kiwipete

A most tragic case of parents tough love gone so sadly wrong - their youngest son loses his life!

A 17 yr old Auckland, New Zealand,youth was facing a charge of unlawfully converting his mother's car. His parents decided albeit wisely or unwisely, to try and teach their youngest son some responsibility for his actions. They persuaded the District Court judge to remand him in custody and enable him to gain some first hand knowledge of the justice system - a little time at the coalface, if you like!

The youth, named Liam, was transported from the court with 13 other remand prisoners in a private security company's van which was divided into four compartments - there has not yet any reason given to why the Corrections Department did not transport the prisoners to the remand prison - and Liam was put into one of the compartments with two other men, one of whom was a violent gang member with a string of 80 convictions behind him.

That man has now been arrested for Liam's death after allegedly beating and strangling the youth to death with his handcuffs on the way to the remand prison.

The 25 yr old man is understood to be a member of a notorious local gang with convictions for firearms offences, escaping from custody and aggravated robbery.

His last court appearance which resulted in him being in the same security van as young Liam, was for aggravated robbery and wounding with intent, and had to be accompanied to court by four armed guards because of his violent history and unpredictability.

How on earth was the youth, who has had no previous offences,placed with such a felon?

The devastated family find the situation that led to their son's death , untenable, intolerable and unacceptable under any circumstances, and obviously negligent.They, too,wonder just how their son could have been placed in the van with such a person.They do not need any reminding that it was their initial decision to have their son put into custody, when he could have been bailed.

When the van had arrived at the remand prison Liam had not been breathing. Ambulance officers managed to resuscitate him, but such was the severity of his subsequent brain damage the family later had his life support turned off.

A post mortem established the cause of death and an enquiry will be held to determine why Liam was put in the van with such a violent prisoner.

A devastated family continues to grieve for the death of their youngest son in such circumstances.

The prisoner has now been officially charged with the murder of the youth who had his own challenges; he was an at risk youth who had been assessed with ADHD earlier in his young life, something that undoubtably created its own difficulties.

Well here I am complaining about the cold, the rain, and the snow; and the Aussies are begging for it!

Its a funny old world. We are only about 2-3 hours and 2,500 odd miles away from Australia and the difference in weather patterns is actually huge, despite it being the end of winter.

Locally, hillsides gave way, and one house had to be half demolished because some idiot didn't do his sub-division job properly fourty years ago, and the owners have now lost their house.Not a great prospect when approaching your retirement,I would suggest.

He failed to shut the gate - looked into two sets of golden eyes - and nearly became lions supper!

It happened in Wellington,New Zealand in Jan 2006:

A Wellington,New Zealand,zookeeper with 19 years experience nearly paid the ultimate price when he failed to take safety precautions by assuming an animal trainer had locked the gate to the cage when leaving.

He now claims that he has been forced out of his job by Zoo management because they claimed he was partly responsible for the error in judgement and his serious mishap.

Bob Bennet, aged 54 yrs,stated that he would always carry the scars of his encounter with a pair of two year old African lions, Malik and Zulu, after he left the gate open at feeding time.

He suffered 20 puncture wounds to his arms,back,shoulders and neck, spending three days in hospital after the 20 minute attack earlier this year, which occurred in front of two hundred visitors.

He remembers putting out the food, heard the clanging of the gate and looked into two sets of golden eyes.He tried to fight the young lions off with a bucket, but they battered him around, to and thro, like a plaything before losing interest in him.

Other Zoo staff finally distracted the two lions.The Zoo management said that firing Mr Bennet had been a big call, considering his 19 year experience,but they couln't afford a repetition of such a mistake in failing to shut the gate.

Just what would have been the outcome if these had been adult lions?

Rising petrol prices at the pump have spurred a new type of theft -licence plates!

The theft of vehicle licence plates is soaring nationwide in New Zealand now - with drive-off thieves in petrol stations using them to disguise their cars, now that petrol prices have doubled in the last 12 mths.

The continued use of the stolen licence plates during petrol thefts allegedly highlights a sinister level of planning by thieves as they plan to dodge tighter security measures adopted by petrol station owners, such as forecourt video monitoring devices.

Police National HQ officers met representatives of the fuel industry recently, as they planned moves to reduce the thefts in a number of cities.

The thefts which have grown significantly in the last few months forced a petrol station owner to track down a licence plate owner after another drive-off theft - a blue Mitsubishi had been used in the robbery, the same as the owner's car.She was sent a letter which demanded instant payment of the stolen petrol. She rang back,devastated and in tears, explaining her licence plates had been stolen at the local speedway.

