Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s main climate change website
is “undergoing changes” to better reflect “the agency’s new direction”
under Donald Trump.
The announcement, made late Friday evening, left empty what was
previously the “official government site” providing “comprehensive
information on the issue of climate change and global warming”.
The change came a day before thousands gathered in Washington DC and other US cities to protest inaction on climate change, and hours before the symbolic 100-day mark of the Trump administration.
At the marquee climate protest, the Peoples Climate March in
Washington, tens of thousands made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue in
sweltering heat on their way to encircle the White House.
Organizers said about 300 sister marches or rallies were being held
around the country, including in Seattle, Boston and San Francisco. In
Chicago, marchers headed from the city’s federal plaza to Trump Tower.
In Denver, marchers were met with a dose of spring snow.
Some of the marches drew celebrity attendees, including former Vice
President Al Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the capital and senator
and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Bernie
Sanders at an event in Montpelier, Vermont.
“Honored to join Indigenous leaders and native peoples as they fight for climate justice,” DiCaprio tweeted.
Any
marchers who used their phones to look at the EPA climate change
website would have been greeted with a message from the new
administration: “This page is being updated.”
“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land and
water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the
agency,” said JP Freire, an associate administrator for public affairs.
Previously, the website housed data on greenhouse gas emissions from
large polluters and reports on the effects of climate change and its
impact on human health.
“We want to eliminate confusion,” Freire said, “by removing outdated
language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the
environment and human health by partnering with states and working
within the law.”
Information from previous administrations is archived as a link from the EPA’s website.
Demonstrators march in Chicago. Photograph: Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images
The EPA is currently led by Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who has denied that carbon dioxide causes global warming.
The Trump administration has called for budget cuts
of nearly one-third at the EPA and has sought to weaken protections for
human health. For instance, the White House has proposed cutting funding and regulations regarding lead poisoning prevention and is considering rewriting regulations concerning smog.
It has already rolled back a law that prevented coal mining companies from dumping waste in streams.
In an op-ed piece for the Guardian
published on Saturday, Sanders made an economic case for a focus on
industries meant to ameliorate the effects of climate change, rather
than those which contribute to it.
The senator from Vermont wrote: “No matter what agenda President Trump and his administration of climate deniers push, it is clear that jobs in clean energy like wind and solar are growing much more rapidly than jobs in the coal, oil and gas sectors.”
The public appetite for community funded renewable
energy appears to be limitless, with projects proving so popular they
are selling out within minutes of being offered to investors.
The
latest initiative — a massive solar panel system on top of a wholesale
bakery in western Sydney — saw people flocking to invest.
Within six hours, 20 investors had pitched in almost $400,000 to install a huge 230 kilowatt solar system on the bakery's roof.
The project has been set up by volunteer-run ClearSky Solar Investments.
The company Bakers Maison will pay investors
for the solar energy it uses over a period of between seven to 10 years.
The investors get a 7 per cent return on the money they put in.
After that time, the business owns the panels and will use its energy for free.
"There's
a huge appetite out there for people to invest in renewable energy, we
just need more projects," ClearSky director Warren Yates said.
Bakers Maison employs 120 people and runs
every day of the year, baking and freezing French-inspired products that
are sold to all corners of Australia.
"We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in utility bills," general manager Pascal Chaneliere said.
The
bakery already had a 100 kilowatt solar power system, which will now be
bolstered by this new, much larger community project.
Mr
Chaneliere said getting investors involved to help out with the costs of
the new solar panels would help further reduce their bills.
"We
signed a contract for the cost of electricity for the next coming years,
so it makes a lot of sense. We know exactly what will be the
expenditure for the next five years."
Investor Andrew Rogers grew up in the same suburb as the Revesby bakery.
"I invested $20,000 into this one, it gives me a good rate of return, it's nearly 7 per cent," he said.
"At the same time as an investor I'm happy, I know the money is creating some good."
A smaller project with solar panels on top of
a Sydney brewery sold out last year in just nine minutes, through
community group Pingala.
Pingala volunteer Tom Nockolds said the group had already identified 30 more potential locations for future projects.
"We
won't be able to do them all at once but we'll get to them in turn and
we won't stop at 30, we want to do 30, 60 and 120 on our way to doing as
many as we can," he said.
