership, essentially a community problem, and 
are sceptical about whether unwieldy legislation can solve it.

 They're also concerned that the cat is getting all the bad press 
when irresponsible owners are at the root of the problem.

 Dr Diane Sheehan, the Australian Veterinary Association state 
president, says the cat problem stems from a lack of 
understanding about feline behaviour, and that community 
education is the only way to address the problem.

 Like the dog problem a few years ago, it can be rectified 
through social pressure. "Society suddenly said then: we want 
clean footpaths, beaches and parks, we want people to be 
responsible for dogs, to register, desex and  control them and it 
happened."

 The Pet Education Programme, an AVA initiative, is expected to 
be introduced into Queensland primary schools early next year.

 For the RSPCA's Queensland head, Dr Cam Day, legislation is a 
case of trying to impose the black and white nature of law on to 
a biological system composed of rainbow hues.

 The solution, he says, is about individual compromise; it's 
about maintaining a careful balancing act between the interests 
of cats, wildlife, cat owners and non-cat owners.

 And unique feline biology and behaviour have to be taken into 
account: governments can't just cross out "dog" legislation with 
a crayon and insert "cat".


 The scant research available would suggest that cat owners 
theoretically agree with the prospect of cat control.

 A survey conducted by the Australian Museum last year showed 
most cat owners supported legal controls to stop their pets 
killing native animals - 72 percent of cat owners surveyed 
believed cats were a problem in the wild; 85 percent of non-cat 
owners agreed.

 Dr Hugh Wirth, convenor of the National Consultative Committee 
on Animal Welfare, sees the issue of cat management as much more 
divisive.

 Part of the problem the committee has had in selling its 
recommendations is the existence of two extreme views - the 
belief that every cat should be shot on sight and the opposing 
view of aelurophiles - cat-lovers - that cats are ethereal 
spirits and can't be controlled.

 The first step under the NCCAW proposal is to introduce 
compulsory identification to differentiate between owned and 
unowned cats.

 Local government officers or private contractors - cat-catchers 
- would be legally allowed to take up unwanted cats and transport 
them to cat pounds where sick or obviously feral cats would be 
put down with a lethal injection  immediately and others would be 
kept for a statutory period.

 Unwanted cats in the bush would be shot or poisoned.

 The best solution, it seems, is long-term; prevention rather 
than eradication, coupled with a heavy dose of community 
goodwill.

 NCCAW proposes compulsory registration and identification either 
by collar tag or micro-chip. The committee envisages a one-off 
fee of $5 for desexed cats and, as an economic disincentive, an 
annual $20 fee for entire cats.

 Implementation of a night curfew, to be enforced by local 
government officers or private contractors, would be left to the 
discretion of individual councils.

 Inner city Brisbane, according to Dr Wirth, would find no 
advantage in imposing a cat curfew but outlying suburbs and small 
towns might.

 Owners of registered cats caught out at night would be fined.

 The RSPCA, whose Brisbane refuge became a dump for 13,745 
unwanted cats last year, welcomes cat identification and 
encourages desexing, but these proposed solutions also have 
detractors.

 When Queensland Environment Minister Molly Robson recently 
proposed a 10-point plan for controlling domestic cats, the Local 
Government Association       rejected state-wide registration.

 The Australian Veterinary Association is also concerned about 
the effectiveness and cost of such a scheme.

 Councillor David Hinchliffe, Brisbane City Council's recreation 
and health chairman, is scathing of NCCAW's "overly-bureaucratic 
approach" to a community problem.

 "They've got rocks in their heads if they think they can make 
compulsory registration or night curfews work," he said. "They 
have no practical idea how to implement such a policy - are they 
going to have people prowling in other people's yards hunting for 
stray cats?"

 The cost of such a programme would be borne by local governments 
which would be compelled to impose severe registration charges on 
cat owners.

 BCC spends $3 million annually on dog management and Councillor 
Hinchliffe estimates another $2 million would be required for cat 
control, even then resulting in ineffective enforcement levels.

 "Domestic cats are not the problem - the strays and ferals are, 
and it is possible to look at pick-ups of strays without the 
rigmarole of registration," he said.

 Alf Boden, cat-lover and environmentalist, is also founder of 
Brisbane's Feral Cat Eradication Society. He believes control 
measures should begin with the culling of homeless cats and 
governments should legislate to unfetter the responsible public 
to carry out the task.

