Guardian’s Rusbridger and Davies: Media Personality 2011

The third annual Woolly Days media personality of the year (after Mark Scott in 2009 and Julian Assange in 2010) is shared between Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Guardian journalist Nick Davies. Rusbridger and Davies win the 2011 award for their disciplined and determined expose of the insidious tactics of the News International empire in illegally hacking phones for dubious journalistic ends.

The pair’s actions caused the folding of the News of the World and the resignation and charging of several high profile current and former News International execs including David Cameron’s spin doctor Andy Coulson. It also hastened the end of the Murdoch dynasty as the public furore caused in the wake of the Guardian’s revelations put a cloud over James Murdoch’s ability to lead the company. The biggest economic impact was the loss of the money-spinning BSkyB takeover which looked inevitable as recently as a week before the scandal broke.Rusbridger told the remarkable story of the phone hacking in his 2011 Orwell lecture. In January 2007 News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman was jailed for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. News International chair Les Hinton told a 2007 House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport Goodwin acted alone and without their knowledge.

News continued its strenuous denials of a wider conspiracy until 2009 when Davies splashed his Gordon Taylor revelations. Davies revealed Murdoch had paid out over a £1m in legal cases that threatened to reveal the phone hacking. Professional Football Association boss Gordon Taylor was paid £700,000. Davies revealed the suppressed legal cases were linked to the Goodman case.

A News private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was also jailed in January 2007. Mulcaire admitted hacking the phones of five other targets, including Taylor (the others were Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes, celebrity PR Max Clifford, model Elle MacPherson and football agent Sky Andrew). In 2008 Taylor sued News on the basis that they must have known about it. News submitted documents to the High Court denying keeping any recording or notes of intercepted messages. Taylor’s lawyers demanded detailed police evidence which revealed Mulcaire had provided a recording of Taylor’s messages to a News of the World journalist who emailed them to a senior reporter. The evidence also found a News of the World executive had offered Mulcaire a substantial bonus for a story specifically related to the intercepted messages. The News case immediately collapsed causing the payout.

When the Guardian revealed the story, News and its supporters in blue closed ranks. The News of the World furiously attacked the Guardian while in The Times the police assistant commissioner in charge of the original investigation downplayed the disclosures saying there were a handful of victims of hacking and only a few hundred targeted. According to Rusbridger, the police conducted the quickest review in recent history – a few hours. News International exec Rebekah Brooks (ultimately undone by the scandal) said the Guardian had “deliberately misled the British public”.

A week later Rusbridger and Davies appeared before the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport. It was there Davies produced the “For Neville” emails that destroyed News’s case against the Guardian. The emails were for Neville Thurlbeck, Chief Reporter of the News of the World, and they conclusively showed people other than Goodman were aware of the hacking. Yet police commissioner Paul Stephenson told Rusbridger that Davies was barking up the wrong tree. In November 2009 the Press Complaints Commission rejected the Guardian’s claims, but were forced to change their tune in July 2011 after the Milly Dowler affair came to light.

On 4 July, Davies and Amelia Hill revealed the News of the World illegally targeted missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002 using records stolen from BT’s confidential records. The affair seemed particularly horrific to the public because of the revelation NotW deleted messages from Dowler’s message bank giving her parents false hope she was alive. The paper made no effort to hide that fact even publishing details of a message in a 2002 article. The Met Police’s QC now says the messages were probably automatically deleted but the damage was already done. Murdoch was forced to personally apologise to Dowler’s parents and his empire started unravelling as damaging allegations followed in the Leveson Inquiry.

Nick Davies was honoured for his series of articles with a swag of awards. He was named journalist of the year at the Foreign Press Association Media Awards 2011, won the Frontline Club award for his investigation and also won the FPA print and web news award along with Hill for the Dowler story.

Rusbridger used the Orwell lecture to stake out a new future for a troubled industry. He said self regulation was a joke and the PCC had no powers. He said they needed a mediation power which would be cheaper to access than a libel trial and would be a vital input in any court action. Rusbridger also asked deep questions about what the “public interest” means: “It is not only crucial to the sometimes arcane subject of privacy,” he said. “It is crucial to every argument about the future of the press, the public good it delivers and why, in the most testing of economic times, it deserves to survive.” For raising these questions and for relentlessly following the evidence when it seemed they had little to go on, Alan Rusbridger and Nick Davies were a breath of fresh air to a deeply troubled media industry, economically and ethically.

Weeping for monsters: North Korea’s dynastic dues

I’ve been thinking all week about the hysterical sobbing in those images of North Koreans mourning Kim Jong-il. Was it group hysteria? Was it pretend-crying just to avoid looking different to everyone else? Was it stage-managed or was it genuine for a leader who was a daily presence? Maybe it was grief for loved ones dead in famines or just their own miserable luck to live in such an accursed place? Was it fear that things could get worse under Kim Jong-un? Was it simply just a great chance to cry uncontrollably and not look out of place?

