Mr Mohamed is a Gooreng Gooreng man from Bundaberg, Queensland and brings a strong connection to community. Currently Deputy Secretary of Aboriginal Justice in the Victorian Government, Mr Mohamed has worked for decades in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, social justice and reconciliation, in roles spanning the Aboriginal community,...

The @USArmy just dropped its first commercial with the return of the slogan Be All You Can Be. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/zLptt0IjM9 Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) March 6, 2023

The following is a response to the latest announced age pension rise by Joe Montero who is the President of Fair Go For Pensioners (Victoria). It was first published on the organisations website (7 March 2023). The rise is not really a rise and age pensioners continue to slide backwards, further and further below the poverty line.

So, the pension has been increased by $37.50 for singles per fortnight and $56.40 a fortnight for couples? The media campaign around the announcement has certainly made it sound like a windfall. If we are to believe the hype, age pensioners are doing quite well.

This increase was part of a package that saw increases for those on Jobseeker and ABSTUDY as well, although they got somewhat less, only $24.70 a fortnight. Single parents get $33.90. This discrimination against other groups getting payments from Centrelink prompted the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) to call for them to be brought up to the higher age pension level as a minimum. They should be. No question about this.

But having said this, the claim that there has been a substantial increase in the age pension is false. When properly examined, it is not hard to see that this is no real rise. It doesnt even cover the recent rise in the cost of housing, soaring energy bills, increased prices of food, medicines, and more.

Its even worse than this. There is supposed to be a mechanism that makes six monthly adjustments to keep up with the cost of living. Successive government have undermined this by not allowing full adjustments. This has caused an ongoing downward slide in the real value of the age pension. An investigation by Fair Go For Pensioners has revealed that the shortfall is up to a huge $10,000 per year for each individual. The current government is following the same policy.

The fact that other payments are treated even more abysmally does not justify this. Every Australian deserves and has a right to a standard of living that meets community standards, and there should be no argument about this. It is this that should be at the centre of the conversation. Sadly, it isnt, and this says something about the quality of the political leadership of this country. Australia deserves and needs much better than this.

The announced pretend new increase is yet another partial adjustment. A full adjustment would have seen an increase of around 8 percent instead of a mere 3.6 percent, or around $85 per fortnight for singles, and a rise by a similar proportion for couples.

The failure to allow a full adjustment mea...

Presumably there's a plan.

Ms Rugg has previously worked in advocacy and campaigning, including roles at GetUp, change.org, the campaign for marriage equality and with Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission. Date published to website Document date Document title Filed by 07 March 2023 07 March 2023 Judgment [2022] FCA 179 - 03 March...

Intro by Dee McLachlan

I have been tracking the rumour of Med Beds for about two years. Wait...

Thank you Harold. Watch out for the stairs! pic.twitter.com/Qo7faNqRfS RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 6, 2023 BIDEN: "I was diagnosed with having a anyway they had to take the top of my head off a couple times to see if I had a brain..." pic.twitter.com/1qQSZtTTUw Breaking911 (@Breaking911)...

WARNING: The West Australian government via the Perth Mint has been caught out in fraud spanning years of selling gold cut with silver.

The corrupt government has been conning people over many years, but it was only the Chinese that caught the government out, where the government tried to cover it up.

Will criminal charges be brought to those involved?

Will the criminals be incarcerated?

A response could be: "The police investigated themselves, and concluded they did nothing wrong".

Is your gold that you possess from the Perth Mint 'real' gold?

Can your certificate be exchanged for real gold?

Australia's government is taking a deliberate approach toward creating crypto laws. (Unsplash)

Bitcoin mining is centralizing, but how real is the risk of network censorship? And can a protocol called Stratum V2 save the industry?

This is an opinion editorial by Federico Rivi, author of the Bitcoin Train newsletter.

Bitcoin mining within everyone's reach: household appliances, wearable devices such as smartwatches and smart glasses, all capable of mining with specialized microchips. This is the future that many Bitcoiners hope for.

While such a scenario might not be so far from the reality that awaits us, today we are still in Bitcoins genesis chapter and the reality is not yet as Antonopoulos predicted. In fact, mining is centralizing.

