-----
Two really huge stories this week.
In Eastern Australia the bushfires are just apocalyptic. Hopefully by the time this is available things will have settled a bit and the heat on the weekend will be less, but sadly Friday is looking grim.
In the US Trump has decided give a serious shot at kicking off WW III by assassinating a key Iranian General and a few Iraqi leaders. We have to hope we don’t see an extreme Iranian response, as has turned out to be the case and Trump seems to have calmed down a little. Breath!
-----
Major Issues.
-----
Political warfare: Dave Sharma’s call to arms
Liberal MP and former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma says Australia must be prepared to wage “political warfare” to protect the nation’s sovereignty, and develop offensive intelligence capabilities to destabilise foreign adversaries.
Amid warnings of surging foreign interference in Australian institutions, Mr Sharma says Australia should draw inspiration from the “intelligence-driven disruption operations” of Israel’s shadowy intelligence service, Mossad.
Writing in The Australian on Monday, Mr Sharma says Australia faces a “sustained political warfare threat” through electoral interference, propaganda and the acquisition of key assets, and needs new tools to expose and exploit the vulnerabilities of its adversaries.
“In particular, we need to consider developing not just defensive capabilities, but also offensive capabilities, so that we give our intelligence and other agencies not just the tools to defend, but also the means to respond,” he says.
-----
It’s time Australia rose up to defend itself
On my summer reading list is Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First, the history of Mossad and Israel’s other intelligence services. The book’s title comes from a Talmudic injunction: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”
But it is also a reference to the policy of intelligence-driven disruption operations, often undertaken pre-emptively, that have formed a pillar of Israeli statecraft since its foundation as a modern nation.
For Israel, surrounded by hostility and vastly outnumbered by adversaries, an aggressive intelligence service and a highly capable military have been indispensable tools for national survival.
In comparison, Australia’s strategic environment has been relatively secure and benign for most of our history. Outside wartime, our defence and intelligence services, while highly capable, have been modest in size and predominantly defensive in posture and capability.
-----
Sydney set for smoky New Year's Eve
AAP
Dec 30, 2019 — 7.32am
Dangerous fire weather and poor air quality are forecast for NSW as firefighters brace for deteriorating bushfire conditions before New Year's Eve.
The Bureau of Meteorology says temperatures will start building on Monday and are likely to climb past 40C in western Sydney and parts of regional NSW by Tuesday.
"Conditions will deteriorate again as it heats up on Monday with very high to severe fire dangers forecast for areas of the state," the bureau said on Sunday evening.
The NSW environment department is forecasting poor air quality in Sydney on Monday, warning that pollution will be "unhealthy for sensitive people", particularly those with heart or lung diseases.
-----
Morrison suddenly risks frittering away his 'miracle' election win
Tony Walker
Columnist and award-winning foreign correspondent
December 29, 2019 — 11.03pm
No doubt Scott Morrison will be hoping visits to India and Japan over the next several weeks will shift attention away from a bad look over an ill-advised overseas holiday when Australia was on fire – literally.
It remains to be seen whether travel abroad in the service of the country – as opposed to himself – will help to reset the political debate, or whether an unpleasant aftertaste will endure.
Put simply, the Prime Minister needs to recalibrate after a jarring end to a political year that had begun promisingly following his “miracle’’ election victory in May. That promise is now in danger of being frittered away like the wafer-thin surplus.
Morrison’s principal vulnerability, apart from a sagging economy, has both a domestic and international dimension. It is one he would be wise to take more seriously than appears to be the case beyond the usual bromides about Australia’s inability to influence net global emissions.
-----
Shout less, listen more: let's make this our New Year's resolution
Anthony Albanese
Labor MP
December 30, 2019 — 12.00am
Here’s a great New Year’s Resolution. Let’s all strive to be more tolerant. As 2020 dawns, this nation – and many others – seem to be paralysed by division. The emergence of social media and the 24-hour media cycle have significantly altered the way people relate to each other and the way political discourse is conducted.
Debate has been replaced by shouting. Facts are trumped by dogma. People are stuck in the rut of culture wars, unwilling to alter their views on issues such as climate change despite the science being clear and the evidence being demonstrated in devastating fashion.
Intolerance is everywhere. Social media platforms allow people to exist in echo chambers where their views are constantly reinforced and never challenged. Many of us no longer have much opportunity to engage with people who hold different views.
-----
The year the Reserve Bank sounded the climate change alarm
By Matt Wade
December 30, 2019 — 12.00am
When our buttoned-down economic guardians at the Reserve Bank describe something as a "serious challenge" and a "systemic risk" it’s time to pay attention.
Those are just some of the strident terms it chose to use this year about the threat of climate change.
Amid the fractious national debate over climate policy in 2019 the Reserve made two striking interventions.
The first came in March when the RBA’s deputy governor, Guy Debelle, broke new ground for the bank with a speech titled "Climate change and the economy."
-----
20 US stocks to buy in 2020
Jessica Menton
Dec 30, 2019 — 4.55pm
After a stellar 2019, investors look ahead to 2020 for stock picks.
Analysts are sceptical that the US stock market's gains, which are at more than 20 per cent in 2019, will remain in the double-digit percentage range next year. They expect volatility to return in the midst of a US presidential election.
Some investors wait for stocks to get cheaper before they step in and scoop up buying opportunities. Companies poised to outperform, they say, will be ones that can continue to grow their earnings even if the economy slows.
From iPhone maker Apple to beverage giant Coca-Cola to e-commerce titan Amazon, USA Today offers 20 stock picks for 2020 based on research reports and interviews with Wall Street stock analysts.
-----
Central banks in a period of flux, with uncertainty surrounding global economy
The Economist
Economic expansions are most often killed off by rising interest rates or financial crashes - surprises that cause economy-wide demand for goods and services to fall.
Rarer is the supply-side recession in which economies are deprived of their productive capacity.
Not since the oil-price shocks of the 1970s has there been a global downturn that can be attributed primarily to supply.
Yet, if a worldwide slump happens in 2020 it may fall into that category - because it will have been caused primarily by the trade barriers erected between China and America.
The trade war between the two countries intensified for most of 2019, when it had been expected to come to an end. Relations eased a little in October 2019, with the postponement of some tariffs, but an end to hostilities is some way off.
-----
4000 forced into ocean in darkness as fire hits Victorian holiday town
Kaitlyn Offer
Dec 31, 2019 — 9.55am
Fire has hit a Victorian coastal holiday town and people are being told to go into the water as warning sirens sound.
Authorities believe about 4000 people are still at Mallacoota, which was being hit by fire about 8.30am on Tuesday.
"Everyone is hopefully down on the foreshore in the water," Don Ashby told the ABC on Tuesday morning as emergency sirens sounded.
The fire has cut power to the town, with AusNet Services reporting 5700 properties in East Gippsland without electricity due to the fires, and a further 1800 in northeast Victoria also down.
-----
Say goodbye to banking as we know it
The crypto yuan, which may be on offer as soon as 2020, will be fully backed by the central bank of the world's second-largest economy.
Andy Mukherjee
Dec 31, 2019 — 7.22am
So is China readying its own bitcoin? Banish the thought.
It's far bigger than that. Yes, just like any other cryptocurrency - or for that matter, cigarettes in prisoners-of-war camps - the upcoming digital yuan will be "tokenised" money. But the similarity ends there.
The crypto yuan, which may be on offer as soon as 2020, will be fully backed by the central bank of the world's second-largest economy, drawing its value from the Chinese state's ability to impose taxes in perpetuity. Other national authorities are bound to embrace this powerful idea.
