Almost exactly six years after the British handed over control of Hong Kong to Communist China, a mass rally of 500,000 people through Hong Kong has forced the Beijing-installed Chief Executive, Tung Chee Hwa, to defer implementation of new laws which would severely restrict political freedoms in Hong Kong. Under the terms of the British…
One of the least noticed changes in Australian society over the past 25 years is the explosion of gambling. From around $1 billion in 1975, it is estimated to be worth around $16 billion today. In the decade of the 1980s, Australian gambling expenditure rose $3 billion. In the next decade, it rose $9 billion.…
One of the most worrying trends in Australia today is the slowing of Australia’s population growth, due to the decline in the birthrate, and the inexorable increase in Australia’s death rate, as the country’s baby boomer population ages. The Bureau of Statistics estimates that if existing trends continue, Australia’s population will pass 20 million in…
While the Australian media have been preoccupied with the fall-out from the Crean/Beazley duel and the controversy over Australian Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, more important developments were taking place in the troubled Solomon Islands, which lie just off the south-east coast of Papua New Guinea, in the Coral Sea. The Solomons were administered by Britain…