February 25, 2021 Edition.
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The calm continues with Pres. Biden having
done his first month in office and has attended the G7 for the first time
saying “America is back”. Texas had a terrible freezing 4-5 days with many
deaths and awful suffering. Climate Change was in full flight with weather
variability really spiking!
In the UK vaccination is going on apace and
it really does seem to be working.
In OZ we see the PM get his vaccination
against COVID19 last Sunday and soul searching in Parliament continues on how
the respond to the apparent assault on a young female staffer and how to
improve the system overall. 4 enquiries announced to date so the Government is
clearly spooked.
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/asx-outage-to-trigger-market-shake-up-20210202-p56ypj
ASX outage to trigger market
shake-up
John
Kehoe Senior
writer
Feb 15, 2021 – 12.00am
The stockmarket’s snap trading
shutdown last year has forced financial regulators to develop plans to inject
more competition against the Australian Securities Exchange and move to compel
stockbrokers to connect to its competitor Chi-X.
The Council of Financial
Regulators had been investigating how to make competition with the ASX more
effective, government officials said, after a software glitch caused the
exchange to lock up thousands of buy and sell orders in November.
The ASX enjoys a near monopoly on
stock exchange trading and clearing and is one of the world’s most profitable
bourses.
Regulators are understood to be
probing the ASX’s highly vertically integrated system as a barrier to entry,
the ban on Chi-X competing in areas that ASX has a monopoly on, brokers not
investing in the technology to use both the ASX and Chi-X platforms and brokers
not switching to Chi-X to trade when the ASX was down.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/commodities/the-case-for-a-bull-run-on-commodities-20210214-p572cm
Commodities may be set for a
1970s-style boom
Fossil
fuels may be on the nose but copper, nickel, silver and platinum could lead to
a new commodities boom fuelled by governments’ COVID-19 stimulus spending.
Miichael Mackenzie
Feb
14, 2021 – 1.07pm
After what has been dubbed a lost
decade, commodity prices are at last starting to see a
revival as investors look to economic recovery.
Commodities have had a rough few
years, hit by oversupply and crushed by economic fears as the COVID-19 pandemic
broke out.
But now prices are being propelled
higher amid hopes that a robust post-pandemic recovery during 2021 will release
pent-up consumer and industrial demand for raw materials.
Oil prices rose above $US60 a barrel last week
while copper hit an eight-year high. A broad index of commodity prices and one
that measures industrial metals have both appreciated 17 per cent since
November, when Pfizer announced its COVID-19 vaccine.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/the-most-significant-change-to-insider-trading-rules-in-decades-20210212-p571z1
‘The most significant change to
insider trading rules in decades’
Jemima Whyte
Feb
15, 2021 – 12.00am
Changes to insider trading
regulations, championed by some of the country’s most successful tech founders
and investors, will make Australia more globally attractive to fast-growing
companies but may require a toughening-up of the US rules if they are to be
passed through Parliament.
The proposed changes would allow
founders and, perhaps, company executives and directors to sell shares more
easily by nominating upfront a set number of shares to buy or sell in the
market at an agreed price over a set period.
“I think there is a real risk that
some of the best and fastest-growing businesses in Australia look to the US,
and the challenges around selling shares as a founder or executive is one of
the key reasons why they would look to the US to list,” TDM Growth Partners’
Tom Cowan said, whose fund has investments in Tyro, Rokt and Guzman Y Gomez.
Under the existing regulations,
founders and other “company insiders” must wait for trading windows when they
are not in possession of sensitive company information and then typically sell
shares at a discount.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/active-rotation-the-key-to-extra-equity-returns-20210211-p571p0
Active rotation the key to extra
equity returns
As
global growth bounces back strongly and corporate earnings return to pre-pandemic
levels, further sharemarket gains are likely to be more gradual.
James Wright Contributor
Feb
15, 2021 – 12.00am
COVID-19 created significant volatility and disparate returns in equity
markets across the globe through 2020. In 2021, Australian private investors will
likely need to rotate their traditional Australian stock portfolios into
different geographies, sectors and underlying factors to maximise the income
and capital return opportunities on offer.
Dynamically managing these factor
risks is likely to remain a high priority in a world where prospective risk and
correlations of investments can change rapidly.
Usually the dislocation caused by
severe shocks to the global economy gives nimble investors ample opportunities
to invest in assets at deep discounts to their intrinsic value. While there
were undoubtedly opportunities in 2020 in listed equity markets through March
and April, the bounceback was swift and many investors failed to take full
advantage.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/adapting-to-change-will-drive-future-returns-20210212-p5720i
Adapting to change will drive
future returns
Vimal Gor
Feb
15, 2021 – 12.01am
Normal. One word that signifies
what so many of us hope for in 2021. Hugging family in another state. Maybe
even another country by year’s end. Once taken for granted, such modest
aspirations are now what we yearn for.
Commentators are now talking about
markets returning to normal. However when talking about
markets, what is normal? After almost 30 years in markets, I can assure you
there is no such thing as normal. Trying to pretend there is risks wallowing in
the rear view mirror. Even worse in markets it can mean hanging on to outdated
notions, relying on hope that somehow the days that made sense to you will
return. Economies evolve, markets evolve and ideas evolve. We can learn from
the past but to generate returns it’s eyes on the future.
So what has changed as we enter
2021? Firstly, monetary policy is largely dead. It was already dying before the
pandemic but 2020 finished it off once and for all.
The Reserve Bank grabs our
attention from time to time and still has tools to move dials. The Term Funding Facility more than anything has driven
retail rates down towards zero. However the ability to seriously drive an
economy is gone with rates at zero. Negative rates seem a bridge too far, at
least until physical cash has disappeared.
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economy are, and don’t take their results too
seriously.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/unprecedented-change-underway-as-first-nations-people-take-a-seat-at-the-table-20210213-p5727r.html
Unprecedented change under way as
First Nations people take a seat at the table
By Pat Turner
February 15, 2021 — 12.10am
Each year in February, the Prime
Minister delivers a statement in Parliament accounting to the nation for the
status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and outlines what more
is needed to “close the gap”. It is a time when our country looks in the mirror
and confronts our different status – a status that shows wide gaps between the
lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians.
Over the past two years, a
movement has been under way to change how the nation approaches these gaps. It
started when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled bodies
stood up and called for shared decision making with governments. We knew that
having a seat at the table where decisions were being made was vital. And we
knew that our voice needed to be equal to the voice of governments.
Last year, the Prime Minister
spoke to Parliament about his commitment for this new way of working between
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives and governments based on
formal partnerships. This commitment is embedded in the historic Partnership
Agreement on Closing the Gap, signed in March 2019 by all governments and the
Coalition of Peaks, made up of over 55 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
community-controlled bodies from across the country.
Twelve months on from the Prime
Minister’s last statement to Parliament, as we expect his next statement today,
this commitment is taking hold.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/five-strategies-for-managing-through-expensive-markets-20210212-p5721a
Five strategies for managing
through expensive markets
There
are steps you can take to protect your portfolio and make the most of
opportunities.
Scott Haslem Contributor
Feb
16, 2021 – 12.00am
All has not gone to plan over
recent months. Hopes of exiting 2020 with the pandemic firmly in the rear-view
mirror have not eventuated. Despite an accelerating rollout of multiple
vaccines, there has been a nasty resurgence of the virus across the UK, Europe
and the US. Australia and parts of the
emerging markets have also had new outbreaks.
Economic growth in early 2021 is
likely to step back temporarily from the encouraging pick-up during the latter
months of last year.
Still, with Australia’s reporting season well advanced, equity markets
here and overseas continue to grind higher, pushing valuations to levels that
likely challenge even the most glass-half-full investor.
