As the National Anti-Corruption Commission is opening for business, some ministers tend to believe that the mere fact of winning government gives them an unlimited licence to distribute public loot to their friends, constituents and major donors. The silence and complicity of senior public servants in response to such misgovernment is one of the great Continue reading »
politics
Before he left for a brief trip to Sydney, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo took a stab at reconciliation. It’s unlikely to succeed. It’s a truism of politics: Leaders whose time is up sometimes get an itch to tidy up wrongs unmentioned when pitching for power. The Indonesian Constitution restricts presidents to two five-year terms. Continue reading »
Australia should do all it can to foster a long-term, peaceful resolution of the acute, multi-decade dispute spanning the Taiwan Strait. But Chey and Keating are unmistakeably correct on this issue: Australia should never become involved in any war over Taiwan. The former senior Australian diplomat, Jocelyn Chey, concluded a recent open letter to the Continue reading »
The recent visit to China by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken seemed promising, until we learned what he really had in mind: a long war with no finish line. This was not how the Australian media reported what happened during more than seven hours which Blinken spent with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Continue reading »
The containment policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War years is back with a vengeance. Much has been made of the creation of AUKUS and the agreement to provide Australia with eight nuclear powered submarines. Many have rightly decried Australia’s loss of independence. AUKUS, however, is part of a bigger story, a Continue reading »
Of all the flunkies Gov. Ron DeSantis installed across the state, the longest lasting effects will come from his total takeover of Florida’s Supreme Court.
The post DeSantis Stacked Florida’s Supreme Court With Cronies Who Wage His War on Wokeness — or Else appeared first on The Intercept.
Blinken’s trip was followed by Biden’s insults, the promising Bali summit was followed by further China containment measures. Clearly, Washington has yet to show Beijing it is sincere in its efforts. Every Chinese is taught from a young age, through the country’s history and culture, to be a person of integrity, to walk the talk, Continue reading »
US, UK, EU should amend humanitarian exemptions to facilitate aid. (Beirut) – The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union should urgently renew the earthquake-related humanitarian exemptions they introduced to their Syria sanctions’ regimes in February 2023 to more effectively facilitate aid to the Syrian people, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Continue reading »
It took a Ministerial review to say what should have been blindingly obvious to each of Sydney Trains, the Transport Asset Holding Entity, Transport for NSW and Treasury: the timetable is defective and there is a maintenance backlog evidenced by a reported 40,000 infrastructure defects. Little reviews The NSW Government commissioned a series of little Continue reading »