Little is known about the digital yuan except that it's been in the works for five years and Beijing is nearly ready to roll.
-----
The retreat of negative rates isn't an all-clear for investors
By Mohamed A. El-Erian
December 31, 2019 — 6.22am
Negative-yielding government bonds have been a significant force for a superb year of investment returns for both stocks and bonds, and many are welcoming their recent decline as an indicator of what will support the next leg up in valuations. Yet the evidence remains mixed, suggesting a more nuanced approach to longer-term investing.
The growth and persistence of negative-yielding debt in 2019 has done more than deliver attractive price appreciation on government bonds. It has pushed investors to take on more risk, pushing up the price of assets from investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds to emerging markets to, of course, equities.
It has also encouraged companies to intensify their financial engineering, often involving debt issuance to pay for stock buybacks. And it has supported a range of mergers and acquisitions. All of this is best summarised by the historically unusual coincidence of a nearly 30 per cent gain in the S&P 500 stock index, a still-robust 15 per cent for the Bloomberg Barclays Bond Index and minuscule volatility as measured by the VIX index.
-----
History of disasters shows there is nothing new about nation’s destructive blazes
While there is no doubt these bushfires are bad and may get worse, fuelling more talk of the nation battling an unprecedented fire threat this summer, the blazes that continue to plague the eastern states and Western Australia are nothing new.
They do not compare with some of the more extreme fire disasters in Australia’s short history, such as the Black Thursday conflagration of 1851 that burned five million hectares and was so intense that ships 30km off the coast of Victoria reported coming under ember attack.
Those fires covered one-quarter of what is now the state of Victoria, including the Portland region, the Plenty Ranges, the Wimmera and Dandenong. Twelve people died and one million sheep perished.
Then there have been the more recent blazes in which scores of lives were lost. Geoscience Australia estimates that between 1967 and 2013, major bushfires killed 433 people, injured another 8000 and caused $4.7bn in damage.
-----
Naval ships and aircraft ready for bushfire rescues
By David Crowe
December 31, 2019 — 5.16pm
A fleet of naval vessels, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft is ready to supply and rescue Australians from raging bushfires after the Australian Defence Force pledged to meet "all requests" from state authorities for military help.
In a dramatic escalation in assistance, the Royal Australian Navy will send ships as soon as possible to offer help to coastal towns circled by fire after talks between defence chiefs and state authorities on Tuesday.
Immediate assistance will come from Royal Australian Air Force helicopters and other aircraft with the capacity to drop supplies to towns in Victoria and NSW that are isolated by fire and road closures.
But the Morrison government is also facing calls for a dramatic expansion in military intervention by mobilising soldiers to create fire breaks and using the Royal Australian Air Force to douse fires.
-----
Tragic, deadly, stupid: Australians keep getting into trouble overseas
By James Massola
December 30, 2019 — 2.54pm
Jakarta: From the stupid to the tragic to the deadly, 2019 was another year of (some) Australians behaving badly in south-east Asia.
As is so often the case, drugs and alcohol played a major part in Aussies coming unstuck. But the quest for the perfect selfie – there's a good reason why selfie sticks have been dubbed the "wand of Narcissus" – also saw tourists taking unnecessary risks, at times with fatal consequences.
The first headline-grabbing consular cases of 2019 both took place in January and involved Thailand, Australia and Middle Eastern countries in an awkward stand-off.
They were Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, a Saudi Arabian woman stranded in Bangkok while seeking to reach Australia and claim asylum, and Hakeem al-Araibi, a refugee footballer who had fled from Bahrain to make a new life in Melbourne.
-----
The sky turned black. The beast had arrived in Mallacoota
By Chip Le Grand
December 31, 2019 — 11.30pm
They knew the beast had arrived when the morning sky above Mallacoota turned black as coal.
Through a long sleepless night they’d waited. Some in their homes.
Others in cars, crammed boot-to-bumper into an open space near the town’s wharf. Others curled up on camp mattresses and makeshift beds.
They were first told to evacuate at 4.30pm the previous day. Then they were told the firefront would hit town between 5am and 6am.
-----
‘Indicators are flashing red’: ‘Warning signs’ recession is looming
The past 12 months have been a rollercoaster ride for Australia – and all the warning signs suggest things are about to get a lot worse.
Australia's economic growth has plunged to the lowest level since the GFC in 2009.
COMMENT
2019 felt like a rollercoaster ride. 2020 is almost certain to be even wilder. Australia has never started a year with interest rates so low and with so much uncertainty around.
Doubt is enveloping house prices, wages, and global markets. It’s hard to see how the RBA could possibly get relaxed enough about the future to raise interest rates.
So what will happen in the new year? Here are the four big issues you should be thinking about.
HOUSE PRICES
2019 was a surprising year for house prices. The housing market started the year amid unusual gloom, then did a big U-turn. It ended up in a much more familiar place for Australians – a frenzy of bidding driving house prices up at a record rate.
-----
S&P/ASX 200 records its best year in a decade with 18pc lift
The local sharemarket has surged to its best annual gain in a decade, as the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index recorded an 18.4 per cent rise on the back of an aggressive search for yield.
The gains came despite end-of-year profit-taking that triggered a fall of 1.8 per cent, or 120 points in the benchmark index on Tuesday, cutting about $40bn of market value.
But even as earnings estimates retreated across the year after the worst economic growth since the global financial crisis — following China’s deleveraging campaign, hostile US trade policy and Australia’s housing downturn and crippling drought — the benchmark index closed the year at 6684.1 points, a 1037.7-point annual gain.
It marked the local market’s best year since a 31 per cent rise in 2009.
-----
Climate patterns behind Australia's bushfires, heat and drought set to improve
Bureau of Meteorology says two climate patterns behind the dangerous fire conditions have shifted towards neutral
Wed 1 Jan 2020 06.00 AEDT Last modified on Wed 1 Jan 2020 11.30 AEDT
Two climate patterns that have been influencing Australia’s ongoing drought, deadly bushfire weather and record-breaking heat have shifted towards neutral, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The changes should reduce the chances of hot winds from the west that have been adding to the extreme risk of bushfires in the south-east.
But Dr Andrew Watkins, the head of long-range forecasts at the bureau, told Guardian Australia the damage caused by the two patterns – the positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and a negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM) – would likely remain for several months.
He said the change in SAM towards more neutral conditions would reduce the chance of westerly winds that had brought heat and dangerous fire conditions.
-----
'You won't put these fires out': holidaymakers stranded
Jan 1, 2020 — 1.43pm
As many as seven emergency warnings were issued for bushfires in the East Gippsland, and thousands of holidaymakers remained stranded on the NSW south coast, on the first day of 2020.
Conditions in eastern Victoria were relatively mild on Tuesday, as temperatures fell to 28 degrees and wind gusts down to 15-20 km per hour. But fire danger was rated "high" as blazes started by lightning, partially generated by the bushfires themselves, continued to burn out of control.
Victorian state emergency commissioner Andrew Crisp said "what we used to talk about as three fires have become one" in East Gippsland, as the total area burned across the state this bushfire season exceeded 500,000 hectares.
"What we talk about, when you start to get ratings into the extreme area, fires are fast moving, uncontrollable, unpredictable. You won’t put them out. That’s a fact," he said.
Mr Crisp added that the state had "three months of hot weather to come," and that conditions were expected to deteriorate again on Friday and Saturday.
-----
Why the media are broken
Journalists primarily do one thing: cover events. But now, the process by which people make sense of events is more important than the event itself.
