Canary in the Mine

Finance Minister Michael Cullen denies a National claim that the Government appears to be preparing the ground to impose a capital gains tax on investment properties. This week Dr Cullen confirmed he had asked Treasury to consider what options were available to slow down the economy, and National finance spokesman John Key said it was clear he "wants to pour cold water on the Kiwi love affair with home ownership". Dr Cullen said on Tuesday he had asked the Treasury to consider available options to slow the economy. This was because lifting interest rates as the Reserve Bank had been doing was "clearly less immediately effective" than was the case five or 10 years ago. He said there were not many options and they were not "exactly attractive". Demand for investment property has been one of the reasons for the housing boom, which in turn has helped keep the economy boiling and driving up inflation.

Meanwhile, house prices in Auckland are predicted to shoot up 15 per cent in the next three years, rising faster than in most others areas, according to forecaster Infometrics. Auckland will be matched only by Wellington, but prices in other areas will rise more sedately, stay the same or fall. House price forecasts by 2008: Northland, up 11 per cent; Auckland, up 15 per cent; Waikato/Bay of Plenty/Gisborne/Tauranga, up 11 per cent; Taranaki/Manawatu/Wanganui, unchanged; Wellington, up 15 per cent; Christchurch, unchanged; Otago/Southland, down 4 per cent.

The superannuation increase agreed between Labour and NZ First is limited to the next three years, but Grey Power wants both parties to permanently enshrine it in law. The deal that helped Labour to form a Government included a move to boost the standard couple's rate from 65 to 66 per cent of the average weekly wage from next April 1. The Treasury calculates it would mean about $4 more weekly for most superannuitants. A spokeswoman for Finance Minister Michael Cullen confirmed that the rate change would last only for the life of this Government.

Tired doctors working long and erratic hours are putting patient safety at risk, research has found. Four out of 10 doctors had made a fatigue-related medical error over a six-month period, a Massey University study of 1366 junior doctors found. Twice as many doctors scored as excessively sleepy on a standard test compared with the general population; nearly half (42 per cent) reported having fallen asleep at the wheel driving home from work and most said work patterns caused problems in their personal life.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has suffered his first major parliamentary defeat as the nation's leader over new counter-terrorist powers, raising fresh questions about his authority. The House of Commons voted by 322 to 291 against plans to let police hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge, as about 40 Labour MPs refused to support him. Parliamentarians later voted in favour of a much lower, 28-day detention limit, up from 14 days now.

Two 17-year-old Christian girls were shot yesterday in the second recent attack of its kind in Indonesia. Washington, D.C.-based International Christian Concern said two armed men shot the girls – Siti Nuraini and another identified only as Ivon – at close range with pistols near a Pentecostal church in Poso, Central Sulawesi. Both girls are in critical condition, in a coma. The attacks followed the beheadings of three Christian high school students in the area late last month.

Television programmes are now showing double the number of sex scenes aired seven years ago, says a study out Wednesday. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 70 percent of all shows included some sexual content, averaging about five sex scenes per hour. That's up from about three scenes per hour in 1998, and from nearly 4.5 scenes an hour three years ago.

A major battle for control of the internet is beginning between the USA and the United Nations. Since 1998, domains and addresses on the Internet have been controlled by the hitherto obscure Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a public-private, non-profit organisation based in Los Angeles and operating under the very loose supervision of the United States Department of Commerce. The US wants to turn ICANN into a private corporation, remaining on US soil. Many other countries, however, mostly in the developing and newly industrialised world - but as of last month the European Union too - want the governance transferred to a body under the aegis of the UN, in which everyone would have a say. The US does not plan to give up easily. American backers of the status quo argue that the internet has been a tool for free expression and democracy the world over. Ominously, among the countries pressing most strongly for a more internationalised and governmentalised structure are such beacons of liberty as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, all concerned to limit the flow of information to their restless citizens.

NZ's Chief Censor Bill Hastings wants a review of the labelling and classification of computer games in New Zealand. In the latest annual report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, tabled in Parliament yesterday, Mr Hastings said that unlike films, computer games that were not restricted did not have to be rated or labelled in New Zealand. But times had changed, he said: "Games have become more realistic and hugely popular. Some are developed solely for an adult audience. Foreign labels don't reflect Kiwi standards and research shows many people don't understand them."

