September 21st , 2017 Edition.
Internationally things looked better with no new hurricanes and then the nit-wit fired another missile on Friday morning our time. The usual brief reaction as seen, the adults managed it and Trump wandered off to comfort Irma victims. Situation as normal as possible with Trump in the White House.
Sadly also – there was another apparent terrorist attack in London. Not good at all!
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In Australia the energy farce continues and we will all pay for this political nonsense. There is a lot of nonsense being spoken about religious freedom I reckon as far as same sex marriage is concerned. If the protections are not adequate they should have been fixed long ago – or they can’t be valued much? Having a few people marry is hardly going to change things – no one is proposing compulsory gay sex for school children after-all. I can still sense an hysterical distracting beat up from the question being asked when I see it!
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Thursday Update: Internationally Trump is now saying he is going to utterly destroy North Korea as hurricanes seem to be doing the same in the US.
In Australia the policy nonsense and stupidity just continues - to the despair of the great mass of Australians. It's just horrible to watch!
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Thursday Update: Internationally Trump is now saying he is going to utterly destroy North Korea as hurricanes seem to be doing the same in the US.
In Australia the policy nonsense and stupidity just continues - to the despair of the great mass of Australians. It's just horrible to watch!
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Here are a few other things I have noticed.
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National Budget Issues.
John Hewson: Why voters need to ask questions about their power bills
September 7 2017
John Hewson
Although you may win the daily media battles in politics, you may still lose the electoral war. You can go on, day in, day out, blaming others and scoring points on your opponents, only to progressively lose sight of the reality of the issue and of what actually matters to the electorate such that, in the end, the issue consumes you and they vote you out.
The politicking over energy through the past several years is now coming home to roost. While the major participants have been almost totally self-absorbed in what has been a counter-productive race to the bottom, electricity and gas prices have risen sharply and consumers have been left almost unable to understand their rapidly mounting power bills, with no clarity as to the way forward, with no "guarantees" as to the security of supply at an affordable price.
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Sorry, but using migration to boost growth isn't smart
Ross Gittins
Published: September 10 2017 - 6:49PM
Ask an economist where the growth in the economy will be coming from and it's surprising how often they fail to give the most obvious answer: from growth in the population.
Why don't they? Partly because it's an admission of failure: more people, bigger economy. Wow, that must have been hard to engineer.
Economists aren't supposed to believe in growth for its own sake. Their sales pitch is that economic growth is good because it raises our material standard of living.
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Fairfax-Ipsos poll: Voters are desperate for a different political story
Peter Hartcher
Published: September 11 2017 - 12:15AM
The Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader picture themselves as the stars in a movie, antagonists locked in a titanic struggle, and today's poll gives the people's verdict on the fight.
The people would prefer a different movie.
The approval ratings for both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have fallen since the Fairfax-Ipsos poll last measured them in May, and fallen substantially.
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Fairfax-Ipsos poll: We now know the economy is not what's dragging the Coalition down in the polls
Ross Gittins
Published: September 11 2017 - 12:15AM
Whatever is holding Malcolm Turnbull and his government behind in the polls so consistently, it doesn't seem to be their handling of the economy.
Voters' responses to special questions in the September Fairfax-Ipsos poll are hardly a ringing endorsement of the Coalition's economic policies, but it is clearly ahead on points.
On which party has the best policies for managing the economy, the Coalition is preferred by 38 per cent of respondents, hardly overwhelming, but comfortably ahead of Labor's 28 per cent, with the Greens scoring a mere 3 per cent.
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'Base-load investment scheme' could keep coal alive, but Liddell power station has 'mammoth problems'
James Massola, Peter Hannam
Published: September 7 2017 - 5:55PM
Support is hardening in the federal Coalition for coal-fired power to have a medium-term role in Australia's electricity market, with some MPs suggesting a "base-load investment scheme" to upgrade and extend the life of coal plants and operate alongside a future Clean Energy Target.
But the Liddell power station at the centre of the political fight over energy is operating at below half its rated capacity, and would present "mammoth problems" for any company seeking to extend its life, according to a former senior Macquarie Generation engineer.
