PARCHED IN AUSTRALIA DROUGHT CHANGES VIEWS ON WARMING

THE 137TH AUSTRALIAN FARMER TO BE MURDERED THIS YEAR & ON XMAS EVE
COULD NOT BE SAVED

Ladies & Gentlemen of Australia,

I am sorry to report that the 137th Australian farmer murdered this
year on Xmas Eve could not be rescued from the fatal bullet wound in
his head ! Emergency services of Lake King called on the scene soon
after the 137th Australian Farmer's murder in 2006 could only pronounce
clinical death due to the loss of blood. The 137th Australian farmer
leaves behind a widow of 37 wrapped in blunt courage indeed and 3 kids
whose eldest was going to celebrate his 14th birthday in January. The
137th farmer leaves also behind 275 000 $ of debts hence the whole
property and all farm assets estimated worth 2.5 millions dollars
before the Divine Drudging Drought sets in will be sold by the
Financial Vultures to immediately recover their money... unfortunately
the whole farm and assets will not reach now the value required and
once all sold the widow and kids will still be liable to pay the
balance to the bank the rest of their lives

The 137th Australian Farmer's Widow still managing to show a brave face
with her worn out face still marked by tears said to the Emergency
services officers
QUOTE : We shall all move to town and work hard to repay the debt, and
I will do my best for the kids not to suffer unduly from the loss of
their dear father. I am afraid though they will not be able to pursue
higher studies. My eldest was keen to enter Curtin University to become
a geologist ... I am afraid now that he will have to start a baker
apprenticeship
UNQUOTE
Of course there was no word of soothing nor of sympathy from the WA
Whorehouse aka Parliament, and a word on Carpenter's office door said
:
DO NOT DISTURB CRICKET MATCH IN PROGRESS !

With all my sincere sympathy to the bereaved family

Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud
Exploration Geologist & Offshore Consultant
Mobile +33 650 171 464

Australia Mining Pioneer
Founder of the True Geology
http://www.tnet.com.au/~warrigal/grule.html
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/tel/index.html
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/turcaud.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s28534.htm

Please read on below the real state of the United States of Asia aka
Australia
************************************************** *****************************************



THE DAILY STAR

Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 921 Fri. December 29, 2006

Environment

PARCHED IN AUSTRALIA DROUGHT CHANGES VIEWS ON WARMING

Tim Johnston

Australia's long hot summer has barely begun, but already the dams are
running dry, crops are stunted from lack of water, and livestock
markets are being overwhelmed by farmers trying to sell sheep and
cattle they cannot feed.

Australia's drought is now in its fourth year, and out in the vast
expanses of the Australian outback, where farms that can be the size of
small nations mold a hardy breed of farmer, there is desperation.

"The crunch has really come," said Alan McCormack, who farms 3,300
hectares, or 8,100 acres, in the heart of the eastern state of New
South Wales, about 250 kilometers, or 150 miles, from Sydney. "This
spring drought has pushed everyone into the same position. They don't
know where they are going to go; they don't know what they are going to
do; they don't know how they are going to get through it."

Stock-sale yards in rural towns like Wagga Wagga are seeing record
numbers of sheep and cattle passing through their pens as farmers
offload stock at fire-sale prices rather than have them die in barren
pastures. Prices for sheep are down by as much as 80 percent in some
areas, and cattle by 40 percent.

The latest report from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and
Resource Economics paints a dire picture for the country's agricultural
sector. More than half the country's farmland is now officially
classified as drought-stricken, and the bureau says that production of
the three main resource crops -- wheat, barley and canola -- will be
cut by more than 60 percent this year.

The bureau also expects the drought to cut growth in the country's
gross domestic product by 0.7 percentage point this year.

The drought is now affecting Australia's political environment as much
as its agricultural landscape. In recent weeks, the government has
announced 1.1 million Australian dollars, or $850,000, in assistance
for farmers, bringing the total over the past four years to almost 2.3
billion dollars. It is mostly short-term assistance, in part to stave
off farm repossessions by the banks, which many fear could spark a
collapse in land prices.

