March 5, 2017

JOHN AUSTEN. The Sydney metro - the doubt and mess continues.

A little more real information about Sydney rail development is coming to light. It is not dispelling the doubts about metro. A decision on Badgerys Creek rail, which would have been straightforward without the metro, is now years off. The extent of metro disruption is becoming evident spreading to even non-metro lines.

June 4, 2016

STEPHEN LEEDER. Alcohol and sport.

Queensland’s victory over NSW in the June 1 game was reported as the highest rating State of Origin match ever and ’the top TV event of 2016.’ Both teams carried alcohol advertising on their clothing into the match.

The association of alcohol with sport is deep, complex and profitable. Sport provides a lucrative vehicle for advertising and in turn many codes have come to depend heavily on the support of alcohol sponsors. The relationship is one of co-dependency.

September 24, 2015

Dean Ashenden. Could Turnbull give a Gonski?

Until last week, Gonskis last hope and an increasingly promising one was a Labor victory in 2016. Now, that hope has dimmed, but another has appeared. It would make political, ideological and policy sense for the Turnbull government and its new education minister, Simon Birmingham, to go back to Gonski.

The story so far. Gonskis inquiry was commissioned in 2010 and reported in 2012. It tackled three major problems in schooling: the dysfunctional arrangements for funding three sectors in three different ways by two levels of government; the consequently chronic antagonism between sectors and interest groups; and the failure of funding policies to address growingproblems in schooling, including social and cultural segregation, a widening gap between the best and worst schools, a long tail of students leaving school without even the bare minimum of skills, and stalled performance.

November 26, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Jeffrey Sachs explains his position on US wars to Piers Morgan. Penny Wong advises Australia’s approach to the ICC will be guided by international law, not politics. Bisan Owda takes us into the realities of winter for 1.9 million displaced citizens in Gaza and injured doctor Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya speaks of his commitment to Gaza’s plight in spite of being targeted by Israel. A debate on French television shows two different European positions when it comes to Israel. In Pakistan, Imran Khan supporters shot by security. Satirists the Juice machine give a prelude to Australia’s pending election.

November 17, 2014

Tony Abbott and the G20

In the media in the past few days we have been overwhelmed by stories and photo opportunities from the G20 in Brisbane. It will take some time to sort out fact from spin.I have set out below some comments and opinions from observers. It provides a useful but only partial account by observers of the G20. I have not included any comments from News Corp publications. News Corps support of the government is entirely predictable.

November 19, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Not being reported? President Xi Jinping gives President Joe Biden boundaries. Jason Clare MP says you can’t bomb your way to peace while a Gaza Psychiatrist shares footage of bodies in Gaza. Peter Garrett calls out AUKUS and Senator Barbara Pocock supports the issues raised by Senator Lidia Thorpe. Footage of Keir Starmer from 2014 on devastation on Croatia reveals a different approach than the British government is showing to Gaza.

June 3, 2014

Tuong Quang Luu, AO. Cambodia, a deterrent or an opportunity lost?

My old friend looked straight at the stage witha strong determination, and perhaps, a touch of sadness. Sitting next to him, I sensed that the events of 60 years ago for Bern Brent, were rolling back to him as he mentally relived his teenage years. The occasion was a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Dunera Boys arrival at SydneyHarbour in 1940.

I first met Bern in the late 1950s when he taught me English as a lecturer at the University of Saigon. He was my first contact with Australia. Unbeknown to me at the time, Bern had been a displaced person or an unattached refugee minor prior to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. It was an unforeseen irony for both of us that I should follow inhis foot steps a quarter of a century later.

July 12, 2016

SPENCER ZIFCAK. Chilcot: The War and the Law

As is now well known, the Chilcot Report on the British Governments planning, execution and aftermath of the Iraq war provided a scathing critique of almost every aspect of the Prime Ministers and governments conduct. There is one facet of this deplorable episode that has not yet received any adequate consideration in the Australian media. This concerns the politicisation of the process that led to the UK Governments conclusion that the war was lawful.

April 16, 2014

Cavan Hogue. Russia and the West.

