Australian Classic Takes Top NSW Design Award

Award-winning architecture is often characterised as the most modern, cutting edge and innovative of the built realm. While these three elements often come together the create highly acclaimed architecture, the Building Designers Australia NSW Chapter has proven that this is not always the case.

Offering their top award to an Australian classic, the building design authority has emphasised the point that great design comes in any form, old or new, with a new spin on a traditional favourite often creating a winning mix.

James Cooper of Sanctum Design’s Manly Beach House, a modernised interpretation of the quintessential 1950s beach house, was selected as the winner of Premier’s Award for Design Excellence for new residential buildings over 450 square metres.

While the classic design creates a strong sense of nostalgia, the modern features peppered throughout the suburban beach side residential dwelling truly allow it to stand out. These include an outdoor shower and ‘sand room’ that act as functional spaces for post-beach activities.

The house itself focuses on optimising natural flow and and natural lighting, creating a space catered to the beach suburban lifestyle and all it has to offer.

Art House One by Kylie Mitchell Designs took home the New Residential Buildings up to 250 square metres award as well as the Penultimate Award or the Paul Dass Memorial Award.

While both of these developments fall into the residential sector, this is as far as their similarities go.

While Manly Beach house focuses on the reinterpretation of a classic design developed in response to a popular local lifestyle, the latter is a design piece that blurs the lines between architecture and artistry.

According to Mitchell, the house simply reflects her own desire to ‘create a living, breathing artwork, an artwork that you can actually live in.’

“For a long time I had wanted to combine the art and the building design, because they operate quite separately,” she says. “With building design, you have a number of regulations and codes that you have to work with whereas with the art I can do whatever I want, whenever I feel like it.”

With award winners varying greatly in their design motivations and interpretations, there is no one key element common to all. If these particular awards exemplify anything, it is that great design does not come in any one distinct form, and that it can be delivered across a wide range of genres.

Source  http://designbuildsource.com.au/australian-classic-takes-top-nsw-design-award

Foreign spy 'stole' Australian secrets

AN ALLEGED Canadian spy compromised Australian intelligence information in an espionage case that has sent shock waves through Western security agencies.

The alleged sale of top secret intelligence to Russian agents by naval officer Jeffrey Paul Delisle has been the subject of high-level consultation between the Australian and Canadian governments and was discussed at a secret international conference of Western security agencies in New Zealand this year. 

Australian security sources have privately acknowledged that the massive security breach compromised intelligence information and capabilities in Western intelligence agencies, especially the US and Canada but including Australia's top secret Defence Signals Directorate and Defence Intelligence Organisation. 

Information released under Australian freedom of information legislation shows the high commissioner to Canada, Louise Hand, discussed the case with Stephen Rigby, the national security adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, soon after Sub-Lieutenant Delisle's arrest on January 14. 

Her cabled report, classified "secret - sensitive" and sent to Canberra on January 30, has been redacted in full on security grounds. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was briefed on the case through liaison with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. 

Sub-Lieutenant Delisle worked at the Royal Canadian Navy's Trinity intelligence and communications centre at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Much of the information he allegedly sold was much more highly classified than the WikiLeaks cables and included top secret signals intelligence collected by the ''Five Eyes'' intelligence community of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 

Sub-Lieutenant Delisle was arrested after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service concluded he was passing classified information to operatives, believed to be members of the Russian military intelligence service. 

The Canadian government has, for diplomatic reasons, avoided publicly identifying Russia as the foreign power involved but several Russian diplomats were recalled to Moscow before the end of their postings. 

Precisely what type of information was allegedly passed has not been publicly disclosed. But intelligence sources in Canada and the US have been reported as privately confirming it involved top secret signals intelligence. 

Sub-Lieutenant Delisle's access reportedly covered signals intelligence produced by the US National Security Agency, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Canada's Communications Security Establishment, Australia's Defence Signals and New Zealand's Communications Security Bureau.

Australian security sources told the Herald his access was "apparently very wide" and that "Australian reporting was inevitably compromised". 

"The signals intelligence community is very close. We share our intelligence overwhelmingly with the US, UK and Canada - often more people read Australian reporting overseas than here in Australia," one former Defence Signals Directorate officer said. "So it's perhaps no surprise that a junior officer in faraway Halifax can compromise our material.'' 

