Lord Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general (SG), famously said the purpose of NATO was to ‘keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down’. The end of the Cold War raised hopes of significant changes to the basis of international relations and world order. Yet the idea and possibility of war were not eliminated Continue reading »
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The Robodebt Royal Commission makes clear that the APS Value, ‘accountability’, is not just aspirational: individual public servants have duties and failing to meet them should have serious consequences. It is possible to detect in the Commission’s Report two strategies for promoting public service integrity: The support in Chapter 23 for Thodey Review recommendations aimed Continue reading »
The convergence of the NATO Summit in Lithuania, and trade talks with the European Union in Brussels, saw Prime Minister Albanese and Trade Minister Don Farrell head to Europe. The former should not have gone, and the latter should be prepared to walk away without agreement. Asia is also represented at the NATO meeting by Continue reading »
Against the background of reconciliatory legal and political gestures from Canberra over the past 30 years, and in view of the Voice being proposed as an organic instrument ‘from the heart’ of Aboriginal Australia (rather than a top-down ‘advice’ – device of bureaucratic convenience), it may well be the game-changer everyone yearns for. I was Continue reading »
Former Ukrainian diplomat and political insider Andrii Telizhenko — now under US sanctions on what he says are false grounds — speaks out. Former Ukrainian government official and diplomat Andrii Telizhenko joins Aaron Maté to discuss how, in his view, powerful US figures including Joe Biden have used Ukraine for personal corruption and the geopolitical aim of bleeding Russia — all to the detriment of Ukrainians. Telizhenko worked for the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in Kyiv before moving to Ukraine’s […]
The post Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction: fmr. Kiev diplomat first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction: fmr. Kiev diplomat appeared first on The Grayzone.
How many times does Australia need to be told that national actions by all stakeholders across industries or sectors are urgently needed to address climate change challenges and to avoid the destructive impacts of GHG emissions? The challenges and the impacts have been so thoroughly identified in so many reports and significantly the IPCC reports. Continue reading »
“Over 56 years, Israel has governed the occupied Palestinian territory through stifling criminalisation of basic rights and mass incarcerations,” said Albanese in a report to the UN Human Rights Council on 10 July. GENEVA (10 July 2023) – Israel’s military occupation has morphed the entire occupied Palestinian territory into an open-air prison, where Palestinians are constantly confined, Continue reading »
An EU paper explains how traditional Western allies on the continent are being turned into vassal states of the US as part of Washington’s strategy to contain the rise of China. China is unfairly subsidising industries, expanding its military ambitions and using debt traps to build influence in developing countries, according to Jake Sullivan, the Continue reading »
Ron DeSantis: “The idea that he’s entitled to this, especially, you know, we had the Biden-Trump in 2020 and Biden’s president. The idea that he’s just entitled after that doesn’t make any sense.” What a dolt. Until; he’s ready to stand up like an adult and admit that the election wasn’t stolen and the The Big Lie is a big lie, then most Republicans still believe he IS entitled to the nomination because the presidency was stolen from him. This mealy mouthed “… and Biden’s president” instead of “and Biden won” plaintive wail is just weak, weak, weak.
A generous salary, a hybrid work schedule, robust PTO, and the ability to put that anthropology degree to use at long last. The commute: minimal. The employer: focused on work-life balance and making a difference. The work: rewarding and enjoyable. In short, I thought I had found my dream job, that is until I learned about the cover letter.
To criticise/oppose the current mathematical modelling emphasis is to adopt an antiscience stance. It is not. Mathematics is not essential (or inessential) to science; science involves using tools that are appropriate to the given task. A science of economics is perfectly feasible, and the current emphasis on mathematical modelling in economics serves, given the nature […]
Here we go again Fergwadsakes: House Republican leaders are now betting they can come up with 218 GOP votes for the FY2024 defense authorization bill after essentially ending any hope of a bipartisan deal with Democrats. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is giving the House Freedom Caucus and other conservative hardliners what they’ve demanded all week — dozens of “culture war” amendment votes on the $886 billion NDAA package. Conservatives threatened to derail the defense-authorization bill unless they got these votes. The House will take up these amendments today in what promises to be a long and bitterly partisan slugfest. McCarthy wants to vote on final passage for the NDAA bill by Friday. You can see the list of NDAA amendments here. These GOP amendments run the gamut of conservative talking points. They cover everything from the Pentagon’s abortion policy, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives, Covid-19 vaccines, critical race theory and transgender-related medical services. Ukraine, China and Taiwan are also key amendment topics.
A Wall Street titan with Florida pension business withdraws from the governor’s fundraiser after questions from The Lever.
Keeping women’s mistreatment in the headlines It may be a stunt, but one with a point (New York Times): Democrats in Congress are making a fresh push for the nearly century-old Equal Rights Amendment to be enshrined in the Constitution, rallying around a creative legal theory in a bid to revive an amendment that would explicitly guarantee sex equality as a way to protect reproductive rights in post-Roe America. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri are set to introduce a joint resolution on Thursday stating that the measure has already been ratified and is enforceable as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. The resolution states that the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, must immediately do so. […] “In light of Dobbs, we’re seeing vast discrimination across the country,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an interview. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens.
by Greg Mikkelson
Something new and troubling is happening as economies grow across much of the globe. In contrast to prior decades, when human health improved as global GDP swelled, the link to health progress has been broken. No longer is economic growth delivering a health dividend, it seems.
Meanwhile, another metric, the health of the environment, has continued to deteriorate with economic growth. We now face a “ghastly” global environmental crisis,
The post Guess What Has Decoupled from Economic Growth? appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Keir Starmer will be the next British prime minister. The nation is miserable and conditions are favourable, but this hardly diminishes Starmer’s achievement: he has isolated the left within his party, splashed the flag about, genuflected towards British business and drunk champagne at Murdoch’s birthday do.
Giovanni Amendola had been attacked by fascists on a number of occasions, receiving a savage beating in Rome in December 1923; armed blackshirts hung around outside his flat. But he continued to publish and speak out against Mussolini. He probably thought they wouldn’t go so far as to murder him, that a second Matteotti case was a step too far, even for the fascists.
Both sides of Edward Coke’s reputation have endured. Not long ago the benchers of the Inner Temple refused to name a new building after him because of his brutal prosecution of Walter Raleigh. Yet Coke’s law reports, many of them his own cases, continue to be uniquely relevant to the modern law governing the use and extent of prerogative powers and much else beside. Francis Bacon is a more elusive character.
Ernest Cole’s politics were opaque, he didn’t give much away, but his photographs suggest that he saw racism as a more decisive force in South Africa than the structural injustices of capitalism, even though the ANC – which read racism back onto class struggle – used his work to publicise their cause.
Lynne Tillman’s Mothercare shows us the end. Reading it, you feel Tillman’s clammy grip on your wrist reminding you not to waste time. She offers a writer’s prescription: examine the world closely, and as only you can.
Fashion, the It-girl Alexa Chung once said, is just what happens when you have been wearing one thing for ages, then get bored with it. Is this the reason Fleur Jaeggy has become so fashionable, because readers are tired of big books and humanist fiction, all that inwardness that isn’t really inward, all those vulgar, boring families with ‘all of the advertising’, as Jaeggy once put it, ‘on their side’?