Like the recent encouraging US and
European reporting seasons, Australian companies are continuing the trend of
improving revenue, better cost control and cautious optimism.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-rights-at-work-mps-staffers-are-the-uber-drivers-of-the-political-process-20210215-p572mg.html
No rights at work: MPs’ staffers
are the Uber drivers of the political process
Columnist and academic
February 16, 2021 — 12.10am
Yet another Liberal Party staffer
has alleged she was sexually assaulted by a parliamentary colleague, this time
in Parliament House.
The young woman, Brittany Higgins,
reported the assault but felt forced to choose between justice or a career in
politics. The response to the case, by Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, was
dreadful. Higgins was interviewed about her experience in the very room where
the assault took place. Just 18 months ago, another staffer, Chelsey Potter,
reported she was pinned down and had her underpants torn off. Yet another said
a fellow Liberal came to her house the same year and forced himself on her
while masturbating.
Is the Liberal Party the worst
workplace in the world? Is Labor any better? Can women only speak out after
they leave?
At the beginning of 2020, the
Liberal Party released its National Code of Conduct, which insists any victim of
criminal conduct should report the complaint to the police and parliamentary
staffers should refer the matter to Parliament or government departments. Labor
is in the final stages of updating its code of conduct and harassment policies
and procedures. In its draft form, it at least says it will support the victim
through the complaints process.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/continuous-disclosure-change-a-blow-for-investors-20210216-p57331
Continuous disclosure change a
blow for investors
ASIC
was right when it said “the economic significance of fair and efficient capital
markets dwarfs any exposure to class action damages”.
Feb
17, 2021 – 12.05am
The federal government’s decision
to erode Australia’s continuous disclosure regime is a blow to investors and
capital markets.
The change to the disclosure
regime, originally introduced as part of
a suite of pandemic relief measures last May after intense lobbying by the
Australian Institute of Company Directors, will mean directors will only be
liable for civil penalty proceedings where they have acted with “knowledge,
recklessness or negligence” in terms of disclosure.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg
specifically says the measure will prevent opportunistic class actions – a huge
bug bear of the director class – and bring Australia’s regime in line with that
of the US and Britain.
ASIC can still prosecute criminal
breaches, issue administrative penalties and infringement notices without
proving fault. But shareholder redress via class actions will become harder.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/exchange-traded-fund-spreads-widen-during-lockdowns-20210211-p571mt.html
Exchange Traded Fund ‘spreads’
widen during lockdowns
By John
Collett
February 16, 2021 — 10.00pm
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are often
lauded as a fail-safe way of buying market returns relatively cheaply.
However, investors who sold some
ETFs during last year’s sharemarket meltdown faced a blowout in “bid-ask
spreads”, where big differences opened up in what buyers were willing to pay
and what sellers were prepared to accept. Normally with ETFs, the spreads are
low.
Most ETFs mirror the returns of a
particular market; whether it be a benchmark share index or subindex,
commodities, or even currency exchange rates. Their units are traded in the
same way as shares, so they are usually easy to buy and sell and their
management fees are low.
However, a study by Morningstar
shows that those who sold some fixed-interest ETFs during the peak of the
downturn in February and March faced spread costs of about 3 per cent, on
average. The annual yield on those fixed-interest ETFs would have struggled to
match that amount.
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https://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/lessons-learnt-by-smsf-trustees-during-market-meltdown-20210216-p572zr.html
Lessons learnt by SMSF trustees
during market meltdown
By John
Maroney
February 16, 2021 — 10.28pm
To put it mildly, 2020 was a
harrowing year for investors. For Self-Managed Super Fund trustees, many
sitting on their life’s retirement nest eggs, it was even more so.
On February 20, the S&P/ASX
200 Index closed at a record 7162.5. By March 23, it was floundering at 4546 –
a drop of 36.5 per cent.
And it was not just equities;
listed property was a major casualty, while volatility and a lack of liquidity
defined fixed-interest markets.
Then sharemarkets did a remarkable
U-turn – almost in inverse proportion to the spread of COVID-19 – to the extent
that the sell-off and recovery occurred in time spans that were unprecedented.
The benchmark ASX index closed out
the year not far from where it started.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/super-reforms-to-save-billions-says-jane-hume/news-story/8a001dd71247362afc3b198a21c22aba
Super reforms ‘to save billions’,
says Jane Hume
Geoff
Chambers
·
8:06PM February 17, 2021
Superannuation
Minister Jane Hume has pushed back at fund managers and Labor over the
government’s superannuation reforms, declaring that the major overhaul of
the $3 trillion system will pump billions of dollars into the pockets of
working Australians.
Senator
Hume said “no one likes change, particularly when you’re on a good wicket”.
“The
superannuation sector has lobbied hard against the measures we’ve taken, and
Labor has been their megaphone on the floor of the parliament. But, in the end,
it’s hard to argue with changes that make super fund members, not super fund
managers, better off,” she said.
Writing
online for The Australian after the government introduced its Your Future, Your
Super package into parliament on Wednesday, Senator Hume stresses that the reforms
are aimed at ensuring fund managers deliver value for money.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/parliament-plays-catch-up-with-the-rest-of-society-20210217-p573hc
Parliament plays catch-up with the
rest of society
The
core cultural failing is that political management is wired into the place.
Will it change now?
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Feb
18, 2021 – 8.00pm
Just over two decades ago, federal
parliament was reeling following the suicide of a young Labor MP, Greg Wilton.
He took his life in June 2000
after the breakdown of his marriage and subsequent media coverage of his
depressive condition, his likely resignation and who would win his seat in a
byelection.
The whole building felt shamed at
what eventuated and a day was set aside for MPs to make condolence motions.
Much of the focus was on the
“toxic culture of politics”, the way people treated each other in the building,
and the lack of support mechanisms for those needing help.
“The best thing we could do would
be to rededicate ourselves to being kinder and gentler to each other,” Tony
Abbott said.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/trouble-with-paradise-the-crisis-australia-has-hardly-noticed-20210218-p573ki.html
Trouble with paradise: the crisis
Australia has hardly noticed
Former Australian prime minister
February 19, 2021 — 12.05am
Few Australians would have heard
much about the dramatic schism at the Pacific
Islands Forum last week,
but its consequences for our region could be long-lasting and disastrous.
Fiji’s suspension from the forum
in 2009 presented a serious political crisis for the institution. But through
active Australian and New Zealand leadership, working with our Pacific
counterparts, the forum held together. Nothing, however, compares in the
forum’s history to the decision last week by its five Micronesian members –
Nauru, Kiribati, Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of
Micronesia – to voluntarily walk away from the institution. Even if a deal can
be worked out before they formally exit a year from now, the fact is that
Pacific regionalism will never be the same.
The challenge for the Australian
government is to not just fiddle while Rome burns. These events have already
shown the Morrison government’s Pacific “Step Up” has been little more than a
giant Pacific “Stuff Up”. Australia’s role in the region is to constructively
and respectfully help our island neighbours navigate their collective future.
The risk now is that the Pacific Islands Forum disappears altogether, thereby
fracturing longstanding regional solidarity. If the forum implodes, Australia
too would lose its formal seat at the table of the Pacific family. That would
be strategically disastrous for Australia. And great news for Beijing.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/brittany-higgins-calls-police-demands-proper-investigation-20210219-p573z3
Brittany Higgins calls police,
demands proper investigation
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Feb
19, 2021 – 5.08pm
Former Liberal staffer Brittany
Higgins has officially requested the Australian Federal Police investigate her alleged rape by a co-worker in
March 2019.
After five days of revelations and
allegations which have had the Morrison government in damage
control,
Ms Higgins took the next step late on Friday.
“Today I have re-engaged with
Australian Federal Police and will proceed with a formal complaint regarding
the crime committed against me in what should be the safest building in
Australia,” she said in a statement.
She said her aims were twofold:
“Firstly, I want a comprehensive police investigation into what happened to me
on 22/23 March 2019 and for my perpetrator to face the full force of the law.
