Category: AUSTRALIAN

Australians now boast the highest median wealth in the world…

Despite all the glum faces, Australians have been found to boast the highest median wealth in the world.

According to the third annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, the median wealth per adult in Australia is a whopping $189,552. This is the highest of all 216 countries surveyed by the big bank.

And the good news doesn’t stop there either, with Australia also boasting the highest proportion of people with wealth above $100,000 at eight times the world average.

“These are times of unprecedented economic change, and a radical reconfiguration of the world’s economic order is taking shape,” says Francesco de Ferrari, Singapore-based head of private banking for Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse.

It appears that radical reconfiguration is seriously tilted in Australia’s favour.
“Asia- Pacific, which makes up two-thirds of the world’s middle class of emerging consumers, remains the key growth engine of the world economy and global wealth.” de Ferrari says of the region.

According to the Credit Suisse report, the Euro Zone debt crisis has sucked an enormous $10.6 trillion from the value of household assets in that region. This compares to the Asia Pacific region shedding $1.4 trillion.

Globally household wealth has fallen by 5.2% since the middle of last year, but is expected to grow by almost 50% over the next five years.

This surging wealth of Australians probably means there’s no better place to be selling your small business wares.

Source: SMH

Point Piper … the highest prices and highest incomes in the country.

If you’re after bragging rights over how expensive your home is, Sydney is the place to be.

Perth and Melbourne are the only other major cities that feature as magnets for the very wealthy but are a distant second and third behind the harbour city.

Sydney has 19 of Australia’s most expensive 25 suburbs, according to the RP Data Property Pulse released today. Perth has three, Melbourne two and Eagle Bay in Western Australia’s Margaret River region also gets a top 25 ranking.

The suburb with the highest median house price in Australia is Point Piper in Sydney, where the very impressive bricks and mortar will cost you around $7.4 million. That gets you a place only four kilometres away from the the centre of town, on average.

Point Piper residents have the highest average incomes in the nation, averaging just over $182,000.

‘‘If you own a house in Point Piper you have truly made it,’’ RP Data research director Tim Lawless said.

A cheaper joint, at $6.5 million, is available at Watson’s Bay, seven kilometres away from the city centre. In third place is Centennial Park, followed by Woolwich – both in Sydney.

Perth’s Peppermint Grove takes fifth spot, where your flash pad will set you back $4.3 million. It’s 10 kilometres from the city centre, but one would think there must be a bus service.

Melbourne is much more affordable. A Toorak mansion can be bought for a song: only $2.8 million.

But it’s 12th among the top 25. And all sports fans know that no one ever remembers the runners-up.

Bringing up the rear of the top 25 is Sydney’s Bronte, where your very sweet home will pull $2.01 million from your bank account.

The best deal may be in Hobart, at Battery Point, where one can settle down for just $861,000 and be only one kilometre from the city centre.

Battery Point attains the lowly rank of 365 but it is the only suburb in Australia where it costs less than $1 million to buy into the elite hosing market.

Mr Lawless said suburbs on the property rich list tended be in areas near the central business district, close to the water, or featured houses with a heritage value or houses perched on larger blocks of land.

Only three of the top 25 most expensive suburbs are further than 10 kilometres from the capital city central business district.

The population living within the most expensive 25 suburbs accounts for just 0.5 per cent of Australia’s population.

The property data does not say if the top 25 suburbs are tree-lined, but 15 of them have in their names: bay, point, grove, park, hill, heights or beach.

Nominees have been announced for the 2012 International Emmys.

From Australia, The Slap from Matchbox Pictures / ABC / Screen Australia is nominated for Drama Series.

It competes with Braquo (France), ICAC Investigators 2011 (Hong Kong), The Kitchen Musical (Singapore) and The Social Leader (Argentina).

The Amazing Race Australia from Seven Productions-Seven Network (Operations) Ltd. / Active TV / ABC Studios is nominated for Non-Scripted Entertainment against entries from Singapore, Brazil and Spain.