Thoughts about God, deep personal convictions and social values -- it does a body good. Literally. "Reflecting on meaningful values provides biological and psychological protection from the adverse effects of stress," states a report released yesterday by psychologists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Is alien abduction real — or a creation of Hollywood? [Hint: the first abductions were only reported after a series of movies and books in the 1950s.]

From London and Berlin to Sydney and San Francisco, civic authorities over the last decade have grabbed hold of the theories of an American academic, Richard Florida. They have agreed that the key to urban prosperity (ie, revitalising dying city hearts) is appealing to the "hipster set" of gays, twentysomethings and young creatives. But the only evidence for this idea came from the dot-com boom of the late 1990s — and that time is over. And there was plenty of evidence showing Florida's thesis to be completely false.

The Los Angeles Times has added a new news topic -- the pornography industry. According to a porn industry journal, Times Staff Writer Ralph Frammolino began regularly covering the multi-billion dollar industry last spring. "It can't be ignored," Frammolino said. "The adult business is a very powerful economic engine in California and the world. It's big business -- and a legal one -- and we're going to cover it that way."
(Reported by Focus on the Family, not online)
Maybe the LA Times is responding to the fact that newspapers in the USA are struggling. "The numbers are in, and they're not good. Eighteen out of the top 20 papers reported weekday circulation losses in the most recent FAS-FAX report."
A massive shake-up is happening in the news media. "Tom Fiedler, executive editor of The Miami Herald, said he does not expect circulation to increase during his lifetime, which means newspapers must focus on the Web as a genuine delivery system: "Circulation will continue to drop until there will be a plateauing, then I expect a rapid decline. "Newspapers will become supplemental reading for a very elite audience," he added, and the online edition "will be where the popular press lives."

Even as banks and regulators step up efforts to thwart identity theft over the internet, the worry that fraudsters remain one step ahead is convincing many Americans that banking online is too risky. At an identity theft forum in New York on Tuesday, security and policy experts said banks are taking appropriate steps to stop online criminals, but that their best efforts -- and consumers' own vigilance -- may not be enough. "Consumers can do everything right -- not give out passwords or financial information -- and still become victims," said Susanna Montezemolo, a policy analyst at Consumers Union.

A Bill attempting to ensure marriage in NZ is only between a man and a woman is back on the Parliamentary table. The Marriage (Gender Clarification) Bill was put forward earlier this year by United Future's Larry Baldock, but he withdrew it before the Election after time ran out for adequate debate, and because he was unsure it could get the numbers. The Bill's now been picked up by UF No. 3 Gordon Copeland, and is due to have its first reading on 7 December. (Not online, but the full story will be in Challenge Weekly on Friday.)

Finance Minister Michael Cullen has asked the Treasury and the Reserve Bank for new ways to help dampen the economy, amid frustration that higher official interest rates are not feeding quickly enough into higher mortgage rates.

If you really must read the full text of the Governor-General's speech from the throne opening Parliament today, it can be found here.

Up to 15 people were arrested in raids involving some 400 officers in Sydney and Melbourne this morning in an operation police said "disrupted ... the final stages of a large scale terrorist attack". New South Wales police commissioner Ken Moroney said at least six people have been arrested who were "proposing to conduct a terror attack in Australia". ABC has reported a further nine people were arrested in Victoria though this has yet to be confirmed. The raids are still being carried out and involve searches of properties in Australia's two largest cities.

A chronic shortage of home carers is reaching crisis point. Industry leaders say carers are not being paid for the time and cost of travelling to clients and rising petrol prices and a tightening labour market has seen turnover skyrocket. Access Homehealth – the nation's largest rural homecare provider – is grappling with turnover rates of 50 per cent nationwide and as high as 80% in popular tourist regions where labour was in short supply.

"The rioting in France has shocked the Government into realising it must face a painful reassessment of its efforts to integrate immigrant communities into mainstream society."

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is the oldest church discovered in the land where Jesus was born. Oddly, is has been found while adding extensions to a maximum-security jail just down the road from Armageddon. "This is one of the most important finds of early Christianity," archaeologist Yardena Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities told journalists on a tour of the excavation on Sunday.

