The news has been dominated by Trump and all last week or two, but the Centrelink robodebt train wreck hurtles on.
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Protest Centrelink robodebt - Melbourne
The news has been dominated by Trump and all last week or two, but the Centrelink robodebt train wreck hurtles on.
Taiwan could be 1st Asian nation to get marriage equality
Shows how far behind and backwards Australia's present gov is, that whilst marriage equality languishes here in Lieberal politicking, Taiwan may become the first Asian nation to get marriage equality.
As with here it's the personal stories that change hearts and minds. Those stories that show us simply as people like everyone else.
The organization launched in 1998, in the wake of a string of gay youth suicides. Since then, it’s offered a hotline for LGBT people to call in times of distress, or when they just need to talk to someone. Five nights a week, trained volunteers gather in a locked room to answer calls on everything from starting relationships to AIDS testing to family issues. There’s even a separate hotline for parents of LGBT kids — it’s answered by other parents who listen to the callers’ concerns and talk about their own experiences. Volunteers answer almost 2,000 calls a year.
Now they’re leading the marriage equality fight and focused on telling personal stories of gay people.
“We’re trying to reach out to people and show them that LGBT people could be someone you see every day, in the office or the MRT,” Taipei’s subway system, Lin said. “This is the first time we’ve seen that we can influence our political system.”
One debate among activists is whether it’s better to directly change the civil code, which governs family law, or create a separate new law for gay and lesbian couples. Yu’s bill would change the code. Lin said his group supports that: Passing a new law would be “a separation, just like old days [in the US] when black people could sit on the bus but only in certain seats. That we don’t like.”
Their biggest tool is the street demonstrations. Taiwan is known for its vigorous political protests, and the marriage issue is no different: Organizers said about 250,000 people came to the largest pro-marriage protest so far, on Dec. 10. Pri
A remarkable day with 250,000 people supporting marriage equality in Taiwan! #lgbt #taiwan #taipei #marriageequality #婚姻平权 pic.twitter.com/FUiVqgNJQY— PinkDotSG (@PinkDotSG) December 11, 2016
Australian dual citizen denied entry to US
*Update: Confirming that Trump is making up the rules as he goes along, an announcement today (Tuesday) by Turnbull here say's Australian dual citizens won't be refused entry. Obviously this whole thing was introduced without any proper governing organisation or thought of consequences.
This is how the US is now treating Australian citizens. Those of us who are dual citizens of one of Trump's banned countries are being denied entry to the US. Great way to treat one of your closest allies...
This is how the US is now treating Australian citizens. Those of us who are dual citizens of one of Trump's banned countries are being denied entry to the US. Great way to treat one of your closest allies...
Unlike the US, becoming an Australian doesn't require you to renounce the citizenship of your birth country, hence you become a dual citizen. This is very common in Australia. I myself am a dual citizen of New Zealand and Australia, although I've not been back there in 20 years. A friend of ours is a dual citizen of Australia and Ireland, recently going back there to spend time with her family.
So I can't imagine that this will be a rare occurrence with the US denying entry to Australian dual citizens if they happen to have been born in one of Trump's banned countries. No matter who they are, simply because of the chance of birth.
In this case it was an academic traveling to an engineering conference, who'd not been back to her birth country in 17 years:
Mr Greenock had recently been issued a new passport and was ushered into "quite a tense room" with about 20 other people milling around while customs officers verified each person's paperwork.
An Australian academic travelling to the US for an engineering conference was being held in the same room, but unlike Mr Greenock she was told to turn around and get back on a plane home.
The woman's only crime was not renouncing citizenship from one of the seven countries President Trump had blocked from travelling to the US a day before her arrival.
"I did not hear where she came from but the customs officer said because she was from 'one of those seven countries' she would no longer be allowed in the US," Mr Greenock told Nine.com.au.
"The woman said she hadn't lived there for the last 17 years, had a small child and little to no connection with the country but he basically said 'bad luck – anyone from those countries were banned from entering the US'," he added.
Mr Greenock said the woman was told she could either complain and have a "black mark" put against her name, or leave voluntarily without consequence. nine.msn
Trump's advisors: condemn his Muslim ban now. This is immoral. https://t.co/zmJj7aNzCm— Peter Hiv (@HivPeter) January 31, 2017
Monday, 30 January 2017
Spineless Turnbull silent on Trump anti-Muslim order (video)
In a press conference earlier Turnbull refused to publicly comment on the issue, using the namby pamby diplomatic-speak line that it's not his job to commentate on domestic policies of another country. FFS, just weak as piss.
