Human beings are by nature gregarious. That means that they form groups. Then these groups form hierarchies. Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars. U.S. Army General George C. Marshall Social anthropologists found long ago that group formation and hierarchical structures are…
In 1992, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama speculated that history was over and that Western democracy, combined with free market liberalism, had triumphed. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was an unlikely best seller. How far away that now seems. The United States has withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was intended to anchor America to the economies of Asia; minus, of course, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump have deliberately likened his policies to those of President Andrew Jackson (1828–36). Jackson was prepared to go to war to…
RED FAMINE: Stalin’s war on Ukraine, 1921–33 by Anne Applebaum Allen Lane, London Hardcover: 512 pages Price: AUD$55 Reviewed by Bill James The black American singer and actor, Paul Robeson, visited the Soviet Union in 1934. In understandable reaction against both the racism that he had experienced in the United States, and the new Nazi regime in Germany, he typified progressive opinion of the era in eulogising the Stalin dictatorship. “For the first time in my life I walk in full human dignity,” Robeson enthused, adding that: “Anybody who lifts his hand against [the Soviet government] ought to be shot.”…
Mary Magdalene I read Anne Lastman’s letter on “The historical Mary”, (News Weekly, April 7, 2018) with great interest. When we consider the Easter story, we are looking across two thousand years at the most stupendous event in history. It is a unique event. The Second Person of the Holy and Blessed Trinity took human form, died for our sins, and took His life again to give us the hope of eternal life with Him. Hebrews 4:15-16 tells us: “We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has…
One can’t pick up a paper these days without some notable economist or think tank warning of the imminent possibility of a trade war. Why? Because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s somewhat unorthodox efforts to impose higher tariffs (increased taxes) on sensitive U.S. imports, initially steel and aluminium. It is no secret that the main thrust of the U.S. President’s well-publicised policy is twofold: first, to re-establish some kind of balance in trade with China; and, second, it expresses a desire to compel various partners to renegotiate the terms of what Mr Trump considers to be unsatisfactory bilateral trade agreements…
Trade is in the headlines with Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports and on imported steel, a reaction to decades of trade deficits and the loss of American industry and jobs. More on the U.S. tariffs and what they mean for the world trading system will appear in the next issue of News Weekly. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration moves raise the question: how have Australia’s exports fared with the nine countries with which it has signed free trade agreements (FTAs) since 2003? For two decades, Australian governments of both persuasions have promised significant expansion of the Australian economy from FTAs.[1]…