"There's definitely an oversupply of investors and an undersupply of projects."
What's holding up more projects?
Volunteer groups said there were plenty of investors, but rules and regulations made it hard to get projects up quickly.
"In other countries, community energy has taken off at a much faster rate than in Australia," Warren Yates said.
"We've had to duck and weave our way through the regulations to set up this kind of operation.
"It's not efficient, and we could do much more with the appropriate regulatory environment."
Mr
Yates said it was up to the government to change the rules to help
streamline the process for groups trying to get similar projects up and
running.
David Blowers from the Grattan Institute said community
projects had potential to save the electricity grid from expensive
upgrades that are passed on as costs to consumers.
He said network businesses should look to get involved in some community projects.
"You want to see a framework which encourages the right sort of solution for the right sort of problem," Mr Blowers said.
"At the moment it's a one solution fits all, which is you build more poles and wires.
"And
the problem with that is once people start using less grid-based energy
because they're generating their own, all of a sudden other people have
to pay for the grid that remains."
He said the Government needed to look at the way the grid costs were regulated to make sure costs were spread fairly.
Millions already invested in Australian community solar
New
figures show more than 50 community solar projects are up and running
across the nation, with individuals investing almost $24 million.
But Australia remains well behind Denmark, which has 5,500 projects up and running, many of those wind farms.
Scotland has more than 500 community energy projects, while Germany has 880 energy cooperatives.
As US President Donald Trump marks his 100th day in
the White House, thousands of people have turned out in Washington to
protest his climate change policies.
Key points:
As a side theme, marchers will protest Mr Trump's crackdown on illegal immigrants
Last weekend, thousands turned out for March for Science
Mr Trump's representatives had no immediate comment on the planned protest
Around 15,000 people gathered for the afternoon march from the
lawn of the US Capitol to the White House, according to an estimate by a
Reuters reporter, coinciding with the end of the traditional
"honeymoon" period for a new president.
Carrying signs emblazoned
with slogans such as "Imagine a world free a climate change", and
"Planet over profits", demonstrators on Saturday (local time) said they
were angered by the prospect of Mr Trump carrying through on his vow to
roll back protections put in place by his predecessors.
"We're going to rise up and let them know that we're
sick and tired of seeing our children die of asthma," Reverend Leo
Woodberry of Florence, South Carolina, said.
"We're sick and tired of seeing people with cancer because of coal ash ponds. We're sick and tired of seeing sea-level rise."
The
Trump administration is considering withdrawing from the Paris
Agreement, which more than 190 countries including the United States
signed in hopes of curbing global warming. Mr Trump has also proposed
deep cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As marchers took to the street, the EPA website underwent a makeover to reflect the views of the Trump administration.
In
January, EPA sources told Reuters that administration officials had
asked the agency to take down the climate change page — which included
links to scientific research, data and trends related to the causes and
effects of climate change.
In his campaign, Mr Trump called
climate change a hoax. Last month he kept a promise to the coal industry
by undoing climate change rules put in place by his predecessor Barack
Obama.
Tom McGettrick, 57, an electrical engineer who drove up
from the Florida Keys to attend the march, said his main concern was the
weakening of the EPA.
"Forty years of environmental protection
has done wonders for the environment, especially in the Midwest," said
Mr McGettrick, who spent most of his life in Michigan.
"When I was a teenager and went to Lake Erie, it was one of the most polluted bodies of water in the country.
"Now when you go to Lake Erie it's really beautiful."
In Boston, a crowd gathered in public park in downtown. Marchers carried signs with slogans such as "Dump Trump".
Some
of the marches drew big-name attendees, including former vice-president
Al Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the nation's capital and Vermont
senator Bernie Sanders at a Montpelier event.
"Honoured to join Indigenous leaders and native peoples as they fight for climate justice," DiCaprio tweeted.
In
Augusta, Maine, protesters outside the statehouse said they wanted to
draw attention to the damage climate change can cause marginalised
communities.
A demonstration stretched for several blocks in
downtown Tampa, Florida, where marchers said they were concerned about
the threat rising seas pose to the city.