You see he's afraid to anger Trump as the Lieberal gov has negotiated a deal with Obama to settle refugees from our Australian offshore gulags on Manus Island and Nauru. They've been deemed illegal so they have to finally do something about them.
So through what is likely a huge feat of ass sucking, Turnbull has managed to get Trump to agree to take the refugees as Obama had agreed. Yes USA, you read that right. Trump has agreed to take refugees.
I don't know how he accomplished this, perhaps Turnbull has been researching how to deal with a narcissist. In any case he certainly doesn't want to rock the boat and endanger his precious refugee deal by sending Trump in to one of his hissy fit tantrums.
Looks like our democracy is failing us too. I mean seriously, look at what the system has coughed up lately for our glorious leader. We've had the 2 year nightmare of Tony Abbott, followed straight after by the ongoing fizza that is Malcolm Turnbull. Four years so far battling nonsensical idiocy.
Sunday, 29 January 2017
"Trump may, in fact, be the one with the problem" - Psych guy: duh
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| This is Tony Abbott FFS! Remember when it was the "goodoies and the badies"! |
No shit Sherlock!
Psychologists have reiterated the Trump is extremely fucked in the head (thanks for the USA BTW). Yes folks, he's like mind babbling nuts. Looney Tunes darlings. At 70 now there's no coming back from wherever his head apparently is :s So USA, what are you going to do about it? All your safeties were fizzler nothings. It's now up to you lot.
Please do what you can do to save us all from this fuckwit!
Please get rid of him before he blows us all up!
However, John D. Gartner, a registered psychotherapist from the renowned Johns Hopkins University Medical School seems to think Trump may, in fact, be the one with the problem. Gartner, who teaches psychiatric residents at Hopkins, decided to break the ethical code known as the “Goldwater Rule” in order to warn the American public about the dangerousness of our new commander-in-chief’s mental state.
"The “Goldwater Rule” is defined as “the informal term for part of the ethics code of the American Psychiatric Association saying it is wrong to provide a professional opinion of a public figure without examining that person and gaining consent to discuss the evaluation.”
Trump’s Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton called it first. She said Trump is “temperamentally unfit” to serve as president, following his numerous sexist remarks about women, mocking of a disabled reporter, and blatantly racist statements about basically every single human being who isn’t white. Bipartisan Report
The US Trump disaster.... Jan 29th, 2017
After only a week in office he's now jailing people for their religion, their politics, demonising a particular minority and blaming everything on them. The history lessons are very clear with this. We don't want to go back there; any of us.
Seeing what's happening now in the US with the Trump order to stop the Muslims, I just can't believe what I'm seeing. WTF are you doing US?
My own father fought in WW2 (passed now) and I know for a fact that he didn't fight for this.
Stand back America, take a good long hard look at where you're at. You've got to make yourselves known in all of this. You have to talk to each other and communicate. Indeed you know all this. Then why the fuck did you let a dictator like Trump loose on the world across the world? .....
(*I think I'm at the angry stage of grief :s)
ScoMo spending like 10 Labor drunken sailors - throwing it around like water
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| ScoMo, leaves the arrogance up to SSJoe. Most of the time. |
So..... this article in The Age has pointed out what us lefties have pointed out all along - that this gov hasn't the faintest idea about money. They just keep saying they're better than Labor and for some Newspeak reason heaps of people believe it like it's a hallowed virtue of the Lieberals. It's not true at all. Yet the Sheeple just keep believing it.
The worst thing about being targeted for debt by this gov, is that they're blaming us for their own incompetence. They got rid of a perfectly good carbon tax. They repealed the mining tax. Those two acts alone set this gov for economic failure from the start.
Turns out this gov is outspending the Gillard gov by twice as much.
Total government debt is now rising by $5.3 million an hour - or $126m a day - according to calculations performed by David Lawson, a commentator who runs the Australian Debt Clock website.
When the government reaches the $500b milestone - officially due mid-year but possibly sooner - it will raise fresh questions about the Coalition's claim to be a more responsible economic manager than Labor.
.................................................
Gross government debt was about $274b when Tony Abbott won power in September 2013, meaning $200b has already been added under the Coalition.
It also means the average annual increase under Labor was about $36b - but under the Coalition it has been closer to $60b a year.
