GEEK TRAGEDY SUPER EXIT How to retire part

Wednesday July 13, 2005
First published 1831 No. 52,362 $1.20 (inc GST)
SUPER EXIT
GEEK TRAGEDY
How to retire part-time and be richer
The online gamer who became the world’s
biggest military hacker INSIGHT Page 14
MONEY Inside Radar
Troops ready
to join hunt
for al-Qaeda
Suddenly the confessed drug cheat is innocent
Hundreds expected to go to Afghanistan
Cynthia Banham
Defence Reporter
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Australian troops will be sent to
Afghanistan to help in the reconstruction effort and possibly hunt
down a resurgent al-Qaeda.
The national security committee of federal cabinet, which
includes the Prime Minister and
senior cabinet ministers, yesterday approved the deployment
but has delayed announcing the
details until today.
The Government has said the
troops might include a mixture
of army engineers and special
forces. It is believed several hundred troops will be involved in
the reconstruction but that any
special forces commitment will
be limited to just over 100. It is
also understood that a company
of combat commandos from the
4th Royal Australian Regiment
will support the SAS, assisting
and extracting any Australians
that come under fire.
The decision to send more
troops to Afghanistan had been
widely expected after several
senior ministers commented
recently that the Taliban were
rising again and talked of the
need to protect Afghanistan’s
fragile democracy.
The Attorney-General, Philip
Ruddock, told a security conference yesterday that the way in
which Afghanistan was used to
train people in terrorism was
reason to be concerned about its
‘‘continued stability’’.
Australia sent 1550 troops to
Afghanistan following the attacks on New York and
Washington on September 11,
2001, but since late 2002 it has
COLUMN 8
More – Page 18
Tim Mayman alerts us to
Monday’s Gulf News, a
Dubai newspaper, in which a
photo of the Premier is
captioned: ‘‘Al Sharif
Bobcar, the New South
Wales Governor.’’
WEATHER Details – Page 18
Sydney city Showers 9°-15°
Tomorrow fine 9°-17°
● Liverpool Light rain 6°-15°
Tomorrow fine 5°-17°
● Penrith Light rain 7°-15°
Tomorrow fine 5°-17°
● Newcastle Early rain 9°-18°
Tomorrow fine 9°-17°
● Wollongong Some rain 8°-17°
Tomorrow fine 7°-16°
●
ISSN 0312-6315
9 770312 631032
HOME AND AWAY
Australian troops abroad
● Afghanistan – one mine
clearance expert.
● Iraq – 1370 troops,
including 450 safeguarding
Japanese engineers.
● Solomons – 40 troops.
● Sudan – nine troops on UN
peacekeeping operation.
Pursuing Osama bin Laden
and the Taliban would be a
money-where-our-mouth-is
use of military resources.
Paul McGeough – Page 4
Police have raided houses
and carried out a controlled
explosion in Leeds in the hunt
for the London bombers.
About 500 people were
evacuated. – Page 8
had only one mine clearance expert in the country.
Labor and the Democrats have
supported Australia’s increased
involvement. ‘‘The Howard
Government should stand up and
admit that they cut and ran from
Afghanistan prematurely in
2002,’’ said the Opposition’s defence spokesman, Robert
McClelland. ‘‘They should admit
they got it wrong and address that
strategic mismanagement now.’’
The British and the Afghan
governments have been urging
Australia to send troops to
Afghanistan, where the level of
violence is reminiscent of the
period immediately after the
Taliban’s fall.
The Defence Minister, Robert
Hill, said last week that
Afghanistan would welcome
army engineers and that special
forces would be required to counter the threat of the Taliban and
terrorists, such as al-Qaeda.
Neil James, the director of the
Australian Defence Association,
said the Government would
most likely send only a small
force of special forces – less than
a squadron of 120 men – because
it would place too much demand
on those at home.
‘‘Obviously the amount of
special forces we contribute to
Afghanistan will be influenced
by how long they’re going to be
there and by other calls on them
for duties in Australia,’’ he said.
Mr James said any troops the
Government sent to Afghanistan would be different to
those being used in Iraq.
