Skip to Content

July 2009

Obama's top 5 PR tricks (Politico)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 07:12 — admin

He’s been in office only six months, but already there’s a strong sense of déjà vu around the way Americans are seeing and hearing from President Barack Obama.
The president keeps returning to the same communications tactics over and over, and all the pages of his PR playbook have one thing in common: a big dose of Obama.
His prime-time news conference Wednesday night, one of the standbys, brings his total to four. That’s the same number that George W. Bush did — in eight years as president.
But as Obama’s once-lofty approval ratings dip — and voters express skepticism over his plans for health care and the economy — the longevity of the White House’s go-to techniques is being put to the test. One challenge for Obama’s team in coming weeks: not overusing the president.
“They have to be careful about that,” said former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry. “There are diminishing returns if you see the president too much. ... Part of this is just because he’s fascinating and popular right now. Inevitably, they’re going to hit some potholes, and they’re going to have to adjust their strategy.”
One troubling sign for the White House: TV networks were slow to sign on to Wednesday’s prime-time news conference. And Obama’s latest polls offer a strong reminder for the new White House that a president’s popularity is perishable — and time is ticking.
“They’ve got their eye on the expiration date, and they’re going to tap that well until it expires,” said former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. “And if they’re successful, the well gets replenished. And success means that cap and trade and health care reform get signed into law.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the idea of Obama overload. “It’s important that the president continue to remind the American people what’s at stake,” Gibbs said Tuesday, when asked about Obama’s nine health care speeches in nine days. “I don’t think he can probably say that enough.”
Here’s a peek inside the playbook and the reasons why the White House keeps rinsing and repeating the same tactics:
The town-hall-style meeting
Call it Obama unplugged.
This has been one of Obama’s favorite ways to get his message out. Since taking office, he has held more than a dozen town halls in eight states, as well as one streaming live online from the White House and one in Strasbourg, France.
For the White House, the events play to Obama’s strengths. The crowds are adoring. He can give a speech laying out his message, unfiltered. And he can play Washington outsider for a few hours while demonstrating how popular he still is.
There’s always the risk of a curveball question — but a small risk indeed, compared with the much greater chance for a funny, touching or downright lump-in-the-throat moment, like when Obama hugged a homeless woman in Florida and promised to help.
But the White House seemed to stack the deck a bit at Obama’s last town hall in Virginia — where the White House picked the questions for Obama from those that were submitted online and through its social-networking sites.
And it scrapped a planned town hall in Michigan recently — changing it at the last minute to a speech rolling out a higher education initiative. But Obama will hold one Thursday in Ohio.
The major address
This brings out Obama’s inner professor — as he explains in sometimes painstaking detail his views on a particular topic.

When the president is pitching a big initiative, he gives many smaller speeches on the topic. The ideas in those remarks are then collectively brought to a crescendo in a “major address” — a soup-to-nuts explanation of his views.

Obama has done this on the economy, detainees and torture policy, Iraq and U.S. relations with the Muslim world, but not yet on health care — so stay tuned.

“He tests out his message before he does the big speech and then after they do their big speeches, they don’t let it drop because people’s attention span is very short,” said Gerald Rafshoon, former White House communications director for former President Jimmy Carter. “They follow through and cover all the bases.”

The major address gets plenty of media coverage in the days beforehand, and the White House believes the “closing argument” approach is a powerful way to put Obama’s message into political conversation. These lengthy speeches are heavy on detail, and their effectiveness is debatable. It’s unclear how much the public takes in, as most of these addresses are nearly an hour long and have been delivered in the middle of the day. 

The solo prime-time news conference

For Obama, the prime-time news conference is just another version of the town hall. Except reporters are the ones in the audience asking the questions, and because of the prime-time slot, it offers him an unfiltered hourlong slot. His message goes directly to viewers at home.

“It’s not like going to doing something during the day, and it gets edited for the evening news,” Rafshoon said. “He is getting through the filter. ... He can give it as long an answer as he wants, and they don’t cut away from it. They don’t edit it.”

Like the town hall, Obama gets to deliver an opening statement laying out his message. The topics of questions are usually predictable. It’s generally a cordial atmosphere, so even if the questions are tough, reporters only push so far and Obama gets to monopolize the time.

