Biography: Hawke, Robert James Lee 'Bob'. 1929- . Born in Bordertown, South Australia. Graduated from the University of Western Australia, 1952. Rhodes Scholar, University College, Oxford, 1953-6. Joins Australian Council of Trade Unions as Research Officer, 1957. President, Australian Council of Trade Unions, 1969-80. Elected to Parliament as Labor Party MP for Wills, 1980. Leader of the Opposition, 1983. Prime Minister of Australia, 1983-91. Treasurer of Australia, 1991.
SO: This is Dr Sue Onslow talking to Mr Bob Hawke on Monday, 31st March 2014. Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me. Sir, how you did become interested and involved in things Commonwealth before you went into Parliament? Was this through the Commonwealth trade union organisation and links?
BH: No, there was no significant Commonwealth trade union link.
SO: So, this was not something that drew you in through the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), with links to the Commonwealth Trade Union Council's support for South African trade unions?
BH: I led the fight here against apartheid as President of the ACTU, including particularly the Springbok tour in 1971. And that led to the banning of the South African cricket tour which had been scheduled – that was something that I sorted out with Sir Donald Bradman. That was interesting. After the Springbok tour had finished, I got a call from him asking if I would go to Adelaide and see him some time. So, I went there. It was confidential. I went to his home, and he said, "Bob," he said, "this controversy is bad. We've got a cricket tour coming up." He said, "You know, I just have a very firm belief that politics should not be intruded in the sport." And I said, "I couldn't agree more." I said, "It was the South African Government that has introduced politics into sport by decreeing politically that no non-white person will represent their country. They introduced politics into sport." And Don was a very shrewd old bloke, and he looked at me for about thirty seconds and then he said, "Bob, I've got no answer to that." And that was it. The tour was off.
SO: So, you thoroughly approved, then, of the Commonwealth coming up with the Gleneagles Agreement sporting ban in 1977? What you're suggesting is that you were ahead of the game on this one.
SO: Did you help to organise pressure on the other South African team visits? You mentioned the Springboks and cricket, but what about other aspects of sport?
BH: Well, as far as we're concerned, there was no sporting organisation [that] should have anything to do with the sport in South Africa.
SO: So, did you have any contacts with the Commonwealth before you became Prime Minister in 1983?
SO: How swiftly did you come to 'get' the Commonwealth, and decide to use it as a vehicle for Australian national interests, and specifically as a means of exerting pressure on South Africa?
BH: Well, as soon as I got in, I assumed the leadership within the Commonwealth for the fight against apartheid. I was very much assisted by Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada, [and] Rajiv Gandhi, when he became the Prime Minister of India. And there were trade sanctions. We went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren't working; they were just being busted. And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction. So, they agreed with that, and I said, "Look, let's do something about it." So, I rang my friend Jim Wolfensohn, who was then running a private commercial bank in New York. I said, "Come up to Vancouver", and he did. I put my proposition to him. He said, "I think it could work." I said, "Will you help us?" He said, "Yes." So, I set aside senior people in our treasury and they worked with Wolfensohn and the investment sanctions were applied. And that's what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.
SO: At that Vancouver Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1987, how much support did you try to corral from other heads before you contacted Jim Wolfensohn?
BH: Well, they were all on side except for Margaret [Thatcher].
BH: Well, once I had the idea and got it initiated, that was then for Wolfensohn and the people that I had appointed in there to handle that. I had no part in it.
SO: They were the ones who managed to come up with the exact criteria for investment sanctions?
BH: The Commonwealth commissioned them to go ahead and try and implement an effective investment sanction. They worked on it, and they did it.
SO: What were your other inter-governmental relations like with Margaret Thatcher?
BH: It was a remarkable relationship. Margaret and I had a love/hate relationship. She was always defending the South African regime and we had some terrible fights, including an enormous one in Canada. But to her great credit, she never allowed that to get in the way of our relations. In fact, soon after that, I was going on an official visit to the UK and she instructed every minister to clear the decks of any outstanding matters between us – Australia and the Brits. And she went out of her way to make sure that that was as successful a visit as it possibly could be. So, I respected her enormously. She had great integrity in that respect.
