Election May 2022 – a new beginning for climate and energy policy? (more…)
John Menadue
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Andrew Bacevich: American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual US wars (Repost from 1/1/2018)
‘Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the world’s greatest military power. In its most benign form, the consensus finds expression in extravagant and unremitting displays of affection for those who wear the uniform. Considerably less benign is a pronounced enthusiasm for putting our soldiers to work “keeping America safe.” This tendency finds the United States more or less permanently engaged in hostilities abroad, even as presidents from both parties take turns reiterating the nation’s enduring commitment to peace.’
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Katrina Watson: How to save General Practice
I’m a recently retired specialist doctor and I keep an eye on medical affairs. They affect all of us, especially as we get older, and people still ask what I think. (more…)
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Manlio Graziano – United States: the end of an illusion of omnipotence
“I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” That simple statement, delivered to rousing effect by Barack Obama in his first State of the Union, in January 2010, managed to summarize the current American strategic horizon in a single sentence. (more…)
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CRAIG MURRAY. Biden works to prolong Ukraine war
Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me. (more…)
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Peter Tait: Vote Independent? If that doesn’t work, then what?
Voting independent needs careful preferencing. If your independent doesn’t get up (or you don’t have that option), you can try Active Democracy (more…)
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David Van Deusen: No love for Putin: No guns for Nazis in Ukraine
Ukraine in fact has a serious Nazi problem. (more…)
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Kathy Kelly: The people of Yemen suffer at the hands of the US, UAE and Saudi Arabia…377,000 dead
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Tobias Debiel and Herbert Wulf: Escalation and de-escalation in the Ukraine War-A German perspective
Demonization and humiliation do not pave the way to the negotiating table. (more…)
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The shabby treatment of nurses by medical doctors.
A collection of recent articles about the dismissal of the key role of nurses by the Medical Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce. The doctor dominated Taskforce is determined not to understand that nurses hold the health system together (more…)
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GARRY EVERETT. Sex Only??
The recent Hollywood movie, On the basis of sex, tells the story of the first successful court case argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 9th Circuit Court. The subject matter was discrimination by the Federal Tax Laws, against a man who was denied a tax concession as his mother’s carer, on the grounds that only women were regarded as carers. It was the early 1960s, and one wonders how such an antiquated view could have still prevailed in the USA legal system.
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CHAS W. FREEMAN JR. After the trade war, a real war with China
[T]he greatest danger of a [real] Sino-American war is Taiwan. Taiwan is a former Chinese province that was recovered from its Japanese occupiers by Nationalist China at the end of World War II. In 1949, having been defeated everywhere else in China, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist forces retreated to it.
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STEPHEN de WEGER. Clerical sexual abuse of adults. Another blind spot.
In 2013, after working as a research assistant project into clergy sexual abuse of children, I decided to undertake an exploratory study into clergy sexual misconduct against adults. During this study I came across what I believe should be a strategic document regarding the understanding of the clergy sexual abuse crisis we are witnessing right now – Sipe’s 11-point thesis. (The late Dr Richard Sipe was a note US psychotherapist and acknowledged expert in the psychosexuality of Catholic clerics).
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FRANCIS SULLIVAN. Pell conviction blows apart bishops’ mantra
Yesterday’s announcement of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell has been shattering for many and a relief for others.
The fact that the most senior cleric in Australia has been found guilty is devastating on many levels. Not the least because he was such a high-profile proponent for the safeguarding children in the church and its provision of compensation to victims.
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BARNEY ZWARTZ. George Pell has fallen, but the cardinal’s legacy casts a long shadow
So Cardinal George Pell – by far Australia’s best-known church leader of the past 25 years, the highest-ranked Australian ever at the Vatican, a confidant of prime ministers – faces a jail sentence for child sexual abuse. The dispenser of God’s grace (through the sacrament) has surely reached the nadir of human disgrace.
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GEORGE MONBIOT. Dark money is pushing for a no-deal Brexit. Who is behind it?
Modern governments respond to only two varieties of emergency: those whose solution is bombs and bullets, and those whose solution is bailouts for the banks. But what if they decided to take other threats as seriously?
