Category: Current Affairs
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A VOTE FOR COMPASSION
In November 1976 I got my first chance to vote in a US presidential election. I was a newly minted 18-year-old and eager to help shape the course of the nation. I voted for Jimmy Carter. And I’ve never regretted how I cast my first vote. Historians rate President Carter as being in the ‘middle-of-the-pack’ in terms of the effectiveness of his single term and perhaps a bit lower in leadership and his ability to control Congress. It was a challenging time with plenty of international and domestic crises to handle.…
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ALONE IN HOTEL QUARANTINE
As Padma, Joseph and I hit the tarmac at the Perth International Airport on Tuesday night we knew our real adventure was only about to begin. The dreaded forced hotel quarantine awaited us. We had read online of so many experiences of Aussies in quarantine; so many folks just couldn’t cope with being locked up for 14 days. We had no idea how we’d manage but we had one overriding rule: keep a positive attitude, no matter what. Our first contact with an Australian was with an attendant who handed us…
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STRANDED!
Padma, Joseph and I have something in common with 19,000 … or 100,000 depending on who is counting … Aussies. We can’t get home. Yet there are plenty of airlines eager to fly us to Australia and no shortage of hotels who will quarantine us and who are desperate to fill empty rooms. In July, the Australian Government capped the number of incoming passengers to 4,000 a week. Out of that pool, Western Australia can receive 575 a week and the airline we booked on, Qatar Airlines, can only take 30…
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THE BATTLE OF VERDUN – A CENTURY LATER
As we turn our attention this weekend to the centenary of the signing of the armistice to end World War I, I look back at a visit that Padma, Xander, Joseph and I took this summer to a battlefield in France which proved to be the ultimate test of human endurance. The Battle of Verdun was fought for 303 days from February to December 1916. It was the largest and longest battle of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. Estimates vary but range…
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AN AUSSIE MEAT PIE TO SAY THANKS
I’ve been waiting 21 years to say ‘thank you’ to former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer. Today I got that chance and bought him an Aussie meat pie to show my gratitude. In 1996, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his deputy Tim Fischer acted swiftly and decisively to launch a gun buyback program. Twelve days before they launched the National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program, Martin Bryant unpacked an arsenal of automatic weapons at the historic site of Port Arthur and massacred 35 people. It wasn’t a popular move…
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AMERICA FIRST. EARTH LAST.
I’m not going to comment on why I feel Mr Trump’s announcement today of withdrawing from the Paris Accord was so reckless. Why bother? I’m preaching to the converted amongst (most of) my Facebook friends. Most of the ‘facts’ he presented today have already been debunked. He kind of just said ‘We’re out because I can make a better deal’. Hmmm … OK. He alone can forge a better deal than the Paris Accord? I can’t wait. Instead I’ll comment on why I woke up today and didn’t feel doomsday was…
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THE LION OF DAMASCUS AND HIS PRIDE
Like any father, Hafez al-Assad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew his son, Bashar, was being portrayed by the Trump Administration via Press Secretary Sean Spicer as worse than Hitler. Hafez (picture above in this 1993 photo I took near Qamishli) never envisioned that his youngest son, Bashar, would succeed him. He was grooming his eldest son, Bassel, for that task. In 1992, Syrians were warming up to that prospect as seen in this shopfront (below) in Qamishli selling framed photos of Bassel. But Bassel was a…
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WHATABOUTISM
For a number of weeks now as I’ve observed the political debate in the United States I’ve been searching for a certain term. A term used to describe a behaviour used by some in an argument to point out the opposing view’s hypocrisy. I found the term I was looking for: whatboutism or the UK’s version or whataboutery. It’s an English and politicised term for the Latin Tu quoque, which means ‘you too’. Whataboutism is a term that probably entered the English language as a result a 2008 article in The…
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AUSSIES IN VIETNAM WAR
“Australia, they fought alongside us in wars including losing over 500 brave Australians in the Vietnam War, which some of us remember.” US Republican Senator John McCain, 2 February 2017. I appreciate that Senator McCain spoke out on behalf of Australia. Some of us might not have known that little fact he delivered in his statement. I was a teenager growing up in rural America during the Vietnam War and remember seeing nightly newscasts of American soldiers dying in Vietnam. I went through the first years of my life always mindful…
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