Oxfam Australia Media Release

Responding to the Rio de Janeiro G20 Ministerial Declaration on International Tax Cooperation published today, Oxfam International’s Tax Policy Lead Susana Ruiz, said:

“This is serious global progress – for the first time in history, the world’s largest economies have agreed to cooperate to tax the ultra-rich. Finally, the richest people are being told they can’t game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share.

“Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax. Massive fortunes afford the world’s ultra-rich outsized influence and power, which they wield to shield, stash and supersize their wealth, undercutting democracy and widening inequality.

“Now to the next step: at the G20 Summit in November this year, leaders need to go further than their finance ministers and back concrete coordination: agreeing on a new global standard that taxes the ultra-rich at a rate high enough to close the gap between them and the rest of us.

“Brazil has kickstarted a truly global approach to tax the ultra-rich. But the work is just beginning and international cooperation is crucial.

“We call on G20 leaders to align with the progress being made at the UN and establish a truly democratic process for setting global standards on taxing the ultra-rich. Entrusting this task to the OECD – the club of mostly rich countries – would simply not be good enough.”

Oxfam Australia Media Release

The richest 1 per cent have amassed $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50 per cent of the world’s population, according to new analysis by Oxfam today ahead of the third meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Here in Australia, billionaires have increased their wealth by 70.5% or $120 billion since 2020. Australians are increasingly concerned about this growing inequality and support a wealth tax to address it. This is evidenced by newly released YouGov polling commissioned by Oxfam. The polling shows:

• 76% of Australians are concerned about the growing wealth gap between the ultra-rich and everyday people
• 74% Support a wealth tax of people with wealth of over $50 million
• 63% Support wealth tax proceeds being used to reduce inequality

The average wealth per person in the top 1 percent globally rose by nearly $400,000 in real terms over the last decade compared to just $335 – an equivalent increase of less than nine cents a day – for a person in the bottom half.

This week G20 Finance Ministers are expected to lay the foundations of a groundbreaking global deal to increase taxes on the super-rich. Championed by the Brazilian G20 Presidency and backed by countries including South Africa and France, the proposal comes amid growing public demand for measures to rein in extreme levels of inequality and ensure that the rich pay their fair share.

“Inequality in Australia and across the globe has reached obscene levels, and until now governments have failed to protect people and planet from its catastrophic effects,” said Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Officer Lyn Morgain. “The richest one percent of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs.”

“Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable, and this week is the first real litmus test for G20 governments. Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?” Morgain said.

A “war on fair taxation” has seen tax rates on the wealth and income of the richest collapse. Oxfam has calculated that less than eight cents in every dollar raised in tax revenue in G20 countries now comes from taxes on wealth. Oxfam’s research also found that the share of income of the top 1 per cent of earners in G20 countries has risen by 45 percent over four decades while top tax rates on their incomes were cut by roughly a third.

Globally, billionaires have been paying a tax rate equivalent to less than 0.5 per cent of their wealth. Their fortunes have risen by an annual average of 7.1 per cent over the last four decades, and an annual net wealth tax of at least 8 per cent would be needed to reduce billionaires’ extreme wealth. G20 countries are home to nearly four out of five of the world’s billionaires.

Productivity Commission Media Release

The Productivity Commission has released the 50th annual Trade and Assistance Review (TAR), which reports on the amount of assistance provided to industry by the Australian Government in 2022-23.

It finds that industry assistance fell to $15 billion in 2022-23, principally due to the end of remaining COVID-19 stimulus measures. This figure is mostly comprised of a small number of large, long-standing programs.

The services economy received the most budgetary assistance in absolute terms, but primary production received approximately five times more in budgetary assistance relative to its share of the economy.

These figures do not include all forms of industry assistance that occur ‘behind-the-border’ in Australia. This year’s TAR takes a close look at the effects of two such forms of industry assistance: domestic price control mechanisms and local content rules.

Behind-the-border industry assistance is likely to grow further in coming years, as policy support under the Future Made in Australia (FMIA) program begins to flow to industry. This year’s TAR does not evaluate the effects of the FMIA program (as it looks at data from previous years) but observes that it is part of a global trend.

“For the past fifty years the TAR has been a vital resource for measuring and assessing the effects of industry assistance. With global and domestic industry assistance expected to rise in coming years, policymakers should continue to look to the TAR to guide decision making,” said Deputy Chair Dr Alex Robson.

“It is important that industry policy is well-articulated and subject to rigorous and public cost benefit analysis. Policy discipline will ensure industry assistance is focused on achieving clear goals at least cost to the Australian community, without inadvertently becoming a new form of trade protectionism,” said Dr Robson.

An essential aspect of this analysis is identifying points of comparative advantage – the areas in which an economy performs best relative to other economies. The 2022-23 TAR explores several approaches to this task.

“A strong economy is one that makes the most of its relative strengths – but identifying points of comparative advantage is not straightforward. Governments should be cautious in pursuing industry policy on this basis and build in off-ramps to allow a timely exit if these policies fail to achieve their stated aims,” said Dr Robson.

The release of the 50^th TAR coincides with the Australian Government’s move to eliminate 457 nuisance tariffs, a development that continues the trade liberalisation project of the last few decades.

“Getting rid of these tariffs will reduce unnecessary administrative costs and compliance burdens for business without meaningfully affecting government revenue. Eliminating tariffs entirely would reduce business costs and the costs to household budgets,” said Dr Robson.

The Trade and Assistance Review 2022-23 can be found at www.pc.gov.au.

International Justice Mission Media Release

International Justice Mission (IJM) Australia) welcomes move by eSafety Commissioner to hold big tech companies to account for tackling online child sexual abuse.

The legal notices require big tech companies to explain how they address the child abuse material that is being promoted and distributed on their platforms. Companies are required to provide an updated report to the regulator every 6 months over the course of 2 years.

IJM Country Director, Mr David Braga, “We commend the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant’s legal directive that will mandate big tech companies to report and review what they are doing to mitigate online child sexual abuse.”

“To date, these companies have failed to provide a safe online environment for children.

“We were appalled in 2022, when major online file storage companies disclosed to the Commissioner that there were no proactive measures to detect child abuse materials on their platforms,” said Mr Braga.

“With nearly half a million Filipino children facing online sexual exploitation every year, IJM appreciates the Commissioner’s acknowledgement that in our collective battle against online child sexual abuse – every minute counts.

“IJM has been a staunch advocate for greater action by the tech sector, considering Australia is the third largest consumer of child sexual abuse material from the Philippines. These notices are an important step in addressing the growing global threat of livestreamed child sexual abuse.

“We are hopeful the transparency will hasten big tech companies to review not only the content disseminated on their platforms but also the systems which allow for this content distribution,” Mr Braga said.

Big tech companies have until 15 February 2025, to lodge their first response. Failure to comply may result in penalties up to $782,500 a day for no response.

“This directive from the Commissioner is a strong step to enforce duty of care on tech companies when it comes to protecting children online,” Mr Braga said.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering Media Release

A new report released today from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has found the nascent state of small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) globally means that a mature market for the technology may emerge in the late 2040s.

The technology is yet to be proven technically and financially, given there is currently a dearth of reliable, publicly verifiable information about operational full-scale prototype SMRs around the world.

