Bush-Blair talks disclosure agreed

AN agreement has been reached over disclosing sensitive documents detailing discussions between Tony Blair and George Bush.

Sir Jeremy Heywood, the UK Government's most senior civil servant, who was principal private secretary to Blair in 10 Downing Street in the run-up to the war, has agreed the principles of handing over information, which includes 25 notes from former the UK prime minister to the former US president and more than 130 records of conversations between the two.

Sir John Chilcot's inquiry completed public hearings in 2011, but publication of its report is understood to have been held back by negotiations over the publication of private communications.

Officials said a timing has still not been set for the date of publication.

09.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ukrainian journo arrested in Pitt attack

A MAN arrested after rushing up and touching Brad Pitt on a Hollywood red carpet is a Ukrainian journalist with a history of getting too close to celebrities.

Los Angeles Police officer Sally Madera identified the suspect as Vitalii Sediuk who was jailed on suspicion of misdemeanour battery on Wednesday before the premiere of the movie "Maleficent" at the El Capitan Theatre.

After touching Pitt, Sediuk was wrestled away by security guards and led off in handcuffs.

Pitt kept greeting fans and walked into the theatre.

In February, the 25-year-old Sediuk was cited for trespassing after grabbing the microphone before Adele accepted an award at the Grammys. and last year, Will Smith slapped Sediuk after he tried to kiss him on a red carpet.

Sediuk is being held in lieu of $US20,000 ($A21,600) bail.

A man was jailed on suspicion of battery after rushing up and touching Brad Pitt on the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the movie "Maleficent," witnesses and police said, though Pitt was apparently unhurt and soon resumed signing autographs.

Witnesses saw the man from the fan area jump over a barrier onto the red carpet at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood and rush at Pitt, touching him briefly before security guards wrestled him back across the barrier.

Pitt kept greeting fans and walked into the theatre.

Pitt's longtime partner Angelina Jolie stars in "Maleficent," Disney's new live action spin on its animated classic "Sleeping Beauty."

Before the incident, Jolie told The Associated Press that the El Capitan is like a local theatre for herself, Pitt and their kids, who usually don't attend her premieres but did on Wednesday night.

"Well, oddly, we usually go to the El Capitan, that's where we take the kids. That's the closest theatre to us," Jolie said.

"This is the first time they were able to come to mommy's premiere."

The man got to Pitt despite security that was heavy for a movie premiere, with guards keeping a large gap between the stars and the crowd.

Email messages left for representatives for Pitt and Disney were not immediately returned.

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White men dominate at Google

IN a groundbreaking disclosure, Google revealed how very white and male its workforce is; just two per cent of its Googlers are black, three per cent are Hispanic, and 30 per cent are women.

The search giant said on Wednesday that the transparency about its workforce - the first disclosure of its kind in the largely white, male tech sector - is an important step toward change.

"Simply put, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," Google Inc senior vice president Laszlo Bock wrote in a blog.

The numbers were compiled as part of a report that major US employers must file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Companies are not required to make the information public.

The gender divide is based on the roughly 44,000 people Google employed throughout the world at the start of 2014.

The company didn't factor about 4000 workers at its Motorola Mobility division, which is being sold to China's Lenovo Group for $US2.9 billion ($A3.14 billion).

The racial data is limited to Google's roughly 26,600 workers in the US as of August 2013.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg recently said the social networking company is headed toward disclosure as well, but it was important to share the data internally first.

Apple Inc., Twitter, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. did not respond immediately to queries about possible plans to disclose data.

Bock said Google has been working to diversify, not just its offices, but in the broader tech sector.

Since 2010, the firm has given more than $US40 million to organisations working to bring computer science education to women and girls, he said.

The company also is working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate course work and attendance in computer science, he said.

"But we're the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be, and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution," he said.

Earlier this year, the Rev Jesse Jackson launched a campaign to diversify Silicon Valley, asking to meet with leaders of several iconic technology companies about bringing black and Hispanics into their workforce and leadership.

Since then, he's been leading delegations to annual shareholder's meetings at firms including Google, Facebook, eBay Inc. and Hewlett-Packard, but on Wednesday he commended Google.

