Take anything - but not my mobile phone!

Here's a typical conversation in many households:

TEEN DAUGHTER: Can I borrow $20? I need to top up.

FATHER: Hang on a moment - don't you have that monthly Text 2000 thing? You shouldn't need to top up.

TEEN DAUGHTER: Well, I've gone through 2000 texts.

FATHER (disbelieving): 2000? It's only been a week and a half!!

A report out of Australia today reveals some teens are so dependent on their mobile phones that they see them as an extension of themselves and experience a sense of dread when they are separated from them.

The syndrome's even been given a name: "NoMo phobia".

Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says he's observed the phobia in his clients over the last few years.

"It's a fear of not having with you a functioning mobile phone," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

The Sydney-based psychologist says many of the 12 to 24-year-olds he sees feel they can't cope without their phones, leaving them on during consultations.

"Mobile phones have really become almost a body part for young people," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

"(They're) absolutely indispensable, you could not go out without it, it's your lifeline, your major vehicle through which you arrange your social life."

For teens, a mobile phone is their primary social tool - they use it to make calls, text message, post updates on Twitter and check their Facebook.

"They've becoming increasingly important tools of socialisation, far more important than I think the vast majority of adults, certainly gen-Xers would ever realise," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

If their mobile goes awry "it's social death", he says.

"No other time in your life is the desire to socialise and be with your age mates strong as in adolescence.

"Adolescence is all about socialising.

"The reason why they have to socialise is they're trying to figure out who they are," a process which Dr Carr-Gregg says is vital to their development and self-definition.

"It's replaced the milkbar - the mobile phone is now a virtual milkbar."

To cope with their NoMo Phobia many teens sleep with their mobile buzzing beside their bed - resulting in a phenomenon Dr Carr-Gregg refers to as "zombie kids".

"Many kids stay up very, very late at night texting one another," Dr Carr-Gregg says, adding that mobile phones aren't necessary for kids until highschool.

"There is no question that the most sleep deprived segment of the population now is, in fact, young people.

"The reason why they're so sleep deprived is technology and one of the prime items of technology that's keeping them awake is having a mobile phone."

"Zombie kids" struggle to concentrate and focus at school, meaning they won't learn as well and they are grumpy.

He suggests parents enforce a charging table rule in a communal area of the home where all mobiles must go after a specified time and stay until the morning.

"I was told a very amusing story by a colleague of mine who has a teenage girl," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

"He was sick of the mobile phone going off so he took it off her and he put it by his own bedside but forgot to turn it off.

"The thing basically went off all night and the last text message was received about four am."

Dr Carr-Gregg likens this sort of behaviour to the "morning chorus" of birds - tweeting to one another when the sun rises.

"The reason why they tweet to one another is to find out who survived the night," he says.

"This, in my view, may be the equivalent of a sort of morning chorus ... the kids are reaching out to each other all night making sure that they're ok."

BRITISH TROOPS ARE DIRTY AND LAZY, SAYS US CHIEF

By John Ingham

BRITISH troops risking their lives in Afghanistan have been branded smelly and lazy in a bizarre attack by a US officer.

A US Marine commander claimed our forces in Helmand province were “cautious” about the Taliban and “overestimate their strength”.

He said British troops, who do six-month tours compared with US forces’ one year, spend too little time in Afghanistan.

They go out in too large formations, spend too long recovering from patrols, have inadequate intelligence gathering and too little cash to dole out, he said.

In a damning parting shot, the Marine added: “Your standards of personal hygiene and field discipline aren’t good enough and you have too many non-battle injuries.”

The comments were noted down by a British officer in the spring and are revealed in the latest New Statesman.

Britain has lost 196 troops in Afghanistan but its military standing has been weakened in America by errors in Iraq and its failure to defeat the Taliban.

This summer 8,000 American troops have poured into southern Helmand to cut off Taliban supply routes from Pakistan.

British commanders deny that the Americans are bailing them out and the criticism was dismissed as routine rivalry.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said: “Our forces in Afghanistan are second to none. I have huge respect for the US Marine Corps but our forces are just as good.

