The ABC reveals Chinese social media is again facilitating foreign interference in our elections, Dutton is the true champion of China relations, while Chinese hospitals are overcharging Aussies for lifesaving surgery. Take note of RedNote The ABC reports (20/03/25), “Chinese social media platform RedNote fuels misinformation concerns in Australian election”. It’s tabloid-like stuff, throwing a Continue reading »
politics
If you ever need an example of the idiocy and the ignorance behind the Coalition and LNP campaign against renewable energy in Australia, a good place to start would be the federal MP for Flynn, Colin Boyce. The LNP member has staged a relentless campaign against renewables, and the proposed Smoky Creek solar project in Continue reading »
Ma Ying-jeou warns that William Ching-te Lai is leading cross-strait relations into “a major crisis”. Taiwanese leader William Ching-te Lai delivered a speech on 13 March, outlining 17 measures across five key areas – moves that appear more confrontational than anything his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, pursued over her eight-year tenure. Beijing swiftly responded with a Continue reading »
We live in a global community, and many of us enjoy the benefits. A far greater number have no such enjoyment, existing in disadvantage; in poverty, hunger, homelessness, oppression, violence of one kind or another- preventable travesties. Worse still, unacceptable numbers of our kin exist in dispossession, statelessness, destruction, mutilation, despair, death. And the privileged Continue reading »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid the asking price for Itamar Ben-Gvir’s return to the government in advance. Not out of his own pocket, of course, but with the blood of the 59 hostages whose fate could be sealed by the resumption of the war, which has already sealed the fate of hundreds of Palestinians, Continue reading »
Maybe what Lehrmann Board of Inquiry chair Walter Sofronoff KC did was “serious corrupt conduct”, as the ACT Integrity Commission alleges. Or perhaps that description is “overreach”, as former Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses SC told The Australian. But handing your report to journalists before handing it to the chief minister who commissioned Continue reading »
A giant eight-hour battery project in New South Wales has changed hands in a deal that also confirms that battery storage costs — a critical part of the green energy transition — are still falling significantly. The California-based Energy Vault announced on 18 March that it had agreed to buy the 125 MW, 1000 MWh Continue reading »
The big news on house insurance this week was the response of the insurance industry’s peak body to a parliamentary committee’s extensive criticisms of its treatment of people claiming on their policies after the massive floods of 2022. The Insurance Council of Australia accepted some of the committee’s recommendations, announced an “industry action plan” and Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: AI, green appliances to lead shift to consumption economy. Plus: Myanmar resistance rewrites rules of insurgency; Trump closes agencies that cover China, Cambodia abuses; Widowo works on extending his influence; Japanese PM’s popularity plummets; New church for Phnom Penh 50 years after Pol Pot devastation China has issued a 30-point Continue reading »
March hasn’t been one of the better months for Kim Beazley, the former Hawke and Keating Government minister, leader of the federal ALP and governor of Western Australia and now chairman of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. In the ABC’s recent 4 Corners program, he was cornered on the AWM’s acceptance of funding Continue reading »