Chevron NZ the owners of the Caltex chain of petrol stations in NZ claimed," It is sinister,its malicious theft and not opportunist."

An Auckland council has launched a "safe plates" campaign to replace licence plate screws with tamper-proof bolts for free.

Over 650 independent service stations represented by the NZ Moter Trades Association are eager to emulate this initiative in their own areas.

Other initiatives were being created in various parts of the country.The courts were also clamping down on criminals caught stealing petrol and licence plates - with suspensions of licences,significant fines and community service.

They have signalled the end of the road for the thieves.

The Great Green Wall of China!
Overgrazing, drought, deforestation and over- exploitation of water resources - an obvious world wide problem - are turning vast ares of rural China into a dust bowl.

As a consequence Chinese authorities could be becoming unlikely world leaders by instituting the biggest ecological project ever seen.The programme will be known as the " great green wall" - trees have been planted on an unprecented scale to create a barrier that will stop the encroaching dust bowl in its tracks.Various grasses and shrubs are also being planted to stabilise dusty soils.

The project which actually started in 1978 is halfway through its goal of covering 35 million hectares of land in drought tolerant trees.

Sweatshops! What does this conjure up in your mind? Victorian England,South East Asian economies or perhaps China?

Sweatshops were once synonymous with Victorian England and the advent of the industrial age, and the society described in the Charles Dickens classics - young boys working down in coal pits; and even younger and smaller boys being slung down the chimney stacks as cleaners for the rich and famous of those times; and their little sisters scrubbing stone floors for twelve or more hours a day. And the poor, needy and unemployed just existing in the workhouses created for the underclasses.

In recent decades sweatshop conditions became a term associated with the cheap labour employed in the Southeast Asian Tiger economies - from Indonesia in the south to Thailand in the north. Something to think about the next time you buy some "name" sportshoes and clothing, perhaps?

The only exit for many of these young women, some not much more than girls,was as prostitutes in the West.We have all seen and heard the news stories about Police raids from the US to Western Europe, from the East to Russia - sometimes they are discovered dead through drug overdoses or murder.

Now there is an expose in a new film by director Micha Pelad - " China Blue". I will quote from a news review that may make you think seriously the next time you buy a new pair of jeans.Because Pelad had already made a doco film about the impact of retail giant Wal- Mart on small town America - this has in fact led him to investigate how they managed to source such cheap goods: This led him to China.

Paled has taken a more narrative approach than, say,a Michael Moore- style rant, and shadows a young worker, Jasmine,and some of her workmates at a garment factory in China - gradually revealing the hardship of their lives. Their boss, a Mr Lam,is also included in the frame - he is apparently so proud of his factory, and still to this day has no idea that he might be perceived in a bad light - the factory is the centre of his universe and honestly believes his is one of the better ones.

The film was made without permission from Chinese authorities, and Pelad had difficulty in getting a factory owner to cooperate knowing that fact.He wanted open access rather than resorting to a hidden camera approach often used in expose type films.

I quote from the script: " You work 14 hours or more a day and when you slump off home its to a factory dormitory that you share with 11 others. You're unsure of your hourly rate of pay or when you will actually be paid.If you are sick, make a mistake or slip out to do chores, your wages are docked.The food at the factory canteen is deducted from your wages and you eat in your dormitory because the canteen has no chairs. And they were charged for a bucket of warm water for washing."

Jasmine who comes from a rural village is apparently not undaunted by the conditions, and writes home excited about running water and toilet. She starts work as a threadcutter - picking up threads and lint from finished jeans and is paid by the piece( piecemeal).

When payday finally comes around she actually misses out - her pay is withheld until she can prove shes really going to stick around - Mr Lam,her boss, is seen in the film driving his Mercedes, a direct contrast to the working conditions in his factory for his workers.To retain his contract at the same price - and retain his living standards - he squeezes his workers, who get paid 62 cents for $64 jeans.

China has signed up to international labour standards and these are clearly violated in many factories, if not most. Don't hold your breath for the Chinese authorities to clean up these factories - because they have allowed factory owners to control their workforces, and are able to do so because most workers do not return home at nights and families are not able to criticise the conditions their children are forced to work under.

Lets all watch " China Blue" ourselves and judge whether it is sheer exploitation and sweatshop conditions or not.It should be an interesting film to say the least.