Ten dead in NZ from swine flu

Swine flu is continuing to spread in New Zealand, health officials have said as the death toll rose to 10 and some areas reported more people in hospital than during last year's pandemic.

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the global pandemic over, H1N1 "is the most common strain of influenza circulating" in New Zealand, director of public health Mark Jacobs said.

"So far this year there have been 10 deaths reported as linked to swine flu," he said, up from six a week ago.

More than 500 people have been admitted to hospital with lab-confirmed swine flu so far this year with 16 treated in intensive care.

With vaccine supplies dwindling, Jacobs said arrangements were being made to make another 35,000 doses available.

Although the WHO has said the swine flu pandemic has "largely run its course" it did acknowledge that severe outbreaks could still occur in some countries.

Critique: Apparently, due to the fast-pace of technology, the spreading of diseases is never slowed down as well. A variety of new viruses has been increasingly widespread around the world. Be it fatal or not, it significantly affects human beings and animals. Therefore, preventive measure should be taken. As a start, personal hygiene must always be concerned no matter where we go. This might not ensure a healthy body, but it can at least minimise the viruses that attacking us.

Wyatt Roy reluctant to claim victory

Wyatt Roy (born 1990) is an Australian politician. Since August 2010, he has been a Liberal National Party of Queensland member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the electorate of Longman. At 20 years of age, he is the youngest person ever to be elected to an Australian parliament. Being as Australia's youngest federal MP, he claimed that he is not yet confident enough to claim victory even though he had won 52 per cent of the vote (33,221) in the Queensland seat of Longman.

"We're still not calling it. There are a lot of postal votes to be counted ... it could go either way still," he told ABC radio today.

"The reality is if I am elected I will have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good."

He told the media that people rarely demanded 'age' from the politician. Instead, they would require honesty, integrity and accountability. In addition, they see a good politician as someone who will listen.

As a student in Buderim, his favourite sport is supercars. Also, he likes to go boating with mates during his spare time.

Critique: Hmmm. Quite a good-looking man right? (haha) In fact, he is just elder than us a year. Yet, he is so capable to be elected to an Australian parliament. This proves that age is no longer an impediment or excuse to great success. Everyone has an untapped potential in certain areas of life. It is just a matter of time to let it be unleashed. Believe in yourselves! Have faith.

Chinese fake it with counterfeits of Australian wines

As mentioned in the title, chinese entrepreneurs are alleged for counterfeiting Australian wine, including their best-known brands, Penfolds, and promoting the fakes as quality wines in shops and trade fairs throughout the country. Surprisingly, even a small Australian wine producer from the southern Flinders Ranges also claimed to be one of the victims of Chinese counterfeiters. This might threaten the Australian wine industry's $143 million trade with China. For your information, China is Australia's fastest growing export wine market. From 2004, wine exports have surged by 84 per cent annually and in the last financial year 46 million litres of Australian wine landed in China: 21.5 million litres in bottle and 23.5 million litres in bulk.

''But brand pirating is not a huge threat to our industry because, apart from Penfolds, Australian brands don't yet have levels of awareness, or aren't in the price bracket to make them attractive pirate brand candidates. There are isolated cases - but it's not our biggest threat,'' said Matt Bahen, deputy general manager of Australian-owned wine distributor, The Wine Republic, in north China.

''Our biggest threat is cheapening 'brand Australia' with random branding in the hope of dumping more containers in China. If we start off cheap and treat Chinese consumers as fools then it's going to bite us.''

The trade fair stall and its promotional material looked highly ''proprietorial'', according to Penfolds' Melbourne-based intellectual property lawyer, Stephen Stern of Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

It even displayed pictures of Penfolds winemaker Peter Gago.

Critique: Counterfeit is always a sensational issue. Just like plagiarism, it undermine people's hardworks for creating the products or racking the ideas. Doubtless, it is hearts broken to see our hardworks being creditted to someone else who was stealing our ideas. Therefore, authorities in charged should always take this matter into serious consideration before the widespread of this issue becoming the scourge in the society.

Aussie News: Q1 developer turns eye to Brisbane

Recently, the developer of the world's tallest residential tower Q1 on the Gold Coast has uncovered the plan to build a $250-million luxury apartment tower in Brisbane's central business district. After obtaining a small part of neighbouring land that currently accomodates a small apartment building, Sunland Group has presented its proposal for the 44-storey Carrington Tower opposite the Botanical Gardens at 140 Alice Street.  "We will be looking to create a very sculptural, iconographic tower that will really mark the entry into Brisbane from the southside of the city." Sunland Group managing director Sahba Abedian said. "It's a curvilinear building that really personifies the feminine form. If you look at the building it actually drapes out at the base that is not dissimilar to a beautiful dress - that's really the intent behind the tower." Besides, Mr Abedian was confident that this project will be approved by the Brisbane City Council due to its potentially unprecedented amount of of innovative sustainable design features, including the solar panels. "We have a strong track record and we also have a very strong client base that I have no doubt will be very excited when we launch this project," Mr Abedian said.

Critique : No doubt, we are live in an age of great changes. The skyline of the big cities are seemingly punctuated with all the tall buildings nowadays. Regarding to this project, it sounds great and impressive. However, there are some opportunity costs. From the comments posted, some respondents opposed to this high-rise development. They even sarcastically said that the residents from the building will soon enjoy the view of the dead trees in the Botanical Gardens as a consequence of the building's shadows. Significantly, there is no wrong to launch such big project like this but the site of the construction should always be considered in the first place.