International

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Dutton engages in weaponised brutality

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, August 1st, 2019 - 63 comments

Australia is responding to New Zealand’s concern at the forced repatriation of New Zealand citizens from Australia who fall foul of the law by dramatically increasing the potential for this to occur.

Fool me twice?

Written By: - Date published: 12:05 am, July 27th, 2019 - 29 comments

Boris Johnson’s ruthless purge of Cabinet and hard right shift looks like preparation for an early election.  Reminds me of 1984 at home, as a right wing coup is on the way. He lied his way to Brexit – will it work again?

The weasel accurately dissects National.

Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 26th, 2019 - 36 comments

Matthew Hooton has a piece on National’s chances in the next election this morning entitled as “National stumbling to defeat”. Personally I think he is a PR weasel who is on the border to dirty politics. But he did cover the salient points that will be on the mind of the National party conference. 

Australian right wing commentators suffer from deranged Jacinda syndrome

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, July 24th, 2019 - 76 comments

Australian right wing commentators are losing their shirts at the thought that Jacinda Ardern may be in the running for a Nobel Peace prize.

Boris for UK PMⁿ

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 am, July 24th, 2019 - 99 comments

67% of the 160,000 UK Conservative Party members have voted for Boris Johnson as their leader. An attempt to block him as PM has been circumvented by the Speaker. The Queen has had to delay her trip to Balmoral to receive him as Prime Minister. I’d have more faith in the Ukraine’s comedian. At least he can command a majority in Parliament.

 

Peters, Pence, Pompeo and the Rapture

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 am, July 21st, 2019 - 25 comments

Hamish Rutherfurd writes that Winston Peters’ trip to the US to secure a trade deal is far-fetched and a waste of time. I agree. But if Peters has his agenda, so will Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, John Bolton and Dan Coats have theirs. He was scheduled to meet them all. No wonder the 9th floor are worried.

 

The strait of Hormuz

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, July 20th, 2019 - 49 comments

With the seizing of an oil tanker by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz today as a presumably tit-for-tat escalation for British seizing an Iranian ship, and the U.S. Navy harassing their coastline, we are in for a senseless and dangerous political escalation.

Is POTUS up to the job?

Written By: - Date published: 2:34 pm, July 8th, 2019 - 275 comments

A senior Psychologist thinks that POTUS Donald Trump is not up to doing the job. And the UK Ambassador to the US says that the Trump White House is uniquely dysfunctional and inept.

National supports 47% tax rate for top income bracket *

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, July 5th, 2019 - 25 comments

* this is one possible interpretation for National’s praise of the Morrisonn Government’s change to Australian tax system.

5G flip flop

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, July 2nd, 2019 - 62 comments

Six weeks after banning China’s leading tech firm Huawei from contracts with U.S. businesses, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have reversed it after meeting China’s Premier Xi Jinping.

How Brexit Party won the social media battle

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, July 1st, 2019 - 30 comments

A review of the use of social media has suggested that the Brexit Party’s campaign was far superior to that of its opponents.

The strange case of the missing Oregon Republican State senators

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, June 24th, 2019 - 67 comments

Republican State Senators in the state of Oregon have headed for the hills and are being protected by a local nut job militia in an effort to thwart the democratically elected majority from doing passing a law to address climate change.

Right wing loses it after Prime Minister makes a cake

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, June 23rd, 2019 - 57 comments

In a week where Donald Trump almost starts war against Iran, gets accused again of sexual assault, and has his ICE staff deny toothpaste, soap and blankets to kids in detention and Boris Johnson gets accused of domestic violence the local right loose it when Jacinda Ardern makes a cake.

Greenland is melting – faster

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, June 19th, 2019 - 82 comments

Greenland holds a large store of fresh water. If fully melted, it will raise sea levels by roughly 7 metres. It is melting – fast. Last week, temperatures across Greenland about 22 degrees Celsius warmer than the normal for that time of year. It produced an extraordinary visual effect of dogs walking on water through surface melt over sea ice.

The Hong Kong protest worked

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, June 16th, 2019 - 20 comments

Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, has permanently suspended the legislative proposal to enable extradition of Hong Kong people to among other places mainland China.

An October election in the UK?