But, also like the town hall, the White House recently received criticism after an Obama news conference for suggesting ahead of time to a Huffington Post reporter that he would possibly get to ask the president a question about Iran.

Interviews, interviews, interviews

Obama has given more interviews than any recent president at this point in his term, according to a tally kept by veteran White House historian Martha Joynt Kumar.

Obama does the obvious: doling out different types of exclusives to the three networks and bringing cable into the fold, as he did in Africa with a one-on-one with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

But he also regularly sits for round-table interviews with regional reporters. He often speaks to foreign news outlets before arriving abroad to set the tone, and he courts specialty media, such as the Hispanic and black press.

The interview-palooza works because Obama is the star and he does not go off message. Plus, regional and foreign news media tend to be softer interviews and give better play than members of the White House press corps.

“It’s more of a softball,” said Greg Jenkins, the Bush White House’s director of advance. “For anybody who doesn’t get a crack at the president every day of the week, you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, OK. I’ll ask my question and listen to what he says and move on.’ ... You tend to get more traction out of those interviews.”

The personal note

Part of Obama’s broad appeal is his youth and perceived coolness. As president, he tries to maintain his street cred as a regular guy, husband and dad.

Obama usually infuses some type of pop culture element into his communications smorgasbord. The White House has leaned heavily on a variety of websites — streaming video of the Foo Fighters show on the South Lawn on whitehouse.gov and popping up websites for the recovery act, health reform and other specific initiatives.

During the stimulus debate, Obama paused to chat with ESPN and often peppers his interviews with tidbits about family life in the White House — both prompted and unprompted. He routinely ignores shouted questions when in earshot of his press corps but has responded to weigh in on the NBA finals and make a quip about the first dog, Bo.

Obama has also twice written intimate pieces for Parade magazine — no Professor Obama here, pitching policy prescriptions. The first was a letter to his daughters just before his Inauguration, and the second an essay for Father’s Day.

Read More Stories from POLITICOAbortion roils tense health debateDeMint defends 'Waterloo'Vulnerable Dems get a pass -- for nowWhat should he say tonight?Blue Dogs get a deal on health costs

Morgan Stanley posts 2Q loss of more than $1.2B (AP)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 06:39 — admin

NEW YORK – Morgan Stanley said Wednesday it lost more than $1.2 billion during the second quarter as it took a charge to repay government bailout money. The investment bank was also hurt for a second straight quarter by the improving value of its own debt.
Morgan Stanley said its net loss after payment of preferred dividends was $1.26 billion, or $1.10 per share, during the quarter ended June 30. The New York-based bank earned $1.06 billion, or $1.02 per share, during the same quarter last year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, forecast a loss of 49 cents per share for the quarter.
Unlike competitors Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley's trading profits and investment banking revenue, while strong, were unable to offset mounting charges during the second quarter.
Both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase last week reported profit of more than $2.7 billion.
Morgan Stanley's results were significantly hampered by an accounting rule related to the value of its debt. The rule requires companies, on paper, to record a loss to cover the additional cash it would need to meet its obligations when its debt is worth more.
Essentially, if Morgan Stanley had to buy its debt back at the end of the second quarter, it would have had to pay more for it than it would have a quarter earlier. So while the improving value of its debt means investors are more confident in its long-term prospects, it must take a loss because of that improving confidence.
That accounting rule reduced Morgan Stanley's earnings by $1.32 per share in the second quarter.
Morgan Stanley also recorded an $850 million, or 74 cents per share, charge for repaying the money it received from the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Last fall, amid the mushrooming credit crisis that led to the collapse of fellow investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the government provided hundreds of banks with loans to try and restart stagnant credit markets.
Last month, Morgan Stanley was one of 10 major banks that was approved to repay that loan. Morgan Stanley had received $10 billion as part of the government's $700 billion program.
Morgan Stanley did see improved investment banking operations, which spurred big profits at its competitors. Morgan Stanley said underwriting revenues increased 19 percent to $855 million during the quarter. As credit markets have improved, more companies have tapped equity and debt markets to raise much-needed capital. Like Goldman, Morgan Stanley was able to take advantage of that pent-up demand for underwriting new offerings.
Both Goldman and JPMorgan Chase were among the other major banks that repaid TARP obligations last month.
Shares of Morgan Stanley fell $1.29, or 4.7 percent, to $26.27 in premarket trading Wednesday. Morgan Stanley shares closed at $27.56 Tuesday.