"It's a bold step in the right direction. We urge other companies to follow Google's lead," he said.

"Silicon Valley and the tech industry have demonstrated an ability to solve the most challenging and complex problems in the world. Inclusion is a complex problem - if we put our collective minds together, we can solve that too."

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Contracts to buy US homes on the rise

THE number of contracts signed to purchase homes in the US is on the rise, with more Americans sealing a deal in April than the prior month.

But the pace of buying is still weaker than last year, as higher prices and relatively tight supplies have limited sales.

The National Association of Realtors says its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index rose 0.4 per cent to 97.8 last month. The index remains 9.2 per cent below its level a year ago.

Pending sales are a barometre of future purchases.

A one- to two-month lag usually exists between a signed contract and a completed sale.

The gain in signed contracts partly reflects the slight decline in mortgage rates and the economic rebound from the brutal winter.

The number of signed contracts increased in the Northeast and Midwest month-to-month, more than offsetting declines in the West and South.

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US economy shrank 1pc in first quarter

THE US economy was battered even more than first suspected by the harsh winter, actually shrinking from January through March, marking the first retreat in three years, but economists are confident the downturn was temporary.

Gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of one per cent in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

That was worse than the government's initial estimate last month that GDP during the period grew by a slight 0.1 per cent.

The economy last posted a decline in the first three months of 2011 when it dropped 1.3 per cent.

This year's weakening reflected slower stockpiling by businesses, a cutback in business investment and a wider trade deficit.

Economists expect a robust rebound in the April-June quarter as the country shakes off the effects of a severe winter.

Dan Greenhaus, chief strategist at BTIG, called the drop in growth "backward looking".

"We knew that weather dramatically impacted growth in the first quarter and we fully expect a bounce back in the second quarter," he said in a note to clients.

Indeed, there are a number of recent signs pointing toward a strengthening economy.

The government released a separate report on Thursday that showed applications for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, fell by 27,000 last week to 300,000.

The result is nearly a seven-year low.

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that the big drop in unemployment benefit applications was more significant than the latest GDP figure because "it strongly supports the idea that the labour market conditions are improving markedly, despite the weak headline growth during the winter".

The report was the government's second look at first quarter GDP, the country's total output of goods and services.

The data primarily reflected a sharp slowdown in businesses stockpiling, which subtracted 1.6 percentage points from growth, a full percentage point more than the initial estimate.

The trade deficit was slightly larger than previously thought.

Business investment in structures fell at an annual rate of 7.5 per cent in the first quarter, also worse than the initial estimate.

The one per cent decline in the first quarter was only the second negative quarterly GDP reading since the current recovery began in June 2009.

In the fourth quarter, the overall economy had grown at an annual rate of 2.6 per cent.

While one definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of contraction in GDP, there is no concern that a negative reading in the first quarter is a sign the economy is about to topple into a downturn.

The widespread belief among analysts is that the weakness in the first quarter was based on a variety of temporary factors that will be quickly reversed once the weather warms up.

Many economists estimate that GDP will post a sizeable rebound to growth of around 3.8 per cent in the current April-June quarter, fuelled by pent-up demand.

Analysts are also optimistic that growth will remain above three per cent in the second half of this year, giving the economy the kind of momentum that has been lacking for much of the first five years of recovery from the country's worst recession since the 1930s.

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Labor pounce on second staffer conflict

Federal Minister Nigel Scullion is under fire over a staff member cited for conflict of interest. Source: AAP

LABOR has vowed to continue probing a second Abbott government minister over conflict of interest allegations.

William "Smiley" Johnstone resigned as an adviser for Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion after it was revealed he was also chief executive and majority shareholder of the Indigenous Development Corporation.

Senator Scullion has defended Mr Johnstone's employment, saying his sole role of devising the school attendance strategy meant his private activities did not create a conflict of interest.

But Opposition Senate Leader Penny Wong says Mr Johnstone's employment showed an "arrogant disregard" for the standards for ministerial staff.