“They are very courageous and not, as implied, afraid of the Taliban.”

Col Kemp, whose book about the war, Attack State Red, comes out next month, said British forces had strict rules on personal hygiene.

But he added: “The environment in Afghanistan is one of the most demanding anywhere — incredibly hot and dusty.”

“But every army criticises every other army. I would put this down to fairly standard international rivalry.”

Major Charles Heyman, editor of the Armed Forces Of The UK book series, said some of the criticisms stemmed from the size of the British force.

He said: “British forces in Afghanistan do not have enough troops or the right equipment so they have to make do and mend.”

The Ministry of Defence cited senior American commanders and politicians, including President Barack Obama, who have praised British troops in Afghanistan and the close co-operation between British and American commanders.

An Army spokesman said: “We do not recognise this criticism of our highly professional troops. In the harsh battlefield conditions of Afghanistan every soldier knows that good field hygiene keeps them fighting fit. These are only the views of a single individual.”

Wish you weren't here, Greece tells tourists

Attack on flasher is a sign that locals have had enough of Britons' behaviour. Helena Smith reports from Athens


Marina Fanouraki is an unlikely Greek heroine. In the early hours of Tuesday in the Electra bar on the island of Crete, the 26-year-old is said to have doused a drunken West Country plumber with sambuca and set him alight.

She then calmly gave herself up to police. She claims that 23-year-old Stuart Feltham had groped her, exposed himself and demanded sex. He denies her allegations.

But in the eyes of many Greeks and regardless of the facts, Ms Fanouraki is being hailed for her actions. The story has made headlines across the country with sympathetic editorials praising the "gutsy Cretan".
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"She is seen as a modern day hero," said Theordoros Pakos, a senior police officer on Crete.

"A lot of people here are really tired of the way drunken Englishmen comport themselves."

The bar where the events took place is in Malia, a resort that has become notorious for the bad behaviour of tourists. Locals are increasingly angered and exasperated – not least at the sight of couples copulating in public. Internet chat rooms and UK party sites publicising "all night" orgies have fanned the unruly and drunken behaviour in the resort. Residents have repeatedly taken to the streets to demand that Britons "stay away" and this week a shop owner in Malia meted out his own brand of justice by holding hostage for an entire day a tourist who had driven into his shop on a quad bike.

Crete is not the only island to be suffering for the bacchanalian excesses of British holidaymakers. Zakynthos used to be known as the Venice of the East. But this year, the summer had barely begun before officials were on the brink of despair. "We don't understand it," said Dionysios Komniotis, the Mayor of Laganas, Zakynthos's notorious "anything goes" resort. "They roll off the plane drunk and then proceed to drink from morning to night. They don't seem to want to enjoy our island, our culture, our hospitality. All they want to do is create trouble."

This year, mayors, police and tourism officials have openly blamed tour operators for the cycle of violence and even death that have come to be associated with the debauchery.

"The operators have threatened us quite openly, saying, 'If you don't like this, if you don't want to put up with it, we'll pull out,' said Mr Komniotis, whose own town, Laganas, looks more like a set from Bladerunner than a quaint fishing village at night.

Even worse, he said, some of Britain's biggest travel companies were not only "blackmailing" the local tourist industry but encouraging the wild inebriation of their clientele.

"This year we have stood our ground. We have told the operators straight, that we are not interested in such tourism," he said. "What is going on is unacceptable. Often tour company reps will encourage youngsters to drink as many drinks as they can on pub crawls because they are working to commission."

Ninety per cent of the three million UK holidaymakers who visit Greece each year come on package tours.

Last summer, nine women on one tour were brought before a public prosecutor on Zakynthos after being accused of gross public indecency for allegedly participating in an oral sex "bonanza" on the island. The competition, held on a sandy beach, was allegedly organised by reps although subsequently fiercely denied.

Greek officials claim that tour operator employees have also been caught dealing in drugs, "easy money" that helps supplement monthly salaries of about £450 a month – less than half the minimum wage in Britain.

