Reading

NEW research commissioned locally about Aussie workers’ holiday and relaxation habits has led to the formation of a new campaign aimed at increasing visitation to the region. The survey, commissioned by Coffs Harbour Airport in partnership with City of Coffs Harbour, explored how Aussies are spending their time off work and what their goals are...

The post Campaign encourages visitors to find their ‘C-off Switch’ and enjoy the Coffs Coast appeared first on News Of The Area.

Thanks for sending this along. I left my comments in the Google Doc.

You don’t see my comments? You’re looking at the old document. I copied your Google Doc and made a new Google Doc called “Proposal v2 – Comments.” Once you have my comments, put everything together in “Proposal v3 FINAL.” Then, if you don’t mind copy-pasting your new document link into the spreadsheet where we keep track of all the document links, that would be perfect. And, of course, make sure you’re in the most current spreadsheet (Copy of Spreadsheet COPY_01).

You still don’t see the link? It’s right there on the bottom of the Slack thread from yesterday about which shared drive folders link to Dropbox folders that contain all the shared PDFs. Oh, my mistake; it’s actually at the bottom of a thread about what everyone had for lunch yesterday. Here I’ll send it to you again. I just replied to an email to Jeff with the link and asked him to forward it to you. The subject line is “Email.”

Human rights in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are under increased threat. The PRC government ignores international representations. This begs the question: should Australia even attempt to intervene? What do we risk by doing so? The easy course would be to do the minimum and restrict our representations to cases where Australian citizens and Continue reading »

We need to be careful with the outrage over the sentencing of Yang Hengjun in China. Yang was a former member of the security (intelligence) services, working for China’s Ministry of State Security. On leaving China, he became a trenchant critic of his former employer and an advocate for the overthrow of the Chinese Government. Continue reading »

“… but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history — because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky, 2023, in a letter to the author) Extreme planetary heating, the failure of effective mitigation and the rise of denial around the world combine to lead to a seventh mass Continue reading »

The 26 January findings of the International Court of Justice relating to South Africa’s genocide claim against Israel, do not only have bearing on that state, but they trigger the obligation to prevent genocide required of all 153 state parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention, including Australia. In finding that it’s “plausible” that Israel’s massacre Continue reading »

If you were running the state suffering the very worst of Australia’s housing disaster, a state where the number of public and community housing dwellings actually went backwards last financial year, you might want to grab any and every opportunity to ease the crisis – but you’re not running New South Wales. Since defeating the Continue reading »

The covid visa stream of sub-class 408 was introduced during the pandemic when international borders were closed. It enabled temporary entrants who were unable to leave Australia to maintain their lawful status and keep working. They could apply for a 12 month covid stream visa and then apply for another one if they wished. It Continue reading »

The Albanese Government’s proposed change to the Stage 3 tax cuts is clearly a broken promise; or, put another way, where was the political courage to offer an alternative when Stage 3 was announced (well ahead of the 2022 election)? But for the purposes of this analysis, let’s put those genuine integrity issues aside. While Continue reading »

Not only has the stock market shaken off its new year hangover but the All-Ords is now higher than after its Santa Rally in December 2023. Indeed, it has reached a record high. Bears say don’t be fooled by the index’s present spike. The aggressive monetary tightening in 2022 and 2023 will wreak havoc on Continue reading »

It has never been more dangerous to be a Christian than today. According to the newly released 2024 World Watch List – an authoritative survey by Open Doors, an organisation that supports persecuted Christians – 365 million Christians, or one in seven, are at high or extreme risk of persecution every day because of their Continue reading »

NATIONALS MP Paul Toole has called on State and Federal Governments to provide major safety upgrades to railway crossings across NSW, with affected Coffs Coast locals echoing his concerns. On Friday 2 February, the Federal Government released the National Level Crossing Safety Strategy 2023–2032. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for...

The post Call for action on dangerous rail level crossings across regional NSW appeared first on News Of The Area.

Israel’s war on Gaza has exposed the true nature and purpose of Western media. If you have been following Western media to try to make sense of the heartbreaking images and stories coming out of Gaza during Israel’s invasion, you are bound to be disappointed. Since the beginning of the latest Israeli assault on the Continue reading »

The DC Appeals Court is not insane Finally we have some clarity on a subject that anyone with common sense could have said was obvious since the moment the constitution was ratified: A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to President Biden. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed Mr. Trump a significant defeat, but was unlikely to be the final word on his claims of executive immunity. Mr. Trump, who is on a path to locking up the Republican presidential nomination, is expected to continue his appeal to the Supreme Court. Still, the panel’s 57-page ruling signaled an important moment in American jurisprudence, answering a question that had never been addressed by an appeals court: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office?

La ministre de l’Éducation, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, a récemment été au cœur de plusieurs scandales qui ont secoué le paysage politique français. Ces scandales ont soulevé des questions sur son leadership, sa gestion et son intégrité en tant que responsable de l’éducation nationale.

Repent at leisure? Hell, no. It’s rare that I bother with a Thomas Friedman column. He’s usually full of himself and his breathless “deepisms.” But the headline on his piece today grabbed me. It’s bumper-sticker messaging about Republican efforts to kill the border security deal, and it’s absent Friedman’s usual verbal filigree. The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third. Every so often there is a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill that defines America and its values — that shows what kind of country we want to be. I would argue that when it comes to the $118.3 billion bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate to repair our broken immigration system and supply vital aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, its passage or failure won’t define just America but also the world that we’re going to inhabit. There are hinges in history, and this is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era.

The bottom line here is that Ukraine appears to be running out of both infantry and ammunition and Russia has plenty of both, plus air superiority. Ukraine is now bringing in more women, and is trying to convince EU countries to return Ukrainian refugee men so they can be conscripted.

There isn’t much map movement, but that doesn’t matter, what will happen is that the Russians will keep depleting Ukrainian forces until there simply aren’t enough, then they will leap forward and take a vast amount of terrain unless Ukraine gives them what they wants before then.

With the Ukrainian military broken, and the Russian army able to advance as it pleases, Russia will be able to dictate surrender terms, and that is what they will be. At the least: all Russian speaking areas, the coast, Crimea and the land bridge and Austrian style neutrality.

It should be pointed out that unless NATO is willing to declare war, the US has no leverage.

The MVC team discuss the 1999 historical dramedy about the demise of the Federal Theatre Project.

What are the implications for any society that emphasizes monuments to power and domination over imagination and the arts?

Some real-life Doctor Who bi-generation will be in play as Jodie Whittaker, the Thirteenth Doctor, joins The Great Celebrity Bake-Off!

I was born on July 20, 1944, almost two years after Joe Biden arrived on this planet and almost a year before You Know Who, like me, landed in New York City. The United States was then nearing the end of the second global war of that century and things were about to look up. My dad had been the operations officer for the 1st Air Commandos fighting the Japanese in Burma and, by that July, the tide had distinctly turned. The era that Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and I would enter feet first and naked would quickly become an upbeat one for so many Americans — or at least so many white Americans in the midst of a war... Read more

Source: The Last Superpower? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

A new study of major media outlets’ coverage of the Red Sea blockade found overwhelming bias in the press, which put forward pro-war talking points and portrayed the US as a good faith actor “dragged” into another Middle Eastern conflict against its will

The post Study Finds Media Giants New York Times, CNN, and Fox News Pushing for US War in Yemen appeared first on MintPress News.