“Secondly, given my experience, I
am determined to drive significant reform in the way the Australian Parliament
handles issues of this nature and treats ministerial and parliamentary staff
more generally.”
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/state-of-paralysis-as-ministers-hide-behind-a-rape-victim-20210219-p573yo
State of paralysis as ministers
hide behind a rape victim
It’s not just the workplace culture in
Canberra’s Parliament House that is under scrutiny but also the culture of
accountability in politics.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Feb
19, 2021 – 6.58pm
At the political heart of the
harrowing personal story of a young woman being allegedly raped on the couch of
a minister’s office in Parliament House is the idea that, beyond the assault
itself, the incident may have been covered up, and the young woman made to feel
a political liability.
In the light of this week’s revelations, the story of the young Coalition
staffer Brittany Higgins is being spoken of as one that reflects an appalling
workplace culture
for women in Canberra’s Parliament House.
In the light of this week’s revelations, the story of the young Coalition
staffer Brittany Higgins is being spoken of as one that reflects an appalling
workplace culture
for women in Canberra’s Parliament House.
But it also speaks to the more
basic questions of the culture of accountability in politics, and of competent
management.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/rudd-revels-in-prosecution-of-murdoch-20210219-p57426
Rudd revels in prosecution of
Murdoch
Andrew Tillett Political
correspondent
Feb
19, 2021 – 5.26pm
Kevin Rudd has embraced plenty of
personas during his time in public life: nerdy prime minister, foreign policy
wonk, underminer-in-chief.
But Friday saw him add a new role,
star witness in the show trial of Rupert Murdoch in absentia.
Rudd’s appearance at a Senate
inquiry into media diversity – one he inspired after 500,000 people signed a
petition calling for a royal commission – is the first time since 2004 a former
prime minister (Gough Whitlam) fronted the “unrepresentative swill”.
Rudd started off by saying any
monopoly as a matter of principle is bad but he quickly zeroed in Murdoch’s News Corporation in
print media.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/why-the-market-has-suddenly-woken-up-to-inflation-20210216-p572zh
Why the market has suddenly woken
up to inflation
The mantra of ‘lower for longer’ is coming
under pressure as investors realise the potential damage inflation
could inflict on complacent portfolios.
Jonathan Shapiro Senior reporter
Feb
20, 2021 – 12.00am
If any investor – professional or
“mum and dad” – in almost any part of the world had to get just one call right
over the past decade, it was to believe in the “lower for longer” mantra.
That is that long-term interest
rates, which had lingered at or around their all-time historical lows, would remain suppressed – thus ensuring that a raft of
investments from US technology stocks to Australian housing remained valuable.
Despite repeated warnings and
several false dawns, inflation – rising prices – never emerged.
The consequence was that rates remained low, and asset prices elevated. Then
the pandemic hit. Central banks responded by cutting rates to inconceivable
levels. And governments finally stepped up with big spending plans.
Now the lower-for-longer doubters
are re-emerging. They believe deliberately slow-to-act central banks in the US
and in Australia, stimulus cheques and pent-up spending will turbo-charge
economic activity and unleash the inflationary forces many thought were gone for good.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/monstrous-act-exposes-the-cold-inhumanity-at-the-heart-of-the-morrison-government-20210219-p5745m.html
Monstrous act exposes the cold
inhumanity at the heart of the Morrison government
Political and international editor
February 20, 2021 — 12.13am
A young woman has come forward to
say that she was raped in the inner sanctum of Australian political power, the
ministerial offices of Parliament House.
No one is denying it. Not her
colleagues, not her employer of the time, not the prime minister in the
government she served. On the contrary, her employer of that time, today’s Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds,
shed tears of remorse in the Senate this week. The Prime Minister offered his apologies.
Brittany Higgins says she was
raped two years ago. It turns out that dozens of people in the Morrison
government and parliamentary staff knew. At least two cabinet ministers, women
both. Political staff. At least one member of Scott Morrison’s personal staff.
Senior public servants. Police and security attendants.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/brittany-higgins-lifes-dream-torn-apart-under-glare-of-publicity/news-story/742f608858aac45f115f9d87411a8796
Accused Liberal staffer ‘moved
through the ranks too fast’
It’s
not just newly minted MPs and senators who arrive in Canberra bright-eyed and
excited. Staffers like Brittany Higgins work hard, play hard and adhere to one
golden rule.
·
20 February 2021
It’s
not just newly-minted federal MPs and senators who arrive in Canberra
bright-eyed and excited. The often young and uniformly ambitious advisers
populating the parliamentary and ministerial offices in the big house on
Capital Hill are just as caught up by the intoxicating atmosphere.
They
work hard, play hard and adhere to one golden rule: staffers are never, ever to
become the story for the journalists who hover in the press gallery and
frequent the same restaurants and nightspots in nearby Kingston.
But
the unwritten code was torn up this week — arguably, not before time — when
Brittany Higgins came forward to allege she was raped in the early hours of
March 23, 2019, in the office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds
after a boozy Friday night out with colleagues. The man accused of the attack,
a more senior adviser, cleared his desk three days later.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/why-equities-investors-need-to-watch-bonds-too/news-story/ed915d9fda8db9b5a525cd53cc9518c9
Why
equities investors need to watch bonds too
Roger Montgomery
·
8:41PM February 18, 2021
Jeremy
Grantham, the legendary former bond market king at mega fund manager GMO, has
described the current market as “a fully fledged epic bubble”. Many have also
asked whether we are in the midst of a new dotcom bubble — the endgame of which
boomers have had the mixed pleasure of experiencing, but millennials have not.
Still,
I have challenged this view for three reasons:
First,
bubbles in specific sectors of the market, such as the “buy now, pay later”
sector in Australia, can inflate and collapse in isolation, and without
disrupting the rest of the market, provided the assets crashing aren’t on the
balance sheets of systemically important financial institutions.
Second,
the overextended valuation of the broad market is being driven by a heavy
weighting to five global businesses.
And
finally, when compared to ultra-low bond rates, a simple calculation reveals
the equity market is roughly fair value.
Against this backdrop, bond rates have been
fluctuating in a rather one-sided direction — that is, upwards.
------
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/greening-your-investment-portfolio/news-story/bfab4c175d96cd10adeb633eeaf402ee
Greening
your investment portfolio
James
Kirby
·
9:00PM February 19, 2021
One
of the most common questions now asked by investors is how to invest in the
move towards a “greener economy”?
It’s
not that investors are suddenly gripped with a horror over climate change: It’s
something closer to FOMO — Fear Of Missing Out.
Whatever
your views on the wider environmental debate, there is in fact no debate over
the investing picture: the evidence builds year after year that green investing
pays better than traditional profit-at-all-costs investing.
We
can squabble about definitions ad nauseam, but the results keep coming out the
same — the latest from Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance unit that shows the
market capitalisation of “clean companies” growing exponentially, while “fossil
fuel” stocks show a marked decline in market capitalisation.
-----
Coronavirus And Impacts.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/1bn-bid-to-go-it-alone-with-covid19-vaccine-hub/news-story/d5669fba00d2b6d6b2bd4b4f9f6046b1
$1bn bid to go it alone with
COVID-19 vaccine hub
Jess
Malcolm
·
7:08PM February 15, 2021
A
proposal for a state-of-the-art $1bn facility to manufacture vaccines and
prescription drugs in Australia is being reviewed by the federal government in
a bid to deal with critical drug shortages and bolster sovereign capabilities
in the Asia-Pacific region.
Documents
obtained by The Australian outline how the regional facility proposes to
manufacture essential medicines to supply 40 million people, as well as ramp up
the nation’s vaccine development capability.
The
CSIRO is advising on the project, named The Resilience Partnership, which is a
consortium of leading biopharmaceutical, biosecurity, engineering and infrastructure
organisations.
