BtN: Episode 3 Transcript 19/2/13
On this week's Behind the News
· The Pope shocks everyone by quitting, so what happens now?
· Working for free, the pros and cons of work experience for kids.
· And we join a school group helping out an orphanage overseas.
Hi I'm Nathan Bazley, welcome to Behind the News.
Also on the show today we find out why these scientists are trying to measure how often a sheep burps! But first let’s get straight into that big story about the Pope’s resignation.
Pope Resigns
Reporter: Sarah Larsen
INTRO: The leader of the Catholic Church surprised lots of people when he announced he was stepping down. It's really unusual because most of the time someone stays on as Pope until the day they die. So what happens now? Sarah looks into it.
SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: When someone retires it can be a pretty big deal. If it's your grandpa, it might be cause for a cake. If it's a sports person it might make the national news.
But whose retirement could send shockwaves around the world?
This is Pope Benedict the 16th; Bishop of Rome and worldwide leader of the Catholic Church. He's 85 years old and last week he said he felt his health wasn't good enough to keep doing the job.
LOUISE, SCHOOL STUDENT: It was like all over the TV and it was in all the news papers you can't really avoid that sort of news.
Louise and Aimee are Catholics; members of the biggest Christian Church in the world.
There are around 1.2 billion Catholic people in 140 different countries and all of them look to the Pope for leadership.
AIMEE, SCHOOL STUDENT: He's the leader of our church he holds all the big masses and he's a symbol to the Catholic community.
Pope Benedict the 16th hasn't always been the Pope. He was born into an ordinary Catholic family in Germany and his name back then was Joseph Ratzinger.
He became a Priest, then an Archbishop then a Cardinal. Then in 2005 the last Pope died and Joseph Ratzinger was chosen to replace him. Like all Popes, he chose a new name and got a new home in Vatican City; a separate Catholic state in the middle of Rome.
He also travelled around the world and in 2008 came to Australia for World Youth Day.
REPORTER: Now, at 85, you might think retirement was on the cards for the Pope. After all; most people retire in their 50s or 60s. But in fact, it was really unusual.
Most popes stay in the job until they die. The last one to retire was Pope Gregory the 12th way back in 1415.
Now the church needs to find a new leader, and that's a complicated business.
It starts with cardinals. They're the guys in red and it's their job to pick the new Pope. One of them will get the top job.
Over the next week or so they'll fly in from all over the world. Then 117 of them will go into the Sistine Chapel for something called a Papal Conclave.
The word conclave comes from Latin words meaning with a key and it's called that because the cardinals will be literally locked in until they come to a decision (with a few breaks, of course).
For a pope to be chosen he needs to get votes from two thirds of the cardinals and that can take a while.
They each write down a name on a piece of paper, the votes are counted, read aloud, and if there's no decision they're burned with a chemical that makes the smoke black so people watching outside know there's no pope yet.
Then the process starts again. If there's still no consensus after several days, they whittle the candidates down to the two most popular.
When they finally agree, the ballots are burned again. But this time another chemical is added to make white smoke; the sign that the new pope has been chosen.
No one knows who that pope will be or which country he'll come from. There are candidates from many countries including Australia.
LOUISE AND AIMEE: It's great that he could come from anywhere in the world it's very equalising.
No matter who it is, he'll have a big job to do and a lot of eager followers waiting and watching to see what happens.
Let's see what else is making the news. Here's Tash with the Wire.
The Wire
Oscar Pistorius, the world's most famous Paralympian, has been charged with murder.
Police were called to his house and found that his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, had been shot.
Pistorious is a double amputee and was known as the blade runner.
He has competed at 3 Paralympics and won several gold medals.
Oscar Pistorius denies the murder charge.
*****
A big clean up is on in Russia, after a meteor plunged to Earth.
It caused a shockwave which damaged buildings and injured more than a thousand people.
The meteor exploded about 10-thousand metres above the city of Chelyabinsk.
*****
And a British backpacker has been found alive after going missing for 3 days in the Queensland outback.
18 year old Sam Woodhead managed to survive in 40-degree temperatures by drinking contact lens fluid and even his own urine.
RESCUER: "He has lost a few kilos and of course is very dehydrated. All of his features are very sunken."
A search helicopter found him, after he made an S-O-S sign out of his old rugby shorts.
*****
And a Victorian film-maker has taken out this year's Tropfest.
Nicholas Clifford won the short-film festival with his film about kindness called We've All Been There.
"What about an advance on my pay or something?"
This Sydney busker won a special award for Best Personality.
The award was announced by Australian actor Sam Worthington.
SAM WORTHINGTON: “So hunt him down yeah, tell him 'cause that guy can dance.”
Sport Cheating
Reporter: Nathan Bazley
INTRO: The sports doping scandal in Australia has still been in the news this week. It's got some people talking about the growing role sports science is playing in elite sport. It's certainly improving performance levels, but it's also blurring the lines between what's considered cheating and what's just clever training. Let's take a look.
NATHAN BAZLEY, REPORTER: Sporting glory has always been very black and white.
One team loses; another wins.
One player's a hero; the other a villain.
But everything starts getting grey when you look at cheating.
Because working out just what is cheating and what isn't, is a lot harder than looking at the scoreline at the end of a match.
The history of sports cheating goes back a lot further than you might believe.
One early example of Olympic cheating was the 1904 marathon.