‘‘That means it’s unlikely we
would be sending large forces of
light infantry and light armour to
Afghanistan. We’re going to send
something different.’’
He said this could include
engineers and troops capable of
training Afghan police and
security forces.
Aldo Borgu, a defence analyst
from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the Government would probably send a
provincial reconstruction team
of about 200 to 400 personnel.
This would comprise infantry,
engineers and medics to rehabilitate Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister, John
Howard, is expected to make his
announcement sometime today.
In a spin ... his two-year cycling ban no more, Mark French describes his relief, and anxieties. He is legally free to ride, but faces the wrath of teammates. Photo: Wayne Taylor
Jacquelin Magnay
and Melissa Ryan
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Mark French was the
whistleblower who revealed an
injecting culture among cyclists at
the Australian Institute of Sport
and set off a chain of events that
made friends into bitter enemies,
split Australia’s Olympic team and
left him ostracised from the sport.
Yesterday French broke down
in tears after an appeal panel
overturned his two-year drug
ban – even though he had
admitted to taking Testicomp, a
banned substance.
The panel of the Court of
Arbitration for Sport, headed by
Richard McLaren, found that
Australia: In your face, world
David Dale and
Jessica Irvine
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Goodbye, cultural cringe. Australians are smarter, healthier, and
busier than most of the world, the
Social Trends report from the
Bureau of Statistics suggests.
At school our teenagers can
read, count and understand
scientific concepts better than
the teens of the US, Sweden
France and Italy.
We spend more on health per
citizen ($3300 a year) than the
people of Japan, Italy, Britain and
New Zealand. Possibly because of
this, the life expectancy of a child
born now (78 for boys and 83 for
girls) is higher than in Canada,
Britain, New Zealand and the US.
Our unemployment rate (6 per
cent) is the same as America’s
and lower than that of France,
Italy and Canada. Our median
age (37) is younger than that of
Canada, Italy, Britain, Sweden,
Singapore, and Japan.
Australian teenagers performed in tests conducted as part
THE FINDINGS
No benefit from individual
work contracts – Page 3
Kids stick to feathered
nest – Page 6
‘I’m pretty comfortable at
home for the next couple
of years.’
MARTIN CULNANE, 26
of the Program for International
Student Assessment, and from the
results the bureau found that
‘‘Australian 15-year-olds performed well when compared with
41 OECD and other countries
across both maths and science
scores. Australia’s mean score of
524 in mathematical literacy and
525 in scientific literacy placed it
above the OECD average of 500
for each skill, and in the top third
of countries.’’
And where other countries
(notably South Korea, New Zealand and Canada) experience a
marked difference in ability between boys and girls, the bureau
notes ‘‘there were no significant
sex differences in scores for
Australian 15-year-olds’’.
OK, enough smugness. We still
have a way to go: the babies of
Japan and Hong Kong will live
longer than ours; Britain,
Sweden and New Zealand have a
better employment rate; because
of our low birth rate, we’re older
than Malaysia and Indonesia;
and the maths and science geeks
of Hong Kong, Japan and Korea
beat the pants off our geeks.
The Social Trends 2005 report
also offered these good news/
bad news scenarios:
䡺 Household wealth is increasing, but not togetherness. The
bureau predicts that by 2026 the
proportion of Australians living
as couples with children will
drop from 52 per cent to about
40 per cent; one-parent families
will rise from 11 per cent to
15 per cent of the population;
and those living alone will rise
Continued Page 6
because of the seriousness of the
charges, elements of the case had
to be proven to a higher level
than the balance of probabilities.
Professor McLaren cleared
French of taking Testicomp
because the drug had never been
tested to prove it contained a
banned steroid. Professor
McLaren found that the chain of
custody of a bucket of drugs,
including equine growth
hormone, and drug equipment
was insufficient and that other
cyclists, including French’s former
teammates Jobie Dajka and Sean
Eadie, also had unfettered access
to the room where it was found.
The findings have left the sport
reeling. French, 20, wants to get
INSIDE
Warney? It’s Kerry
back on his bike, but he faces a
frosty reception. ‘‘I’ve been up and
down more than a yo-yo,’’ he said,
in tears at a Melbourne news
conference. ‘‘I’m just thankful my
family’s stuck by me. I’ve been a
lot more down than up.’’