The ambiguities in the tears have defined North Korea since the end of World War II. When the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea began in the northern part of the peninsula in 1946 it was faced with two big problems. The North had always been more remote and less developed and two million fled south to avoid the Communist DPRK. The three-year war that followed left the new country in tatters.

North Korea became a centrally planned economy which strangled small business. Dissent was not tolerated and all good was embodied in leader Kim Il-sung. Il-Sung promoted “Juche” as a concept of self-reliance to make do in difficult times. He said Juche meant man was the master of everything and decided everything. That man was him and he mobilised the entire workforce to industrialise North Korea rapidly after the civil war.

Suspicious of the South, they built up military might to deter invasion. They ran up massive debts to the USSR, China and Japan. By 1980 they defaulted on loans and the economy has been contracting ever since. The collapse of Soviet Communism left Russia unimpressed with its poverty-stricken debtor. DPRK increasingly relied on China as its only open border. Il-sung refused to consider Gorbachev’s perestroika because he knew it led to glasnost. He died in 1994 and first son and heir apparent Kim Jong-il took over.

Born in 1942, Jong-il spent his first years in Siberia with his parents. His father commanded the 1st battalion of the 88th Brigade, a Red Army unit of Chinese and Korean exiles. Jong-il was born in Vyatskoye, a fishing village near Khabarovsk where the railway turns south to Vladivostok. As a schoolboy, Jong-il was interested in politics and Marxist literature. He learned English in Malta and in 1980, was effectively head of the politburo with only his father above him. He inherited his father’s personality cult and was named head of the armed forces in 1991. With Jong-il making all the decisions since they defaulted on their debts, North Korea’s economy collapsed.

When Il-Sung finally died in 1994 aged 82, Jong-il was undisputed leader. The US were worried by his nuclear ambitions and threats to leave the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The countries signed an Agreed Framework as one of Jong-il’s first achievements in office. It allowed the DPRK to continue developing nuclear technology at foreign expense but with light water reactors rather than the nuclear proliferating graphite reactors they already had.

The US overplayed its hand. President Clinton rashly assumed North Korea was on the verge of collapse. Congress would not pass a bill to end the trade embargo in place since the Korean War and the US dragged its feet in calling for tenders to build the new reactors. By October 2002, the US believed North Korea had an enrichment program and confronted them with their evidence. Three months later North Korea left the NNPT. The subsequent Six Party talks were fruitless. North Korea went rogue.

While nuclear testing proceeded with Iranian and Pakistani know-how, the fate of the North Korean people worsened. Jong-il oversaw a collapse in industry and technology while floods and storms in 1995 wrecked electricity and health infrastructure and destroyed harvests. Hungry peasants ate what undeveloped crops survived and the country could no longer feed itself. Women and children bore the brunt of the death toll of a million or more in three years.

Food from China, South Korea and the US eased the situation until Jong-il refused overseas aid in 2002. Inclusion in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union “Axis of Evil” heightened North Korea’s isolation. Famine conditions worsened again. Escapees told the BBC starvation was common with homeless people dying in railway stations, and others too weak to beg. Complaining about this would lead to instant imprisonment.

Imagine the logical leaps of doublethink North Koreans must take in order to make sense of their world. Death is all around them but so is a regime that demands obedience and Juche. Even when people were confronted by evidence of the regime’s failures, their total reliance on state media meant foreign powers and the evil South were made scapegoats. The scenes in Pyongyang after Jong-il’s death are not without precedent. The public lamentation resembles the carefully choreographed mourning after Kim Il-sung died. Life seemed almost too unbearable to go on without Dear Leader. But just as in 1994, the state machinery will swing into action after a decent interval and the leadership cult will shift to Kim Jong-un. The world should learn from Clinton’s mistake. North Korea can survive despite dysfunction. Bellies may remain empty but the belicose dynasty of Dear Leader will continue. As the handpicked factory worker in the sobbing video said “I will change sorrow into strength and remain faithful to Comrade Kim Jong-un.” It’s best North Koreans cry now because it will not be tolerated in six months time.

Charles Byrne’s Body: A sorry science story

In mid 18th century an oddity was born in Ireland who if he lived 200 years later would have been Irish basketball’s great hope. In a dwarfish country stunted by lack of access to nutrition, Charles Byrne stood out. He was believed to be over eight feet tall though skeletal evidence put him at 2.31m, which at seven foot seven was still head, shoulders and much of the upper torso over most contemporaries. Byrne did not have access to a better diet than others around him. It was a gene mutation caused by a pituitary tumour that caused the growth. He died in 1783 aged just 22 though it wasn’t the tumour that killed him.