Last month, Foundry USA coordinated 34% of the hash rate alone. If we add Antpool, whose share is 18.2% of total hash rate, we have 52% of Bitcoin's global computational power in the hands of just two mining pools.

Pointing out the problem with this centralization recently was the well-known Bitcoin developer Peter Todd:

Bitcoin is dead. Mining is over. They will regulate Bitcoin. Censorship will come.

I can hear you already, but we should remain calm. To understand what the implications are and what the solutions are we need to take a step back and review the concept of pool mining.

The Evolution Of Pool Mining

Would you rather receive $100,000 once every five years or $20,000 once a year? The answer to this question by most explains the emergence of mining pools.

In the long run, the payout is the same, what changes is the frequency with which the payment is received. In a highly-competitive environment like mining, this is crucial. It can determine the survival or bankruptcy of mining farms that regardless of the change in the price of bitcoin must keep machines running by paying for electricity, as well as any loans taken out to purchase hardware or other expenses.

A mining pool is a server, usually run by a company, that unites mining farms and individual miners located in different areas, pooling their computing resources and combining them as the product of a single team, participating in the competition that is bitcoin mining. The high comp...

The wet season deluge continues in Far North Queensland where landslides have closed major roads, with drivers stuck in floodwaters and a flood watch alert in place for hundreds of kilometres of river systems. Cairns has received more than 200 millimetres of rain since 9am yesterday, while Kuranda, to the west of the city, has received more than 300mm. Several major far-north roads have been closed due to landslides and fallen trees. A 60-year-old driver became stuck in floodwaters in the Cairns suburb of Clifton Beach just before 7am, but was able to escape the car before help arrived, according to the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service. Emergency Management Queensland regional director Wayne Coutts said there had been several jobs this morning, mainly leaking roofs.

By now you've probably all  heard about the firing of those base personnel at Minot Air Force Base in Minot, North Dakota.  The area

The post DONT PANIC, ITS JUST THERMONUCLEAR BOMBS appeared first on The Giza Death Star.

Socialists taking other people's money. We're making the superannuation system fairer for 99.5% of Australians. pic.twitter.com/xX1ZVQrRiV Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) March 6, 2023 Great comments.

READ MORE AT ADVANCE 

Corporate Australia has its priorities back to front.

What event have our CEOs celebrated the most over the last few years? Read More

Thanks for the tip Michelle! Introducing Jeremy's Chocolate. We have two kinds: HeHim and SheHer. One of them has nuts. If you need us to tell you which one, keep buying Hershey's.https://t.co/pf5NnLcosppic.twitter.com/jmRKTNNwag Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 3, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Kate Burns [Twitter]. Kate is an LA-based writer and anti-fascist researcher with a particular interest in Christian extremism. Recently, Kate wrote Preaching Fascism: Inside San Diegos Awaken Megachurch (Left Coast Right Continue reading

In response to Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes announcement addressing Victorias bail laws, the Human Rights Law Centre calls on the Andrews Government to listen to Aboriginal organisations and expert advice, and commit to wholesale bail reform as recommended by Coroner McGregor following the preventable death in prison custody of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson. 

Thousands of people continue to be funnelled into Victorias prisons following knee-jerk amendments to Victorias bail laws. Since 2018 the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison has almost doubled, and right now a staggering 43.9% of people in prison are unsentenced and awaiting a hearing or trial. 

These bail laws, particularly the reverse onus provisions, were found by the Coroner to be incompatible with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. 

The Attorney-General's announcement outlined only the first step towards bail reform. The Human Rights Law Centre is calling for the reforms to include: 

1. Repealing the reverse-onus provisions in the bail laws; 

2. Creating a presumption in favour of bail for all offences, with the onus on the prosecution to demonstrate that bail should not be granted due to there being a specific and immediate risk to the physical safety of another person or the person posing a demonstrable flight risk;  

3. Inserting an explicit requirement in the bail laws that a person must not be remanded for an offence that is unlikely to result in a sentence of imprisonment; and 

4. Repealing the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail, breaching bail conditions and failure to answer bail.  

Amala Ramarathinam, Acting Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre says: 

The Andrews Government must get bail reform right. The changes announced so far are the absolute bare minimum, and they fall far short of the reform needed to stop the harm these laws are causing. 