David Brooks
Jan 1, 2020 — 9.43am
Those of us in journalism primarily do one thing: cover events. We report and opine about events like election campaigns, wars and crimes. A lot of the events we cover are decisions — a decision to reform health care or write a tweet — so we tend to congregate in the cities where decision-makers live. The internet has sped up the news cycle. Now we put more emphasis on covering the last event that just happened. But it's still mostly events.
But a funny thing has happened to events in this era. They have ceased to drive politics the way they used to. We've seen gigantic events like impeachment, the Kavanaugh hearings, the Mueller investigation and the Access Hollywood tapes. They come and go and barely leave a trace on the polls, the political landscape or evaluations of Donald Trump.
Events don't seem to be driving politics. Increasingly, sociology is.
Do you want to predict how a certain region is going to vote in the 2020 presidential race? Discover who settled the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. If the settlers were from the East Anglia section of Britain, then that region is probably going Democratic. If the settlers were from the north of Britain, that region is very likely to vote for Donald Trump.
-----
Seven dead, one missing, almost 200 homes lost on South Coast
By Nick Bonyhady
Updated January 1, 2020 — 3.58pmfirst published at 11.11am
Seven people have died and one person is missing following the horror fires on the South Coast on Tuesday.
"Sadly, we can report today that police have confirmed a further three deaths as a result of the fires on the South Coast," NSW Police deputy commissioner Gary Worboys said.
"Police are also at Lake Conjola now, where a house has been destroyed by fire and the occupant of that home is still unaccounted for. This goes on the back of the four deaths reported yesterday."
The RFS also confirmed 176 homes have been destroyed. Almost 90 homes were burnt in Conjola Park, just north of Ulladulla, 40 homes were lost in Malula Bay, south of Batemans Bay, and 15 homes were lost in Rosedale on the outskirts of Batemans Bay.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/asic-warns-treasurer-on-risky-funds-20191217-p53ksp
ASIC warns Treasurer on risky funds
Jan 2, 2020 — 12.00am
Dozens of listed investment funds that have raised tens of billions of dollars from retail investors are rife with "poor performance" and are paying "conflicted" commissions to financial advisers for "worse" returns, the securities regulator has warned Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) told Treasury the government's exemption was "hard to justify" for commissions paid by fund managers to advisers and stockbrokers selling listed investment companies (LICs) and listed investment trusts (LITs) to mum and dad investors.
"It is hard to justify maintaining the stamping fee exemption from conflicted remuneration for these products."
— ASIC senior markets specialist David Dworjanyn
The regulator also revealed the Coalition ignored ASIC opposing the government in 2014 weakening Labor's conflicted commission laws for financial advisers, including warnings it would be to the "detriment" of consumers, according to ASIC documents released to The Australian Financial Review under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.
-----
Scott Morrison, here's what you should do in 2020 to show leadership
John Hewson
Columnist and former Liberal opposition leader
You were elected to lead Scott Morrison. It was a surprise, and great that you won against the polling, and that your marketing slogans cut through better than those of Bill Shorten.
But they were only slogans. There was no detail. You have been cut a lot of electoral slack so far, but being prime minister is not just about being there. You are expected to govern in the national interest, to lead on several key policy issues and, where possible, prepare our nation to deal effectively with challenges before they become crises.
Nobody expects you to “hold a hose” against the fires, but they do reasonably expect you to lead with an immediate response to them and to implement a genuine longer-term strategy to deal what will be an increasing challenge into the future.
-----
Business zeros in on climate change
Forcing companies to publish climate change risk scenarios could be a game-changer for investors worried about meeting their fiduciary duties to superannuation fund members and for regulators keen to preserve financial stability.
Jan 2, 2020 — 12.00am
While governments around the world drag the chain on taking tougher climate change policy actions, there are three powerful forces at work that will force business to take a leadership role in 2020.
Regulators are concerned about disruptions to financial stability from banks being exposed to stranded assets and properties inundated by rising sea levels.
Big money investors are worried about their fiduciary duty to consider climate risks and the impact on their performance numbers from being caught with the wrong companies in critical sectors, including utilities, energy, consumer staples, property and infrastructure.
This is a complicated process, because companies that consume large amounts of energy, such as data centres, could find themselves losing investor support if they do not go green.
-----
Adapt or Perish
Preparing for the Inescapable Effects of Climate Change
Ever since climate change became a concern for policymakers and laypeople alike, the focus of public debate has largely been on mitigation: limiting greenhouse gas emissions, capturing carbon, and transitioning to renewable energy. Those efforts must continue if we hope to keep the planet hospitable. But it is also time to acknowledge that—no matter what we do—some measure of climate change is here to stay. The phenomenon has already affected the U.S. economy, U.S. national security, and human health. Such costs will only grow over time. The United States must build resilience and overhaul key systems, including those governing infrastructure, the use of climate data, and finance.
Otherwise, the blow to the U.S. economy will be staggering. Assuming that current trends continue, coastal damage, increased spending on electricity, and lost productivity due to climate-related illness are projected to consume an estimated $500 billion per year by the time a child born today has settled into retirement. Other estimates suggest that the U.S. economy will lose about 1.2 percent of GDP per year for every degree Celsius of warming, effectively halving the country’s annual growth.
Climate change also threatens to fray the United States’ social fabric. Although no region will be spared, some parts of the country—especially the South and the lower Midwest—will likely suffer more from climate change, and poor and vulnerable people across the United States will feel the greatest pain. Hundreds of thousands of people will be forced from their homes by coastal flooding. Against the backdrop of already high economic inequality, these effects will further deepen the United States’ political and regional cleavages.
-----
Fire disaster too complex for piecemeal approach
The national bushfire map is an alarming sight. From Western Australia to Queensland, and especially along the continent’s ravaged southeast coastline of NSW and Victoria, blazes are raging in every state. The selfless dedication and herculean work of professional fire crews, generous volunteers, police and other emergency service workers has been little short of miraculous. Without them, the loss of life, devastating as it is, would be far worse. The Australian Defence Force and reservists have been called in. At least 17 people, including three volunteer firefighters, have been killed since the start of this brutal fire season. More people are missing, feared dead.
Holiday-makers have begun to be evacuated from Mallacoota in Victoria after several days and nights on the beach. Fires have burnt through more than 766,000 hectares across Victoria. NSW, which entered an official seven-day state of emergency at 9am on Friday, has seen an area greater than the size of Belgium burned; more than 4 million hectares destroyed and 900 homes lost.
The National Security Committee of cabinet will meet on Monday to discuss the nation’s response. But with more “catastrophic ’’ conditions tipped for the weekend, is that urgent enough? NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons expects conditions on Saturday to be worse than on New Year’s Eve. In East Gippsland, temperatures are expected to climb back into the mid-40s, with emergency crews exhausted.
-----
One in five households facing mortgage stress despite low rates
Jan 3, 2020 — 12.00am
About one in five mortgage borrowers, or about two million households, are struggling to make repayments, despite record low interest rates, according to analysis by Finder, a comparison website.
Pressure is expected to grow over coming weeks as the expense of Christmas and the new year increases demands on disposable income, particularly for families, the analysis shows.
Borrowers are being urged to shop around for lower rates as the difference between the lowest and highest owner occupier principal and interest rates blows out to about 90 per cent.
The number of struggling households has increased since May, the month before the Reserve Bank of Australia began the first of its three cash rate cuts from 1.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent.
-----
Bushfire victims heckle ScoMo in NSW town
Luke Costin
Jan 3, 2020 — 6.35am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison quickly abandoned a meet-and-greet in a bushfire-ravaged NSW town on Thursday after angry locals verbally abused him.