The
Australian Medical Association backs the proposal, pointing out that both
Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the CSIRO were formed in response to the
Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/welcome-to-our-new-covid-19-vaccine-data-tracker-20210216-p5731f.html
Welcome to our new COVID-19
vaccine data tracker
February 17, 2021 — 8.40am
The worldwide battle against
COVID-19 has moved to its next phase as vaccines are rolled out across the
globe. Most countries now face the enormous logistical challenge of vaccinating
enough people so that spread of the virus can be stopped and life can return to
normal.
This fresh battleground means a
whole new set of data to follow, so our visual stories and data teams have
launched a new vaccine data tracker to show you the progress countries are
making in vaccinating their citizens. And just like the COVID-19 data centre we launched last April, this
vaccine data centre will be continuously upgraded and tweaked.
We are also planning to create a
pane on the dashboard dedicated to Australia’s progress once the rollout begins
here. We’ve decided to use the total number of people fully vaccinated as our
main metric of success rather than the number of doses administered.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/coronavirus-new-mutant-strain-discovered-that-weakens-vaccine/news-story/7804c5cb05b48fec7a5a410c7a213cd0
Coronavirus: New mutant strain
discovered that weakens vaccine
·
By Rhys Blakely
·
The Times
·
February 17, 2021
A
new variant of the coronavirus with a worrying cluster of mutations has been
identified in the UK, leading to calls for further enhanced testing to contain
its spread.
The
variant, known as B1525, has been identified 33 times, according to University
of Edinburgh researchers. It was first spotted in the UK on December 15 and then
about two weeks later in Nigeria. It contains the E484K mutation, which appears
to lessen the effectiveness of existing vaccines and is also seen in strains of
the virus that appear to have originated in South Africa and in Manaus in
Brazil.
It
also contains two mutations known as deletions. One has shown signs in
laboratory tests of increasing the virus’s ability to infect new cells; the
other appears to make some types of antibody work less well.
The
British government’s Nervtag committee of respiratory virus experts is expected
to meet this week to discuss whether B1525 is sufficiently worrying to be
identified as a “variant of concern”.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/negative-coronavirus-antibody-test-hits-jab-duration/news-story/a12332e9b77326ca5ef3adbdd836148b
Negative coronavirus antibody test
hits jab duration
Ellie
Dudley
·
6:51PM February 16, 2021
The
earliest suspected cases of COVID-19 detected in Wuhan no longer have
antibodies, the lead investigator of the World Health Organisation mission to
China has revealed, indicating that a year after contracting the virus they no
longer had immunity.
In
another announcement — divulged in the same interview with American broadcaster
CNN — Peter Ben Embarek said the group found 13 different genetic sequences of
the coronavirus in December 2019, indicating that COVID-19 was percolating in
China well before it was first detected.
During
the 28-day trip, Chinese scientists gave the investigators analysis of 92
suspected COVID-19 cases from October and November 2019.
In
January this year, all of the cases who agreed to be tested returned negative
antibody results, indicating that a year after contracting the virus, they may
no longer have immunity.
-----
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-covid-diary-an-icu-doctor-reports-from-the-front-line-6b6z8zfbx
My Covid diary: an ICU doctor
reports from the front line
Dr Jim Down has spent the past year fighting
Covid in the intensive care unit of University College Hospital in London. Now
he’s published his diary from the early months – a terrifying, moving account
of the fight to save patients from a disease that was still totally unknown
MARK
HARRISON
Thursday
February 18 2021, 5.00pm GMT, The Times
March 24, 2020
“Jim,
they need you in bay 5. The young guy – Adam – in bed 36 has crashed his blood
pressure.”
“Right,
OK. Thanks.” I walked back to the table of personal protective equipment,
dropped my valuables into the tray and picked a new mask from the box.
“Has
his temp gone up again?”
“Don’t
know. I’ll ask.” Taciana, the staff nurse who’d called me, spoke into her
walkie-talkie.
“Jim’s
coming in. What’s his temperature? In bed 36.”
-----
Climate Change.
-----
No entries this week.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/mps-targeted-in-campagin-to-lift-agedcare-funds/news-story/1079817e2b607c75751760174cdaef48
MPs targeted in campaign to lift
aged-care funds
Simon
Benson
·
6:50AM February 15, 2021
A
coalition of church-backed, charity and private aged-care providers covering
1000 organisations will launch a political campaign across 15 marginal federal
electorates warning Australia will need to spend an extra $20bn a year to bring
the sector in line with world standards.
With
the royal commission into the aged-care crisis due to report at the end of the
next week, the powerful new lobby is poised to name and shame MPs to force a
radical overhaul of the sector’s resourcing, regulation and workforce
training.
The
Australian understands that the spending review committee of cabinet met last
week to discuss the Morrison government’s response to what is expected to be
damning final findings and recommendations from the royal commission into the
abuse and neglect of elderly Australians in residential care.
But
threatening to follow the heated school-funding campaign undertaken by the
Catholic and independent school sectors against the Turnbull government in
2018, the newly formed pact will release a report on Monday claiming a
shortfall of 100,000 home-care packages needs to be urgently addressed.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/aged-care-must-get-its-house-in-order/news-story/650193d7ec42b93ab1bd5d7490c944cd
Aged care ‘must get its house in
order’
Stephen
Lunn
·
8:39PM February 15, 2021
Nursing
homes will have to address their culture and leadership before the ailing
sector can improve, the Health Department says, warning the aged care royal
commission’s lawyers had ignored the issue altogether.
In
a newly released submission to the commission, the department and the Aged Care
Quality and Safety Commission conceded significant improvements to aged-care
compliance and governance were needed, but said quality of care ultimately depended
on the values and leadership of providers.
“It
is accepted by the commonwealth that major reforms are required in aged-care
financing, provider governance, and quality and safety regulation,” the
submission, which responded to the commission’s lawyers’ own damning final
submission to the inquiry last October, said.
“A
key element not addressed in counsel assisting’s submissions, however, which
should also be considered by the royal commission, is provider culture.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-a-facility-not-a-home-what-will-it-take-to-reform-aged-care-20210217-p573cd.html
‘It’s a facility not a home’: What
will it take to reform aged care?
February 20, 2021 — 5.00am
It’s past midday, but Merle
Mitchell’s breakfast dishes were still on her table when staff at her Melbourne
aged care facility brought in her lunch.
“I wouldn’t say this place is a
bad place, unlike lots of places,” she says.
Her facility did not experience
the catastrophic outbreaks of COVID-19 experienced in other homes last year,
but staffing levels mean there’s one nurse at night to 79 residents.
“It’s still a facility, it’s still
not a home, and it never will be while we have the current arrangements for how
we run these places.”
Mitchell, a former president of
the Australian Council of Social Service, moved into the Melbourne facility two
years before Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a Royal Commission into
Aged Care Quality and Safety in September 2018.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/flogging-the-monetary-policy-horse-harder-won-t-get-us-anywhere-20210213-p57271.html
Flogging the monetary policy horse
harder won’t get us anywhere
Economics Editor
February 15, 2021 — 12.01am
It didn’t quite hit the headlines,
but when Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe appeared before the House of Reps
economics committee a week or so ago, he came under intense questioning from
the Parliament’s most highly qualified economist, Labor’s Dr Andrew Leigh.
In my never-humble opinion, Leigh
had the wrong end of the stick.
One criticism was that the board
of the Reserve Bank is dominated by “amateurs” – business men and women
appointed by successive federal governments. According to Leigh, pretty much
every other central bank has its decisions on monetary policy (whether to raise
or lower interest rates) made by committees of outside monetary experts, who
are well equipped to challenge the bank’s own technical analysis.
This is a chestnut I’ve been
hearing for decades. It smacks of the old cultural cringe: Australia is out of
line with the big boys in America and Europe, therefore we’re doing it wrong.