The USA and NATO seem to see their relationship with Russia as one of goodies and baddies. This is nave and their hairy chested approach is not helpful. This paper looks at the realities of Russian attitudes to the outside world.

Many foreigners write off Vladimir Putin as a fascist, a communist throwback, a brutal dictator and so on. There can be no doubt that he is strongly authoritarian and doesnt suffer opponents gladly but he is not Stalin. He was elected and there are opposition parties. Many Russians dislike him and oppose what he stands for but his appeal to Russian nationalism does not fall on deaf ears. Russians are a proud people who are glad to be rid of many aspects of Communism but feel some nostalgia for the glory days of the USSR which was strong and respected as a great power. They believe that Russia will always be a Great Power and are suspicious of Western attempts to play down Russias importance in the world. These attitudes go back way before theSoviet Union and reflect the longstanding Slavophile/Westerniser debate.

February 18, 2025

A five-minute scroll

Concerns over police actions in Germany, proof the British Government knows that Israel is committing genocide and Trump’s suggestion for Gaza is a genocidal act. In Australia we wait for politicians to be equally outraged about attacks on Muslims. Jeffrey Sachs on the US wars of choice.

August 13, 2016

JOHN DWYER. A shared vision for restructuring primary care in Australia.

At last the clouds are dispersing, the sun is shining through and one can see a splendid vision of a restructured primary health system that meets the needs of contemporary Australia. For the first time that I can remember, there is a consensus among informed consumers and health professionals that enthusiastically supports the introduction of Patient-Centred Healthcare Homes as the primary care model we need to deliver cost effective and equitable integrated primary care. The model has been or is being implemented in eleven OECD countries and the results are most encouraging. Just published is a position paper from a roundtable exercise involving The Consumers Health Forum, the George Institute, the Royal Australian College of General Practice, the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Sydney University and the Australian National University. Their support for the model echoes that of the AMA and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. I am providing this impressive list of supporters, as consensus on healthcare reform in Australia has been held captive by vested interests for so long.

May 31, 2014

Richard Butler. The Invasion of Iraq,the decision and its consequences

It was reported on May 29th, that Sir John Chilcot, the head of the UK inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, had reached a breakthrough on the issue of how much of the official records of the decision to invade can be published. The publication of the Chilcot report is some two years late. It is now thought that it may be published before the end of 2014.

May 21, 2016

JOHN KEANE. Money, Capitalism and the Slow Death of Social Democracy.

In this article, John Keane speaks of the slow death of social democracy but suggests that there may be possibilities that social democracy could embrace Green movements, intellectuals and parties that have common interests. See extracts from article below and link to the full article in The Conversation.

May 27, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Is the Coalition better able to manage our borders?

For many years senior journalists have been telling us, or at least accepting the spin, that conservatives are better economic managers. I dont think there is evidence to back that claim as several writers have pointed out in this blog.

The other area where many senior journalists have been even more gullible is the acceptance of the claim that conservatives are better able to manage our borders. Again I dont think this view can be sustained.

Journalists are now under-resourced to do their job properly, but on an issue so much debated as border protection, they should examine the facts. There are three key issues which senior journalists should reflect upon.

December 17, 2016

BRIAN McNAIR. The empire strikes back.

Just five short years after (literally) eating humble pie live on national TV for presiding over the most corrupt, criminally minded, bin-raking, sleaze-mongering crowd of press hacks ever to spread their poison in the English-speaking world, Rupert Murdoch is back at the door of Sky in the UK, huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf of yore.

June 2, 2017

CHRISTIAN DOWNIE. Time for China and Europe to lead, as Trump dumps the Paris climatedeal

President Donald Trumpsannouncement overnightthat he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement comes as no surprise.

September 12, 2024

A five-minute scroll

On September 12 our five-minute scroll of X showed us the military convention in Melbourne inviting protest and how the police are treating the activists while Richard Marles in Parliament has been espousing the questionable virtues of Jobs for Subs. Queen Rania speaks about the need for global systems we can trust, while economist Shir Gvir talking about the cost of genocide to Israel’s economy.

