DOCSLIB.ORG

Download the Ace Report

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download the Ace Report ABC Research & Development Technical Report ABC-TRP-2015-T1 ACE: Automated Content Enhancement An evaluation of natural language processing approaches to generating metadata from the full text of ABC stories Page 1 of 9 © 2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ACE: Automated Content Enhancement An evaluation of natural language processing approaches to generating metadata from the full-text of ABC stories. Principal researcher Charlie Szasz Report prepared by Viveka Weiley & Charlie Szasz It seems obvious, but we have to put the audience at the centre of what we do. If we are not delivering distinctive and quality content that finds its way to the people who pay for us, then we are not fulfilling our basic function. ABC Strategy 2015 – Te 2nd pillar – "audience at the centre" Introduction: The Challenge of Discoverability Audience at the centre is more than a goal – it’s a realit. Audiences already expect to find the stories they are most interested in delivered to them at the time, place, device, platform and format of their choice. Te ABC produces a huge volume of high qualit stories on a broad range of topics. However with the proliferation of alternative media outlets, new platforms for consuming and producing media and increasingly diverse audience expectations, traditional means of bringing those stories to audiences are no longer sufcient. Broadcast at the centre Home page at the centre Page 2 of 9 Audience at the centre Solving for relevance Te task then is to help people find the most relevant stories, however they want them. Tis is more than just a technical challenge. To respond we must look into what people want, and into our own methods for organising and presenting stories to them. ACE is focused on the latter question. In this project we are prototping and demonstrating systems to radically improve discoverabilit of relevant ABC stories. Our first prototpe is available now and has been demonstrated to stakeholders across the ABC. We looked into the former question with the Spoke (Location, News and Relevance) pilots1. Te Spoke engine aggregated stories from across the ABC as well as from third parties, tagged according to location and topic. We then built a mobile app to present those stories to pilot users according to their preferences. Within Spoke we implemented a machine learning system so that it could improve its responses over time, and embedded comprehensive metrics followed up by audience interviews to tell us how well the Spoke content reflected their preferences. Tis analysis taught us a lot about what people care about; in particular their strong preference for highly relevant stories based on their locations and topics of interest, and the granularity of that expectation. For example, we discovered that few people are interested in sport as a category; instead they tend to be interested in certain sports and averse to others; they may want to read every article available on a particular team, but find any information on a sport that they don’t like to be intensely irritating. Similarly, people may be interested in science but not technology or vice versa, and very interested in local business but not at all in national or global business. Tis also gave us insight into how well the ABC’s current and future metadata practices can help meet these emerging audience expectations. Current metadata practices Te curated home page is no longer the sole entry point; as users turn to search, aggregators and emerging platforms, new discovery methods must be accounted for. Tis situation complicates the task of delivering the greatest value for audiences. Every ABC story is tagged with metadata, primarily used by authors to control how content appears in current websites. To the extent that it accurately describes stories it can also be used as discovery metadata, to help search engines and aggregators find and present those stories. Tere are two main gaps in our metadata. First, the existing fields and ontologies do not aford sufciently detailed description for discovery and recommendation engines to deliver personalised results. Second, those fields that are available are ofen lef empt by authors and editors. For personalised content delivery and location and topic-based recommendations to deliver audience value, much more granular and comprehensive metadata will be required. 1 See ABC-WHP-2015-A Page 3 of 9 Solving the metadata problem Sufciently granular and comprehensive metadata could be delivered entirely manually: by training authors and editors in more comprehensive metadata entry, and through policy direction. Tis would however be a labour-intensive solution, in a context where those people have many competing demands on their time and attention. Another manual option would be the employment of metadata subeditors. Tis sufced for the Spoke pilot, where a single part-time editor was able to add sufcient location metadata to create localised feeds for two regional centres. To scale up to the whole country and to add the task of increasing metadata granularit however would not be sustainable. At the other end of the scale is a fully automated system, using artificially intelligent expert systems to extract meaning from the full text of the articles and apply metadata tags. As the success of algorithm-driven solutions such as Google’s PageRank demonstrate, machine learning systems and automated content analysis can be a powerful and scalable means of improving discoverabilit. As computation becomes exponentially cheaper and more powerful, a wide variet of useful machine learning and expert systems are emerging. Tese systems first appear in the world as research projects; and then as each approach matures its products coalesce into proprietary solutions and finally into open source and commodit platforms. Better metadata through Natural Language Processing Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques in particular have the potential to become an important and useful tool for sorting through large volumes of stories, increasing discoverabilit. NLP is a technology