The interest bill is currently around $16b a year and under the government's own figures, gross debt is projected to reach $600b by 2020.The Age
But don't let the facts get in the way of the "alternative facts" You see we Australians are very used to political Doublespeak, to the point we laugh and jest with said speak as a very sad effort at voter manipulation. We've been getting Doublespeak from our politicians for years here. It's sort of employs the Turnbull Waffle with Doublespeak type language.
Which brings me to my example. Yes despite this catastrophic (to be read in Abbott 2012 mode) debt disaster, the Lieberals appear to be running like headless chooks to look for an answer to their present and own making debt disaster. Poor dears they won't find one other than their own ineptitude. But they'll never admit if of course. "It's all Labor's fault" they'll cry like a conga line of spoilt children. Trump-ets if you will. "Why should we pay pensioners?"
"1984" (doublespeak alert):
"Despite the debt and deficit legacy we inherited as a government we continue to make progress in getting the growth in government expenditure under control and arresting the growth in Commonwealth debt, which is still well below that of many comparable and other AAA rated economies," he said.
And if that's not enough to make you dry retch, just look at the bullshit praise he gives his gov?:
In subsequent comments to Fairfax Media, Mr Morrison said the government had "taken steps to substantially reduce projected debt" by cutting the rate of spending growth from 4.2 per cent under Labor to around 1.5 per cent. The Age
When Labor was in power the Coalition focused relentlessly on gross debt, repeatedly warning of a "crisis".
But Australian government debt remains low by international standards, with net debt - considered a more important economic measure than gross debt - currently standing at about $300 billion.
Commonwealth Bank chief economist Michael Blythe said that level of debt is reasonable.
"For Australia we could almost double it before we get to a level that would be of particular concern to markets," he said.
"So there's a bit of leeway if they did want to borrow more to stimulate the economy or build some infrastructure." In 2012,
Joe Hockey lambasted Labor for repeatedly breaking "their own self-imposed debt limit", first introduced at the level of $75b by Kevin Rudd.
"On each occasion they promise not to exceed the limit. Well, enough is enough - we are going to keep them to their promises," he said. The Age
Note the political Doublespeak in the above. Yes they were the boys who cried wolf. Unless we voted for the Lieberals then the economic world would come crashing in.
And now the tables are turned.
Yet they didn't focus on the National Debt back then in relation to the world. Because that've shown that the debt was very small internationally. It very much was, nothing like the US or Europe. In fact we still have the same housing bubble that hasn't burst yet.
And now you have them preaching to us the above at how good they are with money. Just ignore the facts. The gov debt hasn't doubled under us!
When you deny what's in front of your face, that is a mental condition imposed on you by a dictator.
Trump's first fucked up week - Angry Aussie video :)
Like what Trump's doing with the crowd pictures of his inauguration. Some Trump-ets are denying what they see with their own eyes, saying that Trump crowds were bigger. Gotta love that Newspeak.
Oh, and this was before Trump's refugee banning order. The allies aren't happy, as Trump continues to shut the door on the world. It was surreal reading this on the PC this morning; not something that I'd have ever thought I'd see coming from the US president.
President Donald Trump's sweeping ban on people seeking refuge in the United States and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries caused confusion and panic among travellers on Saturday, with some turned back from U.S.-bound flights.
Immigration lawyers in New York sued to block the order, saying numerous people have already been unlawfully detained.
The new Republican president on Friday put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travellers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries. He said the moves would protect Americans from terrorism.
The executive order prompted fury from Arab travellers in the Middle East and North Africa who said it was humiliating and discriminatory. It drew widespread criticism from U.S. Western allies including France and Germany, Arab American groups, human rights organizations.
"This is a stupid, terrible decision which will hurt the American people more than us or anybody else, because it shows that this President can’t manage people, politics or global relationships," said Najeed Haidari, a Yemeni-American security manager for an oil company in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. nine.msn
A Clemson professor got deported. I'm just at a loss for words. pic.twitter.com/tLyUa7UgEq— Nick Kulmala (@NNNICKKK) January 28, 2017
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| John Hurt stared in "1984" |
Malcolm Turnbull had a phone call with Trump. If he didn't raise this; he is a coward. #muslimban pic.twitter.com/zCcULLA4EX— Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) January 29, 2017
Friday, 27 January 2017
Andrew Wilkie presents a mum with a robodebt story (video)
He says he's lost count of those coming to him about the Centrelink robodebt fiasco.
Watch as one person's experience with robodept is explained by said person.
Andrew Wilkie comes in at the end to make some pungent social comment about that the Lieberal gov is doing with Centrelink.
