News update for Tue 21 Jan 2025
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: Inauguration coverage - The Guardian - The Conversation
Hope and fear as a Gaza ceasefire begins - Full Story Podcast
For over a year the flash of bombs and deafening sound of explosions have filled the night sky over Gaza. Now, finally, there is a ceasefire. Nour Haydar speaks to Mostafa Rachwani about how the deal has brought the refugee community in Australia some relief but why, after 15 months of war, many are fearful that the peace won’t last
Listen to the Full Story Podcast
Also >
Devastation: aerial views of Gaza after ceasefire – in pictures - The Guardian
University of Sydney criticised for plan to ban protest banners being displayed without prior permission - The Guardian
Sir Lunchalot Dutton and some uncomfortable truths - Michael West Media
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is pulling level with Anthony Albanese as preferred Prime Minister, using the opportunity to launch his free lunch policy. Michael Pascoe explains how dud policy maketh the man.
“Sir Lunchalot” was a title given to crooked former NSW Labor minister and guest of Her Majesty’s, Ian Macdonald. Now Peter Dutton is taking the title.
Read more from Michael Pascoe for Michael West Media
Abul Rizvi: Dutton's permanent migration target another broken promise - Independent Australia
Peter Dutton's promise to cut permanent migration by 45,000 is unreachable and just another ploy to secure votes in time for the upcoming election.
NOW THAT HE has walked back his promise to reduce net migration to 160,000, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is leaning heavily on his promise to reduce the permanent migration program by 45,000. It was a centrepiece of his recent speech kicking off the informal 2025 election campaign.
Read more from Abul Rizvi for Independent Australia
Almost 26,000 hectares of threatened species habitat approved for clearing under Labor in 2024, new report finds - The Guardian
Almost 26,000 hectares of threatened species habitat was green-lit for destruction in 2024 – more than double the previous year – according to analysis that environmentalists are using to pressure Anthony Albanese to revive his stalled nature watchdog.
A new Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) report has revealed a huge increase in the scale of habitat approved to be cleared under federal environmental protection laws in the past 12 months.
Also read > Forty-one new flora and fauna species added to Australia's threatened list - ABC News
‘This is about witnesses speaking their truth’: Prince Harry gets his day in court against Murdoch’s newspapers - The Guardian
An extraordinary personal legal battle which has been years in preparation is to pit one of the most famous members of the British royal family against the world’s best-known media baron this week. On Tuesday Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group, owners of the Sun and the now defunct News of the World, will officially begin at the High Court in London.
Twenty Lessons On Tyranny: From the Twentieth Century - Timothy Snyder
1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about -- a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union -- and take its side.
See more lessons on Tyranny from Timothy Snyder
Also read >
Why I remain hopeful about America - Even as darkness falls - Robert Reich
EVERYONE WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT YOU FROM THIS FAILED MISERABLY - Rolling Stone
We Got Who They Voted For - The president chose not to take the high road - Dan Rather
Today’s cartoon by First Dog on the Moon for The Guardian
TODAY’S BREAKING NEWS: See all the breaking news of the day through The Guardian here - and through 6 News here
NACC weighing public inquiry into $44Bn NDIS - The Klaxon
The boss of the National Anti-Corruption Commission says he is considering launching a public inquiry into the $44 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme — including holding open hearings for the first time.
“I am considering the possibility of a public inquiry into corruption risks and vulnerabilities relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS),” said NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton.
“Should that eventuate, the Commission will call for public submissions”.
Read more from Anthony Klan for The Klaxon
The uncertain future of TikTok - The Daily Aus Podcast
In a dramatic turn of events, TikTok is back online in the United States after being down for just 12 hours. The restoration comes after President Trump, who was officially inaugurated as the 47th President overnight, announced he would sign an executive order to delay the ban as he takes office this week. Trump says he'll make sure the app can remain in America, even at the cost of the existing regulation. Today, we'll break down what happened during this chaotic weekend, and the limits of the President's powers to reverse a law in action.
Listen to The Daily Aus Podcast
Emissions to impact: How climate science will hold fossil fuel companies to account - Renew Economy
Two weeks into 2025 and it already feels like a turning point for climate action – for good and bad. We start the year with news that the Earth experienced yet another ‘warmest year on record’ and global temperatures surpassed the 1.5-degree mark for the first time. Los Angeles is on fire in the middle of winter, and Donald Trump is returning as US President.
The task ahead of us – phasing out the use of fossil fuels, investing in clean energy technologies, and protecting vulnerable communities from the locked-in impacts of climate change – remains huge.
We know why nuclear build costs are soaring — and Australia faces the biggest increases - Crikey
The history of nuclear power construction is the history of costs going up and up, and delays getting longer and longer — not just over the past decade but since the 1960s. And studies of what has caused such rampant inflation show Australia is in the worst position to enter the complex and eye-wateringly expensive business of building nuclear power plants.
Global price spikes in construction materials resulting from the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine have helped push infrastructure costs up everywhere, but significant blowouts in the construction costs of nuclear power plants are a much older story (when Crikey first covered nuclear power in Australia, in 2009, the first thing we pointed out was the cost…
Read more from Bernard Keane for Crikey (paywall)
Also read > Ferreting out OECD experiences in building nuclear power plants - Pearls and Irritations
Australia in breach of UN anti-torture convention for two years - The Justice Map
Australia has now been in breach of UN convention aiming to prevent human rights abuses in places of detention for more than two years.
Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) more than seven years ago in late 2017, but is still yet to put its obligations under this agreement in place.
Australia has been in beach of its anti-torture obligations for more than two years, and is staring down the barrel of being placed on the UN’s non-compliance list.
Inspired by a local group of people in Sydney's north who were looking for t-shirts to wear on their regular walks, Democracy Walks champions, supports and actively engages in our democracy.
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Emergency wait times blow out as hospitals struggle to discharge patients - ABC News
Corporate Atrocities Over 100 Years: Profits Before People - The Australian Independent Media Network
Public vs. private schools: The illusion of collaboration - Pearls and Irritations
Australia exposed to modern slave labour imports and many businesses ‘ignoring the facts’, commissioner warns - The Guardian
Don’t rely on social media users for fact-checking. Many don’t care much about the common good - The Conversation
A simple ‘no’ from Michelle Obama as billionaires line up for Trump’s inauguration - Women’s Agenda
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 Tuesday the 21st of January. See you tomorrow!
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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The article from Abdul Rizvi is curious. A huge number of numbers but curiously a huge number of assumptions that are not supported by any facts. As a fully paid member of the immigration lobby he is hardly independent.
You should have balancing articles that point out the harm to the current youth population and certainly our grandchildren from unplanned and unsustainable population increases. The real issue is the incompetence of politicians and our bureaucracy to use the trade of humans from overseas to juice figures that make them look good whilst trashing the living standards of the current population