The consequences of the closure of the Northern Power Station in South Australia in 2016, and the 1600-megawatt Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria last year were starkly revealed during the heatwave that struck south-eastern Australia on January 27–29. In Victoria, where power blackouts are unprecedented, some 95,000 homes were without power for periods during Sunday…
The 17-volume report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, handed down on December 17 last year, will focus national attention on the need to have a robust framework to detect and reduce the incidence of child sexual abuse. One positive outcome is that there is likely…
For the first time in 70 years, the United States is independent of Saudi Arabian oil, and has redrawn the balance of power in the Middle East. Unwittingly, however, that has helped Iran challenge Saudi Arabia for hegemony in the Middle East, and broken the hostility of the whole Arab world to Israel. Several factors…
As we approach Christmas, our thoughts turn from the mundane activities of daily life to higher things: the celebration of Christmas with family and friends, the upcoming holidays, and, perhaps, the meaning of Christmas itself, when we celebrate the birth of a child in one of the distant corners of the Roman Empire, just over…