SO: You'd had an earlier set-to with her after the Eminent Persons Group of 1986 presented their report at the London mini-Commonwealth summit meeting.
SO: Was she genuinely impervious to argument, or was it that she felt she wasn't persuaded by the argument presented?
BH: Genuinely impervious, because the funny thing there was with her Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Howe. Geoffrey and I were mates, and he disagreed with her position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.
BH: He didn't make problems.
SO: Ah, so, he was 'the quiet voice of reason'?
BH: Yeah, I nominated Fraser for that. They went over there and came back, and reported to a special meeting in London.
SO: So, had you had this idea of an Eminent Persons Group or contact group before you went to the Nassau heads meeting?
BH: Well, I don't know that I'd had it particularly, but I liked the idea. I went along with it, and wanted to appoint a significant figure in Malcolm Fraser. I didn't have high hopes that they'd be able to do anything, but something was worth a try.
SO: Did Fraser stay in touch with you throughout that six-month period or…?
SO: How far did you feel the EPG was a compromise that was needed, before you started pushing for further sanctions?
BH: Well, I wouldn't say it was a compromise. It was another attempt to try and do something, and I was quite happy to go along with it. But, no, I wasn't overly optimistic, and the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion about the investment sanction.
SO: When I interviewed Pik Botha, his argument was that he felt that, although the EPG was a failure by May 1986 – because of the SADF parallel bombings of neighbouring Commonwealth capitals – in the longer term it was in fact beneficial to South Africa, in terms of contributing the Possible Negotiating Concept. It gave the National Party and the ANC a platform on which they could negotiate after February 1990.
BH: Well, that's a view!
SO: I'm suggesting that, sometimes, you can look at something as a failure in the short term, but then in the long term…?
BH: I'm not saying it was a failure. I mean, I didn't have high expectations.
SO: What was your relationship like with Rajiv Gandhi?
BH: We were great mates: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner. There were two aspects I remember: one is him saying how he had trouble with his security people, because they insisted he wears a vest. He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been wearing three vests – he would have been gone. Then, he was very reflective and rueful and regretful about the fact that his children's education…He wanted them to get educated outside of India, but he said to me the only place that he found where they would be safe was in Russia, and he didn't really want them to be educated there! So, I said, "Well, send them to Australia. I'll look after them." And my security bloke went absolutely bloody bananas, and I said, "We'll look after them." But, in the end, he didn't send them. I believe he had a real sense that he would be assassinated.
SO: Well, his mother had been assassinated in 1984.
BH: He was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.
SO: Do you think the fact you had a very close friendship with him was beneficial in terms of Australian-Indian international relations?
SO: Do you feel that's a necessary part of international relations? Good chemistry and good contacts with other heads of state?
BH: Of course. If you've got good chemistry at the top, it's an enormous help. It's easy to have good chemistry with some, not so easy with others. With Mugabe, for example.
SO: What was your relationship like with him?
BH: I hated him. He's one of the worst human beings I've ever met. He treated black and white with equal contempt. He was a horrible human being.
SO: It's been said that, in the very early period after Zimbabwe got independence, in February/March of 1980, Mugabe embarked upon reconciliation and upon nation-building. He concentrated on education, social welfare, [and] healthcare delivery. So, how far do you think it is true that the Mugabe of the 1980s can't be compared to the Mugabe of the late 1990s?
BH: Well, I don't accept this picture that's been painted of the initial, saintly-like figure that you've just projected.
BH: Well, it may be a view. It's not mine.
SO: Were you aware of the violence within Zimbabwe from 1982 to 1987?
SO: I'm pretty struck that Sonny Ramphal, the Secretary General of the time, and the British Government didn't make any public comment about this whatsoever.
What were your relations like with Dr Mahathir, who has been described as the other pillar of the Commonwealth [during] the late 1980s?
BH: I don't know who described Mahathir as a pillar of the Commonwealth, but they don't know what they're talking about.