As current coal-fired power stations begin to retire and there is an urgent need for mature, low carbon technologies to fill the energy supply gap, the time it will take to establish a mature SMR market, including appropriate legislative and regulatory settings, means that it won’t be possible to fill this gap with SMR technology this decade.

The least risky option would be for Australia to procure SMRs once several models have been established and are proven and operational in other OECD countries.

Alternatively, Australia could choose to enter the SMR market at an earlier pre-mature-market stage of development, which would carry a significant financial cost and technical risk.

The report notes that for a nuclear energy industry in Australia to be considered, federal and state moratoria on nuclear power would need to be lifted, a national nuclear regulator established, and an appropriately skilled workforce to be grown. In addition, SMRs will not succeed without broad social acceptance of the technology over their entire life cycle.

ATSE President Dr Katherine Woodthorpe AO FTSE said that from a technology and engineering perspective, SMRs could form part of the future energy mix for Australia, however this is unlikely until a market is fully formed, which would be likely in the mid to late 2040s.

“SMR technology could provide low carbon energy compatible with Australia’s current electricity system, however as an emerging technology, there is considerable uncertainty around commercial viability and some of these potential benefits,” Dr Woodthorpe said.

“Overall, the associated timescales, expense, skills gap, legal and regulatory barriers, and social acceptance of nuclear power means the technology is high-risk when compared to existing energy options.

“Sourcing a prototype SMR is a higher-risk proposition for both technical and commercial reasons.

“Non-partisan analysis is required to objectively examine technology readiness and the role of nuclear technology in the long-term. However, this should not detract from the rapid deployment of renewable technologies that are ready and available here and now.

ATSE supports a technology-neutral approach to the energy transition which requires that all options are considered on their merits.

The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) has developed a new Position Statement on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This Position Statement aims to provide nurses with an understanding of the core principles to safely navigate using AI, recognising the pivotal and important role of AI, and acknowledging the role AI will play in the contemporary healthcare setting in the future.

ACN advocates for the patient-centred, ethical, and safe use of AI to support and enhance nursing practice, education, and administration. The safe and ethical application of AI in nursing relies on several principles and needs to be supported by strong governance.

These principles include:

• Nurses must always remain the decision maker and continue to use their nursing knowledge and critical thinking in the care they provide to their patients and the broader community.
• Nurses must be cognisant when generative AI is used in nursing. Be cognisant of generative AI in digital tools they use to provide care, including applications with decision support, predictive tools, and automation.
• Nurses must consider the ethical implications of data and algorithmic bias, which may embed gender, race, and other inequalities and inequities due to the inherent limitations of generative AI across various populations.
• Nurses must engage in education on different types of AI and how this can impact the provision of care and understanding of generative AI’s safe and ethical applications.

ACN Interim CEO, Emeritus Professor Leanne Boyd FACN, said nurses are uniquely placed to lead in developing, testing, implementing, and evaluating AI in healthcare.

“While AI has many potential benefits in healthcare, appropriate regulations and safeguards must be embedded to not compromise patient safety, nursing care delivery, or the profession more broadly,” Professor Boyd said.

“AI has the potential to significantly reduce the often-repetitive tasks that nurses perform, as well as assist in solving both our current and future workforce challenges.

“ACN recognises the benefits AI represents and the potential to improve health outcomes for individual patients, their communities, and Australia as a whole.”

ACN recommendations for managing AI in healthcare include:

• The nursing profession asserts its commitment to staying abreast of healthcare advancements, particularly in AI. We advocate for AI education at all levels of nursing, from undergraduate to advanced CPD levels, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of AI products, algorithmic decision-making, and the legal liabilities associated with automated decisions (Reddy et al., 2020).
• The National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework (Australian Digital Health Agency, 2020) and A National Policy Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAiH, 2023) should be integrated into nursing curricula to facilitate this education effectively. The Australian College of Nursing offers a Graduate Certificate in Digital Health (ACN, 2024).
• Nursing informaticians must be integral to all aspects of AI application, adhering to Australian standards and management protocols. Healthcare organisations must ensure nurses’ active involvement in governance models, emphasising principles of fairness, transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness.
• Nurses must play a central role in designing, implementing, and evaluating AI applications, ensuring that ethical and practical considerations align with nursing requirements. AI should only be integrated into nursing practice when ratified evidence demonstrates improved patient outcomes. It is imperative to emphasise that AI is a tool to enhance nursing care and treatment, not a replacement for critical thinking.
• We advocate for the recommendations outlined in A National Policy Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAiH, 2023). We advocate for AI to be developed within a robust safety framework to implement accreditation to assess AI safety and quality practice standards and integrate the national AI ethical framework to support value-based healthcare.
• Nursing should actively participate in developing data governance models based on principles of integrity, transparency, auditability, accountability, stewardship, checks and balances, standardisation, and change management (The Data Governance Institute, 2023).

The ACN Position Statement: Artificial Intelligence is at https://www.acn.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/position-statement-artificial-intelligence.pdf

By Roger Chao

Dear Children of Tomorrow, in sorrowed verse we write,
To pen our deep apology beneath the failing light.
We’ve ravaged Eden’s gardens and scarred her innocent face,
And left a fractured legacy of greed’s unyielding pace.

Forgive us for the forests, where once the giants stood,
Their branches high and mighty, their roots of ancient wood.
We felled their lofty canopies, and silenced whispered dreams,
Their fallen forms now stories, adrift in muddy streams.

Once pure and sparkling rivers, now heavy, choked, and foul,
No longer sing with clarity, but moan a mournful howl.
Their crystal veins, once life itself, are tainted now with blight,
The shimmering scales of fish are gone, lost in endless night.

The oceans, vast and sapphire, with treasures held within,
Are tombs of plastic relics, borne of our careless sin.
Coral citadels, once resplendent, lie pale and cold as bone,
Their colours drained to silence, their teeming life now flown.

The air, once sweet with fragrance, from blossoms fresh and bright,
Now hangs a heavy curtain, a testament to plight.
The wind that sang through valleys green, now carries cries of pain,
A dirge of darkened futures, beneath a sky of stain.

In cities sprawling, concrete-clad, where nature’s breath is thin,
We built our towers to the skies, and drowned the wild within.
The whispering leaves of yesteryear, now whispers of the past,
Replaced by metal murmurs, in shadows deep and vast.

Creatures grand and humble, who walked this world beside,
Have vanished from the wilderness, swept away by tide.
The thylacine’s bark, the marl’s squeek, the tasman starling’s song,
Are echoes in the empty night, of what we’ve rendered wrong.

Mountains mined to hollowness, valleys deep and scarred,
Our insatiable appetite, left nature bereft and marred.
Glaciers pure, as ancient as the dawn of time itself,
Now weep into the oceans, their sorrow on the shelf.

For all these acts, we beg of you, forgive our blinded ways,
And listen to our earnest plea, in these twilight days.
Though the world we’ve handed over bears the marks of our neglect,
In your hands lies a future, that you can yet protect.

See the earth with reverence, its beauty in each form,
In every leaf and petal, where wonder is the norm.
Nurture the silent forests, let rivers run again,
And build a realm of radiance, where love and nature reign.

Embrace the ancient wisdom, that the earth does softly impart,
In the rustling of the branches, in the pulsing of its heart.
Guard the fragile sanctuaries, where wild things find their peace,
And in their freedom, find the song where human hearts release.