January 19, 2014

Could we do more to offend the Indonesians? John Menadue

Could we do more to offend the Indonesians? Yes, I think we could by appointing, as has been suggested, Peter Cosgrove as our next Governor General. He was the military Commander who led the INTERFET forces against the Indonesian military in East Timor in 1999. This was much more than just a military defeat for the Indonesians. It resulted in Indonesias political humiliation in the eyes of the world. Indonesia had to withdraw from East Timor with loss of face. I dont think that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, in their reading of the Lonely Planet Guide to international relations would be aware of this. Stopping the boats is everything regardless of the human beings involved or our relations with Indonesia.

September 18, 2013

Tony Abbott's debt to Rupert Murdoch. John Menadue

Media Watch of 9 September gave us a snap shot of what Rupert Murdoch did for Tony Abbott. It said “the final tally of (the Daily Telegraph’s) coverage in the election campaign stacks up like this.Out of a total of 293 political stories we scored only six as pro Labor. While 43 were pro coalition. On the negative side there were just five articles that we judged to be anti coalition.While a remarkable 134 were anti Labor” That summary takes no account of the front page splashes that ridiculed Labor day after day. or the coverage by Murdoch’s other papers outside Sydney.

May 3, 2016

John Menadue. Are Conservatives better economic managers?

According to opinion polls the public clearly believe that Conservatives are better economic managers. Like other Conservative leaders, Malcolm Turnbull keeps asserting that this is so. Tonight in the budget, Scott Morrison will probably tell us about the importance of growth and jobs and that the Coalition can deliver in this area but Labor cannot.

But the evidence does not support the view that the Conservatives are better economic managers.

September 16, 2016

JON STANFORD. Business welfare under the Coalition: two case studies (1)

The Abbott government came to power with a Treasurer who announced that the age of entitlement was dead and that he had no time for business welfare. In these two articles, Jon Stanford examines how this philosophy has been applied since 2013 to two manufacturing industries, passenger motor vehicles (PMV) and naval shipbuilding.

September 10, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Taking just five minutes to scroll through X, these are the first five posts we witness, the stories often not picked up in our mainstream media.

August 19, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. On Nauru and Manus, we need leaders who will appeal to the better angels of our nature.

I was interviewed on 17 August by Andrew West, the presenter of the Religion & Ethics Report, Radio National, ABC.

One thing I emphasised was the importance of leadership. If only Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten would shake hands on a deal to maintain and if necessary strengthen turnbacks and bring all the wounded souls in Nauru and Manus to Australia. That is the type of leadership and bipartisanship that we desperately need. They would be applauded for their wisdom and courage in breaking out of the cycle of fear and violence which accompanies our refugee policies. See link to interview below.

February 21, 2025

A five-minute scroll

In the UK questions arise over the commentary of the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. In Australia, ECAJ Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin is demanding the Federal Government to declare a national emergency on antisemitism. In the US 100 Doctors stage a protest in Congress over the situation in Gaza. Jeffrey Sachs provides Piers Morgan with an overview of the events that lead to the Ukraine-Russia war.

July 27, 2015

John Menadue. Militarisation, the new norm.

I was surprised recently on arriving at Sydney Airport to see the new Australian Border Force (ABF) decked out in their new military-style uniforms. The personnel looked like part of the Australian Defence Force instead of Customs and Immigration officers. There was clearly a new message being conveyed.

But perhaps I should not have been so surprised as I had seen online only a few days earlier the launch of ABF in Canberra with the mandatory 10 Australian flags backing our Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and the new bedecked Head of ABF.

June 27, 2016

LINDA SIMON. The national scandal in Vocational Education and Training (VET).

Redesigning VET FEE-HELP

In late April the Federal Government released a discussion paper entitled Redesigning VET FEE-HELP. It had become apparent that continuing legislative changes put through the Federal Parliament were not enough to prevent the behaviour of some private training providers. The most recent of those changes was in January this year when the Higher Education Support (VET) Guidelines 2015 were introduced to further strengthen the scheme and constrain growth[1] These Guidelines were aimed at capping VET FEE-HELP loans at 2015 loan amounts, protecting students from providers or their agents including new entry requirements, stronger cooling off periods and three fee periods rather than one up-front hit, and new eligibility requirements for providers. It is many of these changes that form the basis of the questions raised in the discussion paper, asking if these are enough or are there other ways of preventing the current rorts that have become the centre of this national VET scandal.