"We have found reps selling pills, drugs like ecstasy, to kids," one tourism official told The Independent on condition of anonymity.

"The drug-dealing and drug-taking is partly to blame for the fatal accidents involving Britons that you see on our islands every year."

Christina Tetradi, who heads the hoteliers' association on Zakynthos, goes further: "We've had cases of tourists thinking they can fly because they are in some altered state of mind due to drugs," she said. "And then they are found dead."

Last year, 237 Britons were arrested on the Greek resort islands of Corfu, Crete, Kos, Rhodes and Zakynthos, helping to earn Britons an international reputation as the worst behaved tourists in the world.

With Greece dependent on tourism and with British holidaymakers topping the list of arrivals, residents know they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. "Local authorities know that if they try to stop the mayhem they will have the entire tourism sector against them," said Mayor Vasilopoulos on Ithaki. "I feel really sorry for mayors in some of the islands who truly want the best, who want to preserve the beauty of their ancestral lands, but are forced to tolerate the ugliness of cheap tourism."

British consular staff in Greece, alarmed by the disproportionate number of arrests, rapes and accidents involving Britons, have to help about 1,500 people in distress each year.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office last month launched a campaign warning Britons of the dangers of "wild" holidays abroad. And to help Greek authorities cope with the loutish behaviour, it has also funded English-language training for Greek policemen.

Detectives from Devon and Cornwall – including the force's anti-rape specialist – have held talks with police chiefs from each resort island, flying into to Zakynthos to exchange know-how on how to deal with binge-drinking and rowdiness. The visit, the first by UK police specialised in hooliganism, came as it surfaced that sexual assaults against British tourists on Greek islands were higher than official figures indicated.

Younger women, on first their trips away, were especially vulnerable, the junior Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant said after holding "crisis talks" with officials in Athens.

More rapes involving British women occur in Greece than in any other holiday destination and many blame fellow Britons for the attacks.

"It's a problem here and we estimate that only around 15 per cent of rapes are ever reported [in Greece]," said detective Caroline Knight, the rape co-ordinator for the Devon and Cornwall police force. "An awful lot of people don't say anything. They don't want to talk to police – it's only when they go back home and they visit their GP, or tell their mums, that anything is said.

"It is a very under-reported crime because it is far more personal and far more emotions are involved."

As in the UK, she said, alcohol was the biggest date rape drug.

British detectives last month proposed that Greek police crack down on pub crawls and issue on-the-spot fines. "They are among the measures we have used in places like Torquay and Newquay and they have worked," said Detective Barry Marsden who is in charge of community safety in Devon and Cornwall. British tourists are not always to blame for the debauchery with which they have come to be associated. In Greece, poor policing and alcohol adulterated with industrial spirits are also to blame.

But, that said, Greek officials have not stopped dreaming of a better class of tourist. Nearly 40 years after the start of mass tourism, they want to improve Greece's brand name by weaning themselves off the traditional sun, sex and sea tourism package so beloved by young Britons.

"It was never our intention to have this type of tourism," said Ms Tetradi from the Zakynthos Hoteliers Association. "P

JAL to cut flights after record loss

Japan Airlines said Friday it will discontinue or reduce flights on 16 unprofitable international and domestic routes, reporting the same day an operating loss of 86.1 billion yen on a consolidated basis in the April-June quarter.

Flights will be discontinued on two international routes, between Chubu Airport near Nagoya and Paris, and Chubu and Seoul (Incheon).

To be cut back are flights on eight international routes, including Narita-Guangzhou and Kansai-Shanghai, and on six domestic routes, including Haneda-Naha and Fukuoka-Sendai.

The international flights will be discontinued or cut back on Oct. 25, while four domestic ones will be reduced on Nov. 1 and two in December.

The 86.1 billion yen operating loss was the largest first quarter setback for the airline.

Negative factors such as the recession and the swine flu are making recovery for the financially troubled airline even more difficult.

JAL had already discontinued or reduced the number of flights on 10 international and domestic routes this spring.