Let the oceans breathe again, with depths both bright and vast,
Heal the coral gardens, restore what we’ve surpassed.
Clear the skies of smog and smoke, let sunlight grace the land,
And cherish every creature, with a gentle, guiding hand.

In the sprawling fields of flowers, let bees and butterflies,
Paint the air with vibrant hues, beneath the open skies.
Plant trees that reach the heavens, their roots deep in the soil,
And find the joy in simple things, in honest, earnest toil.

Turn away from fleeting gold, and listen to the call,
For nature’s wealth is boundless, beyond the worth of all.
In every bird’s sweet melody, in every dew-kissed morn,
Lies a promise of a world anew, where harmony is sworn.

Learn from all our errors, let them be your guide,
Tread lightly on this precious earth, with each and every stride.
Hold every creature dearly, from the mighty to the small,
And in their quiet presence, find the greatest gift of all.

Rise with dawn’s first light, and greet the day with care,
For in your hands lies power, to make the world more fair.
With every seed you plant, with every tree you tend,
You leave a legacy of hope, where broken dreams can mend.

In fields where wildflowers bloom, let hope take root and grow,
In songs of rustling grasses, let your hearts forever know,
That though we’ve left you scars and pain, there’s still a way to mend,
To bring about a brighter dawn, where sorrow can now end.

So rise, dear future guardians, and heed this humble plea,
To forge a path of healing, to let the wild be free.
For though we’ve faltered, in our wake, there’s still a chance for grace,
In your hands, lies the power, to heal this sacred place.

With every step you take, may you walk with gentle feet,
And every path you choose, may it make the world complete.
For in your care and keeping, lies the promise of the earth,
A legacy of love and hope, a tale of endless worth.

So rise, dear children of the dawn, and let your spirits soar,
For in your hands lies the power, to heal and to restore.
Take this world we’ve given, with all its scars and pain,
And weave a brighter future, where love and hope remain.

By Tess Lawrence

America is one President down.

Joe Biden has withdrawn from the presidential race.

His demise was brought about not by a sniper’s bullet, but by assassins of another kind in both insidious and ignominious ways.

Cognitive impairment is one thing but this octogenarian’s past months in office reflect more shame on others, for their incompetence and merciless mismanagement of their candidate’s presidential campaign and obvious impairment, enacted on the world stage and promulgated in the media and of course, by his nemesis seeking a second trashing of the Oval Office, former President, Donald J. Trump.

Biden skewered on his rusty sword

The intransigent Joe Biden was skewered upon his rusty sword; publicly humiliated into drinking from a chalice long poisoned by frenemies within his own Democratic Party, clearly a party in disarray to such an extent that it has debased the status and standing of the Office itself, compromising the security of the nation.

Hitherto, Senator Biden’s political legacy was that of a devoted servant to his country, leading up to the Obama vice-presidency and later, trouncing the incumbent Trump and depriving him of a second term, sending him into an incandescent tantrum and incendiary rage with a personal and palpable hatred of Biden that festers to this day.

Cowardly, unworthy backroom entreaties by some Dems for Biden to stand down

Despite often cowardly and unworthy backroom entreaties to stand down, Biden would not go quietly into what he saw was a dark and bleak night for him. He was adamant he wanted to finish the job he’d started and in fairness, the job he started was pretty good, especially considering the chaos bequeathed to him by Trump’s disastrous vainglorious and farcical nepotistic regime.

Biden’s increasing incapacity and frailty raised questions about who was left running the country let alone the Administration. There was a categoric lack of leadership by the elected occupant in The White House. His diminishing grasp on reality was becoming dangerous.

“Lights on but no-one’s home”

To quote a helpful Australian saying, “the lights are on but no-one’s home.”

Biden has squandered much of his legacy by not withdrawing from the race earlier and by his own free will.

If he had stood down as President, Veep Kamala Harris would have been inducted and gone head-to-head with Trump as President on Tuesday, November 5^th. America would at least have experienced a few months of a Harris presidency and getting to know her.

Trump has never lost the opportunity to kick Biden when he was down. Even now. It’s called politics 101. He’s ridiculed Biden time and again. Let us not forget Trump’s mocking of those with a disability.

Now that Biden has acquiesced and announced he’s quitting the race, there is some sadness, according to one insider, that it has come to this.

King Lear makes way for King Leer

After much conjecture, Joe Biden is withdrawing from the race. Here is the link to his tweet with the announcement.

At the time of writing, the announcement had not been placed on The White House website. This could mean that only Biden’s inner circle knew of his intent and suggests fears that a website posting could facilitate media leaks.

For those who are not on X (Twitter) here’s the text of Biden’s statement that he’s withdrawing from the presidential race.

My Fellow Americans,

Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.

Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years.

Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once-in-a-century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved our Democracy. And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while I have intended to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.

It should be noted that in his initial statement, whilst Biden thanks Harris, he does not endorse her. Minutes later, he endorses her in a second social media post.

Let us do a bit of meandering ourselves.

Remember this, fellow earthlings?:

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

No, it ain’t okay.

This messianic lawless boast spewed out of the big mouth of then Republican caucus frontrunner Donald Trump in 2016 whilst on the hustings in Iowa and with no sense of irony delivered to a campaign stop audience at Dordt Christian College in Sioux Center.

Consider the sickening words as well as the speaker. Trump’s bloated ego has no boundaries, we know that. But on another level this is a statement that shows utter contempt for his inferred slavish and apparently mindless voters who would vote for him regardless if he murdered somebody/committed a capital offence.

The violent imagery provoked by Trump is indicative of his lexicon and lingual subtext that power equals force equals true leadership, its quest enshrined in the survival of the politically fittest.

The quote also reflects Trump’s neediness to be loved by the masses, ergo his voters, and for him to test their love and loyalty by fighting for him no matter what.

Trump’s Fifth Ave ‘shooting’ quote linked to January 6^th insurgency

We can draw a straight line from Trump’s ‘shooting somebody’ quote to his incitement to insurgency to thwart the validation of the legitimately elected Biden presidency on January 6^th.

It is worth re-reading the transcript of Trump’s clever and manipulative exhorting of his followers, grooming them to do his bidding, assuring them that he would walk with them to the Capitol that day.

After blooding ‘patriots’ Trump promised to walk with them. He did nothing of the sort

He did nothing of the sort of course. After verbally blooding his followers, his ‘patriots’, he sent them on their way.

In his unwitting parody of Shakespeare’s Henry V’s Agincourt rally, Donald Trump retreated to a safe place in The White House, to watch the attempted coup he instigated on the telly.

Don Jr, “he’s got to condemn this shit.” Don Sr did nothing. Watched it all on telly

For hours he did nothing, riveted to the screen despite pleas from his family and advisers to tell his troops to stand down and retreat in peace.

“He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP,” Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., appealed in a text message to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. “They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse.”

It was not until 187 minutes later, that Trump, under pressure, released this disingenuous video, all the while, publicly putting the boot into his Veep Mike Pence and endangering his life at the hands of the baying, swilling and swelling mob now invading the citadel of America’s democracy.

