THE average weekly wage in Australia is now $1200.60 or IDR 10,5 millions

Average Aussie wage rises by 5.2pc | Business Breaking News | News.com.au

THE average weekly wage in Australia is now $1200.60, after rising by 5.2 per cent in the year to August.

The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of average weekly ordinary time earnings rose 0.9 per cent in the three months to August, Australian Bureau of Statistics data released today showed.

This was a slight moderation on the 1.3 per cent quarterly growth recorded in the three months to May but still left the annual rate well above the Reserve Bank of Australia's perceived "line in the sand" at 4.5 per cent.

Still, the composition of the AWOTE series tends to make it volatile, which is why the RBA prefers to use the wage price index - released yesterday - as one of its main guides to wages growth.

That index showed a more modest pace of growth of 0.7 per cent in the three months to September with the annual rate a subdued 3.6 per cent, its slowest pace in nearly five years

hunger in the US

17m US families too poor to eat | World Breaking News | News.com.au

THE US Agriculture Department has released bleak figures on the state of hunger in the United States, showing that more American families are having difficulty feeding their members.

The annual Household Food Security report showed that in 2008, families in 17 million households - 14.6 per cent of US homes - had difficulty putting enough food on the table at some point during the year, an 11 per cent increase over 2007.

The figures "represent the highest level observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995," the USDA said.

"The fundamental cause of food insecurity and hunger in the United States is poverty - marked by a lack of adequate resources to address basic needs such as food, shelter and health care," the statement added.

President Barack Obama described as "unsettling" the report which came as some 60 heads of state and government were attending the World Summit on Food Security in Rome.

"This trend was already painfully clear in many communities across our nation, where food stamp applications are surging and food pantry shelves are emptying," Mr Obama said.

The President said he was especially troubled that there were more than 500,000 US families "in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year".

"Our children's ability to grow, learn, and meet their full potential - and therefore our future competitiveness as a nation - depends on regular access to healthy meals," he said.

The first task to reverse the trend of rising hunger "is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day," Mr Obama said.

The President also said his administration has increased help for low-income families seeking food assistance, especially those with children.

Be Vegan

Dalam laporan PBB (FAO)  yang berjudul Livestock's Long Shadow, PBB  mencatat bahwa industri peternakan adalah penghasil emisi gas rumah kaca yang terbesar  (18%), jumlah ini lebih banyak dari gabungan emisi gas rumah kaca seluruh   transportasi di seluruh dunia   (13%). Emisi gas rumah kaca industri peternakan meliputi  9 % karbon dioksida,   37 % gas metana (efek pemanasannya 72 kali lebih kuat dari CO2 dalam 20 tahun dan 23 kali dalam 100 tahun), 65 % dinitrogen oksida (efek pemanasan  296 kali lebih kuat dari CO2),   serta 64  % amonia penyebab hujan asam. Peternakan menyita 30% dari seluruh permukaan tanah kering di Bumi dan 33% dari area tanah yang subur dijadikan ladang untuk menanam pakan ternak. Peternakan juga penyebab dari  80% penggundulan Hutan Amazon

Fashion and Brain

Fashion not a betrayal of feminist ideals, says leading headteacher | Education | guardian.co.uk

Girls interested in fashion and their appearance are not betraying feminist ideals, a leading headteacher said today.

Jill Berry, president of the Girls' Schools Association (GSA), said a desire to look attractive and intelligence are not "mutually exclusive".

Speaking ahead of the GSA's annual conference in Harrogate today, she said: "A lot of us are interested in fashion, it doesn't mean it's a betrayal of our intelligence or feminist principles."

Every girl should feel confident about the different aspects of their character, she added.

Citing recent reports about female Cambridge undergraduates posing in their underwear for an online magazine, The Tab, Berry said that although some believed it to be "a little bit distasteful", there was a need to be careful about "pigeonholing" intelligent women.

Addressing delegates at the conference, she said: "You may have read recently a story about Cambridge female undergraduates posing scantily clad, which led to media stories about 'bluestockings and bimbos'.

"Girls can be highly intelligent and interested in being seen to be attractive – the two aren't mutually exclusive.

"I love shoes but it doesn't make me shallow. Girls can have fun and also be taken seriously."

Berry, who is headteacher of Dame Alice Harpur school in Bedford, defended cheerleading – seen by some people as "low" – by saying that the activity is actually skilful, using gymnastics and dance.

She said that women are sometimes judged "harshly" for their choices, and women are often guilty of judging other women.

"We must resist the impulse to judge women, to judge them harshly and judge them narrowly," she said.

Berry said that "it is ok for girls to have fun and work hard", adding that sometimes women take themselves "too seriously".

Girls' schools want their pupils to have a "balanced life", she said.

Last week, Berry said that girls should not feel guilty for taking time out of future careers to raise children, and expectations that women can "have it all" may be overly ambitious.

Today she said that while it was right that there should be women at the top of every profession, many are choosing not to be.

"I think sometimes women choose not to do these things," she said. "It's not that they can't, not that they have tried and failed.

"There are some women who say at this stage of life, 'this is not what I want for myself, my family, my life'."

The GSA represents 187 fee-paying girls' schools in England, Wales and Scotland, collectively teaching 110,000 girls.

Belle de Jour

Belle de Jour revealed as research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti - Times Online

The secret life of Dr Brooke Magnanti, an obscure research scientist, is revealed today as she unmasks herself as the writer behind the pseudonym Belle de Jour.

Her identity has been one of the great literary mysteries of the decade after the publication of bestselling books about her secret life as a prostitute.

Magnanti is a respected specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in a hospital research group in Bristol. Six years ago, in the final stages of her PhD thesis, she ran out of money and turned to prostitution through a London escort agency, charging £300 an hour. Already an experienced science blogger, she began writing about her experiences in a web diary that was adapted into books and a television drama starring Billie Piper.

There has been huge speculation about Belle’s real identity, including a theory that she was a well-known author because of the quality of her writing. The blog and books were also criticised for suggesting prostitution could be glamorous. Last week Magnanti contacted one of Belle’s sternest critics, India Knight, the Sunday Times columnist, saying she wanted to reveal her identity.

The scientist, a petite 34-year-old, has no regrets about her 14 months as a prostitute. “I’ve felt worse about my writing than I ever have about sex for money,” she said. Anonymity had become “no fun”, however: “I couldn’t even go to my own book launch party.”

Until last week, not even her agent knew her real name. A month ago she revealed her secret to her colleagues at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health, who were “amazingly kind and supportive”. She was preparing to tell her parents this weekend.

Magnanti said she was working on a doctoral study for the department of forensic pathology of Sheffield University in 2003 when she took up prostitution. “I was getting ready to submit my thesis. I saved up a bit of money. I thought, I’ll just move to London, because that’s where the jobs are, and I’ll see what happens.

“I couldn’t find a professional job in my chosen field because I didn’t have my PhD yet. I didn’t have a lot of spare time on my hands because I was still making corrections and preparing for the viva; and I got through my savings a lot faster than I thought I would.”

When she could no longer afford her rent, she started to think: “What can I do that I can start doing straightaway, that doesn’t require a great deal of training or investment to get started, that’s cash in hand and that leaves me spare time to do my work in?”

She found an escort agency and started her secret life. “I did have another job at one point, as a computer programmer, but I kept up with my other work because it was so much more enjoyable.”

Her future lies in medical science, but she also has a literary streak. She has been writing a novel, and the Belle blog will “continue for a bit — I’d like her to have happy ending”.