I Find This A Pretty Cautionary Tale That Needs To Be More Widely Understood!

This appeared a few days ago:

Jess’ mum drank a small amount of alcohol before she knew she was pregnant – the damage had been done.

By Wendy Tuohy

March 1, 2025 — 7.00pm

Jessica Birch knows that you might not be able to detect the mark left by alcohol on her as a developing baby simply by looking at her face.

You would need to be informed of the “sentinel” signs of the often-undetected condition fetal alcohol spectrum disorder to pick up the subtle changes caused by exposure in the womb to alcohol before her mother even knew she was pregnant.

The skin between her nose and mouth, known as the philtrum, is long and unusually smooth, she explains, and her upper lip is “thin”.

“You have a flat mid-face and bridge of the nose and forehead,” Birch says. The bridge of her nose and middle plane of her face are also flatter than normal, and “you might have folds on the eye or smaller eye openings”.

“Had I not been exposed to the alcohol, it’s likely that my face would have looked a little bit different,” she says.

The condition left other imprints on her life, too. As a child, “I had a lot of issues managing mood and emotional regulation and quite a lot of neurological symptoms”, Birch says.

“My mum definitely identified these things and sought out specialist help; however, I was told, and she was constantly told, these things were behavioural and I would grow out of them.”

Instead, her symptoms worsened and were compounded with childhood anxiety, then depression in her teens. She developed tachycardia – an irregular heartbeat – and as she approached young adulthood, she struggled with cognitive tasks, and to manage her life.

By the age of 22, Birch had developed a cluster of symptoms of physical illness, and despite seeing “a myriad of specialists”, she experienced malaise so intense that she could not leave the house.

“I completely deteriorated to the point where I was bedridden with malnutrition and chronic fatigue, and my mum became very scared for my safety and physical health,” she says.

It was only when her mother saw a 2015 episode of the ABC program Four Corners called “Hidden Harm”, about young people living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (known as FASD), that she realised what had happened to her daughter.

She collected information and screening material for the disorder and presented it to Birch: “After I read those documents, I burst into tears, and we just cried together because I knew it was absolutely FASD I was dealing with,” Birch says.

At 33, and after years of struggling to get a diagnosis that encompassed all of Birch’s symptoms, she was diagnosed with “FASD with sentinel facial features”. It was caused by the small amount of alcohol her mother had consumed before she even knew she was pregnant.

‘My story is a very common one, and it’s not because my mother struggled with alcohol use disorder … it does not take a lot.’

Jessica Birch, who lives with the symptoms of FASD

“My story is a very common one, and it’s not because my mother struggled with alcohol use disorder; she was on the contraceptive pill when she became pregnant with me,” Birch says.

“She did not know she was pregnant until around the start of the second trimester, and by that stage the damage was done. And it does not take a lot.”

She wants the alcohol industry to be held to greater account, and wants women to have more information on the true risks alcohol poses.

New research by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute has revealed that even though the children studied who had been exposed to low levels of alcohol in the womb did not show obvious physical, behavioural or cognitive signs, “characteristic changes in the face … persisted until at least six to eight years of age”.

Researcher Evi Muggli said the study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, showed that although changes might not be observable at a clinical level, “we saw changes at a biological level”.

The study, involving Monash, Melbourne and Sydney universities and scientists in Oxford and Belgium, used highly specialised 3D imaging and analysis to examine the faces of children who had been exposed to low to moderate levels of alcohol in utero compared with those who hadn’t.

The team found “consistent changes in the shape of the eyes and nose” of those who had. The changes were similar “regardless of whether they were exposed to alcohol in only the first trimester or continued through the pregnancy”.

There was no clear link between the level of alcohol exposure and the degree of facial change, and Muggli said many factors, including timing of alcohol consumption, the mother’s alcohol metabolism and genetics, could also influence how much alcohol reaches the baby and its effect.

The study should provide some reassurance to mothers who had consumed some alcohol in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy, Muggli said, because it did not find developmental difficulties in the children. But it also demonstrated that any alcohol consumption can leave a trace detectable with imaging.

“What we’ve established is that because of the physical biological effect alcohol has, it is definitely a teratogeen – a chemical that interrupts fetal development,” she said.

“But unlike certain types of drugs, like thalidomide, it is not easy to establish a cause and effect relationship [between exposure and corresponding harms], it is not a linear relationship.”

Muggli said the research should arm educated women who are aware there is a lack of strong evidence linking low alcohol consumption with harm with the understanding that “it does something to the fetus during their development, so why would you take that risk when the stakes are so high?”

