Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Friday, January 15, 2021
Happy Birthday Wikipedia -- 20 today
The world's biggest free encyclopedia turns 20 years old today. It has more than 55 million articles that can be accessed in over 300 languages, for free, all created by volunteers.
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia's volunteer communities
Google 'throwing its weight around' by burying links to some commercial news sites, experts say
Google has decided to hide some Australian news sites from its search results, in a move that is being interpreted as a response to the Australian Government attempting to make the tech giant pay for original news content.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal
Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there.
Twitter silent after Pelosi tweet declaring 2016 election was 'hijacked' resurfaces
A resurfaced May 2017 tweet from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has led to calls for consistency from Twitter as the social media giant continues its efforts to crack down on those skeptical of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
trump’s impeachment is inevitable but could fizzle after he’s gone
When the Capitol riot was spinning out of control, some of President Trump’s loyalists tried to get messages to him to urge an end to the violence.
Lindsey Graham called Ivanka Trump. Kevin McCarthy called Jared Kushner.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
CNN and MSNBC Both Beat Fox News in Total Viewers for First Time Since 2000
Fox News finished third to both CNN and MSNBC across the board in the ratings on Friday for the third straight day—the first time since September 2000.
In the wake of President Donald Trump inciting an insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Glen Waverley house fire kills mother and three children after neighbours hear 'big bang'
Victoria Police are investigating a "horrific" house fire in Melbourne on the weekend that left a mother and three young children dead. Firefighters were called to Tulloch Grove in Glen Waverley about 1:40am on Sunday after receiving multiple
Coronavirus Updates
Read More
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Donald Trump suspended from Facebook indefinitely, says Mark Zuckerberg
Donald Trump will be suspended from Facebook and Instagram indefinitely and at least until the end of his time in office, Mark Zuckerberg has said, as a consequence of his support for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Today is a chance to change social media forever.
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) January 7, 2021
Tell Mark Zuckerberg and @jack--
Facebook and Twitter have spread Trump's lies and hate and helped radicalize the extremists who attacked the Capitol.
Suspending Trump for a few hours is NOT ENOUGH!#BanTrumpSaveDemocracy pic.twitter.com/ND3xaXSPCD
Coverage of Capitol protests by mainstream media called out, compared to months of anti-police violence
The media went out of its way in 2020 to paint sometimes-violent protests across the nation as mostly "peaceful," but finally came around on Wednesday to the notion that mayhem and anarchy is always unacceptable – all it took was Trump supporters causing the chaos to spark a swift change of heart.
‘Stain On Australia’: Miranda Devine Slammed For Blaming Capitol Riots On BLM Protesters
Australian conservative columnist Miranda Devine has been condemned online after she controversially blamed last year’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations against racial injustice for the pro-Trump riots at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Twitter and Facebook block Donald Trump in wake of US Capitol riots
Social media sites Twitter and Facebook have taken the unprecedented steps of locking Donald Trump's accounts in the wake of riots at the US Capitol by his supporters.
Twitter announced it was blocking the outgoing president's account
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
What Australia tweeted about in 2020
There's no prize for guessing the topic of the year, hashtag #COVID19 took out the number one spot for what most Aussies were tweeting about.
#COVID19 has been tweeted nearly 400 million times around the world.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Murdoch and a Tiger-mother masterclass
Rupert and James Murdoch said repeatedly during their extended testimony before a parliamentary committee in Britain that their involvement in managing the News Corporation’s response to the phone hacking scandal was limited. Rupert Murdoch said he felt let down by “the people that I trusted and then, maybe the people they trusted.
James Murdoch, the 38-year-old News Corporation deputy chief operating officer who oversees News International, the News Corporation’s British subsidiary, told members of Parliament that he was “as surprised as you are” to learn that the company had been paying the legal fees of Glenn Mulcaire, The News of the World’s phone hacking specialist, and Clive Goodman, the tabloid’s royal reporter. Both men pleaded guilty to phone hacking charges and went to jail in January 2007. At another point, Murdoch described himself as “surprised and shocked” when he was told about the legal aid to the former employees.