But the biggest change has been to the government's position on global
warming. Surveys have repeatedly shown that the Australian electorate
is worried about the climate, but the drought has brought those fears
to a head and forced Prime Minister John Howard's governing coalition
to abandon its skeptical position and demonstrate its concern.

"Certainly, it has taken people beyond the denial phase on climate
change," said Senator Bill Heffernan, a member of the coalition and
until recently a rare campaigner within government for more action on
global warming.

"For the first time the cities are focused on their worries about the
future of water supply," he said. "Everyone has taken for granted that
you turn the tap on and water comes out. I think they now can see that
that might not necessarily continue to be the case."

In a recent survey by the Sydney- based Lowy Institute for
International Policy, Australians ranked global warming third among
critical threats to the country's future, beaten only by international
terrorism and nuclear proliferation. 68 percent of the survey's
respondents agreed with the statement that immediate steps should be
taken to tackle the problem even if doing so involve significant cost.

The Australian government has come under considerable pressure both at
home and abroad for its refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement on limiting
greenhouse-gas emissions. But until recently it has resisted, saying
that because the agreement does not include either China or India, it
would achieve little. Australia is also one of the world's largest
users and exporters of fossil fuels, particularly coal, and the
government feared that cutting emissions would be costly to the
economy.

Australia did sign up to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean
Development and Climate, which promises to search for technological
solutions to the challenge of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.
Canberra has accelerated its technology program, recently approving a
wind farm and a 420-million-dollar solar collector, but the government
and Heffernan have hinted that the change in mood might mean that other
measures, such as carbon trading, could be reassessed.

The indirect effects of the Australian drought are being felt
worldwide: Global wheat prices recently hit a 10-year high, fueled by
supply worries sparked by the country's dismal crop forecasts.

In the farming heartland of the western part of New South Wales,
farmers are turning livestock loose on their stunted fields of wheat
and barley.

"The main crops have failed. They're not even good enough to make hay
or silage," Steve Ridley, an agent with Elders, one of Australia's
biggest rural services suppliers, said at his office in the rural town
of Goulburn, where drought restrictions are so severe that water usage
is limited to just 150 liters, or 40 gallons, per resident per day.

Around Goulburn, where normally there would be 28 inches, or 71
centimeters, of rain, there has been only 14 inches so far this year,
and regions of western New South Wales have had even less. Ridley said
that many farmers are "hanging on by their fingernails."

"It's not only this dry year, it's the culmination of five or six dry
years. Anyone who had any cash reserves has lost those now and they've
gone into debt."

McCormack, who runs 12,000 sheep and some 700 cattle on his property,
has taken on an extra 200,000 dollars of debt over the past four years
and expects this year to be even worse. "Our pastures are worn out
because we've had years and years of not having the money to put back
into the property," he said.

Last season he managed to take 400,000 dollars' worth of hay from his
pastures for winter feed. "This year we'll get zilch, nothing." He will
have to buy in this year's winter feed, and prices are already rising
rapidly.

The effects are also being felt throughout the rural economy. Darryl
Clarkson, a salesman at a car dealership in Goulburn, said that sales
are down 20 percent as farmers put off replacing their utility vehicles
and four-wheel drives.

The government's shifting attitude has given new hope to McCormack, the
farmer. For the past two years he has had approval to build a wind farm
with 31 turbines, but until three weeks ago, power companies were
showing little interest in the project. McCormack says they are now
starting a bidding war to build the turbines.

Once built, the wind farm will provide a steady source of
drought-resistant income for McCormack, but he is one of the lucky
ones. Few other people have an appropriate site, and to date almost no
one else has permission to build one.

Other farmers are struggling on as best they can, and some are not
making it. Ridley, of Elders, said suicide rates are climbing rapidly.
In response to the crisis, Elders has offered two hours of free
counseling for its clients, and its Web page on drought resources
provides a selection of emergency hot line contacts for those in need.

Last Friday, the rural town of Crookwell organized a "Look After Your
Mate" meeting aimed at creating some kind of safety net for rural
communities suffering from the drought. They expected somewhere between
150 and 200 people. Over 500 turned up.