August 16, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Tony Abbott now admits that he was wrong in opposing the Malaysian Arrangement.

If only the Greens and many refugee advocates would also admit that they got it wrong. They allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

My strong conviction for several years is that the Malaysian Arrangement it was not a Malaysian Solution would have been an important building block in regional cooperation to manage the movement of displaced people. It would also have avoided the tragedy that is unfolding in Manus and Nauru. That tragedy will be on Australias conscience for ever.

December 30, 2016

How inefficient private health insurance, drug manufacturers and distributors drive up costs.

In parliament, forty years ago on 27 September 1967, Gough Whitlam described the factors driving up the high cost of healthcare in Australia. The same vested interests drive up costs in Australia at the expense of the taxpayer and the community. John Menadue.

May 31, 2018

GEOFF MILLER. The US-North Korea Negotiations: Death to Forecasters!

The pre-negotiation process going on between the US and North Korea is volatile and opaque, but a few points seem to have emerged.

James Bond novels used to feature a sinister Soviet organisation called SMERSH—short for Death to Spies in Russian. The twists and reversals in the process that may lead to a Trump-Kim summit have been so extreme that they could be called Death to Forecasters, or commentators. But a few points can be made.

August 13, 2016

JEFF WATERS. ABC journalists and business.

Yeah, sure, let’s ’embed’ ABC journalists in businesses, but don’t forget the unions, or Nauru.

The recent review of ABC business coverage may have come down in favour of the National Broadcaster, but, as has been suggested in the media, any move to job swap or embed ABC journalists within private corporations is nonsensical.

May 8, 2013

Are wage rates to blame? John Menadue

We have read a lot recently from retailers and restauranteurs about high wage rates particularly at weekends that are said to be a major burden for business. But is this the full story? There are several factors that we need to consider.

Do we have too many retailers and restaurants? Restaurants seem to be opening every second day, driving out mixed-businesses, green grocers and butchers from our shopping streets. Has the proliferation of retail outlets and restaurants reduced profit margins and put pressure on business rather than wages?
Our lives are being driven by the 24/7 craze. Do we really need to keep shops and restaurants open like this? What has happened to the desire of many who still value the weekends for family and recreation? Sunday is no longer a day of rest. But I am probably old-fashioned! I recall that the union campaign for an 8-hour working day featured recreation as a key objective. It is now largely forgotten.
Retailers have failed to respond adequately to online shopping and the concerns many of us have for the lack of service in retail outlets. The retailers case was not helped recently by the managing director of Myers telling us that the levy to pay for the disability scheme would mean less money to spend at Myers.
The household savings rate in Australia declined steadily from about 10% in the mid-1970s and falling to below zero by the mid-2000s. This private spending and debt binge couldnt last and Australians are wisely saving more. Retailers and restaurants should not have expected that the spending and debt binge would continue.
Some retailers and restaurants pine for the US model of flexible and low wage-rates. In the US this has resulted in great inequity and very low wage rates for the working poor. Fortunately we have not gone down that path.

With the softening of the mining boom and restructuring of the economy, there will need to be restructuring including in retail and restaurants. But we should not point the finger at wage rates alone.

March 5, 2017

GARRY EASTMAN. Response to Jack Waterford: We need a Catholic Yom Kippur, and a serious sacrifice.

There are now no survivors or parents of survivors on the Commission nor are there any on the Australian Towards Healing or Melbourne Response agencies for handling complaints by victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The same criticism applies to the Truth, the Justice and Healing Council and the newly created company, Catholic Professional Standards Ltd.

April 7, 2015

David Stephens. The magic Anzackery pudding

Norman Lindsay was busy during World War I. When he wasnt doing propaganda posters of slavering Huns or sketching buxom young women he was writing a childrens book called_The Magic Pudding: being the Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff_. The magic pudding was remarkable for its ability to keep regrowing itself, regardless of how many slices were taken off it.