James Murdoch also told Parliament that he did not know how much Mr. Mulcaire’s legal fees have cost or whether the payments have stopped.
Pressed by members of the committee, Mr. Murdoch seemed open to the idea that the company would stop paying Mr. Mulcaire’s legal fees. “I would like to do that,” he said. “I don’t know what the status of what we are doing now or what his contract was.”
But both he and Rupert Murdoch said such “contracts” could make it difficult to stop the payments. They did not provide more detail about the contracts, including who authorized them or whether they had the ability to terminate them.
Since his release from jail in the summer of 2007, Mr. Mulcaire has never spoken publicly about his role in phone hacking — or what his superiors might have known about his activities. With his wife and five children, Mr. Mulcaire lives in a modest home in Cheam, south of London. For four years, he has steadfastly refused constant requests for comment from the news media and has invoked his right against self-incrimination in every lawsuit.
James Murdoch said Tuesday that he had been given an oral briefing on the Taylor case and “did not get involved directly” in the negotiations. Asked whether he was aware that hacking was illegal, James Murdoch acknowledged, “That was my understanding.”
He declined to answer a question, put to him several times, as to whether he would release Mr. Taylor and his lawyers from the confidentiality clause in the agreement so that they might speak publicly about their knowledge of the negotiations.
“It is a confidential agreement,” he said.
Mr. Murdoch also denied that the settlement was motivated by a desire to keep the matter from becoming public. His father said he knew nothing about it until he read about it in July 2009, although he stopped short of naming the newspaper that had first published it (The Guardian).
James Murdoch said the decision to settle was a pragmatic one because he had been advised by outside lawyers that his newspaper would lose in a judgment at trial, and damages and legal costs were estimated to run as high as £500,000 to £1 million, or $800,000 to $1.6 million. At that time, settlements in privacy violation cases typically ran in the tens of thousands of pounds, and legal fees rarely ran that high, lawyers who handle those cases said.
Indeed, when the Formula One boss Max Mosely later won a £60,000 settlement ($96,000) in a privacy case, it was considered a record payout in such cases.
Rupert Murdoch rules out resigning
80-year-old News Corporation chief's wife Wendi Deng leaped up and slapped the assailant, who was dragged off by police after the attack during a parliamentary committee hearing quizzing Mr Murdoch and his son James.
The Guardian newspaper and Sky News named the attacker as a comedian called Jonnie Marbles.
In a Twitter message shortly before the incident, he said: "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat."
There was no confirmation of his identity as Scotland Yard had no immediate comment.
The hearing resumed 10 minutes later, with Murdoch apologising to the victims of phone hacking by the now-defunct News of the World tabloid but denying ultimate responsibility for the scandal.
At times stumbling to a halt in his testimony, he began by saying: "I would just like to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life."
The scandal has rocked Mr Murdoch's global media empire, sparked the resignation of two of Britain's top police chiefs, and even placed prime minister David Cameron under pressure.
Mr Murdoch said it was "not an excuse" but that with a company of 53,000 staff to oversee he could not be held fully responsible for failing to uncover the scandal.
Asked whether "ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?", Mr Murdoch tersely replied: "No".
When pressed over who he blamed, Mr Murdoch said: "The people that I trusted to run it (his media empire) and then maybe the people they trusted.
As he was questioned about his knowledge of the extent of wrongdoing at the News of the World, Rupert Murdoch paused several times before answering, and his son James Murdoch requested permission to answer questions on local matters.
However politician Tom Watson, who was questioning Rupert Murdoch, said he wished to continue his questioning with Rupert Murdoch as his questions related to matters of corporate governance.