SO: You wouldn't say that's an appropriate description?
BH: Well, I don't know who said it, but it's just inaccurate, is what I'm saying.
SO: It was one of my interviewees who commented that Robert Mugabe and Dr Mahathir came to be pillars of the Commonwealth for the Secretary General by the late 1980s and in the 1990s.
SO: So, during your time as Prime Minister, would you say that there were particularly active Commonwealth leaders who were important in using the Commonwealth as a vehicle for policy? Pushing the association forward? Or, in fact, is that a misrepresentation?
BH: Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core. That was the engine room, I reckon.
SO: How about the Commonwealth and development in the 1980s? Obviously, there was the drive towards ending the apartheid regime, as you've identified, through the push towards trade sanctions, financial sanctions, and sport sanctions. Opposition to apartheid has been described as 'the grand strategy' of the Commonwealth. Did the Commonwealth have any other grand strategy?
BH: The concept there was that the small number of developed countries within the Commonwealth should provide assistance. This was not just financial but personal, providing experts and so on, to assist less developed members of the Commonwealth to get on the growing path. And that was part of what we did with South Africa. I said to my people, "We're knocking apartheid off but we've got to be prepared to assist them." And I sent senior people over there to assist the incoming South African regime to go about the economic plan.
SO: Was that a bilateral Australian approach?
BH: That was bilateral; that was what I did. What others did, I'm not sure.
SO: What was your relationship like with Sonny Ramphal as Secretary General?
BH: We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked him. I thought he was a genuine man.
SO: A 'necessary political activist' for the Commonwealth?
BH: He was necessary, yeah. Well, that was part of his job, and he did it well.
SO: His successor, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has been described as more of a diplomat – an international civil servant.
BH: Well, I can't speak with authority about him. I just didn't know him that well.
SO: I'd just like to put the Commonwealth in context, please, during your time as Prime Minister. How important was this dimension to Australian foreign policy? Or was it relatively insignificant compared to the strategic relationship with the United States at that time?
BH: They just came in different categories. You've got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important. As was the relationship that I was developing with China: that was something I did very much. And they weren't conflicting things. In fact, I was used on a number of occasions by the United States and China as a conduit. For instance, I was up there talking with the Chinese leadership and they said to me that they were a bit concerned that the Americans had a misunderstanding about their relationship with the Soviets. There was some suggestion that there was a rapprochement developing between China and the Soviets, but nothing could have been further from the truth. They wanted me to convey that message and explain it all to the United States leadership – to the President – which I did. And they were very grateful for it.
SO: How complicating for Australian foreign policy was David Lange's push for a de-nuclearized Pacific in the 1980s?
BH: No, no, you've got it quite wrong there. It wasn't his push. It was very much an Australian/New Zealand initiative to have a nuclear free South Pacific. And the Americans were very apprehensive about this. So, I explained to them that, as far as I was concerned, this didn't involve any diminution in our commitment to the ANZUS relationship. But David Lange took it further and he barred visits of US nuclear warships to New Zealand. I told him he was crazy, because you can't have an alliance relationship if you refuse access to their ships. And the Americans wanted to punish him very severely and I intervened there and softened them somewhat. They wanted to really take some tough, reactive measures to New Zealand.
SO: What were they proposing, do you remember?
BH: Trade sanctions and all sorts of things. I said, "Well, that would be counterproductive." And so, we kept a sort of link for New Zealand with the whole thing in a situation where there was this absolute standoff between them directly.
SO: Indira Gandhi had proposed much the same thing for the Indian Ocean at the Delhi CHOGM in 1983: that there should be another nuclear free zone.
BH: Yeah. I had no time for Indira Gandhi. She was too much in the Russian camp for my liking.
SO: So, was the Commonwealth very much affected by the Cold War then?
BH: It was Indira Gandhi who very much lined up with the Russians. And she was, you know, within the Commonwealth, basically one out on that. The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn't abide her, basically.
BH: He was before my time.