The prime minister visited the Bega Valley township of Cobargo, which was engulfed by flames on Tuesday morning.
Three people died and others lost homes, businesses, livestock and pasture when the fire hit the community.
"How are you?" Mr Morrison asked, as he reached for a woman's hand to shake it.
"I'm only shaking your hand if you give more funding to our RFS (Rural Fire Service)," she replied.
"So many people have lost their homes."
-----
'Morrison is losing skin': PM too passive in the face of national crisis
David Crowe
Chief political correspondent
January 3, 2020 — 12.00am
The first sign that navy ships would sail to the relief of bushfire victims came on New Year’s Eve when Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews spoke of reaching isolated communities from the sea. With an evil westerly pushing the fires to the coast, Andrews wanted more help from the Australian Defence Force. He only hinted in public at what this help could be.
At a press conference at about 11am on Tuesday, a journalist asked the Premier if he wanted a navy supply ship. “That type of thing,” the Premier replied. “I wouldn’t rule anything out there. And some choppers for instance.”
'As dawn broke on Tuesday, we knew we were in for a big day'
Andrews got all of this and more within six hours. The details came through shortly before 5pm on New Year’s Eve. Two ships would sail from Sydney, while helicopters and transport planes would head to East Sale in Gippsland and two taskforces would be set up, one for Victoria and one for NSW.
-----
'Open up the cheque book': Andrew Constance lashes PM
By Alexandra Smith and David Crowe
Updated January 3, 2020 — 9.55amfirst published at 9.10am
NSW Liberal Transport Minister and Bega MP Andrew Constance has taken an extraordinary swipe at Scott Morrison, saying the Prime Minister received "the welcome that he probably deserved" on the fire-ravaged South Coast.
The Bega MP, who narrowly escaped losing his home when fire tore through Malua Bay, lashed out after Mr Morrison's disastrous visit to Cobargo on Thursday, where he was heckled by locals.
"I didn't even know he was coming, I haven't had a call from him," Mr Constance told Seven's Sunrise program on Friday morning.
-----
'Our future depends on it': Young Libs unveil climate change action plan
By Alexandra Smith
January 2, 2020 — 12.00am
The NSW Young Liberals are demanding the federal government make sweeping policy changes to tackle the "extraordinary challenges presented by human induced climate change".
In a significant move that puts them at odds with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, his branch of the Young Liberals say their generation's future depends on an overhaul of government policy.
Mr Morrison has rejected calls to change the government's climate policy despite the ongoing bushfire emergency, maintaining Australia is pulling its weight in terms of lowering emissions.
But the NSW Young Liberal president Chaneg Torres said the governing body of the party's youth wing voted unanimously at its December meeting to push for new climate change policies.
-----
Liberal Party division explains Morrison's muted crisis response
Internal Liberal Party politics might help explain the Prime Minister's muted response to the raging bushfire crisis but it's way out of step with the public mood.
Jan 3, 2020 — 3.32pm
“This is not working.” The words were uttered by David Allen, licensee of the Cobargo Hotel-Motel, to the ABC hours after fire roared through his historic NSW South Coast village. Nearby, father and son, Robert and Patrick Salway, had perished overnight while attempting to save their home.
Two days later angry Cobargo locals yelled “idiot,” “you’re not welcome,” and “go back to Kirribilli” at Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a brief visit to the scene of destruction. “I’m not surprised people are feeling very raw at the moment,” Morrison said later.
However, in another sign the rapidly unfolding bushfire tragedies are straining Liberal Party unity, local state Liberal MP and NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said Morrison “got the welcome he probably deserved” as the Prime Minister was effectively driven out of the broken town.
-----
Bushfire crisis burns like Morrison's Katrina moment
The Prime Minister's inexplicable clumsiness over the bushfire crisis mirrors the disarray in the Coalition's climate policies.
Jan 3, 2020 — 4.49pm
Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in US history. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The damage was estimated at $US 100 billion, and more than 1000 people are thought to have died.
When it struck, President George W. Bush was on vacation on his ranch in Texas. The two days it took for him to decide to cut short the vacation and return to Washington was a disaster of a different kind.
It was not just a political disaster for Bush, but a disaster for public confidence in the agencies responding to the storm.
Blame games erupted between Washington and state and local authorities about why the response was so slow. A decision to publish a picture of him surveying some of the damage from Air Force One backfired badly.
-----
Government rejected major air-tanker expansion
By David Crowe
January 3, 2020 — 10.00pm
The nation's aerial firefighting centre called four years ago for a "national large air-tanker" fleet to confront a growing bushfire threat but was turned down in a federal government ruling that the task was one for the states.
The National Aerial Firefighting Centre, which oversees a fleet of 145 aircraft, warned of hotter and more extended bushfire seasons in a call on governments in May 2016 to establish the major new capability.
The rejected proposal intensifies the debate over the response to bushfires that are spreading across all six states and have destroyed about 1500 homes and burnt more than 5 million hectares.
-----
ABC under 'growing' cost pressure as bushfire emergency broadcasts surge
By Jennifer Duke
January 3, 2020 — 4.14pm
The ABC's extensive coverage of bushfires ravaging the country threatens to push the taxpayer-funded news organisation into more budget strife with emergency broadcasting events on track to double in 2020.
There have been 670 emergency broadcasting events for the 2019-20 financial year so far, an ABC spokesman said, compared to 371 for the full 2018-19 financial year. In 2017-18 there were 256 events, a figure that had been surpassed by mid-September 2019.
These national emergency broadcasts are not part of the ABC's charter requirements, though are considered to be of significant public benefit by the government and communities across the country, and come out of the existing $1 billion-a-year budget.
-----
The world has made the link between Australian coal, fires and climate
Nick O'Malley
Senior writer
January 4, 2020 — 12.00am
With our south-east coast aflame, our dead uncounted, our holiday beaches rendered into evacuation zones; with our queues for water, fuel, food and for simple escape, Australia now has the world’s attention.
In international eyes, our leaders have been found wanting not only in planning for such a catastrophe, and not just for the failure of some to match the tenacious heroism of our volunteers, but for their refusal to accept the catastrophic reality of climate change and its link with the burning of coal.
Scott Morrison has been abused by community members on a visit to the bushfire ravaged town of Cobargo.
A headline in The Washington Post on Friday morning Australian time bluntly captured Scott Morrison’s humiliation upon visiting Cobargo hours earlier: “Australia’s Prime Minister visited families devastated by the wildfires. It did not go well.”
-----
How we caught the economic growth bug, but may shake it off
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
January 4, 2020 — 12.00am
Do you realise that the great god of mammon, Gross Domestic Product, has really only been worshipped in Australia for 60 years last month? Its high priests at the Australian Bureau of Statistics have been celebrating the anniversary.
Sixty years may see a long time to you, but not to me. And not when you remember that the study of economics, in its recognisable form, started with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776.
GDP is the most closely watched bottom line of the "national accounts" for the Australian economy.
So what do GDP and the national accounts measure, where did they come from and are they as all-important as our economists, business people and politicians seem to think, or is GDP the source of our problems, as many environmentalists and sociologists seem to think?
-----
In the line of fire
The scale of the bushfires brings new challenges.
January 3, 2020
If Australians needed further convincing the fires ravaging the east coast this year are different than those that had gone before, the sight of exhausted holidaymakers being evacuated from the pier at Mallacoota into the bowels of HMAS Choules should do it.