Rupert Murdoch said he was first aware that the mobile phone voice mail of murder victim Milly Dowler was hacked into by the News of the World two weeks ago and was shocked, appalled and ashamed by it. He said the company has to find and deal with guilty people within the organisation, adding that the people he trusted had let him down.
Rupert Murdoch was asked about his level of direct involvement with his newspapers, and said that he did not speak regularly to the editor of News of the World. "Perhaps I lost sight of the News of the World," he said.
News Corp deputy chief operating officer James Murdoch apologised to victims of phone hacking at News of the World tabloid, and said the company will put things right and ensure that it doesn't happen again.
James Murdoch said there is no evidence that Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News Corp's UK newspaper unit, or former News International chairman Les Hinton, had knowledge of the phone hacking.
Both Ms Brooks and Mr Hinton resigned last week.
Rupert Murdoch said he accepted their resignations because they were both adamant that they should resign due to their positions of responsibility at the time of the phone hacking.
When asked why he did not accept Ms Brooks' resignation earlier, he said he believed and trusted in her. He did not comment on the size of the payments that either executive received following their resignations, but said that Mr Hinton would have received a "significant" sum given was employed by News Corp for 52 years.
He also stressed that Ms Brooks' resignation and the closure of the News of the World were "absolutely and totally unrelated".
James Murdoch said that News Corp had not made any decision as to whether or not to launch a new UK Sunday tabloid following the closure of the News of the World, adding that the option remains open.
James Murdoch also said he welcomed the UK review into the media industry and said the entire UK newspaper industry needs to consider journalistic ethics.
Rupert Murdoch said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US has no evidence that victims of the terrorist attack in New York in September 2001 were subjected to phone hacking.
The two Murdochs were summoned to appear before the committee after originally declining a request to attend.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Derryn Hinch
Hinch has been married four times, including twice to Australian actress Jacki Weaver. He married Chanel Hayton in February 2006.
Journalism
Hinch began his career at the age of 15 with the New Zealand Taranaki Herald. In 1963, he came to Australia on the MV Wanganella and joined The Sydney Morning Herald. By 1968 he had become a foreign correspondent for the Fairfax organisation, and finally moved to New York as bureau chief. He remained in the United States for eleven years.
Television
Hinch (Seven Network 1987 - 1991, then 1992 - 1994 Network Ten)
Beauty and the Beast (1982–1983)
The Midday Show (Nine Network)
Mars Venus (Foxtel)
Dancing with the Stars (Seven Network) (appearance)
Acting
Hinch starred as The Criminologist in the Australian tour of The Rocky Horror Show plus, has appeared as Himself in The Wog Boy with Nick Giannopoulos. He has also made cameo appearances on Fast Forward.
Health
In 2006, Hinch could be seen to have lost a considerable amount of weight and his health was believed to be in decline .
On 4 March 2007, on the Australian 60 Minutes program, Hinch revealed that he has been suffering from advanced cirrhosis of the liver, a tumourous growth had also been detected on his liver.
On 27 April 2007, Hinch went back to hospital for more scans to check the size of his liver cancer growths and said on his website daily comments that he had a well-earned day off work.
On 4 August 2007, in the Herald Sun, Hinch revealed he has an inoperable liver cancer.
On 20 September 2010, Hinch confirmed that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and indicated that he would soon be undergoing surgery to remove a third of his liver, taking him off air for several weeks. Doctors have reportedly said that he has a 60 per cent chance of surviving a further five years. On 4 November 2010, Hinch told his listeners that his doctors had told him that without a liver transplant, his maximum survival would be 12 months.
On 6 July 2011, Hinch underwent liver transplant surgery at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.
Controversies
Michael Glennon
In 1985, Hinch found that Michael Glennon, who had previously been convicted on a charge of indecent assault with a minor, was to be tried on new charges while still running a youth camp. Hinch, who was concerned that parents were unknowingly sending their children to Glennon's camp, first appealed privately to then Victoria Premier John Cain and the then-Attorney General, as well as the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, but in Hinch's words, they "washed their hands" of the situation.Subsequently Hinch publicly identified Glennon during his trial on the third set of charges, in spite of the strong sub judice rule under Australian jurisprudence. This delayed the trial while Hinch was tried on contempt of court charges; Hinch was fined $10,000 and jailed for 12 days. This was the first time anyone had gone to jail on a prior restraint issue in Australia.
