The long, sordid history behind China's blame-the-woman syndrome

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AUSTRALIANS and New Zealanders are the biggest recreational drug users in the world

via news.com.au

AUSTRALIANS and New Zealanders are the biggest recreational drug users in the world, according to the 2012 United Nations World Drug Report.

The use of ecstasy is in decline in Australia, but cocaine use is on the rise and Australians and New Zealanders consume more marijuana per capita than any other country.

 

Altogether, annual use among Australians and New Zealand for all drugs except for heroin "remain much higher than the global average", said the report, published a short time ago in Vienna.

 

The major destinations for cocaine traffickers continue to be in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, suggesting the Mexican drug cartels are continuing to make strong inroads into the Oceanic market.   

 

The report states that cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance across the globe, with the highest prevalence of use among Australians and New Zealanders. Between 9.1 and 14.6 per cent of the population use the drug, compared to the estimated annual worldwide usage of 2.6 to 5.0 per cent.

 

The report, which mostly relies from statistics gathered in 2010, says that while cocaine use has decreased in North America, its use is up a full percentage point in Australia with 1.5 to 1.9 per cent of the population using the drug.

 

Ecstasy use in Australian declined from 3.7 per cent to 3.0 percent between 2007 and 2010, but this might be explained by the fact Australia reported more ecstasy lab busts than any other country.

 

The report also noted strong growing trends in the black market for pills.

 

"There was also a statistically significant increase in the use of pharmaceuticals for non-medical purposes in Australia, with annual prevalence for persons aged 14 and over rising from 3.7 per cent in 2007 to 4.2 per cent in 2010," said the report.

 

"Cannabis remains the most prevalent drug in Australia, as well as the main substance accounting for demand for treatment for substance abuse (50 per cent), with heroin and amphetamines accounting for almost 20 per cent of treatment demand. 

 

"Of the 1,790 drug-related deaths reported in 2010, nearly 40 per cent were due to opioids and approximately a quarter attributed to benzodiazepines."

 

The report also indicated that Australia may be a victim of its own high reporting standards, especially in regards to cocaine, because countries such as China and India did not provide information for the report. 

 

But the decrease in ecstasy use may not be because of its fading popularity but because of seizures.

 

"In Oceania, seizures also continued to increase in Australia, where 112kg of 'ecstasy'-group substances were seized in 2010, compared with 54kg in 2008 and 59kg in 2009," said the report.

 

Australia had the highest number of lab busts in 2010, with 17 shut down. 

 

But the report said: "Despite a decline in reported 'ecstasy' manufacture, it is worth noting that some countries, such as Australia and Indonesia, reported an increase in the manufacturing capability or size of laboratories."

 

The report also found that most Australians who used more than one drug also used cannabis, but the majority of cannabis users – 61 per cent – did not use any other drug.

 

Most heroin seized moving into Australia was sourced from South-West Asia but Australian use overall remained low. This was attributed to the lasting effects of worldwide 2001 heroin drought, which caused many users to switch drugs.

 

Damage by disease to 2010 Afghan poppy crops has painted a picture of lower opiate use worldwide, but the report warns the recovery of the crops is likely to see an increase in heroin use once again.

 

Globally, cannabis remains the most widely used drug followed by amphetamine—type stimulants, including ecstasy.

Good Bye Lonesome George!

Lonesome George has died, leaving the world one species poorer.

The only remaining Pinta Island tortoise and celebrated conservation icon passed away Sunday, the Galapagos National Park Service said in a statement.

Estimated to be more than 100 years old, the creature's cause of death remains unclear and a necropsy is planned.

Lonesome George's longtime caretaker, Fausto Llerena, found the tortoise's remains stretched out in the "direction of his watering hole" on Santa Cruz Island, the statement said.

Lonesome George was discovered on Pinta Island in 1972 at a time when tortoises of his type were already believed to be extinct. Since then, the animal had been part of the park service's tortoise program.

Repeated efforts to breed Lonesome George failed.

"Later two females from the Espanola tortoise population (the species most closely related to Pinta tortoises genetically) were with George until the end," the park service said.

In honor of Lonesome George, the park service said it was convening an international workshop in July on management strategies for restoring tortoise populations over the next decade.

The Galapagos Islands, situated about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador's coast, is considered a haven for tortoises.

ponytai-cut sentence : Valerie Bruno vs Scott Johansen

source: Yahoo News

A mom who felt "intimidated" when a juvenile court judge offered to reduce her teenage daughter's sentence if she agreed to cut off the 13-year-old's ponytail in court has filed a complaint against him.

Valerie Bruno of Price, Utah, filed a formal complaint with the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission against Scott Johansen, a judge in the 7th District, Utah's Deseret News reports. In May, Johansen ordered Bruno's daughter, Kaytlen Lopan, to serve 30 days in detention and perform 276 hours of community service for cutting off a 3-year-old's hair.

