Last week’s Special National Conference of the ALP – hailed in the press as “the Crean revolution”, in which the Labor Party was “forced” to jettison much of its old-guard culture – was largely window-dressing, which will have no long-term impact. It was significant that the Secretary of the NSW Labor Council, John Robertson, pointed…
A year after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, President George Bush has unveiled a new strategic doctrine which foreshadows a first-strike strategy against terrorist organisations and “rogue states” such as Irak and North Korea. It gives the strongest possible indication that the Bush Administration is…
With the establishment of a new inquiry into telecommunications services to rural Australia, the Federal Government is clearly hoping for a favourable report which will facilitate the sell-off of the remaining 50.1 per cent of Telstra which remains in government hands. One problem with such a sell-off is that of increased foreign ownership, attracted by…
Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, a symbol of resistance to the communist regime in Vietnam, died in exile in Rome last month. He joins a long line of Vietnamese Christians who have suffered for their faith over the past 300 years. Up until 1975, when the Communists overran South Vietnam, an estimated 130,000 Vietnamese…