Honestly, we're not demons. We're just people trying to survive FFS. Why is the gov doing this to us? What about the corporations who pay no tax?
Watch as one person's experience with robodept is explained by said person.
Andrew Wilkie comes in at the end to make some pungent social comment about that the Lieberal gov is doing with Centrelink.
Honestly, we're not demons. We're just people trying to survive FFS. Why is the gov doing this to us? What about the corporations who pay no tax?
The christians like being pissed on by Trump? - audio/soundcloud :s .... WTF?
"I was under the glory spout, and it just was was comin out all day long on me all day"
This is what fundie christians are saying about Trump. Apparently the "glory spout" is directly from Trump. The minds of us overseas totally boggle FFS. Seriously, does this god squad member like to be pissed on?
Honestly, I've not stopped laughing since the inauguration 😂
LGBT life around the world - TedTalk :)
This couple went to various places in the world that are extremely homophobic. Yes, including Africa.
Watch as they talk about their journey and find gay people in some of the most difficult countries on earth to be gay. Yet these people's over riding nature means they have to live their lives authentically.
"Gay choice" indeed! Who would, in their right mind, choose such adversity against who they are?
Wherever you find humanity, you will find gays. That has been the same since the dawn of humanity. It's how society treats us gays that is the issue, and the test of that society.
Trump considering US taxpayers pay for the wall :s
However he's fine with getting the American people to pay for it, with the possible introduction of a Mexican goods consumption tax; ie. a 20% tax on all Mexican goods imported into the US.
20% is BTW a huge starting point for a consumption tax. Both Australia and New Zealand introduced it at 10%. It's not changed in Australia but I understand it's grown to 15% in New Zealand.
Also, this isn't a universal consumption tax on everything Trump is talking about, just Mexican goods. Does Trump understand even the basics of capitalism? If you make something 20% more by selective taxing, people go for a cheaper alternative. The Mexican imports would dry up simply through the functions of capitalism. Along with US revenue through the tax.
But most spectacularly, being elected on a platform of representing the common man, may well end up screwing them to pay for his lunatic wall.
Understandably the Mexican president cancelled his visit with Trump, adamant that Mexico would not pay for his fucking wall :)
The discussion over an import tax to pay for the project comes after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a planned meeting with Trump after the US president signed an executive order Wednesday kicking off the process of building the border wall and vowed once again to force Mexico to pay for it -- something Mexico has adamantly rejected.
Spicer also said Thursday evening that revenue from a tax on Mexican imports or other revenue streams that didn't involve a direct payment from the Mexican government would fulfill Trump's campaign pledge to compel Mexico to pay for the border wall.
The White House press secretary rebuffed questions from reporters about the impact of a 20% tax on imports from Mexico on American consumers, insisting such criticism was "short-sighted." Businesses that manufacture US consumer goods in Mexico would inevitably pass on an import tax to American consumers, who could see the price of many goods soar.
Spicer first said Thursday that Trump was on board with a plan by congressional Republicans to tax imports from Mexico as part of broader comprehensive tax reform legislation to help pay for the border wall.
"By doing it that way we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That's really going to provide the funding," Spicer had said, referring to a 20% tax. According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, Mexico's exports to the US in 2015 was valued at $316.4 billion. The trade deficit is estimated to be $50 billion. CNN
Anti Trump protest song - Lily Allen (video)
One thing about Trump is that he seems to be uniting people against him. I can't help making comparisons to our Tony Abbott. When his gov was elected here and he started inflicting his maniacal and strange ideology onto us Australians, the marches began. I attended 4 of then in 2014, mainly over Abbott's 2014 budget he pulled out of his ass.
Suddenly people began to realise that our political system had served us up a mad monk on a mission from god to shape Australia in his own demented image. He lasted 2 long years, before he was rolled by his own party with the polls solidly against him.
I see the same thing now with the way Americans have mobilised and formed a resistance to Trump. Like us with Abbott, these people aren't going away. The resistance will be perhaps the only thing standing in the way of a Trump dictatorship.
*BTW the Twitterati went bananas over the above picture. I'm on the side of those who think "fag" is used positively here. It's a pun on the Westboro Baptist Church as well, sort of mocking them and regaining the word back from them in jest. I thought it was quite clever.
Samantha Bee shreds the inauguration - video :)
Samantha Bee mercilessly lampoons trump's inauguration going through it all bit by bit. Building up to the curtain raiser of the "shit show".