Louise Gray, specialist adviser for NOFASD Australia, said the research was significant because it showed that even in the absence of harm that meets diagnostic criteria for FASD, “it does not mean there is no effect from prenatal alcohol exposure”.

“It’s really important for women to understand that if there’s any possibility you may become pregnant, you shouldn’t be consuming alcohol. That’s the safest way to ensure there won’t be any changes,” she says.

Caterina Giorgi, chief executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, says the study reinforced the need for pregnancy warnings on alcohol packaging. These were mandated in 2020, and manufacturers were given a three-year transition period in which to introduce them.

“A recent study analysing uptake found the products least likely to carry warnings are spirits and wine, which are more likely to be consumed in the age group where women are most likely to have a baby,” Giorgi says.

It found only 50 per cent of spirit labels and 65 per cent of wine labels had had warnings added so far.

Jessica Birch, who is on the advisory group at NOFASD Australia and who speaks “loudly and proudly” about her experience to try to help other women understand alcohol’s potential harms, said that receiving her diagnosis had changed her life profoundly for the better.

“It has allowed me to shift all the internalisation, the blame, the comparing, the self-loathing, the depression and stuckness that happens when you live with this and allowed me to not only access support and understand myself, but I can heal.”

If you have questions about FASD or would like to speak to someone confidentially the NOFASD helpline is 1800 860 613.

Here is the link:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/jess-mum-drank-a-small-amount-of-alcohol-before-she-knew-she-was-pregnant-the-damage-had-been-done-20250226-p5lf7a.html

This is a pretty sobering (sorry) tale that makes it clear that damage is being done to many children because of ignorance of just how little drinking can have life-long consequences for children.

What I get from this is that basically women who are at risk of pregnancy should not drink and that blokes should take “no” for an answer and not try to push grog on anyone!

How we can educate both women and blokes as to the risks is way above my pay grade but pushing drinks on women between 12 and 50 is clearly just not on and needs to be avoided.

Sorry to be a wowser but alcohol is just too dangerous to women in the child-bearing age range unless pregnancy is just not in any way possible!!! We do not take the risk(s) seriously enough I suspect…..

We all need to be considerate and respectful of each other in this!

I sure would not want any level of foetal damage on my conscience!

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 783 – Results – 2 March 2025.

Here are the results of the poll.

Should Australians Be Concerned At The Passage Of 3 Chinese Warships Along Our Eastern Coast?

Yes                                                                   10 (34%)

No                                                                    19 (66%)

I Have No Idea                                                  0 (0%)

Total No. Of Votes: 29

An interesting outcome with a decent majority wanting a pretty relaxed approach to the warship visits!

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

Fair voter turnout. 

0 of 29 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.

I Have To Say I Find It Wonderful We Are Still Rolling Back Ancient Egyptian History

This appeared last week:

The Observer Egyptology

‘You dream about such things’: Brit who discovered missing pharaoh’s tomb may have unearthed another

Archaeologist believes his ‘find of the century’ – of Pharaoh Thutmose II – could be surpassed by ongoing excavation

Donna Ferguson

Sun 23 Feb 2025 02.00 AEDT

To uncover the location of one long-lost pharaoh’s tomb is a career-defining moment for an archaeologist. But to find a second is the stuff of dreams.

Last week British archaeologist Piers Litherland announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt since Tutankhamun’s in 1922.

His team found the pharaoh Thutmose II’s tomb underneath a waterfall in the Theban mountains in Luxor, about 3km west of the Valley of the Kings. It contained almost nothing but debris, and the team believe it was flooded and emptied within six years of the pharaoh’s death in 1479BC.

Now Litherland has told the Observer he believes he has identified the location of a second tomb belonging to Thutmose II. And this one, he suspects, will contain the young pharaoh’s mummified body and grave goods.

Archeologists believe this second tomb has been hiding in plain sight for 3,500 years, secretly buried beneath 23 metres of limestone flakes, rubble, ash and mud plaster and made to look like part of the mountain.

“There are 23 metres of a pile of man-made layers sitting above a point in the landscape where we believe – and we have other confirmatory evidence – there is a monument concealed beneath,” he said. “The best candidate for what is hidden underneath this enormously expensive, in terms of effort, pile is the second tomb of Thutmose II.”

While searching close to the first tomb for clues about where its contents were taken after the flood, Litherland found a posthumous inscription buried in a pit with a cow sacrifice. This inscription indicates the contents may have been moved by the king’s wife and half-sister Hatshepsut – one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs and one of the few women to rule in her own right – to an as-yet undiscovered second tomb nearby.

