Whether Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will visit China in 2023 remains uncertain, but the odds are favourable. Beijing has issued an invitation and Albanese said that the trip remains ‘likely’. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has confirmed that Canberra ‘would look to make sure that a visit can occur’. But there remain two factors that might derail a visit. Continue reading »
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For Syrians, hope lies in the fact that – given time and effort – people outside their country will learn of the deleterious effect of sanctions, will question the justifications given for imposing them, and will see them as breaching human rights. Returning to Syria in 2019, I visited a private girls high school in Continue reading »
It is becoming increasingly unlikely. Julian Assange is in prison; the dissenting voices of Seymour Hersh, John Pilger, Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson have been excluded from the mainstream, moving into self-publishing; and Mick Hall has resigned from Radio New Zealand after it tightened control to safeguard the pro-American narrative. “You haven’t been here long Continue reading »
Pearls and Irritations (P&I) is a tremendous addition to an Australian publishing scene in which propaganda is increasingly replacing accurate news and analysis. P&I’s large pool of experienced analysts, including many former high-ranking public servants, gives a growing band of readers a rare perspective on the big issues facing Australia. Because it relies solely on Continue reading »
The Productivity Commission has released a draft report on its review of progress on closing the gap. The review arises from the terms of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, in particular, clauses 121 to 124. There are a number of problematic issues with the draft review, and most particularly with its proposed solutions. Continue reading »
The Australian Energy Market Operator has made a rare foray into the mainstream media debate around the green energy transition, saying claims that its cost assessment of renewables does not include transmission and storage are “wrong.” Conservative media, led by the Murdoch press but also including others, has been seeking to suggest that AEMO’s 30-year Continue reading »
Like his mentor Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein is effectively banned from entering the Palestinian territories by Israeli authorities. This constitutes a very exclusive club: Jews welcome in Ramallah but not in Tel Aviv. The day the City appointed a rat Czar was a good time to leave Manhattan, at least for a few hours. The Continue reading »
Arguably the single most egregious display of war propaganda in the 21st century occurred last year, when the entire western political/media class began uniformly bleating the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On February 23 of last year, the day before the invasion began, the New York Times editorial board wrote that Continue reading »
As the hedge fund-backed news channel continues to platform star presenter Dan Wootton, Byline Times reveals the ‘racism, sexism and misogyny’ risking the future of the broadcaster
Arizona was deadly hot during the month of July. We know this. But it didn’t convince the climate deniers that maybe, just maybe, it might be smart to consider that climate change could be responsible. Every single day of July had reached 110 degrees or hotter, demolishing the previous record for the longest 110-plus-degree streak that Phoenix — nicknamed the Valley of the Sun for a reason — had ever seen. Most of those days were above 115 degrees, and most nights, the low stayed above 90 degrees, setting records on both fronts. All told, the average daily temperature — the average of the high and low — was 102 degrees, or more than 7 degrees above normal for July, which is also a record, according to the National Weather Service. Meanwhile, dozens of people have died amid the extreme heat. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, recently brought in new refrigerated storage containers to hold all the dead bodies, a tactic it first employed during the peak of the pandemic.
“Sadly, the days of shredding civil rights in exchange for ten private-jet flights are over,” the Justice told donors.
Washington is halting some aid to Niger even as it eyes greater support for Burkina Faso’s military coup-maker.
The post At Least Five Members of Niger Junta Were Trained by U.S. appeared first on The Intercept.
“Large school districts across Florida are dropping plans to offer Advanced Placement Psychology, heeding a warning from state officials that the course’s discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity violates state law.”
— Washington Post
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Despite media reports to the contrary, we here at the Florida Department of Education are committed to offering AP Psychology to high school students in our state. However, there are several concepts within the course that will need to be handled delicately in the classroom. It is our hope that a few careful revisions, reflected in the following student handouts, will enable teachers to deliver all course content in full while still reflecting the values, beliefs, and moral principles that we as Floridians hold dear.
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If you have a chance, listen to this whole thing. It is astonishing: Now take a look at Trump hedging: Eastman says they were trying to save the Republic from “the mob” — and prepared to sic the military on anyone who protested. That’s right, they prepared for a military coup. Now Trump is hedging. I hope Eastman enjoys being underneath the bus.
Doctor Who: Doom's Day rolls on with M.G. Harris' novel Extraction Point, as Doom looks to the Second & Ninth Doctors for answers.
How much is “engineered division”? Click-bait coverage of Trump rallies makes it easy to believe that the country is hopelessly divided. Or at least the 70% from the fringe-right 30%. If Trumpers don’t get their way, it’s civil war, etc., etc. As if these two below will lock and load and defend march to war behind some 21st-century Robert E. Lee. Capitalism and democracy being strange bedfellows, it’s those voices that get air time because they draw eyeballs and generate clicks. But is it really as bad as quickie profiles of the blowhard right make it seem? Under cover of mullet, John Russell of The Holler discovered that there is more common ground between the left and right than footage appearing on social media and in news coverage makes it seem. “Solidarity is waiting to have a moment.” “You would never know [this]” about people at a Trump rally, Russell explains, “if you just watched Fox or CNN.” “They’re trying to divide people,” one young woman says of the dominance of hot-button social issues.
Dr Chris Day’s legal campaign exposed a ‘gap in the law’, which deprived 54,000 junior doctors of statutory whistleblowing protections
Health care reform advocate Wendell Potter provides a line-by-line rebuttal of the propaganda network’s cartoon about Canada’s universal health care system.
On July 24th, the Israeli Knesset passed a measure forbidding the country’s High Court of Justice from in any way checking the power of the government, whether in making cabinet decisions or appointments, based on what’s known as the “reasonability” standard. In the Israeli context, this was an extreme act, since right-wing parliamentarians were defying massive crowds that had, for months on end, demonstrated with remarkable determination against such radical legislation. And that measure was only one part of a wide-ranging redesign of the court system unveiled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January, which deeply alarmed his critics. As exemplified by prominent world historian Yuval Noah Harari, such protestors warned that limiting the functions of the highest court, in... Read more
Recent major data breaches, impacting crucial institutions like the Electoral Commission and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, have brought attention to potential risks linked to the proposed Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. These breaches highlight the crucial need for thorough scrutiny of any changes to data protection laws. If enacted, the proposed reforms […]