Capill pleads guilty to sex abuse

Well, it's good that former CHP leader Graham Capill pleaded guilty today to sexually abusing a minor several times, understood to be aged eight at the time. The eight- year-old girl was in bed in her pyjamas on some occasions. (See earlier comments below) The confession means that we can finally name him as suppression is lifted. However the person he abused will never be named. I have heard a couple of accounts of the relationship between the two. I was also aware that Capill worked as a Police prosecutor. His job seems stuffed now.

Brainfade actually broke the suppression order by naming him on Sunday.

Watch for those in the gay community to gloat. The CHP website is getting a few more hits today - and the party has has already deleted just about everything on its site referring to him. I guess its time the CHP deleted Capill's name as the admin contact name for the CHP site at the New Zealand Domain Name Registry Limited.

2005 Sumatra earthquake

The 2005 Sumatra earthquake, referred to as the Nias Earthquake by the scientific community, was a major earthquake on 28 March 2005, located off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Approximately 1300 people were killed by the earthquake, mostly on the island of Nias. The event caused panic in the region, which had previously been devastated by the massive tsunami triggered by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, but this earthquake generated a relatively small tsunami that caused limited damage. It was the third most powerful earthquake since 1965 in Indonesia.

The earthquake occurred at 16:09:36 UTC (23:09:36 local time) on 28 March 2005. The hypocenter was located at 2°04′35″N 97°00′58″E, 30 kilometres (19 mi) below the surface of the Indian Ocean, where subduction is forcing the Indo-Australian Plate to the south-west under the Eurasian plate's Sunda edge. The area is 200 kilometres (120 mi) west of Sibolga, Sumatra, or 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) northwest of Jakarta, approximately halfway between the islands of Nias and Simeulue. Seismic recordings give the earthquake a moment magnitude of about 8.6 and effects were felt as far away as Bangkok, Thailand; over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away.

Work in the sex Industry or lose your benefit

Germany legalised prostitution a couple of years ago. The British Telegraph reported that a waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services" at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit

According to the BT, under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Can you imagine how a 54-year-old unemployed women would react if she was told to work in the sex industry?

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.

At least here in New Zealand, officials are able to distinguish brothels from bars.

The interesting thing about the BT article is that the news is more than 18 months old and apparently, the job wasn`t for sexual services, it was for bar work at a brothel.

The article seems to have been scratched together by a variety of sources, and although officials can legally make long term unemployed women work in brothels they are not currently pushing them to do so.

The interesting thing that the prostitution debate has again raised is that social morals and legal morals are seen as quite distinct. Some want legal morals to reflect social morals and oppose reform of prostitution and abortion laws, and laws relating to homosexuality, while others may consider that, for example, prostitution is "abhorrent" but should be legalised.

Tsunami and debt relief

United Nation Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed New Zealand's contribution to the tsunami disaster relief fund

That's unsurprising since most of it is channeled through the United Nations, whereas Australia's contribution is channeled to those directly in need in Indonesia. It is well known that Miss Clark would like a job at the UN if she loses the election and being on Kofi Annan's good books is a step in the right direction. Helen Clark would rather be chummy with Kofi than with John Howard or Dubya, which is why there is no coordinated Australasian effort. Australia doesn’t need NZ's comparative paltry aid effort and NZ likes the UN rather than Australia.