Together, the cutbacks mark a major flight reduction for the former national flag carrier.

In terms of available seat kilometers--or total number of seats multiplied by total kilometers traveled--JAL will after the cutbacks offer about 15 percent less for international flights and about 3 percent less for domestic flights, compared with the same period last year.

With lenders urging JAL to discontinue or cut back flights on unprofitable routes in exchange for additional loans, further streamlining is expected toward next spring.

JAL plans to withdraw entirely from some airports it currently services.

It announced Friday that on a consolidated basis, its sales in the April-June quarter shrank 31.7 percent from a year before to 334.8 billion yen.

The company also reported a net loss of 99 billion yen, compared with 3.4 billion yen for the same period last year.

Though the airline did not revise its forecast of a 63-billion-yen annual net loss for the current business year, it is likely to be forced to make a downward revision unless demand for air travel recovers.

The expected net loss of 63 billion yen is based on an assumption that the company's corporate pension program will cut benefits to achieve an extraordinary profit of 88 billion yen for the company.

As many retired JAL employees are opposed to the proposed pension cut, the airline's deficits will balloon further if the pension reduction does not materialize.

It could adversely affect the plan to receive additional loans at the end of this year.

The other international routes on which JAL will reduce flights are Narita-Incheon, Narita-Delhi, Haneda-Hong Kong, Kansai-Incheon, Kansai-Guangzhou and Chubu-Guangzhou.

The other domestic flights to be cut back are Nagoya-Nagasaki, Osaka (Itami)-Yamagata, Itami-Niigata and Itami-Izumo.(IHT/Asahi: August 8,2009)

Suit seeks collection of $1.5M judgment against Strip entertainer

By Steve Green

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

A Tennessee man says Zowie Bowie entertainer Marley Taylor ruined his career with false allegations of sexual harassment and he is stepping up efforts to collect on a $1.545 million court judgment against her.

Dan B. Wilson Jr. filed suit Wednesday in Clark County District Court against Zowie Bowie Entertainment LLC and Zowie Bowie performers Chris Phillips and Christine (Chrissy) Maria Gabell, aka Marley Taylor.

The suit, filed the same day Zowie Bowie announced an extended engagement at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, claims Wilson has received just $1,200 for the judgment that now totals $3.245 million with interest.

Wilson claims in his suit that Phillips and Gabell are using their Zowie Bowie company to hide Gabell's assets from he and other creditors.

A Zowie Bowie spokesman said the act was unaware of any lawsuit being filed and therefore had no comment on the allegations.

Wilson asserts the defendants were paid between $22,800 and $7,000 per week for performing at Red Rock Resort and the Palms casino-hotel in recent years, and that Phillips and Gabell have made misrepresentations regarding Gabell's income as a performer.

The suit seeks an accounting of all revenue earned by Zowie Bowie and Gabell to determine how much money is subject to garnishment to pay for Wilson's judgment.

While Zowie Bowie was performing at Red Rock, Gabell filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in May 2007, listing monthly income of $3,400, assets of $5,365 in personal property and debt of $1.565 million including the judgment for Wilson and more than $17,000 owed to the IRS.

She withdrew the bankruptcy petition after the court ruled she could not use bankruptcy to avoid paying the judgment to Wilson.

In the bankruptcy case, Wilson said in an affidavit that in 1995 he was the vice president of the creative department at music publishing group Sony/ATV in Nashville when he was assigned to work with Gabell, a songwriter at the time.

He was 49, she was 25 and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, Wilson said in the affidavit.

Wilson said that while the two worked together they started dating and this fact was known to his supervisors.

During their relationship he paid for her breast augmentation surgery and let her use his credit cards, Wilson said.

Wilson said in his affidavit that eventually she exceeded her spending budget and he demanded that she return the credit cards after she spent more than $45,000 on the cards for goods for herself, her family and a male "roommate"— apparently another boyfriend.

"As deeply as I cared for her, I finally realized that she was simply using me for my money," Wilson said in the affidavit. "I had no choice, this relationship had to end."