Protests a defining feature in Trump's first 100 days
Saturday's
march was part of an effort to build support for candidates with strong
environmental records in the run-up to next year's midterm elections
and the 2020 presidential race, organizers said.
"We're
using this as a tactic to advance the strategy of building enough power
to win on climate over the course of the long haul," said national
coordinator Paul Getsos.
Since Mr Trump's
inauguration on January 20, there have been national protests focused on
issues ranging from abortion rights to immigration and science policy.
Myron
Ebell, a climate change skeptic at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the march would have little
impact on the administration.
"The real decisions are made in this
country in elections, and we have now a president and a House and a
Senate that are determined to pursue a pro-energy agenda," he said.
Trump representatives had no immediate comment on the protest.
Dozens
of "sister" marches are planned for other North America locales, from
Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, to Dutch Harbor in Alaska's Aleutian
Islands. Overseas, about three dozen events range from a protest in
Vienna to marches in Hobart and on the Gold Coast.
It is no surprise dissembling has been the defining feature of his first
100 days. If he admitted the truth of his shambolic presidency, it
would shorten its span
‘For a country whose founding myth was that its first president was so
virtuous he could not lie, it’s bizarre that it is now led by a serial
liar’ … Donald Trump addresses the National Rifle Association in
Atlanta, Georgia on 28 April 2017.
Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA
On
Saturday Donald Trump will have been in the White House for a hundred
days, and he has been a disaster for American democracy. His narcissism
and incompetence has allowed little time for reflection and
self-correction. His megalomania is such that he views himself as
hounded by “enemies of the people”. In his contract with America,
candidate Trump told voters that he would “restore prosperity to our economy, security to our communities and honesty to our government”. These words, like much Mr Trump has said, have proved worthless. In terms of probity, there’s the matter of the FBI
investigating whether and how the Trump campaign may have colluded with
Moscow’s efforts to influence the presidential election. The ethics of the presidency are constantly called into question because Mr Trump, his family and his appointees
insist upon maintaining their investments in various businesses, while
at the same time conducting official US government policy.
On security Mr Trump’s cruel, stupid and bigoted travel bans, which
were designed to hurt and divide, have been blocked by federal courts
not once but twice. Mr Trump’s rash and self-defeating campaign promise
to pull the US out of Nafta, the trade agreement he once described as a
“total disaster”, was dropped after Mr Trump realised that it would decimate jobs and industry in the farm belt
that voted for him. One has to wonder about how a country, let alone
the world’s richest, can be governed in such a way for much longer.
First impressions count, and the first 100 days are an indicator of
success or failure in a president’s crucial first year in office.
Presidential debuts can be remembered for foreign policy resets. A
missile strike against the sulphurous regime of Bashar al-Assad saw Mr Trump pivot back briefly to normality and gain bipartisan applause.
But it also highlighted the fact that no one knows the framework the
Trump administration brings to thinking about the Syrian civil war.
Lasting legislative achievements, not TV appearances or late-night
tweeting, count in the history books. Mr Trump pledged to introduce 10
pieces of legislation in his first 100 days. Despite control of Capitol
Hill by his own party, Mr Trump has little to show so far for his
promises. The Senate did approve Neil Gorsuch for the supreme court, but
only after Republicans nuked long-standing Senate rules. Mr Trump’s
huge tax cuts, if passed, will favour the rich. No surprise as he assembled the wealthiest cabinet in history.
The political sham of Republican opposition was exposed by Obamacare,
the policy that afforded healthcare for poor Americans. Mr Trump’s party
has voted 60 times to repeal it, and he has vowed to replace it. After
seven years the Republicans have not come up with anything better. This
is because the reason Republicans opposed the healthcare reform was that
it was the signature domestic policy of a man they demonised: Barack
Obama.
Mr Obama is a useful study in contrast. He arrived in 2009 at a moment of national crisis and pushed through a $787bn stimulus to stave off a beckoning depression.
Voters recognised that the young and inexperienced Mr Obama had come
good in a moment of national crisis. By the end of his first three
months Mr Obama had approval ratings of 63%. By comparison Mr Trump has the lowest poll numbers of any president since Gallup began surveying in 1953, by 14 points. Yet, as our own reporting shows, President Trump’s support among his own voters
remains rock solid. Dig a little deeper in the polling and it is the
dissembling that stands out. For a country whose founding myth was that
its first president was so virtuous he could not lie, it’s bizarre that
it is now led by a serial liar.
