There has been an incident in Thailand about two weeks ago. A 36 year old woman named Annice Smoel had gone to Thailand for her Mother’s 60^th Birthday along with two friends and a fun time turned into a nightmare after they had gone to a popular Aussie Bar and was later exiting the bar but a couple of undercover police stopped her in her tracks. Her friends had put the bar mat in her handbag as a prank without her noticing but soon later realised it was an illegal crime. She was charged with “Night Theft” with carries a higher punishment then “Day Theft”. A prank like this in Australia, normally would give you a small fine. But if you are found guilty in Thailand, the charge could be up to two to five years in jail. According to the Bar owner she was abusive to the undercover police when all they wanted was to chastise her (usually they’ll let you go) but instead attempted a runner (which didn’t help her case either) that only lasted until the beach. Annice Smoel had been in jail for four days until busted out by her husband Darren who thought the situation was a complete joke.

After Annice was released she returned devastaed, to her children aged 6, 8 , 11 and 12.

Some examples of strange laws:

·        In Singapore if you are caught throwing or littering chewing gum on the streets you are sent to jail

·        In  Israel you’re not a loud to be seen sitting on the steps of a church

·        In Iran if you’re a woman and you’re caught not wearing your Burka you will be arrested

In Australia we expect visitors from other countries to behave themselves and not litter and make Australia messier then it has ever been. We want other people to respect Australia.

So this is a lesson to everyone travelling overseas. It doesn’t matter where you go but everyone should study the countries laws. You never know this person Annice Smoel could have been anyone of you. So remember, when ever going overseas make sure to well prepare.

What does unemployment mean? People who have jobs are called employed but people looking for jobs but don’t have one are called unemployed, however people who don’t have a job and aren’t looking for one are called not in labour force. But there’s an issue going on, last month there was a total of 47,000 jobs lost.

The government has a slight clue about all the people that are unemployed. They find out by doing a survey every month. It takes place at a random part of the country. They survey about 10,000-25,000 homes (they don’t survey the whole country because it would take ages!) and they find out about all the people unemployed and how long they’ve been unemployed to get a fraction of everyone that is unemployed.

People who have been unemployed for a while sometimes have to live out on the street. This means that their families wouldn’t be able to eat anything because they wouldn’t have enough money to buy food. And that leaves the shop owners with not many customers and then they would soon run out of business which leaves lots of people on the street.

But the government is helping the unemployed and the homeless people by giving them money until they’re employed again and get back to normal life. There is also a bank that has offered to give unemployed people a “mortgage holiday” meaning they have a break from repaying their home loan until they find a job.

There are many people about to lose their jobs. How? Well everyone knows what ‘Bonds’ are, well most people do, if not they are many products such as underwear, bras, socks, t-shirts and lots more.

Over the years, pieces of clothing have dropped from 14 million products down to 2 million!

All the industries of Bonds are in Australia and the clothing is designed over here but it’s all moving to China. Why? Well over here they have to pay all the employees a wage. But it’s a bit of an expensive wage. But over there there population is huge so they don’t have enough jobs for everyone and poor people would die for a job. So they pay them a small wage which is cheaper for them.

It may be cheaper but many, many jobs would be lost. And that leaves people with no money which buys them food. And they would be unemployed.

Orangutans are like humans in lots of ways. A few alikes are our fingers and theirs, and that humans are smart (well most humans) and Orangutans are smart. They are located in Borneo and Samatra in Asia.

There is a possible chance that their species could soon become extinct. How you ask, well bulldozers and lumberjacks cut down all the orangutans houses (trees) which leaves the orangutans with out there houses and the workers with lots of land to plant palm oil plantation.

And another way they’re becoming extinct is by the trees that the workmen are cutting down, they are falling onto the poor little orangutans which crushes them to a sad death, the workmen often don’t realise what’s happening. 

Palm oil is in a lot of products like: biscuits, shampoo and lots more products. But they often disguise it as vegetable oil. 

I hope the orangutans get back to good shape. I want them to stop cutting down and reducing the species but if we get rid of the workers there would be a lot of poor men without jobs.

Recently there was another shark attack in Tasmania. A surfer called Hannah was surfing with her cousin Syb. They were happily surfing until Hannah was suddenly dragged under water by a Great White Shark. Her cousin Syb immediately dived under and wrestled and punched the shark until the shark let her go. They rushed her to the hospital and she had 200 stitches in her leg!

Some people think that we should cull this species of shark. They believe there will be more deadly shark attacks.

Other people think the opposite and think we should protect the species since they only attack to stay alive. Like we eat fish to stay healthy.

But personally I think we should get rid of the sharks because there so dangerous and they spook me out.