Wilson said that soon after this he lost his $100,000-per-year job after Gabell told Sony/ATV officials that he had sexually harassed her, stalked her, threatened to kill her and threatened to ruin her music career.

Wilson later sued Gabell in Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville and won a default judgment against her; and he said that Gabell later admitted in a deposition that she had lied to Sony/ATV about the consensual nature of their relationship and withheld the credit card information from a Sony/ATV official. The deposition was for a lawsuit Wilson filed against Sony/ATV over his firing.

"Ms. Gabell's false accusations, which led to my termination, took more than a career from me. Because of her lies, I lost a 20-plus year career and was ostracized from the Nashville music community. Companies that were recruiting me months before failed to return my calls.

"I lost my home — a 100-acre farm that had been in my family since the 1800s. I could not afford to buy a present for my daughter's wedding. Ultimately, I left Nashville in disgrace," his affidavit said.

"At Sony, I made in excess of $100,000 per year, went to black-tie events and kept the company of country music stars and high-profile music executives. After I was terminated, the only job I could secure was as a doorman, standing in front of a Gatlinburg, Tenn., restaurant, hawking diners into the door for dinner."

Gabell's attorney, in responding to the bankruptcy affidavit, complained about several references by Wilson to his active sexual relationship with Gabell.

"In a blatantly transparent attempt to denigrate Gabell, Wilson presents salacious details of his purported relationship with Gabell more than a dozen years ago," attorney Zachariah Larson wrote in a court filing.

"Wilson does not present any evidence to show that Gabell intended to cause injury to Wilson," the filing said.

Larson noted that Wilson, in his filing, said Gabell's motivation for making the false statements was so she could work with Sony/ATV executive Don Cook, who had a record of success with performers Brooks & Dunn.

More young girls have sex in Singapore

By Leow Si Wan

IT IS a sign of the times - More girls aged below 14 are having sex. The police have now tabbed this as a worrying crime issue, and are trying to keep a lid on the problem.

Crime statistics issued on Wednesday for the first half of the year showed that the number of statutory rape cases involving girls under 14 jumped more than 70 per cent, to 37 cases, compared with 21 in the same period last year.

Consensual sex was often at the heart of the problem. Many of the girls had sex with casual friends and boyfriends, most of whom were about the same age. But when the girls' parents, or in some cases, teachers, found out, they were determined that action be taken, and reported the cases to the police.

When the cases went to court, a variety of punishments was dished out. If the culprits were youngsters, they were fined, sent for reformative training, given probation or even jailed, said Mr Patrick Tan, a lawyer in private practice.

In one case involving a 19-year-old youth and a 12-year-old girl, the youth was fined $8,000. But if older men were involved, more severe sentences were handed down. For instance, one 32-year-old man who had sex with a 12-year-old girl he met through a friend was jailed for seven years and ordered to be caned 18 times.

The girls involved in such cases were not punished, even if they initiated the sex, lawyers said. But they were sometimes counselled or sent to homes.

But beyond landing those involved in trouble with the law, teen sex also caused other problems. Many such trysts led to unwanted pregnancies, abortions and a rise in the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV cases.

Last year, 787 teens caught STIs, more than three times the 238 in 2002. For HIV, the figure rose from one in 2002 to nine in 2007. The total number of teenage abortions last year was 1,289.

On Wednesday, police said the increase in statutory rape offences was linked to wider societal trends, and they were working with various ministries, including the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, to come up with programmes to educate youths on the legal and social consequences of underage sex.

In their statement on Wednesday, police called on parents, schools and others to play a role in combating such crimes. 'Care should be taken by families to pay attention to the activities of their younger members, as most of the perpetrators in such cases were known to the victims,' the statement said.

Investors seek $25bn rescue

Nicola Berkovic, Siobhain Ryan | August 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian

HUNDREDS of thousands of investors remain unable to access about $25billion of their savings, which are fully or partially frozen in funds that were locked down at the height of the global financial crisis last year.

Experts warn the lockdown, which has thrown the investment plans of 250,000 people into chaos, could continue for a further four years.