The people in our financial markets spend so much time studying the mighty US
economy that their line’s always the same: whatever the Yanks are doing we
should be doing.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/so-what-has-gone-wrong-with-our-interest-rate-policy-20210214-p572f7
What’s gone wrong with our
interest rate policy
The
RBA has been forced into lockstep with a misguided US Federal Reserve held
hostage by volatile financial markets.
Stephen Grenville Contributor
Feb
15, 2021 – 12.57pm
The current debate
on Australian monetary policy is misdirected. Interest rates are abnormally low
because the US Federal Reserve has pushed them down through excess liquidity
and sustained quantitative easing.
All other developed countries
(including Australia) have been forced to match these low rates in order to
avoid a damaging loss of international competitiveness through an overvalued
exchange rate. With policy already so accommodative, further easing would be as
ineffective as doubling the prescribed dose of medicine.
Where did this go wrong? The
current episode began in America with the 2008 global financial crisis.
Interest rates were, correctly, lowered substantially to offset the crisis. QE
began as a measure to rescue the housing-finance market but was also aimed at
lowering the long-term interest rate – a key price in US finance.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/on-the-cusp-of-a-boom-double-digit-house-price-rise-tipped-as-banks-continue-rate-cuts-20210215-p572m2.html
‘On the cusp of a boom’:
Double-digit house price rise tipped as banks continue rate cuts
February 15, 2021 — 7.30pm
Economists for the nation’s
biggest mortgage lender believe a new housing boom will push home prices in
Sydney and Melbourne up by at least 12 per cent over the next two years as
banks drive lending rates below 2 per cent.
But tumbling interest rates could
leave the Reserve Bank with few options to deal with any future economic
downturn, with warnings it may have to print money to finance government
spending programs.
At the start of the coronavirus
pandemic, economists and housing analysts feared a collapse in home prices that
would feed into a downward economic cycle of wealth destruction and subdued
consumer spending.
Instead, on the back of record low
interest rates and large government support programs including the JobKeeper
wage subsidy and the COVID supplement for welfare recipients, prices in all
capital cities bar Melbourne have risen over the past 12 months. Regional areas
have seen even larger increases.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/economy-adds-30-000-jobs-as-unemployment-falls-to-6-4pc-20210218-p573na
Economy adds 30,000 jobs as
unemployment falls to 6.4pc
Matthew Cranston Economics
correspondent
Feb
18, 2021 – 11.57am
The unemployment rate has fallen
to 6.4 per cent from 6.6 per cent, surprising economists and
leaving the labour market just shy of its pre-COVID-19 level.
Seasonally adjusted employment
increased by 29,000 jobs in January, according to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics. But the participation rate – the percentage of working-age people
employed or actively looking for work – edged lower by 0.1 of a percentage
point to 66.1 per cent.
Full-time employment increased by
59,000 to 8.8 million jobs, and part-time employment decreased by 29,800 to 4.1
million jobs.
Economists expected overall
employment would jump 40,000 in January, pushing the unemployment rate down to
6.5 per cent.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/endless-fiscal-stimulus-can-t-be-the-new-normal-20210217-p573gi
Endless fiscal stimulus can’t be
the new normal
Keeping fiscal policy’s pedal to the metal
until unemployment is below 4 per cent is a recipe for waste and a debt
mountain that will handicap future prosperity.
Robert Carling
Contributor
Feb 18, 2021 – 1.52pm
Governments everywhere are being urged to
take advantage of near-zero interest rates, throw caution to the wind, shrug off the
size of deficits and spend freely. Many of them took this advice in the
corona-crisis conditions of 2020.
Whether or not they were right to do so then,
they would be ill-advised to remain on the same path in 2021. It is time to
think about a path back to fiscal consolidation, discipline, and responsibility
– what is pejoratively labelled “austerity”.
This doesn’t mean that surplus or even
balanced budgets are imminent, but it does mean rejecting the notion that debt
no longer matters and that fiscal stimulus should be part of the new normal.
There are many expert voices arguing against
a shift away from fiscal laxity. Writing on these pages on Wednesday, for
example, professors Richard Holden and Bruce Preston (“Perverse logic of the push for higher
interest rates”) advocated
adherence to expansionary fiscal policy until unemployment falls below 4 per
cent.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/retail-trade-up-again-in-january-highest-since-2015-20210219-p573xq
Retail trade up, highest January
rise since 2015
Matthew Cranston Economics
correspondent
Feb
19, 2021 – 12.01pm
Consumers spent $30.5 billion on
retail sales in January - a bounce of 0.6 per cent on December sales, but were on the soft side
of economists expectations due to sporadic COVID outbreaks during the month.
Figures from the Australian Bureau
of Statistics show all states reported higher seasonally adjusted retail sales
except Queensland which fell 1.5 per cent, because COVID-19 restrictions in
Brisbane dampened sales across household goods, clothing, footwear and personal
accessory retailing, and department stores.
Sales in NSW were strongest, up 1
per cent, as Greater Sydney’s COVID-19 restrictions eased.
ANZ economists expected retail
sales growth in January of 1 per cent, while most market economists had
expected a 2 per cent rise.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/alarm-bells-auditor-general-budget-cuts-will-see-agencies-avoid-scrutiny-for-decades-20210219-p5741h.html
‘Alarm bells’: Auditor-General
budget cuts will see agencies avoid scrutiny for decades
February 19, 2021 — 3.33pm
The watchdog in charge of keeping
the government accountable for its use of taxpayer money says his budget has
fallen so much some agencies might only face scrutiny once every 20 years and
auditors are tolerating “uncomfortable” risks in financial statements.
Auditor-General Grant Hehir says
over the next four years he has to cut the number of performance audits his
office does, which in the past year has uncovered the sports rorts
scandal
and the $30 million
paid for the Leppington Triangle land valued within a year at just $3 million.
The cut will bring down the number
of audits by a quarter, from a historical average of 48 a year to 36, the
lowest number this century, bar 2016 when the double dissolution of Parliament
meant fewer sitting weeks to deliver his reports.
“In effect, I am unable to provide
the Parliament to the same extent with the evidence it has used to hold
executive government to account, thereby reducing accountability and
transparency,” Mr Hehir on Friday told a parliamentary committee reviewing the
Australian National Audit Office.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/old-age-can-soon-be-cured-scientists-believe/news-story/49215068665701c6c48d0881362135a1
Old age can soon be ‘cured’
scientists believe
·
By The Economist
·
February 15, 2021
Old
age is a massacre,” wrote Philip Roth, long before the pandemic underscored its
hazards. Even those who count as young must often watch the ineluctable drift
of loved ones into decrepitude. Andrew Steele has a hopeful message for all
those facing this prospect (i.e., everyone). Old age needn’t be a massacre; in
fact, old age needn’t even be old.
Mr
Steele’s thesis in “Ageless” is that ageing can be cured — and, at least in
part, that it very soon will be. The giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands
show no age-related decline, in some ways seeming as youthful at 170 as at 30.
Mr Steele thinks this phenomenon, known as negligible senescence, is within
humanity’s grasp, too.
Whether
or not readers are persuaded that ageless humans could ever be more than a
theoretical possibility — and it is a stretch — this book will convince them
that discounting the theoretical possibility altogether is based on nothing but
prejudice. Western art may have something to do with it, bristling as it is
with morality tales about the folly of wanting to turn back the clock; but
there is actually no good reason to assume an upper limit to longevity, or that
ageing must come with decline. And there is quite a lot of evidence to the
contrary. Without the rich world’s denizens really noticing, a life that ends
after the biblical three score years and ten has already come to seem a life
cut short; instead, 90 is now seen as a good innings.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/currencies/bitcoin-s-rise-reflects-america-s-decline-20210215-p572j8
Bitcoin’s rise reflects America’s
decline
The
rise in popularity of highly volatile cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could be
an early signal of a new world order in which the US and the dollar will play a
less important role.