Victoria has some of Australias most dangerous and discriminatory bail laws that are needlessly removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and women from their families and funnelling them into prisons to be warehoused on remand.  

The Governments announcement doesnt measure up to the recommendations made by the Coroner following the investigation into the death in custody of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson.  

The Andrews Government must ensure there is a presumption in favour of bail as a starting point in all cases, and that no one is held on remand for charges that are unlikely to ever result in a sentence of imprisonme...

Sometimes the fastest way to answer an email is to not reply to it.

Email can take up a massive amount of time. Americans spend about 172 minutes checking their personal emails, and around 149 minutes checking their work emails, per day on average. By reducing how long it takes you to write an email, you could open up hours of time every day. You could also potentially free yourself from the evening shift: that pesky post-dinner period where you do the task you couldnt complete earlier because your day was consumed with emails.

Read Full Story

Internal documents from the Australian Treasury Department have revealed crypto legislation in the country could be a year away at the very least.

Be nice if they at least made sense. This is their definition of 'hate'. Sydney: Group of middle eastern men chanted the 'Lord's Prayer' & 'Hail Mary' as they walked on King Street in Newtown. The intimidating display came amid calls for The Project to be cancelled after gay comedian...

Contributed by Jim Hayes

More Than 100 countries have Agreed to sign a new treaty to protect the high seas. They have signed a new agreement at the United Nations to reverse biodiversity loss.

The legally binding treaty commits signatories to ensure sustainability. It has taken 15 years to reach agreement on a policy that is an important part of a broader ambition that involves global effort to restore 30 percent of the worlds land and sea by the end of the decade.

Photo from AFP

It covers like fishing restrictions, international shipping routes, rejigging deep sea mining, and a better sharing of resources.

A major sticking point has always been the commercial interests that rely on the maximum exploitation of resources. This is one reason the discussion has gone on for 20 years.

On the other hand, changing global community attitudes have pushed the other way, increasingly pressuring governments to act, until something had to be done.

Another issue has been the insistence of poor nations that they should not be the ones to bear the brunt of the cost of conservation. They argue that it is the richest nations that have caused the most damage and can afford to shoulder the greater responsibility. They also put that trich nations should do much more to foster sustainability by transferring technology to others.

Greenpeace says 11 million square kilometres of ocean must be put under protection every year until 2030 to meet the target.

Countries must formally adopt the treaty and ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force, and then deliver the fully protected ocean sanctuaries our planet needs, said Laura Meller, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner who attended the talks.

Ocean...

The scene is unforgettable and unforgivable: an elected official, the deputy prime minister of Australia, cutting loose about a fish species introduced into the country by his ancestors, and demanding their annihilation. During the near-lunatic display by Barnaby Joyce, even his own colleagues betrayed embarrassment and alarm at the full-throated shrieks of carp, carp. With crazed eyes and crimson face, Joyce went on to assure fellow parliamentarians that viral weapons will be deployed against the common carp, otherwise known as Cyprinus carpio. The cannonade of ecological warfare had been announced, though preparations for the war had long been in progress.

In 2017, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece befitting the great terror pieces that fret and agitate at the unknown and unseen. Today no one really knows how many are in the rivers of our eastern states and particularly the Murray-Darling, but if you were to say 10 million, few aquatic scientists would contradict you.

The carp is inherently consumable, traditional in a number of cuisines, and central to a number of religious rites. But in Australia, the murderous kill comes before sound and sensible management, vengeful destruction before the understanding. As with every species introduced into the vulnerable space of Australian ecology, thuggish retribution for ones failings is a default position, the cover for human error and incompetence. Often, that retribution is of a colossal, industrial scale, marked by poisoning or viral delivery, connived in by the scientific and political establishment.

The language used to demonise the relevant species never strays far from hyperbole. Federal MP Gavin Pearce stated a few examples in a 2020...

Sign this petition

As a spokesperson for concerned Australians, we were deeply disturbed by the recent disrespectful comments made about Jesus on the Project show on channel 10. Read More

Iranian government using poison gas on school girls in different schools at different cities. The officials do not provide any answers. Hospitals are not permitted to provide any medical records to the parents or anyone else. The number of school girls and those girls who are hospitalized. The smell of gases are so strong that one can smell them hours later.