Australian security sources have suggested the Russians would have been interested in a wide range of material, not only relating to the US and Canada, but to China, North Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan - ''all areas that DSD makes a contribution towards covering". 

Australia has said it will not comment on the case and it is its usual practice not to do so.

Sub-Lieutenant Delisle will appear before the Nova Scotia Supreme Court for a preliminary hearing in October. He is charged with communicating classified information to an unnamed foreign entity over nearly five years - between July 6, 2007, and January 13, 2012, when he was arrested. He faces possible life imprisonment if convicted. 

Source  http://www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au/news/world/world/general/foreign-spy-stole-australian-secrets/2634559.aspx

Prometheus strikes at Australian box office

PROMETHEUS has enjoyed the year's third-biggest opening at the Australian box office, taking $6.8 million.

With early previews, Ridley Scott's return to the Alien franchise already has grossed $7.2 million.

The movie starring Charlize Theron bumps Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows out of 2012's Top 3 openings to sit behind The Avengers with $13.3 million and The Hunger Games with $9 million.

In the UK, Prometheus held on to No.1 for a second weekend and has grossed over $25 million.

It couldn't manage a top spot debut in the US - coming in behind the animated Madagascar 3 ($60.9 million) - but its $51.5 million puts it among the best second-placed debuts in US history.

Prometheus has already grossed $144 million worldwide. The sci-fi film stars Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace as a team sent into deep space to find aliens who left messages on Earth thousands of years ago.

Source   http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/prometheus-strikes-at-australian-box-office/story-e6frewyr-1226394743092

Obama takes action against colleges preying on military, veterans

President Obama will sign an executive order Friday aimed at rooting out fraud and abuse of federal programs aimed at helping members of the military, veterans and their families go to college.

Obama will travel to Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Ga., to take steps to “ensure that service members and veterans and their families have the critical information they need to make informed decisions that protect them from aggressive and deceptive targeting by education institutions,” a senior administration official said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. He'll be joined by first lady Michelle Obama, who has made military families a priority with her Joining Forces initiative.

It’s been well-documented that some institutions – particularly for-profit colleges – target military and veteran students in their recruitment efforts without taking into account the readiness of those students for college-level classes, all in the interest of drawing in federal financial aid dollars and not necessarily in the interest of students.

The Education Department has already taken dramatic action aimed to rein in abuses of the for-profit colleges, with regulations on gainful employment and incentive compensation that have begun to take effect, but those rules are not enough when it comes to oversight of benefits for current members of the military, their spouses and veterans receiving support through the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Provisions in the order include:


-Requiring that colleges make provide the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Know Before You Owe financial aid form to all students participating in the Department of Defense’s tuition assistance program, which includes 2,000 institutions. The order also directs roughly 6,000 colleges participating in the VA’s programs to send the form to students.

-Keeping aggressive recruiters off military installations by requiring the Defense Department to establish rules for how educational institutions gain access to military facilities so that institutions with a history of bad practices are kept out.

-Cracking down on improper online recruiting, in part by having the VA begin the process of trademarking the term “GI Bill” so it can’t be used by misleading recruitment websites.
-Creating a centralized complaint system for service members and veterans to approach with their grievances against institutions.

-Collecting data from colleges on how much of their revenue comes from military and VA programs.
-Boosting enforcement of existing rules meant to protect students, including the Education Department’s regulations on gainful employment and incentive compensation.

During the 2010-11academic year, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid out more than $4.4 billion in grants to veterans under the Post-9/11 GI Bill and provided hundreds of millions of dollars in loans.
The Defense Department gave active duty service members $280 million to be used for tuition assistance in fiscal 2011, plus about $25 million for military spouses.

Eight of the top 10 institutions receiving Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits between 2009 and 2011 were for-profit colleges, and six had withdrawal rates above 50 percent, meaning that much of the federal money flowing into their coffers never led students to a degree. And service members and military spouses are also disproportionately enrolled at for-profit institutions, which enroll about 10 percent of post-secondary students nationwide.

For nearly two years, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has led an aggressive investigation of for-profit colleges and student outcomes. In a statement, he applauded the executive order as a “decisive step toward addressing the widespread problems” that his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has identified.