There are some people who think Anzackery is like the magic pudding. There are two elements which are essential to the Anzackery concept and which reinforce each other: sentimental and jingoistic commemoration of an Anzac myth; making money from this commemoration. Anzackers hope they can go on doing Anzackery indefinitely (or at least till something better comes along) and the pudding will just keep growing back.

January 11, 2015

John Menadue. If I were a Muslim...

The brutality and assasination of the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo must be condemned. Those responsible must face and perhaps have faced the full consequences.

But if I were a Muslim, I would have been offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. They were not a critique of Islam but gratuitous insults. I expect my Christian faith to be respected. Religious tolerance requires respect for other people’s beliefs. The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo did not do that.

December 14, 2014

Kieran Tapsell: More Cracks in the Church Dyke?

In December 2013, I wrote a piece for this blog entitled, Cracks in the Church Dyke at the Royal Commission, which posed the question: the real issue now is whether the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, (TJHC), representing the Church at the Royal Commission, will come clean over canon law, or the dyke will be opened by a thousand cuts: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=1015. The dyke I was referring to was that erected by Pope Benedict XVI in his Pastoral Letter to the Irish people of March 2010, where he ignored the criticisms of canon law by the Murphy Commission in Ireland and its finding that the structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover up. Instead, he blamed the bishops for failing to deal with these priests through the long established norms of canon law. That was an extraordinary statement because as far back as 1988, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had complained to the Vaticans chief canon lawyer, Cardinal Castillo Lara about the inadequacies of canon law for dealing with child sexual abuse. He set the strategy to be followed by the rest of the Church over the cover up: blame individual bishops, and do not mention canon law or the Vatican.

April 16, 2014

Michael Kelly S.J. What makes this week Holy.

The recent casual remark of a friend got me to thinking about just how people experience Easter differently. My friend and I were talking about something Christians are constantly encouraged to consider especially in Lent and which gets its highest profile in the Christian calendar on Good Friday: humility.

The way I have come to discover what humility might be is through being humiliated. In the tradition of spirituality I have learnt to love that coming from St. Ignatius Loyola - humility and humiliation are related experiences.

November 14, 2016

ALLAN PATIENCE. The Tragedy of Trump

If nothing else Donald Trumps victory in the 2016 presidential election is compelling evidence that the neo-liberal project has been a catastrophic public policy failure. Blindly believing that he is their saviour, the victims of neo-liberalisms caustic consequences have seized the moment by voting for Donald Trump. They view him as some kind of Old Testament prophet who has come to lead them out of neo-liberal captivity a saviour who will root out the causes of their humiliation, anguish and anger. They are convinced that he is one of them outsiders who are losing in the great game of globalisation from above. They see him as a leader in the vanguard of a new and bitter class struggle against snobbish elites with their ivy-league degrees, machine men in government, bullying bosses of the big banks, left-wing media commentators, and big businesses that have off-shored their jobs.

July 31, 2014

John Tulloh. The Grief and Pain of Life in Gaza.

‘Gaza is a tragic place’, observed John Lyons, The Australian’s Middle East correspondent, the other day. It certainly is. Gaza must be one of the worst places in the world in which to live or at least try to survive. For starters, its population of more than 1.7 million long-suffering Palestinians has to live in an area of just 365 sq km. Compare that with Sydney’s 12,145 sq km. They have no control over their Mediterranean waters or their air space. That belongs to Israel. Israel, along with Egypt, controls who and what come in and out, making it as some see it the occupying power even though it officially disengaged from there in 2005.

February 14, 2016

Kieran Tapsell. Pope Francis Continues the Policy of Cover Up

In May 2014, my book, Potiphars Wife: The Vatican Secret and Child Sexual Abuse was published. It accused six popes from 1922 onwards (Pius XI Benedict XVI) of establishing, confirming and expanding a system of cover up of child sexual abuse by clergy through the strictest secrecy imposed by canon law over allegations and information gained by the Church in its internal inquiries. On 9 April 2015, I wrote a piece for this blog stating that it looked like Pope Francis will be the seventh pope to follow suit when he rejected the call from the United Nations Committees on the Rights of the Child and Against Torture to require mandatory reporting under canon law: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3524

April 29, 2016

Jon Stanford and Michael Keating. the mistaken decision on submarines.