There are a lot of dysfunctional habits that will destroy your relationship, however, after decades of research, Dr. John Gottman has found one major contributor. The even crazier thing is this likely is not what you had imagined.

If I asked you what the number one relationship killer was, what would you say? Most people would say things like infidelity, a lack of sex, a lack of quality time, and maybe even a lack of trust. However, none of those are the right answers. Gottman, after carrying out a multitude of studies on over 40,000 couples, says contempt is the number one relationship killer.

Gottman also says it is worth considering a total of four problematic types of relationship communication:

1. Contempt.
2. Criticism.
3. Defensiveness.
4. Stonewalling.

Contempt, Gottman says, is the number one predictor of divorce or separation. Contempt is much like hatred. It is a form of communication and a state of mind that can leave your partner feeling unloved and unwanted.

One example of this is lets say that one spouse is trying to talk with someone, but every time they say something, their partner has something underhanded or hateful to interject towards their partner. While we all hold our partners in contempt from time to time, when contempt becomes a regular occurrence, Gottman says the relationship could be doomed.

The odd thing about contempt is that instead of the two partners working together, contempt can push them not only further apart, but also put them in a war zone. However, contempt is not just bad for relationships, research has also pointed out that contempt can harm our health. Based on the research, when people hold others in contempt in their communication, they have a higher likelihood of ending up with a major disease like heart disease or cancer.

If you feel like you and your partner may be holding each other in contempt, it may be helpful to sit down and face negative feelings together. Additionally, if you want your relationship to survive, Gottman says it is of the utmost importance to let your partner know they are appreciated and to be sure to show it on the regular.

Sources

...