Last week the New Kingdom Research Foundation, a British independent academic body, and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities revealed that a project led by Litherland had found the first tomb in 2022, after more than a decade of work.

For about a year, he and his team of Egyptian archaeologists – “discoveries like this are not made by individuals”, he says – have been investigating ways to get access to the second tomb by excavating the 3,500-year-old human-made layers of rock and plaster that surround it.

At the top of layers of thick limestone plaster, limestone flakes “the size of a dining room table”, tufa (a flaky limestone which forms a cement) and rubble, is a layer of mud plaster with ash on top, Litherland said. “Among that ash, we found the remains of beer jars and chisel ends used by workmen who made tombs. So there’s no doubt these layers are man-made.”

At that point, any tomb underneath the layers would have been well covered. But a further step was taken “and that is what is slowing everything down” on the dig, said Litherland. The ancient Egyptians then “levered away large portions of the cliff and made them come crashing down on top”. These large rocks – some of which are the size of a car – were then “cemented in place using limestone plaster”.

Now Litherland’s team is trying to detach those rocks and the limestone plaster by hand: “We’ve tried to tunnel into it, we’ve tried to shave away the sides, but there are overhanging rocks, so it’s too dangerous,” Litherland said.

He, his foreman, Mohamed Sayed Ahmed, and his archeological director, Mohsen Kamel, took the difficult decision to remove the entire structure – which stands out from the cliff – three weeks ago, and are about halfway there. “We should be able to take the whole thing down in about another month,” Litherland said.

He speculates that both tombs were constructed by the 18th dynasty architect Ineni, who wrote in his biography that he had “excavated the high tomb of His Majesty, no one seeing, no one hearing”, and was facing “a very serious problem” after the first tomb flooded. “If [Ineni] was being regarded as a failure for not delivering what he was supposed to deliver – a secure resting place for a king who, on his death, became a god – he may have been in a bit of a panic, trying to make sure that whatever happened this time, the tomb was not going to be flooded.”

All kings from the 18th dynasty were buried under waterfalls. By covering the tomb with layers of plaster and limestone flakes, Ineni protected it from water while simultaneously sealing and concealing the site from robbers. “Ineni says in his biographies that he did a lot of clever things to hide the locations of tombs, including covering the tombs with layers of mud plaster, which he says has never been done before. This has not been remarked on ever, to my knowledge.”

It is a strategy that appears to have worked. While grave goods from the ransacked tombs of pharaohs from the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties are commonplace in museums, “there are no burial goods of any sort relating to the burial of Thutmose II in any museum or private collection”, Litherland said.

The body of a 30-year-old, found in 1881 in Deir el-Bahari and previously identified as Thutmose II, is too old to belong to the pharaoh, Litherland said. “He is described in Ineni’s biography as coming to the throne ‘the falcon in the nest’ – so he was a young boy.” Some Egyptologists believe he reigned for just three to four years and died shortly after fathering Thutmose III.

For Litherland, who became fascinated with ancient Egypt as a young boy, the thought of finding Thutmose II’s final resting place is breathtaking. “You dream about such things. But like winning the lottery, you never believe it will happen to you.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/22/you-dream-about-such-things-brit-who-discovered-missing-pharaohs-tomb-may-have-unearthed-another

Here is more on the find:

Archaeologists discover 3,500 year-old tomb of ‘missing pharaoh’ in Egypt

Uncovering rock-cut tomb of Thutmose II hailed as most significant discovery since Tutankhamun in 1922

Donna Ferguson

Thu 20 Feb 2025 10.40 AEDT

It was when British archaeologist Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first rock-cut tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.

Litherland had been exploring the western wadis near the Valley of the Kings in Egypt for more than a decade when he discovered a staircase that led to the tomb, now known to have belonged to Thutmose II, who reigned from 1493 to 1479BC.

It took months to clear flood debris from the descending corridor and during this time, he and his team assumed the tomb belonged to a royal wife.

But as soon as he saw the size and the ceiling of the burial chamber, which had been decorated with scenes from the Amduat, a religious text reserved for kings - he knew he had made what has since been hailed as the most significant discovery since Tutankhamun.

He felt an “extraordinary sort of bewilderment” at that moment, he told the BBC World Service. “When I came out, my wife was waiting outside and the only thing I could do was burst into tears.”

He then set about clearing the flood debris, expecting to find the crushed remains of a burial underneath it.

“In fact, the tomb turned out to be completely empty, not because it had been robbed, but because it had been deliberately emptied. We then worked out that the tomb had been flooded. It had been built underneath a waterfall, and it had filled with water at some stage within about six years of the burial.”