The retired senior engineer, who worked at the neighbouring coal-fired Bayswater plant and had frequent discussions with his counterparts at Liddell, said Liddell was known "to have massive problems".
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Local banks’ $500bn of ‘liar loans’ could threaten financial stability: UBS
- The Australian
- 11:50AM September 11, 2017
Michael Roddan
Australian banks are sitting atop $500 billion worth of “liar loans” sold to borrowers who gave lenders false information to get a mortgage, which has the potential to threaten the entire financial system as interest rates rise from current record-lows.
The latest mortgage survey carried out by investment bank UBS found one-third of borrowers were not “completely factual and accurate” on their home loan application in the last year. One quarter of all borrowers said they were “mostly” accurate, while almost 10 per cent said they are only “partially factual” with their bank. Mortgages sold through brokers, which now account for around half of all home loans, were found to be less factual than those sold through a bank.
UBS analyst Jonathan Mott said borrowers were also finding it easier to get a mortgage approved than in previous years. “When asked about the amount of supporting documentation and verification required, participants stated there has been no increase,” he said.
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US goes subprime all over again
- The Australian
- 8:25AM September 11, 2017
Robert Gottliebsen
Both China and the US have a basic flaw in their financial systems. The American investment banks made so much money out of sub-prime loans in the previous decade that they can’t resist a double dip. They learned nothing. And the Chinese find it very hard to recognise losses.
Fortunately, in 2017, unlike 2007, neither situation is set to bring on another global financial crisis.
In China, the problem arises from so called “shadow” loans by regional banks in areas where there are major corporate failures. In the US, the risk-guzzling US banks and investment banks have discovered the sub-prime loan techniques they used in property can be applied to car loans. And there is big money to be made.
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Underinsurance - The Knock-On Effect!
6 Sep 2017
Under insurance affects more than 4 out of 5 Australians according to a study commissioned by Understand Insurance in 2013 with 40% of homes insured according to the homeowners own evaluation. For many, the knock-on effect from inclement weather conditions such as a natural disaster like ‘Cyclone Debbie’, or an unexpected household accident, can deliver even more trauma.
In some cases, homeowners are often shocked to find that an insurance claim is knocked back because the home is underinsured.
Recognised by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) as a growing area of concern for home owners and looking for ways to assist in mitigating the issue, ICA have engaged with CoreLogic to install the Cordell Sum Sure calculator – on its Understand Insurance website: http://understandinsurance.com.au . This free to consumer, 24 hour service provides consumers with guidance on how to estimate the rebuild cost of their home for insurance purposes.
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Loans from mum and dad lead to greater strain - says RBA
Eryk Bagshaw
Published: September 11 2017 - 4:37PM
Australians who get loans from their parents to buy their first property are twice as likely to later encounter financial stress, ask for help from friends and struggle to pay their power bills.
In research released on Monday, the Reserve Bank's economic research department used figures from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey of 17,000 Australians to find that 30 per cent of people who needed help from their parents to pay for a deposit found themselves in financial stress.
Of those, 20 per cent would later ask for more help from family and friends, twice the rate of those who funded their deposit independently.
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“Stop demonising vulnerable Australians”
Government condemned over ‘tough love’ drug testing policy by Opposition Health Minister in Parliament—but Senate has recommended it be passed
A Senate committee has recommended the “welfare reform” bill behind the controversial proposal to carry out drug testing among welfare recipients be passed.
The committee said that while it acknowledged the concerns raised by stakeholders, “the Minister and the responsible departments have indicated a willingness to review aspects of the reforms, where issues have been identified during stakeholder consultations”.
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Bitcoin 'is a fraud', says JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon
David Henry and Anna Irrera
Published: September 13 2017 - 5:34AM
New York: Bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co , said on Tuesday.
Speaking at an investor conference in New York, Dimon said, "The currency isn't going to work. You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart."
Dimon said that if any JPMorgan traders were trading the crypto-currency, "I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous."