The order, he added, “sends a strong message to those who over-promise, under-deliver, and over-charge our veterans in order to profit off their hard-earned GI Bill benefits.” Moving forward, he and other congressional colleagues plan to advance legislation that will build on the order.

Former Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), the president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, said that the major for-profit college trade group is "disappointed" that the president chose to take executive action on issues that the industry was discussing with Congress.

"Two-thirds of the active-duty military and two-thirds of their spouses and dependents have also chosen to pursue their education through our institutions because we offer focused academic delivery and flexible scheduling that meets their individual needs," Gunderson said. "Career-oriented institutions proudly serve military and veteran populations, and work with congressional leaders in a bipartisan manner to address concerns about veteran education across all sectors of higher education."

Source  http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/04/obama-takes-action-against-colleges-preying-on-military-121803.html

GOP appointees will swing health care ruling

Here’s a thought that can’t comfort President Obama: The fate of his health care overhaul rests with four Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.

His most sweeping domestic achievement could be struck down if they stand together with Justice Clarence Thomas, another GOP appointee who is the likeliest vote against.

But the good news for Obama is that he probably needs only one of the four to side with him to win approval of the law’s crucial centerpiece, the requirement that almost everyone in this country has insurance or pays a penalty.

Lawyers with opposing views of the issue agree that the four Democratic-appointed justices, including Obama’s two picks, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, will have no trouble concluding that Congress did not overstep its authority in adopting the requirement that is aimed at sharply reducing the 50 million people without insurance.

On the other side, Thomas has made clear in several cases that he does not take an expansive view of Congress’ powers.

Both the Obama administration and the health care law’s challengers believe they can attract the other four Republicans to their side. The group includes Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two appointees of President George W. Bush who have swung the court to the right in a number of areas; conservative stalwart Antonin Scalia; and the less doctrinaire Anthony Kennedy.

There is no consensus in the legal and academic worlds as to which way the court will go or even how each of those four justices will vote.

The legal challenge, once seen as improbable at best, has everyone’s attention, partly because the justices find it weighty enough to devote six hours over three days to hearing the case, beginning March 26. That is the most time for any issue in more than 45 years.

“Arguments that once seemed outlandish don’t seem quite so outlandish anymore,’’ said University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley, a health law expert who says the law should be upheld.

The fight over the law has played out in starkly partisan terms. It passed Congress without a Republican vote. All the GOP presidential candidates have called for its repeal.

Some supporters of the law worry about the high court’s decision because a similar partisan split, with a few important exceptions, has emerged in the lower courts.

“I think as a constitutional matter, this should be an easy case,’’ said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal scholar and dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. “But every judge appointed by a Republican president, with two exceptions, has voted to strike the law down. And every judge appointed by a Democratic president, with one exception, has voted to uphold the law.’’

Source http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-19/nation/31207869_1_elena-kagan-justices-law-school

Obama declines to make a Super Bowl pick

It's an election year with fans (and voters) on both sides of the issue, so it's not exactly a surprise that President Obama declined Sunday to pick a winner between the Patriots and Giants in his pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC's Matt Lauer.

"It's going to be a great game," the president said. "What the Giants have done, coming back from that tough situation in the middle of the season, has been pretty remarkable. (Patriots coach Bill) Belilchick and (quarterback Tom) Brady, they're always tough, so it's going to be a tough game."

Hearkening back to the Giants' win over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII in which David Tyree made a remarkable catch to keep the Giants' winning drive alive, the president said of Sunday's game, "I can't call it. It's going to be one of those (games) when it comes down to a turnover or some ball on somebody's helmet."

Lauer noted that the president didn't hesitate in picking the Steelers over the Cardinals in 2009, and he replied, "I think this is going to be a tough game. Both teams have their weaknesses. They're not as strong as they were, I think, a couple of years ago. When you look at the Patriots, their defense is a little shaky. The Giants have just come back (from a midseason slump). I can't tell you who is going to win this one."

Lauer noted that the Patriots win in 2004, followed by President Bush's re-election, and the Giants won in 2008, the year in which he was elected. He asked the president again for a prediction, and he laughed and said, "You're not going to get me. You're not going to get me. I'm going to look for a great game."

During his five-minute interview with Lauer, the president also discussed tensions between Israel and Iran, adding, "My number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel, and we are going to continue to work in lockstep as proceed to try to solve this, hopefully diplomatically."