Trump endangers Pence’s life

Inciting the mob to abandon any rules, Trump was prepared to put Pence in harm’s way, endangering his life along with others, making him a vulnerable target for the mob if he continued to do his duty and uphold the Law.

“When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people he’s listening to.”

The New York Times summed Trump’s goading this way:

Whipping up anger against Republicans who were not going along with his plan for subverting the election, like Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump told the crowd that “different rules” now applied. At the most obvious level, the president was arguing that what he wanted Mr. Pence to do – reject the state-certified Electoral College results – would be legitimate, but the notion of “very different rules” applying carried broader overtones of extraordinary permission as well. (“RINO” is a term of abuse used by highly partisan Republicans against more moderate colleagues they deem to be “Republicans in Name Only.”)

In the same article written in January 2021, Charlie Savage nails it about Trump and spotlights his various usage of the word ‘fight’ in a portent of the wounded Trump raising his bloodied head above the podium mere seconds after the failed assassin’s bullet sliced through his right ear last week, defiant fisting the air and exhorting his adoring and relieved supporters to “fight, fight, fight.”

From Savage’s prescient pen:

Mr. Trump had urged supporters to come to Washington for a “Save America March” on Wednesday, when Congress would ceremonially count President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win, telling them to “be there, will be wild!” At a rally just before the violence, he repeated many of his falsehoods about how the election was stolen, then dispatched the marchers to the Capitol as those proceedings were about to start.

Here are some notable excerpts from Mr. Trump’s remarks, with analysis.

Trump urged his supporters to ‘fight much harder’ against ‘bad people’ and ‘show strength’ at the Capitol.

“Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder. …

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

The president’s speech was riddled with violent imagery and calls to fight harder than before. By contrast, he made only a passing suggestion that the protest should be nonviolent, saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

During Mr. Trump’s impeachment last year, one of his defenses was that the primary accusation against him – that he abused his power by withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get its president to announce a corruption investigation into Mr. Biden – was not an ordinary crime, so it did not matter even if it were true. Most legal specialists said that made no difference for impeachment purposes, but in any case that argument would not be a defense here. Several laws clearly make it a crime to incite a riot or otherwise try to get another person to engage in a violent crime against property or people.

Trump’s newly minted Veep running mate, JD Vance nailed it too, when in 2016 “… he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook: ‘I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole … or that he’s America’s Hitler’.”

JD Vance should remember what Trump did to Mike Pence

JD has changed his mind about Trump, now that he’s been chosen as his sidekick. Surprise, surprise. Vance is an impressive orator and operator, hungry for presidential office. He will utilise his appointment to build on his political ambitions. He runs rings around Trump. Vance should remember what Trump did to Pence.

When it comes to Biden and Trump, we all know the two presidents couldn’t be more different in style and temperament.

Reflect on The Grate Debate between Trump and Biden – and Trump’s constant reference to how much he is loved. On and on he went.

Trump a big dick supremacist politician. Also described as a “man baby”

Trump, a big dick supremacist politician, described by others as a “man baby” constantly uses violent rhetoric to establish his warped and vapid version of alpha maleness seems to border on an arrested sexuality and needy proclivity to portray himself as an adored pack leader of a Trump World, desperate to gain the respect and acceptance of fellow males in particular.

After Trump’s awful near-death experience with god almighty singling him out for even greater greatness, Trump and his devotees took it as a sign. Trump had escaped death by his would be assassin; a sure sign of the deity’s endorsement.

A vote for Trump is vote for God

A vote for Trump is a vote for God. Trump wore his ear bandage as a badge of honour. Bury his ego at Wounded Ear. Pass the sick bag.

After the killing, the woundings at the rally, we were expecting in his next sermon on the mount, a new chastened, born-again Trump, committed to eliminating the violence and weaponising of politics, who would repair the deep divisions within America and heal the world while he’s at it.

Behold the return of the MAGA, unto us a saviour is born

It would be The Return of the MAGA. Behold, unto us a saviour is born.

Whilst that speech started off with promise, Trump soon descended into his usual bilge and self aggrandising, shovelling steroids on the weaponising of politics. Nothing had changed. There had been no redemption, no soul searching in the golf course of Gethsemane or even Mar- e– Lago it seems.

In all of this scenario the tragedy of Biden’s demise is writ large. The challenge to his leadership ought not to have been about his age – but about his cognitive capacity.

James Moore: Biden in The White House, form of elder abuse

Seeking an opinion from the incisive journalist and political analyst, Texas based James Moore, a regular contributor to the AIM Network, his take was this:

“There’s a logical and medical argument to be made that encouraging President Biden to continue his campaign is a form of elder abuse. Voters can no longer be confident, after the debate and his other appearances, that he even is self-aware enough to know what he is doing…”

The White House not an Aged Care Home

Moore is right about the elder abuse charge. The thing is even though Biden has stood down from the presidential race, his cognitive powers could continue to deteriorate whilst he’s still president. Biden may yet have to stand down from the presidency.

So the Biden ‘problem’ is not solved.

I spoke to a Dementia expert who said “a lot can happen in three months. I’m speaking generally of course and every patient has to be treated individually. In some cases, depending on the type of Dementia, there can be a dramatic decrease in cognitive capacity in only a short space of time…”

The White House is not an aged care home.

The International Court of Justice has again deliberated over the thorn-bloodied subject of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Its latest advisory opinion, sought by the UN General Assembly early last year, was unremarkably conventional though nonetheless affirming: a finding that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with “the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”

Given the avalanche of international opinions, deliberation and understanding on the status of the settlements that arose after 1967, the ICJ was merely revising homework and reiterating home truths of international law. As Eitay Mack, an Israeli attorney working for Palestinian rights in the West Bank told The Intercept, “The court just said the obvious.”

Various acts and practices are accordingly examined, amounting to what the Court considered annexation of territory Israel had no sovereignty over. Israel, for instance, treated the Palestinians in East Jerusalem as “foreigners” requiring a valid residence permit and had imposed a strict building permit scheme, violation of which could result in structural demolition and steep fines. In the West Bank, the Basic Law of 2018 had explicitly stated that Israel “views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” Various areas prohibited Palestinian construction, while the expansion of Israeli settlements had burgeoned.

Israeli control of the occupied territory had been accordingly maintained by such things as the extension of its domestic law to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the maintenance and expansion of the settlements, the construction of relevant infrastructure connected with that aim, the ongoing exploitation of natural resources, and proclaiming Jerusalem capital of Israel. Such practices were “designed to remain in place indefinitely and to create irreversible effects on the ground.”

The Court also found that Israeli authorities had failed to “prevent or to punish” the violence of settlers directed against Palestinians, thereby contributing “to the creation and maintenance of a coercive environment.”

The opinion further notes that Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank and East Jerusalem impose a separation between the Palestinian populace and Israeli settlers “transferred” into the territories. Such a separation was physical and juridical, thereby breaching Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CERD). As State parties to the CERD expressly condemn both racial segregation and apartheid, undertaking to prevent, prohibit and eradicate such practices in territories under their control, the finding is particularly damning.

Gaza’s imperilled status also drew the Court’s attention. While Israel officially withdrew its forces from the strip in 2005 pursuant to its “Disengagement Plan” announced the previous year, Israel maintained effective control over the territory. “Where a State has placed territory under its effective control, it might be in a position to maintain that control and to continue exercising its authority despite the absence of a physical military presence on the ground.” In this case, Israel continued to exercise authority over land, sea and air borders, restricted movement of people and goods, controlled the collection of import and export taxes, and exerted military control over the buffer zone.