based on artificial intelligence. It can take large volumes of text, and summarise and codif it using a deep understanding of the structure of language as well as databases that link words and phrases to their meanings. It allows metadata to be created automatically. In the past this has been too computationally expensive for our uses, but in recent years advances in NLP techniques and the raw speed of computing have changed that realit. Tis presents an opportunit, as NLP is now at the point where open source and commodit platforms are becoming available. In recent years a number of NLP engines have been released as SaaS (Sofware As A Service) oferings, presenting APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) which can be used to analyse large datasets and provide sample results. Tis makes it possible to use third-part NLP engines as a core component of a technology stack to provide customisable content analysis services for an organisation. Applications include increasing discoverabilit for textual content like news stories, but also anything for which a transcript is available, such as radio interviews and iView content. Page 4 of 9 Evaluation of automatically extracted metadata In order to explore the options for NLP engines, ABC R&D first conducted an overview of all oferings available in the open market. We then selected the top three candidates for testing by building a prototpe to facilitate analysis. The ABC ACE prototype Te result is the ABC ACE prototpe, a custom-built research apparatus which connects the three NLP systems to a corpus of ABC content aggregated from across the organisation and provides a user interface for exploring the results generated by each NLP engine. Te prototpe presents a query interface to aford exploration of the dataset as augmented by the NLP systems. For example, a user can find stories that are in the category of Business_Finance, which must contain the entit BHP Billiton with relevance at least 0.7 (where 1 is highest) and should contain the concepts Iron Ore and Mining with relevance at least 0.5. Tis system is designed to expose as much data and functionalit as possible in order to support comparative evaluation of the three systems, and also to open up the possibilit space to reveal the breadth of possibilities for NLP. Accordingly it presents a comprehensive range of controls which may be daunting for the non-expert user. Future prototpes may explore specific use cases for NLP, intended for specific user populations and with custom-built user interfaces. In the meantime the ACE prototpe system is live and available to use on request for further exploration. To gain access or schedule a demo please contact us. Charlie at the ACE console. Lef: code. Centre: ACE prototype. Right: DBPedia entity detail page. Page 5 of 9 Research Procedure Using the ACE prototpe over 2600 ABC stories were analysed using the three chosen NLP services, AlchemyAPI, OpenCalais and TextRazor. All stories were analysed for: Named entities, fuzzy and disambiguated e.g. John Howard - Person (fuzzy) John Howard - Australian politician, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard (disambiguated) Concepts e.g. Prime Minister - http://dbpedia.org/resource/Prime_minister Concepts don’t necessarily match exact words or phrases in the text, they derived from meaning and linked to entries in various knowledge bases ( wikipedia, dbpedia ). Categories or Topics (Taxonomy) e.g. law, govt and politics / government Only AlchemyAPI provides hierarchical categories, TextRazor and OpenCalais only derive top level. Te taxonomy extracted by all three services loosely match the ABC’s own. Sentiment Only AlchemyAPI provides sentiment analysis. Due to limited API calls only named entities were analysed for sentiment. Overall sentiment of stories were not established. Engine Comparison – Initial Conclusion As a result of this analysis we determined that all engines detected and identified a similar number of named entities, concepts and topics (within an order of magnitude).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Parahyangan Catholic University Faculty of Social and Political Science Department of International Relations
    Parahyangan Catholic University Faculty of Social and Political Science Department of International Relations Accredited A SK BAN –PT NO: 451/SK/BAN-PT/Akred/S/XI/2014 Social Actors as Consideration on Australian Foreign Policy Towards the Execution of Bali Nine Duo Undergraduate Thesis By Ida Ayu Widyantari 2014330133 Bandung 2019 Parahyangan Catholic University Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Department of International Relations Accredited A SK BAN-PT NO: 451/SK/BAN-PT/Akred/S/XI/2014 Social Actors as Consideration on Australian Foreign Policy Towards the Execution of Bali Nine Duo Thesis By Ida Ayu Widyantari 2014330133 Supervisor Dr. I Nyoman Sudira, Drs., M.Si. Bandung 2019 i ABSTRAK Nama : Ida Ayu Widyantari NPM : 2014330133 Judul : Social Actors as Consideration on Australian Foreign Policy Towards the Execution of Bali Nine Duo Penelitian ini membahas mengenai bagaimana aktor sosial mempengaruhi dan menjadi suatu konsiderasi kebijakan luar negeri Australia terkait kasus eksekusi Bali Nine Duo. Pertanyaan penelitian yang diajukan adalah “Bagaimana aktor sosial mempengaruhi kebijakan luar negeri Australia terkait eksekusi Bali Nine Duo?” Agar mendapatkan jawaban penelitian yang komprehensif, peneliti menggunakan konsep opini publik, media sebagai aktor sosial, dan CNN Effect. Penulis juga menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan memanfaatkan studi literatur dan studi pustaka dalam mencari data yang deskriptif, kemudian dianalisis menggunakan konsep, dan menghasilkan analisis yang dapat menjawab pertanyaan penelitian. Berdasarkan analisis yang dilakukan, peneliti menghasilkan 3 poin temuan. Pertama, dimana akan menjelaskan social aktor dengan konsep opini publik. Dari opini publik, media akan di letakan sebgai aktor dalam keterlibatan mempengaruhi kebijakan luar negeri Australia. Terakhir, akan membahas konsep CNN Effect yang akan di pakai untuk menganalisa bagaimana wadah berita bisa membuat suatu reaksi kepada publik.