Byrne lived 21 of those 22 years in Tyrone, born of unexceptional stock. Local gossips said the reason for his height was his parents’ love affair on top of a haystack and this lofty situation affected conception. Although acknowledged as a freak of nature, he wasn’t treated as one. As Australian historian Patrick O’Farrell noted, the Irish look at everyone on their merits. Writing about the Irish in Australia, O’Farrell noted they never paternalised their relationship with Aborigines because they never looked down on them as the WASPs did.

Byrne left Tyrone unashamed of his freakdom but wanting to exploit it. His parents knew he could better capitalise on his status elsewhere. His exceptional size attracted a nearby carpetbagger named Joe Vance from Coagh. Vance wanted to astound Europe with Byrne. The pair arrived in London in 1782, and Byrne transfixed the capital as “the Irish Giant”. He took a room next door to Cox’s Museum at Charing Cross. James Cox was a jeweller and toy maker who exported luxury European items to the Far East. When China banned his goods, he turned his unsaleable cargo of exotic clocks, watches and earrings into a museum of “automata” which opened in 1772. This museum became known for its extravagant assemblage and became “a seductive metaphor and a compelling stage for debating the troublesome issues of political and economic stability.” While Cox sold up before Byrne moved to London, his museum retained an aura Vance capitalised on.

Byrne entertained audiences for seven hours a day, six days a week. His gracious airs made him the talk of the town. Within weeks he was entertaining the Royal Family and the nobility and his baffling condition was examined by the Royal Society. When Count Joseph Boruwlawski, the “Polish Dwarf”, met Byrne in London, their surprise was equal. As Boruwlawski remembered, Byrne was momentarily speechless, “viewing me with looks of astonishment; then stooping very low to present me his hand, which easily have contained a dozen like mine, he made a very polite compliment. Had a painter been present, the contrast of our figures might have suggested to him the idea of an interesting picture; for having come very near him, the better to show the difference, it appeared that his knee was nearly upon level with the top of my head.”

Byrne moved to Piccadilly where he continued to work long hours. Admittance for ladies and gentlemen was 2s. 6d, children and “servants in livery” paid a shilling. Vance and Byrne grew wealthy but by 1783 the public were tiring of the Irish Giant. His success drew other tall men to London including the Gigantic Twin Knipe brothers born only five miles away from Byrne in Tyrone. Another Irishman was advertised as a giant “upwards of Four Inches taller than the noted Burn.” Byrne’s problems were compounded by his love of gin and whiskey. He was frequently drunk on stage and many performances were cancelled. Vance dropped the price to a shilling but Byrne’s dissolution continued.

On April 23, 1783 Byrne fell asleep in a “lunar ramble” at the Black Horse public house and someone stole £700 from his pockets – his entire savings. Devastated, he redoubled his drinking and contracted tuberculosis. He deteriorated badly and died on June 1, 1783. His biggest fear was not death but the surgeons’ thirst for his body. His Catholic upbringing gave him a horror of the coroner’s knife which he believed could deny his soul a place in heaven on Judgement Day.

John Hunter, Surgeon Extraordinary to King George III, had no time for Byrne’s scruples. Hunter was a pivotal influence on modern surgery and dissected thousands of cadavers he got from “resurrection men” – professional grave robbers. Hunter coveted Byrne’s body for science. Byrne was aware of Hunter’s ambition and strove to thwart it in his dying days. His instructions were his coffin should be guarded by Irish friends who would bury him at sea. Byrne scraped the last of his savings to an undertaker to carry out the plan.

Hunter was determined not to lose out. He employed a man named Howison to watch Byrne’s whereabouts at all times from a next door apartment. When Byrne died, a newspaper reported he wanted his bones “far out of the reach of the chirurgical fraternity”. One reportedly offered 800 guineas to the undertakers. The offer was turned down but promoters got one last meal ticket out of Byrne as they displayed his enormous coffin for one shilling entry. On June 6, the body was taken aboard a ship to Margate to be sunk in “20 fathoms of water” in the English Channel and the coffin was tipped into the sea.

But Byrne’s body was no longer in it. The Annual Register for 1873 said the sea burial report was “merely a tub thrown out to the whale.” When Byrne died, Howison immediately told his paymaster. Hunter bribed the undertaker for £500 who switched the body with paving stones while the funeral party was drunk. Hunter took the corpse to his surgery but became terrified of the revenge of Byrne’s friends if they found out. He chopped up the body and boiled the pieces so only the bones were left. In his haste, the skeleton was discoloured brown. Hunter’s failure to conduct an autopsy ruined any hope of diagnosing Byrne’s condition. He hid the huge skeleton for four years until Byrne’s name was forgotten.

He displayed it in his anatomical collection and it was later displayed at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. In 1909 American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing got permission to open Byrne’s skull and diagnosed the pituitary tumour. Byrne’s discoloured skeleton remains today in the Hunterian where many visitors including the current monarch have been fascinated by its extraordinary size.