There is a method to this. By definition, conspiracy theories are
unfalsifiable: experts who contradict them demonstrate that they, too,
are part of the conspiracy. It is no surprise that dissembling has been
the defining feature of Mr Trump’s first 100 days. Large majorities of
his voters believe the media publishes false stories. Mr Trump’s strategy of peddling falsehoods and branding critical reporting as “fake news” is working.
His voters believe the news media’s “lies” are a bigger problem than
the Trump administration’s ones. Facts remain a stranger to the man
whose administration blithely told reporters that a US “armada”
had set sail to North Korea amid nuclear-tipped tensions when in fact
it was heading in the other direction. Now he talks of a “major, major”
conflict with Pyongyang’s rogue regime. As America and the world is
finding out, a conspiracy theorist-in-chief is uniquely unqualified to
lead.
We already knew the president is a bigot, a liar and a threat to world peace. But now we’ve learned he can be thwarted
‘Some thought Donald Trump’s bigotry was a campaign post that would fall away.’
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Contact author
Is
anyone surprised that Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have
confirmed him to be a dangerous, reckless bigot; a kleptocrat who puts
the financial interests of his family first, closely followed by the
wealth of his fellow billionaires; a serial liar whose view of the wider
world hovers between frightening and incoherent?
We surely can claim no shock. The warning signs were all there, the
alarm amply sounded in advance. There have, in fact, been only two
surprises about the infant Trump presidency. But one of those is
unexpectedly heartening.
Start, though, with what three months of President Trump have made
plain. Some thought the bigotry was a campaign pose that would fall away
once Trump had breathed in the sobering vapours of the Oval Office. In
fact he took all of seven days to issue a travel ban that would shut out
newcomers from seven mainly Muslim countries – supposedly a
counter-terrorism measure, even though the number of terrorist incidents
in the US caused by migrants from those countries is precisely zero.
Look at the white nationalist wing of Trump’s team. Steve Bannon is off the national security council, but remains a key influence; his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was deemed too racist to win senate confirmation as a federal judge in the 1980s; and aide Sebastian Gorka was, back in Hungary, a vocal supporter of a racist, antisemitic militia that was eventually banned.
In that context, it’s hardly a surprise that Trump’s cabinet is the least diverse in decades. Indeed, among the enduring images of these 100 days are photos comprised entirely of besuited men signing away the reproductive or healthcare rights of women.
100 days of Trump: orders, tweets, leaks and military attacksAs for the recklessness, that too has been a constant motif. Type
“Trump threatens war with…” and Google helpfully offers to complete the
sentence with any one of Mexico, China, Iran or North Korea. Yesterday,
Trump warned of a “major, major conflict” with Pyongyang.
That came in an interview, but sometimes it’s a tweet or just an
unhinged phone call. He had been president 10 days when he told his
Mexican counterpart he would send in US troops to deal with “bad hombres down there”.
Pity
the analysts asked to discern a Trump foreign policy in all this mess.
One minute he’s an isolationist, announcing that Nato is obsolete. The
next he admits that he didn’t really know much about Nato and it is “no longer obsolete”. He fires cruise missiles at Syria, which perhaps signals that he’s now a hawkish interventionist. But then he’s on the sofa with Xi Jinping,
cosying up to China like a foreign policy realist, announcing that
Beijing is not, despite everything he said in the campaign, a currency
manipulator after all.
The truth is, there is no Trump doctrine because a doctrine would
require a series of connected thoughts demanding an attention span of
more than a few seconds. And that is beyond the current US president.
Instead, there are just a couple of instincts. One is a preference for
autocrats over democrats: note the warm embrace he gave Egypt’s ruler
soon after refusing to shake the hand of Angela Merkel. The second,
related, impulse is to favour anything likely to enrich him or his
family. So of course he welcomed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s power-grab in Turkey: Erdoğan had supported the construction of Trump Towers in Istanbul.
Which bring us to crony corruption so egregious that scholars believe Trump has already amassed ample grounds for impeachment, though the House of Representatives is too blinded by partisan loyalty to pursue it. Simply by doubling the membership fees at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, Trump has overtly profiteered from the presidency.
