Old Moore’s Almanac Watching the US election campaign, and the actual voting processes, was a delightful experience: not to be missed. During the campaign, to see the principal American television and newspaper networks effortlessly blowing their cover, revealing bias, a readiness to manage and doctor news and rig polls, and to demonise and misrepresent the…
The newly-installed President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has foreshadowed a new relationship with Australia, which will have long-term benefits for both countries. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is conscious of the need to build close relationships with Indonesia under its new President, after being marginalised by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Unlike Megawati, the…
After much flip-flopping that even a certain presidential candidate cannot match, the Russian cabinet has decided to submit the Kyoto Protocol for ratification. At least, that’s what’s been reported. We shall have to see now what further economic and political concessions the Russian Duma (parliamant) can extract from the European Community in return. It is…
The 2004 Federal election campaign is being fought around taxation and family payments issues, but may well be determined on security issues, following the bombing in Jakarta of the Australian embassy, Pat Byrne reports. Important as are national security issues, of equal importance is Australia’s loss of economic independence as the foreign debt soars towards $400bn, equal to almost half the nation’s annual production, or Gross Domestic Product. Not only is this threatening our economic sovereignty, it is threatening our ability to develop the nation for the benefit of the next generation, many of whom are being relegated to a…
Recently, the Prime Minister called for 20-year vision projects to build the Australian economy. Of vital importance is the development of Australia’s water supplies. Based on the popular assumption that Australia is a “dry” continent, greens, bureaucrats and politicians have pursued the policy line of least resistance on the looming shortage of water. They have…
Gillo Pontecorvo’s film, The Battle of Algiers, is a cameo and a brilliant piece of film-making. There were very important, indeed crucial, forces and persons in the shadows, such that the Algerians, the French Army and the settlers we saw were, unwittingly, actors in a script written and largely directed by others. I want to look at these forces and persons and what has happened to Algeria; how her people have fared since victorious independence. The people I most wish to discuss are the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) who orchestrated the rebellion in Algiers but also throughout the country;…