The fight continues between the museum and Byrne’s modern day relatives anxious to carry out the dying wish. One relative, Brendan Holland, said Byrne’s body has been on display for 200 years and it was time for a proper burial. “He was quite a celebrity and he made a lot of money out of exhibiting himself,” Holland said. “It’s the person within that’s important. It’s very unfortunate he didn’t live long enough to understand that.” His wishes are not shared by the Hunterian’s director Sam Alberti. Alberti was reluctant to hand over his star attraction saying “researchers were excited about the potential for future research.”

The British Medical Journal agrees with the family Byrne has done his time and should be buried at sea. Fellow Northern Irishman and researcher at the school of law at Queen’s University Belfast, Thomas Muinzer wrote it was time to respect his memory and reputation. “What has been done cannot be undone but it can be morally rectified,” he wrote. Muinzer said there was nothing of use that could be deduced scientifically from Byrne’s bones. “We have now a full record of Byrne’s DNA and we also have numerous examinations of the skeleton,” he wrote. “With burial law, when you or I stipulate burial wishes in life, we rely on those wishes to be respected. Those wishes don’t have legal force, they have moral force.”

Disturbing Durban: The world starts to act on climate change

The tag line for the Durban Conference was “Climate Change in balanced fashion” leading to angry environmentalists’ response it was deeply unbalanced. They are spitting chips over the Durban agreement. We cannot afford no action until 2020, they said.

The consequences to the planet of a “gaping 8 year hole” are potentially catastrophic, as the likely outcome is a further increase in carbon emissions in the short term. But environmentalists are showing their tendency to forget realpolitik: this latest deal is as good as the governments of the world were willing to give. This agreement is built on the small steps of Bali, Copenhagen and Cancun agreements to give a roadmap towards worldwide reductions in 2020.

Sea level rises caused by warmer temperatures will continue long after the oven is turned down in 2020. There is also the prospect of mass extinction of species. Current best estimates have atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration exceeding 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2°C by 2050 to 2100. These values significantly exceed anything in the least the past 420,000 years during which most marine organisms evolved.

Earth relies on the greenhouse effect to sustain life. CO2, methane and nitrous oxide all absorb infrared energy and keep heat energy on Earth and all are on the increase. The effects are varied: the North West Passage is becoming seaworthy again, the 3250 sq km Larsen B ice shelf disappeared in a month in 2002, glaciers in Argentina and Chile are melting at double the rate of 1975 while sea temperature rises are threatening coral reefs across the world.

Even modest increases in sea levels could cause major flooding in many of the world’s low lying megalopolises. If there is a rise of 0.5m, the Majuro Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands would mostly disappear. If the sea level rises by 1m, one fifth of Bangladesh goes under as would 13 of the world’s 15 largest cities. If the unstable West Antarctic Ice Shelf replicated the behaviour of Larsen B sea levels could rise as much as 3m. If Greenland once again resembled its name it would add 7m to water levels.

This picture is New York with a 5m rise, not beyond the bounds of possibility though the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report worst case scenario only allows for a maximum of 0.6m to 2100. The report also acknowledges global emissions will grow despite any mitigation measures. Even at the more likely levels of 0.3m by 2100, it is enough to obliterate many island nations. Without the power to influence except by emotion, their biggest challenge will be to preserve nationality without a territory. Believing a loss might be temporary has lawyers rushing to the Law of the Sea and the UN Convention to see how states could survive “in exile”. Despite the depression that starts this thinking, this is profoundly optimistic in the long term.

It speaks to the unending human belief we can fix any problem, including ones caused by our own actions. The annual Climate Change Conference is like a large ship with a slow turning circle. But it is slowly taking effect. 1990 is used as the benchmark year for emissions as this the time science realised there was a major problem. It was also the year UN-steered climate change negotiations started. No-one cared at first. In the 5 years after 1990, carbon emissions worldwide increased from 1 billion tons to 7 billion tons.

Twenty years later, the scientists still have difficulty selling their message. Yet recent International Energy Agency data shows global action is beginning to work. Countries who participated in the Kyoto Protocol were 15% below their 1990 levels two decades later. But Kyoto non binding countries led by China and the Middle East have greatly expanded their emissions in that time.

The developing countries have a point in that historically the West has caused more emissions. But they have learned quickly from Western technology and China is now the world’s biggest emitter. An agreement of “annex” and “non annex” countries no longer makes sense despite the best arguments of India and China.

This is why those countries ultimately signed the agreement. Let no one underestimate what was achieved in Durban this weekend. We have signed the first global deal that scales back our fossil fuel economy. 2020 is a long way away and there will be eight more meetings and eight more frenetic all-night negotiations as nations and economic blocs jostle for position in the brave new world of a post-carbon economy. It does not mean no action until 2020. The decision offers a clear signal the ship is turning. The markets will now promote investment in industries that best fit the new paradigm.