 "At least 10 percent of the population would be more than 
willing to go out and humanely attack the feral cat population; 
they need protecting from belligerent or nuisance prosecution - 
or persecution," he said.

 Boden's non-profit organisation has been lending out cat-traps 
free of charge since 1988.

 The RSPCA-approved traps go out to 39 local councils state-wide, 
as well as individuals who are "Green-oriented or just fed up 
with cats digging up their garden or injuring their own cat".

 The trapped cats are taken to the RSPCA or cat refuges; Boden 
estimates that during his personal crusade he has destroyed more 
than a thousand feral and stray cats. He likens the danger of 
mistaking someone's pet for a feral to confusing a snake with a 
dove.

 The culling of homeless cats immediately raises the public ire 
and poses the problem of implementation.

 In 1992, army sharpshooters shot more than 400 feral cats in 
Queensland's far-west Diamantina Shire. The idea of offering a 
bounty for feral cats was mooted later that year but outraged 
cries of "blood money" resulted in it being shelved.


 The RSPCA worries, too, that a flood of anti-cat propaganda is 
slanting the issue against the animal; in such cases, the cat 
suffers at the hands of overzealous vigilantes.

 The domestic cat, which has co-existed with humans since ancient 
Egyptian times, is not about to gather up its tail and its grin 
and simply vanish.

 Neither, it seems, will the controversy surrounding the search 
for a viable means of cat control.

  Ends Item



The Courier-Mail April 27, 1994:
The apathy of bystanders

It is called "social loafing". It applies when innocent people 
are victims of attack but no one comes to their aid. Gold Coast 
psychologist RON KOCINSKI explores the issues involved.


WHAT stops us from helping one another in situations of threat or 
harm? Are we inhumane, fearful, or simply and woefully apathetic? 
Way back in the 1960s an infamous case in America prompted 
psychologists to try to answer these questions:

 QUEENS, New York: Some time between 3:10am and 3.45am, March 
1964. Victim: Catherine, ""Kitty'' Genovese.

 Kitty's death was by no means quick: indeed, it was torturously 
long and in full view of her neighbours. The events that took 
place on that cold and dark March morning are best described in 
the front page articles of the New York Times. A.M. Rosenthal, a 
former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and metropolitan editor of 
the Times, assigned a reporter (Ganzberg) to cover the 
neighbourhood "Bystander Apathy Angle" of her murder:

 "For more than half an hour, 38 respectable, law-abiding 
citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in 
three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

 "Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their 
bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time 
he returned he sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one 
person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness 
called after the woman was dead."

 The Kew Gardens slaying baffles Ganzberg, not because it was a 
murder, but because "good people" failed to call the police.

 Note: Before the witness called the police, he called a friend 
in another suburb to ask him if it was the right thing to do.

 Shock, disbelief and bafflement were the standard reactions from 
police and the reading public. Enraged readers wrote letters to 
the Times demanding the names of witnesses be published, thereby 
exposing them to the public.

 When witnesses were asked why they failed to act and call the 
police they were bewildered: "I don't know", "I just don't know" 
or "I was afraid . . . I didn't want to get involved" were the 
replies.

 Afraid? Involved? None of the witnesses was exposed to personal 
danger. All were safely in their homes, peering out of windows. 
So what could account for this unconscionable behaviour?

 Is this, as was mooted at the time, an example of apathy, 
depersonalisation of urban life with its "magalopolitan 
societies"?

 A most surprising explanation was rendered by Psychology 
Professors Bibb Latane and John Darley: No one took action 
because there were so many (38) observers. The majority assumed 
someone else would call the police!

 This explanation dispels the "myth" of 20th century inhumanity 
in critical emergencies. Bystander apapthy is misleading and 
these situations are better understood and remedied when viewed 
as examples of "Social Loafing".

 Empirical findings suggest that there are at least two reasons 
that account for why people in a group would be unlikely to help 
a victim even when they themselves are not endangered: first, 
within a group, the personal responsibility to "do something" is 
spread among or over the entire group of potential helpers, 
resulting in diffusion of responsibility, with everyone in the 
group thinking that someone else will call the police or an 
ambulance . . . no one does.