SO: Well, he was at that Delhi Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. I know that he went from there up to Moscow to argue for a kick start in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START I].
BH: Trudeau was at the meeting in India? Was he? Are you sure of that?
BH: Oh, well, I'd forgotten that. I really had very little to do with him. He was off the scene very soon after that.
SO: Yes, he was. Brian Mulroney came in in 1984, with Joe Clark as his Foreign Minister.
BH: I had a very close relationship with Mulroney. For example, when George Bush Senior [George HW Bush] was getting his alliance together to go into Iraq – to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait – he rang me up. I was very close to George Bush Senior; I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, "Oh, Bob," he said, "I'm having trouble with Brian." He said, "He's got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn't want to upset that." I said, "You leave it with me." So, I rang Brian up. I said, "What's this bloody nonsense. You've got a wheat trade with Iraq and you won't come aboard?" I said, "We've got a bloody big wheat trade too, so get your priorities right." And he said, "Okay, Bob. I'll come." I rang George and he was very appreciative.
SO: Australia's contribution to the first Iraq war was much less controversial than the second Gulf war.
BH: No, don't talk about the second one. That's two completely different exercises. The first one [was] totally justified, the second one not only unjustified but counterproductive.
SO: How did John Howard get that through?
BH: Well, he led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans. I wrote a letter to our Australian newspaper about three weeks before the invasion and I said, "Osama bin Laden must be on his knees morning and night praying to Allah that the Americans will invade." And, of course, he was, because nothing more advanced his cause – the cause of terrorism – than the invasion of Iraq. It was an absurdity.
SO: I think so, too. I was on a Stop the War march myself in London. I could not believe the way that the politics was manipulated in London.
BH: The politics, and the religious impetus. George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn't far behind in a way. It was the new crusade.
SO: Indeed, another conviction politician. To go back to your time as Prime Minister, how much did you try and use the Commonwealth as a particular platform for Australia? Or was it a case that it was just there: it was a vehicle to be used?
BH: No, I didn't try and use it as a platform. It had things that it could do and which I thought were worthwhile: one would be South Africa, of course. And, as I said, I assumed a leadership role within the Commonwealth on that. But, you know, apart from that… One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth. You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth. And one of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she would have a meeting with each of them. You'd have an allotted time. So, my time was allotted and I went there. Before I went in, I saw the private secretary, Bill Heseltine. He had been at university with me, at the University of Western Australia. I knew him well, and I told him that I thought the way the Commonwealth meeting seemed to be scheduled to go about Fiji was very weak. It recognised the fact that the Queens' representative had been thrown out. And he said, "Will you talk to her about it?" And I said, "I will". So, I went in and she said, "I hope the timing of our meeting wasn't inconvenient for you?" I said, "Well, no, Your Majesty. I had to walk out when Margaret was speaking." She said, "Oh, I thought she'd been talking in the morning?" I said, "Your Majesty, I think you should know as well as anyone that Margaret's quite capable of talking the morning, the afternoon and the evening, if necessary." She laughed. So, I put to her directly my concern that the proposed draft was very weak and that it should be strengthened, and she said, "I agree with you." And she intervened and talked to a lot of people and the thing was changed as a result of her intervention. So, she was, in the Commonwealth, much more than just a figurehead.
SO: Yes. Philip Murphy, the Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, has just published a book on The Queen and the Commonwealth [Monarchy and the End of Empire, 2013], and he has provided other instances of what you've just pointed to: of the Queen making important contributions.
BH: That's a very pertinent example I mentioned.
SO: Did you have advanced warning of what was going on in Fiji earlier that year?
SO: So, did Timoci Bavadra come down and talk to you after the coup?
SO: Did you play much of a part in trying to lead Fiji back into the 'councils of the Commonwealth' following its suspension?
BH: No. Only in my instructions to the diplomatic service: that there had to be a change; there couldn't just be condemnation of what had happened.
SO: Malcolm Fraser, as Prime Minister before you, had set up the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting. I know that there were CHOGRM meetings in 1979, 1981 and 1983. Fraser had also had the idea of having a Secretariat based here in Sydney, which should support the smaller states of the Pacific. What did you feel of that idea?