If the Greens are impatient we are not turning fast enough, then rightwing groups such as the Australian Coalition are determined to steer straight ahead regardless. Abbott’s claim the carbon tax is an “international orphan” is wrong on three counts: Australia is not the only country to price carbon, it will be a necessary requirement to send the right market signals to move to renewables, and its overgenerous compensation means it will have little genuine effect on the fossil fuel industry in the short term. By 2020, the world will still be warming to dangerous levels. But an agreement is now in place and Australia has an enforcing mechanism. Whether that is too little too late is for our grandchildren to judge.

Surat Basin Rail gets another approval

The Queensland Government has approved the development scheme for the Surat Basin Rail Joint Venture. The approval is another tick for the proposed rail line linking the south-western line with the Moura Railway System. The Surat Basin Rail is the so called “southern missing link”, a 214km railway linking Wandoan and Banana. According to the Surat Bain Rail project, the railway will “enhance the existing coal rail network and unlock 6.3 billion tonnes of coal reserves in the Surat Basin.” The approval follows last year’s environmental approval and will connect to the future coal industry-owned Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal.

Surat Basin Rail is a Joint Venture between rail infrastructure company Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Limited, Xtrata Coal and QR National. JV chair Everald Compton said the project had significant implications for the Surat Basin and Queensland. “Surat Basin Rail will boost economic development of regional Queensland and connect the multi-billion dollar industry-funded Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal, to unlock the vast coal reserves of the Surat Basin and support the continued growth of Australia’s largest export industry,” he said. “The Joint Venture’s proactive engagement approach and environmental impact statement which comprised 14 technical studies, will ensure minimal social, environmental and economic impacts.”

The Queensland Government’s Surat Basin Rail Bill 2011 proposes to grant a long-term lease over the Surat Basin rail corridor land. The bill has been referred to the Industry, Education, Training and Industrial Relations Committee for detailed consideration reporting back on 19 March 2012 (which may be after the next state election). The bill will regulate a lease the Government intends to grant to the SBR JV, to construct and operate the railway. The Bill would provide exemptions from provisions of the Property Law Act 1974 and the Land Title Act 1994.

The Co-ordinator General’s report said the project’s value would increase once integrated with other rail and port infrastructure projects. The Co-ordinator General has imposed environmental conditions relating to land and soil, water management, air quality, traffic, greenhouse gas emissions and other factors. He accepted impact on good quality land was unavoidable and further investigations were required for future habitat approvals.

The Surat Basin Rail Joint Venture has an exclusive mandate from the Queensland Government to develop the project as an open access coal and freight railway. Government approval allows the joint venture to begin land acquisition and construction in late 2012 with first coal on rail due in 2015. The railway will have the capacity to transport 42 million tonnes of coal per year on trains 2.5 kilometres in length.

Stanmore Coal made the development approval announcement in an ASX release last week. Stanmore has a vested interest having applied for five million tonnes of capacity on the SBR to deliver 5Mtpa of high quality export thermal coal from The Range project from 2015. The Range project is in the north of the Surat Basin 27 km south east of the line. Stanmore Coal has obtained 7Mtpa of priority capacity rights at the proposed Wiggins Island Coal Export Coal Terminal Stage 2 at Gladstone.

Wiggins Island is expected to open in 2014. The 27Mta coal terminal is located at Golding Point, Gladstone. It is owned by eight coal producers and will be operated by the Gladstone Ports Corporation. The terminal will be built in stages and when fully commissioned will provide more than 80Mtpa in export coal capacity. Stage 1 construction of the $2.5b project started in October. Construction will include a stockyard for 1.9Mt of coal, a 5.5km-long overland conveyor, a 7600tph rail receipt facility, a single berth with travelling ship loader and channels and wharf to accept 40,000-220,000dwt ships. A feasibility study for the terminal’s expansion is expected by the end of the year. Coal remains central to Queensland’s economy.

Pearl Harbor: Japan’s oil blunder

The Pearl Harbor survivors association has used the 70th anniversary to announce they will disband at the end of the year. An estimated 8,000 people who survived the Japanese attack on Hawaii are still alive and 2,700 are members of the association. But it has become too difficult to organise the annual national reunion in Honolulu. Association President William Muehleib cited the age and poor health of remaining members. “It was time. Some of the requirements became a burden,” Muehleib said after this year’s ceremony at Pearl Harbor.

