FEAST OR FAMINE

Diwali Mela, the Indian Festival of Lights, was a community event on Sunday, October 30, with dance, music, drama, games, poetry, yoga, henna painting, Indian food, astrology, fashion wear, and a jumping castle for the children. It was held in Glebe Park, Canberra, from 10:00am, announcing Miss India at 6:00pm and fireworks at 8:00pm.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director of the Kashmiri American Council, again calls for conflict resolution for one of the longest continuing conflicts between two countries: Kashmir caught between India and Pakistan. The peace process needs to take into account the sensitivities of Pakistan, values the sentiments of India, and keeps intact the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai says. He calls for dialogue and negotiations between the two nations – both through official and unofficial means – for non-violent dispute resolution, but add that the greatest hurdle is to get all parties to the negotiating table. Before all parties attend the negotiation process, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai says it is crucial to embark on confidence building measures first to enable all parties to attain a sense of trust and act in good faith toward fair resolutions. India and Pakistan governments have recently commenced negotiations, which the international community commended. However...

The Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, called for a sustainable population policy. In 2010, the number of babies born was the highest on record-297,900. This is a fertility rate of 1.89 babies per woman of reproductive age. However, this is below the replacement level of 2.1 babies per woman. Many countries around the world are reporting declining fertility rates due to modernization, increased education, and family planning. Australian economists warn that a below-replacement birth rate, combined with a rising life expectancy, the country will face a smaller workforce, slower economic growth, and a lot of retired folk that need to health and welfare attention. The federal Department of Treasury estimated that the increase of Australians aged 65 years and older will add $60 billion to the country’s health and welfare bill by 2050. With a lower than replacement level fertility rate, is Australia’s population also declining, leaving a dearth of young people to...

Making the news recently has been several cases of children switched at birth—that is, the child is sent home to the wrong parents. Years later the switch is discovered, but by this time, each child has been raised in someone else’s family. It is estimated that about 20,000 accidental baby switches occur annually, although most are quickly detected. But what happens if the switch happens to twins and they are switched for decades? Nancy Segal, in her research, Someone Else’s Twin, documents cases of separated twins. Segal presents three documented suppositions: (1) Genetics is dominant (i.e. nature is more dominant than nurture) – Intelligence and personality are generally genetic; Segal noted that these traits were constant in identical twins raised apart. However, job satisfaction, materialism, and attachment styles are more heavily shaped by home life, i.e. nurture (the way a child is raised). (2) Parents bond to the child they raise – Even though parents had conce...

New Zealand defeated France on Saturday October 22, 2011, to win the Rugby World Cup. It was a narrow win, by one point, but one that the nation certainly needed. The past year has been tough for New Zealanders. On September 4, 2020, the South Island in the Canterbury Region received significant damage during an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 on the Richter Scale. In November 2010, mine blasts in the Pike River Mine, northwest of Greymouth in the South Island, killed 29 miners and contractors. Thirty-one miners were present in the mine during the first explosion. Two men escaped, but the rest were trapped. A second explosion five days later put an end to the rescue mission. A third and fourth explosion occurred, leaving no possibility that the men were alive. It was New Zealand’s worst mining disaster since 43 men lost their lives at Ralph’s Mine in Huntly in 1914. Three months later, in February 2011, Christchurch in the South Island was rocked by a series of earthquake...

The United Nations has predicted that the seven billionth person on earth will be born on October 31, 2011. The alternative date is 2013. While the UN predicts that the birth will occur this year, the Vienna Institute of Demography thinks it is more likely to occur early in 2013 or even as late as 2020. The confusion about how many people there are on earth and when the seven billionth person will actually be born is related to many complex issues, such as accurate country census data. Census data is usually collected every five or ten years, and some countries have not verified their data (in other words, there were controversies that have yet to be reviewed). International census experts say that some countries are under-counting; others say that some are over-counting. Most countries predict that their census count is inaccurate by about 3%. In addition, countries are rarely inaccurate in reporting their death rates, birth rates, child mortality rates, and so on. Many coun...