He has not divested himself of his business interests; there is no
blind trust. The nepotism of appointing his daughter and son-in-law to
White House posts has made the US resemble a tinpot kleptocracy, with
the dictator surrounded by adult children lining their pockets with gold. None of this is hidden: note that on the day the Trumps met Xi, the Chinese granted trademark rights to the line of handbags and jewellery peddled by Ivanka.
All of this has happened at remarkable speed. We have, perhaps, become inured to the lies: Trump has uttered more than 450 documented falsehoods
since swearing the oath. But the abuse of power, the violation of
democratic norms, remain astonishing. Not only does he refuse to release
his tax returns, Trump has now made the White House visitor logs secret
– even though these records are often the only way of knowing which
lobbyists are getting access to power. Trump’s attack on the judiciary
continues apace: in recent days, he has threatened to break up the ninth circuit court for daring to rule against him.
All
of this is disturbing, but not strictly a surprise. What takes the
breath away is the incompetence. Trump promised to surround himself with
“the best people, the best” and it was reasonable to suppose that a
billionaire tycoon would have some inkling of how to run a big
operation. But he has been spectacularly useless.
His sole concrete achievement in 100 days has been the appointment of
a supreme court judge. All the rest is failure, whether it’s a
healthcare bill rejected by his fellow Republicans; hundreds of posts
still unfilled in the federal bureaucracy, declaring that an “armada”
was heading towards North Korea when it was in fact miles away and sailing in the opposite direction, or a national security adviser who had to be sacked because he was, literally, a foreign agent. ‘Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated,” Trump said,
when in fact everyone but him knew that. He’s made similar remarks
about Nato and Korea, needing to be educated on the most elementary
facts, even if that means America’s adversaries playing tutor.
Pathetically, he now says of the job he won in November that he thought it would be “easier.”
But what of that other surprise, the one to give us cheer? It’s this:
opposition can work. We’ve seen that Trump is weak, backing down when
confronted – most recently by Canada and Mexico over his threat to leave Nafta. But public protest works too. The combination of courts and crowds, gathering instantly at airports across the US,
halted the travel ban. Similarly, it was when citizens turned up at
congressional Republicans’ town hall meetings, threatening to punish any
politician who stripped away their Obamacare, that Trump lost his
healthcare bill – the one that would have deprived 24m Americans of healthcare and funnelled a $600bn tax cut to the rich.
The satirists and journalists
have played their part too, needling Trump and getting under his skin
as well as shedding light on his spell in power. His devotees remain
loyal, but thanks to those who keep insisting on telling the truth, most
Americans now see Trump for what he is – which is why his poll numbers
are so low.
Donald Trump
is as bad as we feared: delusional, dangerous, dishonest. But there is
another lesson from these 100 days. Even when faced with the greatest
menace, resistance is not futile.
You don't have to tell Jan Raumati-Damon she beat the
odds. This week, she realised a dream she thought might never happen —
she was handed the keys to her own Sydney apartment.
"It's great. I'm very excited," Ms Raumati-Damon said, her eyes tearing up just after signing her lease.
The
65-year-old works part-time as a cook, and receives the age pension.
But that hasn't been enough to secure her own apartment.
In the last four years, she's moved five times.
"It has been a long time," she said. "From living with 10 people, down to now. Finally living just by myself again."
Ms
Raumati-Damon had been stuck in Australia's private-rental trap. She
escaped with the help of St George Community Housing (SGCH).
Because she earns less than $48,500 a year, she's eligible for an SGCH affordable housing unit.
Her
rent is fixed at $286 per week — 65 per cent of the market rent in
Peakhurst in southern Sydney. Without that subsidy, her new one-bedroom
apartment would rent for $440 per week.
"It is overwhelming, because it's taken me four years to find something," she said.
It's estimated there's a shortage of at least
120,000 dwellings in Australia of affordable housing — where rent is
tied to a percentage of the market rent to assist those with low wage
work.
For those living on the poverty line or receiving some form of social benefits, the situation is even more bleak.
By one estimate there's a need for at least 270,00 more dwellings for those on the lowest 20 per cent of income.
