Australian politician does combat over wombat

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia's treasury secretary has come under heavy criticism over his vacation plans – caring for a colony of endangered wombats in their remote forest home.

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry and his wife will soon begin a five-week stint looking after a group of hairy-nosed wombats, newspapers reported. "These guys are on death row," Henry told Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper. "There are 10 times as many giant pandas in the world as there are these guys." The creature – a burrowing, bear-like marsupial that grows up to 88 pounds – is on the brink of extinction. Common wombats are not endangered.

Newspaper reports of Henry's holiday prompted an outcry by opposition politicians who believe the current economic situation makes it a bad time for a wildlife vacation. "I think we all love the hairy-nosed wombat," opposition leader Brendan Nelson told reporters. But he said he was "very concerned" that Henry will be out of telephone contact while Australia is going through "one of the most challenging economic periods that we have seen in recent history."

The government has rallied behind Henry. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told Melbourne radio 3AW that Henry had not taken a break since the new government was elected in November last year and was entitled to decide when he takes vacations.

Firefighter drives trucks 20 years without licence

TOKYO, Japan – A firefighter in Japan has lost his job after city officials discovered he had been driving ambulances and fire trucks for over 20 years without a driver's licence, an official in Takaoka City has announced.

The case came to light when the firefighter, who had been working for the city for over 25 years, hesitated to show his driver's licence during a regular inspection, said Shigeru Sawasaki, a Takaoka City official.

Time theft? Or worklife balance?

TOKYO, Japan – An employee of the Kinokawa government in western Japan has been demoted for viewing pornographic websites more than 780,000 times during working hours over a nine-month period.

Officials say that the man, whose name has been withheld, visited porn sites from June last year to February 2008. In July alone, he accessed porn sites 170,000 times.

The employee's supervisors discovered the extensive porn site visits when his computer became infected with a virus, prompting officials to check his web browser's history.

Baldness not a disability, tribunal rules

STIRLINGSHIRE, Scotland - James Campbell, 61, a former art teacher at Denny High School in Stirlingshire, Scotland has failed in his bid to prove that he was discriminated against because of his baldness.

Campbell took the Falkirk Council to a Glasgow employment tribunal over the issue, claiming that he had suffered from harassment at the hands of pupils and that his baldness had a "substantial and long term adverse effect" on his ability to do his job.

The former teacher, who retired in 2007, said he avoided corridors in the school where he would meet pupils to avoid them shouting ''baldy."  He added: ''I left school later at night after the bell went to avoid the kids."  Speaking during the hearing, Campbell asked: "How can I stand in front of a class with confidence to get on with my job when I am getting teased and bullied about baldness, when I think they are laughing at me all the time?"

Tribunal judge Robert Gall dismissed the complaint. In his view, the fact that Campbell's baldness was used by others to taunt him did not mean it was a disability under Scotland's Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). "If baldness was to be regarded as an impairment then perhaps a physical feature such as a big nose, big ears or being smaller than average height might of themselves be regarded as an impairment under the DDA," Gall stated. "That, to me, cannot be right."

Royalty trashed, employee bashed, management lashed

FORT CHAMBLY, Quebec – Micshelle Courtemanche, an employee with Parks Canada who worked on exhibits at a historic site, was recently disciplined for posting a historic quotation on her locker at work. The quotation, taken from the will of an 18th century writer and friend of Voltaire, read: "I should like to see, and this will be the last and most ardent of my desires, I should like to see the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest."

Courtemanche explained that she posted the quotation because she found it humorous, but management was not persuaded. The regional director for historic sites took the position that since priests and kings were authority figures, they stood for management, and the quotation was a violent, even threatening, quote against management. Courtemanche received a one-day disciplinary suspension and was transferred to another historic site, which took her an extra hour to reach from home.