Something absolutely stupefying is happening in Germany: its iconic auto company, VW, the darling of every Chancellor from Adolf Hitler to Olaf Scholz, appears to be in a death spiral. At the end of this story I’ll draw a link to the salutary lesson countries like Australia and New Zealand need to draw from the Continue reading »
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Cameron Stewart recently attempted to vaunt the virtues, so to speak, of the AUKUS nuclear submarines via an article in The Australian newspaper. In part, it’s threaded together with tufts of intellectual fluff from Kim Beazley, his one-time offsider, Paul Dibb, Peter Dean from the United States Study Centre in Sydney, Mike Pezzullo formerly of Continue reading »
Commissioner Paul Brereton said one thing to his top NACC colleagues and another to the Attorney-General. EXCLUSIVE The head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Paul Brereton made misleading statements to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus over his management of conflicts of interest regarding the Robodebt referrals. A three-page official letter from Brereton to Dreyfus, released by the Continue reading »
Temporary graduate visas are for overseas students who complete their study and wish to undertake work in Australia, often as a pathway to permanent residence. These visas work best when the bulk of temporary graduates seeking permanent residence are able to secure skilled work and eventually a permanent residence employer sponsored (or other) permanent visa. Continue reading »
The outcome of the latest conflagration pitting Israel against the indigenous population it has sought to displace, but failed to subdue since long before 1948, remains impossible to predict. As the semi-official death toll in Gaza approaches 41,000 — more than a third of them children or infants — and the Israel Defence Forces extend Continue reading »
A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness (as Four Corners can still manage (see:Inside Iran: The proxy war Continue reading »
Israeli citizens’ demand to bring home an estimated 100 Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas is assumed to depend on a Gaza ceasefire which would include a Palestinian prisoner release. By contrast, Palestinian citizens’ “bring them home!” cry concerns the estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, who are also hostages in Israeli jails, including as many Continue reading »
The United States Government doctrine of neither confirming nor denying the presence or absence of nuclear weapons on board US aircraft has been virtually unchanged in almost 70 years, with a very small number of exceptions. One key element of transparency required for democratic accountability is denied by acceptance of the US doctrine of neither Continue reading »
The primary aim of this Nautilus Special Report is to provide robust, authoritative and transparent information for use by governments and their publics in countries that host the B-52H Stratofortress bomber, as to which of the 76 B-52H aircraft in the current (as of mid- 2024) US Air Force active fleet are capable of delivering Continue reading »
The looming question for me and my partner is “where might we live as we grow older and frailer?” For us, the ideal place is likely to be a retirement village. But at what cost? Continue reading »