(photo:Matt York/Associated Press)
The moment of silence at the ceremony was marked just before 8am when the first Japanese planes launched their attack. Tuesday, 7 December 1941 would live in infamy” as Roosevelt predicted. In two hours, 2,400 people were killed, 1,200 wounded (a shocking discrepancy between the dead and wounded), 20 ships sunk and 164 planes destroyed. The infamy FDR spoke about was not the death toll but the fact the Japanese had lied to the US Government and attacked 30 minutes before they declared war. The cause of Pearl Harbor, as so much of the 20th century’s conflict was oil. Expansionist Japan was reliant on US petroleum to fire its economy but knew the time would come when America would turn off the tap. The US took a dim view of the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the subsequent war with China. From their puppet base in Manchukuo, Japan declared all out war on China in 1937. Relations with the US deteriorated with the USS Panay Incident in 1937 when the Japanese sunk an American ship in Nangking and then the Allison Incident where US consul to Nangking John Moore Allison was struck in the face by a Japanese soldier. Japan said sorry for both incidents claiming it did not see the American flags on the Panay. It did not offer an excuse for Allison but bowed to US demands for an apology.Economic self-interest ensured the US supplied oil to Japan until 1941. In July that year they finally placed an embargo as did Britain. So did the Dutch two months later, breaking a treaty with Japan and ending the supply line of Javanese oil which had supplied 15% of Japanese crude. The embargo put a critical constraint on the war in China. Japan was the sixth largest importer of oil in the world. If Japan wanted to resume bombing Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong’s armies, it would have to grab oil for itself and the East Indies was the easiest target.

While Pearl Harbor was a shock, the war between US and Japan was no great surprise. A majority of Americans expected war in Asia especially in the Philippines which held many strategic American interests. Japan knew it could not cope with planned American expansion of the Navy. The 1940 Two-Ocean Navy Act (sponsored by two Democrats Carl Vinson of Georgia and David Walsh of Massachusetts) planned to expand the size of the US Navy by 70%. Japan struck a blow before the Vinson-Walsh ships came off the assembly line.

An attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese believed, would also neutralise the Pacific Fleet to give Japan free reign to take Jakarta. Then the Americans would sue for a peace profitable to Japan. That this was flawed thinking is obvious in retrospect as was their failure to work out how the US would respond. Yet it was no woollier than the thinking that led to another oil war.

The 1941 attack was led underwater. Five midget submarines came within 20km of the coast and launched their charges at 1am. At least four were sunk. Then the planes struck. There were almost 200 in the first group. A second wave of 170 flew closely behind. They were picked up by newly established radar on the northern tip of Oahu but were misdiagnosed as a returning US crew and its size was not passed on to headquarters. At 7.48am they arrived at Pearl Harbor. The immediate target of the first wave was the battleships.

Japan believed the battleships were the biggest status symbols of the Navy but badly misread their importance. The sinking of one battleship the USS Arizona caused half the death toll on the day. Ten torpedo bombers attacked the ship. After one bomb detonated in the Arizona’s ammunition magazine, she went up in a deafening explosion. 1,117 of the 1,400 crew were killed instantly and the fire took two days to put out.

The second wave targetted hangars, aircraft, carriers and cruisers. After 90 devastating minutes, half the planes on Oahu were destroyed. A planned third wave to knock out Pearl Harbor’s remaining infrastructure was called off which Admiral Chester Nimitz admitted could have postponed US operations for another year. Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo refused because of likely casualties and a need for night-time operations.

Hong Kong was attacked a day later as were US territories Guam and Wake Island. The Philippines, a commonwealth of the US at the time, was also invaded on 8 December. The same day Japanese troops made an amphibious landing at Kota Bharu in north-eastern Malaya, and six points along south-east Thailand, an invasion ended by an armistice which allowed Japan to use Thailand as a base to attack Malaya. Malaya had rubber and was the obvious dropping off point to access East Indies oil.

Only the US, Iran and Romania exported more oil than the East Indies but the profits went to Royal Dutch Shell. Borneo was another victim of the 8 December attacks threatening the oilfields of Kalimantan. The rest of the island archipelago quickly fell and would remain in Japanese hands until 1945. The three aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor base were out at sea during the attack and the elimination of its battleships gave the US no choice but to put the fate of the war in its carriers.

While the Europe First policy slowed down the Pacific conflict it was almost over as soon as it began. A wrathful America armed with its new Navy and massive fighting capacity never forgave Japan’s treachery. By July 1942, America sunk four of Japan’s carriers at Midway. Japan used Indonesian oil, fierce military pride, a deadly code of honour and incessant pro-war propaganda to keep the insanity going for another three years.

Razan Ghazzawi arrested in Syria

Prominent blogger Razan Ghazzawi is the latest victim of an increasingly desperate Syrian regime, detained on her way to a media conference in Jordan on Sunday. The US-born human rights activist was arrested at the border while on her way to attend a workshop in Amman for advocates of press freedoms in the Arab world. While the Assad administration have said nothing, a local committee of activists confirmed the arrest yesterday.

The Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) said Ghazzawi was their media officer and attending the workshop for them. SCM condemned her arrest and the restrictions on civil society and freedom of expression in Syria. “SCM demands authorities stop abuse of systematic practice against bloggers, journalists, and Syrians citizens,” they said. “SCM demands to release the blogger Razan Ghazzawi immediately and unconditionally and to release all detainees in Syria and stresses on the need for Syrian authorities to respect their international commitments that have committed themselves to it through the ratification of the conventions and treaties international.” SCM said they held Syrian authorities responsible for any physical or psychological harm caused to her.Ghazzawi has been a high profile documenter of violations and arrests in Syria since the start of the uprising in March. Bravely she was one of the few in Syria to blog under her real name. Her most recent post on 1 December announced another Syrian blogger and activist Hussein Ghrer had been freed after 37 days in Adra prison. “Hussein is going to be home tonight, where he will be holding his wife tight, and never let go of his two precious sons again,” Ghazzawi wrote. “It’s all going to be alright, and it will all be over very soon.” The nightmare has begun for Ghazzawi herself.

The arrest sparked wide protests online. A Twitter campaign #freerazan has gone viral in the last 24 hours while own twitter feed @redrazan is being managed by friends. A Facebook page has also been set up since the arrest. A Moroccan blogging friend Hisham Almiraat said Razan was an indefatigable campaigner for human rights and freedom of expression. “She has been advocating for the rights of political prisoners and minorities in Syria and has always fought for the rights of the Palestinians,” Almiraat said. “Razan is the most driven, thoughtful and freedom loving person I have ever met.”

A message on Ghazzawi’s blog shows what she told friends before she set off for Jordan. If anything happens to me, she said, “know that the regime does not fear those imprisoned but those who do not forget them”. She knew was taken a great risk by travelling to the conference. The blog MidEast Youth is making much of her US citizenship in its calls for her freedom. While Ghazzawi admits she born in the US she never lived there. Her family lived for 10 years in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and are now back in Damascus. She graduated with a degree in English literature from Damascus University and did a further five years of study in Lebanon before returning home.

The administration shows no sign of bending to intense international pressure either to release her or end atrocities against protesters. Instead Syria held war manoeuvres over the weekend. State-run television said the exercise was meant to test “the capabilities and the readiness of missile systems to respond to any possible aggression.” The drill showed Syrian missiles and troops “ready to defend the nation and deter anyone who dares to endanger its security”. Assad and his regime intend to tough this out with the support of Russia and China and won’t mind the collateral damage to the likes of Ghazzawi in the process.

Friends, Romaites and welcome to country: Vale Artie Beetson

In an era when Aboriginal rights were almost non-existent, Artie Beetson was a leader. A rugby league great, he was the first Indigenous man to captain his country in any sport. When Charlie Perkins was emulating the American freedom marches, Arthur Henry Beetson was accepted by his peers as a natural leader. He was born and raised in Roma and he died yesterday died aged 66 on the Gold Coast after suffering a heart attack while riding a bike. (pic: Beetson top left in the Balmain 1966 side)

Artie’s mother Marie came from Cherbourg Mission, the Aboriginal settlement near Murgon in Queensland’s Lower Burnett. She was a member of the Stolen Generation. Marie fled Cherbourg and she and her husband settled in Roma in the 1940s. This was a difficult time for Aboriginals in western Queensland. Smaller towns around Roma still had “yumbas” well after the war. “Yumba” was a Murri word for camp and is the name of Australian towns such as Yamba, NSW and Yaamba, Qld. White people steered clear of these camps while Aboriginal people were barred from pubs and shops. As a white women growing up in Mitchell remembers, the only place the two communities would meet was on the footy field. The yumbas were eventually razed to the ground and the Aboriginals relocated in town.

Because Roma’s camp had been demolished by the First World War, Indigenous people were common in town, though still fringe dwellers. The Beetsons lived in a small house on the Bungil Creek. Artie was born in January 1945, educated at the local state school and left aged 12 or 13. He played first grade league in Roma for Cities until he was 19.

Cities team mate John Vickery remembers Beetson didn’t like training but he was a natural. “He was so strong; he would have three or four defenders on him and he would still get away.” There were other qualities Vickery recalls that made the man as much as the player. “He was down-to-earth and humorous – he loved his jokes but when he was on the field he stuck to his game.” Another teammate John Ashburn remembered him as a deserved accolade of a game Immortal in 2003. “Artie had terrific ball skills and could unload a pass to anyone.” Ashburn said.

Beetson’s parents were well known around town and he was always proud to say he was from Roma. In 1962, aged 17 he was “tickled pink” to be selected for Roma against Charleville. On the team bus he watched as teammates got plastered and learned the drinking culture. He transferred to Redcliffe in 1964 aged 19 and said the training regime was not like today. “If it rained we played cards and drank a keg,” he said. “It rained a lot in Redcliffe.” Nevertheless, Beetson helped Redcliffe become good. In 1965 Beetson played in the forwards as the Dolphins beat Valleys 15-7 to take the Brisbane premiership over the Hornibrook Bridge for the first time. They would not win again until 1994. Before their losing final in 1987, general manager Don McLennon reminisced on the Beetson win. “Arthur played the majority of his football as a centre in his two seasons with us,” he said. “He was a huge manager and it was a masterstroke of Henry (Holloway, the captain-coach) to switch him to the forwards.”