The remains of the king were taken out through a subsidiary corridor and moved somewhere else, he said. “It was only gradually, as we sifted through all the material – tons and tons of broken limestone – that we discovered these small fragments of alabaster, which named Thutmose II.”

The fragments were probably broken when the tomb was moved, he said. “And thank goodness they did actually break one or two things, because that’s how we found out whose tomb it was.”

The discovery was made by a joint mission formed by the New Kingdom Research Foundation, a British independent academic foundation (of which Litherland is field director and mission head), and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a project affiliated with the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.

Thutmose II was the husband as well as the half-brother of Hatshepsut, one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs and one of the few women to rule in her own right, and the father of Thutmose III.

Litherland told PA media: “This discovery solves a great mystery of ancient Egypt: the location of the tombs of the early 18th dynasty kings. The tomb of this ancestor of Tutankhamun had never been found because it was always thought to be at the other end of the mountain near the Valley of the Kings.”

Considering the evidence the contents of the tomb were moved to a second tomb, Mohsen Kamel, assistant field director, said: “The possible existence of a second, and most likely intact, tomb of Thutmose II is an astonishing possibility.”

The headline and text of this article were amended on 21 February 2025 to clarify the significance of the find by including details provided by the archaeologist Piers Litherland about the location of the discovery, that the tomb was “rock-cut”, and to remove the honorific Dr in relation to Litherland, who is an honorary research associate.

Here is the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/19/first-new-pharaohs-tomb-to-be-found-in-over-a-century-discovered-in-egypt

I have little to add, other than to say I find it wonderful just how much we have learned about the Egyptians who lived so long ago. It is also a joy that there is clearly more to come!

Great stuff!

David.

 

Am I Wrong Or Are We Seeing Some Fraying At The Edges Of Social Coherence?

This appeared last week:

ASIO warns bikies, organised crime linked to antisemitism, hostile nations

By Nick McKenzie, Chris Vedelago and Perry Duffin

February 22, 2025 — 5.00am

Australia’s spy agency is targeting figures linked to organised crime and outlaw bikie gangs as it combats antisemitic attacks and plots by hostile nations to harm national security.

The revelation by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess that the underworld is now in his sights marks a dramatic pivot for the domestic security agency.

Australia's spy agency boss says it discovered three foreign governments plotting to physically harm people living in Australia.

Historically, ASIO has focused on extremism and espionage, but it is now dealing with an increasing overlap between profit-driven criminal entities and those seeking to undermine Australian interests or community cohesion for political, strategic or other gain.

Burgess said he had “grave concerns” that unnamed hostile states were using bikies or other crime groups in Australia to advance their strategic interests.

In a warning to the criminal world that ASIO was now pursuing some of its members, Burgess told this masthead and 60 Minutes: “I would never have imagined that outlaw motorcycle gangs would be on our target list.

“If you [gangland figures] are tasked by someone from overseas, and you’re a criminal and you’re doing that for a fee and it is a threat to security, then ASIO will be on your case. I reckon that’s going to be a problem for you.”

The decision by ASIO to make public its widening investigative focus has been sparked by two areas of concern for state and federal agencies: criminal entities being asked by hostile foreign state actors to target dissidents or carry out other attacks on domestic security; and the suspected involvement of gangland figures of varying seniority in antisemitic arson attacks.

Officers from Victoria’s Counter-Terrorism Command continue to investigate the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea by masked suspects who remain at large.

This masthead can reveal Victorian authorities are investigating whether the firebombing of the synagogue in December was carried out using the same gangland infrastructure utilised in some of the tobacco war arson attacks.

The tobacco war arson attacks have typically been outsourced to lowly foot soldiers via encrypted communications channels and other methodology that have made it difficult for authorities to trace the puppet masters.

In NSW, official sources confirmed evidence gathered so far has not implicated terrorists in any antisemitic incidents. Investigators are continuing to probe whether those behind the so-called caravan plot were seeking to gain a personal advantage, such as creating a scenario in which they could trade information with police in return for a benefit.

While no agency is yet willing to definitely rule out violent extremism as a motive in the caravan plot, there is growing consensus among security officials that early descriptions of the caravan plot as a “potential mass casualty event” were overblown.

Officials have assessed the two NSW residents who acquired the caravan as petty criminals with no terrorist motivation, while another suspect in the supply chain has links to the Jewish community which suggest he, too, had no motive beyond payment.