WSP: The Bottom Line

• an In My View article by NIGEL WARD, examining the information vacuum surrounding the out of the blue proposal, made public on 4th January 2023, to amalgamate the Whitby secondary schools, widely perceived as a step towards academisation.

~~~~~

As a long-established scrutineer of, and commentator on, local government conduct, foremost in my mind at all times is that we live in a democracy. Our elected Council members (and, no less so, the paid public servants who are entrusted with the task of carrying out their decisions), occupy positions of public trust. Their duty is to carry out the will of the people.

I would ask readers to keep this in mind as I recount my attempts to discover the rationale behind this hugely unpopular proposal to close Eskdale School.

The North Yorks Enquirer has published approaching a thousand of my articles. Of present interest, and in the present context, I would hope readers may have seen two in particular.

1) On 24th February, my Open Letter to the Co-Chairs of the WSP Board of Governors (Christina ZANELLI and Su CROSSLAND) and the fairly recently appointed WSP Executive Head Teacher (Mr Jamie HENSHAW) sought answers to some of the questions parent and carers of Whitby school children (past, present and future) have been asking me:

• http://nyenquirer.uk/open-letter-wsp/
  

I wanted to know why it was that, in a letter to parents/carers dated 22nd May 2022,  the Co-Chairs had misrepresented the newly-appointed Executive Head Teacher (Mr Jamie HENSHAW) as having, in his previous position, led the Newcastle Academy to an (improved) OfSTED rating of Good.

He did no such thing. Follow the link and you will see that I produced the documentary evidence underpinning this assertion.

Unfortunately, Ms CROSSLAND and Mr HENSHAW ignored my Open Letter, leaving it to Ms ZANELLI to respond, which she did though not from her WSP account; rather, from her Yorkshire Endeavour Trust (YEAT) account. Ms ZANELLI perhaps mistook her desired future for a present-day reality?

In any event, Ms ZANELLI did respond to me, apologising for a genuine mistake, pleading a clerical error as her excuse for the 22nd May 2022 misinformation and excusing herself (and Ms CROSSLAND) on the grounds that they are unpaid volunteers with full time jobs, and as such errors do sometimes occur.

Obviously. But surely, as an honourable man, Mr HENSHAW would have been at pains to correct a misinterpretation that...

BY PETER YIM | MARCH 5, 2023

COVID-19 is the story of how governments around the developed world corralled their populations into the acceptance of novel, draconian measures to combat a virus. The most extraordinary of these measures was the mandating of experimental vaccines to large segments of the population. The vaccines were relentlessly promoted as safe and effective by public health authorities notwithstanding reports of tens of thousands of deaths attributed to the vaccines. In COVID-19, science was exposed as propaganda of the US and other governments.

The question is, how did this happen? How did science, the intellectual centerpiece of western civilization, get reduced to a cheap dictatorial tool?

Part of the answer may lie in Project Apollo; the US program that purportedly successfully mounted manned expeditions to the moon.

There is strong, independent confirmation of successful expeditions to the moon. Retro-reflectors placed on the surface of the moon in the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions have been detected at diverse observatories. However, the question of whether these missions to the moon were manned, is much more contentious. Imagery from the missions is unconvincing. Also, the inability of the US government to provide technical background to the missions raises doubts.

The most objective evidence provided by the US government of its claim to have reached the moon with manned spaceflight is a collection of specimens purportedly gathered from the surface of the moon. The collection includes 842 pounds of rocks and dust from the six missions. Studies have not explicitly tested whether the samples were truly from the moon. However, hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have been performed using these samples. The volume of studies alone implies the authenticity of the the samples.

A closer look at these studies, however, finds that scientists struggled to reconcile findings from the moon specimens with fundamental scientific principles. Some of the problematic observations were:

1. One Moon rock has a crystal structure that is typical of rocks formed on the Earth. Development of an explanatory model is ongoing. Investigators suggest the possibility that the particular rock arrived from the Earth as a meteor.
2. Certain meteorites found on the Earth resemble moon rocks. The similarity gave rise to the theory of lunar meteorites by which rocks arrive at the Earth after ejection from the lunar surface.
3. ...

Donald Elley talking to Australias Channel Nine TV for their nightly A Current Affair (ACA) program outside Brian Houstons court case on December 5, 2022

Donald Elley of Bellingen:

March 6, 2023

I appeared on Channel Nine Australias A Current Affair program on December 5, 2022. This was the first day of Brian Houstons court case for the criminal charge of concealing a pedophile. There are two days of the court case left in June this year. The verdict will follow probably one to two months later.

Producer of A Current Affair Steve Marshall asked me in the court gallery to appear on A Current Affair. Wed been chatting about the case prior to it starting. I hadnt met him before and didnt know who he was.

The You Tube video below is of that A Current Affair program.

A Hillsong/ C3 Church watch group republished it. I dont know who they are. Unlike me, they operate anonymously. Theyre afraid of being sued. Im not afraid of being sued by anyone. In fact, Id like Brian Houston, Phil Pringle or anyone who likes to sue me. Then I could counter-...

NEBUCHADNEZZAR EATING GRASS by Australian painter Arthur Boyd

...

...

One of the great mysteries of our time is why anybody would vote for modern Republicans at all well, apart from religious fanatics, hard-core racists, people who believe in space lasers, and those who want to see the US fail. Sadly, there are tens of millions of Americans who fall into one or more of these categories. Still, one would hope that their number is insufficient for the GOP to win any election.

