Eideard

Looking to work overseas? Head to Canada, Australia or Thailand, according to an annual global survey which found recession-hit Britain was one of the worst locations to live for expatriates.

The second annual Expat Experience survey, commissioned by HSBC Bank International, revealed that expats in Canada have the best quality of life and found it among the easiest places in the world to integrate with the local population.

Australia and Thailand also came in the top three in the survey of 3,146 people working in 30 different industries and 50 countries, even though Thailand was one of the countries worst-hit by the recession for expats.

“We have seen that there is a distinct trade-off between income and overall quality of life, as many of the top performers … scored toward the bottom of this report’s league table (of the best places to make and save money),” said Betony Taylor, spokeswoman for HSBC Bank International.

“What is clear is that the locations where salaries may not be as high, such as Canada and Australia, are where expats are really enjoying not only an increased quality of life but are also finding it easy to fit in to their new communities.”

Last year Germany, Canada and Spain were the top three countries deemed to have the best lifestyle for expats.

RTFA for a bit more detail – in case you’re ready to opt for real change in your life.

There’s a bit more depth over here.

Gordon Brown is to offer a formal apology for the UK’s role in sending tens of thousands of children to a new life in Commonwealth countries during the 20th century, many without the consent of their families.

Government records show that at least 150,000 children aged between three and 14 were taken abroad, mainly to Australia and Canada, in a programme that began in 1920 and did not stop until 1967.

The children, almost invariably from deprived backgrounds and already in some form of social or charitable care, were cut off from their families or even informed, falsely, that they were orphans.

While their parents were told the child migrants had gone to a better life, in many cases they remained in institutions or were sent to farming families and treated as unpaid labour. A key subtext to the programme, particularly in relation to Australia, was an aim to supply Commonwealth nations with sufficient new white settlers.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister said…”We will undertake a period of dialogue with those affected, prior to a formal apology. We plan to make a more detailed announcement early in the new year.”

The announcement comes a day before Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is due to make a wider apology to the estimated 500,000 children, many from overseas, who were held in orphanages and other institutions around the country between 1930 and 1970.

The habits of governments who provide White Settlers are consistently racist, cruel and self-serving.

I’d rather hear that these creeps are finally pressing their political peers for a change of policies – not just apologies well after the deeds.

One of the most elegant courtship rituals in the animal kingdom has been captured on film by a BBC crew.

The dance of the weedy sea dragon takes place every year in the shallow seas off the coast of Australia. During the ghostly dance, two beautifully odd-looking fish mirror each other’s every movement.

At the end of the ritual, the male fish is the one to get pregnant, giving birth two months later…

The mirror dance usually takes place in the fading evening light.

In a graceful duet, each partner mirrors the actions of the other, swimming and wriggling their bodies.

“What’s so lovely is you feel you have seen the most intimate moments of their lives,” says Adam Chapman.

Lovely underwater photography.

Phew!

Australian police are gearing up for an annual crackdown on motor-racing fans – limiting race-goers to 24 cans of beer a day.

Spectators at the Bathurst 1000 – a three-day race meeting staged this week – will be told to stick to just the one “slab” of beer while at the racetrack…

Police hope the limits will prevent the famous New South Wales race being blighted by alcohol-related violence.

Known as “The Great Race”, the Bathurst 1000 is a 1,000km (621 mile) event, the highlight of the three-day meeting held annually in the town of the same name. Boasting a long, proud history, the race – seen as the most prestigious motor event in Australia – is currently contested by teams of drivers racing powerful touring cars equipped with V8 engines.

The “one-slab” limit was first imposed in 2007, with police insisting drunken hooligans were tarnishing the reputation of the race and causing disruption in town. Those choosing to drink lower-strength beer will be allowed to bring in 36 cans, police said.

Oh yeah. The beer cans are a little larger, too.

Researchers have discovered an unusual kind of meteorite in the Western Australian desert and have uncovered where in the Solar System it came from, in a very rare finding published today in the journal Science.

Meteorites are the only surviving physical record of the formation of our Solar System and by analysing them researchers can glean valuable information about the conditions that existed when the early Solar System was being formed. However, information about where individual meteorites originated, and how they were moving around the Solar System prior to falling to Earth, is available for only a dozen of around 1100 documented meteorite falls over the past two hundred years.

