World

Gangnam Style _ The Korean horse dance that amused the world

October 8, 2012 by Reporter 1 Comment

This Korean pop sensation PSY – Gangnam Style has become big enough to be in your face and is now known worldwide as the current hottest happening star not only on you tube but also on your TV. He is 34 year old PSY ( short form for Psycho) who is korean and his wild and wacky Horse riding dance accompanied by a catchy tune has catapulted him to worldwide fame on You tube and now on TV Music charts as well.

Gangnam Style In Australia

Pic : www.digitalgrog.com.au

The song Gangnam style has raced past The current popular hit on you tube

“Gotye’s – somebody That i used to know “ ( 330 Million views) and can soon beat theNo 1 on the internet

“Justin Bieber You tube record of The song- BABY” with 784 million Views.

PSY Gangnam style has topped the charts in Australia and UK and has become popular on the music harts in 33 countries in spite of his song being in Korean

Australian Music Charts (Foreign Language songs)

There have been other foreign language songs earlier that has graced the Australian music charts like below

La Bamba ( LOS LOBOS 1987)

SUKIYAKI (KYU SAKAMOTO 1963)

Macarena ( LOS DEL RIO 1996)

The Ketchup ( LAS KETCHUP 2002)

Los Del Rio

The video has also gained attention in Various different media shows With Britney spears trying it on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Chris gayle Gangnam style In world Twenty ten Cricket and Google top honcho “Eric Schmidt gangnam style and BOLLYWOOD GANGNAM STYLE and you can also check out a bunch of gangnam style parody songs over here

Links:

For details on Gotye’s upcoming tour dates go here http://www.gotye.com

Hungary Citizens can now claim social benefit with new social security agreement with Australia

October 1, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

A new social security agreement by Australia and Hungary will come into force from 1st October 2012 , which was signed by Kevin Rudd and the Hungarian Foreign Minister (Dr János Martonyi) on 7th June 2011 in Budapest.

Australia has a number of formal social security agreements with a variety of countries. These agreements may help you continue to get social security entitlements when you move between agreement countries.

What this Social Security Agreement Between Hungary and Australia means ?

Like Social Security agreements with many other countries like UK and Australia , this agreement with Hungary will enable persons who lived in both countries to be able to claim a pension or benefit .

You can access the full document of the agreement over here at FAHCSIA

Minister for Community Services, Jenny Macklin, said the agreement gives people greater freedom to move between Australia and Hungary, knowing that their pension rights will be recognised and protected.

Download Documents

What is a social security agreement

A social security agreement co-ordinates the pension programs of two countries for people who have lived or worked in both countries. Social security agreements help people receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

Australia has 27 international social security agreements. In some instances you may be able to receive pensions from both countries, with each agreement country paying a part pension to you (if you have lived in both countries).

10 Australian Social Security Agreements

Introduction

This part contains information on each of Australia’s social security agreements.

In this part

This part currently contains the following chapters:

10.1 General Principles of Agreements

10.2 Agreement with New Zealand 2002

10.3 Agreement with the United Kingdom

10.4 Agreement with Italy

10.5 Agreement with Canada

10.6 Agreement with Spain

10.7 Agreement with Malta

10.8 Agreement with the Netherlands

10.9 Agreement with Ireland

10.10 Agreement with Portugal

10.11 Agreement with Austria

10.12 Agreement with Cyprus

10.13 Agreement with Denmark

10.14 Agreement with Germany

10.15 Agreement with the United States of America

10.16 Agreement with Chile

10.17 Agreement with Croatia

10.18 Agreement with Slovenia

10.19 Agreement with Belgium

10.20 Agreement with Norway

10.21 Agreement with Switzerland

10.22 Agreement with Korea

10.23 Agreement with Greece

10.24 Agreement with Japan

10.25 Agreement with Finland

10.26 Agreement with Poland

10.27 Agreement with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

10.28 Agreement with the Czech Republic

10.29 Agreement with the Slovak Republic

10.30 Agreement with Hungary

10.100 Glossary for Australian Social Security Agreements

_________________________________

Last reviewed: 7 June 2010

You can also find some more information the Australian human services website

Data Centre Investment in Australia picks up

August 25, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

With Australia becoming a significant hub requiring IT services, the demand for Local based Data Centres have increased.