Hinch appealed his case as far as the High Court of Australia, which affirmed his conviction. In its ruling the Court held that despite Hinch's motivation of warning the public that Glennon continued to hold a position in a youth organisation, it was sufficient to inform them of the current charges against him, and that the information about his prior conviction was prejudicial under Australian law. Hinch calls the incident "the thing I'm most proud of in my life.
Mick Gatto's call
On 24 June 2008, whilst discussing the celebrity status of underworld crime figures during his drive program Mick Gatto phoned in and had a brief confrontation with Hinch, ending with a death threat..
John Laws
On 30 July 2007, John Laws and Hinch attended the 40 Years of Radio Legends, after which Hinch complained the "event had been turned into a tribute to Laws", among other comments which caused ill feeling between the two.
On 5 December 2007, while on holiday, Hinch was abused verbally with obscenities by John Laws in unprovoked circumstances whilst dining at lunch with 2CH personality Bob Rogers in a restaurant at Woolloomooloo's Finger Wharf in Sydney.
Sexual Relationship With Underage Girl
In his 2004 book, 'The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch', and in a radio editorial in March 2005, Hinch admitted to having sex with a 15 year old when he was in his early thirties although he states he "thought she was about 25". Following his on-air admission, Hinch was roundly criticized by many and notably by Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt who called for his legal prosecution.
Books by Derryn Hinch
Cover of The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch: How I Hit the Wall and Didn't Bleed
The Scrabble Book (1972, rev. ed. 1977), ISBN 0-333-23073-6
Death at Newport (1986), ISBN 0-207-15422-8
AIDS - Most of the Questions, Some of the Answers (1987), ISBN 0-9587779-1-8
Death In Paradise (1989), ISBN 0-207-16165-8
The Derryn Hinch Diet (1991), ISBN 0-14-016527-4
That's Life (1992), ISBN 0-14-016986-5
The Ultimate Guide to Winning Scrabble (2001), ISBN 1-86325-324-6
101 Ways To Lose Your Mobile Phone (2001), ISBN 0-646-40631-0
The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch: How I Hit the Wall and Didn't Bleed (2004), ISBN 1-74066-159-1
Criminal conviction
In June 2011, he was convicted of a crime for warning the public about two sex offenders whose names were suppressed.
News of the World phone hacking scandal: July 15 as it happened
Mr Hinton served as chairman of News International from 1995 to 2007 and has headed Dow Jones since December 2007.
His resignation came just hours after the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, the British newspaper division of News Corp.
The resignation was announced in a statement issued by News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch, shortly after the shaken-looking mogul apologised to the family of one of the alleged phone hacking victims.
"Les and I have been on a remarkable journey together for more than 52 years," Mr Murdoch said. "That this passage has come to an unexpected end, professionally, not personally, is a matter of much sadness to me."
"News Corporation is not Rupert Murdoch," he said. "It is the collective creativity and effort of many thousands of people around the world, and few individuals have given more to this company than Les Hinton."
Mr Hinton, 67, has worked under Murdoch for more than five decades, rising through the ranks until he was tapped to run News International in 1995, and later Dow Jones after New Corp bought the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
In a statement, Mr Hinton reiterated his denials that he was aware of the extent of the phone-hacking by News of the World journalists.
If true, this is major news. While Rebekah Brooks might have been Murdoch's favourite daughter, Les Hinton is his most trusted lieutenant. The Wall St Journal is published by Dow Jones, so you would expect their sources to be good and Murdoch did choose the Journal for his defiant interview yesterday.
