The ship now at Chowder Bay in Sydney is the North Korean drug
ship Pong Su. It is supposed to be sunk during a military exercise this
month. It was NOT recently in Garden Island dockyard for maintenance,
but for preparation for sinking. Lies and secrecy are to hide a
possible failure of the exercise, a possible pollution problem, and/or
the fact that three years after it was first detained by the Federal
Police, nobody has been found guilty of drug smuggling. Incompetence is
going to cost high amounts of compensation for loss of ship, loss of
earnings and crew inconvenience, payable to naughty North Korea. Costs
already involved in detaining the ship and legal ones are massive.

Like most companies, AWB Ltd have a share scheme available to staff
in the way of an interest free loan made available by the company. The
staff who took up the offer had their shares bought by the company in
early January at a value of $6.10 – not happy now – especially the
Landmark staff who remember the days of share offers made by their
previous owners Wesfarmers and the success they had.

Could The Age be launching another round of voluntary redundancies?
Word out of Spencer Street is that even as the paper was trumpeting new
appointments at least one staffer got a letter detailing a new
redundancy offer.