Coal seam gas has been touted as a green transitional fuel, far less polluting than coal, but a new study implies it may not be as green or climate friendly as the industry makes out. It hinges on the level of fugitive emissions produced in development and production of a gas field. A study by two scientists from Southern Cross University based in Lismore, northern NSW, detected much higher levels of the strong greenhouse gas methane around the Tara gas field on the Darling Downs of Queensland west of Brisbane.

Action: Getup! have started a Dirtier than Coal? campaign calling on Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet to commission urgent research into the climate impacts of coal seam gas, and to make sure that CSG companies start accounting, and paying, for fugitive emissions.

A new book which tells what Aboriginal people told the Senate inquiry into the Stronger Futures legislation has been launched in Sydney. Launches in Melbourne, Canberra, Murray Bridge and Adelaide are to follow. It's called "A Decision to Discriminate: Aboriginal Disempowerment in the Northern Territory", published by the group ‘concerned Australians’, which has put out several books on the NT intervention. This is the latest.

Dear people,
Once again we are trying to urgently provide 330 wheelchairs to Iraqi children in Iraq.

Some of you have assisted in the past, we need your urgent assistance again please.

Fund raisers, donations, anything, please contact me.

Would you, your community groups, school, organisation help with urgent fundraisers or donations towards ensuring the shipment of 330 wheelchairs to Iraqi children doing it very tough in difficult circumstances in Iraq?

Gerry Georgatos

The email below this one is the news that will imminently eventuate - which would grab the attention of the news media without fail. From Christmas Island families are transferred and crowded into Detention Centres - for instance Darwin Airport Lodge, which is bursting at the seams. Children are walking around witness to abominable tensions, in witness to young adults who are swathed in bandages from physical wounds - from injuries where blood stains are fresh.