But there are also links to Sydney’s gangland: a suspect named on a search warrant has separately been accused of supplying stolen cars to the underworld.

Asked if his warning to the criminal world was driven by police intelligence that antisemitic incidents might be directed by organised crime associated entities, Burgess declined to comment on specific investigations but said he was “sending a message” to criminals that “if you’re involved in this, we’ll be on your case”.

“I can assure you, if you are in such an organisation or you’re a criminal proxy and you’re being used by a foreign state, you don’t have to deal with law enforcement now you’ve got my agency to deal with, and that’s probably not welcome news to those individuals,” he said.

Burgess also confirmed that he was tracking cases overseas involving foreign state actors using crime gangs as proxies, including allegations in America that Iran had tasked the Hells Angels to murder a dissident.

The increasingly hybrid and diverse nature of the security threats being investigated by ASIO was the focus of Burgess’ annual threat assessment speech. In the speech, delivered on Wednesday, he warned that the nation was facing the most volatile security environment in 50 years.

While his public warnings to the criminal world will fuel discussion in Australia’s highly politicised security environment, they will not surprise veteran state and federal security officials.

Australian counter-organised crime authorities have for years stumbled on links between their targets and foreign state actors, including a 2011 plot involving Chinese intelligence officials seeking the help of a Sydney crime figure to smuggle weapons to Islamic militants in Iran and Lebanon.

In 2016, a senior federal police officer warned that Middle Eastern tobacco-smuggling gangs might be sending funds to extremists overseas.

But certain countries, including China and Russia, have increased their use of criminal proxies. In 2019, ASIO and Victoria Police jointly targeted Chinese gangsters aligned with Chinese Communist Party agencies.

In March last year, this masthead revealed how the nation’s peak counter-organised crime agency, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, had secretly designated as a top target a Chinese Communist Party operative in Fiji because of his suspected dual role trafficking drugs into Australia and promoting Beijing’s regional interests.

In May 2023, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw attacked unnamed “state actors” who “are using and profiting from organised crime”.

Police have also previously dealt with cases involving criminals attempting to get a discount in their prison term by dangling the promise of providing information of intense interest to counter-terror authorities.

For instance, several notorious gangland figures, including underworld figure Bassam Hamzy, previously sought reduced jail terms in return for revealing the location of still missing rocket launchers stolen from the Defence Force between 2001 and 2003.

Here is the link:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/asio-warns-bikies-organised-crime-linked-to-antisemitism-hostile-nations-20250221-p5le3k.html

All I can say is that I am grateful Mike Burgess and the ASIO team are on the case!

We need to week these ‘bad-actors’ out!

David.

Others Are Noticing That Australia’s National Security Is On The Slide!

This appeared last week:

The Telegram

Australia prepares for a lonelier, harsher world

The country has long relied on America for security and China for its prosperity. Those two pillars are wobbling

Feb 18th 2025

AUSTRALIANS HAVE felt lucky but anxious since the first colonists waded ashore, over two centuries ago. An edge of insecurity endured even as Australia became prosperous, safe and envied: a liberal democracy with a resource-rich continent to itself, guarded by a deep blue moat on the bottom of the world. Today, Australian fears are acute, for two pillars supporting its modern rise—its defence alliance with America and its trade with China—are wobbling. For all that, after a week Down Under talking to business, political and national-security bigwigs, The Telegram has a hunch that Australian angst gives the country a head start.

Today, every ally of America has cause to be alarmed by President Donald Trump. These are scary times for countries that trade with China, too. In many industries, selling to China is becoming harder, for its growth is slowing, and its leaders are bent on achieving greater self-reliance. At the same time, China’s rulers are determined to dominate important export markets, and ready to use their economic might to bully any country that stands in the way. It now looks oddly lucky that Australia has been brooding over its reliance on America and China for some time, while many Western powers, notably in Europe, slumbered complacently.

A fine history of Australian foreign policy by the late Allan Gyngell, a diplomat and intelligence analyst, is bluntly called “Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the world since 1942”. It describes the shock felt when Britain, the imperial mother country, quit Asia and became a midsize European power. Australia duly sought a security alliance with America, crafting Washington-friendly arguments about why it is a partner that pulls its weight. In the 1960s, Gyngell relates, political leaders who sent Australian troops to Vietnam to fight alongside American forces talked of paying the premium on an “insurance policy”.