 Second, people have a tendency to look to others in a group 
before  committing themselves to action. This need for "social 
proof" leads to "pluralistic ignorance".

 We tend to look to others for clues as to whether what we 
observe is, in fact, an emergency.

 What we forget is that every other observer is looking for the 
same form of social evidence or proof.

 In a UPI news release from Chicago: "A university coed was 
beaten and strangled in broad daylight near one of the most 
popular tourist attractions in the city . . . police said 
thousands of people must have passed the site and one man told 
them he heard a scream about 2pm but did not investigate because 
no one else seemed to be paying attention. Each person decided 
that since nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong."

 Safety in numbers? The opposite may well be true. Latane and 
Darley reasoned that, for an emergency victim, the idea of safety 
in numbers may be completely wrong: the victim would have a 
better chance of survival if a single bystander, rather than a 
crowd, was present.


 How you can make a group help

 WHAT can you do to avert "Social Loafing"?

 All group participants have the potential to do something 
constructive and be "change agents".

 Perceived permission to act is contingent on the "change agent" 
feeling that they are unique and have a unique function to 
perform.

 Should you ever have the need to activate other people's helping 
behaviour, single them out with a physical attribute or article 
of clothing: identify them as unique, for example: "You sir, in 
the leather jacket, call the police."

 And, should you be part of the "observer group", put aside your 
own petty embarrassments.

 Do not let this become a reality as it almost did in our local 
shopping centre: My wife Shashanna (a clinical psychologist) and 
I were leaving the shopping centre with a heavily laden shopping 
trolley when we heard a woman screaming: "Mum, Oh! Mum!"

 We did a 360 degree turn and rushed to the side of an elderly 
woman lying motionless on the cold tiled floor. Her middle-aged 
daughter stood beside her, hysterical.

 My wife and I, both trained lifesavers, quickly assessed the 
situation.

 While I bent over the woman, who was not breathing, and removed 
her false teeth and scarf and unbuttoned a tight overcoat, my 
wife was attending to the daughter. A crowd began to gather 
around us.

 I quickly noted and called out to a young woman with a name tag: 
"Julie, call an ambulance now!"

 I prepared myself to perform CPR but hesitated for a second as I 
had only read about it. My wife picked up on this split-second 
hesitation and shouted to the encircling crowd: "Does anyone know 
CPR?"

 A young man standing on the inside of the group, arms crossed, 
nonchalantly raised one hand to indicate he did.

 My wife, seeing him exhibit traits of "social loafing", rushed 
over to him and, while applying some force to the back of his 
neck to push him down to the  victim, said: "You know CPR? Then 
do it mate!"

 In a second he was doing CPR.

 Ends Item

The Courier-Mail April 28, 1994:

The new South Africa

From Bruce Loudon in Johannesburg

FOR generations it was the language of power . . . the lingua 
franca of a white minority as it sought to impose its dogma of 
racial superiority on an oppressed black majority.

 Now, as part of the astonishing series of whirlwind changes 
occurring in South Africa, Afrikaans, the language, is just one 
of 11 official languages, competing with nine lack tribal 
languages and English for space in official pronouncement.

 It is a breathtaking defeat for proponents of the language that 
was born out of early Dutch settlement of South Africa's Cape of 
Good Hope in the 17th century, and which was the language of 
apartheid for all the years the now-reviled policy endured from 
the time the late Dr D.F. Malan, the policy's founder, won the 
prime-ministership in 1948.

 In their racist lunacy, apartheid founders tried to widen the 
use of Afrikaans. Attempts were made to make it compulsory for 
blacks at school - that demand led to riots.

 The whites sought hegemony for Afrikaans over all other 
languages in the country. English was scorned, black languages 
despised.

 Now, as part of the constitution for a new, non-racial South 
Africa, Afrikaans has lost its status, and among Afrikaner 
nationalists there are fears - probably justifiable - that their 
language and the culture are on the skids.

 For it is not just the pre-eminent place of Afrikaans within 
South Africa's ruling elite that is being dismantled: as well, 
many symbols of Afrikaner culture and Afrikaner paramountcy are 
being changed.

 As of yesterday, for example, South Africa has a new national 
flag.


  Hauled down is the old orange, white and blue flag of apartheid 
South  Africa - a flag that, significantly, had a centrepiece 
showing the flags of the former Boer republics, as well as the 
Union Jack.