British women 'want to be curvy not thin' (AFP)

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 05:24 — admin

LONDON (AFP) –
British women hanker after a curvy hourglass body shape rather than trying to be ultra slim, preferring Kate Winslet to Kate Moss, according to a poll published Wednesday.

Sixty percent admitted to being either an "apple" or "pear shape," but 75 percent said they wanted a figure like Catherine Zeta-Jones or Marilyn Monroe, against only 10 percent who wanted to squeeze into a slim size 10 dress.

The findings reflect changing attitudes in Britain -- where obesity is a growing problem -- among women tired of the so-called Size Zero culture long fuelled by advertising and the fashion industry.

"The report shows that women's attitudes to slimming over the last 50 years have changed with their figures," said Laura Bryant of the food company which commissioned the poll of 2,000 women.

"It seems British women have lost their waists but now they are demanding them back."

And she added: "They are more concerned about getting a curvy hourglass shape like their grandmothers instead of being the perfect size 10 which shows a marked shift in attitude from the 80s and 90s, when success and failure when slimming was benchmarked against fitting into certain sized clothes."

A top-10 list of female celebrities whose shape inspired women was topped by buxom TV cook Nigella Lawson and actresses Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, and Joanna Lumley.

The findings might raise eyebrows in neighbouring France, which has the highest proportion of clinically underweight women in Europe, according to a study published in April.

Only half of those French women think they are thin, said the study, noting that in Britain, Spain and Portugal, the number of women who see themselves as seriously skinny easily outstrips the number who actually are.

A study last December found that one in three adults in England will be obese by the time London hosts the 2012 Olympics.

Between 1993 and 2004 the proportion of obese people rose "significantly", from almost 13.6 percent to 24 percent among men and from almost 17 percent to 24.4 percent among women, according to University College London researchers.

Wireless Outdoor Speakers

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 03:54 — admin

Wireless Outdoor Speakers

The basket or frame must be designed for rigidity to avoid deformation, which will change the magnetic conditions in the magnet gap, and could even cause the voice coil to rub against the walls of the magnetic gap. Baskets are typically cast or stamped metal, although molded plastic baskets are becoming common, especially for inexpensive drivers. The frame also plays a considerable role in conducting heat away from the coil.

The lowest-priced speaker systems and most drivers are manufactured in China or other low-cost manufacturing locations. Although the manufacture of drivers has become largely commoditized, the fabrication and subsequent sale of finished speaker systems still carries high profits. Partly for this reason, manufacturers are increasingly combining power amplifier electronics (a typically lower profit item) with finished speaker systems to create powered speakers with an overall higher market value.[citation needed]

Personalized Pens

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 03:51 — admin

Personalized Pens

A pen (Latin penna, feather) is a writing instrument used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper. There are several different types, including ballpoint, rollerball, fountain, and felt-tip. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used.

Quill pens began being replaced with steel dip pens in the first years of the 1800s. In Newhall Street John Mitchell pioneered mass production of steel pens. The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in the 1850s. While a student in Paris, Romanian Petrache Poenaru invented the fountain pen; an invention which the French Government patented in May 1827. Starting in the 1850s there was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen patents and pens in production.

World's largest telescope to be built in Hawaii (AP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 23:53 — admin