    [Show full text]
  • Drug Death Penalty in Indonesia
    Drug Death Penalty In Indonesia savagely,Hadrian remains reflex and ecumenic: uncontradicted. she fade-in Is Klee her aristocraciesserfish when disobeysGlynn globed too titularly? tortuously? Rock overtakes her patzer Indonesian public into indonesia in order and binding judgment clearly stated that is the philippines awoke the circus plays in indonesia have six convicted. Ecstasy before a higher court commuted his crate to 19 years in prison. How effective is near death stand in Malaysia China and. In Indonesia capital punishment is mostly imposed for premeditated murder terrorism and drug offences The spoil has become another primary. Bishop continued to call for nutrition on Tuesday. Get indonesia can also note that drug. Along with drug in the penalty, renae lawrence claims in china. How indonesia in drug related to this penalty in from? In this pave, the observed variables are: the military penalty group drug abuse. Explore the death in january, the drugs into the way to. Now they be executed, a prison walls on building on the global community to avoid harming legal analysis on this penalty in drug death indonesia. Travel in indonesia is disproportionately skewed against the penalty is mandatory death penalty means de facto moratorium on? The laundry is another overwhelming gust took the whirlwind that date over time otherwise routine life recently. Indonesia executed four drug convicts on Friday morning was it. Laws Free Full-Text The tide of the Death search for Drug. The university of corruption, civil society preoccupied with this extraordinary request timed out. President Widodo is turning Indonesia into country of Southeast Asia's top.
    [Show full text]
  • Australia, Indonesia and the Prisoner's Dilemma
    STRATEGIC STRATEGIC INSIGHTS Australia, Indonesia and the prisoner’s dilemma 84 Andrew Davies, Peter Edwards, Peter Jennings, Rod Lyon, Peter McCawley and Greta Nabbs-Keller Introduction The bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia has long been a fraught one. The latest tussle, over the imminent execution of two Australian prisoners in Indonesia, prompted a series of posts on ASPI’s blog, The Strategist, framing the broader relationship in the context of the Prisoner’s Dilemma model from game theory. Six contributors explored the issues at stake, with ASPI’s Executive Director, Peter Jennings, both initiating the discussion and rounding it up. We present here the combined posts in the hope that they will further the national discussion about the future of our relationship with our large northern neighbour. Whatever differences our contributors might have with each other, they would surely agree that the relationship is one of special significance for both Canberra and Jakarta. Image courtesy of Flickr user Aapo Haapanen. March 2015 2 Australia, Indonesia and the prisoner’s dilemma Indonesia and Australia: prisoner’s dilemma Peter Jennings, 19 February 2015 Put aside for one moment your emotion over the looming execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Anger and appeals to decency won’t save them. The only thing that might work is to think through the reality of negotiation between two parties with different needs. Jakarta has something Canberra wants—something we want rather badly because of a deeply-felt opposition to capital punishment. Indonesians, by contrast, want to stamp out the drugs killing their children. They prize the perceived deterrent value of executing convicted drug traffickers.