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Growing inequality puts Australians on same path as America: ACTU
Anna Patty
Published: September 13 2017 - 6:17AM
Australians face growing wage inequality and the threat of an American work culture of longer hours, low wages and poor job security, the peak labour organisation has warned.
In a new report to be released on Wednesday, the Australian Council of Trade Unions says income inequality is at its greatest level in 70 years with a majority of Australians experiencing a decline in living standards and job security.
Describing inequality as "the challenge of our time", the ACTU warns that if Australia fails to change course it is at risk of becoming an "Americanised society of high inequality and dead-end jobs, with long working hours, no holidays, zero job security and poverty pay levels".
Why the robot revolution won't play out as predicted
Ross Gittins
Published: September 13 2017 - 12:05AM
You'd have to have been hiding under a rock not to know that 40 per cent of jobs in Australia – about 5 million of them – are likely to be automated in the next 10 to 15 years.
Ask a young person what they know about the future of work and that's it. Which may help explain why so many of them seem angry and depressed about the economic future they're inheriting.
This information is widely known because it's the key finding of a major report, Australia's future workforce?, published in 2015 by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, a well-regarded business think tank, derived from modelling it commissioned.
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- Sep 13 2017 at 2:04 PM
Households spending more on the basics: Australian Bureau of Statistics
by Jacob Greber
Australians are spending a modestly rising proportion of their incomes on basics such as housing, food, energy, healthcare and transport, according to annual official figures.
More than half - or $846 - of the average $1425 spent per week on goods and services was for non-discretionary purchases in 2015-16.
That accounts for 59 per cent of the total weekly spending budget, up from 56 per cent in 1984, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.
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Australian incomes more equal than a decade ago, but average household debts have doubled
Eryk Bagshaw
Published: September 13 2017 - 2:33PM
Australia is more equal than it was a decade ago, but one in six Australians still can't afford a night out once a fortnight and one in 10 can only afford second-hand clothes.
These are the findings of the Australian Bureau of Statistics household income and expenditure survey of 17,000 homes, released on Wednesday, which shows that between 2004 and 2008, average weekly household income grew by $213.
Since then it has only grown by $27 to $1009.
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Why the market doesn't care about liar loans
Michael Pascoe
Published: September 14 2017 - 9:13AM
I have a "liar loan" – a mortgage based on less than absolutely factual information. I've pretty much always had liar loans. And I recently obtained a "liar credit card". So what?
Given readers' (and therefore the media's) love of stories that combine housing and doomsday scenarios, investment bank UBS received saturation coverage with its idea that $500 billion in "liar loans" are a hanging over the Australian housing market, set to come crashing down on the economy at the first hint of trouble and damn us all to hell.
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan.
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The financial Plan B for Australians who won't buy a home
Paul Benson
Published: September 14 2017 - 10:50AM
You'd have to have been living on Mars for the past decade to not be aware that house prices, especially in Melbourne and Sydney, have risen sharply. The combination of extremely low interest rates, a growing population, and in some cases a lack of supply of new homes, has resulted in existing home owners becoming wealthy, at least on paper, and those outside the home ownership club wondering how they will ever break in.
You could rail against the unfairness of it all but that's likely to have as much impact as putting up an umbrella during a cyclone.
So how about focusing on a Plan B? How could you re-imagine your life journey, where the purchase of a home in your late 20s or early 30s, probably with a partner, is not in the plan?
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It's not just CBA: all the banks are exposed to millions in money laundering
Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Georgina Mitchell
Published: September 15 2017 - 6:45AM
Gaping holes in the anti-money laundering systems of Australia's big banks are being exploited by crime groups to wash up to $5 million in drug cash a day, according to confidential briefings by federal and state policing agencies.
New details of police investigations reveal that the big four banks – Westpac, ANZ, NAB and CBA – have all been used by money laundering syndicates to launder drug funds offshore.
Syndicates are also suspected to have infiltrated the franchises of mid-tier banks. Police have gathered intelligence that an outlaw bikie group is examining acquiring the franchise of a mid-tier bank, while the Bank of Queensland's Punchbowl branch in Sydney was closed after Mexican cartel drug money washed funds through its accounts in 2010.