Days earlier those same people huddled under blood-red skies as firefighters fought house to house and throughout the night to save the Victorian town from the monster fire front that tore a deadly path through East Gippsland.
On the NSW south coast, similar battles were fought — some won, many lost.
The historic town of Cobargo is all but gone. About 100km to the north, the community of Lake Conjola surrendered 89 homes while at nearby Sussex Inlet authorities pulled the charred remains of a fire victim from the burnt wreck of a car earlier this week.
-----
As fires rage, does Australia need a strategy to deal with national disasters?
The federal government's low-profile approach to the bushfires contrasts with the finance industry which expects more frequent, disastrous climatic events.
Jan 3, 2020 — 5.41pm
Scott Morrison had prepared for the worst. Months after replacing Malcolm Turnbull in August 2018, and facing a long summer, Australia’s new Prime Minister was warned his first fire season in charge had catastrophic potential, fuelled by record temperatures and entrenched drought conditions.
Mercifully, the worst didn’t arrive. Serious fires were avoided in many parts of the country, but a parched fuel load grew ahead of summer 2020.
Inevitably, luck ran out. The first sign it was this year’s season that was destined to make history arrived in September when flames tore through Queensland’s lush Lamington National Park. Since then bushfires have burned in six states, sparking emergency declarations in NSW and Victoria and some of the largest peacetime evacuations in Australia’s history.
At least 19 people are dead, with dozens more unaccounted for, and more than 1300 homes and 6 million hectares have burned. About 1000 Defence Force personnel are working in the field, assisting state government rescue and recovery efforts.
-----
'For God's sake': Rudd says PM unfit for job after Liberal Party bushfire ad
By Latika Bourke
Kevin Rudd says Scott Morrison is unfit to occupy Australia's highest office after the Prime Minister released a promotional Liberal Party video spruiking his response to the bushfire crisis, which has been the subject of fierce criticism.
The Prime Minister released the video on social media on Saturday evening as catastrophic conditions again hit New South Wales and Victoria and the mercury neared 50 degrees celsius in Penrith, western Sydney. Earlier in the day, Mr Morrison and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds had announced an unprecedented deployment of the military across the fire grounds.This promotional Liberal party video has been heavily criticised.
The video is set to an upbeat musical backing track and features shots of the Prime Minister visiting fire-ravaged areas. The images are in stark contrast to the visit in which Mr Morrison was heckled by locals in Cobargo, on the NSW South Coast.
-----
PM calls up reservists for firefighting effort
By Mike Foley
A historic military response to the east coast bushfire crisis has been mobilised by the Morrison government, which has issued a compulsory call-up to 3000 Australian Defence Force reservists who will work with communities in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Mr Morrison said the “posture” of the federal government had shifted from reactive to proactive - moving from responding to assistance requests from states to actively leading elements of the bushfire response.Defence Minister Linda Reynolds orders compulsory call outs for army reserves amid worsening bushfire conditions.
“There is still a very long way to go and there are clearly communities that need additional help,” he said.
Bushfires: 3000 army reservists called out, extra water bombers leased
4:44PM January 4, 2020
Up to 3000 Army reservists will be called out in an unprecedented move and the HMAS Adelaide will be deployed to assist in Australia’s bushfire crisis - which has seen more than 1500 homes destroyed and at least 23 confirmed deaths - as Scott Morrison ramps up the government’s response.
The government will also lease an extra four water bombers at a cost of $20m to help the planes already available for firefighting efforts as fires burn across NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Two water bombers are due to arrive in a week and two will arrive in a fortnight but it is not clear which countries they are coming from. The planes have a capacity to carry between 11,000 litres and 36,000 litres of water.
The Prime Minister announced the government would no longer simply respond to requests from the states for resources but change to a “move forward” posture following a snap meeting of the National Security Committee of cabinet in Canberra on Saturday.
-----
Doing more of the same on fires will not mitigate disaster impact
By Richard Thornton
12:00AM January 4, 2020
Watching this fire season unfold, I am, like I hope every Australian, shocked and horrified by the extent of the destruction. The tragedy, despair and loss across our nation is deeply saddening.
Back in late August, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre released our bushfire outlook for the coming season showing large areas of eastern Australia facing above-normal potential. Never did we believe that the season would systematically change those red areas on the map to black. I, and on behalf of all those I represent in the research community, extend our condolences to all the communities affected and our heartfelt thanks to all those who have battled the fires so valiantly, and will continue to do so in the months ahead.
To paraphrase American scholar Henry Mencken, there is always a simple solution to every complex problem that is neat, plausible and wrong. That is the position we are in with much of the recent commentary on the causes, impacts and solutions to the bushfires we’ve faced this season across Australia.
There are many views on how the fires could have been prevented. More hazard reduction burning or prescribed burning. Lock up those who deliberately start fires. Turn off electricity supplies. Build fire-resistant houses. Get communities better prepared. Don’t live in the bush. Buy more aircraft. Bring in the army. Grow green fire breaks. Stop greenies. Stop climate change. The list gets longer every day.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/frydenberg-faces-up-to-mis-selling-crisis-20200102-p53obp
Frydenberg faces up to mis-selling crisis
Christopher Joye Columnist
Jan 2, 2020 — 3.48pm
In a stunning development to start the new year, reporter John Kehoe has unearthed the corporate regulator’s classified advice to Treasurer Joshua Frydenberg imploring him to take action to prevent mis-selling crises across Australia’s funds management industry.
The entire market is waiting with bated breath for the Treasurer’s response.
Following a series of articles Kehoe published on these hazards in July 2019, Frydenberg asked the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) to provide counsel on the subject. ASIC obliged with a raft of fresh analysis that confirmed stark warnings it had delivered to the Coalition more than five years ago.
Kehoe’s freedom of information search forced ASIC to reveal that it had aggressively opposed the Coalition’s controversial attempts to roll back the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) laws that were legislated in 2012 to protect consumers against conflicted advice. With the benefit of hindsight in a post-royal commission world, the Coalition's indifference to consumer protections does not look especially smart.
-----
LICs hit back at ASIC's secret advice to Frydenberg
Jan 3, 2020 — 12.00am
Listed investment companies have rejected the corporate regulator's characterisation of payments made to financial advisers as "conflicted" as the Labor Party and consumer groups pressure the federal government to close a perceived $20 billion loophole.
Documents obtained by The Australian Financial Review under freedom of information and published on Thursday reveal the Australian Securities and Investments Commission warned Treasurer Josh Frydenberg about the consumer "detriment" caused by LICs and listed investment trusts (LITs) paying financial advisers and stockbrokers to boost inflows in poorly performing products.
The revelation sparked renewed calls for legislative change, with opposition financial services spokesman Stephen Jones calling for Mr Frydenberg to "send an immediate message to the market" and ban the payment of so-called stamping fees by LICs and LITs.
But prominent LIC operator Geoff Wilson has sought to downplay the controversy surrounding stamping fees, telling the Financial Review that ASIC's reported concerns don't give the "full picture".
-----
Financial advisers confused and concerned about new ethics rules
Jan 4, 2020 — 12.00am
The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority has moved to head off an industry backlash against its new ethics code, amid widespread confusion over the fresh regulations and whether advisers will be banned from receiving certain forms of remuneration, including the controversial stamping fees for selling listed investment companies.
As some financial advisers and lawyers warn the new ethics code starting January 1 will smash the business models of some firms, FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield said he wanted to correct “misinformation” and misinterpretation of the code's application.
“It’s a code about lifting standards, ethical behaviour and professionalism,” Mr Glenfield told The Australian Financial Review.
