22.09.21.  Janet Albrechtsen: Let me take you back to 1968, when William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal went head-to-head in a series of television debates of a kind we should be having now. The debates ran on US ABC News during the Republican and Democratic party conventions. Partly caught in the documentary The Best of Enemies, it is riveting watching in 2021. Not only for the feisty and smart sparring about big issues of the day but also because it’s like uncovering a long extinct species. Today, most media platforms that cover politics swing one way or the other. The idea of bringing together two smart people from opposite ends of the spectrum is anathema to a cookie-cutter business model where you cater to one side only. More

22.09.21.  Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, now comfortably back in his old saddle,  says the middle of Melbourne cannot be “taken over by a marauding group” of protesters and has urged Daniel Andrews to “accept responsibility” for the civil mayhem. Mr Joyce has called on Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to “take control back” after thousands of protesters clashed with police in Melbourne over the past few days. More than 2,000 people stormed the streets of the city for several hours again on Tuesday following a violent rally that saw riot police, tradies and union members clash on Monday. Rally-goers moved through Melbourne for about eight hours in protest of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate across the construction industry as well the Premier’s two-week construction ban introduced on Monday night. More

22.09.21.  Former defence head of China analysis Paul Monk says Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ secret deal with China was part of the Chinese government’s strategy to operate in Australia “without federal oversight”. On Monday, the Victorian parliament forced the Andrews government to release the document detailing promises made with China, which had been kept secret for four years.
“What concerns me in the first instance is the secrecy,” Mr Monk told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.
“What concerns me in the second instance is that the deal is with a strategic player on an altogether different scale to Victoria, and Daniel Andrews appears to have walked into water over his head.” More

22.09.21.  The name “Evergrande” has for years flown under the radar of MSM but that may change. The Evergrande Group otherwise known the Evergrande Real Estate Group is China’s second-largest property developer by sales It is also the 122nd largest group in the world by revenue, according to the 2021 Fortune Global 500 List. Therefore, it is a vital component in China’s operating portfolio.
The collapse of the iron ore price and the big fall now taking place in global share markets are part of the same story. The Chinese building industry, which has played such a big part in booming commodity markets, is in deep trouble at the same time as the uncertainty in the US. Almost 30 per cent of Chinese GDP is in the real estate sector, so a big fall in the sector would send the Middle Kingdom into recession with dramatic global repercussions. More

22.09.21.  Rioting thugs knee deep in a pandemic outside the CFMEU’s Melbourne headquarters have provoked a serious challenge for Dan Andrews and an even bigger tactical dilemma for police chief Shane Patton. Andrews faces losing significant political skin if the rioting continues while Patton’s long term credibility hinges on crushing the illegal dissent. It is one thing to protest peacefully, quite another to resort to violence. The rioting is probably the most extreme protesting since the 2006 G20 meeting, which was largely left wing inspired but caused mayhem in the Melbourne CBD. There is an argument that then police chief Christine Nixon never fully recovered from the fallout amid wide accusations that the force failed to provide enough force 15 years ago. More

22.09.21.  In perhaps the only Australian journalist to have a one-on-one, sit-down interview with Donald Trump, Sharri Markson has made a name for herself. Sharri’s documentary,What Really Happened in Wuhan, could become the key that brings China to book as creators of the world’s major disaster. And that could, we hope, also open the floodgates of legal action seeking reparation. A living “David and Goliath” scenario!
Explosive allegations made by former US president Donald Trump in the Sky News documentary – What Really Happened in Wuhan – drew huge interest from Australian viewers who tuned into the one-hour special. Mr Trump, in a world-exclusive sit-down interview with The Australian’s investigative writer and Sky News host Sharri Markson, revealed that bodies were dumped outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. More

22.09.21.  What America does is often copied by us. They lost control of the  police and that put the people against them, especially Democrats, Greens and lefts. Look at Melbourne, same thing, but worse, here, it’s not only the left. Lockdowns failed in the US, same here. We saw just how angry Americans got and they demonstrated,  same here. The US  Government spends vast sums to support businesses then they lockdown, same here. Governments borrow even vaster sums there, same here. Government and media lie there, same here. As David McGrath describes the United States as out of control and in a death spiral, is it the same here. Our readers can decide: More

21.09.21.  Sometime in the next week a momentous event will take place: Australia will overtake China in total Covid case numbers. Let me be very explicitly clear: these are the absolute total number of cases recorded in the two countries since the start of the pandemic back in January 2020. Not cases adjusted for population, but the actual totals of all the cases recorded in the two countries over the 20 months. So, it’s Australia, population 26m – and, even with the events of the last two months in NSW and Victoria, still one of the great global success stories (so far) in limiting case numbers and deaths – a total of 87,134 cases. More