BH: I wasn't enamoured of it.
SO: So, if you weren't enamoured of it, is that why the idea effectively fizzled? Because it needed a Regional Head to continue to give it energy and input, and the New Zealanders were not prepared to step in and to…?
BH: No, they were not.
SO: No, okay. Why do you think the Commonwealth has survived as long as it has?
BH: Well, I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen. It's very easy to underrate her significance. I think she finds the Commonwealth and her position as Head of the Commonwealth infinitely more interesting than being the Queen of England, because she has no significant role in the latter. She is, you know, "Do-what-you're-told, Lady". But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead. She has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role. So, there is a reciprocal respect for her, for her interest in the Commonwealth. The members of the Commonwealth recognise that here is a genuine interest from the top. So, that's one reason. I'm not putting it necessarily in order of importance.
It [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they'll live on that for some time, I guess. And there is still – I'm out of touch with it now, of course – but I still think there is a degree of cooperation at the economic level, to some extent, with the more developed countries helping the less developed. How substantial that is now, I simply am not versed.
SO: I think the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation has got a budget of about $29m. It's very small indeed.
Could you identify anything else that has helped to hold it together? And what might that explain about its current viability and its future?
SO: Of transition to black majority rule in Southern Africa? It's really very depressing, though, the extent to which that the current ANC Government seems to be faltering.
BH: Oh, don't talk to me about what's happened since Mandela! His successor was absolutely hopeless – "no such thing as AIDS" – and this present President… It's a tragedy, you know, what's happened there post-Mandela, because he was an iconic figure. Absolutely.
SO: Yes. And the Commonwealth did play a remarkable role in supporting his release.
BH: It wouldn't have happened without it. When he came out and assumed leadership, the first country he visited – outside of Africa – was Australia. He came to thank us. I was still Prime Minister. I was in my office and he walked in. He walked across, took my hand, he said, "Bob, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here today." Now, that wasn't just Bob Hawke: I was acting for Australia; it was what Australia did. So, he understood.
SO: In addition to helping to secure his release and Australia's assistance to the process of negotiations, were you also trying to encourage trade union links at that particular point?
BH: It wasn't a big thing. I did say to our unions that they should try and do everything they could to help.
SO: Yes. So, the viability of the Commonwealth going forward… Some people say that inertia helps to explain why the Commonwealth hasn't broken up before now. It's there. It continues to exist. Do you take an active interest in what's going on in Commonwealth matters? There is a big debate about the question of leadership: whether it's got too big, whether it needs to reform its Heads of Government meetings because they are so large now, whether, in fact, there needs to be a politician as the next Secretary General and a debate about the Headship. Will it be Prince Charles? Will the Commonwealth do away with the Head?
BH: I'm just not involved in it now. I've done my bit.
SO: The other question I had was about your relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and whether that was of use in Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. Was it of use to Australia reaching out to the South East Asia region?
BH: I had a good personal relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and I used him, in the sense, that he… He made a statement in 1980, and he said in that statement that, "If Australia keeps going the way it is, it will finish up the poor, white trash of Asia." And he was right, because we were just going backwards. So, I used that to wake Australia up, and it was the base of my economic summit and turned round all the Australian economy. That's how his statement was useful.
SO: A good rhetorical flag to get everybody to really focus. My last question, Sir, is about Malcolm Fraser's campaign to be Commonwealth Secretary General. Did you actively encourage him to do that?
BH: No. Well, when I say 'no'… What year was that that he tried?
SO: It would be 1988 to 1989. He tried to do it at the Kuala Lumpur meeting.
BH: Yeah, no, I did try and help. I'm sorry, I did.
BH: I think it was his idea. It wasn't mine; I didn't initiate it.
SO: I know Gareth Evans, whom I talked to last week, was his campaign manager. Were you surprised that he didn't manage to clinch the Secretary General-ship?
