What is the meaning of Australia winning a seat on UN Security Council for the next two years? It means that the United States and Israel now have an extra vote on the Security Council. The declaration by the Gillard Government and Foreign Minister Bob Carr that their first objective will be world peace is…
FOUR thousand people demonstrated in Murwillumbah yesterday (October 13) against coal seam gas extraction – the biggest protest we’ve seen here yet. So many of our friends were there: a real show of strength from the local community. Lock the Gate president Drew Hutton was joined on a panel fronting the media by local canegrowers’…
By Alex Mitchell Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speech in the House of Representatives on October 9 was one of the finest pieces of parliamentary oratory you are ever likely to hear. It was bold, stirring, direct and compelling. I urge you to find it on the web and listen to it in full. The last…
ABC TV’s flagship current affairs programme, Four Corners, has done serious damage to its professional reputation by screening “The Battle for Syria” under its colours. It was an imported programme so no one on the staff of the ABC bears any ethical responsibility. But the question remains – who bought it in and decided to…
Austerity doesn’t work – it’s official. An American bankers’ think tank, the Institute of International Finance, has just come out with a report which concludes the bleeding obvious: that the all-out pursuit of debt reduction at the expense of economic stimulus has made the Greek situation worse. The Institute’s chairman Charles Dallara, who worked for…
2GB shock jock Alan Jones has apologised to Prime Minister Julia Gillard for saying her father died of shame because of her repeated lies. “Every person in the caucus of the Labor Party knows that Julia Gillard is a liar,” Jones said. “The old man recently died a few weeks ago of shame. To think…
After three months and four countries, we’re back home in the Tweed Valley in Australia – such a beautiful place to come back to. Our trip was one we’d waited a long time for, and it was memorable. Each day brought a discovery. We feel we’ve reconnected with the life of Europe, renewed some of…
The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, opened only four years ago by the municipal authorities, is a spacious modern nine-storey Guggenheim-style building. Its aims are to exhibit contemporary art, provide a meeting place for artists and hold community cultural events. When so many of Asia’s great galleries still appear to have little connection with their…
When representatives of the Troika arrived in Athens last week they were greeted like visiting heads of state or royalty. They were escorted from the airport to the city in a VIP cavalcade which included bomb and bullet-proof limousines, an armed security detail and an motorcycle squad in black leather and anti-riot gear. An anti-terrorist…
The island where we’ve been staying has one of the most significant archaeological sites in Greece, and it turns out that the University of Sydney is playing a major role in its excavation. Settlement at Zagora on the west coast goes back to the late 10th century BC, the Iron Age. Since 1967 the university’s…