Thursday, 26 January 2017
The best US piss take of Trump I've seen lately (video)
The best Trump take down I've seen since the election run up;
Only 25% of Australia thinks Trump will be good president
Frankly
But I guess the other way you'd look at this is that one of the very closest allies of the US reckons their new president is totally fucked.
It's not rocket science folks. Stupid Americans voted stupid, and now we have an extremely stupid leader of the free world. A leader who couldn't lead the US out of a wet paper bag even if he was offered 50 more hotels as a bonus.
Barnyard goes bananas at Australian Aboriginals - on Australia day FFS
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| Barnaby Joyce attacks Aboriginals over Australia day. He's here in a past parliamentary hissy fit. |
Just to give an idea of this gov's morality and empathy, here is what our deputy PM said about Aboriginals feeling the distress over invasion day/Australia day:
Mr Joyce launched his tirade against the Indigenous community and their supporters via Sydney radio station 2GB, saying he was "sick of these people who every time, every time there's something on, they just want to make you feel guilty".I don't like christmas and I'm a white Anglo-Saxon :s
"They don't like Christmas, they don't like Australia Day, they're just miserable-gutted people and I wish they would crawl under a rock and hide for a little bit," Mr Joyce said. Sydney Morning Herald
'My people die young in this country - we die 10 years younger than avg Australians - we are far from free' - Stan Grant #InvasionDay pic.twitter.com/gZAD4f3FjV— Nora Hifon (@nippie_sweety) January 25, 2017
Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Viral video -"The Netherlands welcomes Trump in his own words" :)
Ha ha ha ha.... this is so funny. I think both countries have much the same humour (us and Netherlands).
Hello Netherlands and thank you for this very special articulated part of world reaction to the election of Trump by the stupid 20-30% of the US that voted for this fuckwit, in your own country.
We here are every bit as shocked and aghast as you lot over there on some weird northern hemisphere thing that you've got going up there. Although, as we have the same humour as you, I've not been able to stop laughing at Trump and his conga line of hopeless richies who've never done a decent day's work in their life.
Older middle aged bitter men, grown up in their privileged system with not the slightest idea of the everyday struggle we normal type people face daily and sometimes hourly, poor and "middle class" alike (personally I think "middle class" should be renamed "common class". Just like their "average wage" takes into account the truely entitled.
The "average wage" takes into account those lucky enough bullshit artists that have found their way into Middle Management. I saw people on the print floor that sucked up to management and became one of them, only for the sake of more money. It became almost my personal slogan over years; "I'm stuck here on the shop floor forever because I wont suck" .
Management of course wasn't something I aspired. Why should I burn out my morals for these maniac capitalist piss heads? (they always denied that eyh). Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong time. Seriously, I'd have been happier on strike many decades back when the unions were born. I suspect those Australian may well be embarrassed about many of our efforts today in representation and strength to the boss.
But now I rave........ bla...........!
On to the show:
Preacher lies about gay animals to condemn us - South Africa (video)
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| Gay penguins the "best parents" |
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| Preacher Dag Heward-Mills says there's no gay animals |
The worst thing about this is that the church he was preaching at has gay members there in attendance.
But again, maybe the worst thing is the lie that same sex couples don't exist in nature. Of course they do as years of research has shown. This is the great lie of the church, that being gay is "against nature". It isn't at all. He says:
“Dogs, cats, leopards mention the animal. Which one has one partner? It is just like homosexuality you don’t have male and maleThere are plentiful examples of gay animals documented over time. Who could forget the gay penguins? Either this preacher is completely ignorant, or he's completely lying. I'd say the latter.
“If you use that reasoning, you will find that homosexuality is not natural. You don’t find two male dogs, two male lions, two male impalas Two male cats, even lizards, two elephants. It is unnatural.
“Yes, there is nothing like that in nature. And in the same way there is nothing like one to one Nature is one to several.”
Recent research has found that homosexual behavior in animals may be much more common than previously thought. Although Darwin’s theory of natural selection predicts an evolutionary disadvantage for animals that fail to pass along their traits through reproduction with the opposite sex, the validity of this part of his theory has been questioned with the discoveries of homosexual behavior in more than 10% of prevailing species throughout the world.