BH: I mean, all the arguments there are against Malcolm – and there are many – the one thing in which he is impeccable and why I would support him in this is that he has an absolutely impeccable record on the question of colour and race. People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family – a 'squattocracy' – and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia. And then he went straight from Melbourne Grammar to Oxford. And he would have been a very lonely person, and I think he probably met a lot of black students there who were also probably lonely. I think he formed friendships with them, which established his judgement about the question of colour. That's my theory. I don't know whether it's right or not, but that's what I always respected about Malcolm. He was absolutely, totally impeccable on the question of race and colour.
SO: So, he truly was colour blind.
SO: I can understand why that would be a key formative experience for him, because I can just imagine how lonely he would have been at Magdalen College, Oxford. Your experiences at Oxford would've been very different.
BH: [Laughter] Yeah, very much so!
SO: Sir, I think that's covered the aspects that I wanted to touch on. You've been really kind and very frank, and you've also helped to set the Commonwealth in context. I fully appreciate that the Commonwealth was not the most important aspect of Australian foreign policy, although the Commonwealth likes to consider itself to be the driving force and a global subsystem in these years. So, thank you very much indeed.
'Squattocracy' is a term specific to Australian history which describes the political and social power of people who illegally settled Crown land in the nineteenth century and who became wealthy from exploiting the territory. The term – a play on the English 'aristocracy' – is still used in Australia to describe large landowners in rural areas with a history of pastoral occupation.
George Walker Bush (b.1946) is an American political figure and businessman who served as President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was previously Governor of Texas (1995-2000), and before entering politics was involved in the American oil industry.
George Herbert Walker Bush (b.1924) is an American political figure who served as President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. A Republican, he had previously served as Vice President under Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency(1976-77).
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was a bilateral treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1991, barring the signatories from deploying nuclear warheads, inter-continental ballistic missiles and bombers. Implemented in 1994, it resulted in the removal of around 80 percent of strategic nuclear weapons in existence by 2001. START was succeeded by the New START in 2010.
Sir Donald Bradman (1908-2001) was an Australian cricketer who also acted as an influential administrator, selector and writer for three decades after his retirement from the game in 1949. He is widely held to be one of the greatest Test batsmen in history and is regarded as an Australian national icon.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is a national trade union body representing forty-six affiliated unions. It was established in 1927 in Melbourne, though it was not until 1981 that the ACTU successfully integrated unions for white collar workers and government employee bodies, thus becoming the 'peak' workers' organisation in the country.
Sir William Heseltine, b.1930 in Australia, was Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II from 1986 to 1990.
Barend du Plessis (b.1940). South African politician, was a member of the National Party and Minister of Education and Training (1983-84) and Minister of Finance (1984-1992).
The 'Negotiating Concept' document was a proposal presented by the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group in 1986, suggesting that the South African government release political prisoners and lift bans on anti-apartheid political organisations, and that anti-apartheid groups should suspend the use of violence and enter negotiations with the government.
George Walker Bush (b. 1946). President of USA (2001-2009).


OK Cat owner's. We've all been here. You get out of bed in the morning and walk down the hallway when suddenly you feel something cold, and wet squishing between your toes. The other common scenario...nothing wakes a cat owner out of a sound slumber faster than the sound of a cat about to vomit on the bed. If you own a cat, chances are you've experienced the annoyances of hairballs.
Hairballs are historically considered "normal" in cats, but what do we really know about hairballs? Well, usually log shaped rather than ball shaped, hairballs are accumulations of hair that form in the stomach and intestines of cats. As you may have noticed, cats are fastidious groomers, and they ingest a lot of hair when they are cleaning themselves. Cats' tongues have dozens of tiny barbs (papillae) that are backward-facing. These little papillae are an extremely effective hairbrush, pulling any loose hair and debris from the cat's fur into it's mouth, where it is ingested and swallowed into the gastrointestinal tract. So, what happens to all of that hair? Well, in most cases the intestines move the hair through where it is expelled in the feces. In some cases, the hair collects in the stomach and forms into large clumps, which cannot be passed into the small intestines so there's only one way left for it to go. Back out the way it came in, although occasionally the hairball passes into the small intestines where it can cause a life-threatening obstruction requiring surgical intervention.
