EASYPRINT SCRIPTS
23/08/05
GAZA WITHDRAWAL
Kerry Staight, reporter
It's moving day for Ofira Granot and her family. So why is her husband carrying a gun? Well Ofira lives in
a part of the world where there's been lots of fighting for many years. It's called the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip is a region in the Middle East in between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. And it's tiny.
In fact Tasmania is almost two hundred times bigger.
"So why is there so much fighting on such a small patch of land? Well two groups want the same patch.
The Palestinians and the Israelis. And both believe it's rightfully theirs."
Kerry Staight, reporter
Palestinians are Arabs. They speak Arabic. Most are Muslims, but some are Christians. Most of the
people living in the Gaza Strip are Palestinians and they've been there a long time - hundreds of years
actually.
Israelis started settling in the Gaza Strip after Israel took control of it during the six-day war in 1967. But
Israeli's, who are mostly Jews, have believed for centuries that the land was given to them by God.
Fighting has broken out many times between the two groups. A lot of people have been killed and
buildings destroyed.
But hang on what's going on here? Israeli settlers on one side, Israeli soldiers and police on the other.
Why are they fighting?
"Well the Israeli Government has agreed to hand the Gaza Strip back to the Palestinians. As you can
imagine the Israeli settlers who live there are pretty upset, because they're being forced to move out by
their own soldiers."
Kerry Staight, reporter
Twenty-one settlements are being evacuated and many of the homes demolished. Eight and a half
thousand Israelis are being forced to leave. Ofira and her family are among them.
She says, "This place is my childhood, my memory, my home".
While they've been given other homes nearby, many Israelis say their own Government has betrayed
them.
"It's our land and you don't give up land for nothing. You don't give up land even if you have to lose a little
bit of blood for it."
Haim Gross, Settlement Spokesman
While some settlers refused to leave and were removed using force, the majority left quietly before last
week's deadline. But they certainly weren't happy about it.
"I have to start my life again... everything. School, to build our house, start again from the beginning."
Aron Efergen, Israeli Settler
The Israeli Government hopes the evacuation will stop some of the fighting between the Palestinians and
Israelis. But only time will tell whether it brings peace or more problems.
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THE COORONG
Sarah Martinelli, reporter
This is the Coorong, a 100 kilometre strip in South Australia, where the mighty River Murray spills into the
Southern Ocean. It's one of Australia's most amazing bird sanctuaries, home to more than 240 species of
birds, some from as far away as Siberia, Japan and China.
It's also home to the country's biggest pelican breeding colony. To the local Aboriginal people, it's called
"The Kurangh", which in Ngarrindjeri means the neck. And it was the inspiration for the book and film
Storm Boy.
"Perhaps Mr Percival is starting all over again. Bird like him, never die."
But this beautiful area is in trouble. To understand why, you need to understand how the Coorong works.
The Coorong is a wetland with sand dunes. It has a mixture of fresh water flowing down from the River
Murrray, and saltwater from the sea. It needs a balanced amount of both fresh and salt water to keep
conditions right for the birds and fish, which live there.
But the River Murray is in trouble too. Less river water is flowing into the Coorong now than 20 years ago.
Droughts have reduced the amount of rainwater going into the Murray, and we're taking more water out,
pumping it to towns and using it for food crops and livestock. That means there's not enough fresh water
going into the Coorong to flush it out and keep a balance of salt and freshwater.
The already salty seawater in the Coorong slowly evaporates, leaving it even saltier, about 4 times saltier
than seawater! That's bad news all round.
This is the rupia weed; it used to grow in these underwater forests. It was a major food source for birds
and provided a breeding habitat for fish. Five years ago 60% of all these samples contained rupia weed,
but recent tests have shown no weed at all in some areas. Fewer weeds mean fewer fish and birds. Just
recently, scientists have noticed far fewer pelicans in the area.
They just hardly bred at all for the last three or four years and it's directly tied I think to the absence of fish
in the south lagoon.
David Paton, University of Adelaide
Scientists say the Murray River needs to have stronger flows, so less water needs to be taken out of it.
But try telling that to the 2 million Australians who live, work within, and depend upon the river system for
their water supply.
To use Murray water, farmers must buy a number of licenses, depending on how much water they need.
Now the Government is spending $500 million to buy back some of those licenses. That should mean a
huge amount of water wouldn’t be taken out, equivalent to all the water in Sydney Harbour. That water
will instead flow down the river to the Coorong.
But will it be enough? Some scientists say three times that amount is needed.
When spring comes in the Coorong the water will begin to warm and the birds will start arriving. But their
world famous wetland home won't have nearly as much tasty rupia weeds and fish. This may be the last
time you see this world famous wetland look so alive.
Book Week Winners Announced
Mem Fox's book Where is the Green Sheep? has taken out the Children's Book Council book of the year
award. Other winners announced in Sydney today were Michael Gerard Bauer in the Older Readers
Category for his book The Running Man, while Sonia Harnet won the Younger Readers category with The
Silver Donkey. Allison Lester took out the best picture book award for Are We There Yet. The Best
Information Book award went to husband and wife team Jackie French and Brian Sullivan for To the
Moon and Back about space travel.
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Go to YOUR NEWS to find out more about making a video about how you celebrate BOOK WEEK.
Send in your video to Behind the News.
WORKER RECRUITMENT
Kerry Staight, reporter
This is Olympic Dam in regional South Australia. Its Australia's largest underground mine.
But these guys are from here - the Philippines. It's a country in South East Asia made up of more than
seven thousand islands.
So what are they doing in the middle of the outback?
Well a mining company has brought in seventeen Filipino drillers, because it says it can't find enough
skilled people in Australia who want to do the work.