The Spies of the Balkans (2010) is set in 1940/41 in Salonika—Thessalonika—a mountain village on the border of Bulgaria and Greece, known as ‘the Jerusalem of the Balkans.’ Much of Europe is occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini’s Italian army is in Albania on the Greek frontier. Germany was now interested in the region. Detective Costa Zannis had an international reputation in the political sphere and was in much demand. A German was in town, and so were a lot of spies. But this German was a Jewish woman, Frau Emilia Krebs, trying to get her friend’s two children out of Berlin to Turkey. Costa becomes embroiled in a plot to smuggle Jews from Europe to Istanbul. Residents of Salonika were preparing for resistance, buying weapons and stockpiling them. World War II brought disaster for the Jewish Greeks—in 1941 the Germans occupied Greece and began actions against the Jewish population. From occupied Paris to Berlin, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade and Istanbul, this ...

In September 2011, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) where the population is 350,000, a total of 207 infringement notices were issued to people using their handheld mobile phone while driving. Although this is a decline on the August figure of 276 infringement notices, statistics show that the trend fluctuates annually. To date, the ACT has already reached the 2010 total statistics for infringements. Last year 1,776 people were booked for driving while using a handheld mobile phone. This year’s figure, to the end of September, is already 1,777. In Australia, it is illegal to drive while using a handheld mobile phone. The penalty is a significant fine and three demerit points. Talking, sending or receiving text messages, playing games, or taking photos are all illegal if you are driving at the same time. It is also illegal if your vehicle is stopped, but not parked—for example, when you are waiting at traffic lights. The phone must be mounted in a commercially designed...

Street youth, writers, musicians, elderly dancers, and puppeteers are celebrating the announcement of the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) Arts Funds grants. More than fifty community groups received funding ranging from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands for each project. Examples of projects funded include: a project for young street artists; a cross-cultural dance collaboration; the production of a puppet play; and dance classes for elderly and special needs groups.

The Canberra Korean Community designated Saturday 15th of October as ‘Korea Day’ for citizen in Canberra to celebrate the last day of ‘Korea Week’ as part of the Korea-Australia Year of Friendship. There were events and performances in Glebe Park including Taekown-do and Taekkyeon demonstrations, and a concert by Nanjang & Pan (Korean folk music and arts performance troupe), Triple B (Korean Amateur Rock Band), and the International Youth Performing Arts Company. Korean food stalls were open from 11:00am until late in the afternoon with Bul-go-gi (Korean barbeque) and Kimchi (a traditional fermented dish of vegetables, such as cabbage, radish, onions, cucumber, and seasonings) and pancakes. The year 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and Australia. Therefore both governments designated 2011 as the Korea-Australia ‘Year of Friendship’ and jointly launched the ‘Year of Friendship’ websites. Throughout the year, the...

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, on October 7, awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize to three formidable women: Tawakkul Karman, a leader of anti-government protests in Yemen; Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president in 2005; and Leymah Gbowee, also of Liberia who campaigned against the use of rape as a weapon of war. Karman is the first Arab woman to win the peace prize. The award was recognition for the Arab Spring revolution over the past year, demanding a change in political oppression, and women’s role in the rise of new democracies. Karman, 32, is a member of a political party linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement, which the Nobel Committee regarded as “an important part” of the Arab Spring. The Nobel Committee awarded Karman, 32, as a peace prize recipient because she "started her activism long before the revolution took place in Tunisia and Egypt. She has been a very courageous woman in Yemen for...

I bought The Traveler (2010) by Turkish writer, Sadik Yalsizucanlar at the airport in Istanbul. The Traveler is known only as The Traveler, a man with no name, who meets and often lives with people on his journey from Spain to Mecca. He falls in love with Harmony, a woman of intense beauty, who shatters his notion that “love is the existence of a lover.” He also meets a man he names Abdullah who accompanies him to Granada in Spain. On his travels, he also writes. He is a poet and author, and as he wrote the last chapter of one of his books in Cordoba, Spain, a pen, called The Quill, speaks to him, providing divine inspiration. The Traveler is actually the story of the well-known sufi thinker and poet Muhammad (Muhiyiddin) Ibn ‘Arabi, described as the Leonardo da Vinci of the East, who lived during the Middle Ages in Andalusian Spain, but also the story of universal humanity and the universal traveler. The style is meditative and serene, simple and spiritual, reflecting ...