Les Hinton, Chief executive of Dow Jones and Murdoch's right hand man, is set to resign today, according to Wall Street Journal.
Another email from a reader, this time Drew, suggesting a 2006 story that might play a part in the Jude Law suit, this time with claims that Sienna Miller bought a leather harness and handcuffs from a London boutique.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Bat culls must be considered in Hendra fight
Bat researchers from the Queensland Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases will survey the property Blazing Saddles Adventures, west of Cairns, in the state's far north where a horse died from hendra virus earlier this week.
There has been four outbreaks of the disease in Queensland in the less than three weeks.
Six people who had recent contact with the horse at the property near Cairns are awaiting test results.
Queensland Health (QH) says the six people who had contact with the horse at the property near Cairns are all at very low risk of contracting the disease.
The department is speaking to several other people who may have been exposed.
About 36 remaining horses on the property have also been tested.
Fast tracking the vaccination is the priority, but until that's available the population of flying foxes needs to be curtailed. We can't ignore the need for culling any longer.
This is a devastating disease that is fatal to humans as well as horses and the state government needs to urgently assess ways to protect both, by limiting flying fox numbers.
I certainly acknowledge that flying foxes are a vital part of our eco system and I definitely do not think they should be 'wiped out', but they are proving to be a danger to society and clearly need to be better managed.
Governments are well aware of the cause of the Hendra virus and proactive action needs to be taken to address that issue until we have the vaccine on the market.
I believe one of the reasons we are seeing more Hendra cases is because flying foxes are in plague proportions. Culling would be to simply bring numbers back to more manageable levels and help minimise the spread of Hendra.
It is no different to culling kangaroos to protect farming land, or netting sharks to protect swimmers. When human lives are at stake these types of measures need to be taken.
Latest research suggests that the Hendra virus was initially present in 10 per cent of the bat population but has now increased to 30 per cent of the bat population.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Internet censorship in Australia
Internet censorship in Australia currently consists of a regulatory regime under which the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has the power to enforce content restrictions on Internet content hosted within Australia, and maintain a "black-list" of overseas websites which is then provided for use in filtering software.
Since October 2008, the governing Australian Labor Party has proposed to extend Internet censorship to a system of mandatory filtering of overseas websites which are, or potentially would be, "refused classification" (RC) in Australia. This means that internet service providers would be required to block access to such content for all users. As of June 2010, legislation to enact this policy still has not been drafted. The proposal to introduce mandatory filtering has generated substantial opposition, with a number of concerns being raised by opponents and only a few groups strongly supporting the policy. Such legislation may therefore have difficulty passing through the Senate. With the announcement made on 5 August 2010 by Joe Hockey that the Coalition parties will not vote in favour of the policy should the Labor party be re-elected, it is now virtually impossible for the filtering scheme to pass through the Senate.
In November 2010, Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy (DBCDE) released a document indicating that the earliest date any new legislation could reach parliament was mid-2013.
Current status (Federal law)
A collection of both federal and state laws apply to Internet content in Australia.
Broadcasting Services Act 1992
The provisions of Schedule 5 and Schedule 7 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 inserted in 1999 and 2007 allow the Australian Communications and Media Authority to effectively ban some content from being hosted within Australia. Under this regime, if a complaint is issued about material "broadcast" on the Internet the ACMA is allowed to examine the material under the guidelines for film and video.
The content is deemed to be "prohibited" where it is (or in ACMA's judgement likely would be):
refused classification, or classified X18+
classified R18+, and not protected by an adult verification system
classified MA15+ and not protected by an adult verification system, where the user has paid to access the content.
Where content is deemed to be prohibited, the ACMA is empowered to issue local sites with a take-down notice under which the content must be removed; failure to do so can result in fines of up to $11,000 per day. If the site is hosted outside Australia, the content in question is added to a blacklist of banned URLs. This list of banned Web pages is then added to filtering software (encrypted), which must be offered to all consumers by their Internet Service Providers. In March 2009, this blacklist was leaked online.