It also followed that international bodies such as the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and the international community were under an obligation not to recognise the status of such an occupation, nor supply aid or support in maintaining them. Israel was also “under an obligation to end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.” All further settlement activities were to cease, and all current settlers in the OPT areas evacuated.

As a result of its policies regarding the occupied territories, Israel had also incurred obligations “to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

For countries professing to follow the “rules-based order”, the opinion should have made perfect sense. But in power politics, rules bend. Take, for instance, these words from the US State Department to Reuters: “We are concerned that the breadth of the court’s opinion will complicate efforts to resolve the conflict and bring about an urgently needed just and lasting peace with two states living side by side in peace and security.”

As for observing international law, the Israeli government continued to prove not only selective but historically parochial. “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land – not in our eternal capital Jerusalem, nor in our ancestral heritage of Judea and Samaria,” claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement. This was, the PM went on to say, a “historical truth” that could not be contested.

Some Israeli politicians did acknowledge certain merit in the Court’s decision. Labor MK Gilad Kariv warned that the policy of “de facto annexation” being pursued in the West Bank, the broader “theft of land” and the refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians threatened “Israel’s status as an accepted democratic country.”

What the decision amounts to is an excoriation of the occupation, those consequential to it (the settlements), and the bolstering system of segregation that has drawn accusations of apartheid from activists to tribunals. As an advisory opinion, it is non-binding though freighted with persuasive reasoning. In doing so, the decision further pushes arguments for Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood. For Israel, the judgment will be a hard one to ignore.

By James Moore

Humiliation has long been a strong deterrent to failure in America. Our culture’s tendency is to blame the person, not the country or its capitalism. If you are in the ditch, you got there because you did not work sufficiently hard or smart, and you should not expect too much help climbing back up on the road to prosperity. The government was not designed to provide you a safety net. Capitalism and America did not fail; you did, and you alone are responsible for redemption. Especially in the post World War II economy, Americans were convinced X amount of effort always produced a Y total of abundant results.

And they were wrong.

In the Midwestern factory town where I was born and raised, no shortage of muscled backs and arms ever occurred when labor was required to build cars and trucks. Millions of hard-working souls came up from the South, Blacks and Whites, looking for a brighter tomorrow than what was possible while chopping cotton and praying that rain would follow the plow. Mostly, though, they exchanged one form of sweat for a different endeavor that did not immediately prove as profitable as envisioned. They worked, however, long and hard hours because there seemed an endless demand for the Fords and Chevys and Dodges that rolled off the 24-hour assembly lines.

Most of the hourly wage employees at the factories were labelled as “hillbillies,” which was a pejorative assigned to under-educated migrants from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a historic pre-Civil War demarcation that separated free and slave states. Technically, hillbillies were supposed to be from impoverished Appalachia and the Ozarks of Missouri but in the industrial Midwest the term came to encompass former residents of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and, ultimately, all the Southern states, or Dixie, east of the Mississippi River. It was the hillbillies, in fact, whose bent backs and long arms set the American economy on fire and filled the pockets of investors and tax collectors and all the manufacturers of parts and materials for cars and trucks. Rain never did follow the plow but the economic boom did chase the hillbillies.

No people worked harder than my mother and father. Ma waiting tables at a burger joint up on the Dixie Highway for .65 cents an hour and nickel and dime tips while Daddy earned a little over $1.50 hourly. If there had been more hours to a day, they would have taken the additional work. There was never enough money to feed and clothe their children and the mortgage payment, less than $100 monthly, created a household crisis every thirty days. The strains caused emotional and psychological breakdowns in my father and our mother struggled mightily to hold together her family. She was an immigrant, and had nowhere to turn.

Ma finally found some assistance from county government, which was disbursing United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food to needy families. There was embarrassment for her, though, in having to seek help because it became a kind of public proclamation to your neighbors that you had failed. Even though her education had not gone beyond eighth grade on her home island, she was clever enough to figure out a way to avoid the judgment of others when it came to earning a living and caring for her children.

The popular local grocery store used to bag groceries in our town with thick paper sacks that bore the store’s name and bright red logo on the side. Families kept these bags for various uses like storage and containing garbage to be taken curbside. They were referred to, and might still be, as “Hamady sacks,” branded with the surname of the store owners. Eventually, those brown bags became painful memories for me because they symbolized my mother’s shame. I think I was nine years old when she asked me to travel with her to the county welfare office and bring a Hamady sack.

“Get me a Hamady sack from behind the ‘fridge, son, and put on your coat,” she said, one gray Michigan winter day.

“What do you need it for, Ma?”

“Never mind. Fold it up so I can put it in my purse and go put on your jacket.”

“Where are we going, Ma?”

“To get groceries.”

“We have to bring our own bags?”

“Never mind, I said, son.”

One Sack to Serve Us All

When we arrived at the county assistance offices, my Ma put on a pair of sunglasses, which I did not know she owned, and we walked inside a brown brick structure not far from the Buick plant where my father worked. There was a line and we waited a half hour as I watched my Ma peeking over the tops of her sunglasses like she was looking for someone she might know. Eventually, we got to the counter and she filled out some papers and was handed tickets before being directed to another window.

A man behind the counter took the tickets and returned with long blocks of cheese, boxes of cereal, powdered eggs and milk, and cans of soup. They were all packaged in brownish-green cardboard and had large lettering that said USDA on the sides. Ma took the Hamady sack out of her purse, unfolded the heavy, brown paper, and placed the food inside and led me out the door. I did not grasp until I was much older that the sack was more about deception than convenience. The government packaging was very noticeable, and Ma did not want anyone she knew to see her carrying the food. When I was a boy, I cannot recall that there was anything to be said about a family that was more demeaning than, “They’re on Welfare,” and that described our circumstances.

I cannot stop thinking about how hard labor wore down my parents to where they had no energy, will, nor money to enjoy the latter years of their time. My father had nervous breakdowns, multiple electroshock therapies, and incidents of violence where he lost himself and hurt his wife and children. Ma was afraid and lived too much of her time without hope or money, but she never abandoned her children. When I read disaffected souls like Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance write of his childhood and suggest that too many Americans “lack agency” for their own lives, and have a “feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself,” I feel a need to scream issuing from my throat. Instead of blaming bad industrial planning and management for factory failures and loss of jobs, Vance puts the collapse on the shoulders of the wage earners.

Is this the Future of America?

In his book, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance contradicts his own theories. When his parents’ marriage failed and his mother fell into drug addiction, his grandparents stepped in to raise him and protect him from the streets. No one passed him off to Child Protective Services, his family gave him safe harbor in his youth. Vance indulges in more than a bit of self-aggrandizement with his personal narrative of success while ignoring the fact that not everyone has the resources or the courage to leave their hometown. What “agency” does a family of four have over their lives when the steel factories shut down and both parents are suddenly without income and the mortgage banker is eyeing a foreclosure? People living paycheck to paycheck, as probably is the case with the majority of Americans, cannot simply jump in their clunky old car and take off for a western horizon convinced there is a new job and better life over the hill. They cannot even pay for gasoline.