    [Show full text]
  • 29Th April 2015 for IMMEDIATE RELEASE BALI EXECUTIONS A
    MEDIA RELEASE Date: 29th April 2015 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BALI EXECUTIONS A BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in the early hours of this morning, Australian time, along with six others. Their deaths are a tragedy. “The executions are a devastating blow to the families, and they are also a clear breach of international human rights law”, said Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Director, Professor Sarah Joseph. “Capital punishment is not permitted for drug offences under international law”, said Professor Joseph. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo flagged in December 2014 that he would not grant clemency to anyone on death row for drug-related offenses. “By making a blanket decision to refuse clemency, the President failed to consider the individual requests for pardon. He therefore ignored compelling individual circumstances, such as the remarkable rehabilitation of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and the serious mental illness of Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte. Everyone is entitled to individual consideration of a plea of clemency for their life.” said Professor Joseph. “The executions of the two Australians took place despite allegations of serious corruption during their trial. Indonesia has known of these allegations for months, and has conducted no credible investigation”, said Professor Joseph. “Any taint of corruption renders the trial unfair, and the sentence a gross breach of the right to life.” “Court proceedings also remain pending for them, and several of the other executed men. This is an utter failure in due process, with the worst of consequences.” “One mercy is the eleventh hour sparing of Filipina Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, after her alleged trafficker turned herself in to authorities in the Philippines.” Chan and Sukumaran were originally arrested after the Indonesian National Police were tipped off by the Australian Federal Police.
    [Show full text]
  • 2015 Lowy Institute Polling: Indonesia and the Death Penalty May 2015 2015 LOWY INSTITUTE POLLING: INDONESIA and the DEATH PENALTY
    2015 Lowy Institute polling: Indonesia and the death penalty May 2015 2015 LOWY INSTITUTE POLLING: INDONESIA AND THE DEATH PENALTY The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent policy think tank. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia – economic, political and strategic – and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high-quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. 2015 LOWY INSTITUTE POLLING: INDONESIA AND THE DEATH PENALTY POLL QUESTIONS AND RESULTS The following results are drawn from The Lowy Institute Poll 2015, a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,200 Australian adults conducted between 20 February and 8 March 2015, with supplementary polling conducted by Newspoll on behalf of the Lowy Institute on 13-15 February (1,211 adults), and 1-3 May 2015 (1,213 adults). The error margin on each poll is approximately +/- 2.8%. Lowy Institute Poll (LI Poll 2015): 20 Feb-8 Mar 2015 (sample: 1,200) Lowy Institute/Newspoll (Newspoll): 13-15 Feb 2015 (sample: 1,211) 1-3 May 2015 (sample: 1,213) 3 2015 LOWY INSTITUTE POLLING: INDONESIA AND THE DEATH PENALTY GOVERNMENT RESPONSES TO THE EXECUTION OF AUSTRALIANS OVERSEAS Table 1. Two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed this week in Indonesia following convictions for drug trafficking.
    [Show full text]
  • Indirect Engagement Towards Australia After the Bali Nine Case : the Efforts to Increase Australian Tourists to Indonesia (2015-2016)
    INDIRECT ENGAGEMENT TOWARDS AUSTRALIA AFTER THE BALI NINE CASE : THE EFFORTS TO INCREASE AUSTRALIAN TOURISTS TO INDONESIA (2015-2016) By ZAHARA SAKINAH ABDULLAH 016201400180 A thesis presented to the Faculty of Humanities President University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for Bachelor Degree in International Relations Major in Diplomacy Studies 2018 ABSTRACT Title: Indirect Engagement Towards Australia After The Bali Nine Case : The Efforts to Increase Australian Tourists to Indonesia (2015-2016) The bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and Australia is one of the most important cooperation in the history of international cooperation in the world. In 2015, this bilateral cooperation was restrained because of the execution of two Australians that were included in Bali Nine case, Chan and Sukumaran, by Indonesian law. Australia, both the government and the citizens, showing a strong opposing reaction towards this act by Indonesia by withdrawing their ambassador and boycotting one of holiday destinations of Indonesia, which is Bali. Whereas, Australian tourists are one of the majority tourists that come to Indonesia, especially Bali. In result, in that year, the number of Australian tourists coming to Indonesia got decreased slightly. Tourism sector is one of the important sector that is being the primary focus of Indonesian economy enhancement under the presidency of Joko Widodo. Therefore, in order to revive the number of Australian tourists, Indonesia engaged to Australia to re-attract and re-build the trust of Australia. This research has found that the engagement of Indonesia towards Australia through sport tourism, cooperation between sister cities, cultural festival, trade mission and trade fair, free visa-entry, and awareness distribution regarding other holiday destinations beside Bali has proven to attract the Australian tourists to go to Indonesia.