Many local Businesses and government are more comfortable in a local provider who is under the Australian government laws, handling their data traffic and internet services rather than a company that is somewhere in the US, with the data being able to be investigated by the US authorities at their will.

Multi-million data centre to open in Sydney

Cloud hosting provider Rackspace is opening a multimillion-dollar data centre in Erskine Park in Sydney’s west. The company is said to fulfil existing high demand for onshore cloud computing services.

Demand is high for cloud computing and data centres from small businesses to corporate and financial institutions and government agencies.
US-based Rackspace has had a sales and technical support operation in Australia for 3½ years.

Rackspaces top clients

Lonely Planet

Pacific Brands

Tourism Queensland

Xero

Saasu.

AMAZON , HP, FUJITSU DATA CENTRES EXPAND IN AUSTRALIA

With the expansion of this data centre there will be some more jobs with the company expanding to a total of 50 employees within three years. Most big companies like Google and other Big US providers are subject to the US Patriot Act, whereby the US government can access your stored records if they think it necessary, while any company operating under Australian soil will still have to disclose any information in compliance with Australian law.

Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing arm of Amazon.com, recently announced an Edge location in Sydney australia for some of its data and online services. HP has opened a $200 million data centre in Western Sydney, while Fujitsu has done a multimillion dollar upgrade to its Melbourne data centre.

What is s data centre ?

Fujitsu has done a $60 million investment on its data centre to provide its 2,000 Australian enterprise and government customers with increased access to secure hosting services

The get an idea of what a data centre really is , you can check out his pdf information file ( yeh bro) by fujitsu

Assange Arrest– Has british police broken International Law.

August 16, 2012 by Reporter 2 Comments

The Australian JULIAN ASSANGE , wanted by British authorities for breaching bail conditions after a court ordered his extradition to Sweden, is just hours from learning if Ecuador will protect him. If not, he faces being ejected from the embassy into the arms of police.

WikiLeaks tweeted this morning that police in two large vans had arrived ‘‘to surround the Ecuadorian embassy in London’’ about midnight, local time.

The Ecuadorian government will announce it decision on Assange’s bid at 10pm today(AEST).

Two Metropolitan Police vans have parked directly outside the entrance of the Ecuador embassy in the west London building. Several police vans are outside the embassy, police have been seen entering through a side door and uniformed officers are standing guard at the front entrance.

According to an Australian law expert., Any incursion by the British at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts.

"The Ecuadorian embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the embassy without consent.

"If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”

Mr Patino told a news conference that Ecuador had received a written threat on Wednesday from Britain that "it could assault our embassy" if Assange was nothanded over.

Why would UK take this extreme step ( with possible international law beingbroken)

Some possible reasons

Pressure from Other countries( mainly US and Sweden) to get Assange extradited
UK Considers Ecuador a small and powerless country with low risk in taking this bold step for this reasons.
Poor decision making process by some London authorities.

This increasingly it seems as a a matter between Ecuador and the United Kingdom” though it could have international conseqences

Police have clashed with a Huge protests at the Ecuadorian embassy in London as tension mounts over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s bid for political asylum. Media Commentators have said that US is putting pressure on other governments to make the extradition of Julian assange to Sweden and then the US successful.

A "citizen journalist" with the twitter account https://twitter.com/alburyj, was streaming the ongoing activity at the site , but the feed has since stopped.

Guest post by Sheldon

Olympian stuff ups – news update

July 31, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

In a temporary setback to the Olympics , all the locks to the London’s Wembley stadium’s internal locks have been changed, costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Drama at the Olympics

Officials announced a set of keys that could once open London’s Wembley Stadium was lost with the search for the lost keys by Scotland yard proving unfruitful. The Police said there isn’t a security concern. and the stadium will host the soccer finals for the Olympics.

