Former Midnight Oil rocker named Australia's environment minister

For 25 old age Simon Peter Garrett was the frontman of Midnight Oil, an Australian stone set known for its raucously loud music and protestation songs about societal and environmental issues. Then the barefaced 6ft 6in vocalist hung up his microphone, disbanded the grouping and exchanged his stone star clothing for the sombre lawsuits of a politician.

After a meteorologic rise through the ranks of Australia's Labor party, he was yesterday named environment curate in the newly elected government. The 54-year-old said he was "excited and humbled" by the opportunity.

However, his faux pass during the election have got robbed him of the opportunity to take over the full environment portfolio. Another curate have been given duty for the issues surrounding clime change, including negotiating a new post-Kyoto trade and establishing a C emanations trading strategy for Australia.

Garrett founded Midnight Oil when he was a law pupil in 1973 and made a first and unsuccessful raid into political relation as a member of the Nuclear Disarming political party in 1984.

Passionate about the unfairnesses meted out to Australia's indigenous population, he and the other set members had a worldwide hit in 1987 with the path Beds are Burning, a protestation song about Aborigine land rights in Australia.

The set also used music to register its choler about environmental issues, performing at the Jabiluka U mine in distant Arnhem Land and theatrical production an spur-of-the-moment concert outside Exxon's New House Of York central office in 1990 with a streamer that read: "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes United States Sick."

Alongside his vocalizing career, Garrett also served as caput of the Australian Conservation Foundation and sat on the international board of Greenpeace.

He disbanded Midnight Oil in 2002 to concentrate on political relation and was elected to parliament two old age later. An resistance spokesman on the humanistic discipline and Aborigine affairs, he was promoted last twelvemonth to both the environment and clime alteration portfolio, attacking the then-prime minister Toilet Howard's policies.

He have not had an easy ride, with co-workers in the preservation motion accusing him of merchandising out after he softened his public stance on issues such as as U excavation and old-growth logging, including encouraging the building of a controversial giant mush factory in the Tamar Valley in Tasmania, bringing his positions into line with Labor.

In July, he was at the Centre of contention when Daniel Johns, Pb vocalist of the Australian set Silverchair, claimed in a radiocommunication interview that he and his married woman Natalie Imbruglia, Garrett and U2 vocalist Bono smoked cannabis together at a house in Sydney. The mass mass media deluged the business office of the stone star turned politician with enquiries about the incident and Jasper Johns quickly retracted the story, saying that it had been a "stupid joke".

Garrett's interpreter said that the incident did not take place.

The self-avowed Christian and father of three girls had a high-profile role at the beginning of the recent election campaign.

Later, though, he shied away from the media after two bloopers when he appeared uncertain about the issues surrounding the Kyoto Protocol and when he reportedly told a radiocommunication talkshow host off the record that Labor would change some of its political political campaign promises once elected.

Garrett's minor portfolio, which also includes heritage and the arts, is being seen as a reproof for those mistakes. However, the premier minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, have said the determination to divide the environment portfolio between two curates reflected the increased importance of issues such as as planetary heating and renewable energy.

Another colourful Australian politician was promoted yesterday when former defense mechanism curate Brendan Horatio Nelson was elected leader of the Broad party, replacing outgoing premier curate Howard.

The 49-year-old, who have been married three times, used to athletics a diamond earring and is known for strumming guitar hits from The Animals after late-night parliamentary sessions. He was once a member of the Labor political party but changed his affiliation.

Backstory

The set was originally known as Farm when it was formed in 1973 but changed its name to Midnight Oil and collected a cult followers of fans devoted to its semifinal hood stone sound.

It disbanded in 2002 but reformed three old age later in a one-off event to play alongside other sets at Wave Aid, to raise money for the Indian Ocean tidal wave disaster. In his maiden address to parliament, Simon Peter Garrett thanked the members of the put whom he described as "a clump of pupils who set off to suppress the local public houses and then the world, with a smattering of songs about Oz and a dreaming to have got a spell at making a life out of music that was not seen as commercial or likely to succeed". Albums include: Red Sails in the Sunset; 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1; Rudolf Diesel and Dust; Blue Sky Mining and Redneck Wonderland. The docudrama picture Black Chap White Person Chap (1987) about the band's circuit of indigenous communities with the Warumpi Band, which inspired the authorship of the record album Rudolf Diesel and Dust, stays hugely popular in Australia. The Warumpi Set was formed in 1980 in Papunya, in the Northern Territory, by Neil Gilbert Murray and they built up a loyal followers in Sydney.

Kenya: Nema Sets Up Team to Review Environment Laws - AllAfrica.com

Wangui Maina

The National Environment Management Authority (Nema) have put up a undertaking military unit to reexamine the environmental impact appraisal guidelines.

The squad is put to accumulate and collate position from the public on the environment and is expected to show its determinations by March 2008.

Yesterday, Nema said it would also let industrialists to come up up up with their ain Environmental Impact Appraisal (EAI) to turn to their concerns.

Muusya Mwinzi, the Nema manager general, said the new guidelines would also turn to concerns in the touristry sector that remains largely unregulated despite its immense impact on the environment.

He was speaking during the unveiling of cordial reception direction grouping Fairmont's Green Partnership Program at a Capital Of Kenya hotel.

Dr Mwinzi said he had asked the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife to come up with EIA parametric quantities that computer address particular concerns in the sector.

The guidelines by the ministry -which were recently presented to stakeholders - seek to back up the development of a sustainable touristry industry.

Rebecca Nabutola, the lasting secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, said it was in the involvement of the ministry that the guidelines advance sustainable tourism.

EIA's place both negative and positive impacts of physical developments to guarantee that they are environmentally sustainable. The appraisals are done out by Nema inspectors. Nema's authorization is to guarantee good environmental administration in the country.

It was established under Section 7 of the Environmental Management and Coordination Act (EMCA) of 1999.

The law supplies that Nema, in audience with the relevant Pb federal agencies issue guidelines for the direction of national Parks and game reserves.

The touristry guidelines are expected to foretell most of the harmful impacts of any new undertaking in an area.

Judy Kepher-Gona, the executive director military officer of Ecotourism Society of Kenya, told the Busines Daily that the guidelines would assist Nema and its military officers to cognize what sort of impact to look for in the sector.

"It's a good written document especially for investors in the touristry sector with its accent on community consultation," she said. Stakeholders in the touristry sector have got previously accused Nema of approving EIA's in ecologically vulnerable areas.

Relevant Links

Nema was taken tribunal to halt the issue of an EIA certification to a developer to put up a installation in a genteelness land for leopards in the Maasai Mara.

Opponents of the development argued that the environmental organic structure had ignored the advice of its ain technical squad that visited the country and recommended that the country be reserved. Nema ultimately issued an order fillet the project.

Besides the new guidelines, the environmental organic structure have also stopped developments in some of the Parks pending release of direction plans.