Fred Lorz won the race, but it was later found out that he had been driven most of the distance by his support crew.
So the win was given to Thomas Hicks.
But had the race been run today he would have been disqualified too, because he was injected with Strychnine, a poison which can act as a stimulant if you're not given much.
Fast forward to the 70s and 80s and as many as 10,000 East German athletes were all given steroids as part of a deliberate state program, before the drugs could reliably tested for.
That desire to win left many athletes with ongoing health problems.
These days, testing is much better. But while there is elite sport and big money involved in winning, there will always be those trying to maximise their chances.
And while those previous cases are clear cut cheating, these days, sport science is blurring the line.
Here's just one example how.
When Lance Armstrong recorded his big confession with Oprah, one type of cheating he specifically talked about was blood doping.
That is where athletes take out some of their blood well before a competition, then inject it back in just before the race.
It means that you have heaps more red blood cells in your body than usual, so your body is better at carrying oxygen around, so you can race harder for longer.
While the technique doesn't always involve an actual drug, it is still banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Meanwhile, this is altitude training.
It's where athletes train in a special room that has less oxygen in it than normal.
To compensate, your body naturally produces more red blood cells to carry oxygen around your body.
This technique is completely legal and used by many sporting teams and the AIS.
As you can see, both techniques produce similar results. It's just the process that makes one illegal and the other completely fine.
And that is the trend now with other illegal performance enhancing drugs.
Many mimic things the body naturally does, or encourage it to produce more of something it already produces.
And that's why cheating isn't quite as black and white as it used to be.
Driving to win - black and white cheating.
Driving your body to be the best – very, very grey.
PRESENTER: Ok, we heard about red blood cells in that story, so let's have a quiz.
Quiz 1
The question is:
Which part of the body makes red blood cells?
Bone marrow
Kidneys
Liver
Answer: Bone marrow
The body produces about 200 billion red blood cells per day!
Work Experience
Reporter: Sarah Larsen
INTRO: Now, working all day for free might not sound that great but for many young people work experience can be really valuable. But a report published last week warned that not all businesses are doing the right thing by these young workers. So what do you need to know when taking on work experience?
Sarah takes a look.
Is there a job you've always wanted to have a go at? Like this: Or maybe even this.
KID: Hi I'm Jo and welcome to Behind the News
Whatever your dream job, getting it will probably take some hard work. You'll need knowledge and you'll need experience.
But how do you get experience when you've never had a job before?
It's a problem that many young people face and it's why many look for work experience while they're still studying.
For school kids it's a great way to see what life is like in the work force. And for older students it can be better than a classroom.
MICHAEL NORRIS, LAW INTERN: It might be something as simple as greeting everybody as soon as they come into the office. That's the sort of thing you don't get taught at school so from that point of view internships are really valuable.
Michael is studying law at university but, while he hasn't graduated yet, he's getting experience in a real law firm by working as an intern.
MICHAEL: Without getting an internship it would be tough to get a job. The market for jobs is really competitive and so what your employers would want is your employers want work experience on your CV without that they probably wouldn't give you a look in.
While this is a learning experience for Michael, he's also doing real work and he's getting paid. But that's not always the case.
In the fierce competition for experience some young people are doing whatever they can to get ahead even if that means giving up their time for free.
Recently a government report found that too many businesses are taking advantage of young people looking for work experience asking them to do hard work for a long time with no pay.
ANDREW STEWART, LAW PROFESSOR: You have situations where somebody is asked to show that they can work in a restaurant ends up doing a week or two weeks of unpaid labour now you don't need that long to find out if they can wait tables.
The report said some interns were working for months without being paid and sometimes work experience looked more like actual work.
REPORTER: There's nothing wrong with doing work experience as part of school or study. In fact, it's really important. But the aim of that is to benefit the student. If you're working for free to benefit a business, it could be against the law.
Australia has some pretty strict laws when it comes to working.
For example; if you're under 17 you can't work during school hours without special permission.
And you have to be paid a minimum wage which depends on your age.
There are also laws about work experience.
REPORTER: You might wonder why that is. I mean, if you want to work for free and someone wants to let you do it, why wouldn't you be allowed?
The idea is to keep the workplace as fair as possible. The government doesn't want people to be paid too little or to lose their jobs to people who are willing to work for less or for free.
It says it'll be watching out for business doing the wrong thing and keeping things fair for young people on the road to their dream career.
PRESENTER: Ok, let’s make that our poll this week.
Online Poll
The question is:
Should people be paid while they're doing work experience?
To vote just head to our website.
Last week we asked you if the doping investigation had damaged the reputation of sport in Australia.
86% of you said Yes it had.
14% said No.
Thanks for voting
World Challenge
Reporter: Natasha Thiele
INTRO: Some school kids have just come back from an amazing overseas adventure in South East Asia. It was part of an event called World Challenge and involved working with a local orphanage. They made a video of their trip.
And a couple of students Jess and Antoinette sent us their story.
ANTOINETTE: We started our 4-week trip in Cambodia. Our first stop was spending time with kids from a local orphanage.
JESS: We're at the school where most of the orphans attend from the orphanage where we're visiting.
ANTOINETTE: One thing we noticed was that the kids were writing on the floor because they didn't have desks. We did some fundraising before we came out here, so we were able to buy 8 new desks for the classroom. It made reading the black board easier, especially when it came to teaching them sentences in English.