    [Show full text]
  • The Death Penalty Debate
    Volume | Volume VOLUME 399 VOLUME The Death 399 Penalty Debate THE DEATH PENALTY DEBATE PENALTY THE DEATH Edited by Justin Healey ISSUES IN SOCIETY Volume | Volume The Death 399 Penalty Debate Edited by Justin Healey This e-book is subject to the terms and conditions of a non-exclusive and non-transferable SITE LICENCE AGREEMENT between THE SPINNEY PRESS and: St Peter's Collegiate Girls School, Stonyfell, [email protected] First published by PO Box 438 Thirroul NSW 2515 Australia www.spinneypress.com.au © The Spinney Press 2016. COPYRIGHT All rights reserved. Other than for purposes of and subject to the conditions prescribed under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior permission. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher. REPRODUCTION AND COMMUNICATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of the pages of this work, whichever is the greater, to be reproduced and/or communicated by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. For details of the CAL licence for educational institutions contact: Copyright Agency Limited, Level 11, 66 Goulburn Street Sydney NSW 2000 Telephone: (02) 9394 7600 Fax: (02) 9394 7601 Email: [email protected] REPRODUCTION AND COMMUNICATION FOR OTHER PURPOSES Except as permitted under the Act (for example a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review) no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Facts and Infelicities the Second Batch of Death Penalty Execution
    Facts and Infelicities The Second Batch of Death Penalty Execution The Commission For the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) 29 April 2015 The Commission for The Disappeared and Victims of Violence [KontraS] has found several important facts related to the unfairness of law enforcement on the practice of death penalty to the eight inmates executed on Wednesday, 29 April 2015. Besides the eight inmates that had been executed, we see the importance to cover all the unfairness experienced by the 10 inmates: Andrew Chan (Australia, age 31), Jamiu Owolabi (Nigeria, age 50), Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso (Philippines, age 30), Myuran Sukumaran (Australia, age 34), Martin Anderson (Nigeria, age 50), Okuwudili Oyatanze (Nigeria, age 41), Rodrigo Gularte (Brasil, age 42), Serge Atlaoui (France, age 51), Silvester Obiekwe (Nigeria, age 47), Zainal Abidin (Indonesia, age 50). Those ten inmates scheduled to be executed on the second batch of execution. However, the Government has delayed the execution of two inmates, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, and Serge Atloui, while the eight other inmates had been executed. The findings below contain the facts and infelicities on the legal processes that had been done and also the ongoing legal processes. These findings prove the failure of the law enforcement system in Indonesia, which has been used as a reference in the term ‘state of emergency’ against narcotics and illicit drugs trafficking in Indonesia. 1. Andrew Chan dan Myuran Sukumaran 1. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were arrested along with seven other suspects which later known as the Bali Nine on 17 April 2005. The trial conducted simultaneously since October 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • Australian Death Penalty Indonesia
    Australian Death Penalty Indonesia Elijah usually dishearten unitedly or fondles bumptiously when pop-up Jeb incubate implicatively and artfully. Nightmarish Urbano free-lancebarbarize nohis Theatine software bisect whereabouts. speciously after Otto fleecing voetstoots, quite rattiest. Horatio is smoothly connected after divestible Nathan The execution by the only lawrence dancing puspanjali or face off cape nelson charles sturt university, australian death penalty Some 60 convicts are believed to be instant death ascend in Indonesia for. Australia asks Indonesia for enjoy for 2 death row prisoners. How neat is what sentence in Indonesia? Benjamin smith steps, australian death penalty would be compelled to smuggle drugs with poor migrant workers, australian death penalty indonesia should the. More than 150 people are currently on retail row length for drug-related crimes About torture-third are foreigners Related Stories. Australian campaign to day death penalty BBC News. Insert your language setting for australian death. To get Sukumaran and Chan off this row but Indonesia was fog in its decision. Download page has stated online due to. We genuinely look forward by australian open committee so far more. What the Bali executions mean for surf tourism Stab Magazine. Australia can indonesia and australian broadcasting corp last year difference in bali, managers and australia and insistent he. Myuran Sukumaran is an Australian who was convicted in Indonesia for drug. Crimes and indonesia than three defendants tried to flood, offers an hour when legal and. In April 2005 nine Australians the Bali Nine were convicted for attempting to smuggle 3. Romeo Gacad AFP I Brintha Sukumaran lower L the premise of Australian drug convict and specific row prisoner Myuran Sukumaran breaks.