Other nominees included Black Mirror, Absolutely Fabulous and Queen: Days of Our Lives.

Winners will receive their Emmys at the 40th International Emmy Awards Gala, on November 19, in New York City.

In the first International Emmy Kids Awards, SLiDE from Hoodlum/Playmaker Media/Fox 8/Foxtel was nominated for Kids: Series against entries from Brazil, Japan and Norway.

Winners for the International Emmy Kids Awards will be announced on February 8, 2013 in New York City.

Source: ABCNEWS24

Scientists are using a Vegemite-like beef extract to kill the crown of thorns starfish, one of the biggest threats to the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) says the crown of thorns starfish is responsible for 40 per cent of coral death on the reef since the 1980s.

James Cook University’s Centre for Coral Reef Biodiversity in north Queensland has developed a culture that infects the starfish with its own bacteria.

Professor Morgan Pratchett says trials have been successful but that it is not a magic cure.

“We still have to infect every single starfish individually at the moment in order to kill them once an outbreak is established,” he said.

He says scientists are seeing the start of the fourth outbreak on the Great Barrier Reef right now.

“There’s just simply too many starfish that it’s going to be hard to go out there and really put a dent in the population,” he said.

“The main way we’ve come up with at the moment is actually injecting them with a protein-based media culture, which is just a mechanism by which you promote the natural bacteria within these starfish.”

He says it is killing the crown of thorns, but more tests are needed to ensure it does not damage the underlying coral.

The Balkans Wars through Australian Eyes’ is a bilingual presentation, giving Australian perspectives on the liberation of large parts of the modern Hellenic state: western Macedonia, the northern Aegean islands and southern Epiros.

October 2012 marks 100 years since the liberation of Thessalonike and western Macedonia.

The Pan-Macedonian Association of NSW, the Order of AHEPA (NSW and NZ) and the Australian Hellenic Council (NSW) have combined forces to present this unique event as part of the ‘Centenary of Thessalonike’ celebrations.

The newspaper reports published across Australia provide insights into the people and events of the time: who lived in Macedonia and the other regions?

Where were their loyalties?

What can we learn about Hellenism in the 21st century from Australian reporting on Hellenism a century ago?

These are the questions this fully illustrated presentation explores.

Join us as we explore our past to discover our future.

Date: Wednesday 10 October 2012

Venue: AHEPA Hall, Princes’ Highway, Rockdale

Time: 7:30pm

Source: TheAustralian

This undated photo provided by researcher Katsuhiko Hayashi shows an adult mouse which was born from an egg cell produced from a skin cell, and her pups born normally. The eggs were produced by making skin cells revert to a kind of blank slate, so they could be prodded to develop into immature egg cells.

EXPERIMENTS which turned mice stem cells into viable eggs used to create offspring via in vitro fertilisation would be fraught with scientific and ethical hurdles in humans, Australian researchers say.

The findings, by Japanese researchers and published in the journal Science Express, showed eggs created from the mice stem cells could be fertilised and transplanted into female mice who gave birth to newborn pups.

But Australian researchers warned that although the findings showed it might be possible to create eggs from human stem cells in the same way, this was not an option at present.

“The study suggests that it may be possible one day to create functioning usable human eggs, called oocytes, but this is not feasible or viable at this time,” said Bryce Vissel from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.
Dr Vissel said creating human eggs would remain fraught with scientific challenges and hurdles, including major questions relating to viability, reliability and safety.

He said the real importance of the study was that it could allow more investigation into how human female eggs developed.

Reproductive professor at the University of Adelaide, Robert Norman, said the research offered hope to infertile couples who wanted their own children, but application in humans was still a long way off.

“For many infertile couples, finding they have no sperm or eggs is a devastating blow for which there is no solution other than to not have children, or to use donor gametes,” he said.