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Energy market operator says Liddell doesn't have to stay open, as Tony Abbott casts doubt on Paris pledge
Nicole Hasham
Published: September 14 2017 - 5:35PM
The Turnbull government's insistence that the ageing Liddell coal-fired power plant must stay open longer has been cast into doubt by the operator of Australia's electricity market, who says there are other ways to head off a predicted power shortfall.
Australia's energy quandary dominated question time on Thursday, as the government and Labor tussled over who was responsible for rising power prices and how best to deliver a reliable, affordable power supply.
Appearing at a hearing in Canberra on Thursday, Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Audrey Zibelman said battery storage, renewable energy, management of consumer demand and upgrading existing power plants could all help meet a predicted 1000-megawatt shortfall in flexible, dispatchible capacity – power that can be created on demand – when energy giant AGL closes its Liddell power plant in 2022.
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MICHAEL LAMBERT. Australia’s electricity markets policy: The shambles continues.
Over the last week we have been treated to the depressing spectacle of the Prime Minister and his government reacting in a knee jerk, wrong-headed manner to two sensible and useful reports that have been released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). This highlights the folly of not having a national plan for transitioning the National Electricity Market towards an increasingly renewable energy system.
AEMO has released two reports in September on the issue of the challenges of electricity market security:
- 2017 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (https://www.aemo.com.au/-media/Files/Electricity/NEM Planning and Forecasting/NEM ESOO/2017/2017-Electricity-Statement-of-Opportunities.pdf), which provides a projected outlook under various scenarios for the next ten years to 2026-27 on electricity supply and demand
- Advice to the Commonwealth Government on Dispatchable Capability (https://www.aemo.com.au/-media/Files/Media Centre /2017/Advice-To-Commonwealth-Government-On-Dispatchable-Capability.pdf), which draws on the projections of the first report to assess the implications for electricity market security and identify what policy and market actions are required. The release of this report was accompanied by a letter to the Federal Minister for Energy and a copy of a report by the energy consulting firm, the Brattle Group, on international experience with managing the transition to a renewable energy market
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http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-must-get-ready-for-the-next-asian-financial-crisis-says-top-official-20170914-gyhpqb.html
Australia must get ready for the next Asian Financial Crisis, says top official
Matt Wade
Published: September 15 2017 - 12:15AM
Australia must stand ready to provide financial support and loan guarantees to regional neighbours in the event of economic crisis in Asia, one of Australia's top economic officials has warned.
Barry Sterland, who until recently represented Australia on the International Monetary Fund board, says there are "structural reasons" for thinking financial risks will remain high in Asia for some time to come.
In a paper published by the Lowy Institute on Friday, Mr Sterland argues that Australia should actively use its regional networks and membership of major international economic institutions to reduce the risks.
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Household expenditure survey. Get real. Electricity isn't that expensive
Peter Martin
Published: September 16 2017 - 1:00PM
So you reckon you're paying too much for electricity. What if I told you that at the latest official count you spent no more on it than you would have in 1984?
Back then the expenditure survey showed the average household spent 2.9 per cent of its budget on electricity and gas. Three decades on, in the updated survey released this week, the figure is unchanged: 2.9 per cent.
Electricity and gas amount to just $41 of our total weekly spending of $1425.
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Health Budget Issues.
Health insurers demand reforms to keep premium increases low
- The Australian
- 12:00AM September 11, 2017
Sarah-Jane Tasker
Australia’s health insurance industry has warned Health Minister Greg Hunt that if he wants consumers to have lower annual premium increases next year he has just over a month to move on reforms to cut costs to the sector.
In an exclusive round-table discussion, hosted by The Australian, the heads of the country’s top insurers, covering about 80 per cent of the market, agreed time for reform was now.
“My memo to Greg Hunt, if you want an industry price increase next year with a 3 in front of it, you’ll have to do more about prosthetic devices, because that is an easy win,” Nib chief Mark Fitzgibbon said.
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’It’s about private healthcare, not just health insurance’
- The Australian
- 12:00AM September 11, 2017
Sarah-Jane Tasker
An edited transcript of a private healthcare insurance roundtable hosted by The Australian senior business reporter Sarah-Jane Tasker on both the short and longer-term challenges facing the private health sector.