Rana Foroohar Contributor
Feb
15, 2021 – 10.24am
A little over 100 years ago, there
was a bubble asset that rose and fell wildly over the course of a decade.
People who held it would have lost 100 per cent of their money five different
times. They would have, at various points, made huge fortunes, or seen the
value of their asset destroyed by hyperinflation.
The asset I’m referring to is gold
priced in Weimar marks. If this reminds you of bitcoin, you are not alone. In his
newsletter Tree
Rings, analyst Luke Gromen looked at the startling similarities in
the volatility of gold in Weimar Germany and bitcoin today. His conclusion? Bitcoin isn’t so much a bubble as “the last functioning fire
alarm” warning us of some very big geopolitical changes ahead.
I agree. Central bankers have over
the past 10 years (or the last few decades, depending on where you put the
marker) quashed price discovery in markets with low interest rates and
quantitative easing. Whether you see this as a welcome smoothing of the
business cycle or a dysfunctional enabling of debt-ridden businesses, the
upshot is that it’s now very difficult to get a sense of the health of
individual companies or certainly the real economy as a whole from asset
prices.
The rise in popularity of highly
volatile cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could simply be seen as a speculative
sign of this US Federal Reserve-enabled froth. But it might better be
interpreted as an early signal of a new world order in which the US and the
dollar will play a less important role.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/acquittal-confirms-cult-of-trump-dilemma-for-gop-20210214-p572d8
Acquittal confirms cult of Trump
dilemma for GOP
Now
that Republicans have passed up an opportunity to banish him through
impeachment, it is not clear how they can transform their party into something
other than a vessel for a semi-retired demagogue who was repudiated by a
majority of voters.
Alexander Burns
Feb
14, 2021 – 4.39pm
During the first trial of Donald
Trump the former president commanded near-total fealty from his party. His
conservative defenders were ardent and numerous, and Republican votes to
convict him – for pressuring Ukraine to help him smear Joe Biden – were
virtually non-existent.
In his second trial, Trump, no
longer president, received less ferocious Republican support. His apologists
were sparser in number and seemed to lack enthusiasm. Far fewer conservatives
defended the substance of his actions, instead dwelling on technical complaints
while skirting the issue of his guilt on the charge of inciting the January 6
riot at the Capitol.
And this time, seven Republican
senators voted with Democrats to convict Trump – the most bipartisan rebuke
ever delivered in an impeachment process. Several others, including Mitch
McConnell, the minority leader, intimated that Trump might deserve to face criminal
prosecution.
McConnell, speaking from the
Senate floor after the vote, denounced Trump’s “unconscionable behaviour” and
held him responsible for having given “inspiration to lawlessness and
violence.”
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/failure-to-convict-trump-over-capitol-riot-does-not-mean-it-was-a-mistake-to-try/news-story/14383a14a14bf7ec5234a409bd1dc529
Failure
to convict Trump over Capitol riot does not mean it was a mistake to try
The
Economist
·
1:54AM February 15, 2021
Few
expected that Donald Trump’s impeachment for inciting the mob that stormed the
Capitol on January 6 would lead to his conviction. That would have needed the
unlikely votes of 17 Republican senators. In recent weeks there were no signs
that so many were ready to turn on the former president. Now those expectations
have been met.
Did
the failure to convict Trump mean it was a mistake to try? Hardly. The trial
served various ends. It was a first attempt — and other legal efforts will
follow, at least for lesser figures, in criminal courts — to assign
responsibility for the deadly attack on the US Capitol. The Senate trial drew
avid public attention. Dramatic fresh footage of the assault by the mob,
presented last week by Democrat congressmen serving as the prosecution, was
witnessed by millions of Americans following events online and on television.
Those videos, often shot by the rioters themselves, were at times harrowing and
cruel. The presentation was effective, and a reminder that political violence
is a real threat in America. Even Trump’s lawyers frankly condemned the assault
on the Capitol as “horrific” and said it was conducted by criminals. Whatever
the result, the trial may thus have gone some way to helping to draw a line
against anti-democratic violence — as low a bar as that might seem.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/trump-opens-door-to-2024-white-house-run-after-senate-acquittal/news-story/e5e9302b788f231fe25e2d3f31a2945d
Trump opens door to 2024 White
House run after Senate acquittal
Cameron Stewart
·
5:44PM February 14, 2021
Donald
Trump has hinted at a political comeback after being acquitted in his Senate
impeachment trial of inciting an insurrection for his role in the deadly
Capitol riots.
Forty-three
Republican senators voted on Sunday AEDT to acquit the former president, with
57 senators finding him guilty, short of the two-thirds majority needed to
convict.
Seven
Republicans broke ranks to vote alongside Democrats, reflecting the divisions
in the party over Mr Trump’s role in the Capitol riots on January 6 that left
five people dead.
The
Senate trial lasting just five days — the shortest on record — leaving Mr Trump
as the first president to be .impeached and acquitted twice.
-----
https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/how-many-lives-did-trump-presidency-cost
How many lives did the Trump
presidency cost?
'He
committed crimes against health': Lancet report details the alleged damage of
his policies
15th
February 2021
By Reuters Health
A Lancet report claims
that 461,000 fewer Americans would have died in 2018 as a result of the Trump
administration's policies.
It said that last year some 40% of
US deaths from COVID-19 would have been averted if the US death rates had been
in line with those of the other G7 nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan and the UK.
The report by the Lancet
Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era also estimates the
impact of his administration's rollbacks of environmental protections at 22,000
deaths in 2019.
"The main message from this
report is that Trump committed crimes against health in America,"
said commission co-chair Professor David Himmelstein, a GP and a lecturer
at the Harvard Medical School, Boston.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/why-trump-s-sin-against-america-can-t-just-be-forgotten-20210215-p572kk
Why Trump’s sin against America
can’t just be forgotten
Helpful
foreigners who say Americas should just ‘move on’ from the Capitol assault
don’t quite get the sacredness of the constitution.
Janet Daley Contributor
Feb
15, 2021 – 12.12pm
There has never really been any
doubt about the outcome of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Neither of the opposing camps in
Congress, nor any major American political commentator, has suggested that
enough of the Senate’s Republican members would agree to convict, whatever
evidence or arguments were presented to them.
So what was the point? Given the
irreconcilable enmity between the parties, which will be fed by what could be
portrayed as an exercise in partisan showmanship, what useful purpose was to be
served?
This is the view I hear repeatedly
in overseas circles, both from people who were once Trump apologists and,
perhaps more surprisingly, those who have always detested him. Why not move on?
Just put this ugly misadventure behind you, bury it as a dark chapter in the
nation’s history and proceed with the proper business of the day – tackling the
pandemic and, if you are inclined to support it, enacting Joe Biden’s
presidential program.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/it-s-a-fricken-civil-war-republican-party-tears-itself-apart-20210215-p572pb
‘It’s a fricken civil war’:
Republican Party tears itself apart
Jacob Greber AFR correspondent
Feb
15, 2021 – 5.53pm
There are now three kinds of
Republicans in America.
The first blindly love Donald Trump
and everything he’s done to the party – including losing its majorities in the
House and the Senate as well as the White House itself.
The second is an anti-Trumper who
plans to reluctantly stay inside the tent but reform the GOP back into an
election-winning machine that doesn’t alienate centrist conservative Americans.
The Republican Party is tearing
itself apart.
And the third, racked with
despair, wonders whether now’s the time to create a third party, pitched at the
growing legion of old-time supporters who say they’re done with the GOP under
Trump.