Vance seems convinced, too, that there is such a creature as the “Welfare Queen,” an unmarried women who does not work, gets government checks, and rides around inner city Detroit or Cincinnati in designer clothes with a dozen children living off taxpayers. The notion is apocryphal and even if there were millions of such women, their waste would never begin to approach what the U.S. military has allowed to disappear into the Mideast and defense contractor boondoggles like the Osprey or the Joint Strike Fighter jet, which both crash frequently and never appear to serve the nation’s defense without multi-billion dollar failures. These catastrophes are ignored by political pseudo-intellectuals with Vance’s credentials because they have a rigid belief that the government has no real role beyond defense and low taxation to sustain businesses. You are always on your own in America and no government program needs to catch you when you fall or offer you a hand up.

Vance’s immaturity is unveiled with his conspiratorial thinking on matters of geopolitics and policy. His tortured visions show him a President Biden scheming with his Democratic consorts to open the U.S. Mexico border as part of a vast national plan to kill MAGA voters with drugs. “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl?” he said during an Ohio speech. “It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him and opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it.”

The absurdity of this claim is counterintuitive to Vance’s argument that people ought to take agency over their lives and their fortunes, regardless of their economic circumstances. He is suggesting that MAGA voters, whom he trusts, will, instead, simply use fentanyl because it ends up in their communities, thereby reducing the number of people able to support Trump. In J.D.’s world, are not MAGAts the strongest, most independent, and able thinkers who do not need the government and would exercise intelligent judgment to “just say no” to Biden’s drug cartels?

Further, though, his facile argument ignores the fact that conservative American politics from his party have caused the rush on the American border. Our geopolitics in Central America, coups we have facilitated, and fruit and oil companies we have given provenance in place of indigenous governments, have caused a social and economic collapse in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America that will not soon stop sending people to our doorstep. As for the fentanyl, it does not cross the frontier in immigrant backpacks; it is smuggled across in motor vehicles at legal ports of entry. J.D. could ask U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, if he wanted real data like information that fentanyl seizures have dramatically increased during the Biden presidency.

Vance’s Ivy League law degree must also be curling at the edges from his beliefs on legal issues. He described Trump’s hush money trial for business and political corruption in New York City as “a threat to democracy,” which is, to understate the matter, profoundly ignorant in a manner that does not suggest deception or disingenuousness. Evidence was collected through legal investigation, testimony was acquired through deposition, and charges were filed based on the preponderance of what that material indicated. A trial was held on the 34 felony charges, and Trump was convicted. This was American jurisprudence working the way it was designed, a critical element of our democratic foundations. The only threats were the less than veiled violent ones made against the judge and prosecuting attorney.

Vance also does not care about the Constitution, which he would be sworn to uphold should Trump and he win. (I will, should that happen, seek to become an Australian emigre’.) Our outdated Electoral College, proscribed in the Constitution, calls for “electors” in each state to represent before congress the candidate who won the most presidential votes in that state. They then gather in Washington to cast their votes and the Vice President is required to certify the results. Vance said he would not have certified the 2020 results were he the VP, and would have encouraged states to send additional slates of electors, you know, maybe people who loved Trump even though he did not win and they would not be qualified to vote as electors. Vance would happily defy the constitutional laws he was sworn to uphold.

“If I had been vice president,” he said, “I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.” That’s not how it works, J.D. Freshen up on your constitutional law. Maybe take a remedial course or two.

It is impossible to understand, Senator Vance, how you became who you are and what you took away from the childhood you described so eloquently in your book. My suspicion is your transformation to Trump acolyte after ridiculing him for a few years might make you the most craven pol of your generation. You are looking at that chronically obese low intellect, tottering around with arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease and sniffing adderall, who believes exercise is stupid because it uses up your limited number of heartbeats, and you are thinking, “I may very well end up the youngest president in American history when this guy tops off.” Let’s hope not.

But either way, there are millions of hard-working Americans like my parents, if they were still around, who would like to have a word.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

Bring out the bon bons, the bubbles, and the praise filled memoranda for that old alliance. At the three-quarter century mark of its existence, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is showing itself to be a greater nuisance than ever, gossiping, meddling, and dreaming of greater acts of mischief under the umbrella of manufactured insecurity. It is also being coquettish to certain countries (Ukraine, figures prominently in the wooing stakes) making promises it can never make good.

Its defenders, as is to be expected, see something very different before the mirror. They call the alliance a call for freedom, its enduring importance a reassuring presence. The more appropriate response would be convenience, the assurance of an alliance with collective obligations that would, given the circumstances, compel all parties to wage war against the aggressor. In terms of alliances, this is one programmed for conflict.

NATO is a crusted visage of a problem long dead. In the Cold War theatre, it featured in the third act of every play involving the United States and the USSR, a performance that always took place under the threat of a nuclear cloud. Any confrontation in Europe’s centre could have resulted in the pulverization of an entire continent. For its part, Moscow had the Warsaw Pact countries.

At the end of the Cold War, NATO had effectively ceased to be relevant as a deterrent force on the European continent. A new cut of clothing was sought for the members. Rather than passing into retirement, it became, in essence, a broader auxiliary force of US power. In the absence of a countering Soviet Union, the organisation adopted a gonzo approach to international security.

In 1999, the alliance became a killing machine for evangelical humanitarianism, ostensibly seeking to protect one ethnic group against the predations of another in Kosovo. In 2011, it involved itself in military operations against a country posing no threat to any members of the alliance. NATO, along with a steady air attacks and missile barrages, enforced the no-fly zone over Libya as the country was ushered to imminent, post-Qaddafi collapse. When the International Security Force (ISAF) completed its ill-fated mission in Afghanistan in 2015, NATO was again on the scene.

NATO’s Strategic Concept document released at the end of June 2022 took much sustenance from the Ukraine conflict while warning about China’s ambitions, a fairly crude admission that it wished to move beyond its territorial limits. “The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values.” Why such an alliance should worry about such eastward ambitions illustrates the wayward dysfunction of the association.

On April 27, 2022 the then UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and ultimately doomed prime minister pushed the view that NATO needed to be globalised. Her Mansion House speech at the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet was one of those cat-out-of-the-bag disclosures that abandons pretence revealing, in its place, a disturbing reality.

After making it clear that NATO’s “open door policy” was “sacrosanct”, Truss also saw security in global terms, another way of promoting a broader commitment to international mischief. She rejected “the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security. In the modern world we need both.” A “global NATO” was needed. “By that I don’t mean extending the membership to those from other regions. I mean that NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats.”

Praise for the alliance tends to resemble an actuarial assessment about risk and security. Consider this from former US ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute. NATO, in his mind, is “the single most important geostrategic advantage over any potential adversary or competitor.” With pride, he notes that “Russia and China have nothing comparable. The 32 allies in NATO train together, operate together, live together under a standing unified command structure, making them far more capable militarily than any ad-hoc arrangement.”

There is nothing to suggest in these remarks that NATO was one of the single most provocative security arrangements that helped precipitate a war that torments and convulses eastern Europe. Many a Washington mandarin has been of such a view: moving closer to Russia’s borders was not merely an act of diplomatic condescension but open military provocation.