THE AUSTRALIAN: Why is there an intense focus on the affordability of private health insurance?
GERARD FOGARTY, Defence Health chief executive: There was a negative narrative that was started in the press around two years ago which I think was driven by the then health minister and it gained momentum. It had resonance because at that stage most consumers were struggling with the affordability issue.
ROB BRANSBY, Private Healthcare Australia chairman: The tipping point was participation rates started to come off on a number of consecutive quarters and the affordability issue crept up. Suddenly, with the economic standards, people started to vote with their feet.
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Lengthy wait times for elective surgeries expected to be slashed
Published: September 11 2017 - 12:00AM
Patients waiting for elective surgeries with some of the longest wait times, including hip and knee replacements and cataract extractions, are set to benefit from a $3 million funding injection into specific local health districts.
The average waiting time for a knee replacement at a NSW public hospital is about 288 days, the wait time for a cataract extraction is about 216 days and patients wait an average of 203 days for a hip replacement, according to the latest Bureau of Health Information data from December 2016.
More than 1650 patients got a knee replacement and 943 people got a hip replacement in a NSW public hospital between October and December 2016.
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Private health insurance, is it worth the money?
By Tracy Bowden
Heather Carey has had private health insurance for more than 40 years.
"We are of a generation that grew up thinking we were doing the right thing, you should have private health insurance to take the burden off the public system," Heather Carey told 7.30.
But when she really needed it, her private health insurer let her down. Twice.
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Health professionals’ training needs to be refined
- The Australian
- 12:10AM September 9, 2017
Sean Parnell
Health workforce education and training must change to meet the growing demands of chronic illness and an ageing population, a review has found.
The review, by Michael Woods from the University of Technology Sydney, was commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments’ Health Council and has focused on the national accreditation systems.
A decade after the creation of a National Regulation and Accreditation Scheme, the review found that, while it serves the nation well, “nonetheless, Australia still has a profession-based complex and polymorphic governance arrangement with multiple overlapping functions”.
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Premium cost hopes resting on knees, hips
- Sean Parnell
- The Australian
- 3:50PM September 11, 2017
Health Minister Greg Hunt will try to reduce pressure on insurance premiums by cutting the cost of prostheses used in the private sector, amid claims device manufacturers may already be circumventing changes he introduced seven months ago.
As the minister tries to find savings ahead of premiums rising on April 1, manufacturers are seeking to defend the industry against claims from health funds and a commonwealth agency that prostheses are significantly cheaper in public hospitals.
The Australian has obtained a report Mr Hunt commissioned from the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority showing prices on the Prostheses List used in the private sector have been consistently higher than for the same items, on comparable patients, in public hospitals. Further government analysis shows that by category, on average, cardiac devices were 119 per cent more expensive in private hospitals, urogenital prostheses 109.9 per cent more expensive, ophthalmic implants 92.9 per cent more expensive and neurosurgical parts 68.3 per cent more expensive.
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- Updated Sep 11 2017 at 11:30 PM
Health funds plan discounted premiums to attract younger members
Health funds are examining offering customers discounted premiums for life as an incentive to take out cover in their 20s in a bid to arrest plummeting rates of membership.
Amid soaring complaints about declining affordability, insurers and their lobby group Private Healthcare Australia are working on a plan that would reduce premiums by 2 per cent a year, capped at 10 per cent after five years.
Dubbed a "reverse Lifetime Health Cover", a member would continue to have cheaper premiums for as long as they remained in a fund.
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New meningococcal combination vaccine approved for infants as young as two months old
Kate Aubusson
Published: September 12 2017 - 9:57AM
A new combination meningococcal vaccine that protects against four strains of the potentially life-threatening disease can now be given to babies as young as two months old.
On Tuesday the Therapeutics Goods Administration approved the vaccine MENVEO for use in infants from eight weeks. The vaccine manufactured by GSK offers immunity for the meningococcal strains A, C, W and Y.
