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.
Donald Trump and his family business have been found liable for fraud
by a New York judge in state Attorney-General Letitia James’ civil
lawsuit accusing the former US president of illegally inflating his
assets and net worth.
The decision on Tuesday (local time) by Justice Arthur Engoron of the
New York state court in Manhattan is a near total defeat for Trump, and
limits the scope of a scheduled October 2 trial largely to how much the
defendants should pay in damages.
Engoron also ordered the cancellation of business certificates for
the Trump Organisation and other corporate defendants, and sanctioned
Trump’s lawyers for contributing to their clients’ “obstreperous”
conduct and making “preposterous” legal arguments during the case.
Lawyers for Trump and the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
James sued Trump in September 2022, accusing him, his adult children
and the Trump Organisation of lying for a decade about asset values and
his net worth to get better terms on bank loans and insurance.
James has said Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $US2.23
billion ($3.48 billion), and by one measure as much as $US3.6 billion
($5.6 billion), on annual financial statements given to banks and
insurers.
She has said assets whose values were inflated included Trump’s
Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s
Trump Tower, and various office buildings and golf courses.
Engoron said James had established liability for false valuations of several properties, including Mar-a-Lago and the penthouse.
The judge also chided Trump for offering defences in a deposition that were “wholly without basis in law or fact”.
“He claims that if the values of the property have gone up in the
years since the [financial statements] were submitted, then the numbers
were not inflated at that time,” Engoron wrote.
“He also seems to imply that the numbers cannot be inflated because
he could find a ‘buyer from Saudi Arabia’ to pay any price he suggests.”
Engoron ruled three months after a state appeals court said some of
James’ claims were too old because statutes of limitations had expired
in either July 2014 or February 2016.
Trump has said the decision essentially gutted James’ lawsuit, while
James has said Trump’s conduct reflected a series of “continuing wrongs”
that she could prove at trial.
Despite facing a slew of litigation, Trump holds a commanding lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump shows off new endorsements in South Carolina during a campaign rally
Former
President Donald Trump showed off his new endorsements during a
campaign rally outside of a boat manufacturer facility in Summerville,
South Carolina. (Sept. 25) , (AP video: Erik Verduzco)
He has pleaded not guilty to charges in four indictments accusing him
of trying to overturn his 2020 election, hoarding classified materials,
and covering up hush money payments to a porn star.
Trump also faces a January civil trial over damages he owes for
defaming a writer who claimed he raped her. Engoron’s decision does not
automatically mean the trial will begin next Monday.
Trump has sued to delay the trial, accusing Engoron and James of ignoring the appeals court order to narrow the case.
He and the other defendants have said this made it impossible to
prepare for trial because they did not know which claims they would have
to defend against.
The appeals court is expected to rule on that request this week.
Throughout the war, the Ukrainian Army has shown a talent for surprise.(AP: Rodrigo Abd)
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Warfare has always been a blend of physical violence and psychological influence.
In
addition to the combat that takes place on the battlefield, and
long-range strikes against strategic targets, the other battle that
takes place in war is the battle of perceptions.
Belligerents
attempt to influence how each other thinks in order to degrade the
morale of combatants and civilians. They also seek to deceive enemy
leaders about future intentions and to bolster their support from
allies.
Ukraine has sought to
generate the perception of national unity among its people, of its will
to fight, and of the wider importance of its defence against an
authoritarian aggressor.
Russia,
on the other hand, has sought to generate the perception that its war
is one of national survival as well, with Russian fighting off NATO
expansion while also clearing Ukraine of "Nazis" and other threats to
Russia.
It is important to
understand the more prevalent perceptions among Western populations
because these shape public opinion about the war. This, in turn, shapes
the views of governments and their predisposition to assisting Ukraine
with military, economic and humanitarian aid.
Percpetions of war in turn influences the amount of military, econonmic and humanitarian aid Ukraine is offered.(AP: Vadim Ghirda)
Four perceptions shaping opinions
Over
the course of past 18 months, there are four perceptions about the war
which have shaped opinion — and polls — around Western support for the
Ukrainian government and the defence of their nation.
1. Russians are incompetent
The first perception, which emerged in the earliest days of the war, is that the Russians are incompetent.
This
was born largely from Russian missteps in northern Ukraine in the first
month of the war, and a massive quantity of videos on social media
showing exploding tanks ("turret launching" became a popular online
term).
There is no doubt that
the Russian military — from the lowest levels on the battlefield to
their strategic leadership — has made many missteps in the war.
But
like all human organisations — even bad ones — Russia has also
demonstrated the ability to learn and adapt. This has been a slow
process, hindered by centralised command models and a fear of reporting
failure.