The government has made a bad decision on acquiring the future submarines (FSMs). Its bad for the Navy, bad for the taxpayer and it represents a major regression in terms of industry policy.

Its bad for the Navy because in terms of capability the decision fails to deliver on the objectives set out in the latest Defence White Paper. DCNS conventional Barracuda class boats will not be regionally superior submarines in terms of their technology. By the 2030s, if operating in the South China Sea, they will be confronted by nuclear attack submarines (SSNs), of greatly improved performance compared to current models. The FSMs will not be, as the Prime Minister said, the most sophisticated naval vessels being built in the world. But on a bang for the buck basis, they may well be by far the most expensive with the longest delivery timeline.

June 2, 2014

John Menadue. Get ready for El Nino, Tony

The late Senator Moynihan from New York famously said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts. Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt along with Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt have strong opinions on climate change that are not based on facts.

If El Nino develops as presently indicated, Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt will tell us that its severity has nothing to do with global warming. Yet the facts tell us otherwise about the relationship between El Nino and global warming.

May 17, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Bob Hawke's open letter to Australians

On Wednesday Bob Hawke sent an open letter to Australians – a short message reminding us that Bill Shorten is ready to lead a united Labor team to contribute to aprosperous, fair and environmentally sustainable Australia. Here is the full text.

September 16, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. The US pivot to the Pacific is off balance.

President Obamas rebalance or pivot to the Pacific is struggling.

There have been some successes. Ever-loyal Australia signed up to US marines in Darwin and there may be more cooperation to come!. There have been new US military agreements with the Philippines and Vietnam.

But there have been some important downsides, particularly as China has responded to what it sees as intrusion in to its historic area of influence.

Most significantly, President Obamas proposed twelve-member Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, which deliberately excluded China, is in peril and will probably fail.

November 2, 2014

Walter Hamilton. Calling up the reserves.

Japans central bank, 18 months into a monetary stimulus strategy of unprecedented scale, has decided to dramatically raise the bet. Since an extra 60 trillion yen annually fed into the economy failed to do the trick, perhaps 80 trillion (A$800 billion) will work. The look on the face of central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda when making the announcement resembled that of a World War I general who having spent 100,000 men to gain 100 yards sees no way forward except to spend another 100,000 for total victory.

September 26, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Penny Wong responds to Australia’s questions about Israel on SBS News, a US veteran speaks to his experience in Iraq 20 years ago, Israel media displays astonishing commentary, Francesca Albanese shares a must-watch documentary. The children of Gaza suffer beyond our belief and the president of Senegal speaks about the history of Palestinian oppression at the UN General Assembly. That’s our five-minutes on X.

December 27, 2016

WILLY BACH. Australias Collaboration in the CIAs Secret War in Laos

US forces left Thailand in 1975-76 at the request of Thai authorities. SEATO was disbanded in 1977. Australias forward defence doctrine was quietly forgotten.

April 27, 2017

JOHN TULLOH. Trump's first 100 days - so what?

The media have been besides themselves in anticipation of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in the White House this weekend. It’s as if this is some magic marker by which to judge his next 1359 days in the Oval Office. It is meaningless.

July 12, 2016

PAUL BARRATT. Faulty intelligence, or a war pre-ordained?

In releasing his momentous report on 6 July Sir John Chilcot stated that the judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraqs weapons of mass destruction WMD were presented with a certainty that was not justified. He also said it is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments, which should have been challenged.

January 14, 2017

TONY KEVIN. The Rex Tillerson confirmation hearings, and wider issues

Rex Tillerson, Donald Trumps nominee for Secretary of State and Trumps best Cabinet choice so far, will probably survive his gruelling full day of confirmation hearings by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee last Wednesday 11 January (Washington time).

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal