all the fun of APEC

[satyrica]

 so [for the benfeit of my non-Aussie readership, George Bush is in Sydney for a few days as a guest of the Asia Pacific Economic Somethingorother, leading to some seriously insane security measures, restrictions of civil liberties and attempts to intimidate people out of protesting by the governments, police and corporate media- there were all kinds of restricted zones, suspensions of public transport, an extra public holiday declared to try to keep people out of the city, black lists of known activists not allowed into the areas, emptying of prisons in preparation for potential arrests, legal and bureaucratic attempts to prevent protest marches and some fairly blatant attempts to try to provoke the confrontations that they insinuate the protestors are planning

it's been seriously full-on and there's been a lot of apprehension in the protest community leading up to this about the attacks from the state they were likely to experience, I's in many ways as much relieved that I wasn't going to be around for it as I was disappointed I'd be missing out; so, although the main day of protest is still to come, I've been equal parts relieved for the sake of friends and amused by some of the media reports coming out so far . . .

<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/06/1188783415499.html">TV comics waved through into restricted zones dressed as Bin Laden</a>

<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/first-apec-arrests-a-real-sauce/2007/09/07/1188783468813.html">first arrest ketchup-related</a>

Comments

[jenny-gould.livejournal.com]

Great links. :0)

not just Auz Newz

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

I was quite interested in the 'unexpected' candidate for causing bee
colonies to collapse (CCD), which was displaced from the bulletins
along with rising tensions betweeen Ethiopia and Eritrea as they
jockey-posture before a last-minute border summit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6982244.stm
for the comedy-terrorist (Aaron Barschak, anyone?) piece of
antipodean silliness.

This APEc stunt made it onto the Today/radio4 bulletins, though since
they merely "got within metres of" GWB's hotel, it isn't all that
impressive. It is inherently funny for getting comedians in rag-head
robes (look, I went to T E Lawrence's college, I can do depth, but!)
past a ring of snipery steel, but when e.g. saving yourself outrageous
overseas roaming charges by giving your SIM chip to a relative
can get your work permit and visa revoked in Oz, it is less amusing.

Six months in chokey for a stunt would be quite galling - being
shipped out to Guantanamo and deprived of all media and lawyers
for an indeterminate time would really mess up a media-ocrity.

I like to think of Onion headlines in the near-vicinity of "standard
of Bin-Laden Fakes Falls: [sub] UK Bin Laden fake reached Royal family
while Oz variant just gets a bit close to a hotel which may or may
not have contained Dubya Gump"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3011856.stm (Barschak at royal b'day)

I still don't know what the Brand New Notion element in CCD might be,
bah, though since this is a recent update to the BBC News site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6978848.stm
someone appears to have been surprised that it might be a virus as
well as or instead of "stress". Like UK GPs, apiarists have been
saying "might well be a virus" for some time: the varroa mite is not
just parasitic on bees, but a known disease vector.

So, there's a strong, but not absolute, epidemiological correlation
between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) -a bad thing in itself-
and CCD. Big whup.

The article even admits Disease remained a strong contender though, particularly in the light of the known impact of mites such as the varroa. And genetics offered the opportunity to analyse what organisms were living with and on the bees.

[uberredfraggle.livejournal.com]

I think Chasers rock and was glad thy did soemthing for APEC. I bet they've been planning for months. THe interview I heard with their producer yesterday said he was still hopeful lthey would get the tapes back in time for next weeks show. I hope so!!