The crisis prompted calls yesterday for the Rudd government to either put an end to its guarantee on bank deposits -- which triggered the lockdown last year -- or to intervene in the industry in order to create liquidity.

More than 30 mortgage and property funds were frozen in October last year after the announcement of the federal government's bank deposit guarantee prompted a stampede of investors seeking to withdraw their money and shift it to bank deposits which were protected.

As National Seniors Australia warned of a backlash from retirees if the issue was not resolved, the finance industry urged the government to step in to help alleviate the freeze.

The guarantee, provided free for customer deposits of up to $1 million, covered Australian banks, building societies and credit unions, but excluded investment funds.

Some funds had collapsed or were frozen many months before, some as a result of poor lending exacerbated by the downturn in property construction.

But research by funds ratings agency Morningstar reveals the number of funds that have either suspended redemptions -- some indefinitely -- or taken partial steps, such as introducing quarterly withdrawals subject to liquidity, has reached at least 70.

As markets stabilise, some of the country's biggest lenders have backed funds' calls for a rethink of the unprecedented government intervention. The Investment and Financial Services Association has urged the government to invest temporarily in mortgage funds to provide much-needed liquidity and to roll back the bank guarantee as quickly as possible.

IFSA chief executive Richard Gilbert said that, if the mortgage trusts sold down assets in the current market, all investors would take a "haircut".

"Going forward, the bank guarantee which caused this needs to be wound back as early as it possibly can," Mr Gilbert said.

"There is no magic solution here, other than exogenous intervention or patience. With no exogenous intervention it will take three or four years for the funds to run out and for people to be paid their money."

Soon after the guarantee's introduction, Westpac chief executive Gail Kelly urged Canberra to wind the deposit threshold back from $1m to as little as $100,000 as soon as possible to avoid further distortion of financial markets.

ANZ has taken up the call, pushing for the retail deposits guarantee to be replaced by a financial claims scheme with a lower cap. National Seniors Australia chief executive Michael O'Neill said seniors had been patient for almost a year but, as the rest of the market started to pick up, they would exert more pressure to obtain access to their funds.

"I expect mounting pressure from folk who are in this situation," Mr O'Neill said.

He said the freeze had hurt both pensioners and self-funded retirees. "For folks who are quite reliant on the pension and have just put a little aside, it's a real hit ... not being able to access the little they've got really does hurt," he said.

Mr O'Neill said self-funded retirees had been hurt by plummeting shares and dividends, as well as lower interest rates.

"It's one more impact, so people may not view it as significant in isolation, but when you put it with all the other hits it's significant," he said.

Asked whether the Rudd government would step in to help alleviate the situation, Wayne Swan said: "The global financial crisis and global recession have had various impacts across the Australian economy. However, the government's decisive actions have helped ensure stability, underpin business activity and support jobs."

Morningstar manager of fund analysis Christopher Douglas said it was tricky for funds to treat all investors fairly -- selling assets to create liquidity for those who wanted out, while not accepting depressed prices for those who wanted to remain in.

The company's head of research Anthony Serhan said businesses seeking commercial credit had also suffered as mortgage funds stopped writing new loans because of the pressure for redemptions.

"When the government had to move to put the guarantee in place, the world was a very different place ... there is some scope to review the position in light of the environment now," Mr Serhan said.

Zenith Investment Partners senior investment analyst Dugald Higgins said a staged removal of the government's bank guarantee would help, but would not solve the problem. He said many people had been burnt and if the funds unfroze investments they would be hit by a rush of investors heading for the door.

He said many of the larger funds were still paying solid distributions, but the freeze had hit seniors who needed a lump sum of money for a bond on a retirement home or medical expenses.

To help people hardest hit by the freeze, the Australian Securities&Investments Commission last year agreed to bend the law so that investors meeting hardship guidelines could pull $20,000 plus half the remaining balance from their funds.

An inquiry into the bank deposit and wholesale funding guarantees by the Senate Economics Committee is due to report on September 15.