“It’s asking advisers to put the interests of the clients first at all times, which is the hallmark of any profession.
“It doesn’t ban specific products or forms of remuneration such as commissions, but it will challenge advisers to act in the best interests of the client and provide value.”
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
RFS chief urges federal government to lock-in funding for aerial firefighting
NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says a case for a budget increase to the national aerial firefighting fleet has been with Canberra for 18 months.
Updated 4 January, 2020
The federal government has sat on a business case for a boosted national aerial firefighting fleet for 18 months, NSW's rural fire chief says.
While there had been one-off cash payments, there had been no locked-in budget for a fleet, Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said on Saturday.
"We need to ensure that we have a locked-in budget so we can secure more long-term arrangements around funding and leasing," he told reporters in Sydney.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
The government tried to stop this surgery. Then surgeons got involved
By Liam Mannix
December 29, 2019 — 7.30pm
After lobbying from surgeons, the federal government has reversed plans to stop funding a back pain operation critics say is expensive, dangerous and ineffective.
Last year, the government announced plans to stop surgeons billing Medicare for spinal fusions to treat uncomplicated chronic low back pain.
The changes followed a recommendation from pain specialists that there was no evidence spinal fusions helped people with lower back pain.
Spinal fusion involves the joining of two or more vertebrae.
But surgeons say they were never consulted on the changes, which they say were driven by people with no expertise in spinal surgery and not backed by evidence. They say spinal fusions — which join two or more vertebrae — can help some people with back pain when all other treatments have failed.
-----
Heart-stopper: CSL's $800m heart attack trial
By Patrick Hatch
December 30, 2019 — 12.00am
As far as investments go, CSL Limited's $800 million all-or-nothing bet on a treatment to stop recurrent cardiovascular events is a heart-stopper.
The Melbourne-based biotech giant is fast approaching the half-way point in a globe-spanning human trial of a new therapy it hopes will prevent secondary heart attacks.
Doctors say the therapy CSL is calling CSL112 is a potential game-changer for heart attack patients, about 10 per cent of whom have a second cardiovascular event within 90 days of their first attack and many are fatal.
If proven to be effective, the treatment could be just as transformative for CSL.
-----
More than 2 million dropped their health insurance in the past five years, poll suggests
By Dana McCauley
December 30, 2019 — 12.05am
The number of Australians who have dropped their private health insurance in the past five years is likely to top 2.2 million, a figure that will heap further pressure upon federal Health Minister Greg Hunt to tackle premium affordability as the funds prepare to hike them again.
A survey of more than 1000 adults conducted by YouGov Galaxy on behalf of the medical devices industry found that a quarter previously had private health cover but no longer did, with 47 per cent – equating to 2.23 million people – saying they had dropped it within the past five years.
Mr Hunt is consulting on a second wave of reforms to the private health sector, aimed at keeping a lid on premium increases, after announcing an average 2.92 per cent rise to kick in from April 2020, and has promised a further reduction to the cost of medical devices in private hospitals.
Medical Technology Association of Australia chief executive Ian Burgess, who commissioned the research, said efforts to improve the value and affordability of health insurance would "come to nothing" if younger members and families continued to drop out.
-----
'Not a lot of logic': NSW minister slams federal aged-care move
By Chris O'Keefe
December 30, 2019 — 5.53pm
A surprise move to privatise expert aged-care decisions lacks "logic" and has given NSW's Health Minister major concerns about the Morrison government's approach to the embattled sector.
Aged care assessment teams (ACAT), which include state-employed nurses, geriatricians and social workers, work at public hospitals to assess the level of care required by individual elderly Australians.
The federal government, which funds ACAT, has announced a network of private assessment organisations will deliver it from April 2021, with a tender to be held next year.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the decision was not raised with him at a recent meeting of state ministers, nor by federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck.
-----
How the discovery of a new human organ will shape future health
We are all hosts to trillions of microorganisms that form the human microbiome, which is as heavy as the brain and as metabolically active as the liver.
Jill Margo Health Editor
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.10am
This century a new human organ was defined by medical researchers and, if predictions are correct, it is going to have a major impact in shaping the future of human health.
Understanding it requires an imaginative leap just like the one taken 30 years ago, when the world wide web opened to the public. It was beyond conventional thinking and people didn’t quite know what it was.
Similarly, there is nothing conventional about this new organ. Unlike a liver or a lung, it is not visible, solid and located in one place. Rather, it is microscopic, dynamic and exists everywhere in the body.
It’s called the human microbiome and is the community of trillions of microbes – tiny fauna, fungi, viruses and other living entities – that inhabit every part of the body.
-----
Healthcare outlook good for service providers, cloudy for aged care
While forecasts vary across different parts of the sector, overall there are strong longer-term drivers.
Carrie LaFrenz Senior Reporter
Jan 1, 2020 — 11.44am
Overall, Australia remains an attractive healthcare market. An ageing population that will continue to need more tests and treatments will underpin demand for healthcare services well into the future.
The 2020 outlook for health stocks is varied, depending on the sub-sector. iStock
However, the aged care royal commission is still a major overhang on providers like Regis Healthcare, Japara Healthcare and Estia Health.
Jefferies analyst David Stanton says he is bracing for the fallout of the royal commission with its final report due in November 2020.
“The interim report was out in October, but you are still seeing the impacts of the royal commission, and Japara and Estia have called out the impacts already on falling occupancy rates,” he says. “With the final report still to come, we are likely to see more impacts across the sector.”
-----
'Very abnormal': Red Cross warns mental recovery from fires could take years
By Carolyn Webb
January 1, 2020 — 11.55pm
The Red Cross has urged people with loved ones affected by the bushfires to listen to them and seek help if necessary.
Lack of sleep, nausea, anger and guilt could be signs a survivor is not coping.
After an intial sense of euphoria at surviving, some people experienced an emotional rollercoaster and struggled to return to everyday life, according to Andrew Coghlan, the Australian Red Cross' head of emergency services.
He said for many survivors, bushfire was “a very abnormal experience” and their reactions were normal. “It’s not something that people are used to seeing or dealing with.”
-----
A new weapon in the war against cystic fibrosis
A new drug recently approved in the US has impressed doctors and researchers with the speed of its therapeutic effects on sufferers of the debilitating disease.
Michele Munz
Jan 4, 2020 — 12.00am
Amy Chastain didn't think she would be able to be a mum. She didn't think her child would be born with the same debilitating disease as her. And she didn't think she would live long enough to see this day, when a drug could change her life and, most importantly, her son's.
Chastain has cystic fibrosis, and at 40 is pushing the limits. The average life expectancy for someone with the disease is 41. Chastain had a serious scare two years ago, when she spent more than a month in the hospital because she got so ill. She needed a feeding tube and oxygen tank, and and faced the need for a lung transplant.
Cystic fibrosis is a genetic life-threatening disease that causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs and other organs. A new drug called Trikafta is the first therapy to show dramatic improvement in lung function for a majority of those with the disease.
Chastain began taking the pill a few weeks after it was approved by America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last October, and within three days she felt better. After her morning treatments to clear the mucus that settles in her lungs overnight, she had little to cough up.
-----
International Issues.
-----
'At a moral crossroads': How Trump is dividing evangelical America
By Simon Lewis and Heather Timmons
December 30, 2019 — 3.20am
Washington: After evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called Donald Trump's "grossly immoral character", some church leaders and the US President himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out-of-touch.
The December 19 editorial sparked a Christmas holiday debate over religion in politics, and posed new questions about the close alignment between white evangelical voters and Trump, who has given their beliefs strong political support.