In other Olympic news

TWITTER INSULT INVESTIGATED

The Twitter insult against British diver Tom Daley has attracted the attention of police. In Britain, tweeting messages considered menacing, offensive or indecent can lead to prosecution.

Australian boxer “Damien Hooper” warned not to wear the traditional Aboriginal flag on his t-shirt

He said that he did it for his people and his heritage, but officials have warned the Olympic Australian boxer Damien Hooper not to repeat his entry to the Olympic ring with the Aboriginal flag emblazoned across his chest.

Head scarf for Muslim women in Olympics

In separate Olympic news while Australia is banning its indigenous athletes from wearing their flag Sarah Attar, Saudi Arabia’s other female Olympic athlete, is expected wear a head scarf when she competes in distance running and so is a taekwondo candidate from the middle east

Things to know about energy mis-sellling

July 31, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Miss-sold energy has become frequent in the recent days. It is a situation in which you are billed more than the actual amount for any form energy like gas or electricity The energy companies make profits more than any other sector by miss-selling or miss-billing but their customer satisfaction tends to fall. . If you are one of the victims who had emptied your pockets spending pounds and dollars for paying these bills, you have the right to claim back the amount. You can also get the compensation of missing your savings.

The independent energy Ombudsman can award you compensation up to 5000 Euros and the average given so far is 150 Euros.

How to claw back money for wrong energy bills

You have to check some points before finalizing that you have been miss-sold or miss-billed. To check if you have been miss-sold, you need to confirm any one of these like whether they have switched without your permission, whether they have provided you with direct debits to pay less but actually paid more. Direct debits may be offered by the supplier after knowing what you are paying, thus encouraging you to switch. But later they will charge you more. You also need to check whether have been sold any fixed tariffs without explaining you about how it works. Fixed tariffs are nothing but the amount you pay irrespective of whether the prices increase or decrease. There are also other tariffs like capped tariffs which will ensure you not to go above a certain level, tracker tariffs which follow above or below the standard rates. Lastly, check whether you have not been informed about the cancellation fees or the cooling off period and about how to cancel it.

Compensation for Bill error

To get the compensation, you need to follow some guidelines that will help you through this procedure. You need to complain to the supplier as the first step. This complaint should be in the form of a letter which has a standard template. If the complaint is not very serious, you can let the supplier know about it by just calling him over phone. If there is no response for more than two months, you can take the complaint directly to Ombudsman. Ombudsman is an independent body which settles the disputes in the fields of communication energy, licensing sectors and property. The information needed to be provided are the date you first complained to the supplier, the steps taken by you and the supplier about the problem, the type of resolution you need and if it is money , you need to say what it is based on.

It is important to file the complaint as soon as you find the problem because the Ombudsman can investigate your complaints only within nine months from the day of noticing the problem. If your supplier gave a wrong bill ten years back, you cannot claim the compensation now. There is also a case, when the supplier made the mistake some two years ago but you have noticed it just now, then the Ombudsman may have a chance to look into your complaint.

Guest post Written by www.money-meerkat.co.uk

Guar – The mining gold from India Coveted by US Miners

July 17, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

The people of rajasthan India often live in poverty, specially a lot of the farmers in the desert land of Rajasthan India. But suddenly a small little bean grown in rajasthan India is changing many lives for the better , creating a flutter in the Indian commodity market and also worrying a lot of us miners who use this bean for a mining method called fracturing

Guar the Indian Bean and Mining by Fracturing

A recent discovery that guar could stiffen water so much that a mixture is able to carry sand sideways into wells drilled by horizontal fracturing, also known as fracking has made this bean a commodity in demand.