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, June 13th, 2019 - 27 comments

Boris Johnson declared his candidacy today. The Guardian’s Tom Kibasi speculates on his strategy – pick a fight with the EU, make Brexit the issue and call an election. Do a deal with Farage and save Britain from Corbyn. Will it work?

FiveEyes on our elections

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 am, June 12th, 2019 - 94 comments

Andrew Little’s letter to the Select Committee on election interference puzzled me – it seemed to be out of the blue and not particularly relevant to our system. Then I read about a meeting on the Gold Coast last year and it became clear as to why – FiveEyes pressure.

 

Three disturbingly different views on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, June 10th, 2019 - 63 comments

In the same week that Donald Trump said that the American climate was the cleanest climate, Ian Dunlop, former chairman of the Australian Coal Association, has warned of massive social consequences ranging from increased religious fervour to outright chaos. And UK Chancellor Philip Hammond is questioning if remedial action is affordable.

What is happening in Britain?

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, June 8th, 2019 - 22 comments

In the United Kingdom politics is becoming very unstable with the surge of the new Brexit Party, a Conservative Party that no longer knows what it stands for and Labour also shedding significant support to other parties with clearer positions on Brexit.

Government under FiveEyes

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 pm, June 7th, 2019 - 11 comments

Australian Federal Police chief Neil Gaughan told media after raiding the ABC that “if police did not investigate the leaking of classified information, Australia would no longer be entrusted by FiveEyes partners with intelligence that saves lives.” FiveEyes didn’t save Muslim lives in Christchurch.

 

Despatches from Surrealistan

Written By: - Date published: 4:15 am, June 6th, 2019 - 7 comments

London feels surreal.  Joined the demo against Trump, in town to see the Queen, see off the Prime Minister, and plunder the NHS in the name of ‘free trade.’ Saw the play “The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson,”  which might be prescient.

Tiananmen Square’s Failed Revolution

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 4th, 2019 - 70 comments

Right now we could be dealing with a China with a similar mixed model to Vietnam, or a re-unified country like Germany. What happened to change this?

The Coming Global Economic Slowdown and New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, June 3rd, 2019 - 49 comments

With the United States – China trade war well underway, the sick chaos of Brexit is shrinking the U.K. economy and slowing much of Europe’s economy, and smaller economies such as that of Mexico in the crosshairs through further politically manufactured trade disputes, the second half of this year looks for New Zealand nowhere near as rosy as the first half.

Mayhem in the UK

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, May 25th, 2019 - 68 comments

Theresa May has announced that she is to stand down as UK Prime Minister.

EU elections

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, May 25th, 2019 - 20 comments

The results of the European parliament elections are due.  It’s the first election they’ve had since the refugee crisis, the Brexit referendum, and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.   There’s a reasonably high chance that the far right are going to increase their share of this Parliament.

Death tax fake news

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, May 21st, 2019 - 62 comments

Social media was responsible for the repeated broadcasting of the claim that Labor in Australia intended to bring in a death tax.  What should happen when claims that are clearly wrong are made?

Billionaire pledges to pay off class of 2019’s student loans

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, May 21st, 2019 - 50 comments

Billionaire investor Robert F. Smith was invited to give the graduation speech at Morehouse College, his old school, and stunned everyone when he deviated from prepared speech notes.

Will the Christian Conservatives rise again?

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, May 20th, 2019 - 78 comments

Simon Bridges has conceded that his claim that talk about Alfred Ngaro setting up a conservative party was “rumour and speculation” was not actually true.  And Ngaro has gone on the offensive describing abortion as an unholy holocaust.

Aussie oi?

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, May 19th, 2019 - 122 comments

Overnight in Australia there was meant to be a change to a Labor Government.  But something happened …

Auf Wiedersehen Iraq

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, May 16th, 2019 - 30 comments

The Germans and the Dutch have suspended training Iraqi soldiers citing increased tensions in the area. What do they know that Ron Mark doesn’t? Cabinet is due to  make a decision shortly on our long-planned decision to withdraw, and he seems to want us to stay. Labour’s policy at the election was to withdraw, it should prevail.

Jacinda achieves international commitment to social media change

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, May 16th, 2019 - 97 comments

Jacinda Ardern has shown true international leadership by achieving considerable international consensus to effecting change in the way that social media operates.