One should, with tireless consistency, refer to the State Department’s doyen of Soviet studies, George F. Kennan, on this very point. In 1997, he issued the appropriate warning about the decision to expand NATO towards the Russian border: “Such a decision may be expected to inflame nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

This speared provocation is repeated in the 2024 NATO Declaration made in Washington this month. It is effaced of history and context, Ukraine being a tabula rasa in the international system with no role other than that of glorified victimhood, a charity case abused in the international system. “We stand in unity and solidarity in the face of a brutal war of aggression on the European continent and a critical time for our security,” states the declaration.

Kyiv is promised aid under the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine program, though such provision is, in the manner of an all-promising eunuch, crowned by a caveat: “NSATU will not, under international law, make NATO a party to the conflict.” The prospects for future conflict are guaranteed by the promise, however empty, that, “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.”

The declaration goes on to speak on the “interoperable” and “integrated” nature of Kyiv’s operations with the alliance. “As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”

NATO’s warring streak was further affirmed at the Washington summit by injudicious remarks about trying to make it “Trump proof” – a testament to the sleepless nights the strategists must be having at the prospect of a presidency that may change the order of things. He is bound to have gotten wind of that fact. Aggravated, the Republican contender may well withdraw the US imperium from the alliance’s clutches. In Washington’s absence, the NATO family might retreat into fractious insignificance. The ensuing anarchy, rather than stimulating war, may well do the opposite.

ActionAid Media Release

ActionAid welcomes the historic judgment of the court, which has declared that the Israeli Government’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful.

The ICJ concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territory constitutes systematic discrimination, and that its legislation and measures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem breach international conventions which prohibit apartheid.

Every single day, our colleagues, partners and the people we support across the occupied Palestinian territory experience the trauma of living under a brutal occupation that severely curtails their basic rights and freedoms – just because they are Palestinian – and results in effective military control over all aspects of their lives.

Today’s verdict affirms the fundamental right of Palestinians to self-determination and to live free from violence and discrimination, which has been denied them for far too long.

The court has concluded that the Israeli government must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, cease all settlement activity – which it judged to be in breach of international law – and make reparations to the Palestinians affected.

ActionAid Australia Executive Director Michelle Higelin said:

“ActionAid welcomes this historic ruling and its acknowledgement of almost sixty years of horrific injustice,” said Ms Higelin.

“The ICJ’s opinion upholds the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to self-determination, and freedom from colonial oppression and racial segregation.

“The Court’s findings are wide-reaching and outline obligations not only for Israel, but for all countries.

“The world’s governments must uphold this opinion, and we call on the Australian Government to lead by example in accepting its findings.

“The Court has found that countries party to the Geneva Conventions, including Australia, have an obligation to hold Israel to account for its breaches of international law.

“The Court has found countries have an obligation not to recognise Israel’s occupation as legal, nor “render aid or assistance”.

“Australia, and all countries, should end any and all cooperation with Israel that could be used to support its illegal presence in Palestine – especially the supply of arms.

“It is clear: Israel’s illegal occupation must urgently come to an end, and reparations should be paid.

“We call on Israel in this moment to respect international law. It must recognise and respect the rights of people in Palestine as a pathway to sustainable peace,” said Ms Higelin.

By Bert Hetebry

How quickly at times we judge people just because they may not look or act or be like us, (like me?).

Judgementalism: Having a judgmental attitude or behaviour, tending to form opinions too quickly, especially when disapproving of someone or something. (Cambridge English Dictionary).

Judgement: The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions. ((Oxford Dictionary).

Justice: The quality of being just, impartial or fair (Merriam-Webster).

A conversation with a friend this morning. He’s angry. It appears that all those feel-good Maori names, street signs, alternative names for towns and landmarks in New Zealand are being removed. The anger isn’t because that names are being changed back to their English names, but that they were ever given Maori names in the first place. Not much good trying to explain that they were there first, that just doesn’t cut it. Besides, all the Asians are coming in taking it over now. So should the names be changed to show the Asian immigration and the effect that is doing? No, he’s glad he’s here now.

But then we have this thing about being on this country or that country. In our case, Whadjuk country, and Perth is the Burrell, part of Whadjuk country. My friend bristles at that too.

Talking with others, we see so many things people object to or have issues with, that people do not believe what I know to be ‘truth’, whatever cultural hangups I may have. Seeing people of different races suddenly appear in the neighbourhood, Somalis, Muslims with those letterbox dresses, different languages being spoken. It can be so jarring, so uncomfortable.

I sometimes went to work during the football season wearing a beanie or scarf of my favourite football team, and a colleague would express his contempt for the team I supported, bloody losers! There is only one team to support. Right?

It seems we have this innate thing that measures all we see by the standards we would like to uphold or have others uphold even when we have difficulty living up to those standards. Or the football teams we support, even which football code is actually football!

(Just as an aside, the original definition of football was a game played with a ball on foot, as opposed to polo which is played on horseback, by that definition, even cricket can be considered football.)

And in political discourse these differences become points of crisis, somehow amplifying the ‘Not like me’ as being bad, or at least ‘not good’. It seems we have a wall built around us, an impenetrable wall that rejects things we judge to be bad, and by implication, that we epitomise what is ‘good’. If only the rest of the world was just like me. Life would be perfect.

Or would it?

Judgementalism. We see things through our lens, we want things to be just so, just as it is prescribed in whatever orthodoxy ‘I’ subscribe to.

Every now and again, seemingly less frequently that it used to be, I get a YouTube video of some angry person bewailing an anti-something or other rant. A recent one was the Prince of Iran joining Trump and British Nationalists to fight (in caps) ISLAMISTS.

It seems the Prince would like to sit on the Peacock throne like his daddy did.

I pointed out that I thought it was interesting, the Prince fighting the Islamists, that draconian bunch who now control Iran, having replaced his father’s draconian rule which gained autocratic power after the British and Americans removed the democratically elected Iranian government. It seemed nationalising the oil resources policy was not a good thing, so the National Front government had to go. Democracy is not good when the nation’s natural resources are claimed as national resources. But there was no return comment. And that is not unusual. I get the angry YouTube videos and even when I ask what my friend really thinks about it, there is no comment. There is no engagement, no giving of himself, as though that does not need thinking about, in other words, there is no judgement, no considered thought regarding the angry diatribes.

It is easier to hate when the diatribe is accepted as truth.

And that’s the thing in all those matters that we subject to judgementalism. Accept without question that for example, Russia has every right to take back Ukraine since it had been a part of the Russian Empire since Catherine the Great in 1793 and had finally gained independence after the fall of the USSR in 1991. It belongs to Russia, no matter what the Ukrainian people think! (I was tempted to mention Israel/Palestine here but … mmmm).

Or it is easier to hate Islam and Muslims because of the way Islam treats women. Or enforces draconian laws such as hanging people who ‘wage war against god’, whatever that means, or promote Sharia Law, forgetting that we live in a country which does not have a state religion, in fact this is a secular nation where freedom of religion is mandated by law. And the laws of the land take precedence over religious laws.