HONOLULU – Hawaii was chosen Tuesday as the site for the world's biggest telescope, a device so powerful that it will allow scientists to see some 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse into the early years of the universe.
The telescope's mirror — stretching almost 100 feet in diameter, or nearly the length of a Boeing 737's wingspan — will be so large that it should be able to gather light that will have spent 13 billion years traveling to earth. This means astronomers looking into the telescope will be able to see images of the first stars and galaxies forming — some 400 million years after the Big Bang.
"It will sort of give us the history of the universe," Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Corp. spokesman Charles Blue said.
The telescope, expected to be completed by 2018, will be located atop a dormant volcano that is popular with astronomers because its summit sits well above the clouds at 13,796 feet, offering a clear view of the sky above for 300 days a year.
Hawaii's isolated position in the middle of the Pacific Ocean also means the area is relatively free of air pollution. Few cities on the Big Island mean there aren't a lot of man-made lights around to disrupt observations.
The other finalist candidate site for the Thirty Meter Telescope was Chile's Cerro Armazones mountain.
Richard Ellis, astronomy professor the California Institute of Technology and a Thirty Meter Telescope board member, told reporters in a conference call that Mauna Kea is at a higher elevation, its air is drier and its average temperature fluctuates less during the course of the day — all helpful factors for those using the new telescope.
The telescope will be built by the University of California, the California Institute of Technology and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.
The current world's largest telescopes also are located atop Mauna Kea, but the size of their diameters are about three times smaller than the Thirty Meter Telescope. Current telescopes also don't routinely offer views of hundreds of planets orbiting around other stars and stars that are near the sun like the new telescope will.
But it may not hold the world's largest title for long.
A partnership of European countries plans to build the European Extremely Large Telescope, which would have an 138-foot mirror. The group is considering sites in Argentina, Chile, Morocco and Spain. It plans to decide on a location next year and be able to host its first observation in 2018.
Another group of universities plans to finish the Giant Magellan Telescope, also around 2018, with an 80-foot mirror in Las Campanas, Chile.
Rolf Kudritzki, the director of Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, said Hawaii's northern hemisphere location will help the Thirty Meter Telescope complement other large telescopes planned for Chile in the southern hemisphere.
"I think all of the astronomers in the world can be happy because in principle now the two largest telescopes will be able to cover the whole sky. And for research that's an important decision," he said.
It will also be a special boon to Hawaii astronomers, who will be allotted a share of the TMT's observation time. Kudritzki said his colleagues held an impromptu celebratory party Tuesday.
But the decision invited protests from some Native Hawaiian and environmental groups.
Native Hawaiian tradition holds that high altitudes are sacred and are a gateway to heaven. In the past, only high chiefs and priests were allowed at Mauna Kea's summit. The mountain is home to one confirmed burial site and perhaps four more, and environmentalists oppose the telescope on the grounds it would hurt some endangered species.
"This the kind of legacy they want to leave? They just keep building on our mountain," said Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, a group with family and religious ties to the mountain.

Solar eclipse shrouds Asia in cloak of darkness (AFP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 22:08 — admin

VARANASI, India (AFP) –
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century cast a shadow over much of Asia on Wednesday, plunging hundreds of millions into darkness across the giant land masses of India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity likely to end up being the most watched eclipse in history, due to its path over Earth's most densely inhabited areas.

While bad weather confounded some eclipse watchers, tens of thousands of people gathered at dawn on the banks of the Ganges river in Varanasi where a largely cloudless morning offered a stunning view.

With Hindu priests conducting special prayers, the crowds cheered and then raised their arms in salutation as the sun re-emerged from behind the moon, before they took a spiritually purifying dip in the river's holy waters.

A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday's spectacle was special for its maximum period of "totality" -- when the sun is wholly covered by the moon -- of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

State-run China Central Television provided minute-by-minute coverage of what it dubbed "The Great Yangtze River Solar Eclipse" as the phenomenon cut a path along the river's drainage basin.

Millions of people in areas of southwestern China enjoyed a clear line of sight, according to images broadcast on CCTV, but the view was obstructed along much of its path by cloudy weather.

Shanghai viewers braved rain and overcast skies to witness the spectacle as darkness shrouded China's commercial hub at 9:36 am (0136 GMT).

"It is working hours now, but with such a spectacle going on, you don't want to miss it. The experience is truly thrilling," said Allen Chen, a Shanghai office worker, who stepped out into the street to witness the event.

And despite the weather, hotels along Shanghai's famed waterfront Bund packed in the customers with eclipse breakfast specials.

Those who could afford it grabbed expensive seats on planes chartered by specialist travel agencies that promised extended views of the eclipse as they chased the shadow eastwards.

The cone-shaped shadow, or umbra, created by the total eclipse first made landfall on the western Indian state of Gujarat shortly before 6:30 am (0100 GMT).

