Communications Technology

A website that claims Christchurch’s devastating earthquake was an act of God triggered by the tolerance of homosexual behaviour in the city has been denounced as ”despicable and appalling” by New Zealand’s gay and lesbian community.

The website ”Christchurch Quake” - registered on September 20 to an address in Utah in the USA - suggests the destruction was a result of ”lesbians running loose on the South Island as if they own the place” and general ”amoral” behaviour.

Among other inflammatory accusations, the website alleges that the earlier September earthquake, which coincided with the start of Gay Ski Week in Queenstown, was a warning from God to ”End the Evil - or else!”.

The website claims the September earthquake warning had not been heeded, leading to Tuesday’s 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which has killed at least 76 people, with reports of up to 300 still missing.

It also suggests other natural disasters in New Zealand, including the Pike River mine disaster which killed 29 men in November, was triggered by the country’s relaxed attitudes.

Jay Bennie, who runs the Auckland-based gay and lesbian website GayNz.com, said the people of Christchurch were already under enough stress without reading such outrageous comments.
‘‘I think it’s despicable, I think it’s appallingly insensitive, not only to gays and lesbians but to the suggestion that the people of Christchurch, by embracing gays and lesbians to certain degrees in their society, have brought this upon themselves. How cruel,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m originally from Christchurch, I’ve got family and friends down there. They’re all okay, but I know the stress they’re going through. They don’t need people like this trying to heap moral judgments and their own personal neuroses onto them and the others who are suffering in Christchurch.’’

Mr Bennie said he believed religious conservatives were responsible for the website, which says Christchurch was founded by a group of devout Anglicans who built for a purpose a cathedral at its centre.

‘‘They wanted to build a city where God was at the centre of their lives, physically and spiritually. Even the name of the city reflects their intention,’’ it says.

Mr Bennie said many religious conservatives lived in the American mid-west, and felt threatened by changing social attitudes.

‘‘The sort of people who do this, my understanding is that they have a tendency to see the world as a very unsafe place for them and their families because of changing social trends,’’ he said.

No Tags

Telstra is at risk of missing a mid-year deadline to present shareholders with a vote on a multibillion-dollar deal with NBN Co because of complexity and slow bureaucratic processes, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.

Shareholders have been promised a vote on Telstra’s proposed deal with government-owned NBN Co, which is building an underground optical-fibre network to replace existing copper telephone lines.

The deal will see Telstra lose its monopoly on Australia’s fixed telephone lines in exchange for compensation of $11 billion and future contracts with NBN Co.

”In our view, the June deadline is extremely optimistic and the risk of delay is high,” Goldman Sachs analyst Christian Guerra wrote in an industry strategy outlook for 2011, released yesterday.

”The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has three tasks to complete in order for the NBN to proceed … We believe it is unlikely that the ACCC will be able to approve or reject these undertakings by mid-2011.”

The delay adds to uncertainty about Telstra’s future earnings.

The ACCC is working on a fixed-line pricing review that is crucial to Telstra completing its agreement with NBN Co. Once the deal is finalised, the ACCC must also approve a structural-separation undertaking and migration plan, and a special-access undertaking from NBN Co.

ACCC commissioner Ed Willett says the regulator cannot speed up approval because of the project’s complexity, but NBN Co’s undertaking can be completed separately from the Telstra deal.

”We will do what we can, but it’s an important process and we need to take the time we need to take,” he told BusinessDay.

”When we have [Telstra’s] application [to separate], we will take account of all the time-frame factors. The structural-separation undertaking and the migration plan can be done in one process, and the special-access undertaking can be done in a different time frame.”

The Goldman Sachs report also predicts that take-up of wireless services will be the telco industry’s biggest growth area, along with tablet devices and machine-to-machine communication.

The report reduced the target price for Telstra to $3.10, down from $3.55. Yesterday Telstra shares closed at $2.82, up 2¢.

No Tags

US coffee chain Starbucks has started allowing customers in its US stores to keep their cash and credit cards in their wallets and pay for their drinks with mobile phones.

Starbucks said the mobile payment system, which has been tested in selected cities since last year, was being expanded to the nearly 6800 Starbucks outlets around the country and the more than 1000 Starbucks located in Target stores.

While Japanese shoppers have been able to pay by mobile phone for years for certain purchases, the practice is still in its infancy in the United States.

Starbucks, based in Seattle, Washington, said its mobile payment program would be the largest in the country.

Starbucks said the owners of a BlackBerry smartphone, an iPhone or an iPod Touch who have downloaded the free Starbucks Card mobile application could buy drinks by waving their mobile phone at a scanner at the cash register.

The scanner reads an on-screen barcode and debits the purchase from the Starbucks Card, which can be reloaded with funds using a credit card or with PayPal.

“Starbucks anticipates mobile payment will be a draw for customers looking to experience the speed, ease and convenience of paying with their mobile phone,” the company said in a statement.

Google last month unveiled a new mobile phone, the Nexus S, powered by its Android software, that allows for another form of mobile payment.

The Nexus S is equipped with a near field communication (NFC) chip that turns the device into a virtual wallet, allowing users to “tap and pay” for financial transactions.

No Tags