After a week of working in Bali, being stuck there for Nyepi (the Hindu Balinese equivalent of New Year) was not in my plans, but I chose to embrace the unique holiday and experience it to the fullest. Most Westerners use the Nyepi holiday as an excuse to escape the island, but I highly recommend…
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Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky held the floor of the US Senate for 13 hours in an old-fashioned filibuster on Wednesday to delay the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA director. Senator Paul promised to vote in favor of Brennan’s confirmation on one condition: assurance from the President that he would not exercise his supposed…
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North Korea threatens nuclear strike The UN Security Council unanimously passed tougher sanctions against North Korea overnight, hours after Pyongyang threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the US. The White House said the United States is “fully capable” of defending itself against any missile attack, and warned Pyongyang that its threats could only lead…
DetailsOne could be forgiven for gaining the impression the world, from the streets of Sydney to the West Bank, is a battlefield. But the daily news can be misleading; life is really not all doom and gloom. We live in a first-world society. Students are taught how to use google before they understand what a library…
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Sex appeal personified? The online edition of The People’s Daily appears to have been taken in by a spoof story proclaiming Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, 2012’s Sexiest Man Alive. The Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper appears to have taken the story seriously and run with it, reporting as fact the 29-year-old supreme leader’s supposed sex appeal – and…
DetailsLeft to right: Defence Minister Stephen Smith, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Bob Carr US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Australia doesn’t have to choose between America and China. “These last three days have reinforced the indispensability of these countries’ relationship… The relationship [is] not a…
DetailsXi Jinping today assumed the reigns of the Chinese Communist Party. The once-a-decade leadership change followed a week-long party assembly. Xi’s appointment marks the fourth transition since Chairman Mao Zedong. He entered the Great Hall of the People with six other party officials to form the Politburo Standing Committee who will become China’s new decision makers on economic,…
DetailsGeneral Allen, front, and General Petraeus at the July 2011 handover of command in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has delayed General John Allen’s nomination for a high military posting in Europe, following revelations the top NATO and American commander in Afghanistan had inappropriately communicated with one of the women involved in the Petraeus scandal. General…
DetailsThe 2012 US election was a contest between a vision of changing America and the fears of an America long gone. It was the election Republicans weren’t meant to lose. In the nation’s history, only Franklin D. Roosevelt has been re-elected with a dismal economy and high unemployment. According to most political analysts, there’s no…
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Party will not tolerate corruption, China told China’s outgoing President Hu Jintao has told the Chinese Communist Party that it needs to stamp out corruption if it is to remain as strong as it has for the past 10 years. “We have too many state-owned enterprises which are very inefficient and too many monopoly industries,” he…
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