Scott Morrison wants the election to be about competence, but an examination of his record suggests that he is not capable of delivering good government.

Scott Morrison has never had a policy agenda. Rather he sees his role as reacting to and resolving problems as they arise, and not setting a policy reform agenda.

Consequently, Morrison is seeking to make the forthcoming election purely a choice based on who is the more competent to manage the government of the country. As Morrison put it: “This election is a choice between a government that you know and has been delivering and a Labor opposition that you don’t.”

But how competent is the Morrison Government really? How well has it in fact been delivering?

“I tried to talk to Emmanuel Macron last night,” Biden told reporters on Monday. “I spoke to his staff, and he was at the Eiffel Tower having a good time. And I’m going to be talking to him today.”

Other well-wishers had better luck, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was reportedly among the European leaders who got through to Macron on Sunday. Biden and other NATO heads of state were quick to congratulate the French leader on Twitter, as many feared the implications of nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen defeating Macron. As it turned out, the incumbent beat his Eurosceptic rival handily, by a margin of 58.5% to 41.5%.

Sputnik's Chief Was on Neo-Nazi Kill List, Suspects Took Orders From Ukraine’s Security Service: FSB

Commenting on the assassination plot earlier Monday, President Putin said it showed that Ukrainian and Western attempts to sow division in Russian society and break the country up from the inside had failed, and that they had shifted to a "policy of terror" against Russian journalists.

It’s what Australian military historians tend to call ‘Anzac season’ – the weeks preceding ‘the one day of the year’ when they get asked to speak on talk-back radio about current anniversaries (there are always a couple), or to discuss how Anzac seems to be both changing and un-changing. But this year, Anzac season seems somehow different.

 

United States nuclear weapons in Europe

 

Approximately 150 American B-61 nuclear gravity bombs are stationed in five countries in Europe: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. While the governments of these countries have never officially declared the presence of these weapons, individuals such as the former Italian President and former Dutch prime minister have confirmed this to be the case.

March 26th marks the seventh anniversary of the disastrous war in Yemen, which has resulted in almost half a million dead. ​​The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels has recently ramped up its attacks in this destabilizing conflict that, prior to the Ukraine war, was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 

A little over 20 years ago, [1999] North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) conducted a military exercise that involved a “hypothetical scenario” of hijacked planes flying into both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

According to the fantasy, there is a ‘moral obligation’ toward dead Anzacs – but not to democratise the decisions that would throw live Anzacs into war.

There is no doubting the sincerity of the grief felt by the bereaved, those who will gather at the myriad sites of memory and mourning across Australia on Anzac Day. Let us acknowledge that sincerity at the outset, and pause respectfully.

But there is a fantasy that haunts our cult of the fallen. The fantasy is this: that our political leaders so love the serving men and women that they would never recklessly commit them to war.

 

 

By Douglas Newton

 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared on Sunday that a Chinese military base on the Solomon Islands would be an unacceptable “red line,” without adding how Canberra would retaliate. Morrison’s government and the United States are scrambling to respond to a recently-signed security deal between the islands and Beijing, which they consider an “aggressive” move.

“Working together with our partners in New Zealand and of course the United States, I share the same red line that the United States has when it comes to these issues,” Morrison said. “We won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in our region on our doorstep.”

For many years, I have studied and given much thought to the UN Charter’s prohibition against aggressive war. No one can seriously doubt that the primary purpose of the document – drafted and agreed to on the heels of the horrors of WWII – was and is to prevent war and “to maintain international peace and security,” a phrase repeated throughout. 

 

Daniel Kovalik: Why Russia's intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law

 

Autistic disability rights advocate Michelle Swan was frustrated when she heard Scott Morrison say he was "blessed" that his children hadn't had to deal with a disability in Wednesday's leaders' debate. But her six kids — all of whom are neurodiverse — had an even stronger reaction.

"They were more angry than I was. They could see that by implication if he was blessed not to have children like them, then I must not be blessed to have had them," Ms Swan says.

A retired US Army general will help coordinate the massive effort to deliver weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, the White House announced on Friday. Veteran Pentagon policy planner Terry Wolff, who previously oversaw Washington’s aid to militants in Syria, was brought onto the National Security Council after a group of senators urged President Joe Biden to put someone in charge of the program.

Wolff “recently” joined the NSC, a spokesman told reporters on Friday, noting the retired three-star general’s previous experience with the White House body, as well as the State Department, the Pentagon and the Joint Staff.

A high-level Hillsong Church executive dismissed founder Brian Houston’s explanation for why he visited the hotel room of an unidentified woman for 40 minutes during the church’s annual conference in 2019 as insulting “dribble” just days before Houston resigned, a leaked letter suggests.

Ukraine will not be left alone if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons, Victoria Nuland said 

Russia will pay an “astronomical” price should its President Vladimir Putin order the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Friday, amid the ongoing Russian offensive.

In an interview for the Ukrainian outlet European Pravda, Nuland was asked to assess the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons. She responded that she could not rule out such a “catastrophic scenario.” As Putin “has already ordered” what, she said, were “brutal war crimes,” the world must be prepared for the worst. At the same time, Nuland stressed, the consequences of such steps would be catastrophic for Russia and for Putin personally.

It was a dastardly formality. On April 20, at a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Julian Assange, beamed in via video link from Belmarsh Prison, his carceral home for three years, is to be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.