He said he does not believe Iran has the "intentions or capabilities" to launch attacks within the United States and said the U.S. would take no options off the table while preferring a diplomatic solution.

Lauer also hearkened back to a 2009 pre-Super Bowl conversation in which the president said that if the economy were not up and rolling in three years that he could be a one-term president.

"I deserve a second term, but we're not done," Obama said.

Source http://www.chron.com/superbowl/article/Obama-declines-to-make-a-Super-Bowl-pick-3050806.php

Obama claims share of credit for huge Boeing deal

US President Barack Obama Friday claimed a share of the credit as Boeing sealed its largest-ever commercial aircraft order to build 230 jets worth $21.7 billion for Indonesia's Lion Air.

The deal, for 201 737 MAXs and 29 737-900 ERs, bolstered Obama's strategic decision to orient the struggling US economy with booming markets in emerging Asia, which he sees as an engine of US jobs growth for years to come.

Obama officiated at the signing of papers sealing the deal between Boeing and Lion Air, a low-cost regional carrier, before plunging into a day of diplomacy with Southeast Asian leaders on the last leg of a Pacific tour.

"The US administration and the (Export-Import Bank) in particular were critical in facilitating this deal," Obama said, saying such commercial successes were critical to his goal of doubling US exports to speed recovery.

"I want to congratulate Boeing for making outstanding planes, including the one I fly on," Obama said, referring to his iconic presidential 747, at the ceremony on the Indonesian island of Bali attended by top US officials and Lion Air executives.

The president is in town for a Southeast Asian summit as well as Saturday's wider East Asia Summit which he sees as the cornerstone of security engagement with a region where China's rise is provoking searching strategic questions.

Boeing earlier said in a statement that the Lion Air deal would be "the largest commercial airplane order ever in Boeing?s history by both dollar volume and total number of airplanes."

By the face value, it would also be the largest any aircraft maker has received.

The agreement, which will unfold over many years, also includes the option to order another 150 aircraft, which could put the eventual value at $35 billion.

Boeing spokesman Wilson Chow said the sale underscores the strength of the aviation market in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region.

"According to our outlook, Asia-Pacific is one of our fastest growing markets areas... We're expecting a seven percent growth of traffic per year for the next 20 years," he told AFP.

He declined to give a timeframe for delivery of the aircraft, but noted that the 737 MAX will only be ready for delivery in 2017.

Craig West from Britain-based Airliner World magazine said he suspected the deal was a generational affair.

"This could be over a very long period of time, so that when the last batch begins to be delivered, the first batch are already so old that they are put out of service," he told AFP.

The White House, anxious to tout US successes amid 9.0 percent unemployment as Obama launches his 2012 reelection bid, said the deal would support 110,000 American jobs at Boeing and at suppliers throughout 43 American states.

Officials did not say that the pact would create new jobs, but highlighted other deals, some already announced, including the sale of eight Boeing 777-300ER jets to Singapore Airlines worth $2.4 billion.

Indonesia's Garuda Airlines meanwhile has signed a contract to buy 50 CFM56 General Electric engines worth $1.3 billion, the White House said.

And Sikorsky will sell Brunei 12 Blackhawk S-70i helicopters worth $325 million, the White House said, adding that the total value of all the deals was $25 billion.

The Lion Air deal topped this week's previous record Boeing order. The Chicago-based aircraft maker kicked off the Dubai Airshow with the announcement of an order from Emirates airline for 50 Boeing long-range 777-300ERs worth $18 billion at list price.

At the same show Boeing also sealed a deal with Qatar Airways for two 777 freighters for $560 million.

The Lion Air deal was likely a major victory for Boeing over European rival Airbus.

Aviation Week reported earlier this month that Lion Air had been weighing the US-made 737s against the Airbus 320.

A leading domestic and regional airline but little known internationally, Lion Air is Indonesia's largest private carrier, owned by brothers Kusnan and Rusdi Kirana.

In 2007, Lion Air was among several Indonesian airlines banned by the European Union for lax safety standards.

The ban on flag carrier Garuda Indonesia and several other carriers was lifted in July 2009, but Lion Air still remains on the blacklist.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jKI4jAnoYwbcQ6TQV-zq0Pyofi3g?docId=CNG.644abb4455fc9c3e9d6a21ef0f7ee346.1d1