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 »
politics
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 »
All Victorians are now invited to be part of truth telling by making a submission to the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Submissions had previously been open to First Peoples only. Yoorrook is the first Royal Commission in Australia planned and led by First Peoples and is the first formal truth-telling process into injustices experienced by First Continue reading »
In a significant, scholarly book ‘Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine’, Dr. Nick Riemer describes Palestinian civil society as ‘among the most strangulated and oppressed on the planet.’ On June 26 in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Gideon Levy writes, ‘There aren’t many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their Continue reading »
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and French President Emmanuel Macron invited world leaders to Paris on June 22-23 to reach a new “global pact” to finance the fight against poverty and human-induced climate change. All kudos for the ambition, yet few dollars were put on the table. To an important extent, the continuing global failure Continue reading »
“If the worst thing that faces the people of Taiwan would be what prevails in Hong Kong today, then we haven’t got a cause for war. … Hong Kong still has substantially its own system and if that were the outcome that applied in Taiwan, then I can live with that,” says former Australian Minister Continue reading »
The West has been manipulating global information and spreading disinformation for decades. It is time for the world to also listen to the voices of China and other developing nations, many of which were once brutally colonised by the West. Just 10 days after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the European Union Continue reading »
In August 2019, Modi’s government revoked the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. That was followed by a crackdown. Political activity was banned, politicians were placed under house arrest and the internet was choked. Meanwhile, the Indian army posts photos of its soldiers in yoga poses, and we are told that China is all bad Continue reading »
The little review of Sydney Trains has revealed more than some, including the Minister, might like. This is the first of two posts on the subject. Little reviews Mr Menadue and I have long called for a public inquiry into NSW Transport. The reasons for this include that the former Government’s deceptive explanations of bizarre Continue reading »
Monday next week starts a new children’s services funding program by increasing the government subsidies to parents, as described below. Child Care Subsidy (CCS) is changing from July 2023. For the average family on about $120,000 with a child in care three days a week, the changes will cut costs by about $1,700 a year. Continue reading »