Currently the national immunisation program offers a free vaccine against meningococcal C for 12 month olds.
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Exodus from private healthcare saves $1bn but states carry can
- The Australian
- 12:00AM September 13, 2017
Sean Parnell
The private health insurance exodus is delivering more than $1 billion in unanticipated rebate savings for the Turnbull government even as it tries to stem the flow of patients to the public sector by making premiums more affordable.
About 10,000 people a month are dropping their hospital cover, citing rising costs and an apparent faith they will be treated in the public system without charge. The declining rate of coverage is adding to pressure on the government to deliver reforms and stabilise the system.
While the states are worried about a rush on public hospitals, the insurance exodus is providing a perverse saving for the commonwealth in the form of lower expenditure on the government rebate. Over the five years to 2020-21, the government expects to spend $1.2bn less on the rebate, which subsidises premiums, than it previously forecast when coverage rates were steady.
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Doctors want a 19 per cent pay rise in exchange for ending so-called ‘six minute medicine’
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
September 13, 2017 10:00pm
SIX minute medicine would end and patients would get to spend at least 20 minutes with their GP under a new funding model rewarding longer consultations.
GPs would get a 19 per cent pay rise under the plan and be paid as much as specialists for seeing a patient.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says the six minute medicine practised by high turnover bulk billing clinics encourages too many prescriptions for antibiotics.
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Government dismisses increasing aged care user-pay options
By Natasha Egan on September 15, 2017 in Government, Industry
The Coalition Government has ruled out including the full value of an older person’s home in the means test for residential care and abolishing annual and lifetime caps on user contributions from among the recommendations of the five-year review into aged care reforms.
The move to dismiss these measures before consultation has been condemned by provider and consumers groups.
The aged care legislated review, which was led by David Tune, examined the effectiveness of the 2012 Living Longer Living Better aged care reforms and produced 38 recommendations for future reform and aged care provision (read our story here).
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Greg Hunt flags 'dramatic' reductions in private health insurance prices
Adam Gartrell
Published: September 15 2017 - 11:52PM
The Turnbull government wants "dramatic reductions" in private health insurance price rises over the next three years, with a major new reform package set to make deep cuts to the medical device sector and entice more young people into cover.
Health Minister Greg Hunt's changes will also aim to slash mental health service waiting lists for private patients, and finally require insurers to offer a simplified three-tier policy system that will make it easier for people to compare, choose and understand their coverage.
Warning of a "catastrophe" if the government does not act to stop the private health insurance exodus, Mr Hunt says this year's 4.8 per cent average premium price increase was too high and said his plan will bring future increases as close as possible to the general inflation rate of two per cent.
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How one in five people will end up in aged care against their wishes
Jane Gilmour
Published: September 16 2017 - 12:43PM
Lizzi Holt, 59, is renting in Elwood. She's energetic, gregarious and loves the vibrancy of inner-city living. She knows, however, that she must make plans for her future.
"I'll probably retire outside the city, somewhere I can still be sociable but have some level of peaceful seclusion. I want to buy my own home but I have no idea how much assistance I'll need when I'm older or where that will be available," she says.
"Although I don't have super I've got a small nest egg and I need to use it to make sure I have somewhere to live when I can't work any more. But how do I plan for the next five years and the next 25 years at the same time? I'm really struggling to find an answer."
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International Issues.
Stephen Bannon declares war on Republican leaders in Congress
Ashley Parker
Published: September 11 2017 - 9:37AM
Washington, DC: Stephen Bannon - President Donald Trump's former chief strategist who left the White House in August - declared war on Sunday against the Republican congressional leadership, called on Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, to resign, and outlined his views on issues ranging from immigration to trade.
Bannon, in a interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan of "trying to nullify the 2016 election." It was Bannon's first television interview since leaving the White House and returning as executive chairman to Breitbart News, the conservative website he previously led.
He blamed them for failing to repeal and replace former president Barack Obama's signature health-care law and made clear he would use his Breitbart perch to hold Republicans accountable for not helping Trump push through his agenda.
