keywords: Michael Bachelard
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MEDIA
- Jeff Sparrow
- 17 November 2015
15 Comments
In journalism, 'he said, she said' often functions as an evasion. Reporters' loyalty should be to accuracy, which isn't about compromise between extremes. When denialists and climate scientists take diametrically opposed stances, the truth doesn't lie somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, one side's right and the other's just wrong. The same can be said of reporting about the rightwing United Patriots Front. While they deny being fascists, that's what they are, and that's what we should call them.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 02 October 2013
15 Comments
Tony Abbott did handsomely in Jakarta. He was able convincingly to pitch the message that the bilateral relationship is much bigger and more important than the people smuggling issue, which he implicitly admitted had been mishandled by Australia. The national interest will be well served by the PM's deft handling of a difficult situation.
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AUSTRALIA
On Friday, Fairfax reported on another ordeal at sea, over ten days between 27 April and 7 May. Only two people died, but the toll could easily have been far worse. The story as we know it so far raises disturbing questions about Australia’s adherence to its rescue-at-sea obligations.
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AUSTRALIA
We now have another distressing and perplexing case of possible Australian failure properly to use intelligence information to save lives. If the unnamed agency that briefed AMSA did have the relevant coordinates, and yet did not pass them to AMSA to pass to BASARNAS, it could be complicit in the deaths of up to 58 people last week.
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AUSTRALIA
When distress calls come from asylum seeker boats, Australia's current policy is to rescue by choice. Many of the calls come from the Indonesian search and rescue region. To its credit, Australia usually responds to these calls. But not always. Sometimes we pass them to the less well equipped Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS and wait to see what happens.
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ENVIRONMENT
The Black Saturday Royal Commission seems to be ignoring scientific evidence that climate
change was a major causal factor. The possibility that Victoria's cool mountain ridges
and valleys are drying out and that such ferocious fires are the way of the future might be a truth
too much to bear.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- John Gunson
- 17 October 2008
9 Comments
The Brethren cultivated a relationship
with Howard that secured them generous access to him while he was prime
minister. Rudd has made it clear he has no time for them, but they will no doubt re-emerge when the climate is more congenial.
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