    [Show full text]
  • Urgent Action
    Further information on UA: 305/14 Index: ASA 21/1492/2015 Indonesia Date: 22 April 2015 URGENT ACTION EXECUTIONS FEARED FOR END OF APRIL The Indonesian Attorney General announced that the execution of 10 prisoners might be carried out after the Asia-Africa Conference, end of April. On 9 April Indonesian Attorney General HM Prasetyo made a statement implying that his office may carry out the executions of 10 prisoners after the Asia-Africa Conference, which is being held between 19 and 24 April in the Indonesian city of Bandung. Although the final list of those facing executions has yet to be announced, the death row prisoners facing imminent executions are believed to include Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (both Australian, males), Raheem Agbaje Salami (Nigerian, male), Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso (Filipino, female), Zainal Abidin (Indonesian, male), Martin Anderson, alias Belo (Ghanaian, male), Rodrigo Gularte (Brazilian, male), Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise (Nigerian, male), Okwudili Oyatanze (Nigerian, male) and one other individual. All 10 were sentenced to death for drug trafficking, an offense that does not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” for which the death penalty may be imposed under international law. Indonesian President Joko Widodo rejected their clemency applications in December 2014 and January 2015. The lawyers for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have filed a legal challenge at the Constitutional Court questioning the Indonesian president's process of refusing to pardon them from the death penalty. Rodrigo Gularte has been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with psychotic characteristics, an illness which has deteriorated while he has been on death row.
    [Show full text]
  • 2015/08: the Bali Duo: Should Indonesia Execute Foreign Nationals Con
    2015/08: The Bali duo: should Indonesia execute foreign nationals con... file:///C:/dpfinal/schools/doca2015/2015bali9/2015bali9.php 2015/08: The Bali duo: should Indonesia execute foreign nationals convicted of drug smuggling? What they said... 'Jokowi is seen as pursuing populism to strengthen his position with the legislature' Barry Jones, Professorial Fellow at University of Melbourne 'There's no forgiveness for drug dealers' President Joko Widodo The issue at a glance On April 25, 2015, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two Australians convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia, were told that they could be executed within 72 hours. The two were part of a group, generally known as the Bali Nine, who arrested on 17 April 2005 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, for planning to smuggle 8.3 kg of heroin valued at around A$4 million (3.1 million from Indonesia to Australia. In February 2006 Chan and Sukumaran, as the group ringleaders, were sentenced to death by firing squad. Despite appeals against their sentences and an appeal to the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, for clemency, the executions appear likely to go ahead. There have been representations made on behalf of the two men from the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, and many others to have the men be granted clemency. Each man is acknowledged to have made remarkable changes in his life while in prison, with one now an artist and the other a pastor. The men's impending deaths have raised major questions about the value of the death penalty and the limits of diplomacy.
    [Show full text]
  • Research on Death Penalty As a Deterrent, Restorative Justice, Inmate Education and Moratoriums
    Australia's Advocacy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty 29/09/2016 Research on death penalty as a deterrent, restorative justice, inmate education and moratoriums In reviewing how Australia currently engages internationally to promote abolition of the death penalty, I believe that we need to work with the other Second Optional Protocol countries to eradicate capital punishment treating it much like a "disease" that is search for a cure. It is well known that the death penalty impacts disproportionally on the poor, disadvantaged, marginalised, desperate, isolated, uneducated or oppressed people in most cases. Economic crimes such as drug trafficking are not deterred by death sentences, especially with younger participants whose fear- to-consequences ratio is out of balance, designed by nature to be that way. Economic challenges will continue to draw more risk takers into this line of business. Australia should begin to offer viable sentencing alternatives, supported by evidence and promote the rationale of moving away from capital punishment if we hope to erode its use as a preference for certain crimes. This is a long haul commitment and can begin with a regional forum followed by a moratorium, either firmly declared or developing as a work in process. Focusing on our region, working with organisations such as the Asia Pacific Restorative Justice Forum, we should encourage academic research/study to identify suitable sentencing alternatives. I believe we can also begin to highlight suitable pathways including inmate education with productive programs to restore and reform not only the participating inmates but those around them. Vocational programs that benefit or pay back the offended community can be a successful treatment regime.
    [Show full text]