A number of take down notices have been issued to some Australian-hosted websites. According to Electronic Frontiers Australia in at least one documented case, the hosting was merely shifted to a server in the United States, and the DNS records updated so that consumers may never have noticed the change.
Suicide Related Materials Offences Act 2006
In 2006 the Federal Parliament passed the Suicide Related Materials Offences Act, which makes it illegal to use communications media such as the Internet to discuss the practical aspects of suicide.
Copyright Legislation Amendment Bill 2004
The Copyright Legislation Amendment Bill 2004 was passed on 9 December 2004 by the Australian Senate, and extended copyright reform beyond the Australian-US free trade agreement (FTA). The impact will be felt most heavily by Internet service providers. The Internet Industry Association and EFA are actively opposing these efforts.
State and territory laws
Some state governments have laws that ban the transmission of material unsuitable for minors. In New South Wales, Internet censorship legislation was introduced in 2001 which criminalises online material which is unsuitable for minors. In 2002, the New South Wales Standing Committee on Social Issues issued a report recommending that the legislation be repealed, and in response the New South Wales government stated that the legislation "will be neither commenced nor repealed" until after the review of the Commonwealth Internet censorship legislation had been completed.
Notable examples
In 2002, New South Wales Police Minister Michael Costa attempted, without success, to shut down three protest websites by appealing to the then-communications minister Richard Alston. The Green Left Weekly stated these were Melbourne Indymedia and S11 websites, and that the Australian Broadcasting Authority (the predecessor to ACMA) cleared them of breaching government regulations on 30 October 2002.
Also in 2002, and under the terms of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Federal Court ordered Dr Fredrick Töben to remove material from his Australian website which denied aspects of The Holocaust and vilified Jews.
In 2006, Richard Neville published a "spoof" website that had a fictional transcript of John Howard apologising to Australians for the Iraq War. The website was forcibly taken offline by the government with no recourse.
After the devastating bushfires in February 2009, details about an alleged arsonist were posted online by bloggers. Victorian police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe has asked the state Director of Public Prosecutions to examine the possibility of removing these blogs from the web, as they might jeopardise any court case.
In March 2009, after a user posted a link to a site on ACMA's blacklist on the Whirlpool forum, Whirlpool's service provider, Bulletproof Networks, was threatened with fines of $11,000 per day if the offending link was not removed. The same link in an article on EFA's website was removed in May 2009 after ACMA issued a "link-deletion notice", and the EFA took the precautionary step of also removing indirect links to the material in question.
The 2009 winner of the George Polk award for videography shows footage of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan being shot and dying during Iran protests. This footage has also been declared "prohibited content" by ACMA, attracting fines of $11,000 per day for any Australian website which posts a link to the video.
After the Australian government announced plans to mandate web filtering in Australia in December 2009, an anti-censorship website hosted on stephenconroy.com.au (The full name of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) was taken offline by auDA after only 24 hours of being published online.
In October 2000, Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) attempted under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to obtain documents relating to the implementation of the web filter. While a few were released, many were not, and in 2003 new legislation, "Communications Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2002", was passed by the Liberal government and four independents, and opposed by The Greens and the Australian Labor Party. While the stated reason for the bill was to prevent people accessing child pornography by examining the blocked sites, this bill exempted whole documents from FOI, many of which did not reference prohibited content at all. EFA state that the bill was designed to prevent further public scrutiny of web filtering proposals.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Nathan Tinkler hits a billion on the rich list
Gina Rinehart has topped off a dramatic 12 months by sweeping to top place on the BRW Rich 200 list with a fortune of $10.3 billion.
It is the first time any member of the Rich 200 has broken through the magical $10 billion mark and underlines the dramatic impact the mining boom has had on the ranks of Australia's wealthy.
Rinehart was well ahead of the surprise second place on the list Ivan Glasenberg, the South African-born, Swiss-based chief executive of Glencore. His wealth was estimated at $8.8 billion courtesy of last week's float of the world's biggest commodity trader.
