The science publication Nature Climate Change this year published a study demonstrating Earth this century warmed substantially less than computer-generated climate models predict. Unfortunately for public knowledge, such findings don’t appear in the news. Sea levels too have not been obeying the ‘grand transnational narrative’ of catastrophic global warming. Sea levels around Australia 2011–2012 were measured with the most significant drops in sea levels since measurements began. This phenomenon was due to rainfall over Central Australia, which filled vast inland lakes. It was not predicted in the models, nor was it reported in the news. The 2015–2016 El-Niño, a natural phenomenon, drove sea levels around Indonesia to low levels such that coral reefs were bleaching. The echo chamber of news repeatedly fails to report such phenomena and yet many studies continue to contradict mainstream news discourse. Whistle-blower Dr. John Bates exposed the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) when it manipulated data to meet politically predetermined conclusions for the 2015 Paris (Climate) Agreement. This was not reported. Observational scientific analyses and their data sets continue to disagree with much of climate science modelling, and are beginning to suggest that some natural phenomena, which cause variability, may never be identified.

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David Robie. 2014. Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific. Auckland: Little Island Press. An Interview with Its Author1

Syed Nazakat is a special correspondent for the news magazine, The Week, in Delhi. He has reported on politics, defence, security, terrorism and human rights issues in 17 countries. Nazakat has won numerous national journalism awards for his investigative stories on India's secret torture chambers, India's rendition programme in Nepal, arms trafficking in Bangladesh and an insider report on the Al-Qaeda rehabilitation camp in Saudi Arabia.One of his award-winning stories, 'Like Cattle, from Kabul', reveals how Afghanistan has been a source and transit point for the trafficking of women and children for prostitution. 'Like Cattle, from Kabul' is one of the most under-reported stories in the region and is on Nazakat's blog 1 and The Week's website. 2 His recent investigative package, 'Reborn in Riyadh', 3 won him the Christiane Amanpour Award for investigative journalism. There are lessons in this story about the rehabilitation of terrorists and criminals generally, but especially those who spent time in the United States (US) detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. 'Reborn in Riyadh' shows that even the worst of the worst can be turned around and reintegrated into society. The judges of the award noted in commending Nazakat's stories:Making use of unusual access in a closed society, this account sheds light on a little known program to turn terrorists away from violence. This insightful story traces the blending of culture, religion, and real world issues of terrorism in an effort to bring jihadists into peaceful society. Theology and politics meet in this rehabilitation program, which the Saudi government says has rehabilitated more than 3500 Al Qaeda operatives.