“It’s a fricken civil war,” Chip
Felkel, a top South Carolina-based adviser to more than 100 Republican
political campaigns around the US, told The Australian Financial Review.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/arab-spring-lessons-10-years-on-20210216-p572zz
Arab Spring lessons 10 years on
Bret Stephens Contributor
Feb
16, 2021 – 3.19pm
Ten years ago, as masses of
demonstrators filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square, I made a modest bet with a friend
that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s dictator of nearly 30 years, would hold on to
power. My thinking was that Mubarak controlled the army, and the army could see
that the choice Egypt faced wasn’t between democracy and dictatorship. It was
the choice among Islamism, chaos – and him.
I lost the bet, but I wasn’t
entirely wrong.
Mubarak himself, of course, soon
fell, raising broad hopes that decent, stable, representative democracy might
yet establish itself not just in Egypt but throughout the Arabic-speaking
world. But as a devastating report Sunday from The New York Times′
Ben Hubbard and David Kirkpatrick reminds readers, virtually none of those
hopes survive.
In Tunisia, where it all began,
the economy and government splutter. In Syria, the dead number in the hundreds
of thousands and refugees in the millions – and Bashar Assad
is still in power. In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster has led to a decade of
militia warfare. Iraq and Syria were both brutalised by Islamic State until it
was largely snuffed out. Yemen has collapsed into a regional proxy war while
millions face starvation. Lebanon – a garden without walls, as my late friend
Fouad Ajami used to say – is a failed state. Egyptian politics went from
dictatorship to democracy to Islamism to dictatorship within the space of 30
months.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-targets-rare-earth-export-curbs-to-hobble-us-defence-20210216-p5732h
China targets rare earth export
curbs to hobble US defence
Sun Yu and Demetri Sevastopulo
Feb
16, 2021 – 6.02pm
Beijing/Washington | China is exploring whether it
can hurt US defence contractors by limiting the export of rare earth
minerals
crucial for the manufacture of F-35 fighter jets and other sophisticated
weaponry, according to people involved in a government consultation.
The Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology (MIIT) last month proposed draft controls on the production and
export of 17 rare earth minerals in China, which controls about 80 per cent of
global supply.
Industry executives said
government officials had asked them how badly companies in the US and Europe,
including defence contractors, would be affected if China restricted rare earth
exports during a bilateral dispute.
“The government wants to know if
the US may have trouble making F-35 fighter jets if China imposes an export
ban,” said a Chinese government adviser who asked not to be identified.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/we-are-thoroughly-disgusted-with-you-republican-denounced-by-own-family-for-opposing-donald-trump-20210217-p5736p.html
‘We are thoroughly disgusted with
you!’ Republican denounced by own family for opposing Donald Trump
By Katie Shepherd
February 17, 2021 — 8.09am
Washington: After former president Donald Trump’s acquittal over the weekend, several Republicans who supported
impeachment faced backlash and calls for censure from GOP officials in their
home states.
But one Republican was condemned by a more
intimate group: His own family.
“We are thoroughly disgusted with you!!”
wrote relatives of Representative Adam Kinzinger in a two-page letter first
published by the New York Times on Monday. “And, oh, by the way, we are calling
for your removal from office.”
Kinzinger, a six-term Republican from
Illinois, was one of the 10 GOP House members who joined Democrats to impeach
Trump following the January 6 riot at the Capitol. After that vote, Kinzinger
was censured by Republicans in his home district and then received a
handwritten letter from a cousin that was signed by several other family
members decrying his decision as a disappointment “to us and to God.”
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/unsmiling-political-hack-trump-lashes-mcconnell-deepening-gop-civil-war-20210217-p5737t.html
‘Unsmiling political hack’: Trump
lashes McConnell, deepening GOP civil war
February 17, 2021 — 9.40am
Washington: Former US President Donald Trump
has lashed out at Mitch McConnell, the most senior Republican in the US
Congress, in a scathing statement that will exacerbate the rapidly deepening
divisions within the Republican Party.
In his most extensive public
comments since leaving the White House, Trump described McConnell in a
statement as a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack”.
McConnell, the Republican Senate
leader, voted to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial but lambasted the former
president’s behaviour in the lead-up to the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
In a speech on the Senate floor
that was widely interpreted as an attempt to drive Trump out of the party,
McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol
attack.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-giuliani-accused-of-conspiring-to-incite-riot-in-new-lawsuit-20210217-p5735a.html
Trump, Giuliani accused of
conspiring to incite riot in new lawsuit
By Eric
Tucker
February 17, 2021 — 3.44am
Washington: A Democratic congressman has
accused Donald Trump in a federal lawsuit of inciting the deadly insurrection
at the US Capitol and of conspiring with his lawyer and extremist groups to try
to prevent the Senate from certifying the results of the presidential election
he lost to Joe Biden.
The lawsuit from Mississippi’s
Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security
Committee, is part of an expected wave of litigation over the January 6 riot
and is believed to be the first filed by a member of Congress. It seeks
unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.
The case also names as defendants
the Republican former president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and groups
including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, extremist organisations that had
members charged by the Justice Department with taking part in the siege.
A Trump adviser, Jason Miller,
said in a statement on Tuesday local time (Wednesday AEDT) that Trump did not
organise the rally that preceded the riot and “did not incite or conspire to
incite any violence at the Capitol on January 6th”. A lawyer for Giuliani did
not immediately return an email seeking comment.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/perfect-chief-who-is-dr-ngozi-the-woman-charged-with-fixing-the-wto-20210216-p572vz.html
‘Perfect chief’: Who is Dr Ngozi,
the woman charged with fixing the WTO?
By Emma Farge
and Andrea Shalal
February 16, 2021 — 2.11pm
Geneva: Three months after the Trump
administration rejected her, former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala has received unanimous official backing to become the first woman
and first African director-general of the World Trade Organisation.
During a virtual meeting on Monday
(Tuesday AEDT) the WTO’s 164 members unanimously selected the 66-year-old
development economist to serve a four-year term as director-general.
After withstanding a veto of her
candidacy by the now-departed Trump administration, Okonjo-Iweala takes the
helm of the Geneva-based WTO at a precarious time for the world economy and
just as the organisation itself is mired in a state of dysfunction.
A self-declared “doer” with a
track record of taking on seemingly intractable problems, Okonjo-Iweala will
have her work cut out for her at the trade body, even with Trump, who had
threatened to pull the United States out of the organisation, no longer in the
White House.
Okonjo-Iweala, who co-wrote Women and Leadership with former Australian prime
minister Julia Gillard),
is also a dual US citizen, meaning she’s also the first American to hold the
organisation’s top job.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-coming-global-recovery-isn-t-going-to-lift-all-boats-20210216-p5733e
The coming global recovery isn’t
going to lift all boats
The
gap between the developed world and emerging economies could widen dangerously
even as the virus retreats.
Kenneth Rogoff Columnist
Feb
17, 2021 – 12.34pm
Economic recovery, like COVID-19
vaccines, will not be evenly distributed around the world over the coming two
years.
Despite enormous policy support
provided by governments and central banks, the economic risks remain profound,
and not just to frontier economies facing imminent debt problems and low-income
countries experiencing an alarming rise in poverty.
With the coronavirus far from
tamed, populism rife, global debt at record levels, and policy normalisation
likely to be uneven, the situation remains precarious.
This is not to deny the overall
good news of the past 12 months. Effective vaccines have become available in record time, far sooner than most experts
originally anticipated. The massive monetary and fiscal response has built a
bridge toward a much-hoped-for end to the pandemic. And the public has got
better at living with the virus, with or without the help of national
authorities.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/how-the-us-can-avoid-an-allout-war-with-china/news-story/ae58996f482213ee6f3c694ca988ccb9
How the US can avoid an all-out
war with China
Roger
Boyes
·
The Times
·
5:44PM February 17, 2021
Back
in the late 1880s German naval officers used to clink glasses and drink to “Der
Tag!”, the day of reckoning with the British. Do Chinese officers make similar
toasts with an eye on America, the country that has to be challenged at sea if
an insurgent power is to make the grade?