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For Hurricane Irma, the metrics are measured in millions
Paul McGeough
Published: September 11 2017 - 10:44AM
Washington: Already key metrics are being measured in the millions - millions evacuated from their homes, millions without power and millions effectively twiddling their thumbs as daily life grinds to a halt.
As Hurricane Irma plods northward, there were forecasts of dangerous storm surges in its wake, with Florida Governor Rick Scott warning: "The biggest thing you can do now is pray."
And tens of millions in the rest of the country were glued to TVs, watching it all.
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Shooting down a North Korean bullet: Inside the mind games of missile defence
David Wroe
Published: September 10 2017 - 1:54AM
When North Korea launched its latest Hwasong-12 missile over Japan a fortnight ago, the Japanese Self-Defence Force could have tried to shoot it down.
That would have meant using one or more of its four naval destroyers, which are equipped with the cutting-edge US Aegis system that tracks enemy missiles and guides interceptor missiles to take out the threat.
The destroyer's vertical tubes would have launched an SM-3 interceptor missile that, all going well, would meet the Hwasong-12 somewhere around the edge of the atmosphere in a violent collision.
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North Korea: Sanctions tighten screws on regime but China, Russia get their way
Paul McGeough
Published: September 12 2017 - 12:52PM
Washington: The UN Security Council has whacked crippling new sanctions on North Korea to force it to negotiate over its nuclear and weapons programs.
But it came only after days of diplomatic horse-trading, in which Washington caved to demands by Beijing and Moscow that even harsher American terms be defanged.
The deal between the three powers ensured that neither the Chinese nor the Russians exercised their Security Council veto, which would have derailed what became a unanimous resolution in the aftermath of Pyongyang's sixth and most powerful nuclear device test on September 3.
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Five big global crises that got worse while the world watched Hurricane Irma
Peter Hartcher
Published: September 12 2017 - 9:29AM
While Hurricane Irma is a big and important news event, the intensive coverage has largely crowded out other important developments in the world in the last few days. Five world-changing crises advanced while most media attention was fixed on the hurricane.
1. North Korean nuclear program
The world edged closer to the inevitable decision point on North Korea's nuclear missile program. Kim Jong-un had been expected to light up another intercontinental ballistic missile to mark the country's Foundation Day on the weekend but preferred to keep the world guessing. He threw a big party for his nuclear scientists instead. "The recent test of the H-bomb [hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb] is the great victory won by the Korean people at the cost of their blood while tightening their belts in the arduous period," said the so-called Dear Marshall, signalling to his people that the half-century-long plan is approaching culmination as he achieves nuclear breakout.The culminating point is approaching for the US, too.
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/south-korea-plans-decapitation-unit-to-menace-north-20170913-gygl99.html
South Korea plans 'decapitation unit' to menace North
Choe Sang-hun
Published: September 13 2017 - 3:41PM
Seoul: The last time South Korea is known to have plotted to assassinate the North Korean leadership, nothing went as planned.
In the late 1960s, after North Korean commandos tried to ransack the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea secretly trained misfits plucked from prison or off the streets to sneak into North Korea and slit the throat of its leader, Kim Il-sung. When the mission was aborted, the men mutinied.
They killed their trainers and fought their way into Seoul before blowing themselves up, an episode the government concealed for decades.
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- Updated Sep 15 2017 at 9:24 AM
Donald Trump's shotgun marriage with the Democrats will likely be short-lived
by John Kehoe
Donald Trump has turned rogue on the Republican Party.
He's hosting intimate White House dinners for Democrats, soon after belittling Republican congressional leaders on Twitter.
To the ire of conservatives, the transactional businessman-turned-President is cutting deals with Democrats on government spending and signalling he might do similar on immigration.
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Police arrest teenager in connection to London train bomb
Nick Miller
Published: September 16 2017 - 8:32PM
London: Police have arrested an 18-year-old man in connection with a nail bomb which detonated on a rush-hour London Tube train on Friday, which injured at least 29 people.
The teenager was arrested by Kent Police in the port town of Dover on Saturday morning, nearly two hours out of London.
The man remains in custody at a local police station, but it is believed he will be transferred to a south London police station.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