By the way, that isnt to say that Democrats are an overly appealing option, but if you must pick between doing the dishes and getting thrown into a pit of fire ants, you should do the dishes.

Yet, here we are, with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives (in the same way parents control hyperactive quintuplets after an ice cream party) as well as both the entire state legislature and the governorship in 23 states.

If you choose to believe that the aforementioned core GOP demographics do not make up all Republican voters, then how do these candidates get elected? The answer is likely that there is a sufficient number of Americans who believe that Republicans have a plan and that this plan is good for the US.

The people in the first group are a lost cause. If you believe that Donald Trump is a virtuous orange messiah, that caravans of brown people looking for a better life want to replace whites, or that your political opponents are vampires, then there is no hope for you.

Things are a bit different for folks in the second category. Lets call them non-nutjob conservatives. They are convinced (without much evidence) that Republicans are good for the economy, law and order, national security, and values. Many of them likely inherited their beliefs from their parents, or they just watch a lot of Fox News.

Its no surprise that the right-wing propaganda outlet dedicates so much of its coverage ahead of elections to just those issues that appeal to this demographic: lawlessness in America, a decaying economy, insecure borders, and crossdressing liberal teachers who want to turn kids gay.

In other words, they are trying to dupe well-meaning people who love their country into voting for a party that is neither well-meaning nor seems to love the US all that much.

The midterms have shown that there is a level of insanity that these non-nutjob conservatives wont tolerate (but that is fervently embraced by the full-MAGA crowd). 

Chances are that millions of others had to hold their noses to support the curre...

by Dee McLachlan

We Frighten The Pants of Everyone With The New Strain

When do we deploy the new variant

Oh sure its not the government, its just messages from a rogue minister. The evening standard:

The leaked messages of...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says #SydneyWorldPride sent a message to the world that Australia is enriched by its diversity. Read more: https://t.co/I79e3HDpVt pic.twitter.com/TeifXX8ZSZ SBS News (@SBSNews) March 5, 2023

Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of the Ukraine War.

A starring outcome of the various discussions was an agreement between Canberra and New Delhi to ensure the mutual recognition of qualifications. On March 3, the Australian Minister for Education, Jason Clare, stated in a media release that the Mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications was Indias most comprehensive education agreement of its type with another country.

Such a mechanism would ensure that Indian students attaining a degree from an Australian university would have it recognised should they wish to continue higher education in India. The release continues to optimistically extol the merits of the mechanism, which would open a world of possibilities to develop flexible and innovative partnerships between the two countries. Minister Clare and his counterpart Shri Dharmendra Pradhan also reaffirmed their wish to establish an Australia India Working Group on Transnational Partnerships.

A number of memoranda of understanding, totalling 11 in all, were also signed, stressing bilateral cooperation between India and Australia in a number of fields, including law and bio-innovation. The developments today, announced the Indian Ministry of Education with certain effusion, will create more opportunities for two-way mobility of students and professionals for the purpose of education and employment, and pave the way for making education the biggest enabler in taking India-Australia bilateral relationship to greater heights and shared aspirations.

The public relations front was also busy with fanfare. Brian Schmidt, Nobel laureate and vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, met students and officials at Sri Venkateswara College of the University of Delhi. His polite welcome was shaded by the more raucous one given to former Australian test cricketer Adam Gilchrist, who acts as the University of Wollongongs global brand ambassador. For such institutions, brands come before brains.

Gilchrists presence was unsurprising, given the zeal with which the university he represents is pursuing a base in India. (The added point here is that Indians are utterly bonkers for cricket.) The soft power of cricket...

Rasmussen has a new poll out showing that a whopping 61 percent of all voters, including a stunning 57 percent of Democrats, believe that federal agents played a role in inciting the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. In answer to the question "How likely is it that undercover government agents helped provoke the Capitol riot," 61 percent of likely voters said it was either very likely (39 percent) or somewhat likely (22 percent) that they had done so. 59 percent of men and 63 percent of women believed that federal agents had "helped provoke the Capitol riot." This major majority of voters who believe the Capitol riot was not simply naturally occurring breaks down among political party affiliation as well, with 57 percent of Democrats saying it is either very likely (34 percent) or somewhat likely (23 percent) while for Republicans the numbers are 51 percent saying very likely, and 19 percent saying somewhat likely. Many across the media of the new right have stated their belief,...

QUAD FMs Joint Statement Hypes China Threats with Clichs; US Pandering to India's Position on Ukraine Crisis May Disappoint European Allies

By Wang Qi

Mar 03, 2023 10:03 PM

Quad Ministers' panel in New Delhi on March 3, 2023 Photo: VCG

