US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has sparked a backlash after posting an image showing a popular children’s cartoon character attacking what appear to be drug traffickers. This comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump faces renewed scrutiny over lethal strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Washington has decided to stop negotiating with the supporting cast and go straight to the main stage. For the first time since the US revived its push for a negotiated end to the Ukraine conflict, the center of gravity has shifted to Russia.
Australia has the highest concentration of international students among major advanced nations. Figures from the Department of Home Affairs show that the approval rate for international student visas fell below 75% in October, compared to 83.6% for the same month in 2024. The decline in approval rates came at the same time as the number
The first rant I ever posted on this blog all the way back in early 2017 was entitled Gun Nuts and it referred to data from 2013 on general gun deaths in the US. At that time 33,534 people were killed by guns, at a rate of 10.35 per 100,000 people. In Australia in the same year 225 people were killed by guns, at a rate of 0.94 per 100,000 people1.
AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold West Texas Intermediate Brent ASX200 US S&P 500 UK 100 Japan 225
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The conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was constructive, very useful, and substantive, according to Russian Presidential aide, Yuri Ushakov.
He made the comment after five hours of talks between the Russian president, his envoy Kirill Dmitriev, and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Wtikoff which fininshed after midnight local time.
Only in Australia would an iconic infrastructure company double as a corruption cesspit. Snowy Hydro is a kind of Canberra plaything; a dirty quango without values or direction. It pisses money away like rain on the mountainside, employs proven energy wreckers, and adds tens of billions of unnecessary costs to the energy transition. Let’s take
In one of her first interviews as New South Wales Opposition Leader, Liberal MP Kellie Sloane was quizzed on the issue of migration on Sky News: Interviewer “Do you believe we need a cut to migration?” Sloane: “Well, I think we need to make sure that migration intake is balanced with our ability to provide
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Down she goes, and where she stops nobody knows. Sales drowning. Year to date sinking. Inventory bouyant. Completions taking on water. Some of this is the recently banned data. It is not clear if the data remains are available to subscribers. Meanwhile, the reason for the ban is going to the bottom like a holed
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Right, okay, that’s it. I’m a pencil punk writer now. Woke up to discover the broadband was out this morning. Some big network kerfuffle at Optus. Big enough for them to have changed their recorded message…
“Yeah yeah we know we’re on it, sheesh!”
Decided that if was going to slow down, again, I’d slow all the way down. So I hauled out my e-ink tab and scratchy stylus and got to writing the next 3.3 chapter out long hand.
We’ll see what happens next I guess.
The Market Ear. It doesn’t matter… …until it matters. Note the latest short term gap between the US 10 year (inverted) and SPX. We saw a similar early gap form between the two in late October, before SPX “joined” the move. Source: LSEG Workspace Once again? In late October we saw the 10-year pick up
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