However, the coziness with the Republican President is exacerbating a long-term crisis facing white evangelicalism: it is being abandoned by younger generations.
A divide between young evangelicals and their older leaders over support for President Trump is exacerbating a long-term crisis facing US evangelicalism.
-----
Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels swap prisoners in move to end war
December 30, 2019 — 6.27am
Maiorsk Checkpoint, Ukraine: Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine on Sunday exchanged 200 prisoners in a move aimed at ending their five-year war.
The swap at a checkpoint near the rebel-held city of Horlivka was part of an agreement brokered this month at a summit of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.
According to figures from officials of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's republics - the two separatist governments in the rebel area - Ukraine turned over 124 people and the separatists freed 76.
Those released by Ukraine included five former members of the now-disbanded special police force Berkut who were charged in the killing of protesters in Kyiv in 2014, Ukrainian news site Hromadske quoted their lawyer, Igor Varfolomeyev, as saying.
The Security Service of Ukraine said the 76 freed by the rebels included 12 servicemen, two of whom had been held since 2015 after being ambushed while escorting a convoy of wounded out of the battle of Debaltseve, which destroyed much of the city.
-----
Samoa ends measles emergency
· Reuters
The South Pacific island nation of Samoa has lifted a six week-state of emergency after the infection rate from a measles outbreak that swept the country started to come under control.
Samoa's island population of just 200,000 has been gripped by the highly infectious disease, which has killed 81 people, most of them babies and young children, and infected more than 5,600 people.
The government said in a statement late on Saturday that the emergency orders, which included aggressive measures to contain the virus such as closing schools and restricting travel, had ended.
-----
China politburo praises Xi Jinping, gives him ‘people’s leader’ title
· Dow Jones
Chinese President Xi Jinping received lavish praise and a new leadership title from his top Communist Party lieutenants, the clearest signal yet that he retains a firm grip on power despite policy setbacks in the past year.
At a two-day meeting ending on Friday, chaired by Mr Xi, the party’s 25-member politburo hailed his policies as visionary and described him as the renmin lingxiu, or “people’s leader”, a designation that directly echoes an accolade closely associated with communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong.
The title doesn’t give Mr Xi any more authority than he already wields as the party’s general secretary, his most powerful post. But the reverential tones in the politburo’s pronouncement — issued late on Friday by state media — projects an aura of party unity behind Mr Xi as he confronts wide-ranging economic and political challenges at home and abroad.
-----
Is the golden age of American shale over?
· The Times
The world’s most promising oilfield is in a slump. In the Permian Basin in the United States, jobs are disappearing, home prices are falling and there are fewer drilling rigs dotting the desert plains.
An edict from Wall Street telling oil companies to cut spending and to increase their profits has taken its toll. Drilling and fracking is on the wane. Production continues to grow, but at a slower pace.
“The long-term prospects of the Permian remain robust,” Rene Santos, an analyst at S&P Global Platts, a consultancy, said. “Operators just need to stay away from past practices of production growth at any cost, without close consideration of shareholder returns.”
Oil companies, he said, needed to return cash to shareholders and to push up their share prices before growth can return to its previous highs.
-----
Xi Jinping battles to sustain his China dream
Michael Smith China Correspondent
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Shanghai | Chinese President Xi Jinping ended the year on a high note after securing a US trade deal that halts further escalation of their tariff war.
It was a much-needed win for China's strongman leader as he faces the toughest year of his presidency in 2020. That victory could be short-lived.
Slowing economic growth and international pressure over human rights abuses and Xi’s aggressive foreign policy approach mean the Chinese leader is under pressure at home and overseas.
While Xi remains China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and the inner workings of the ruling Communist Party are a "black box", not everyone in Beijing is happy with the way the current leadership has handled Hong Kong, the trade war and other issues.
"Xi's position is not secure. There is a great deal of infighting. It could be something as simple as pork [prices] which could be the hidden shock that can blow up in your face," said one senior figure in Hong Kong who asked not to be identified.
-----
US-China trade deal signing soon: Peter Navarro
Dec 31, 2019 — 5.33am
Washington | The White House's trade adviser says the US-China Phase 1 trade deal would likely be signed in the next week but adds confirmation would come from President Donald Trump or the US Trade Representative.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, in an interview on Fox News, cited a report that Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would visit this week to sign the deal, but did not confirm it.
"Washington has sent an invitation and Beijing has accepted it," the South China Morning Post on Monday quoted a source as saying.
Representatives for the Office of the US Trade Representative and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, which said the Chinese delegation was likely to stay in the US until the middle of next week.
-----
US military strikes at Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria
By Idrees Ali and Ahmed Rasheed
Updated December 30, 2019 — 2.06pmfirst published at 6.15am
Washington: The US military has launched a series of strikes on five facilities in Iraq and Syria belonging to a militia considered to be backed by Iran, the Pentagon said on Sunday, two days after an American contractor was killed in an attack on an Iraqi base.
The strikes came after repeated attacks on Iraqi bases by Kitaeb Hezbollah, Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. The American operations will "degrade KH's ability to conduct future attacks" against coalition forces, he said.
The actions underscore the continued unpredictability of US involvement in Iraq and Syria, and raise the possibility of an escalation with the militia. The Pentagon says the group has links to Iran's Quds Force, a special operations unit that US officials say provides weapons and other support to proxy forces that help Iran extend its reach.
"Iran and their KH proxy forces must cease their attacks on US and coalition forces, and respect Iraq's sovereignty, to prevent additional defensive actions by US forces," Hoffman said.
-----
Europe's leaders try to navigate a new world order
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
London | The coming year will be a testing one for Europe: as Brexit unfolds, the European Union will try to shore up its confidence, coherence and command of events. But its economy is sluggish and US President Donald Trump is threatening to bring his trade war right to its door.
What makes things even more uncertain is the leaders of Europe's three big powers are at such different points in their electoral trajectory, making for an ungainly clash of political dynamics.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, fresh from his election victory, is king of his castle, with unchecked authority and a licence to do as he sees fit.
There's a challenging free-trade arm-wrestle with the EU in 2020, of course, as Britain looks for a new post-Brexit settlement with the bloc. But Johnson's low level of ambition could make the daunting deadline achievable.
-----
If we don’t get our act together, we'll have to call this 'The Trump Decade'
By David Dale
December 31, 2019 — 10.22pm
You'll be relieved to hear that this is not another review of the decade that just ended, because it hasn't. Every rational person knows a decade starts with a 1 and concludes with a 0. Nor is it one of those pieces that mocks the premature concluders and then goes on to list the main events and trends of the past nine years anyway.
Instead, this is an alert, noting that you have only 12 months to decide what "the teens" were all about, and warning that if we don’t get our act together, people in 2021 will be calling this "the Trump decade".
By the end of previous year nines, we had the themes pretty much worked out. We knew in '69 that we were nearing the end of The Decade of Revolution – sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. In '79 we were relieved to be leaving The Decade that Style Forgot – ABBA, flares and platform shoes.
-----
Trump threatens Iran after Baghdad embassy attack
By Anne Gearan, Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey
Updated January 1, 2020 — 6.01pmfirst published at 1.36pm
Washington: US President Donald Trump has been pulled toward the kind of Middle East tinderbox he has tried to avoid as he blamed Iran for an attack on the American Embassy in Iraq that further damaged US relations with Baghdad and appeared to put his hopes for diplomacy with Tehran further out of reach.
