Every two years, a musical feat of world standard is achieved by a young Australian in an unlikely Victorian country town. Shepparton, home of irrigation and stone fruit, population almost 70,600, or an average AFL crowd, hosts it.

Those who have recently accomplished this stupendous achievement are unknown. Have you heard of Alex Zhang or Oliver She or Tony Lee? And you won’t have heard of Joshua Han, too, who on Saturday, 12 October, won this year’s Australian National Piano Award, taking home $41,000 in prize money.

 

Country town showcases world-standard young pianists    By Stephen Downes

 

Israel succeeded in what it is good at destroying, killing children and women and assassinating leaders, in killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. But the Israelis are only deceiving themselves if they think that through their crimes, they can accomplish success for their colonial project and force the Palestinian people to surrender.

 

Will Israel learn from its history or be doomed to repeat its mistakes?    By Ali Kazak

 

 

Moscow is interested in a lasting peace with Kiev, but not a short-lived truce, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Russia’s goal is to ensure its long-term security interests, Putin stressed during a meeting on Friday with the heads of leading BRICS media agencies at the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow.

"If we are talking about some kind of peace processes, then these should not be processes related to a ceasefire for a week, two weeks, or a year, so that NATO countries [which support Ukraine] could rearm and stock up on new ammunition,” he said.

Moscow is looking to achieve “conditions for long-term, sustainable and lasting peace that provide equal security for all participants in this difficult process,” the Russian leader explained.

Russian ships are popping up across the North and Baltic Seas, under the guise of research. An investigation found that they're actually spying on Western infrastructure like data cables and wind farms.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/russias-spy-ships-comb-the-baltic-sea/video-70472921

 

 

ACTUALLY, THE RUSSIAN SHIPS ARE DOING RESEARCH ON WESTERN WIND-FARMS AND DATA CABLES... THE AMERICANS, MEANWHILE, BLOW UP PIPELINES...

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday for the first Australian visit by a reigning monarch in more than a decade, a trip that has rekindled debate about the nation's constitutional links to Britain.

The Sydney Opera House's iconic sails were illuminated with images of previous royal visits to welcome the couple, whose six-day trip will be brief by royal standards. Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, which led to the scaled-down itinerary.

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Democrat Kamala Harris will campaign for the first time with Barack and Michelle Obama in separate events next week, hoping to inject some political star power in the final dash to election day in November, a senior campaign official said.

“The ICC’s credibility is hanging by a thread,” warned one former United Nations official in response to the court’s delay in deciding whether to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

 

Brett Wilkin

ICC WILL WITHDRAW WAR CRIMES CHARGES IF SINWAR CONFIRMED DEAD. ALSO: NETANYAHU STILL ALIVE

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC0MxcUXW9c

Bret Baier unveils inside look into Kamala Harris interview

 

Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier explains why his exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris was 'a little tense' on ‘Hannity.’

 

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

Hamas chief and Oct. 7 mastermind, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza on Wednesday after more than a year of eluding Israeli forces, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed Thursday.

“Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar,” the military announced on X.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR IS RUSSIA.... PUTIN, MORE TO THE POINT.

SINCE 1917, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE HAS WORKED HARD TO DESTROY RUSSIA....

SO WE IN THE WEST HAVE HAD TO JUSTIFY THIS LONG-STANDING HATE OF RUSSIA... 

IN 2015 SOMEONE (Maria Lipman for the EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS) WROTE THIS CLEVER BUT DESPICABLY "INVERTED" ARTICLE THAT IS FULL OF CRAP:

 

How Russia has come to loathe the West

In the quarter century of post-Soviet development, resentment towards the West has been accumulating to a broad, genuine and raw hatred.

 

After months of avoiding difficult interviews, Kamala Harris finally walked into the lion’s den today, sitting down for an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier. When the interview was announced the other day, I noted to my colleagues what a gamble this was for Harris, the sort of move her handlers would allow only if their previous strategy of avoiding all unscripted media interactions had become untenable.

 

Kamala Harris Flails on Fox News, as Expected

   By JEFFREY BLEHAR

 

Decades after the end of the Cold War, the US continues to employ proxy warfare as a central strategy in its confrontations with major global rivals, particularly Russia and China. This approach enables the US to extend its influence and pursue its geopolitical objectives without direct military engagement, instead relying on third-party actors to do the heavy lifting. 

 

US tees up Ukrainian and Syrian extremist proxies in fight against Russia

 

    BY Mohamed Nader Al-Omari

 

Any new deal to keep Russian gas flowing to the European Union through Ukraine would be a “dangerous”choice, the bloc’s energy chief, Kadri Simson, claimed on Tuesday.

EU countries are well prepared for a winter without Russian gas, the energy commissioner said at a news conference following a meeting of the bloc’s energy ministers in Luxembourg.

The comments also come as a key gas transit agreement between Moscow and Kiev is due to expire at the end of the year.

“There are no excuses, the EU can live without this Russian gas,” Simson said, as quoted by Bloomberg. “This is a political choice, and a dangerous one.” The European Commission is fully prepared for a zero-transit scenario thanks to alternative supply routes and strong levels of storage, Simson claimed.

President Joe Biden designated the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a “Major Defense Partner” to the U.S. on Sept. 23, a decision announced following UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s (MbZ) trip to the White House — the first-ever visit for an Emirati president. 

 

    SEP 29, 2024

US rewards UAE bad behavior making it a 'major defense partner'    The Biden administration's decision reflects a consistently misguided Middle East playbook

 

One of the dumbest things we are asked to believe about Israel’s genocide in Gaza is that all these civilians are being butchered because the Palestinians are evil and not the Israelis. That it’s the victims doing evil things and not the perpetrators.

That’s all this gibberish about “human shields” and “self-defense” is meant to do, you know. To make it look like the victims of siege warfare and carpet bombing are the ones responsible for all the death and destruction we are seeing and not the people who are actually doing it.

 

We’re Basically Being Asked To Believe That The Palestinians Are Genociding Themselves