In September 2021 the US, UK and Australia announced a joint project to build eight nuclear submarines for Australia at a cost of AU$368 billion. To conclude the deal, Australia had to scrap an already concluded agreement with France to build 12 conventional submarines for the Royal Australian Navy at a cost of AU$50 billion. Continue reading »
politics
“The role of the attorney-general in Australia, even in these partisan times, is to uphold the rule of law,” as the former Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason said. So how can it be in any way compatible with that duty for Mark Dreyfus, the current holder of the office, to head to Israel and meet Continue reading »
In numerous journals and newspapers, death and destruction in Sudan is described as probably the greatest, certainly the most neglected, humanitarian catastrophe in existence. Save the Children identifies 15 million people, more than one third of a population displaced, of whom 5.8 million are children under 18, one quarter of whom are under five. The Continue reading »
Many people have been understandably astonished by Donald Trump’s recently proclaimed desires to “take back” the Panama Canal “in full, quickly and without question” and to take over the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland. While Trump has written that “For purposes of National Security and Freedom around the world, the United States feels that the Continue reading »
Clive Palmer’s latest claims as a Singaporean coal mine investor using foreign investor state dispute settlement rights in trade agreements to claim billions from the Australian Government join a growing global list of ISDS claims by fossil fuel companies defined by the UN and the OECD as threats to the global climate transition. Labor should Continue reading »
Remember the Vietnam War? The barbarism there cannot be compared with what we see almost daily in Gaza. But just looking on impotently will not solve the problem. Over Vietnam, the conscription issue allowed a sluggish Australian public opinion to be partly mobilised to counter government lies and distortions. The protest movement had some effect. Continue reading »
ASEAN preference for resolute neutrality will attract increasing pushback from major foreign players who have less respect for the concept. Determined neutrality and non-interference are the defining features of ASEAN. Some observers see this as a source of strength with its focus on common objectives rather than differences. Others see it as a source of Continue reading »
In December 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, warned in relation to the situation in Gaza that “the practice of medicine is under attack” and “we are in the darkest time for the right to health in our lifetimes”. More than a year later, and with the killing Continue reading »
And why those that do aren’t just trading in meme coins for the lulz.
The post Congress Loves Crypto. So Why Do So Few Members Buy It? appeared first on The Intercept.
On a winter night in 2014 I stood by the side of a highway outside Damascus as a Syrian army officer shone a torch over the contents of my suitcase he had ordered me to empty onto the grey dirt. The young officer on checkpoint duty was a member of the elite Fourth Armoured Division Continue reading »