Dr Phil Bland, the lead author of today’s study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: “We are incredibly excited about our new finding. Meteorites are the most analysed rocks on Earth but it’s really rare for us to be able to tell where they came from. Trying to interpret what happened in the early Solar System without knowing where meteorites are from is like trying to interpret the geology of Britain from random rocks dumped in your back yard.”

The new meteorite, which is about the size of cricket ball, is the first to be retrieved since researchers…set up a trial network of cameras in the Nullarbor Desert in Western Australia in 2006.

The researchers aim to use these cameras to find new meteorites, and work out where in the Solar System they came from, by tracking the fireballs that they form in the sky. The new meteorite was found on the first day of searching using the new network, by the first search expedition, within 100m of the predicted site of the fall. This is the first time a meteorite fall has been predicted using only the data from dedicated instruments.

RTFA for the details. Not only about the process of determining the origin of the meteorite – but how they utilized this new camera network. Interesting tale.

Australia’s centre-left ruling party on Saturday voted for national recognition of same-sex unions but stopped short of lifting a ban on gay marriage.

The national Labor conference voted to develop a system for the registration and recognition of same-sex relationships, after gay rights advocates failed to gather enough numbers for a resolution to legalise gay marriage.

But frontbencher Anthony Albanese told delegates while it was not his “ideal position”, the watered-down resolution was an important reflection of shifting public attitudes. “History is moving forward on these issues,” said Albanese, presenting the motion for vote…

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd won the 2007 election on a platform that supported the former conservative government’s legal definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Rudd, who considers himself a moderate Christian, said earlier this week that he “fully respected” the integrity of same-sex relationships but would not change Labor’s ban on gay marriage.

His government has moved a raft of legislation to remove same-sex discrimination from almost 100 national laws, in areas such as pensions, tax and employment.

Thousands of people held rallies and demonstrations across the nation as the vote was held, calling on Labor to legalise gay marriage…

A recent poll suggested up to 60 percent of Australians supported gay marriage and the statistics bureau in May announced it would count same-sex couples who declared themselves married in the national census.

Civil Rights means everyone has an equal opportunity under law.

Keep the crap archaic religious definitions out of how you run the state.

Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan says the Taser was the best choice

A man in Western Australia was engulfed in flames when police officers fired a Taser stun gun at him.

Police say they used the Taser on Ronald Mitchell, 36, when he ran at them carrying a container of petrol and a cigarette lighter.

They said that Mr Mitchell, who lives in a remote Aboriginal community, had been sniffing petrol. They suggested the cigarette lighter started the fire.

Mr Mitchell is in a critical condition in hospital with third degree burns.

The Police Commissioner told reporters: “The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm, and the consequences would almost certainly have been far more grave.”

I hadn’t realized that police departments are down to only two choices when it comes to conflict with a suspect: taser – or shoot ‘em?

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine…

Australia supplies about 50% of the world’s legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers…

“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.

“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”

Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually.

“There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles,” he added.

Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Unfortunately, they also vote.

Australia’s biggest wind farm with almost 600 turbines, is to be be built in far western New South Wales.

State government approval has been given for the project, which will generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes.

Premier Nathan Rees said on Wednesday the $2.2 billion venture near Broken Hill would help secure NSW’s future energy needs.

“The construction of Silverton Wind Farm Developments (SWFD) wind farm is great news for jobs and the economy in the far west and even better news for the environment…” Mr Rees said the wind farm would create 700 jobs in the Broken Hill area during the five-year construction period and 120 jobs when up and running…

Stage one will involve erecting 282 wind turbines, with the number increasing to 598 by the final stage.

NSW had approved 14 wind farms with a total capacity output of 2,486 megawatts since 2005, Mr Rees said.

“When all of these wind farms are up and running they will save more than six million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually,” he said. “This is the same as taking over one million cars off the road and will have capacity to power approximately 800,000 houses.”

Crikey! Looks like a lot of space in my neck of the prairie. In winter. We get a little greener than this.

I only wish we had the wind power, politicians, utility companies and conviction to match. PNM – our electric company here in New Mexico – functions as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Los Angeles County.