On October 8, 2005, Kashmir was struck by an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale resulting in widespread devastation and approximately 86,350 fatalities—making it the most fatal earthquake to occur in the Indian subcontinent. At 8.50 in the morning the Himalayan region of northern Pakistan and Kashmir felt the quake, with its epicentre 19 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. In addition to the enormous fatalities – 19,000 of which were children, approximately 138,000 were injured and over 3.5 million were left homeless as 780,000 buildings were either destroyed or damaged. Approximately 250,000 farm animals died and more than 500,000 required shelter from the harsh winter. Due to the mountainous area, many landslides were triggered along the fault line. The landslides and rock falls added to the considerable damage as well as the disruption to roads, structures, and communities. The government of Pakistan estimate...

The inaugural “Living Green Festival” will be held in the Albert Hall on Commonwealth Avenue in the city of Canberra, the capital of Australia, on Sunday, October 16 from 10:00am to 4:00pm. The theme of the festival is “a kinder shade of green” which makes the link between climate change and a compassionate lifestyle. The festival will showcase easy ways humans can reduce their carbon footprint and be more considerate of the animals we share the planet with. It will feature entertainment, speakers, children’s videos, informative videos, as well as product and food stalls. www.livinggreenfestival.org.au

The novel, An Artist of the Floating World (1986), by the author of Remains of the Day is written from a retired Japanese artist’s perspective after World War II, from 1948 to 1950. Masuji Ono reflects on his memories of the “floating world” - a reference to his youthful life imbibing in the pleasures of art, entertainment and alcohol. Now a grandfather, Masuji Ono has lost a wife (who died in 1945) and a son, Kenji (attempting to cross a minefield to escape the bombings during the war). His two daughters, Noriko and Setsuko, and Setsuko’s seven-year-old son, Ichiro, and his artist colleagues, are the subjects of his memoir. This is a beautifully sentimental portrayal of family relationships and gender roles and expectations: grandfather and grandson; married sister and single sister, father and daughters; father and son; father and son-in-law; art teacher and art students; husband and wife; aunt and nephew; and mother and son. These current relationships are entangled in...

Women of Kashmir urge progress toward peace between India and Pakistan. An Intra-Kashmir Women’s Conference, organized by the New Delhi Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation and Srinagar Women for Peace, was held on 27-29 September 2011 in Gulmarg to bring 45 women together from both sides of the Line of Control, a boundary separating Pakistan-administered Kashmir from India-controlled Kashmir, to strategize for peace. The disputed 1972 Line of Control is a military (de facto) border between Indian and Pakistan controlled Kashmir. The Indian military commenced construction of a double-row electrified fencing and concertina wire 2.4-3.7 metres (8-12 feet) in height along the 740 kilometres (460 miles) border. The land in between the fencing is mined. Its initial purpose was to keep out Pakistan militants who crossed into the Indian side of Kashmir, the disputed state, although Pakistan has objected to the barrier stating it is illegal to erect such as construction. The outcome...

The annual Floriade flower festival (September 17-October 16) in Australia’s capital, Canberra, has as its theme for 2011, “a feast for the senses.” Every day in October, the senses will be tempted by culinary demonstrations during Floriade that include a pantry marquee, well-known chefs creating food treats, and stalls selling food and beverages. Some of the highlights include: (1) October 1: Making Gnocchi – Bicicletta Restaurant staff (Diamant Hotel) demonstrate homemade pasta, the gnocchi (2) October 1 and 7: Truffles – Capital Country Truffle Festival experts demonstrate the gourmet truffle (3) October 2: Tasty Science Show – staff of Questacon (Canberra’s science interactive museum) demonstrate the science and technology of the tongue (4) October 2-3: Latin America Feast – Carnival in the Park present a taste of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and more (5) October 4: The Perfect Macaron – Owen from the Dream Cuisine demonstrates the art of mak...