He was too good for Queensland and moved to Balmain Tigers in 1966 aged 21, getting to the grand final in his first season. Beetson said the season ended in bitter disappointment after a stunning start. “We won our first 10 games and beat the Englishmen – the only club side to do it.” The season fell apart after Balmain hooker Dick Wilson negotiated a bet for a friend on Newtown to beat his own side. Wilson was expelled after Newtown won, though Beetson claimed Wilson made no money out of it. When the reserve hooker broke a collar bone in the semi-final, it left them in trouble for the final against St George. St George had won the last 10 premierships and Balmain with young Artie – picked in all three Australian international games that year – were fancied by some to slay the dragons despite losing to them in the semi. It was a one-sided final with St George thrashing Balmain 23-4.

The year 1967 was a “disaster” according to Beetson with Balmain missing out on the finals and Beetson missing out on a Kangaroos tour. In the off-season Beetson moved to England to play for Hull Kingston Rovers. Beetson’s second game was one he’d never forget. It was the derby against local rivals Hull played at 11am on Christmas Day. Artie and fellow Australian Jim Hull slept in after a skinful the night before and when they arrived at the ground, two substitutes were ready to start. The pair dressed hurriedly and for the first time in his career Beetson didn’t strap his ankles.

“I made a break down the sideline and the winger tried to tackle me high,” he said. “I pushed him down and he wrapped his legs around mine just as two other Hull players came over the top.” Beetson went down like a sack of potatoes, crying in agony. He was in pain for months and considered giving the game away. But at Balmain for the new season he worked his way back into the game.

Balmain won the premiership in 1969 but Beetson watched from the sidelines. He was sent off in the finals and suspended for two matches. People kept telling him he got them there and he won a premiership blazer but it was a terrible disappointment. In 1970 Beetson had his nose broken in the first test match against Britain and smashed again in the second. “It rearranged my face putting my nose over my left ear,” he said. Beetson parted company with Balmain when they refused his request for $2500 sign-on fee, normal match payments and $150 a win. When Dennis Tutty won a court case in 1971 against the transfer system, Balmain hastily sold Beetson for $15,000 to avoid him walking out for nothing.

“I thought no one would pay that but then Easts stepped in,” he said. The new club helped him tame an eating problem and trim his weight. He thrived under Don Furner and Jack Gibson and he was a regular in internationals winning the world championship in 1975 and premierships in 1974 and 1975. When Gibson left Easts in 1977, Beetson became captain coach with moderate success. He switched to Parramatta in 1979 where he got a chance to play for his beloved Queensland.

NSW played Queensland many times in the 1970s but the more powerful Sydney league was too good for Brisbane league and Queensland lost 15 times in a row. In 1980, a new concept called State of Origin allowed Queensland to choose seven players playing in Sydney. Parramatta’s Beetson was the captain. 28,000 turned up to Lang Park to see Queensland upset the favourites to win 20-10. It was Beetson’s only game for the Maroons. Beetson returned to Redcliffe in 1981 and coached them to a grand final defeat. He was captain coach of the Maroons that year but had to withdraw with injury hours before the game. Queensland won again without him and a new tradition was born.

It became a tri-series in 1982 with Beetson as Queensland coach and they won 2-1. It was the same in 1983 and 84 before Beetson stood down. He coached Easts to a 1987 finals defeat to Canberra Raiders. He returned to State of Origin in 1988 coaching Lewis, Meninga, Belcher, Vautin and Miles and whitewashed the Blues coached by old mentor Jack Gibson. “The side that year was as near to perfect,” Beetson said. Gibson gained revenge with a 1989 win and Queensland sacked Artie. After a stint as commentator, he returned as Cronulla coach. He could not win a premiership for the Sharks and in 1993 he bowed out. His “cloth cap” image did not suit a game heading into the Super League era.

Beetson returned to his mother’s home town of Cherbourg to offer support to the Indigenous population. Cherbourg school principal Chris Sarra remembers his visit to ABC reporter John Taylor. “He gave so much back, particularly to young Aboriginal children,” Sarra said. “The kids were so excited, even though they didn’t quite understand how legendary he was. I got a sense that we were in the presence of almost royalty on that occasion.” Taylor said Beetson loved being there. “Just a game of footy on a bush oval on an afternoon,” Taylor said. “I think that was Arthur’s idea of the best of times.”

He would be the best player to emerge from Roma until Darren Lockyer followed in his footsteps in the 1990s.