Using donors was a complex emotional and social issue, Prof Norman said.
“If a person with no gametes could use their own cells to create a child, all the problems would disappear.”
It also had the potential for post-menopausal women to have children, raising even more ethical issues, he said.

Associate Professor Kuldip Sidhu, director of the Stem Cell Lab at the University of NSW, said the biggest question mark over the study was whether the same process would work with human embryonic stem cells.

Source: Breaking National News

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says former Future Fund head David Murray’s warning that Australia risks a European-style economic downturn if debt is not addressed is a “timely reminder”.

Mr Murray said on Wednesday Australia’s dependence on the rest of the world for trade and capital financing made it “easily possible” to follow the path of countries like Greece, which face problems repaying their sovereign debt problems.

“I think that’s a timely warning from David Murray,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.

“The lesson of Europe is that countries can go very quickly from a strong position to a parlous position if things aren’t well managed.”

The federal government had “completely mishandled the mining sector” by loading it with extra costs, such as the mining tax and carbon tax.

“This is a government which just assumes that rivers of gold will keep on flowing into this country,” Mr Abbott said.

“Well, I’m afraid you can never make that kind of assumption.”

Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said earlier on Thursday that while it was important to balance the national budget, the comparison between Greece and Australia was “frankly reckless and irresponsible”.

“(It’s) like telling Black Caviar if she didn’t watch out, next year she’d be giving kids pony rides at the St Marys Spring Festival,” he told Sky News.

“This is the sort of thing that you hear if you listen to Alan Jones on 2GB.”

Greece’s economy has been contracting for the past six years but Australia has had 21 years of ongoing growth, Mr Bradbury said.

Liberal frontbencher Bruce Billson said Mr Murray’s comments showed the government’s economic management strategy was unsustainable.

“This government is not only spending all the money that’s coming in, they’re borrowing $100 million a day,” he said.

Source: The West Australian

Daniel Macri, said to be WA’s strongest man, was just getting warmed up yesterday when he pulled a 10-tonne truck behind him in preparation for the Perth final of Australia’s strongest man competition this weekend.

In the heavyweight division on Saturday, another 10 tonnes will be added when a trailer is hooked on to the truck.

Macri, 23, a 170kg, 186cm man-mountain, has to haul it 20m.

He will be pitted against three men in five other events, including the yoke carry, where competitors carry a 425kg frame for 25m.

In the log press, they have to lift a 310kg metal log above their heads as many times as they can in one minute. They will carry two metal suitcases, each weighing 140kg, for 50m in the farmer’s walk.

Despite tearing a muscle at the end of last year, Macri, of Alfred Cove, is favourite to win. If he does, he will head to the national final in NSW next month. Macri came fourth last year.

He said his interest in the sport was sparked when he watched the World’s Strongest Man competition on TV when he was 14.

Macri encouraged others to get into the sport.

“I just love the feeling of beating my personal best and striving to do things that no one else can do,” he said.

The event starts at 10am at Muscle Worx in Currambine.

Source: WesternAdvocate

Eveything old is new Save

CRAIG Lowndes and Team Vodafone are the final team to unveil their retro Bathurst livery, with the Triple Eight Commodore wearing a similar paint scheme to Peter Brock’s all-conquering 1979 Holden Dealer Team Torana.

The Commodore was delivered to the track in style, taken by helicopter to the top of Mount Panorama and placed near Brock Skyline, where Lowndes and Bev Brock jumped in and drove to the pits to be greeted by a large crowd of fans.

While Lowndes doesn’t expect to repeat Brock’s effort of winning by six laps and setting the lap record on the final lap, he does hope that it brings him luck.

“It’s a great honour for me. I grew up watching from the couch, seeing this livery go round the Mountain and hoping to come and compete. Now I hope I can do it justice,” Lowndes said.

“Vodafone have been fantastic to allow us to sticker the car the same way it was in the late 1970s when Peter drove here, and to have Bev here beside me is fantastic.