It then raced across India and squeezed between Bangladesh and Nepal before engulfing most of Bhutan, traversing the Chinese mainland and slipping back out to sea off Shanghai.

From there it moved across the islands of southern Japan and veered into the western Pacific.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people who trekked up to the Nehru planetarium clutching eclipse sunglasses found themselves reaching for umbrellas and rain jackets instead as heavy overnight rain turned torrential.

"We didn't want to watch it on television and we thought this would be the best place," said 19-year-old student Dwayne Fernandes. "We could've stayed in bed."

Others opted to stay home and shuttered their windows, fearful of the effects of the lunar shadow which some believe can lead to birth defects in pregnant women.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers.

The ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon. In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, and a gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

The last total solar eclipse was on August 1 last year and also crossed China.

The next will be on July 11, 2010, but will occur almost entirely over the South Pacific, where Easter Island -- home of the legendary moai giant statues -- will be one of the few landfalls.

IBM boosts Juniper pact, plays down Cisco rivalry (Reuters)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 21:53 — admin

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
IBM on Wednesday announced it was stepping up its partnership with Juniper Networks Inc, but said it was also boosting ties with other equipment vendors including Cisco Systems Inc, playing down suggestions it was aiming to keep an increasingly competitive Cisco at bay.

International Business Machines Corp said it had agreed with Juniper on an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) partnership, under which IBM would rebrand Juniper's switches and routers as its own and sell them as part of its family of products.

IBM said the move was aimed at providing its customers, in particular corporate data centers dealing with increasingly high-volume network traffic, with a wider range of server, data storage, and networking equipment to choose from.

"Most of our customers want choice. They want best of breed," said Jim Comfort, vice-president of IBM's enterprise initiatives.

Juniper executives said the deal would help expand its distribution.

IBM said it saw partnerships as a way of helping it become a one-stop shop for a diverse set of products, making it easier for customers to buy and manage their data center equipment.

Some analysts, however, have said IBM is trying to expand relationships outside its long-standing partnership with top network equipment manufacturer Cisco, which recently announced it was entering the server market -- a move seen as a direct challenge to IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co.

IBM, which sells computer servers and software and technology services including outsourcing and automation, already helps to sell products made by Juniper, and Cisco, under resale partnerships.

An OEM deal provides a further incentive for IBM salesmen to promote Juniper products, and analysts have said that could be a way of retaliating against Cisco's encroachment into IBM's server space.

IBM, however, played down the rivalry and said it was bolstering its partnership with Cisco. IBM said it planned to resell Cisco's new storage switches using fiber channel over ethernet (FCoE), an emerging technology that improves network speeds, when the products are launched in September.

IBM said it was also expanding its partnership with Brocade Communications Systems Inc, a much smaller rival to Cisco, to resell its FCoE switches.

"It's not in response to anything that any one partner did," Comfort said. "It's our recognition of the need in the data center for a much more integrated and automated environment. This is about IBM's agenda in the data center and how we want to leverage our partner relationships."

Analysts said the expansion of various partnerships showed that while IBM was seeking to expand ties with Juniper and Brocade for diversity, it needed to remain friendly with Cisco.

Since many customers used a combination of products from both Cisco and IBM, it was too risky for IBM and Cisco not to ensure their products worked together seamlessly, they said.

"No doubt, they are going to be competing. But at the same time, they are ultimately trying to deliver value to customers," said Seamus Crehan, a vice-president at research firm Dell'Oro Group.

"Cisco is a dominant player in ethernet switching and they have a very strong position in data center networking. So for IBM to offer their customers choice, they have to include Cisco."

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando, Editing by Chris Lewis)

Mischa Barton's Health Improving—but How's Her Outlook Doing? (E! Online)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 21:26 — admin

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Here's hoping Mischa Barton's head is feeling better.

With regard to the undisclosed condition that landed her in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's psychiatric department last week, rep Craig Schneider told E! News Tuesday that the troubled 23-year-old is "improving and still under care, with the intentions of being able to resume production on The Beautiful Life next week."

Interestingly, the start of production on the hotties-with-issues drama was pushed back from July 22 to July 31—but not because of Barton, the network insisted.