So, are hairballs normal for cats? Well, that's partially true. A hairball once or twice a month can be completely normal in healthy cats. Especially long-haired cats. We do however become concerned when cats vomit up a hairball more than twice a month or so. This can be a sign of intestinal disease. Some common intestinal diseases in cats can affect the ability of the small intestines to move hair through the GI tract, leading to hairball accumulation.
Can hairballs be prevented? In some cases, hairballs can be minimized by frequently brushing your cat. This is not only a great way to bond with your cat(see happy cat brushing video), but it also removes a lot of the loose hair that would otherwise be ingested by your cat. Another option is to administer a commercially available, petroleum based hairball remedy. These products lubricate the intestinal tract to assist the hair in passing through into the feces. A combination of brushing and petroleum based hairball remedy can be used together to get the best results. Remember, hairballs more than twice a month on a consistent basis should prompt a visit to the vet.
One more tip: Coughing and hacking without bringing up a hairball can be a sign of a more serious problem. Monitor your cat closely. If a hairball doesn't come up after a few attempts, time to go to the vet!


* Newtone – Pitch correction editor beta.
* Pitcher – Live pitch correction plugin. Beta 2.
* Preview Playlist Clips – Alt + Right click Clip.
* New Pattern Button – On Stepsequencer.
* Ctrl + Middle Mouse – Resize Playlist tracks.
* Playlist – Left+Shift swaps Pencil and Brush tools.
* Piano roll – Sift + H or J cycles through used Channels.
* Project files – Local paths now saved in project.
* …download the 'Whats New.rtf' for more.


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Friday Five — February 5, 2016
5 febbraio 2016Red Hat Corporate Communications Team
Tag:Formazione, PaaS, Storie di successo dei clienti, Premi, Community, Friday Five
The Friday Five is a weekly Red Hat® blog post with 5 of the week's top news items and ideas from or about Red Hat and the technology industry. Consider it your weekly digest of things that caught our eye.
Red Hat Blog - Innovation, Disruption, Change and Unicorns: Understanding OpenShift's Strategy for 2016 and Beyond
"In 2015 we found ourselves in countless conversations around the world with large and small companies all asking some variant of "Is disruption the new norm?", and wondering how they would prepare for it. Arguably the PaaS market itself has transformed with the popularity of containers/Docker and Kubernetes technology. We've chosen to embrace and participate in it and found our customers to be widely accepting of it... We have designed our platform to support established stateful applications as well as new cloud native stateless applications. We did this while adopting Docker container format and runtime and Kubernetes orchestration for web scale and performance... Many still wonder how they can best react to these innovations and harness the potential of containers... The OpenShift mission has evolved to reflect the transformation in our industry. Our goal remains to enable agility in a rapidly changing world." —Ashesh Badani, vice president OpenShift, Red Hat
GOOD READ:
CIO - Using open source in the enterprise - 16 CIOs embracing free and open source software
Open source enterprise use cases appear to be on the rise, at least anecdotally, with an increasing number of CIOs, IT directors and Chief Technology Officers telling CIO UK about investigating and adopting free and open source alternatives to proprietary software as they seek to gain freedom and flexibility, cut costs, increase agility, improve code quality and avoid vendor lock-in... The most recent studies by the non-profit Linux Foundation in its Enterprise End User Trends reports have revealed year on year increases in Linux deployments over the last four years, with the open operating system seeing particular growth as a platform for cloud computing. Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst told CIO UK that CIO attitudes towards open source had changed dramatically in recent years. "It was seen as a lower cost alternative around commoditisation, but open source is now seen as very innovative and CIOs don't want to be seen to fall behind on innovation"... Here we present 16 CIOs, from the Ministry of Defence and Goldman Sachs to the Daily Telegraph and NHS, commenting on the use and benefits of adopting open source for businesses.