U.S. companies drilling for oil and gas in shale formations have developed a big appetite for the powder-like gum made from the seeds of guar giving many small-scale farmers in India a nice bonanza who produce 80 percent of the world’s beans.
Halfway around the world, earnings are down for an oil services giant, Halliburton, because prices have risen for guar (The bean that is used in fracturing), the bean that many Rajasthan farmers have now started to grow, abandoning their traditional farming crops. . The increase in guar prices is helping to transform this part of the state of Rajasthan in north-western India, one of the world’s poorest places.

The magic bean Guar from India

This hard little bean when ground up, it becomes an essential ingredient for mining oil and natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing. This bean Guar is so hard that it can crack teeth, has become an unlikely global player, and poor farmers in India have suddenly become a crucial link in the energy production of the United States.

For centuries in Rajasthan India , farmers here used guar to feed their families and their cattle. These beans are easier to grow in the Rajasthani desert, a land poor in rain. Commercial interest in guar first developed when food companies found that it absorbs water like a souped-up corn-starch, and a powdered form of the bean is now widely used to thicken ice cream and keep pastries crisp.

Fracking boom in the United States

The fracking boom in the United States and now spreading in Europe has led to a surge in natural gas production, a decline in oil imports and a gradual transition away from coal-fired power plants. "Without guar, you cannot have fracturing fluids," said Michael J. Economides, a professor of engineering at the University of Houston who is a fracking expert. "And what everybody is worried about is that there is virtually no guar out there now."

In March, the United States bought 33,800 metric metric tons of guar gum from India, the highest amount ever. Last year, U.S. firms bought an average 22,000 metric metric tons from India a month.

India produces about 85 percent of the world’s guar. Worries for this year’s monsoon, which is vital for an adequate crop has risen in speculation over commodity prices for guar

Vikas WSP, an Indian company that specializes in the production of guar powders. Vikas signed contracts with farmers guaranteeing a return of nearly $800 per acre if they planted guar, no matter what this year’s monsoon brought.

"Last year was an extraordinary year," said S. K. Sharma, managing director of Lotus Gums and Chemicals in Jodhpur. "In 35 years in this business, I’ve never seen that."

Mr. Sharma said his company would soon open a second plant dedicated entirely to serving gas companies, adding that he was cautiously optimistic that guar prices would remain robust. "But we know there are efforts to grow guar in China, Australia, California and elsewhere, and it has us worried,"

Neil Beveridge, an oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said demand for fracking services should continue to grow rapidly as the industry expanded outside North America. "We’re already starting to see a big increase in Eastern Europe, Argentina, Australia, China and India itself," he said.

Mr. Economides, the Houston fracking expert, said. "There are no easy or cheap alternatives to guar,"

guar sowing increases
price of sugar
guar prices 2012
guar
guar gum price monitor 2012

That is good news for guar producers and farmers of Rajasthan India.

Australian Carbon Tax 101

June 30, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

While carbon price and carbon tax is all over the news, many people actually dont know what its all about specifically. Below is a guide and FAQ to get your facts and info on the carbon price in Australia and its effect on the common man as well as business

What is the carbon price or carbon tax ?

The carbon price is not a tax on Australians, but a tax levied on 260 companies and 34 councils. You might ask why councils ?, because councils deal will landfills and waste which adds to pollution they will have some carbon price to pay.

Who is exempt from the carbon price (tax) ?

Agriculture – carbon price will not apply for agricultural emissions

Family car – Emissions from the family car and light on road vehicles

How ill the carbon price effect the common man ?

Some of the costs borne but the top companies having to pay the carbon tax will be passed onto consumers which will most likely be in Electricity , GAS and FOOD

According to modelling done by CSIRO _ AECOM on likely increase in prices due to this

Electricity bills could increase by $2.80 aweek

Gas By 0.40 cent a week

Food by $1.20 a week

Compensation for the Utilities price rises to common man

$15 billion will be allocated to low and middle income households in the form of tax cuts and increased government payments.

Household assistance – Average assistance of $10.10 a week, and means 6 million households will be either no worse off or slightly better off.