"You simply despair," said Treasurer Scott Morrison in a speech that addressed the current situation earlier this month.
A bid to attract major investment in social housing
Mr
Morrison has announced a taskforce to examine something called a "bond
aggregator" — essentially government-backed loans aimed at attracting
large-scale private investment in social housing.
"This brings two
things: cheaper money and better terms," said Michael Lennon,
chairperson of the Community Housing Industry Association.
Community housing associations are
not-for-profit organisations that provide social housing. They've been
growing as state governments transfer the management of public housing
units over to them.
Now they're waiting to see how much backing
community housing bonds will get in the federal budget. The goal is for
bond amounts to be big enough to lure in large institutional investors.
In Australia, they typically invest in things like toll motorways and airports.
Large-scale
private investment in social housing has been happening for decades in
the UK. Generous government rent assistance and financial grants have
helped community housing attract large-scale private investors.
Mr Lennon says he believes the same thing could happen here.
"We're
at a point in Australia in which the community housing sector can
mature with the right supports into that kind of environment," he said.
States to play key role in addressing 'funding gap'
But everyone agrees a financing evolution for community housing also depends on the what happens in the states.
New
South Wales has provided $1.1 billion in seed funding for the Social
and Affordable Housing Fund. Interest from the fund will be used to help
close the "funding gap" that makes it so hard for community housing
associations to borrow.
The problem: most community housing
tenants have low incomes and pay low rent. Often revenue isn't enough to
cover operating costs and maintenance.
"The gap is between what
people can afford to pay, and what it costs to run," said Wendy
Hayhurst, CEO of the NSW Federation of Housing Associations.
"Whether
you're a for profit developer or you're a community housing provider,
that gap exists. And it has to be filled to make it stack up
economically."
In Victoria, the Government has taken a similar approach to fill the "funding gap".
Its
Social Housing Growth Fund is slated to reach a $1 billion endowment in
four years. Interest from that fund will go to community housing
associations to help get projects off the ground.
"We think there's a momentum building," said Lesley Dredge, from the Community Housing Federation of Victoria.
"We don't know yet, though, how all these elements come together."
The
Port Phillip Housing Association's mixed-use development in Ashwood in
Melbourne's southeast is an example of the projects community housing
associations want to build.
Of the 280 dwellings, 70 are private. They
were sold at market rates to help fund construction of the remaining
social and affordable units.
Part of the community housing is set
aside for those over age 55. Most rely on social assistance payments,
and say without their subsidised community housing unit they'd have
nowhere else to go.
"I am very lucky to get this place," said tenant Nancy Moore.
"I
lost everything 15 years ago. My husband, a house, my business. My mum.
All within 10 months. And I bought myself a van, and I was a nomad for
15 years."
Tenants Geoff and Suzanne McQuie have a similar story.
"When we first came in here...we had virtually nothing," Mr McQuie said.
"We had a bag of dim sims in the fridge," Ms McQuie chimes in.
They say from their own experience they know the demand for community housing.
"There's
a lot of people… for whatever reason, they're done and dusted. They're
buggered. They've got nowhere to turn," Mr McQuie said.
"If you
look at the amount of people that are around now… that are in a broken
situation, that need housing, the Government's definitely got to supply
it. Someone's got to supply it. You can't have them all living under a
tree somewhere."
Donald Trump
has said that a “major conflict” was possible with North Korea though
he would prefer to solve the standoff over the country’s nuclear and
missile programme through diplomacy.
Trump’s warning on Thursday came towards the end of a week where the
administration has made a concerted effort to restrain Pyongyang from
carrying out major new weapons tests.
At the same time, US officials sought to clarify US policy after a
variety of mixed signals in the administration’s first 100 days.
Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, said that the US would be
prepared to enter into direct talks with the regime of Kim Jong-un, but
that it would have to prepare to negotiate getting rid of all its
nuclear weapons.
The opening to diplomacy came as the head of the US Pacific Command,
Admiral Harry Harris told the Senate that the standoff with North Korea was the worst he had seen. It was an assessment echoed by the president.
“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” Trump told Reuters.
“We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult,” the president added.