The foreign ministers of QUAD countries met on Friday and reaffirmed the grouping's commitment for a "free and open Indo-Pacific," releasing an 18-point joint statement that analysts viewed as lousy clichs with a confrontational mentality, as it singled out Russia and North Korea on regional security issues and played up the "China threat" in a subtle and veiled way.

Considering that no joint statement was reached at the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting (FMM) one day earlier, Chinese experts said the QUAD's joint statement further demonstrated that the US has lost patience and confidence in being able to lead the multilateral platform and make use of it.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong attended the talks held in New Delhi. Indian media said they were the first talks since they met in September 2022 in New York.

In the joint statement, the four ministers reaffirmed the Quad's steadfast commitment to supporting "a free and open Indo-Pacific," a term linked with the US' "Indo-Pacific strategy," which aims to contain China. 

In the joint statement, QUAD ministers mentioned "challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the South and East China Seas."

We always believe that cooperation between countries should conform to the trend of peace and development of the times and should not be confined to exclusive "small cliques," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. 

"We hope the relevant countries will do more to enhance security and mutual trust among regional countries and safeguard regional peace and stability," Mao said at a press briefing on Friday. 

Zhu Feng, executive dean of the School of International Studies under Nanjing Unive...

Certainty closes the minds of those possessing the Truth from on High. These darlings of the gods may even feel sorry for those benighted Unfortunates with the temerity of disagreeing with them and try to persuade them to see reason to save them from themselves. 

As the blood-stained pages of history amply attest, dogmatists may try to convert, persecute, torture, or even burn their victims at the stake for their own good.  Dogmatic certainty can be a very dangerous thing and turn the powerful of this world into monsters about a difference of opinion.

It is an odd quirk of fate that some dogmatists will try to convert unbelievers not to convince them but rather themselves, since converts strengthen the dogmatists faith in themselves.

Some who adopt such sinister measures of persuasion like burning at the stake may even be prompted not by certainty, but an inner doubt so alarming that they must silence it by projecting it onto their victims to find inner peace to rid the world of these heretics and their own doubts.

Such persecution, torture, and murder have always been the stock-in-trade of dogmatists in dealing with dissent, and especially when they are also demagogues who ascend to power to impose their will on their people, so that dissent becomes treason.

Democracies, on the other hand, know that dissent isnt treason, but the lifeblood of democracies.  A government which oppresses a democratic people is no longer morally legitimate because it has lost the consent of the governed and rules only by force, at times with a fig leaf of legitimacy called the Divine Right of Kings.

Let us consider such a dogmatist-as-tyrant as the very embodiment of this closed-minded certainty:

He is not someone of humility who realizes his own past errors, with the confident expectation that he will doubtless err again; nor someone who modestly affirms his perception of truth and refuses to call it Divine Revelation.

Nor someone who is aware that when several answers are possible, his alone need not be true and allows himself to be counseled by seasoned advisors about which answer is best.

Nor is he someone who realizes that various factors may predispose him to think as he doeshis upbringing, temperament, age, race, social class, religion, nationality, profession, or an uncontrollable lust for power.

Nor someone who realizes that these conditioning factors may be not merely influencing him, but doing his thinking for him, and so he adopts a healthy live-and-let-live attitude toward those who disagree with him.

No, he is none of these, but the Omniscient One, who through some mysterious dispensation has been vouchsafed from above the divine prerogative to know what is right and wrong, true and false, wise and foolish for all men and all women in all times and places. Nay, he is the Enlightened One Himself who, sitting enthrone...

At Russia's Valdai Club meeting - the east's answer to Davos - intellectuals and influencers gathered to frame West Asia's current and future developments. The 12th "Middle East Conference" at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region. But first, an important word on terminology - as only one of Valdai's guests took the trouble to stress. This is not the "Middle East" - a reductionist, Orientalist notion devised by old colonials: at The Cradle we emphasize the region must be correctly described as West Asia. Some of the region's trials and tribulations have been mapped by the official Valdai report, The Middle East and The Future of Polycentric World. But the intellectual and political clout of those in attendance can provide valuable anecdotal insights too. Here are a few of the major strands participants highlighted on regional developments, current and future: Russian Deputy Foreign...

Rainer Shea RAWMs organizers are now working to turn their project into a permanent coalition, and that goal will be advanced by ANSWERs rally on the 18th. This rally represents a strengthening of anti-imperialist unity, especially among Marxists The outcome of these developments could be the full breaking of the monopoly which the ABC left...

Pepe Escobar At Russias Valdai Club meeting the easts answer to Davos intellectuals and influencers gathered to frame West Asias current and future developments. The 12th Middle East Conference at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region. But first, an important...

Ah, winter. A season of frosty mornings and cozy nights. But don't let the cold weather stop you from brightening up your outdoor planters with beautiful flowers! Whether you're looking to add a pop of color to your porch or bring some cheer to your patio, there are plenty of hardy blooms ready to light up even the darkest days.