Senator Scullion told the Senate on Thursday there had been "a couple of items that required follow up" in Mr Johnstone's private interests disclosure, filed at the time of his employment.

Five months later, that process was still under way when a media inquiry forced Senator Scullion's office to address the potential conflicts and ask Mr Johnstone to "amend some of his personal affairs".

Mr Johnstone never intended to stay on fulltime and chose to resign, Senator Scullion said.

Senator Wong promised to explore that in more detail.

"The Australian people are entitled to know why not one but two ministers in this chamber happen to have staff who have interest in the portfolio that they administer."

In February, Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash's staffer Alastair Furnival resigned over conflict of interest allegations.

Mr Furnival had a shareholding in his wife's public relations company, which has links to the junk food industry.

Unlike the case of Mr Furnival, who was accused of ordering the removal of a Health Department healthy food-rating website, there are no allegations Mr Johnstone made calls that affected his private interests.

The Abbott government's revised guidelines for ministerial staffers require divestment from private companies with a direct interest in their minister's portfolio.

The standards also forbid directorship of any company without written agreement of their respective minister and of the Special Minister of State.

Senator Wong asked Special Minister of State Michael Ronaldson if he had provided a written agreement regarding Mr Johnstone's employment on Thursday, which he took on notice.

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Govt cuts big on social studies fees

SOCIAL studies students will be the biggest losers once the government cuts its contribution to course costs.

Details of the new Commonwealth contributions, to apply from 2016, show government funding for social studies will drop by more than one-third.

Engineering, science, surveying and visual and performing arts courses face cuts of about one-quarter of present amounts.

But for maths courses, the government will pay about a quarter more than it does now.

It will also pay more of the costs for humanities, clinical psychology, foreign languages and allied health.

Tuesday's budget revealed the government contributions would drop by an average of 20 per cent across the board.

It's likely students will have to make up the difference.

The categories of Commonwealth funding have been streamlined from eight clusters of disciplines to five.

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Rudd accepts batt deaths responsibility

FORMER prime minister Kevin Rudd has accepted "ultimate responsibility" for Labor's home insulation debacle, but has used secret cabinet documents to deflect blame onto his ministers and public servants.

On a day when confidential cabinet processes around the scheme were made public, Mr Rudd told a royal commission in Brisbane that bureaucrats failed to bring any safety risks, including the potential for death, to his government's attention.

Queenslanders Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes and Mitchell Sweeney, and Marcus Wilson from NSW lost their lives while working under the $2.8 billion scheme.

Mr Rudd's uncensored statement says reports to the cabinet committee designed to alert ministers to programs "going off the rails" stated the pink batts scheme was "on track" even after the deaths.

But he says the buck stops with him because as prime minister at the time he has to accept the "good and bad" outcomes of his government's policies in 2009 and 2010.

"I have accepted ultimate responsibility for what was not just bad, but in this case a deep tragedy," he told the inquiry on Thursday.

But during his evidence, Mr Rudd suggested the senior ministers responsible for the scheme, Peter Garrett and Mark Arbib, were also to blame.

"The position in which I found myself in was to take advice from the portfolio minister responsible and the public servants advising me," he said.

But the former Labor leader was hesitant to point the finger at anyone in particular.

"I'm reluctant to say x, y and z failed because a, b and c didn't do their job," he said.

Mr Rudd also refused to point out specific problems with the rollout, saying it was the commission's role, not his, to judge what went wrong.

But he said if his children were victims, he would be just as eager as the affected families to find answers.

"All the families are entitled to feel confused, angry, let down by this system, which ultimately didn't perform to protect the lives of their loved ones," he said.

At the heart of the system, he said, were public servants who failed to brief senior ministers on serious safety concerns.

He said he only became aware of flaws after Mr Sweeney became the fourth installer to die in February 2010, eight months after the program's rollout.

This left him "exasperated, disappointed and despairing".

While Mr Rudd said one industrial fatality was one too many, he never considered suspending the program after Mr Fuller's death because nobody told him to.

"That advice was not put to me," he said.

Mr Sweeney's father, Malcolm, said on Thursday the commission "will go a long way in helping to make sure something like this doesn't happen again".