Hundreds of supporters of an Iranian-backed militia chanted "Death to America" as they breached part of the outer security layer at the vast compound in Baghdad's protected Green Zone on New Year's Eve.
Crowds have attacked the American embassy in Iraq, chanting “death to America”, angered over US airstrikes.
American diplomats were barricaded and unharmed inside the $US750 million ($1 billion) embassy, built as a powerful symbol of US permanence after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that Trump has derided as his country's worst foreign policy blunder. But the hulking structure may now serve as a symbol of how difficult it can be to disentangle US interests from Iraq and the region despite the President's stated desire to get out of "endless wars" and reduce the United States' footprint in the Middle East.
-----
Do not underestimate Donald Trump’s re-election chances
It is hard to overstate the fatalism of the country that elected him and stands to do so again.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Updated Jan 2, 2020 — 11.59am, first published at 11.56am
Followers of sport will be familiar with the concept of the emotional hedge. On the sound premise that money beats gallows humour as consolation, people bet against their own teams to soften the trauma of defeat.
Even if gambling were legal across the US, the markets would not be liquid enough to meet the demand for such wagers on Donald Trump. Soliciting opinions on the eve of 2020, I find that people who least desire a second term for the US president are the quickest to predict it.
Foreign diplomats are no less resigned than the American liberals who will have to suffer it in person. They sometimes over-reach in their certitude but, if Mr Trump is not a sure thing, he is eminently competitive, even after impeachment, even after everything. The trick is to explain why.
One reason is the longest economic expansion in US history. Surveys indicate that voters, wise to the impersonality of the business cycle, withhold credit from Mr Trump. But the boom forces his challengers to prove that they would not endanger it with tax rises or regulations, even ones that are popular on their own terms.
-----
Donald Trump finally fires back at Iran
The Wall Street Journal Editorial board
· The Wall Street Journal
It’s about time. Finally, after multiple attacks on US bases and allies, President Donald Trump approved a military response against Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and Syria on the weekend.
Trump has to be prepared to do more if the Iranians decide to escalate.
The Pentagon said US F-15E fighters carried out the strikes on five targets occupied by Kataib Hezbollah, a Shia militia allied with and armed by Iran. “Iran and their KH proxy forces must cease their attacks on US and coalition forces, and respect Iraq’s sovereignty, to prevent additional defensive actions by US forces,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said.
Kataib Hezbollah is a proxy arm of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani’s Quds Force and would not have acted against US forces without his approval. The group is responsible for 11 rocket attacks in two months on bases where US soldiers were present. A Kataib Hezbollah attack on Friday on an Iraqi base near Kirkuk killed a US contractor and wounded four American troops.
-----
Rockets fired at Baghdad airport, Qasim Soleimani killed
Updated January 3, 2020 — 12.32pmfirst published at 12.26pm
Baghdad: Key Iranian military leader Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis have been killed in an air strike on their convoy in Baghdad airport, an Iraqi militia spokesman told Reuters.
"The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani," said Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed militias.
Earlier the official said seven people were killed by a missile fired at Baghdad International Airport, blaming the United States.
The dead included its airport protocol officer, identifying him as Mohammed Reda.
A security official confirmed that seven people were killed in the attack on the airport, describing it as an air strike. Earlier, Iraq's Security Media Cell, which releases information regarding Iraqi security, said Katyusha rockets landed near the airport's cargo hall, killing several people and setting two cars on fire.
-----
Trump orders fatal strike on Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander
Falih Hassan and Alissa J. Rubin
Updated Jan 3, 2020 — 3.13pm, first published at 1.21pm
Baghdad | President Donald Trump ordered the killing of the powerful commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Major General Qasem Soleimani, in a drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport on Friday, American officials said.
Soleimani's death was confirmed by official Iranian media.
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region," the Pentagon said in a statement.
"General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.
-----
How the West embraced unmanned aerial warfare
Shiraz Maher
Jan 3, 2020 — 12.00am
Increasing mechanisation of war has been a prominent feature of the last decade as the West finds itself primarily fighting unconventional wars: mainly against non-state actors who use asymmetrical tactics.
This has been an enhanced feature of the military landscape ever since 9/11, of course, but intensified with the advent of the Syrian crIslamic State in 2011.
Keen not to repeat the mistakes of the Iraq invasion of 2003, Western officials watched cautiously as large swathes of both Syria and Iraq succumbed to an alphabet soup of different jihadist groups.
Organisations like Islamic State grew in strength and size, and so, too, did their capacity for external attacks, many of which struck Europe and claimed hundreds of lives. As pressure for some form of intervention grew, it was American experiences in another theatre of the “9/11 wars” that gave inspiration for how the Levantine crisis might be confronted.
-----
Soleimani's legacy: gruesome, high-tech IEDs
Alex Horton
Jan 4, 2020 — 8.17am
Brian Castner combed over the armoured vehicle, mostly intact aside from entry and exit holes tipped with molten copper that had since cooled.
The US soldiers who had been inside had already been medevaced near Kirkuk that summer in 2006, leaving the Air Force bomb technician alone with the vehicle. Pools of blood simmered under the Iraqi sun, near what one soldier left behind.
"There was still one foot left in the Humvee," Castner said.
The targeted US killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, has heightened tensions between Iran and the United States.
But it also resurfaced Soleimani's legacy in Iraq, where sophisticated weapons and tactics he oversaw menaced US troops for years, leaving a trail of dead and wounded service members.
-----
Iranian general travelled with impunity, until US drones found him
Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Jan 4, 2020 — 5.29am
Washington | One night in January 2007, American Special Operations commandos tracked a notorious adversary driving in a convoy from Iran into northern Iraq: Major General Qassem Soleimani, Iran's top security and intelligence commander.
But the Americans held their fire, and Soleimani slipped away into the darkness.
"To avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow, I decided that we should monitor the caravan, not strike immediately," General Stanley A. McChrystal, the head of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, recalled in an article last year.
But early Friday, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone from McChrystal's former command — operating under President Donald Trump's orders — fired missiles into a convoy carrying Soleimani as it was leaving Baghdad's international airport.
-----
Soleimani’s killing will be seen as a declaration of war
By Shahram Akbarzadeh
January 3, 2020 — 5.58pm
The killing of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a US attack at Baghdad International Airport is a game-changer in relations between the US and Iran, with far-reaching implications for the region.
For months the two have been sabre rattling but staying away from red lines. Clearly, US President Donald Trump saw the Iranians as having crossed the red line when a US civilian was killed in a rocket attack blamed on Kataib Hezbollah, a Shiite militia with support from Iran. The US responded by a strike on the militia’s base, killing 25.
Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in an air strike on their convoy in Baghdad airport.
The subsequent attempt by Kataib Hezbollah to storm the US embassy in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad was pushed back with ease by a demonstration of US firepower.
-----
Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s killing raises US-Iran tensions to new highs
Qassem Soleimani, killed on Friday in Baghdad, was a towering figure. As head of the Quds Force, the covert-action arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, he controlled a network of secret cells, terrorist groups, and political allies that posed a major threat to US-led forces during the Iraq war.
His network funded and sponsored hyper-accurate rocket and mortar attacks on US bases. They fielded the deadliest roadside bombs of the war — “explosively formed projectiles”, launching a supersonic jet of molten metal that could cut through armoured vehicles like a blowtorch through butter.
Soleimani’s underground cells mentored militia groups, penetrated Iraqi government ministries, and conducted economic and political warfare to increase Iran’s influence at the expense of the US, Israel and regional Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia.
-----
Bigger than bin Laden: Killing of Soleimani radically shifts the rules
.