“We were talking as we drove down Skyline through the Dipper and Bev said she was reminded how harsh the cars were and how difficult they were.

“For me it’s going to be a very difficult and very emotional weekend, the same way it was in 2006. This brings it all back up again.”

Bev Brock said she was delighted to see one of Peter’s liveries being re-done and said there was no-one more fitting that Lowndes to be sporting it.

“It’s mind-blowing,” she said. “You don’t expect this sort of thing. Here you are on the 40th anniversary of Peter’s first victory and to have Craig in this car out there, running all day and hopefully finishing first – Peter would be so unbelievably proud,” she said.

Brock said that if Peter was around to give Lowndes advice, it would be to enjoy the race and soak up the atmosphere, rather than just focusing on the win.

“He would say to Craig, this is the greatest race track in the universe, it was never just on Earth, it had to be the universe, and you are the flagbearer for the motorsport fraternity so go out there and focus on lap after lap,” she said. “Don’t get ahead of yourself and who knows, you might cross the finish line first.

“Peter did say that some of his greatest races were the ones he didn’t win, the ones where he had the greatest challenges. We tend to focus on the winner but we know that everyone out there has driven an amazing race to end up making it. To Peter it was the pinnacle of his year and he would be so honoured to see this.”

Lowndes is playing down any suggestions that he and co-driver Warren Luff are the favourites for Sunday’s race but form is on their side, with the pair producing a near flawless effort to win the Sandown 500 last month.

“It will be a tough week of motor racing”,” Lowndes said. “The 500 proved that. The fast cars will come to the front but there’s 1000 kilometres, 161 laps. It’s going to be one hell of a day. Jamie [Whincup] and PD [Paul Dumbrell] are pretty pumped, Warren and I are delighted obviously. It’s the best possible week of lead-up, coming out of the 500 the way we did,” Lowndes said.

“There’s no doubt that Jamie and PD will be fast. FPR and Stone Brothers will also be there. This is one of the races that everyone lifts for. It’s no surprise the number of people who are here. We went through town and the atmosphere was unbelieveable. There’s not doubt that everyone has come here with their best race car and best preparation to give it their best shot.

Team Vodafone have put plenty of effort in, with Lowndes and Warren Luff wearing race suits similar in design to those that Brock and Jim Richards wore.

Those race suits will be auctioned after the race, along with panels of the car, to raise funds for the Peter Brock Foundation.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Our universities are among the best.

http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/10/04/1226487/799236-world-university-rankings-2012-13.pdf

SIX Australian universities have been ranked in the world’s top 100 as the power balance in global higher education shifts to the Asia-Pacific region.

Melbourne is the highest ranked Australian university, according to The Times Higher Education 2012-13 World University Rankings, to be released today.

Australia posted the third-biggest improvement in the world, with its eight top 200 institutions rising an average of 15 places. Six Australian universities are now in the top 100, two more than last year.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-13

Melbourne University (ranked 28th) made the top 30 for the first time, widening its lead on the Australian National University, which moved from 38th in 2011-12 to 37. Sydney (62, down from 58), Queensland (65), New South Wales (85), and Monash (99) also made the top 100.

Adelaide University debuted in the top 200 at 176 and Western Australia University rose one spot to 190.

University performance was judged on 13 indicators, including research, teaching, knowledge transfer, and international activity.

Rankings editor Phil Baty said Australia had improved significantly.

“It has great advantages being close to the exciting innovation and research hotspots in Asia,” he said. “If it can fully exploit the geographical advantage it has over Europe and North America, there’s every reason to believe it can be part of a higher education revolution in Asia-Pacific.”

Mr Baty said Australian improvements were based on better scores for research, in scholarly papers per staff and citation impact.

Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robinson said the results showed the importance of public investment in universities. “This result shows once again that our universities are not only world-class, but world-leading,” she said.