News update for Thur 3 Oct 2024
Your trusted guide to the top independent news and views of the day...
Welcome to your TrueNorth news update where every weekday afternoon we share curated articles from Australia’s independent news media sector.
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Scroll down for today’s news and views…
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
BREAKING NEWS: Pro-Palestine protest organisers abandon plan for October 7 vigil - The New Daily
Emma Shortis: In a largely uneventful and inconsequential US vice presidential debate, no one can claim victory - The Conversation
Just like vice presidents themselves, in US politics, debates don’t really matter until they do. The most recent debate (and likely the last of the 2024 election cycle) between aspiring vice presidents Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz isn’t likely to matter much at all.
Read more from Emma Shortis for The Conversation
Also >
To Understand JD Vance, You Need to Meet the “TheoBros” - Mother Jones
TRANSITZONE USA ELECTION UPDATE 10: THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
- #transitzone podcast with Peter Clarke and Margot KingstonMidwest and masculinity: The Vance-Walz debate - 7am Podcast
Greg Jericho: Plibersek’s coalmine decision is double trouble for climate and housing - The Guardian
When the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, approved three new coalmine expansions last week, she not only failed abjectly to act on climate change, but by diverting scarce workers from constructing homes to expanding fossil-fuel projects, she also made it harder for the government to improve housing affordability through its aim of building 1.2m new homes in five years.
Read more from Greg Jericho for The Guardian
Also read >
Gas power in future grid will be “tiny” and its cost exorbitant, report finds - Renew Economy
The Earth is sick – and getting sicker - Julian Cribb for Pearls and Irritations
Niki Savva: If Albanese repeats his performance over negative gearing, he can kiss the election goodbye - The SMH/Age
Albanese garnered most of the unflattering attention, after insisting on conducting a blizzard of interviews where he delivered confusing, evasive, unconvincing messages on tax instead of just concentrating on delivering one clear, credible response at one press conference.
If such a performance is repeated during the campaign, Labor can kiss the election goodbye.
Read more from Niki Savva for The SMH/Age (paywall)
‘‘We are terrorised’’ on the ground in Beirut - The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
On Friday September 27, an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah and Lebanon announced three days of mourning. Now Israel has launched a ground attack on southern Lebanon, after trading almost daily fire with Hezbollah for 11 months. The Israeli military claims its ground invasion is a ‘limited, localised and targeted’ operation against Hezbollah infrastructure, but at least 1 million civilians have been forced to leave their homes, and more than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed. Freelance journalist Cherine Yazbeck tells Nour Haydar how Hassan Nasrallah’s support base has responded to his assassination, and why she won’t leave Lebanon despite living in fear for her life.
Listen to The Guardian’s Full Story Podcast
Also read >
The long-feared Middle East war is now here. This is how Israel could now hit back at Iran - The Conversation
Violence, displacement, discrimination: ActionAid shares ‘devastating’ update on women and girls in Gaza - Women’s Agenda
Pro-nuclear campaign using the firm that helped Scott Morrison - Crikey
Australia’s mining industry has launched a pro-nuclear influence campaign powered by the digital advertising firm credited for its role in Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson’s surprise election victories.
At the end of August, the Get Clear on Nuclear campaign kicked off with the creation of social media posts and advertisements run on platforms on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube; as well as its own website.
The campaign, which urges “Australia to rethink nuclear as part of our sustainable future”, is only identified on its website as being backed by the Mineral Councils of Australia at the bottom of its terms and conditions page.
Read more from Cam Wilson for Crikey (paywall)
Today’s cartoon by Glen Le Lievre
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
Gareth Evans: Sheridan wrong on Wong - Pearls and Irritations
Greg Sheridan is doubtless now too long in the tooth to change his journalistic ways. But it really is time that he recognised the force of that immortal observation by Shakespeare’s contemporary, Francis Bacon, that ‘Speaking in perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love’.
No Sheridan article seems complete without some person or policy being labelled ‘insane’, ‘deranged’, ‘obscene’ or the ‘worst ever’, or some variation on these themes.
Read more from Gareth Evans for Pearls and Irritations
Germany’s new normal - Inside Story
All of Hamburg hates the AfD,” tens of thousands of demonstrators chanted in Germany’s second-largest city on 19 January this year. People had taken to the streets all over Germany to protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany after it was revealed that some of its politicians had met the prominent Austrian new-right activist Martin Sellner in a Potsdam hotel to discuss “remigration,” the expulsion of millions of migrants from Germany.
That outrage is now little more than a distant memory.
I have made the near-impossible choice to terminate a pregnancy. Shaming woman for it is cruel - The Guardian
Last week, Liberal MP Ben Hood introduced a bill to the South Australian parliament that would require anyone seeking an abortion after 27 weeks and six days to give birth. Joanna Howe, a law professor and anti-abortion advocate, supports Hood, asserting that women “overwhelmingly” want this bill to pass.
I find myself questioning who these women might be and wondering if any of them have faced the heart-wrenching decision to terminate a pregnancy in the third trimester.
Labor's asylum strategy struggling to rectify Coalition backlog - Independent Australia
The Albanese Government is still trying to keep on top of the asylum application mess left by the Coalition as the number of applicants rises.
IN LATE 2023, the Labor Government announced it would allocate an additional $160 million over four years to get on top of the asylum caseload it had inherited after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s negligence in allowing a massive labour trafficking scam to overwhelm Australia’s asylum system from 2016.
As it is now almost 12 months since that additional funding was announced, we should be able to observe some impact.
Read more from Abul Rizvi for Independent Australia
Inside the MAGA mind of Barnaby Joyce - The Politics
It’s a long way from Walcha, Joyce’s home territory in his country NSW electorate of New England, to the Guildford Leagues Club in western Sydney, in the federal seat of McMahon, held by the Labor government’s Climate and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen.
But that’s where Joyce turned up last Sunday, as a surprise extra speaker at what was a pale imitation of a MAGA gathering.
“Making Australia great again” was very much on Joyce’s mind. And these days he’s highly fixated on the perceived evils of renewable energy, or “intermittent power” as he lampoons solar and wind.
Read more from Murray Hogarth for The Politics
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Are the Big Two too big? Reining in the supermarket giants - Follow The Money Podcast
Anti-smart cities Libertarians score local council election wins after NSW Liberals’ nomination debacle - The Guardian
‘Survival sex’, ‘mob justice’ and more: the first independent study of abuse in the Australian Defence Force is damning - The Conversation
Rita Panahi issues on-air correction after broadcasting election lie about couple in Kamala Harris ad - Crikey (paywall)
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
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You’re up to date for Thursday the 3rd of October. See you tomorrow!
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here