The media is in overdrive [earning money that is!] from the Government's blatant advertising campaign in relation to the new IR laws. To say the very least the ads are blatant advertising for the Coalition - with the tax-payers of Oz footing the bill! Not a sceric of putting countervailing arguments or even attempting to refute the ACTU ad campaign. It's all gonna be great, employees will have flexibility, etc, etc. How this whole thing will play out in the real world - away from the inner-sanctum which PM Howard and his narrow-minded little friend Kevin Andrew occupy - is graphically shown in the article by Adele Horin in today's SMH.
There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
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