Despite this, the
Russians have improved their tactics, and evolved their strategy to
embrace a "not lose while we wait out the West" approach.
So
the perception of "incompetent Russians" is a dangerous one for the
West. It denies agency to the Russians, assumes a lack of learning which
isn't backed by facts, and has at times underpinned excessive optimism
about a quick end to the war.
2. Ukrainian victory is inevitable
A second dangerous perception, related to the first, arose this time last year.
With
the Ukrainians having defeated the Russians north of Kyiv, they then
undertook offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson which liberated large
portions of their territory.
While
the boost in morale this provided for Ukrainians was crucial, it did
generate in many Western populations a perception of inevitable
Ukrainian victory in this war. This is as dangerous as the perception of
Russian incompetence.
Wars
never proceed in a straight line. They are non-linear, punctuated with
success and defeat, pauses and pulses of activity. And while this may
have led to good injections of military equipment for next
year's Ukrainian offensives, this perception of inevitable Ukrainian
victory, can lead to a lack of intellectual rigour in our analysis of
the war. This is particularly true regarding the levels of support
needed by Ukraine and the likely duration of the war.
The
Ukrainians have achieved extraordinary things in the past 18 months,
but no military force is invincible. Allowing such a perception to take
hold can only hurt their chances of receiving badly needed foreign aid.
Allowing a perception that Russia is incompetent to take hold is dangerous.(AP: Prigozhin Press Service)
3. Rampant Ukrainian corruption
A
third dangerous perception at the moment is of rampant Ukrainian
corruption. Unfortunately, this is a perception that has some groundings
in fact.
Before
the war, in 2021, Transparency International ranked Ukraine as 122nd
among all nations in corruption (Australia ranked 18th). The 2023
recruiting scandals, which saw President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remove
dozens of senior recruiting officials, and the more recent changes in
leadership in the Ministry of Defence, have reinforced for many the
perception of endemic corruption in Ukraine.
It
is a theme that some of those most opposed to Ukraine aid in the US
Congress cling to, and that Russian misinformation campaign reinforce.
This
is a very dangerous perception for the Ukrainians. It is something they
must address openly (they are), and remove as an inhibitor to it's
receipt of military and economic aid from abroad.
4. This is a European war
A final dangerous perception is that this is a European war.
There
are some in Australia, in the United States and in what is now
described as the "Global South" — including countries of Latin America,
Asia, Africa and Oceania — who see this as just a European struggle.
But this "European war" perception is wrong and it is dangerous.
The
war in Ukraine is actually shaping not just Europe but the global
security and political environment for the 21st century. It is
highlighting the differing characteristics of democracy and
authoritarianism.
How the West
supports Ukraine against Russia is being watched closely by other
authoritarians like China. As US strategists Kathleen McInnis and Dan
Fata have recently written, "waffling on Ukraine might actually make war with China more likely".
In war, battlefield results matter. But so do perceptions of results.
Deliberate
misinformation campaigns, or insufficient attention to facts, is
driving many different perceptions about the war in Ukraine. This is
shaping public opinion and the policies of governments who are either
supporting Ukraine or remaining on the sidelines.
In 21st century warfare, notions of victory will be informed by success on the battlefield, but also perceptions of success.
Mick
Ryan is a strategist and retired Australian Army major general. He
served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the
United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is also a non-resident fellow of
the Lowy Institute and at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and
International Studies.
Physicists can now all but rule out "repulsive antigravity" as the
reason the observable Universe is mostly made of ordinary matter.(Getty Images: dani3315)
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One
of physics' greatest mysteries remains unsolved, with scientists
reporting that antimatter falls under gravity — just like ordinary
matter.
Key points:
Physicists have been trying to understand why there is much more matter than antimatter in the Universe
Some people thought antimatter might be repulsed by gravity, driving it away from the known Universe
A new study shows this is not the case, and that antimatter behaves the same as ordinary matter under gravity
In
the first direct measurement of antimatter's behaviour under Earth's
gravity, physicists at CERN's Antimatter Factory made, corralled and
dropped the antimatter version of hydrogen atoms in a tube.
Turns out they fall a lot like plain old ordinary hydrogen atoms.
Antiparticles are almost identical to their ordinary particle "twins". They have the same mass, but carry the opposite charge.
For instance, an electron has a negative charge, while its antimatter sibling — called a positron — is positively charged.
The
CERN experiment, called ALPHA-g, is one of many ways physicists are
probing antimatter's properties and searching for any deviations from
ordinary matter.
The reason? To discover the fate of a whole lot of missing antimatter.
Why missing antimatter matters
Pretty
much all the matter in the observable universe — the stuff that makes
us, cities, planets, stars — is ordinary matter, made from electrons,
protons, neutrons and their more obscure kin.