According to police, Lopan and her 11-year-old friend "endeared themselves" to the 3-year-old girl at McDonald's in Price, then used scissors to "cut several inches of hair from the little girl's head."

"She definitely needed to be punished for what had happened," Bruno told Deseret News. "But I never dreamt it would be that much of a punishment."

Johansen offered to reduce the sentence to 126 hours of community service if her Bruno cut off her daughter's ponytail in the courtroom.

"I'm going to give you this option: I will cut that by 150 hours if you want to cut her hair right now," Johansen said in court.

"Me, cut her hair?" Bruno asked.

"Right now," the judge said. "I'll go get a pair of scissors and we'll whack that ponytail off."

Bruno reluctantly agreed.

"I felt very intimidated," Bruno said. "An eye for an eye, that's not how you teach kids right from wrong."

According to the Associated Press, Mindy Moss, the mother of the 3-year-old, approved the sentence and "even spoke up during the hearing when she felt Bruno had not cut off enough of her daughter's hair." Johansen told Bruno to cut the ponytail "all the way 'to the rubber band.'"

Johansen ordered the friend of Bruno's daughter--who helped cut the 3-year-old's hair--to "have her hair cut as short as his." The friend, though, was "allowed to go to a salon to have it done, then return to the courtroom to ensure that the new hairstyle met with the judge's approval."

(BN) Merkel Backs Debt Sharing in Germany Amid Closer EU Push

Bloomberg News, sent from my Android phone

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government agreed to underwrite the debt of Germany's states, backing a form of burden-sharing that she is resisting at the euro-area level to combat the financial crisis.

The federal government, facing pressure from the 16 states over tighter European Union budget rules that risked worsening a deficit squeeze, unexpectedly backed a form of shared liability to help the states meet constitutional budget limits. The two layers of government plan their first joint debt sale in 2013, the government press office said in an e-mailed statement.

Merkel's government backed down in a deal the opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament, said will help secure ratification of the EU's fiscal pact in Germany. The accord doesn't mean Germany is ready to assume similar liability for the euro zone, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

Joint debt sales in the 17-nation currency region "don't make sense" as long as budgets are set by national governments, Schaeuble told ZDF television late yesterday. "As long as the national states make the decisions, they have to be liable. If you can spend money on my tab, you won't be thrifty."

Bavaria, one of Germany's richest states and home to the world's two-biggest makers of luxury cars, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Audi AG, has deployed the same argument against shared debt sales in Germany, saying so-called Deutschland bonds would weaken budget discipline. Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in March that she opposed the measure.

Merkel Concessions

Pressed by the Social Democrat-led opposition that could block the fiscal pact in parliament, Merkel has now agreed to the policy. Besides Deutschland bonds, concessions by Merkel's coalition include 580 million euros ($729 million) in one-time federal aid to local governments and a commitment of 75 million euros annually for day care, plus an unspecified amount of federal help to states to care for the elderly, said Kurt Beck, the Social Democratic premier of Rhineland-Palatinate state.

"We reached a solution that makes it clear there will be approval" of the fiscal pact in the upper house, the Bundesrat, Beck said yesterday in an ARD television interview.

Germany's SPD, buoyed by the election in France of Socialist Francois Hollande as president, has won additional concessions from Merkel in the lower house, the Bundestag, where she needs opposition votes to pass the fiscal pact with the required two-thirds majority and associated legislation setting up the permanent rescue fund before the summer recess on July 6.

Hollande Talks

At the SPD's behest, Merkel is pushing for a financial transaction tax among a smaller group of EU nations after negotiations among all 27 states foundered. The SPD also aligned with Hollande in demanding measures to spur growth in Europe, and Merkel backed plans to lobby EU leaders meeting in Brussels on June 28-29 to accept a growth plan of as much as 130 billion euros, or about 1 percent of the euro-region's economic output.

Even so, she signaled her rejection of joint euro-area debt sales, another policy backed by the SPD and her European partners including Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. Merkel said as recently as June 23 that "liabilities and controls" must "go together." She is due to meet with Hollande for dinner in Paris on June 27.

With paths to closer European union on the agenda for the EU summit, Schaeuble told this week's Der Spiegel magazine that a national referendum on further integration is possible, saying that he didn't expect the euro region to break up and that a dissolution of the EU would be "absurd."

Germany's economy, Europe's biggest, might shrink by as much as 10 percent in the year after a breakup of the euro and the number of jobless rise to more than 5 million from less than 3 million at present, the magazine cited an unpublished Finance Ministry study as concluding.

As a result, the cost of rescuing the euro may be the lesser evil compared with a return to national currencies, Spiegel cited an unnamed Finance Ministry official as saying.

Germany wants "more Europe" and is ready to consider ceding powers to achieve it, Schaeuble said on ZDF. "That can happen very quickly" if EU leaders reach agreement at their Brussels summit this week. "If the others are willing, that's good. Last time, the U.K. really held us back."

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net

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