Prime Minister Scott Morrison says his leadership style will be more empathetic if re-elected, as he seeks to woo voters put off by his self-described ‘bulldozer manner’ in the final week of election campaigning.

On Saturday, Mr Morrison claimed Australia needed “strength and resilience” to get through the past couple of turbulent years, but acknowledged the approach he had during the pandemic would need to change.

Speaking from the Victorian seat of Deakin, held by the Liberals on a 4.8 per cent margin, the Prime Minister said that voters could expect a more collaborative leader should he defy polls on May 21.

“I will seek to explain my motives and my concerns, and empathise a lot more,” he said.

The Western strategic mobilization in the wake of the intensifying Russia-Ukraine conflict has further limited the already shrinking autonomy of Europe. The massive military, media and political pressure has lined up European countries in a common sanction policy against Russia and a common weapons delivery policy for Ukraine.

A most dramatic shift could happen in the Nordic countries of Sweden and Finland if they join NATO, abandoning their policy of non-alignment which represents an important part of Europe's autonomy.

BY Ulf Sandmark

Catastrophic shift in non-alignment policy

The Coalition is apparently heading into this election betting its approach to Medicare over the past decade – and the provisions in the 2022–23 budget – are sufficient to support its 'rock solid'(external link) commitment to Medicare.

Today [May 13, 2022] is Jen Psaki’s last day on the job as President Joe Biden’s press secretary before she joins the ranks of MSNBC punditry, taking a job hosting a show on the Peacock streaming service and appearing on the network’s shows as a guest.

The skills required to act as a press secretary in corporate Democratic presidencies — saying little of substance, committing to nothing, dispensing snark and scoffs, and never even accidentally challenging power — appear to carry over well to playing pundit on MSNBC, the corporate network that serves as the Democratic Party’s de-facto propaganda outfit.

israel

JERUSALEM -- Israel advanced plans for the construction of more than 4,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, a rights group said, a day after the military demolished homes in an area where hundreds of Palestinians face the threat of expulsion.

It was a jolting illustration of Israel's policies in the territory it has occupied for nearly 55 years. Critics, including three major human rights groups, say those policies amount to apartheid, a charge Israel rejects as an attack on its very legitimacy.

Hagit Ofran, an expert at the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now, told The Associated Press that a military planning body approved 4,427 housing units at a meeting on Thursday that she attended. “The state of Israel took another stumble toward the abyss and further deepened the occupation,” she tweeted.

A US plan to provide nearly $40 billion in additional military and economic aid to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia has hit a speed bump, with Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) blocking a quick vote to approve the funding bill and likely delaying passage to at least next week.

Paul stood in the way on Thursday by objecting to a request by Senate leaders to approve “unanimous consent,” a provision that allows bills with strong bipartisan support to be fast-tracked without debate. The former presidential candidate said he would only allow for a quick vote if the bill was revised to include the appointment of a special inspector general to monitor how the massive aid package is spent – a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) refused to meet.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist who worked with Al Jazeera for over two decades, was killed on Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid on the city of Jenin in the northern part of the West Bank. The Palestinian authorities claim the Israeli military shot her in her head.

The 51-year-old was rushed to hospital after sustaining the critical injury but was pronounced dead, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, blaming Israeli forces for her death.

Al Jazeera called the incident a “heinous crime” and claimed the Israelis deliberately targeted Abu Akleh to intimidate the media. Eyewitnesses said she was struck by a bullet below her ear, bypassing the helmet she was wearing for protection, the outlet said.

Economic figures must inform citizens, maintain their social usefulness and not become marketing instruments. Myret Zaki, journalist and author of several books on tax evasion and the end of the dollar, is publishing a new book with the explicit title, Economic Disinformation (Favre). Using numerous examples, Myret Zaki explains the motivations specific to the various producers of economic data, and invites citizens to mobilize to obtain reliable economic figures.

MYRET ZAKI: “CITIZENS ARE VICTIMS OF ECONOMIC DISINFORMATION. »

By Laurent Ottavi

05/09/2022.  Democracy

(unaccompanied, shanty-style)

I stood upon the foredeck

and hoisted up me sails

with anchor weighed we sail away

from the coast of New South Wales

to leave the Hill Song far behind

Their Siren sings to me

So from ScoMo's land I'm bound

to search for Albanese

(CH) Do you hear the Song of the Hills

singing to you and me

Let's none of us be April Fools

Let's vote for Albanese!

ScoMo has a fluffy cat

also a fluffy wife

Pacta sunt servanda: promises must be kept. This maxim was the foundation stone of the Westphalian order of nation-states, and its abandonment may mark the demise of that order. As the world witnesses the unraveling of the Pax Americana, which has maintained peace between sovereign states on the European continent for nearly eight decades, it is worth taking a look back at the broken promises that got us to this point, and the warnings issued by earlier generations of American statesmen.

What does a democracy do when a dominant news media organisation goes rogue during an election campaign?

In 2022, News Corporation is confronting Australia with this question once again, as it did in 2019, 2016 and 2013, and as it did in the United States in 2016 and 2020.

“Going rogue” here means abandoning any attempt at fulfilling one of the media’s primary obligations to a democratic society — the provision of truthful news coverage — and instead becoming a truth-distorting propagandist for one side.

BY Denis Muller

The howls of protest from business groups when Anthony Albanese suggested that the minimum wage should at least match inflation were predictable, but nonetheless disappointing (“Albanese would ‘absolutely’ support increase of 5.1%”, May 11).
In tough times we can’t afford a wage rise because it will send businesses to the wall. In good times it will fuel inflation. When the economy is growing, it will kill the fragile shoots of recovery. When it’s struggling, we all have to tighten our belts, of course starting with wage earners.
When, in their view, is it ever the right time for wage earners to catch up or share in the spoils of growth? 

Tony Judge, Woolgoolga

Network Ten sounds like it is putting together an election night panel with a difference. Once again Project host Waleed Aly will be at the desk for 10 News First: Your Decision. Election Night. He will be joined by newsreading icon Sandra Sully, national affairs editor Hugh Riminton and news presenter Narelda Jacobs.

On Wednesday Ten announced others involved include Project regular, Walkley-winning Jan Fran, the Coalition’s social services minister Anne Ruston, along with Labor shadow industry minister Ed Husic. Ten’s media release is spruiking its program as “an intelligent, engaging, insightful, interactive and informative election night”.

But there is one highly intriguing name missing from the publicity missive.

Biden Wanted $33B More For Ukraine. Congress Quickly Raised it to $40B. Who Benefits?

Tens of billions, soon to be much more, are flying out of U.S. coffers to Ukraine as Americans suffer, showing who runs the U.S. Government, and for whose benefit.

BY GLENN GREENWALD

La Destruction

Ceaseless at my sides, the Devil in a conflict;

Swims around me like incorporeal wrungs;

I swallow and I feel Him burn my lungs

To fill them with an eternal desire of guilt.

Knowing my great love of Art, at times He takes 

The shape of the most seductive of women,

And, with most depressing deceptive pretexts,

Accustoms my lips to abominable crimen.

He leads me thus, far from the spell of God,

Panting and broken, exhausted, to the moods

Of the plains of Languor, endless and deserted,

And throws in my eyes, filled with confusion,