And
according to this, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have
been made during the Big Bang, Curtin University theoretical physicist
Igor Bray, who was not involved in the new study, said.
"But we have only a little bit of antimatter, and many, many orders of magnitude more ordinary matter."
Yet despite years of scanning the observable Universe, we simply don't see any sign of huge quantities of antimatter out there,Professor Bray said.
"It's a huge puzzle ... as to why there are different amounts of matter and antimatter."
One
possible solution to this "missing antimatter" mystery is that gravity
actually repulses antimatter. If Newton's apple fell from the tree
towards the ground, an anti-apple would fling up into the sky.
If
such "repulsive antigravity" was the case, some physicists theorise,
antimatter made in the Big Bang might have been propelled into an
anti-Universe populated by antiparticles, and therefore be missing in
the Universe we observe.
But the new finding that antimatter and ordinary matter act the same under gravity, reported in the journal Nature, all but rules out this potential explanation, Professor Bray said.
And the mystery of antimatter's scarcity stands.
YouTube We use it in medicine — even though the particles explode. Dr Ciaran O'Hare is here to explain.
Antimatter wranglers
According
to Einstein's theory of general relativity, antimatter should be
subject to the same forces as ordinary matter, including the force of
gravity.
But until now, no-one knew for sure if that was the case. At CERN, a few groups have spent years trying to find out.
The Antimatter Factory is a giant nondescript warehouse building where the most explosive substance on the planet is made.(ABC Science: Carl Smith)
The
Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus or ALPHA team, which is behind the
new findings, didn't start out doing gravity experiments.
They
originally set out to study the internal structure of hydrogen's
antimatter counterpart antihydrogen, said Jeffrey Hangst, an
experimental physicist with the ALPHA collaboration.
"Once
we realised we were getting pretty good at trapping, accumulating and
manipulating antihydrogen, we thought we should build a gravity machine.
"It was kind of an afterthought."
Antihydrogen,
which comprises a negatively charged antiproton orbited by a positron,
carries no overall electric charge, making it ideal for gravity
experiments.
That's because
charged particles are affected by the magnetic field generated by the
Earth, which can override any gravitational effects.
Professor Hangst and his crew created a cloud of antihydrogen atoms in a "trap" inside their tall, pipe-like ALPHA-g device.
The ALPHA-g machine was assembled in 2018, but experiments didn't begin until 2021.(Supplied: CERN)
Magnetic fields held the antihydrogen atoms inside the trap, stopping them from colliding with the sides and annihilating.
Those magnetic fields at the top and bottom of the trap were then slowly removed, releasing the antihydrogen cloud.
As
the anti-atoms dropped through the bottom or jiggled their way out the
top, they hit ordinary matter and annihilated, producing flashes of
gamma rays which were counted by sensitive detectors.
YouTube How the ALPHA-g experiment works.
Around 80 per cent of the antihydrogen atoms fell downwards — the same as ordinary hydrogen in the same situation.
The
team also adjusted the magnetic field strength at either end of the
trap to counteract or boost the force of gravity, then watched what the
antihydrogen atoms did.
In every iteration, antihydrogen atoms behaved like ordinary hydrogen.
Is that the end for 'repulsive antigravity'?
Professor
Hangst said that while the study pointed to antimatter and matter
acting identically under gravity, "there's still wiggle room".
The behaviour of antihydrogen matched very closely to simulations, "but there's a lot of room for improvement".
While most antihydrogen atoms did fall down from the trap under normal gravity, one in five ended up emerging from the top.
That's
because the antihydrogen atoms inside the trap weren't stationery. They
jiggled around a little — not enough to escape the trap's magnetic
clutches, but just enough to shimmy up and out when released.
Professor
Hangst said from next year, the team planned to use lasers to cool the
antihydrogen atoms and stop — or at least reduce — that jiggle.
"The colder they are, the more of them should go out the bottom, like a liquid," he said.
This
will give he and his colleagues much more precise and sensitive
measurements, and might help explain the mystery of the missing
antimatter.
Or not, whatever the case may be.
"My
standing joke is, if it falls up, you win a Nobel Prize. If it falls
down, people tell you 'I told you so,'" Professor Hangst said.
"But we've been talking about this for many, many years and speculating about what would happen.
"And you never know in physics until you actually make the observation."
Wed 27 Sep 2023 01.00 AESTLast modified on Wed 27 Sep 2023 01.07 AESTAustralia’s
wealth gap has continued to grow over the past two decades, with
superannuation and property investment driving inequality across the
country, a new report from the Australian Council of Social Service and
the University of New South Wales has revealed.