A
heavyweight think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), warns that
Taiwan is becoming the most dangerous flashpoint in the world for a possible
war that involves the United States, China and probably other big powers. That
might just be a bit of early-term alarmism (after all, plenty of other foreign
policy crises are jostling for Joe Biden’s attention) but it’s certainly
remarkable how little a Taiwan crisis is publicly discussed in the West given
the earth-shattering bang that would follow from an armed showdown between
Washington and Beijing.
It
was easier for past US administrations to inhabit the realm of strategic
ambiguity when it came to the defence of Taiwan. With Xi Jinping’s increasing
assertiveness and his huge military investment, that position can’t hold for
long. Not when Xi’s commandos carry out exercises on a full-size mock-up of the
Taiwan presidential palace. Biden thus faces plenty of unanswered questions on
what could turn out to be existential issues.
If
China were to invade Taiwan, how long would it take before the US came to its
aid? Would the US risk all-out war? If Beijing tried to slowly suffocate
Taiwan, as it has Hong Kong, at what stage and at what level would the Biden
administration intervene? Would it do so alone, or with allies?
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/north-korea-turning-to-cryptocurrency-schemes-in-global-heists-us-says/news-story/c03430f8a33223db5e822a44d579eccd
North Korea turning to
cryptocurrency schemes in global heists, US says
·
By Robert
Mcmillan and Aruna Viswanatha
·
The Wall Street Journal
·
5:38PM February 18, 2021
North
Korean hackers are increasingly focusing their criminal activity on the world
of cryptocurrency and have recently built malicious cryptocurrency apps,
launched ransomware attacks, and even promoted a fraudulent initial coin offering
in pursuit of digital cash, the Justice Department said on Thursday.
Federal
prosecutors provided the new details in a grand jury indictment returned in
December and unsealed on Thursday AEDT, charging two alleged members of North
Korea’s military intelligence services, Jon Chang-hyok and Kim Il, with a
wide-ranging scheme that included attempts to steal $US1.3bn ($1.67bn) over the
past half-decade for Pyongyang.
A
third man, Park Jin-hyok, who is also named in the indictment, was previously
charged in a September 2018 case that accused him of playing a role in the 2016
theft of $US81m from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York and the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, among other intrusions.
The
hackers also allegedly sent spear phishing emails to employees at the State and
Defence Departments and multiple US technology companies in January and
February 2020, the indictment said.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/shutdown-is-on-the-cards-swedes-told/news-story/a88d133579786c09039764b4a6ec9469
Shutdown is on the cards, Swedes
told
·
By Oliver Moody
·
The Times
·
7:16PM February 18, 2021
Sweden
has warned that it could be forced to shut down shopping centres, restaurants,
gyms and swimming pools as it attempts to ward off a third wave.
Those
who break Swedish coronavirus rules could also be fined $300 in the first
serious penalty for violating restrictions, the government announced.
The
country’s infection rate has dropped substantially since the peak of the second
wave in December, but progress has ground to a halt and appears to have gone
into reverse in some parts of the country. It emerged on Wednesday that the
number of cases in Stockholm had risen by almost a quarter within a week.
“I
know we all feel a strong yearning for normality,” Swedish Health Minister Lena
Hallengren said. “But the situation in Sweden is still serious. The infections
are spreading at a fast rate.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/republicans-feel-blast-of-texan-rage-over-blizzards/news-story/3efaf40c89ffc2e310309c529899c12a
Republicans feel blast of Texan
rage over blizzards
·
By Will Pavia
·
The Times
·
5:22PM February 18, 2021
A
political row is raging over the future of America’s energy supply after more
than three million Texans were left without power or running water when the
state’s electricity system failed and another winter storm moved in.
A
spell of freezing weather has been blamed for causing more than 30 deaths across
the country and some cities have recorded the lowest temperatures in more than
a half-century.
In
Texas, where the electricity network is independent of the national grid, a
surge in demand for power to heat homes coincided with the failure of power stations
and pipelines in the freezing weather.
Greg
Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, sought to blame the failures on
renewable energy plants and suggested that the crisis demonstrated the flaws in
a plan promoted by Democrats in congress to move away from oil and natural gas.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United
States,” he told Fox News. However, he acknowledged that renewable sources of
energy amounted to only 10 per cent of the state’s supply and he conceded that
the failures also affected natural gas, coal and nuclear plants.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/texas-land-of-wind-and-lies-20210219-p573yg
Texas, land of wind and lies
Republican state leaders pursued reckless
policies that set the stage for catastrophe, then tried to evade
responsibility.
Paul Krugman Nobel prize
winning economist
Feb
19, 2021 – 9.32am
Politicians are neither gods nor
saints. Because they aren’t gods, they often make bad policy decisions. Because
they aren’t saints, they often try to evade responsibility for their failures,
asserting either that they did as well as anyone could have or that someone
else deserves the blame.
For a while, then, the politics
surrounding the power outages that have spread across Texas looked fairly
normal. True, the state’s leaders pursued reckless policies that set the stage
for catastrophe, then tried to evade responsibility. But while their behaviour
was reprehensible, it was reprehensible in ways we’ve seen many times over the
years.
However, that changed around a day
after the severity of the disaster became apparent.
Republican politicians and
right-wing media, not content with run-of-the-mill blame-shifting, have
coalesced around a malicious falsehood instead — the claim that wind and solar
power caused the collapse of the Texas power grid, and that radical
environmentalists are somehow responsible for the fact that millions of people
are freezing in the dark, even though conservative Republicans have run the
state for a generation.
This isn’t normal political
malfeasance. It’s the energy-policy equivalent of claiming that the January 6
insurrection was a false-flag antifa operation — raw denial of reality, not
just to escape accountability, but to demonise one’s opponents. And it’s
another indicator of the moral and intellectual collapse of American
conservatism.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/biden-says-world-must-prepare-for-long-term-competition-with-china-20210220-p5748h.html
Biden says world must prepare for
‘long-term’ competition with China
February 20, 2021 — 6.57am
London: Joe Biden has called on Europe to
prepare for “long-term
competition” with China,
warning the world is at an “inflection point” but expressing confidence
democracy will prevail.
Addressing the virtual Munich
Security Conference in his first international foreign policy speech, the US
President said Western nations needed to prove to their voters the benefits of
democracy.
“How the United States, Europe and
Asia work together to secure the peace and defend our shared values and advance
our prosperity across the Pacific will be among the most consequential efforts
we undertake,” he said.
“Competition
with China
is going to be stiff, that’s what I expect and that’s what I welcome [...] we
can own the race for the future.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/biden-pleads-for-democracy-over-autocracy-repudiating-trump-20210220-p5748w
Biden pleads for democracy over
autocracy, repudiating Trump
Justin Sink and Nancy Cook
Feb
20, 2021 – 8.20am
President Joe Biden urged US allies
to uphold democracy in his first major speech to an international audience on
Friday (Saturday AEDT), warning that the world faces an “inflection point” in
history that could result in a tilt toward autocracy.
“We are in the midst of a
fundamental debate about the future direction of our world,” Biden said in
remarks delivered remotely to the Munich Security Conference. “Between those
who argue that -- given all of the challenges we face, from the fourth
industrial revolution to a global pandemic -- autocracy is the best way forward
and those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting those
challenges.”
The new US President seeks to
persuade other industrialised democracies that his country is ready to repair
alliances and work collectively to confront global challenges, abandoning the
“America First” posture of the Trump administration.
In the opening minutes of his
speech, Biden committed to observe NATO’s mutual defence guarantee, known as
Article 5 -- something Donald Trump initially declined to do while president,
sparking controversy.
“We’ll keep faith with Article 5,”
Biden said. “It’s a guarantee. An attack on one is an attack on all. That is
our unshakable vow.”
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I
look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
