Category: World
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Dr “Ziggy” Switkowski: nuclear power apologist
In the latest news bulletins from Tokyo, contaminated groundwater from the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant is freely leaking into the Pacific Ocean. The horrendous consequences of the earthquake/tsunami which destroyed the plant in 2011 are mounting with every passing day. Would someone please inform Australia’s leading nuclear energy apologist, “Ziggy” Switkowski? But let’s go…
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Jewish intellectual targeted by Greek fascists
A year ago Alex and I sat on the balcony of a modest apartment in Athens talking late into the night with our old friends, Savvas Michael-Matsas and his wife Katerina. The discussion ranged over world politics, philosophy, poetry and history and, as always, we were struck by Savvas’ erudition and passionate interest in all…
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Rudd’s party reform: the real agenda
When the Federal Parliamentary Labor Caucus meets in Canberra on Monday, July 22, it will be a red letter day in the 120-year history of Australia’s oldest party. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has seized his return to the Prime Ministership and his soaring popularity to insist on a dramatic reform of the Labor Party. He…
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Why is Kevin Rudd selling his mansion in Yarralumla?
If a millionaire politician puts his home on the market in Canberra, it’s not much of a story. When it’s Kevin Rudd, that’s another matter. Kevin Rudd’s mansion in Yarralumla is up for sale, prompting more speculation that he hopes to return to his former Canberra home, The Lodge, the official residence of the prime…
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Ms Gillard prepares a legacy for herself
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has switched her attention from winning the next election to legacy-building. As her re-election hopes grow dimmer, Australia’s first female Prime Minister is concentrated on establishing her place in Labor history. Take the May Budget, the final budget before the government faces the electorate on September 14. It was not a…
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War camp mass has Aussie premiere
This Sunday, April 28, 2013, an Easter Mass that was first sung by Allied detainees in a Japanese internment camp in Manila 70 years ago will be performed in the sugar town of Murwillumbah, far northern NSW. Sunday’s choral concert by the Chillingham Voices will be historic because it is only the second occasion the…
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Tony Abbott aka the new Dr No
Prime Minister Julia Gillard scored a significant diplomatic success in China. She reached agreement with Beijing to hold annual ministerial talks, a status only enjoyed by a very small group of nations. The question is: when will Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his shadow foreign minister Julie Bishop denounce the Beijing-Canberra “axis of evil” and…
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What was Thatcher’s greatest crime?
An epitaph for Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham? “Reactionary, vindictive, mean-spirited, philistine, cruel, quintessential little Englander.” High points of her cold brutality included the war over the Malvinas (Falklands), crushing the miners’ strike and the Fleet Street print workers (for her ally Rupert Murdoch) and planting US cruise missiles in England after brutally…
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Thatcher and the class divide
Spare me all the guff about Margaret Thatcher. British Labour leader Ed Miliband says that “we can disagree and also greatly respect her achievements”. Here in Australia Labor leaders, including Julia Gillard and Penny Wong, follow suit. I don’t respect her. We didn’t have “disagreements”. We were on opposite sides of the biggest battle between…
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Scottish writer’s stand on Palestine
There’s sad news about Iain Banks, the Scottish novelist. He has cancer, and only months to live. His brilliantly imaginative novels include The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road, and he can also write in a lighter vein. I liked his satirical post-9/11 thriller Dead Air. There must have been something in the air in…