Here we go. Cruise ship Viking Venus cancelled its stop in Newcastle due to Rising Tide's blockade ("Cruise liner cancels city visit because of harbour blockade", Newcastle Herald 12/9). A clear financial loss to the city. Well done, Rising Tide.
The latest shooting of right-wing Christian youth activist, Charlie Kirk, is a sad indictment of how gun crazy the US is ('Radical left' denounced after activist shot, Newcastle Herald 12/9).
What is despicable is the linking of gun violence to the trans community by the victim before his death. Trump declared that Kirk's murder was a dark moment for America.
There have been a host of dark moments in his presidential terms, and it seems the country is spiralling into a black hole of undemocratic horror. Where it will all end and how it will ever be fixed is the big question?
Meanwhile, large numbers are rotting in hellholes like Guantanamo Bay, Alligator Alcatraz, a maximum security prison in El Salvador and other detention centres. My understanding is that many of these people have not committed any crimes whatsoever.
If you don't fit the bobby-socked, gun-toting, hand-on-heart, white patriotic religious American, then that country is fast becoming a living hell. That's dark.
LETTER writer John Cooper ("Bowen's cooked in power struggle", Letters, 11/9) suggests that Turkey might win the contest against Australia to host the COP31 Climate Summit.
Can either country claim genuine climate leadership? Turkey still relies heavily on coal and gas, but it argues that it is a developing country with "global reach" already having delivered nearly half of its transition to solar, wind and other low-carbon sources. Controversially, it is also preparing to bring nuclear power into the mix.
Australia, meanwhile, has world-leading rooftop solar, which makes up most of our 43 per cent renewable generation. But our position is undermined by continued coal and gas expansion. The recent approval of the North West Shelf gas extension, set to operate until 2070, has drawn strong criticism from its bid partners Pacific Island nations, whose very survival depends on phasing out fossil fuels. Weak federal environmental laws that fail to consider climate impacts and consolidate fossil fuel priorities are also endangering their trust.
To strengthen its COP31 bid and increase its credibility internationally, Australia needs to end fossil fuel expansion, reform environmental laws, and support its Pacific neighbours on the frontline of climate change.
YOUR correspondent ("Bowen's cooked in power struggle", Letters, 11/9) suggests that Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen might take a tour of Turkey's nuclear plant now under construction. Good advice - that would certainly confirm that the government made the right call in rejecting the nuclear fantasy.
This project, commenced in 2015 at a projected cost of $US24 billion ($A36 billion), was due to begin producing electricity in 2023. That date was pushed back to 2025, but work has now stopped on three of its four reactors, and work has slowed on the other. The Turkish Energy Minister has acknowledged that the first reactor will not come online before 2026. Heavy machinery has been shut down, all other major civil works have been suspended, and many essential foreign workers have left. So who knows when - or if - all four reactors will become operational.
If it eventuates, the plant will supply 10 per cent of Turkey's electricity at a fixed price of 12.35 US cents per kilowatt-hour, well above the current Turkish average of 8 cents and higher than the typical wholesale prices in the US, UK and France, which range from 4 to 7 cents. So it would produce less than a quarter of the electricity that Australia is already producing from renewables and electricity will cost the Turkish people much more than they are paying now.
I REJECT John Cooper's ridiculous claim that nuclear power is "clean energy" ("Bowen's cooked in power struggle", 11/9). The reality is that nuclear fission is both dirty and dangerous.
Every nuclear reactor is a repository of the most pernicious industrial waste ever known:
NOT being prone to get involved in conspiracy theories, I have suspicions about Senator Jacinta Price's motives in creating a big problem for Sussan Ley. Price purposefully jumped ship from the Nationals to the Liberals and has been an Angus Taylor supporter. She has refused to say that she supports her leader, Ley. Undermining Ley seems clearly on the agenda.
I HAD my balcony door open on Sunday afternoon, enjoying the great sunshine, and heard people yelling through a loudspeaker something about free Palestine. Does anyone know if they were successful at freeing whatever they were blah-blah yelling about?
THE shooting of Charlie Kirk in the US has pushed the country closer than ever to a civil war, and the only person who could prevent this is busy throwing fuel on the fire.
REGARDING Charlie Kirk's assassination, I don't understand what the radical left, far right or other pronoun garbage is. People who own a gun for the sole purpose of shooting someone they disagree with should be relocated to barren, central Australia and left to fend for themselves.
CRONULLA deserved a home-ground semifinal, even though the ground holds only about 15,000. That's more than enough capacity. No Roosters supporters missed out on tickets; all four were there.