Mr Rudd has been excused from the inquiry, but might be recalled even though he is flying back to the US on Thursday night.

Former Labor frontbencher Greg Combet, who oversaw the program's closure, will take the stand when the commission resumes on Friday.

Mr Fuller's father, Kevin, and Mr Barnes' sister Sunny, are expected to address the inquiry after Mr Combet's testimony.

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Johnston fights for more funds for defence

DEFENCE Minister David Johnston needed to convince colleagues defence would be unable to mount short-notice missions such as its search for the missing Malaysian airliner if it did not get more cash.

In hard negotiations before the government's expenditure review committee, Senator Johnston made the point that defence would face serious problems if it had to endure more cuts.

As it turned out, defence was a big winner from the tough budget, with an increase of more than six per cent, taking funding to $29.3 billion in 2014/15.

Senator Johnston said finance and treasury officials acknowledged that defence had done it hard in the past five years, losing $16 billion.

"If we had to endure more cuts or absorb measures, there would be serious capability issues and we would be courting substantial difficulties," he told AAP.

Missions such as the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which at its peak featured four Orion maritime patrol aircraft and five ships, could only be launched at short notice because these units were maintained at a high level of readiness, he said.

The same applied to aid missions following the Japanese earthquake and the Philippines typhoon.

Most recently, at Christmas, two RAAF transport aircraft were despatched to help the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

Senator Johnston said it was expensive to maintain the level of readiness needed to be able to launch such missions at short notice.

"Those are the sorts of things we would not be able to do (without sufficient funding) and we would have to tell the national security committee and the prime minister we can't do this because we haven't got the money," he said.

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Uncensored Rudd reveals batts flaws

Kevin Rudd move to expose cabinet discussions about insulation scheme had a short-lived opposition. Source: AAP

OPPOSITION to Kevin Rudd's plan to reveal the innermost secrets of the federal government lasted for a little less than 16 hours.

The former prime minister's 31-page statement to the royal commission into the 2009 home insulation program was initially heavily blacked out or "redacted" at the insistence of government lawyers intent on protecting cabinet confidentiality.

Mr Rudd's lawyer had insisted his client could not tell the truth about the disastrous program that claimed the lives of four young workers if he was not permitted to tell his story in full.

Resistance was strong on Wednesday afternoon but evaporated on Thursday morning, when government lawyer Tom Howe QC said the Commonwealth supported "public ventilation" of everything Mr Rudd wanted to say.

What emerged from the document was Mr Rudd's portrait of the prime minister and his ministers as entirely reliant on the information and advice placed before them by the public service - the people he described at the commission as the "wicketkeepers" of his home insulation scheme.

Starting with the reason for implementing the insulation scheme, Mr Rudd reveals that an all-weekend sitting of senior cabinet ministers - Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner and himself - in October 2008 was warned that Australia faced recession and a nine per cent unemployment rate if nothing was done to combat the unfolding global financial crisis.

One response was the $2.8 billion home insulation scheme, devised as a make-work scheme to boost the economy.

Much of what was initially redacted from Mr Rudd's statement is simply anything mentioning cabinet processes, however mundane, but some reveal that even after people started dying, no alarm was raised about the program.

Mr Rudd described a briefing system used by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to warn cabinet about "any programs going off the rails".

The reports were colour-coded: green for "on track", amber for "maintaining close watch" and red for "in difficulty".

From its July 2009 inception to until February 2010 when its immediate closure was urged, the program was never rated anything other than green for "on track".

Among other details is Mr Rudd's recollection of a January 28, 2009, cabinet meeting that considered the rollout of the Home Insulation Program.

Issues discussed concerned timelines and costs, Mr Rudd says, but workplace safety standards never came up.

The statement also shows a public service task force was set up four days after the February 4, 2010, death of Mitchell Sweeney, who was the last worker to die during the life of the scheme.

On February 17, the taskforce advised Mr Rudd's cabinet committee of senior ministers of "significant program design risks, notably safety risks ... and the need to exit the overall program".

The same day the committee accepted the taskforce's recommendation to terminate the program.

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