It's not the first time Australia has boosted it's workforce with migrants. Back in the fifties and sixties it was
all the rage. The Federal Government attracted more than a million British people to Australia, by offering
them ten-pound boat fares (that's about twenty dollars). They became known as the ten-pound poms.
"The passengers had to spend six weeks at sea, sleeping in cabins like this, before they reached
Australia."
Kerry Staight, reporter
"Well first of all we're going to talk to a very young newcomer, Barry Thorpe. Barry how do you feel about
being in a new country?"
Reporter
"Well I feel rather excited."
Barry Thorpe, migrant
The migrants had to stay in pretty basic hostels to begin with. For some it wasn't quite what they had
imagined.
"The food's shocking. It's not very good at all you know, but you have to stick it out."
British Migrant
Others thought they were onto a good thing.
"It's just like a fairytale come true, really it is."
British Migrant
These days nearly one in four people who live in Australia were born overseas. And the Federal
Government is now looking to increase that figure.
You see Australia is short of skilled workers in quite a few areas. We need more builders, mechanics,
doctors, engineers and accountants. One of the reasons is that many young Australians are working
overseas, where they can often make more money.
The Government is hoping to attract 20,000 migrants to fill the vacancies, by running a series of work
expos in Europe and Asia, starting next month. It's the biggest jobs drive of its kind since the Ten Pound
Pom scheme.
But some say this won't solve the skills shortage in the long-term. They say the Government needs to
work harder to keep skilled workers in Australia. And it should concentrate more on training locals, even
though the Government has increased its spending in this area.
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ZOTOB VIRUS
Sarah Martinelli, reporter
When a computer virus shuts down a car manufacturing plant for a day, you realise how much we rely on
computers.
That cost this Holden's plant in South Australia six million dollars. The same virus infected the computers
of many big media companies causing lots of problems. It's called Zotob and there are many different
versions. So how does a computer virus do all that?
First, we need to understand what a virus is. If you get a virus you usually get sick and don't function
properly. While a computer with a virus doesn't have to go to bed, it might not be able to do the things it
normally does. That's because a computer virus is actually a small program that deliberately changes or
erases information that the computer needs to work properly. It spreads from computer to computer in
different ways. It has different names depending on how it spreads.
The simplest ones are on the same disks as programs, documents or pictures and when you put them in
your computer the virus infects it. An email virus is trickier. It spreads through email messages; it
reproduces by automatically mailing itself to people in the victim's email address book.
A worm also spreads through groups of connected computers called networks. It does this by finding
holes in the security. The worm then slips into the computer and copies itself on that machine, and then
onto others. By using a network, a worm can multiply very quickly! Since the Internet is just a huge
computer network, it's easy to understand why your computer can become infected online.
A Trojan horse is an innocent looking program with a virus or other damaging program hidden inside. It
might look like a game, but it's a disguise. Instead it disrupts your system when you run it. It may even
wipe everything off your hard drive!
Viruses aren't new. In March 1999 several large businesses had to shut down their email systems until a
virus called Melissa could be found and stopped. And in 2000 the I Love You virus caused heaps of
business computers, even ones at the CIA in the United States to be shut down while experts tried to
exterminate the virus.
And last year, the Mydoom virus managed to reproduce 4.5 million times in just one day!
So how can you protect your computer? The best way is to buy anti-virus software. It works like your
computer's bodyguard. If it spots a virus trying to get near your computer, it disables or erases the virus
preventing it from damaging anything. This software needs regular updates because there are new
viruses every week and it needs to know how to recognise them. Oh and by the way, although a
computer virus behaves a bit like a human virus, don't worry, you can't catch anything from your
computer!
ALTITUDE ATHLETES
Neil Cross, reporter
Breathing is pretty important to athletes. They need to make sure they have oxygen to perform.
But what if there’s less oxygen than normal? How do athletes cope? Why do some cope better than
others?
And at the end of a race, athletes are often struggling for breath. Imagine if the air they’re sucking in
contained less oxygen. That’s what happened for cyclists in the Tour De France, where in some stages
they climb from sea level up to two thousand metres.
Up there, there’s less oxygen for the body to work with, and if you’re asking the body to do something
strenuous, well you need to be prepared.
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“If we were to send some athletes to Mexico or to the cycling tours in China, which are at 3 000 metres
some would suffer big time.”
Pitre Bourdon, South Australian Sports Institute
Researchers in Adelaide are trying to find out why going up hurts some athletes while others don’t seem
to mind.
They’re already found that cyclists working out at two thousand metres can do about 15 percent less than
they would be able to do at sea level.
So that’s like being able to ride flat out at sea level for two thousand metres, but at altitude you could only
get to 1700 metres before you’d be exhausted.
“So we are trying to identify some markers which indicate those people that are affected by altitude and
those that aren’t.”
Pitre Bourdon, South Australian Sports Institute
Ouch! Those markers are in the blood and so some of the cyclists’ red stuff is taken and examined.
“Hopefully we can get an idea as to what level or altitude will affect athletes.”
Pitre Bourdon, South Australian Sports Institute
And then they can work out what altitude is best for training.
That could help national teams like the Wallabies, who recently played two tests in South Africa.
They decided to train at sea level before going to play their games 1500 metres up in Johannesburg and
Pretoria. They lost both of their matches.
“It felt a bit harder of my lungs this time. So, just breathing, um yeah, like the effort, the effort it takes to
breathe feels like it’s sorta harder than it is normally. That’d be the main thing.”
Stuart Smith, Cyclist
Researcher are also trying to find out why athletes who live at high altitude seem to perform better when
they come down to sea level.
“We are definitely trying to work out what altitude is ideal for preparation at sea level.”
Pitre Bourdon, South Australian Sports Institute
While some Australian athletes train at several thousand metres hoping to improve their performance, it
could be they don’t need to go that high at all.
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