Andrew Forrest, the head of Fortescue Metals Group, was in third place with a fortune of $6.18 billion, while Anthony Pratt, who succeeded his late father as head of packaging giant Visy Industries, was in fourth with $5.18 billion.
Clive Palmer – who is set to list his coal company Resourcehouse on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the next few weeks – was ranked fifth with a fortune of $5.05 billion.
While Gina Rinehart has never been far from the headlines in the last 12 months thanks to her strident opposition to the Government's mining tax and her surprise investments in media companies Ten Network and Fairfax Media, the sheer size of the increase in her fortune is staggering.
Not only is she the first woman in the list's 28-year history to lead it, but she also made the biggest fortune ever to be recorded by the BRW Rich 200, with her wealth more than doubling from $4.75 billion last year.
Overall, the rich list gained a 23 per cent rise in wealth to $167.25 billion, and five new billionaires took the total to 35.
Most appearances on this year's list were self-made, with only 17 per cent inheriting their wealth. The number of women in the list remained at 15 in line with last year, BRW said.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Anne Sinclair
Anne Sinclair (born Anne-Élise Schwartz 15 July 1948) is a US-born French television and radio interviewer who hosted one of the most popular political shows for more than thirteen years on TF1, the largest European private TV channel. She also covered the 2008 US presidential campaign for the leading French Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche and the French TV channel Canal+.
Personal life
Anne Sinclair has lived in Washington DC with her second husband, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, since November 2007. She was previously married to Hungarian-French journalist Ivan Levaï with whom she has two sons.
She travels with Strauss-Kahn occasionally as a "G20 spouse", including being invited by Elizabeth II for the G20 reception at Buckingham Palace and by Sarah Brown to 10 Downing Street for the official spouses dinner on 1 April 2009.
Early life and Education
Sinclair was born in New York to Joseph-Robert Schwartz (changed to Sinclair in 1949) and Micheline Nanette Rosenberg, French-Jewish parents who fled from Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. She is the granddaughter of Paul Rosenberg, one of France's biggest art dealers. After completing part of her secondary schooling in the US, she went on to finish in France. She then majored in politics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and in law at the University of Paris.
Career
Sinclair's first radio hosting job was at Europe 1, one of the leading nationwide radio networks.
Television
Between 1984 and 1997 she hosted 7/7, a weekly Sunday evening news and political show on TF1 that had one of the largest audiences in France. She became one of the most well known French journalists and conducted more than five hundred interviews over the course of the show's thirteen year run. Anne Sinclair's programme has often been compared to Larry King Live or Charlie Rose.
Every Sunday at 7 PM Anne Sinclair hosted a one hour interview with a leading French or international personality. She interviewed French presidents Francois Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy as well as US president Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shimon Peres, Felipe Gonzales, German chancellors Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder, Hillary Clinton, the UN Secretary General in New York during the first gulf war, and Prince Charles.
Although primarily focused on politics, her show also included celebrities such as Madonna, Sharon Stone, Paul McCartney, Woody Allen, and George Soros. She conducted interviews with French cultural figures such as Johnny Hallyday, Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Bernard-Henri Levy, and Elie Wiesel.
Sinclair won four Sept d'Or, the French equivalent of the Emmy Awards.
After 7/7
In 1997 she chose to leave the show to avoid conflict of interest when her husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn became French finance minister. She then created an Internet subsidiary company for her former employer TF1 and ran it for four years before returning to journalism. In 2003 she launched a cultural radio programme called Libre Cours (Free Rein) on France Inter, the French equivalent of NPR.
She also wrote bestsellers on politics: Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'eux (Grasset, 1997) and Caméra Subjective (Grasset, 2003).
In October 2008 she launched her blog Two or three things from America which comments daily on US and international political news. It has become one of the top twelve political French blogs. She is also working on her latest book about US political life.
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