A half-century later, Trump-pleasing lines are being polished in Canberra, the quiet country town that serves as national capital. Australia recently made a $500m contribution to support America’s submarine-building industry. That was a down-payment on AUKUS, a scheme binding together America, Australia and Britain in an alliance to counter and deter Chinese naval power in the Indo-Pacific for decades to come. Agreed with the Biden administration, the plan is slated to cost up to $228bn over its lifetime. It calls for Australia and Britain to jointly design and build advanced nuclear-powered submarines, for delivery to Australia in the early 2040s. As an interim step, Australia is to buy a fleet of American-made submarines. It is also spending billions of dollars upgrading a naval base near the western city of Perth, offering American and British submarines stealthy access to the Indian Ocean.

With Mr Trump in the White House, there is talk in Canberra of “a period of triage”. Officials must assess urgent risks, such as Mr Trump’s willingness to slap tariffs on allies. In early contacts, Australian leaders have reminded Mr Trump and his team that the trade balance between their countries has run in America’s favour since the Truman era. Then comes the longer-term puzzle of what the Trump administration might actually want from Australia when it comes to confronting China. A right-of-centre member of parliament reports conversations with Republicans in Washington, who told him that America “will need guarantees from us” that any American submarines sold to Australia will be made available in the event of a US-led fight with China over Taiwan. Against that, officials must weigh comments from Mr Trump and some of his aides, sounding scornful about Taiwan’s chances of surviving a Chinese attack. The words of Mr Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, are parsed like those of a prophet. Mr Hegseth told his Australian counterpart that Mr Trump is “supportive” of AUKUS. But work on the American submarines sought by Australia is behind schedule. When asked if the first would be ready for sale to Australia, Mr Hegseth replied only: “We sure hope so.”

In a week-long straw poll, a majority of well-placed Australians admit to doubts that AUKUS will happen as planned. Several venture that America will want to use the submarine base near Perth, at least. Even if Mr Trump declines to defend Taiwan, it is suggested, America will surely have an abiding interest in countering Chinese hegemony in the sea lanes of the Indo-Pacific. For now Australia is pitching itself to the Trump administration as a force multiplier. If allies jointly help America rebuild its defence-industrial base, the West can compete with China’s advantages of scale.

If your biggest market turns hostile

That submarine base sits within view of gleaming corporate skyscrapers in Perth, built with vast sums earned sending ships to China laden with iron ore, coal, wool, food and other commodities. Even so, the risks of economic dependency are acknowledged. Memories are fresh of economic boycotts used to punish a previous Australian government for challenging China over its handling of the covid-19 pandemic and other issues. Chinese demand for iron ore could fall by 40% in the next 30 years, as urbanisation slows and China recycles more steel, says Huw McKay of Australian National University. A politician briefed by the security services talks of “constant” Chinese espionage and cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure.

In Canberra, plans are afoot. Ties with Japan, India and other China-sceptical neighbours are deepening. There is little hope of rallying South-East Asian governments, for they prefer to accommodate China. For its part, Australia will pick its battles with China, calling out egregious Chinese actions, but discreetly. There is talk of deterring China while engaging economically. The West’s aim should be to make war too costly, and peace too valuable.

Australia has reasons to be anxious. At least it is thinking about survival in a lonelier world. Time for other countries to catch up.

Here is the link:

https://www.economist.com/international/2025/02/18/australia-prepares-for-a-lonelier-harsher-world

I find it hard to disagree with a word of this analysis – especially as a Chinese Naval Task Group sails down our east coast!

I suspect the protection of our geographic isolation is fading and, as a nation, we are going to need to start spending a GREAT deal more a defense while working a good deal harder on our trustworthy alliances. (Of which I am not sure I see the US as one anymore – time will tell).

I suspect we are in the most dangerous period since WWII and we are going to need to think very carefully about how we go over the next 10-15 years.

How do you think Australia should play the next 2 decades, other than working hard to grow our adult population, military and economy?

David.

For All Its Risks For The World – I Fear Trump Is About To Abandon Ukraine.

This appeared a day or so ago:

‘Capitulation’ on Ukraine will haunt the West

Henry Ergas

Updated 10:51AM February 21, 2025

With American and Russian negotiators discussing the fate of Ukraine, parallels are inevitably being drawn to the Yalta conference, which was held 80 years ago this month.

Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, accurately captured that conference’s grim reputation. “Yalta,” he observed in 1997, “is a place name that has come to be a codeword for the cynical sacrifice of small nations’ freedom to great powers’ spheres of influence.”

Speaking on the conference’s 60th anniversary, George W. Bush went even further. Comparing the agreements reached at Yalta to the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Bush concluded that “when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small countries was somehow expendable”.

There is, for sure, a grain of truth in those claims; but by taking the Yalta conference entirely out of context, they misrepresent its outcomes and misinterpret its lessons.