A brief history of nuclear near-missesTrump suggested there had been a breakthrough in Chinese readiness to
help apply pressure on Kim since Xi Jinping visited the US president in
Florida earlier this month.
“I believe he [the Chinese president] is trying very hard. He
certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see
it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very
well,” Trump said.
“With
that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I
know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible
that he can’t.”
Tillerson had earlier said the Chinese had warned Pyongyang, an
increasingly unruly client in recent years, that it would impose
punitive measures if North Korea carried out provocative tests.
“We know that China is in communications with the regime in
Pyongyang,” he told Fox News. “They confirmed to us that they had
requested the regime conduct no further nuclear test.”
According to Tillerson, the Chinese told the regime “that if they did
conduct further nuclear tests, China would be taking sanctions actions
on their own”.
The secretary of state said that the North Korean regime viewed its
nuclear weapons and missile programmes as a guarantee of survival, and
that the Trump administration sought to change that mindset.
“We want to change that calculus of theirs and we have said to them:
your pathway to survival and security is to eliminate your nuclear
weapons and we and other countries will help you on the way to economic
development,” Tillerson said. He assured Pyongyang that the US objective
was ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons, not toppling Kim
Jong-un.
“We do not seek a regime change in North Korea. We are not seeking the collapse of the regime.”
Tillerson said that the US administration would “wait as long as it
takes” for talks to start providing North Korea conducted no new nuclear
or intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
The secretary of state did not directly reply to a question on
whether this policy was very similar to the “strategic patience” pursued
by the Obama administration, which Tillerson had earlier said had come
to an end.
In his Oval Office interview with Reuters, Trump offered an assessment of Kim.
Asked if he considered the North Korean leader to be rational he noted that Kim had taken over his country at an early age.
“He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what
you want but that is not easy, especially at that age,” he said.
“I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I’m just saying
that’s a very hard thing to do. As to whether or not he’s rational, I
have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a sign that North Korea’s regional neighbours are taking the threat of a conflict seriously, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull warned that Pyongyang could launch a nuclear attack on nations and claimed China has not applied enough pressure on the regime.
“There is the possibility and the risk that North Korea could launch an attack on its neighbours,” Turnbull said on 3AW radio.
“That is the reason why there is so much effort being put into
seeking to stop this reckless and dangerous conduct by the North Korean
regime. They are a real threat to the peace and stability in the region
and to the whole world.”
Turnbull said while North Korea was often a subject of satire, the
country had nuclear weapons and regularly threatened to use them.
“Their threats can appear sometimes to be theatrical and over the top
and they have been the subject of satire but I can assure you that my
government takes ... the threat of North Korea very seriously,” he said.
On Friday morning Tillerson will chair a special ministerial session
of the UN security council on North Korea, aimed at convincing other
members to impose existing sanctions on Pyongyang more rigorously.
In Washington, the head of the Arms Control Association, Daryl
Kimball, welcomed the Trump administration’s readiness for direct talks
with North Korea.
“There are some new things here. They are making clear that regime
change is not the goal. There is a recognition that North Korea has
security concerns,” Kimball said. “I think what we hearing the evening
is more of the engagement part of the maximum pressure engagement policy
that they are slowly rolling out.”
He added: “It’s going to require persistence and patience.”
Coalition frontbencher calls for Queenslanders to boycott Australia’s
second-largest bank after it says it will now only lend to mines in
established coalfields
Westpac has said it will not fund new thermal coal projects unless they
are in existing mining regions and meet other guidelines.
Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP
Australia’s big four banks have all ruled out funding or withdrawn from Adani’s Queensland
coal project, after Westpac said it would not back opening up new
coalmining regions, prompting a scathing attack from the resources
minister, Matthew Canavan.
Westpac, the country’s second-largest bank, released a new climate
policy on Friday, saying it would limit lending for new thermal coal
projects to “only existing coal producing basins”.
The coal mined must also have energy content “in at least the top 15%
globally”, meaning at least 6,300 kilocalories per kg, according to the
Westpac policy.
Adani’s Carmichael mine would be the first in the Galilee basin and
the coal would have only 4,950 kilocalories per kg, the miner told the
Queensland land court in 2014.
Canavan,
thealso the minister for northern Australia, invited Queenslanders
seeking home loans or term deposits to boycott Westpac as a result of
its decision.
