This post covers the period 5 - 31 January 2020. After our exciting / traumatic experience with the fires at the coast (see last post) our life seemed quite tame in comparison.
But it certainly hasn't been a quiet time internationally.
On 3 January 2020 President Trump directed a US drone which assassinated Qasim Soleimani, Iran's top general who was visiting Iraq. Iran responded by firing missiles at American military bases in Iraq. In the aftermath a Ukrainian airliner was mistakenly shot down by Iran - with the loss of 176 lives. Tragic!
The US House of Representatives decided that President Trump had abused his position and referred the case to the US Senate; the Senate started his impeachment trial on 17 January. That President Trump will be found "not guilty" by the Senate seems a foregone conclusion.
The UK will leave the European Union on 31 January 2020 (today); Brexit has finally arrived. Personally, I would prefer to see a united Europe, after the turmoil of the last 100+ years. What I could not understand is why there wasn't a second referendum. The first was 52% leave to 48% remain - hardly decisive - particularly when only about 70% of eligible voters actually voted. Some say the general election on 12 December 2019, which the Conservative Party won easily, was a defacto referendum, but there were many other factors at play then. A sad day.
On 30 January the WHO declared the new Wuhan coronavirus an international health emergency. The virus is spreading rapidly: from 282 reported cases (and 6 deaths) in China on 22 January to 7,800 cases (and 212 deaths) just ten days later. Several countries have reported cases of the virus, but no deaths so far.
The USA and China signed the Phase 1 Trade Deal (everything is a 'deal' these days!) on 15 January 2020, calling a truce in the trade war initiated by President Trump in 2018; China promised to buy additional $200 billion of American goods over the next 2 years, while the US will reduce some of the high tariffs it has imposed on imports from China.
The re-drafted North America Free Trade Agreement, now called the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), came into force.
The Dow Jones Index passed 29,000; Australia's ASX200 passed 7,000 (it was around 3,000 twenty years ago).
Boeing reported a net loss of $636 million in 2019 - its first loss in 22 years.
France deferred the introduction of a 'digital services tax' of 3% on the earnings in France of companies such as Facebook and Google after the USA threatened punitive tariffs on a range of French goods.
Tesla opened a new factory near Shanghai which will produce 3,000 cars per week. China now has over 200 million private cars, of which 3.8 million are 'new energy' cars; 435 million Chinese have drivers licences (29 million new licences were issued in 2019).
American basketball legend Kobe Bryant (41) died when his helicopter crashed near Los Angeles on 27 January. His daughter Gianna (13) and seven others also died.
Herewith photos of some of our activities in the last 3 weeks:
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| I was intrigued by the title, so read this book. The author Monica Tan is an Australian-born Chinese who felt that understanding Aboriginal culture would help her define her own identity. She drove around Australia for 6 months; the resulting book is a commentary on the state of Aboriginals in remote Australia. I'm not sure the journey helped her "find herself", but it certainly gave her a much better understanding of Aboriginal culture than most Australians have, and enabled her to get a position as a lecturer at the University of Western Sydney. I must admit to being conflicted by the debate which has gone on for decades about our First Nations people. This issue has been high on the Government's agenda - many policy initiatives and mountains of money - but with little result. I don't know what the answer is, do you? |
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| The route taken by Monica Tan around Australia. She packed camping gear into her Toyota RAV4 and off she went on a 30,000 km journey. A gutsy lady! |
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| We visited the National Gallery of Australia. This 'sculpture' by Urs Fischer (Swiss) is in the foyer. He is called 'Francesco', made of wax, and will finally melt away. |
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| We spent most time in the exhibition of paintings by an Australian painter Hugh Ramsay (1877 - 1906). |
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| Painting (1903) of Nellie Patterson, niece of famous singer Nellie Melba. |
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| Hugh Ramsay self-portrait. His early work showed difficulty with hands (hands are not easy to paint), but he became better later. |
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| We saw this powerful movie. Story of a working-class family in the north of England, who try so very hard but just can't get ahead - the shortcomings of the "Gig Economy" exposed. Wonderful acting. I became more and more frustrated and emotional at their futile struggles, and had to leave the theatre 15 minutes from the end. |
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| Lunch to celebrate Britt's birthday. From left: Lany, Nouvie, Vera, me, Aniko, Britt, and Touey. |
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| Dinner with Laurie Laffan and Alex Shumack. Mutual friends, Bernie & Jen Ryan, lost their house in the fires at the coast; so sad! |
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| Lunch to celebrate John Holmes' 95th birthday.From left: Betty Hill; John Holmes; Lucy & Nicholas (they flew over from Perth); me, Jan and Gerry Lynch; Dal Hyde; Brian Hill, and Vera. We didn't realise that window behind us was so bright. John was my boss in the Bangkok Embassy in 1973-4; a wonderful man. |
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| Bangkok, 1974. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam visited Bangkok. John Holmes was the Senior Trade Commissioner, and Bill Barry and I were his assistants. We organised a lunch for the PM with the Australian Business Community. I met Mr Whitlam a few years later and asked him to autograph this photo, which he did (you can just see his signature on my suit). |