Over
the past two decades the average wealth of the top 20% has grown at
four times the rate of the lowest, the report has shown using figures
from the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data in 2019.
Australia’s
wealthiest 20% were worth an average of $3.2m in 2019 – six times the
amount of the middle 20%, who were worth an average of $588,000, and 90
times that of the lowest 20%.
The wealthiest 5% were worth an average of $6.7m, holding one-third of the country’s wealth.
UNSW researcher Prof Carla Treloar said the
report showed while income inequality has remained relatively steady,
wealth inequality has increased over the past 20 years.
“We can reverse this trend through more affordable housing and a fairer tax and superannuation system,” Treloar said.
“Additionally, increasing income support payments permanently will reduce income inequality.”
Superannuation
was the largest contributor to an overall increase in wealth over the
two decades to 2019, with average contributions growing by 155% between
2003 and 2022 from $92,000 to $234,000.
The
report showed most of Australia’s wealth is tied up in property.
Contrary to the image of the “mum and dad” investor, 20% of the
wealthiest Australians hold 82% of the value of all investment property
and 78% of all shares and financial investments.
These
forms of wealth deliver substantial capital gains each year to
individuals with the highest incomes. In 2019, $29bn in taxable capital
gains was received by the highest 20% of individual taxpayers by income.
The
wealthiest 20% of Australians received 80% of their income from wages,
which averaged $4,660 per week before tax, and 15% from investments
which averaged $855 per week.
Those
in the bottom 20% relied on an average of $419 each week in social
security payments for 50% of their income and $318 per week in wages for
another 38%.
The Acoss chief executive,
Cassandra Goldie, joined other advocates in calling for the government
to remove policies that spur wealth inequality.
“Left
unchecked, growing wealth inequality threatens to exacerbate and
entrench generational, spatial and social divisions in our community,”
she said.
“Governments can reverse that tide
by fixing inequities in our housing and superannuation policy that
disproportionately benefit those with the most.”
Goldie
said the government’s timely pandemic response and increase to social
security payments reduced income inequality, but only temporarily.
“The pandemic response highlights the profound impact of government policy on income inequality in our society,” she said.
“Sadly,
it was a story of two steps forward and two steps back when the
increased payments were withdrawn and income inequality returned to
close to pre-pandemic levels.”
The results are increasing fears for Antarctic animals.
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Sea
ice that packs the ocean around Antarctica hit record-low levels this
winter, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC),
adding to scientists' fears the impact of climate change at the southern
pole is ramping up.
Key points:
The summer Antarctic sea ice extent also hit a record low in February, breaking the previous mark set in 2022
Scientists are concerned climate change may finally be presenting itself in Antarctic sea ice
Researchers warn the change may have dire consequences for animals like penguins
Researchers
warn the shift can have dire consequences for animals such as penguins
which breed and rear their young on the sea ice, while also hastening
global warming by reducing how much sunlight is reflected by white ice
back into space.
Antarctic sea
ice extent peaked this year on September 10, when it covered 16.96
million square kilometres, the lowest winter maximum since satellite
records began in 1979, the NSIDC said on Monday.
That is about 1 million square kilometres less ice than the previous winter record set in 1986.
"It's not just a record-breaking year, it's an extreme record-breaking year," NSIDC senior scientist Walt Meier said.
NSIDC said in a statement the figures were preliminary, with a full analysis to be released next month.
The summer Antarctic sea ice extent also hit a record low in February.(Reuters: Ueslei Marcelino)
Southern
hemisphere sea ice generally peaks around September and later melts to
its lowest point in February or March as summer draws to a close.
The summer Antarctic sea ice extent also hit a record low in February, breaking the previous mark set in 2022.
The
Arctic has also been hit hard by climate change over the past decade,
with sea ice rapidly deteriorating as the northern region warms four
times faster than the global average.
While
climate change is contributing to melting glaciers in Antarctica, it
has been less certain how warming temperatures are impacting sea ice
near the southern pole. Sea ice extent there grew between 2007 and 2016.
The study found that warming ocean temperatures are contributing to the lower sea ice levels.(Reuters: Natalie Thomas)
The
shift in recent years toward record-low conditions has scientists
concerned climate change may finally be presenting itself in Antarctic
sea ice.
While Dr Meier
cautioned it is too soon to say, an academic article published earlier
this month in the journal Communications Earth and Environment pointed
to climate change as a potential factor.
The
study found that warming ocean temperatures, driven mainly by
human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, were contributing to the lower
sea ice levels seen since 2016.
"The
key message here is that to protect these frozen parts of the world
that are really important for a whole number of reasons," said Ariaan
Purich, a sea ice researcher at Australia's Monash University who
co-authored the study.
"We really need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions."