A CW rep told E! News yesterday that sets are still being built and the delay had nothing to do its recently rehabbed star, who plays a supermodel struggling to stay on top of her game in the face of fierce competition.

Yeah, yeah, we'll say it... ironic.
Meanwhile, Schneider has had no comment on the root of the problem, i.e. why exactly the former O.C. star was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold last Wednesday, or on whether doctors opted to keep Barton hospitalized past the requisite 72 hours of the original evaluation period.

A source who spoke to Barton just hours before she was hospitalized tells E! News that the starlet was acting increasingly erratic.

Theories on what's ailing her have ranged from self-esteem issues to an eating disorder to substance abuse.

But since it's hard to know exactly which stresses lurk in the brains of those whose every move, outfit and attitude is subject to scrutiny, we'll just send some general get-well vibes her way.

'Cause either way, issues are issues.
________

Watch a clip of Mischa in The Beautiful Life, premiering Sept. 16 on the CW, right here.

··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com

Timor thriller 'Balibo' to stir up controversy (AFP)

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 21:20 — admin

MELBOURNE (AFP) –
A hard-hitting movie depicting the infamous killing of six Australian-based journalists during Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor should prompt war crimes charges, its director says.

"Balibo," the first feature film ever made in East Timor, premieres Friday at the Melbourne International Film Festival before an audience including East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta and Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino.

The film, starring Anthony LaPaglia, tells the story of five journalists killed when troops overran the border town of Balibo in October 1975 and a sixth who died weeks later when Jakarta launched a full-scale assault on Dili.

Jakarta has always maintained that the so-called "Balibo Five" died in crossfire as Indonesian troops fought East Timorese Fretilin rebels, a version of events accepted by successive Australian governments.

But the film portrays the journalists, who were working for Australian television networks, being brutally executed on the orders of Indonesian military chiefs to prevent news of the invasion reaching the outside world.

"It's quite clear the journalists were murdered," Australian director Rob Connolly told AFP.

"The current Indonesian and Australian (government) point of view that they were killed in crossfire is quite frankly absurd.

"I'd imagine the film will be confronting because it represents something contrary to the official view."

Connolly makes no apology for his film's stance, pointing out that an Australian coroner found in 2007 that the journalists were killed as they tried to surrender to Indonesian forces.

The inquest recommended war crimes charges be brought against the alleged killers, including special forces captain Mohammad Yunus Yosfiah, who later became a minister in the Indonesian government.

Connolly said he would be pleased if the film prompted action from Australian authorities, who have been considering their official response to the coroner's inquest for almost 18 months.

"We seek out war criminals from World War II, so to dismiss calls for justice for the Balibo Five is crazy," he said.

The director said he did not set out to provoke Jakarta but wanted to examine a seminal moment in Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor, when an estimated 183,000 people died.

"I think it had to be graphic because otherwise you dangerously dilute what happened," Connolly said.

For musician Paul Stewart, whose brother Tony was one of the Balibo Five, working as a consultant on the movie was a difficult but rewarding experience.

Stewart, who was still a teenager when his 21-year-old brother died, said "Balibo" finally presented the truth to the world.

"I can't believe this incident I've lived with since I was a kid is now this Hollywood-style blockbuster," he said.

"Tarentino's coming out to see it at the premiere, it's all a bit surreal.

"I've been speaking about this for almost 35 years, it's never gone away for me. Everybody's going to know about it now."

Stewart, who now runs a charity that donates musical instruments to East Timor, said the film highlighted the Australian government's lack of action over the deaths of the journalists.

"To this day, the one phone call my mother's had from the government came a couple of weeks after it all happened when someone from the embassy in Jakarta called and asked 'where should we send the bill for the coffin?'" he said.

The Balibo Five were Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie and New Zealander Gary Cunningham. Roger East, the sixth journalist killed, was an Australian.

Despite the brutal subject, Connolly said he came away from a tough shoot in East Timor optimistic about the future of Asia's youngest country, which finally gained independence in 2002.

"I fell in love with the place," he said. "Here's a country where the average age is under 18, there's a sense of possibility about it."

"The Timorese made us feel incredibly welcome, they see the attention drawn by the Balibo Five as one of the reasons they eventually gained independence."



Theme by Dr. Radut.