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| Spooks emerging from the shadows. An interesting little exhibition at the National Archives. |
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| Every country (including Australia) has Security/Intelligence Agencies which try to get confidential information on domestic "trouble makers" and other countries. We are getting paranoid about Chinese influence here, but we have been doing similar things for years. |
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| An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery focussed on past Prime Ministers. |
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| Read the story behind this famous photo, below. |
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| A portrait of PM Julia Gillard (2010 - 13), Australia's first and till now only female Prime Minister. She was a red-head, single (with boyfriend), and a declared atheist. |
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| A violent hail-storm hit parts of Canberra at about 1pm on Monday 20 January 2020. This is the view from the front steps of Old Parliament House - a winter wonderland (in the middle of summer)! The hail and rain only lasted for about 15 minutes, but did a lot of damage. I normally drive when I am "on duty" as a volunteer guide at the Museum of Australian Democracy at OPH, but we heard the forecast and Vera dropped me off. The storm hit just as she was leaving home to pick me up, so she waited until it passed. Hundreds of cars and many houses were damaged. We were lucky. |
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| All the cars parked near Old Parliament House sustained damage - mostly smashed windows, but also indentations on the bodies of the cars from the hail - some as big as golf balls! |
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| Windscreen with many cracks, and the sun-roof and back window smashed. |
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| Vera & I went to a professional Women's basketball game: the Canberra Capitals played the Perth Lynx. It was 47-all at half time, but then our girls dominated and had a good win, 89-75. |
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| Some of the action, Perth in red, Canberra in black. These women are skillful. |
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| The Canberra Capitals team during a time-out. |
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| Our Canberra favourite player is Olivia Epoupa (26, French of Cameroonian descent). She is probably the smallest on the team - 165 cm, 53 kg - but is super-skilled and very quick. |
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| A picture of some of the crowd at the Capitals game. They now play at the National Convention Centre, a great venue. |
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| The Australia Indonesia Families Association (AIFA) had a get-together lunch to celebrate Australia Day. |
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| Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks - brilliant!) is the host of a popular children's TV program called Mr Roger's Neighbourhood; Fred is goodness personified, a grandfatherly figure who helps kids deal with emotional issues. Lloyd (Matthew Rhys) is a journalist sent to interview Fred; Fred recognises a troubled man, with severe anger issues, and decides to take him under his wing. In true Hollywood style, Lloyd is 'cured' at the end, reconciled with his father and sister, and wife. A tear-jerker, but fun. |
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| Charley Boorman is a British adventurer and TV star. This book describes his travel from Ireland to Australia in 2008. He (and his team) traversed 22 countries in 102 days, covering a distance of 20,473 miles. Charley used 112 forms of transport - ranging from elephants, buses, ferries, trucks, boats, and of course his first love motor bikes. What an adventure. In my next life I want to return as Charley Boorman!!! |
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| We attended the funeral of Kerri Huston, wife of Brendan Dyson with whom I worked in Austrade. A lovely person, Kerri died after a tough battle with cancer. Taken too young. RIP. |
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Parts of eastern Australia have received rain in the last 2 weeks, which has ameliorated the bushfire situation (and smoke haze) somewhat. But we were reminded how quickly things can change when a fire started south of Canberra 4 days ago. It has burnt 18.000 hectares of Namadgi National Park. The fire is only about 10 km from the southern suburbs of Banks and Gordon, but the wind direction has been in our favour (luckily).
In 2003 500 houses were destroyed in Canberra (and 4 people died), so Canberrans are rightly nervous about fires.
There is still one month of (official) summer to go, so the hot weather (and fire danger) will be with us for a while yet.
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The Australian Tennis Open finals will be played this weekend. There have been very hot conditions in Melbourne too. It's crazy - shouldn't play these professional sports at this time of the year.
After beating Federer in straight sets last night Novak Djokovic is into the Men's Final; he will play the winner of Thiem (who beat Nadal in a great game in the Quarters) and Zverev (two very talented young guns).
The Women's Final will be between Spaniard Garbine Muguruza and American Sofia Kenin (who beat Aussie favorite Ashleigh Barty in the Semis).
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Our grandson started primary school in Sydney today - happy Big School, Eddie!!!
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That's it for this post. I'll try to do a short post before we head off to India in 3 weeks (virus permitting!).
Best wishes, stay healthy and keep smiling.
Vera Olah and Alex Olah
Canberra, Australia
Friday, 31 January 2020
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