Yalta was not the concluding conference of the Second World War; it was a wartime summit, conducted before the common enemy had been defeated.

A simple fact hung over its proceedings: while the British and American forces were still recovering from the German counter-attack in the Ardennes, the Red Army – having swept through Bulgaria, Romania and large parts of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia – was securing bridgeheads on the Oder River, a mere 70km from Berlin.

It was, in other words, not Yalta that sealed Soviet predominance in central and eastern Europe; that predominance was a military reality by the time the summit convened.

Nor was the so-called “proportions agreement” – which defined the “proportions of influence” each of the allied powers would exercise in the Balkan countries – an endorsement of Soviet predominance; on the contrary, it was an attempt to mollify its effects.

It is a common error, recently repeated on these pages, to attribute that agreement to Yalta. It had, in fact, been reached by Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in October 1944, months before the summit took place. Churchill’s goal was straightforward: to ensure the West retained some influence, however slight, in countries that were, or would soon be, under tight Soviet control.

Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt not only continued to pursue that objective at Yalta; they also sought Stalin’s agreement to a democratic government in Poland and to the exclusion of Italy and Greece from the emerging Soviet bloc.

That Roosevelt was unduly optimistic about the prospects for great-power co-operation is well-known; but he wasn’t entirely unrealistic about the summit’s outcomes. When Admiral William Leahy, who accompanied him to Yalta, complained that the agreement on Poland was “so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever technically breaking it”, Roosevelt wearily replied, “I know it, Bill, I know it; but it’s the best I can do at this time”.

Churchill was even more disabused. As he wrote to Peter Fraser, the prime minister of New Zealand, “Great Britain and the British Commonwealth are very much weaker militarily than Soviet Russia and have no means, short of another general war, of enforcing their point of view”. In the end, however, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”; Britain, and he believed the US, would only remain committed to the agreements if there was “full execution in good faith of the terms of our published communique”.

That was the crucial point for Harry Truman, who became president after Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945. Rushing back from Moscow to brief him, Averell Harriman alerted Truman to a new “barbarian invasion of Europe”, with Stalin breaching every element of the Yalta summit’s Declaration on Liberated Europe, which committed the parties to hold free and fair elections in the countries under their control.

To make things worse, from Austria to Turkey and Iran, the USSR was trying to extend its reach beyond what had been presented at Yalta, and later at the Potsdam summit, as a fait accompli.

By March 1946, when Churchill warned in his famous speech at Fulton, Missouri, that “an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent” of Europe, Truman was convinced that “We must stand up to the Russians – we must not be too easy with them”.

The result was a series of hard-nosed decisions, including, most importantly, the announcement on March 12, 1947 of the Truman Doctrine, which committed the US to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures”.

That doctrine did not mean Truman was unwilling to compromise, if compromise was demanded by the facts on the ground. But to the greatest extent possible, compromises had to preserve the space for freedom to grow.

Thus, when the Korean War turned into a bloody stalemate, Truman accepted a return to Korea’s division at the 38th parallel, ensuring that at least the South had the scope to become a prosperous, democratic society. And Truman readily acknowledged, as did his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, that enforcing the armistice would require an American military presence in Korea “for years to come” as both a trigger and a trip-wire, mightily increasing the costs the North would bear for breaches.

Moreover, to ensure the armistice wasn’t viewed as a broader sign of weakness, Eisenhower, on learning that Mao intended to seize Taiwan, deterred the invasion by entering into a Mutual Defence Agreement with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and by having congress pass the Formosa Resolution, which authorised the president “to employ the armed forces of the United States as he deems necessary for securing and protecting Formosa against armed attack”.

That, in the end, is the real lesson of Yalta. As Harvard’s Serhii Plohky put it, “Like any war, any peace is never a one-act play: it has its beginning and its end, its ups and downs, its heroes and villains. It also has its price”.

It was the abject refusal of the European Union – and notably of France and Germany – to pay that price by enforcing the agreement it had reached with Vladimir Putin ending Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia that encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine.

And it was the paltry response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, along with France and Germany’s failure to give any teeth to the Minsk Agreements on the Donbas, that laid the ground for today’s disastrous war.

Whether a deeply divided EU now has a greater willingness and ability to bear the costs of securing a credible peace is highly doubtful. Moreover, the Trump administration has made it clear that it has no intention of doing so. Truman’s abiding sense of “the shadow cast by power” – the burdens the United States and its allies must bear to preserve freedom’s chances – seems to have vanished from this Earth.