The annual international Durex sex survey needs to be read with a lot of care - I have grave suspicions about the accuracy of its findings, partly because the people responding self-select. However, the latest survey, if true, presents some eyebrow-raising findings. Among them:
Kiwis rank fourth in the world for having unsafe sex, with 65% of Kiwis admitting to having had unprotected sex with a partner without knowing their sexual history. Women were worse than men in this regard.
Globally, New Zealanders have the third highest number of sexual partners with 13.2, behind Turkey (14.5) and Australia (13.3). The survey also found Kiwi women are more sexually active than their male counterparts, with 18% claiming they've slept with between 11 and 20 people. 15% of men claim they've slept with the same amount of partners. >From these results it is hardly surprising that 18% of Kiwis admitted to having contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and 11% of Kiwi women under 18 years said they'd had an unplanned pregnancy.
On average New Zealanders are having sex 114 times per year - ahead of the global average of 103 and the Australians who fall behind on 108. 3.4% of Kiwi men and 1.7% of women claiming that one day is too long to abstain from having sex. Unbelievably, 1.1% of all Kiwi respondents revealed they wanted sex at least once an hour.
"But quantity of sex for Kiwis does not necessarily equate to quality," says Durex manager Virginia Potter. "The survey found that only 49% of Kiwi respondents are happy with their sex lives, and more than two thirds of Kiwi women admitted to having faked an orgasm." The survey also revealed that an unfortunate 6% of Kiwi respondents find their sex life monotonous.
Kiwis top the global charts for having one-night stands (64%), second in the world only to the Norwegians on 70%.
Kiwis on average lose their virginity at 16.4 years, younger than the global average of 17.3 years.

"Calm down": that's the advice of Stratfor & Investors, an organisation well-known for strategic planning, regarding the Asian bird flu threat. "Now let us qualify that: Since December 2003, the H5N1 bird flu virus -- which has caused all the ruckus -- has been responsible for the documented infection of 121 people, 91 one of whom caught the virus in Vietnam. In all cases where information on the chain of infection has been confirmed, the virus was transmitted either by repeated close contact with fowl or via the ingestion of insufficiently cooked chicken products. In not a single case has human-to-human communicability been confirmed. So long as that remains the case, there is no bird flu threat to the human population of places such as Vietnam at large, much less the United States... A bird flu pandemic among the human population is broadly in the same category as a meteor strike. Of course it will happen sooner or later -- and when it does, watch out! But there is no -- absolutely no -- particular reason to fear a global flu pandemic this flu season. This does not mean the laws of nature have changed since 1918; it simply means there is no way to predict when an animal virus will break into the human population in any particular year -- or even if it will at all. Yes, H5N1 does show a propensity to mutate; and, yes, sooner or later another domesticated animal disease will cross over into the human population (most common human diseases have such origins). But there is no scientifically plausible reason to expect such a crossover to be imminent."

The man who served as deputy to Pol Pot has admitted responsibility in part for Cambodia's genocide and is prepared to go before a United Nations tribunal to be questioned about his crimes. Nuon Chea, 78, was the closest comrade of one of the 20th century's most blood-stained dictators for more than 30 years. He was personally responsible for ordering thousands of executions in Cambodia. In a rare interview, he confessed: "Yes, we take responsibility. We do not deny it but there are different types of responsibility: executive, legal, moral. Our mistake was that we did not go out into the country's fields to find what was really happening... We, the senior leaders, did not control the party properly," Nuon Chea admitted.

Is Prince Charles being groomed to become the Constantine of Islam in England? Prince Charles has arrived to America to for an eight-day tour. His mission is to persuade W. Bush and the Americans of “the merits of Islam”. He has voiced private concerns over America ’s "confrontational" approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam's strengths. He thinks United States has been too intolerant of the religion.

A new sign of the breaking apart of the Church of England over homosexual clergy was given this week by the South London ordination of three men by an overseas bishop. In defiance of the Bishop of Southwark, Bishop Martin Morrison from the Church of England in South Africa ordained the three at the invitation of Wimbledon minister Revd Richard Coekin. Attending the service were about 30 members of Reform, the evangelical network of clergy who are increasingly resisting the authority of their own diocesan bishops. Mr Coekin said, “We are concerned by the disregard for the Bible in the name of political correctness”. He said the House of Bishops’ recent guidance allowing gay clergy to enter civil partnerships providing they abstain from sex was “the last straw”.

The long-running trial over Intelligent Design in the United States is nearing its end. If you're unsure what it's all about, this article may help.