Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow on Friday for discussions on the Ukraine conflict and other issues. The talks have proven to be “constructive” and brought the US and Russian positions “closer,” Yury Ushakov, an adviser to the Russian leader on international affairs, has said.
The recent visit to South Africa by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is a diplomatic show for NATO, which has been a destabilizing force around the world, Thato Senabe, leader of the local chapter of the Anti-Fascist International Organization, has said.
France and the UK displayed a weakening resolve to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, during recent talks in London, The Times has reported, citing anonymous sources.
Defense chiefs from a number of European NATO states have been debating deploying forces to Ukraine as part of a self-titled “coalition of the willing.”
Donald Trump selling 2028 election merch despite term limitThe US Constitution limits presidents to two four-year stints in office. Donald Trump has said he still intends to run for a third term and has started selling the hats and t-shirts that say it.
Karl Sexton with AFP, AP
Let tax reform drive your voting decision this election with the Prosper Australia 2025 policy scorecard.
Rates of early voting have been increasing for a long time, but reached a record high level of 2022, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I most recently summarised these statistics at a federal level in this blog post.
For this blog post I’m going to summarise the statistics on how many people are voting early as of the end of the short 3-day week between the Easter and Anzac Day long weekends. The short answer: early voting seems to be holding steady at the record high levels seen in 2022.
He was a young American from Chicago, via South Vietnam. He was lean and clean and crew cut, and he was telling us about his experiences up there. Conditions were really rugged, he said. Charlie was unpredictable and vicious.
Addo asked him, “Who's Charlie?”
“VC,” he said.
"Oh well, I s'pose you have to be unpredictable and vicious to get a VC."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7DR3bktLk
Col. Douglas Macgregor: Walking Away from the Ukraine War & Restoring Strategic Clarity
Anzac Day again, and war still ravages the world. Someday, peace will come.
DeepT and NG talk about the financial system implications of the Trump tariffs and whether for Australia these are inflationary or deflationary, and the likely response from the RBA. That leads into discussion of whether this can actually lead to more housing construction or rising house prices and the dynamics of that, while bringing
Local Reading: Eddie Obeid to keep $30 million made from corrupt coal licence deal – ABC Mental health experts concerned about Coalition plan to scrap workers’ right to disconnect – The Guardian Over five decades, here’s how voters have shifted away from the major parties – ABC When ‘equal’ does not mean ‘the same’: Liberals
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Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis published a note on the bank’s outlook for interest rates. Westpac believes that the Reserve Bank is certain to cut the official cash rate by 0.25% at its next monetary meeting on 20 May. Ellis notes that “uncertainty has escalated to a whole new level” following the Trump Administration’s trade
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