We are, as a result, at the point where compromise risks veering into capitulation. That is not Yalta; it is Munich. If the West can do no better, our future is a world of pain.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/capitulation-on-ukraine-will-haunt-the-west/news-story/bad463a75cc3e3cb4ba1fd9bafe8982d

I have to say I suspect a Mr. Ergas is right and that there is a very great risk of the various great-power accommodations that flow from this will be seen as a total win for Russia and a loss for the EU, UK and the US as it will surely be.

Trump is planning to sell Ukraine and Europe out and it is just too horrible to watch. – (think how long it took Poland etc. to escape the Russian yoke after 1945!)

Trump and Putin are playing an evil game with the freedom of millions of people and it is awful to see happening!

David.

I Am Pretty Sure I Can Smell An Imminent Election In The Air!

This appeared earlier today:

Greg Brown

Anthony Albanese’s Medicare splurge is hollow without funding plan

23 February, 2025

Anthony Albanese isn’t even pretending he is interested in balancing the books if he regains government and this presents an opportunity for Peter Dutton to showcase his team’s fiscal credentials if he is brave enough to take on the Labor scare machine.

The Prime Minister’s $8.5 billion promise to make doctor appointments free for nearly all Australians is a political trap for the Opposition Leader, with Labor to claim that any equivocation from the Coalition is proof that Medicare is at risk with a change of government.

The policy just happens to be a slightly bigger spend than the amount the Australian Medical Association claims Dutton cut from Medicare when he was health minister in the Abbott government, showcasing Labor’s readiness to launch Mediscare 2.0 in a bid to keep the unpopular Albanese in the Lodge.

On the face of it, the expansion of bulk billing is a worthwhile cause for the Albanese government to pursue: more money for an under pressure healthcare system, restoring the efficacy of a great Labor reform and enabling more Australians to visit a doctor without adding to their cost-of-living pressures.

But its downfall is the pretence that you can spend an extra $2.4 billion a year from 2028-29 without finding a way to pay for it.

Labor has outlined no revenue measures or spending cuts to explain how it can fund the growth to commonwealth outlays, with the policy to add to the structural budget deficit that economists warn is a growing risk to Australia’s future prosperity.

And, just like the NDIS, it is demand driven, so any government estimates on cost should be treated cautiously.

Albanese’s inevitable claim that a majority of the $8.5bn was secretly funded in December’s mid-year economic update does not change its structural impact on the budget.

It follows a litany of major spending announcements since late last year that have been accompanied with zero explanation of how they will be funded: $16bn to wipe 20 per cent off student debts (conveniently classified as “off-budget” as if that means the debt doesn’t exist), a $7.2bn upgrade to the Bruce Highway, $2bn for green aluminium, $2bn for green steel, $1.7bn for hospitals and $428m to loosen the activity test for childcare.

Labor is also considering an extension of the $300 electricity rebate for households and small businesses past its June 30 expiry, with the policy costing $3.5bn for a single year in the last budget.

The only revenue measure Labor has confirmed it will take to the election is to increase taxes on superannuation balances worth $3m and above, which would raise a significant $2 billion-plus a year but not enough to come close to balance out the increase in spending.

But an election is a contest, and Dutton has not shown evidence to suggest a Coalition government would set Australia on the path to living within our means. The Liberal leader talks about fiscal prudence — including vague and sometimes contradictory comments about cutting the public service — but is yet to provide a credible economic pathway if there is a change of government.

While the $8.5bn spending splurge on Medicare may be too hard politically for the Coalition to oppose, it would build a lot of credibility if Dutton did what Albanese won’t and explained how he would pay for it.

But we probably shouldn’t be counting on that.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/anthony-albaneses-medicare-splurge-is-hollow-without-funding-plan/news-story/bf5c1c76c59ae87bf42cda71ead59f10

This is sure a huge commitment on the part of the Labor party (8.5b extra on Medicare over 4 years) but it is fair to say the is what Labor sees as core business – so I guess there is some chance we will all eventually see the money.

The other point to make is that an extra $2 Billion or so in a planned Medicare budget of #112.7 Billion (2024-25 Budget) is little more than a ‘rounding error’!

Note this summary:

How much does Australia spend on healthcare annually?

Australia spent an estimated $252.5 billion on health goods and services in 2022–23 – an average of approximately $9,597 per person. In real terms (adjusted for inflation), health spending decreased by 0.3%, or $0.7 billion less than spending from 2021–22.20 Nov 2024

I suspect we will indeed see this expenditure – huge amount of money though it is!

David.