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DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO AND DAVID BOND . UK National Cyber Security Centre says Huawei is manageable risk to 5G( Financial Times London 18.2.2019
British intelligence has concluded that it is possible to mitigate the risk from using Huawei equipment in 5G networks, in a serious blow to US efforts to persuade allies to ban the Chinese supplier from high-speed telecommunications systems.
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MARILYN HATTON. Pray and light a candle for our church in crisis.
For years a small but expanding number of Catholics in Australia have beenappealing for church reform and have struggled to gain attention from our bishops. Our prayers and entreaties for change in the clerical, male-dominated cloisters have fallen on unattentive ears.
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RUTH ADLER. Brexit uncertainties fuel speculation on Irish unification referendum
With weeks remaining until the 29 March deadline for a deal on Brexit, there is speculation that failure to reach agreement will result in increased momentum for a referendum on Irish unification under the Good Friday Agreement. Several Cabinet Ministers in Theresa May’s government are reportedly seriously concerned about the prospect, with one describing it as ‘very real’. Another has expressed concern that the British government risks ‘sleepwalking into a border poll’. Such a referendum would, however, be unlikely to succeed at the present time.
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LIZ HANNA. A warming Australia spells serious trouble for human health
Climate change. Global warming. A hotter planet. A hotter Australia. Yet few are asking the difficult question of ‘how hot is too hot?’. We have so many elephants in the room at present that ‘the room’ is getting pretty crowded, but as we are barrelling towards 1.5oC of planetary warming since pre-industrial times, the ‘how hot is too hot’ elephant is definitely ‘in the room’. We need to let it out and examine heat tolerance.
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GERARD O’CONNELL. Before arriving in U.A.E., pope challenges his hosts to help end Yemen crisis
Pope Francis made a powerful appeal to “the interested parties” and “to the international community” to end the humanitarian crisis in Yemen in which some 10 million people risk starvation.
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CLAIRE GIANGRAVE. UN panel probes Italy’s role in Church’s child abuse scandals
A United Nations Committee for the protection of minors questioned the Italian government last week about clerical sexual abuse in the country, expressing concern over laws that protect predator priests from criminal charges.
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IAN AND TIM ROBINSON. A Sad Excuse for a National Day
A National Day should be the anniversary of a central event in the life of the nation, a day when we all come together and celebrate our nation’s shared values – a celebration of the start of our nation’s journey, usually the attainment of independence, or some other significant national milestone.
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CIARA MORRIS. Seeing China Through a Washington Lens
Balancing relations between China and the US is arguably Australia’s greatest foreign policy challenge in the 21st century. But is Australia getting it right?
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PATSY MCGARRY. Church response to modern abuse scandals ‘same as 30 years ago.’
Marie Collins claims lessons of abuse in Ireland not being used to change policy elsewhere ‘The church reaction is a mirror image of what we were hearing here in Ireland 30 years ago.’ (more…)
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SANG JIEJA. Tibetans get home decor order: Hang Xi, Mao portrait
Dalai Lama images removed from temples, monasteries as Party reinforces iconography of its ‘heroes’; households next
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RICHARD KINGSFORD. The catastrophic fish kill on the Darling River– decades in the making
The plight of the Darling River shocked the nation last week, when up to a million fish were killed by lack of oxygen, accompanying the disruption of a blue-green algal bloom on a forty kilometre stretch of the river near Menindee, southeast of Broken Hill. This followed a similar kill of tens of thousands of native fish in December.
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‘CHRIS HARRINGTON. Care? The scourge of the ward station’
The professionalism in hospitals may have contributed greatly to better data collection and use of technology, but after a visit to a hospice and an ICU unit recently, I wondered what has happened to care. Our system is failing us.
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JEFFREY SACHS and others.- Fully Filling the Global Fund.
In a world divided by conflict and greed, the Global Fund’s fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria is a matter of enlightened self-interest and a reminder of how much humanity can accomplish when we cooperate to save lives. For public and private donors, that means providing the financing needed to eliminate all three scourges by 2030.
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JONATHAN WEISMAN. American Jews and Israeli Jews break up
The events of the past year brought American and Israeli Jews closer to a breaking point. President Trump, beloved in Israel and decidedly unloved by a majority of American Jews, moved the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, with the fiery evangelical pastors John Hagee and Robert Jeffress consecrating the ceremony.