French, twice junior world
champion, has been ostracised for
the past 18 months and was kinghit from behind last November at a
South Melbourne hotel. He knows
that to regain elite form may be
beyond him for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next
year. But the appeal result means
his Olympic life ban has been
lifted and he is cautiously thinking
of Beijing in 2008.
But that would mean resuming
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Vizard tax escape
The Tax Office investigated
allegations that Steve
Vizard used charitable
trusts to avoid paying tax,
but it did not pursue the
comedian-turned
businessman. Page 21
‘They were my best
friends and ... they’ve
betrayed me.’
MARK FRENCH
were my best friends and I’ve lost
so much from it. They’ve betrayed
me and I honestly don’t know.’’
To make the Australian team
he would have to return to the
national program that, his father
David said, so failed him. ‘‘His
whole life has been curtailed
through this. We can’t overstate
the damage that has been done to
Mark,’’ David French said.
But others have suffered too
and memories are long. The track
program is in disarray. Last month
two national team members,
Dajka and Stephen Perkins, came
to blows in Adelaide over French.
Dajka, once French’s closest
friend, is now an enemy. Dajka
missed the Olympics after he was
found to have lied to a previous
inquiry into French’s allegations.
Dajka is banned from cycling
for three years after hitting the
Continued Page 6
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Eadie under fire – Page 34
Hands-free, but not crash-free
Julie Robotham
Medical Editor
Shane Warne has been
sacked from Channel Nine’s
commentary team because
of his off-field behaviour. The
blow, reportedly conveyed in
a personal phone call from
Kerry Packer, will cost
Warne a deal worth about
$300,000 a year. Page 36
contact with former teammates,
and an emotional French said
yesterday he could not be sure
how they would react. ‘‘They
Hands-free mobile phones offer
no protection against car accidents, according to world-first
Australian research that plotted
the call records of drivers
involved in crashes.
Drivers were four times more
likely to crash while using a
phone – whether they were
holding it or not.
The findings challenge the
rationale for laws that permit
motorists to make calls while
driving only with hands-free devices. And they confirm a growing body of evidence that shows
the mental distraction of phone
conversations affects driving
skills at least as much as
physically handling the phone.
The study’s leader, Mark
Stevenson, said: ‘‘The road
authorities need to reconsider
the basis of legislation . . . there is
overwhelming evidence it’s the
distraction factor.’’
The NSW Roads and Traffic
Authority said hand-held
phones were identified as a
possible contributor to 10
crashes in 2004 in which there
were injuries, and a further 20 in
which cars had to be towed
away. But, said RTA spokeswoman Karen Smith, this was
likely to be an underestimate.
In the 18 months to June last
year, 20,383 NSW drivers were
fined for using a hand-held
phone. The penalty is $231 and
three demerit points.
Professor Stevenson, director
of the injury prevention and
trauma care division at the University of Sydney’s George Institute for International Health, said
there would be practical difficulties in policing any extension to
the law. It was more important, he
said, to change attitudes to using
the phone while driving.
The mobile phone firm
Vodafone encourages workers to
limit their phone calls while driving and warns them: ‘‘A conversation on a hands-free mobile
phone may be more distracting
than a conversation with a passenger in a vehicle with you. This is
because your passenger will be
aware of road conditions but a
person who is talking with you on
your hands-free phone will not.’’
Professor Stevenson’s study,
conducted in Perth emergency
departments, examined the
phone records of 456 injured
drivers and found 40 of them –
9 per cent – had used their mobile
within 10 minutes before the
crash. Only 3 per cent of the same
drivers had been on the phone at
comparable times of day during
the previous week. Statistical
analysis showed the risk of a crash
was four times higher around the
time of the phone call.
Writing in the journal BMJ, Professor Stevenson said wireless and
voice-activated phones might remove some distracting elements
from calls but not the risk. ‘‘If this
technology actually increases mobile phone use in cars, it could
contribute to even more crashes.’’
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Comment – Page 13
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