Currently, homosexual behavior has been documented in over 450 different animal species worldwide. For instance, observations indicate that Humboldt, King, Gentoo, and Adélie penguins of the same sex engage in “mating rituals like entwining their necks and vocalizing to one another.” In addition, male giraffes have also been observed engaging in homosexual behavior by rubbing their necks against each others’ bodies while ignoring the females. Yet another example is lizards of the genus Teiidae, which can copulate with both male and female mates. Yale Scientific
Trump's "alternative facts" - Randy Rainbow video :)
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| Orwell's "1984" surges to bestseller list after Conway's "alternative facts" |
In this case it's that dreadful Kellyanne Conway, who dares to go Doublespeak. She says what Trump's views are are "alternative facts". I kid you not.
In other words the state can just make things up and call it an "alternative fact". But a fact is a fact. There is no alternative fact. As Randy Rainbow does in this funny little video:
Sean Spicer on Trump's belief of widespread voter fraud during the 2016 election https://t.co/QclZaXA5uc— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) January 24, 2017
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| This shit is fuckin unbelievable. Haven't been able to stop laughing since the inauguration.... Ha ha ha ha ....! |
How many women do you see in this photo of #DonaldTrump making an anti-abortion executive order in the oval office? pic.twitter.com/xxerx4Uu4a— Rod Lurie (@RodLurie) January 23, 2017
Trump gags family planning clinics outside US that get US funding
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| Women's march against Trump |
The "gag" rule as it's called, forbids family planning clinics outside the US that get US foreign aid funding, from speaking about abortion. Originally introduced under Reagan Trump has reinstated it as one of his first acts in the new presidency.
In one of a number of sharp reversals from the Obama era, Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order banning international NGOs from providing abortion services or offering information about abortions if they receive US funding.However there is hope for an alternative source of funding. A new international petition is up and running asking for funding for these clinics if the US pulls it.
The rule will put thousands of international healthcare workers in the difficult position of deciding whether to continue to offer family planning care that includes abortion at the expense of a critical funding stream. Many international health advocates insist that their efforts are not comprehensive without abortion services. Unsafe abortions are a major cause of maternal mortality and kill tens of thousands of women every year.
The US is the single largest donor to global health efforts, providing nearly $3bn toward health efforts through the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) alone. The state department and groups like the Peace Corps offer additional funding. A spokeswoman for International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) said the group will not abide by the gag rule and stands to lose up to $100m it currently receives from the US. None of that money is used for abortion services. The Guardian
To the foreign ministers of Norway, Canada and Sweden, and Presidents of the world’s health foundations:
We call on you to work together to create a special fund to be made available to any clinic or NGO around the world that decides to resist the US’s global gag rule, so that they may have the option to continue counseling women about abortion within the constraints of their national laws. sign here
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Finally the US ditches the TPP - Hooray! (video)
Trump did it but I don't think he can take full credit for the demise of the Trans Pacific Partnership, as there's been years of sustained opposition to it in all countries involved. In fact here there's of late been a big push by those opposed to it to get the senate to kill off ratification of the thing even if the gov did pass it in the lower house.
What we have now is somewhat ironic. The main criticism of the TPP on this side of the Pacific at least has been that it was exporting the worst of US social failures; that being corporate rule of it's society and the untold damage done to the US population as a result. Now without that influence, even if Australia and some of the other Pacific rim nations want to get another trade deal going, it's unlikely to have that same corporate influence as with the US involved.
Of course the TPP was Obama's attempt to limit China's influence in the Pacific. Now that aim is in tatters. Australia already has a free trade agreement with China and they're not being as unfriendly on trade as the US is now. Indeed it appears the US is shutting itself off from the world at the expense of trade.
President #DonaldTrump signs executive orders withdrawing US from #TPP, signalling a shift towards bilateral trade deals. pic.twitter.com/JKJX0jws0I— ABC News 24 (@ABCNews24) January 23, 2017
Sydney 2nd most housing unaffordable city - Int. study
Yet the gov has done nothing to address the problem, with increasing homelessness and budgets stretched well beyond any reasonable limits. Negative gearing continues to suck gov coffers dry and has given Sydney the world's 4th worth housing bubble in all the countries surveyed.
Sydney is again Australia’s least affordable market, with a Median Multiple of 12.2, the same as last year, and ranks second worst overall, trailing Hong Kong. Consistent with the experience in other overly expensive housing markets, Sydney is experiencing substantial domestic out-migration.
In 2004 (the first Survey), Sydney’s Median Multiple is 7.6, and has risen 60 percent since then. Sydney’s 12.2 Median Multiple (in the last two years) represents the poorest housing affordability ever recorded by the Survey outside Hong Kong. The UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index rates Sydney as having the world’s fourth worst housing bubble risk. The 13th Annual International Demographia Housing AffordabilitySurvey 2017
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