 In its place is a flag of converging coloured stripes - 
including the colours of the ANC.

 And there is the new national anthem Nkosi Sikele Afrika (God 
Bless Afrika), a traditional African hymn that is the national 
anthem of several other black-ruled African states.

 Die Stem (The Hymn), the national anthem of apartheid South 
Africa - a hymn revered by Afrikaners - for now retains a place 
in official ceremonies. But, to drive home its secondary role, 
protocol, in terms of the new Constitution, demands that Nkosi 
Sikele Afrika be played first and in full on state  occasions, 
while  Die Stem is played second, and then only the first verse.

 It is a shattering change for Afrikaners - and there's more on 
the way.

 Yesterday it was announced that the South African Defence Force, 
which is being integrated with the ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear 
of the Nation) liberation army as well as other black units, is 
getting new insignia.

 Out is the principal symbol of the SADF, a badge that reflects 
the ancient Cape Town Castle, the earliest evidence of colonial 
(that is, white) settlement. In its place is a nine-pointed star.

 Other changes are under way: what South Africans claims to be 
one of the world's largest, busiest and best general hospitals, 
the Aragwanath Hospital in the black satellite city of Soweto, 
has already been re-named - the Chris Hani Memorial Hospital - 
after the assassinated leader of the South African Communist 
Party.

 After the new, black-led Government of National Unity takes 
over, it is expected to turn its attention to other symbols of 
white rule: all the nation's major airports, for example, are 
named after white leaders from the past.

 In Johannesburg there is the Jan Smuts International Airport, in 
Cape Town the D.F. Malan Airport, and in Durban the Louis Botha 
Airport . . . All are likely to change - possibly being given 
names from the pantheon of black heroes, such as the late ANC 
leader Oliver Tambo.

 The apartheid regime was notable for its naming of major public 
undertakings after its heroes, and there is barely a major road, 
hospital or transport facility that does not bear the name of 
some Afrikaner lumninary.

 Nothing seems more certain than that all this is about to change 
as the country's new rulers seek to expunge memories of the 
racist past.

 Perhaps the biggest symbol of all, however, is one that the 
country's new, black rulers will see every day as they look out 
of the windows of their offices in the Sir Herbert Baker-designed 
Union buildings in Pretoria, the seat of government.

 It is the Voortrekker monument, the vast edifice that 
commemorates the Great Trek of 1836. It is the most hallowed 
shrine in Afrikanerdom.

 It will take all Mr Mandela's powers of tolerance to allow that 
to stay in place, most analysts believe, but there is, given its 
vastness, little he can do about it.

 Just as there is little, for now at least, that he can do about 
the host of names that have been given to cities that commemorate 
the old colonial or Boer past: Pretoria itself, is named after a 
Boer hero. So, too, is Pietermaritzburg, in Natal.

 And Durban is named after a British colonial governor, Sir 
Benjamin D'Urban.

 But the spirit of reconciliation is firmly in place with Mr 
Mandela, at least, and he has long since turned his back on 
proposals that South Africa should be renamed to make a clear 
break with the past - Azania being the favoured name.

 He has also rejected suggestions that the country's new 
Parliament should meet not in Cape Town, the seat of the old, 
white Parliament, but in Soweto.

 Instead, he is made it plain that things will stay largely as 
they are: Pretoria will remain the administrative capital, Cape 
Town the parliamentary capital, and Bloemfontein the judicial 
capital.

 But times change, and nothing seems more certain than that, as 
the new, black-dominated government works itself in, it will turn 
its attention to national symbols - just as other African states 
have done before it.

 For Afrikaners with their guttural language and feverish 
patriotism, things do not look promising. That is why they want 
their own state after the election - a place where they could 
enjoy self-determination and where their language and culture 
would be paramount.

 The pragmatic Mandela has agreed to discuss details of this with 
Afrikaner leaders after the poll - when the strength or weakness 
of the Afrikaner vote for white leader General Constand Viljoen 
is demonstrated.

 The likelihood is that, in time, the "volkstaat" - or something 
that passes for a "volkstaat" - will, indeed, get the nod, for no 
one is more aware than Mr Mandela of the strength of Afrikaner 
passions, and he may decide it is better to let them have their 
way in a little corner of South Africa rather than causing 
trouble nationally.

 Ends Item

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