Or easy to look disparagingly at the turban wearing, bearded Sikh man as though he must be a terrorist or something else that cannot be good. I was stopped recently by such a man, Guru Singh, a man who asked me for advice a few years back, regarding the education of his daughter. He knew I had been a teacher and we talked about which school I would recommend for his high-achieving primary school-aged daughter and how to encourage her into her next phase of education which will lead to later opportunities. He stopped to thank me because his daughter has got into the desired school and was setting the world on fire as she is working hard and achieving great results. It turns out that this man, Guru, is a hardworking, doting husband and father, a man who values the family he has and the freedoms of living in Australia. Look past the turban which contains his long greying hair, look past the beard, listen through the accent and just honour the man who is worthy of respect. And definitely not the ‘terrorist’ as a leading hand had branded him when he first came to my workplace.

Or to go to a concert featuring music from the Middle East or Persia, listen to refugees who have made this country their homes because their lives were in danger in their countries of birth, Iranian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese joining a group of classical musicians to present some of the most amazing sounds imaginable, and afterwards delight us with tea/coffee and finger foods from far off places.

The ‘judgement’ of difference, to look at those people as human beings, to talk with them, to understand the hardships, the dangers they have faced to be here, the sacrifices they have made, the incredible enhancements they make to our culture. To understand how privileged we are that we can enjoy the freedoms these people do not have in the lands they have had to leave.

So we have looked at judgementalism and judgement, now we need to consider justice.

The impartiality, the fairness that proper justice demands is more than a legal proposition, it is more than a punishment ordered by a judge in a court of law, it is also the reward or punishment we administer to ourselves and others through or judgement and judgementalism.

Punishment can be the fostering of division, of promoting discord, of a failure to accept the diversity which is inherent in our humanity. Punishment is the violence we see in racial discord, the ugliness of seeing protesters seeking fairness, seeking the best humanity can offer being called out as haters, called out as Antisemitic, disparaging people who are not like us, failing to acknowledge that the land we walk on is part of the indigenous world we invaded, failing to see those people as somewhat less than human.

The rewards are far, far better.

To be stopped by a person who asked my advice, to talk with him about his family, his wife and children, to revel in the achievements of his daughter brings me great joy.

To listen to strange, hauntingly beautiful music from people who have travelled halfway around the world to find a safe haven here and bring with them such beauty, such warmth, such friendship, to listen to their stories of pain and loss, and appreciation that we have given them a safe place to live, to bring up their families, to bring with them the bits of culture which so define them.

To spend time with Aboriginal friends to relate to the land we live in, see it through eyes which respect the land as the origin of who we are, that we are in fact part of this land, that every fibre of our being has come from the land and will return to it. (And yes, I do mean ‘we’, since everything we eat, or use has its origin in the earth.} That the land is ‘mother earth’, far more than just a resource to be monetised.

As we feel the discomfort which judgementalism brings, we need to think through the emotions and fears to reason, to consider, to empathise with those who are not like us. To consider judgement, to make decisions which are sensible, which consider the humanity we share with all those around us, those who are different (and aren’t we all different, isn’t that part of the wonder of who we are?).

And through judging fairly, impartially we can live a life which is somehow fuller, enhanced by the beauty and wonder those we feared can offer us.

But it all must start with ‘me’. That cannot be imposed by anyone else.

The nation’s dentists have slated as a wasted opportunity the Government’s failure to properly consider funding dental services for Australia’s most vulnerable populations.

The Government today (July 18) released its response to the Inquiry into Senate Select Committee into the Provision of and Access to Dental Services in Australia, held last year, which made 35 recommendations to the Government, including several from the Australian Dental Association (ADA).

Key to our recommendations was to implement a Seniors Dental Benefits Schedule along the lines of the existing scheme for children, which would include providing funded dental care for over 200,000 seniors in residential aged care.

“It would only cost the Government $15bn a decade compared with trying to include dental into Medicare for every Australian, at a cost of at least $77 bn a decade, it’s estimated.

“So it makes perfect sense for the Government to have adopted the more financially palatable roadmap we propose for seniors, and then roll it out to other vulnerable populations including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations and those on low incomes as outlined in the ADA’s Australian Dental Health Plan, (link below),” said ADA President Dr Scott Davis.

“But instead of doing that, the Government has chosen to ignore our solution for tackling the oral health issue of millions of seniors, as well as those other populations.”

Council on the Ageing data shows 40% over 55s delayed dental treatment in the last 12 months due to cost, increasing to 44% for those on lower incomes, including pensioners and those in aged care.

In addition the Government has sidestepped the need to address the issue of diminishing access to general anaesthetic services for children and special needs patients unable to have care in a general dental clinic.

The Senate report recognised the need for the Child Dental Benefits Scheme to be extended for services under general anaesthetic which would have contributed to improving this issue, but clearly they don’t care about this sector of the community either.

Dr Davis added: “Doesn’t the government realize it’s a whole lot cheaper to fix people’s oral health in dental clinics and dental hospitals than have people suffering in pain and presenting at hospital emergency departments?

“Our plan is a defined and clear roadmap out of this disaster, and not taking it up is a wasted opportunity and short-termist by the Albanese administration.

“If the Government chooses to ignore the recommendations of the Parliamentary Senate Inquiry, what’s the point of the Inquiry? Has it all been a whitewash and a show pony?”

The ADHP can be found here: https://www.ada.org.au/about/dental-profession/australian-dental-health-plan

Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA) Media Release

To improve equity and access to higher education, the 20% student loan tax on FEE-HELP loans needs to be abolished, according to the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA), the peak body representing independent higher education, skills training, and international education providers.

The 20% student loan tax (formally known as a ‘loan fee’) is levied by the Australian Government on FEE-HELP loans taken out by students studying with most independent higher education providers.

“This tax is effectively a tax on learning, unfairly burdening students who choose these institutions for their education,” said Troy Williams, ITECA Chief Executive Officer.

The 20% student loan tax is highly discriminatory as it only applies to students studying with independent higher education providers.

“This creates an uneven playing field and penalises students for their choice of institution despite these providers often offering specialised and high-quality education tailored to industry needs,” Mr Williams said.

The Student Loan Tax The 20% student loan tax (formally known as a ‘loan fee’) is levied by the Australian Government on FEE-HELP loans taken out by students studying with most independent higher education providers. Tax is incompatible with the Australian Universities Accord Final Report recommendations, which advocate for high levels of participation and attainment in higher education. The Accord emphasises the need for inclusive and equitable access to education, recognising that our nation’s future prosperity relies on a well-educated and highly skilled workforce.

“The imposition of this student loan tax is inconsistent with the broader objectives of the Australian Universities Accord Final Report recommendations of increasing tertiary education participation through a more inclusive approach. Removing this tax will have positive benefits by making higher education more accessible to all Australians,” Mr Williams said.

Our country needs to increase the number of skilled workers and ensure they have access to lifelong learning opportunities. To achieve this, we must support higher participation among groups historically under-represented in higher education.

“These students require adequate financial support to succeed throughout their learning journeys, not to be whacked with a 20% student loan tax,” Mr Williams said.

ITECA Believes abolishing the 20% student loan tax is essential for fostering an inclusive, equitable, and robust higher education system.

“This week, ITECA wrote to every member of the federal parliament to raise the profile of how the student loan tax acts as a disincentive for thousands of students looking to undertake higher education,” Mr Williams said.

This is one of the many reforms required to put students at the heart of a high performing higher education system that recognises the significant contribution of independent higher education institutions.