From 1 July, the tax free threshold has been raised from $6000 to $18,200, which will mean a million people no longer having to fill out a tax return.

It will be raised again by $1200 to $19,400 in 2015-16.

1.7% rise for pensioners and recipients of the Family Tax Benefit, delivered as advance payments in May and June.

Business and carbon tax

Very few employers are said to be directly affected by the carbon tax, with only 500 large businesses said to be affected directly.

The government has allocated $9 billion to the industries that will be hit hard and who employ a lot of people in Australia . These companies will be assisted due to keep them competitive with their international competitors during this adjustment period. Its mainly Heavy industries like , Steel, aluminium, and cement manufacturing .

Where does the carbon tax received go ?

While the government is collecting this tax to develop clean energy, a significant part of this money received will be used to cerate new Clean energy technologies and create new jobs in this sector

This includes the

$10 billion Clean energy Finance corporation

$1.2 billion Clean technology program

Carbon tax , GST and tax return ?

The carbon tax has nothing to do with individuals and will not appear on you tax return or in a bill that you receive from a retail shop ( shopping bill). It is only a tax on large 500 companies

There will be some initial price rises to utilities, food and some other goods as companies pass on the costs of the carbon price to consumers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will be monitoring price rises during this period . Any unfair price rises can be reported on their hotline number is 1300 303 609.

Calculator the impact of the carbon price on my family / household?

There is an easy online tool to calcuate the impact carbon price on your family. The carbon price tool is based on independent analysis undertaken by CSIRO and AECOM, based on research commissioned by The Climate Institute, Go to http://www.yourcarbonprice.com.au/

Which companies and industries pay the carbon tax ?

Companies and councils individually generating more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year will be required to pay for their emissions under the carbon pricing mechanism.

Companies that directly emit greenhouse gases, such as power stations, mines and heavy industry, and some public authorities (councils)responsible for emissions from landfill

Why carbon tax in Australia ?

Before the introduction of the price on carbon or carbon tax , big companies could pollute as much as they liked for free. But the carbon price puts an economic and dollar value on pollution and treats it as a cost of doing business.

It works this way by requiring large companies that pollute to buy a permit valued at $23 for every tonne of carbon pollution they emit into Australia. The more emissions, the higher the financial cost for the polluter. This will help us not get to a stage like other countries like China and India who are facing major pollution problems and need to invest billion of dollars in trying to solve this problem.

Info Links:

INFOGRAPHIC – Carbon Price and cost of living joint report.pdf

Has the “Age of cyber war arrived”

June 4, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Israel has admitted that it uses cyberspace to attack its enemies and reports in the NYTIMES have confirmed that US was also a part of the STUXNET infiltration (a worm that infiltrated industrial systems of the German company Siemens, apparently to disrupt uranium enrichment in Iran.)of Iran’s sensitive Nuclear programme.

US , Israel in cyber wars against countries

More about the Stuxnet Worm ( virus)

Other worms in the “spotlight”

Duqu virus

Shamoon

Conficker

Flame virus

A Israeli website said it was “for the first time” revealing a document recently written by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Operations Department, detailing the goals and methods of its cyber warfare.

The website said it had been using cyberspace for intelligence gathering and “will” also use it “to execute attacks” and “clandestine” operations.

Australia Vulnerable to Cyber attacks

The chief executive of security firm Kaspersky Lab has warned that Australia cannot defend itself from the rising tide of cyber attacks from foreign powers, the best of which come from Russia and China. Mr Kaspersky said Russian malware continued to be the world’s best at attacking systems and it was largely created by criminal gangs

2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline Master Index

List of cyber attack trends

History of major cyber attacks

A report in The New York Times by David E. Sanger, based on the book Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, published, said American President Barack Obama ordered the computer virus program, begun during the Bush administration, be ramped up.

Eugene Kaspersky chief executive of security firm Kaspersky Lab said “Most attacks come from China and most criminal malware is written in Chinese. “The second most used language is Portuguese . . . and that’s most probably Brazil. “The third most popular language is Russian, which means it comes from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Baltic countries.”