“I can only conclude from this decision by Westpac that they are
seeking to revert to their original name as the Bank of New South Wales,
as they are turning their back on Queensland as a result of this
decision,” he said.
“May I suggest those Queenslanders seeking a home loan or a bank
deposit or some such in the next few months might want to back a bank
that is backing the interests of Queenslanders.”
Canavan also accused Westpac of turning its back on “the Indigenous
people of Queensland” because of majority support for the project among
Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners, although this is contested by an anti-Adani faction.
The Queensland senator castigated the bank for “almost zero
consultation with the people of north Queensland”, saying it was “more
interested in listening to the noisy activists in Sydney than the job
hungry people” in his constituency.
Westpac has come under pressure from environmental groups and various activist campaigns, including one that targeted its cash machines and a rally that interrupted the bank’s 200th anniversary celebrations in Sydney this month.
Adani’s final investment decision on Carmichael had been slated for this month but the company subsequently said it would be made by June before mine construction from August.
An Adani Australia spokesman said the company had not approached Westpac for funding for the mine, rail or port expansion.
But Blair Palese, the chief executive of climate advocacy group 350.org, said Westpac’s decision represented “an enormous blow to this project and the future of coal in Australia”.
Palese said the federal and Queensland governments, which both
support the proposed mine, were “becoming increasingly isolated as
businesses and international investors refuse to touch coal and the
Adani project”.
“After months of community pressure, Westpac’s announcement is a
strong indication that people everywhere are ready to stop this climate
disaster in its tracks and that Adani and our government ignore them at
their peril,” he said.
Adani is seeking a $1bn concessional loan from the commonwealth for
its rail project linking the mine to its Abbot Point coal terminal.
On Thursday Andrew Harding, the CEO of Adani’s rival Aurizon, told the Melbourne Mining Club
his company could build the line for “at least $1bn less” than Adani’s
proposal, with fewer land acquisitions and less impact on the
environment.
Adani wrote off that suggestion as “fanciful and monopolistic”.
“The so-called plan is a smokescreen aimed at defending Aurizon’s
expensive monopoly of coal rail lines in Queensland,” Adani said. “The
Aurizon plan is designed to instil fear and stifle hope in the people of
regional Queensland.”
The CEO of Westpac, Brian Hartzer, also said the bank would increase
its lending target for “climate change solutions” from $6.3bn to $10bn
by 2020 and $25bn by 2030.
“Westpac recognises that climate change is an economic issue as well
as an environmental issue, and banks have an important role to play in
assisting the Australian economy to transition to a net zero emissions
economy,” Hartzer said. “Limiting global warming will require a
collaborative effort as we transition to lower-emissions sectors, while
also taking steps to help the economy and our communities become more
resilient.”
Adani previously received a $543m loan facility in two deals with
Westpac, alongside others from Commonwealth Bank and National Australia
Bank, to acquire a 99-year lease on the Abbot Point terminal, according
to the climate advocacy group Market Forces.
NAB ruled out funding the Carmichael project in September 2015, a month after Commonwealth Bank parted ways with Adani as project finance adviser.
The CEO of ANZ, Shayne Elliott, in effect ruled out financing the mine
last December when he predicted a downward shift in the bank’s exposure
to coalmining would continue for the foreseeable future.
Critics of the Adani proposal, which would be Australia’s largest and
one of the world’s largest coal mines, argue the impact of carbon
emissions from its coal is incompatible with global attempts to limit
warming to less than 2C.
Canavan said Adani’s target markets in India and north Asia
would simply source lower quality coal with higher emissions elsewhere, a
conclusion he said was shared by the Queensland supreme court in its recent rejection of a “green activist claims” against the mine.
The Adani spokesman said the company was “fervently committed” to the
project “despite Westpac and other Australian financial houses choosing
to ignore the opportunity to invest”.
“The financial houses have, instead, chosen to bow to environmental
activists,” he said. “In so doing, they have chosen to continue to
invest in overseas coal projects that will generate jobs in those
countries at the expense of Australians, many of whom are their
investors and depositors.”
The Carmichael coal “easily meets the emissions standards announced by Westpac”, the spokesman said.