FlexJobs - 100 Top Companies with Remote Jobs in 2016
For the third year in a row, Red Hat is proud to be on FlexJobs's top 100 companies to watch for remote jobs in 2016. Based on an analysis of the over 40,000 companies in the FlexJobs database, the site pulled the 100 companies with the most remote job postings in 2015. The listed companies posted the most telecommute-friendly jobs from January 1–December 31, 2015. Telecommute-friendly refers to listings that offer some level of telecommuting. Job seekers, if you're interested in finding a remote job this year, it's a good bet that these will be some of the top companies with remote jobs in 2016... It appears that not only is remote working on the rise, but opportunities to work from home are increasing at a faster rate. This acceleration is fantastic news for anyone wishing to leave the office for a telecommuting job.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS:
East Carolina University prepares students for an open source world with Red Hat Academy
Instructors and students from East Carolina University discuss the benefits of partnering with Red Hat Academy to teach Linux and other open source skills, deliver certification exams, and prepare students for a successful career in open source information technology. Check out the video.
Red Hat Blog - Red Hat Certified Professionals Weigh In on Value of Certification
Red Hat conducted a survey of 160+ Red Hat Certified Professionals (RHCPs) to learn how their certified status has helped them in their jobs. We found that 84% believe their Red Hat certification has helped or will help them in their current job. With 82% of companies requesting RHCPs for open Linux positions, and with Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators generally earning salaries 10% higher than other Linux system administrators, there's never been a better time to become Red Hat certified. See what other RHCPs had to say about the importance of Red Hat certifications in their jobs.
Red Hat Corporate Communications Team
Red Hat is the world's leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.
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Free As In (Lots of) Speech
Container Tidbits: Does The Pets vs. Cattle Analogy Still Apply?
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Filmmaking is divided into a range of disciplines that combine to produce a finished piece of work.
At Sydney Film School each of these disciplines are taught by industry specialists who are passionate about their subject. While committed to their discipline they are accutely aware that the biggest factor in producing great work is how effectively each discipline collaborates over the course of project.
That is why in the Diploma of Screen & Media (CUA51015) we teach you all of the related disciplines so that you understand each component of the filmmaking process and can use that knowledge to collaborate more effectively.
In the Advanced Diploma (CUA60615), you are able to choose and focus on one discipline.
To hear how each of the teachers approach their own specialisation click on the links.


text:
package akka.persistence.jdbc.journal.dao

import scala.concurrent.duration.FiniteDuration
import scala.util.Try

import akka.NotUsed
import akka.actor.Scheduler
import akka.persistence.PersistentRepr
import akka.stream.scaladsl.Source

trait JournalDaoWithReadMessages {

  /**
   * Returns a Source of PersistentRepr and ordering number for a certain persistenceId.
   * It includes the events with sequenceNr between `fromSequenceNr` (inclusive) and
   * `toSequenceNr` (inclusive).
   */
  def messages(
      persistenceId: String,
      fromSequenceNr: Long,
      toSequenceNr: Long,
      max: Long): Source[Try[(PersistentRepr, Long)], NotUsed]

  /**
   * Returns a Source of PersistentRepr and ordering number for a certain persistenceId.
   * It includes the events with sequenceNr between `fromSequenceNr` (inclusive) and
   * `toSequenceNr` (inclusive).
   */
  def messagesWithBatch(
      persistenceId: String,
      fromSequenceNr: Long,
      toSequenceNr: Long,
      batchSize: Int,
      refreshInterval: Option[(FiniteDuration, Scheduler)]): Source[Try[(PersistentRepr, Long)], NotUsed]

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Letter from world religious leaders appealing to maintain the agreements and the peace-building progress in Colombia.
We, religious leaders from around the world, have been able to engage with communities and in particular with the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia for many years now. In the almost six years of the public and private dialogues between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerilla we have continuously been able to follow-up (with you, Mr. President, as well as with the guerrillas) in the critically difficult moments, but that always turned out well, supporting the process until the final agreement was reached.