The statement comes immediately after one of the world’s top virus-hunting agencies Kapersky said it discovered a virus codenamed Flame on computers in Iran and several Middle East countries.

Kaspersky Lab compared Flame to Duqu and Stuxnet, two other virus programs that targeted Iran.

This Advanced Malicious Virus was designed to carry out cyber espionage by stealing images, audio conversations and other data, and had been in use for more than two years( since 2010) in the open without being noticed.

Flame targets computers running the Windows operating system and apparently spreads through infected thumb drives, websites and manipulated emails.

The Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab said most infections (189) were found in Iran, and, although other infections (98) were also found in Israel.

Media reports from kapersky have reported that China and Russia are the originators of the most cyber attacks (including state sponsored) and viurs attacks on computers.

Countries Scramble to get more slice of the pie

May 26, 2012 by Reporter Leave a Comment

Since the new “FATCA Rules”, OECD GUIDELINES and changes in the US internal revenue of service policies in relation to international taxation, several countries have started having a look at their own policies.

When times are uncertain everyone tries to secure what they have and prevent erosion of existing wealth , and that’s what many countries are trying to do right now.

Australia is now looking closer at tech company giants who are getting away with paying minimum tax in Australia as per media reports

Mr Turnbull told The Australian Financial Review he was consulting with chief executives of local media companies after the Australian division of global online search giant Google released accounts this month showing it paid only $74,176 in tax despite earning an estimated $1.1 billion in revenue in 2011.

The new cloud service delivery now being promoted by almost all big tech companies is only going to muddy the waters even more with transfer pricing and other tax issues relating to it, with many countries missing out in revenue.

So what is FATCA ?

After the FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Reporting)was released, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) introduces new, and largely parallel, reporting requirements. The FATCA reporting requirements carry their own set of penalties and are filed with the tax return rather than separately.

FATCA requires foreign financial institutions (FFI’s), to report information about accounts held by U.S. taxpayers directly to the IRS. This is a major compliance duty put on the Australian banks and borne by the Australian banks so that the US authorities can claim a piece of their pie. You can read more about FATCA here

The FATCA can impact on several AUSTRALIAN Banks ,Savings and Loan Associations ,Credit unions, Co-operative banking institutions and other financial institutions in australia

Transfer pricing to be scrutinised in australia

Cash-strapped governments around the world are targeting transfer pricing. Transfer pricing in short is defined as the practice in which companies send profits overseas to subsidiaries in low-tax countries

The ATO has found 68 of Australia’s top 100 corporations in 2008 had a subsidiary in a tax haven, low-tax jurisdiction or bank secrecy country as per this media report.

Even in India recently the Vodafone case was high on the media reports internationally as India looks to amend its tax laws after a defeat in this case resulting in a loss of millions of dollars to India

OECD AND ARMS LENGTH

Definition as per OECD :

This valuation principle is commonly applied to commercial and financial transactions between related companies. It says that transactions should be valued as if they had been carried out between unrelated parties, each acting in his own best interest.

The Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (ISBN Number:978926409003) provide guidance on the application of the “arm’s length principle” for the valuation, for tax purposes, of cross-border transactions between associated enterprises. (OECD BOOKS ON transfer pricing)

The British tax office is also under pressure to investigate Apple after it emerged the US-based technology giant paid £10 million in British tax in 2010 while generating an estimated £6 billion in revenue and Online retailer Amazon is reported for recording about £8 billion in revenue in Britain over three years without paying tax.

Canada also has cracked down on multinationals that dodge tax through inflating profits or losses in dealings with their related companies overseas

Even with the deepening crisis in Europe , the EU are trying to impose carbon tax on International airlines using EU airports. The tax proposes to not only covers the flight through EU sky but through out the world. It is a scheme to impose ‘a sort of tax’ outside EU airspace which has got the ire of some other countries

LINKS:

OECD AND AUSTRALIA

International Taxation: When the Transfer Pricing