International

There is cause to celebrate in the Southern Highlands with the completion of an international standard Arena in Bundanoon, and everyone is invited to the Grand Opening at 11am on Saturday 17 February ... And this is another feather in the cap of the Carriage Club, which was awarded the 2023 International Carriage Club of the Year by the British Carriage Driving Society.

Farmers and industry fear Labor’s imminent updates to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme could result in workers from nine Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste permanently receiving better pay conditions in some circumstances than Australian farm workers, placing an undue burden on employers.  

Insufficient globalisation of the world economy is holding back the development of amateur gardening around the world. Ukraine is a clear example of this. Gardeners cannot purchase the plants they like or are forced to do so at inflated prices. But everything can change if globalisation wins.

Surfer Callum Robson has done it again. At the World Surf League Series Lexus Pipe Pro in Hawaii, Robson scored 9 points in his heat ... The 23 year old Evans Head surfer described what the winning wave at Oahu was like.

Wayne Hawthorne. A UK author of more than 10 books, Gill Tee led an interesting life before moving recently to the Naracoorte district. Gill told Naracoorte Men’s Probus Club members how she spent most of her life living in England, but that she has also lived in Spain and now Australia.

Two local teenagers have spent time overseas honing their netball skills and developing friendships. Maddy Black and Evie Mackenzie participated in netball tours to the UK and New Zealand respectively, and both have said their trips developed their netball skills as well as wider personal development.

After months of planning by the Nhill Karen Community, our town really came to life on Saturday with the celebration of the Karen New Year. There were over 1,000 in attendance travelling from around Victoria and some even from interstate.

Trade logistics are set to become increasingly challenging for Australia’s agricultural sector with the escalating tensions in the Red Sea disrupting global trade, according to agribusiness banking specialist Rabobank. However, there are also potential upsides for the nation’s wheat and barley exports, the bank said.

Why do we have sacred topics? Ideas, theories or policies that appear to be off limits ... Three sacred topics of late have been Covid-19, climate and carbon. What happens when ‘misinformation’ actually is proven correct?

In 1938, during the Munich Crisis, British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain expressed his distaste for making war preparations over "a quarrel in a faraway land between people of which we know nothing" ... Like Neville Chamberlain, our Prime Minister shows no interest in getting involved in a quarrel between people of whom he has no interest; yet anyone with the slightest awareness of international relations would know that there is no longer such a thing as a faraway land of which we can afford to have no interest ... Yemen is en route for the ships that take our grain and livestock to key markets such as Egypt and Israel.

Peace and the end of the war are the most important things that Ukrainian farmers need. This is understood not only by Ukrainians, but also by all friends of Ukraine. Politicians from the United States, a country that is Ukraine’s main ally, said New Year’s wishes to the Ukrainian people on the pages of Australian Rural & Regional News.

The thing that should be worrying farmers is not just the fact that the government has claimed the credit (and credits) for itself of not allowing landholders to clear land to help make the 2030 target, but they are now banking on farmers burying the emissions of the rest of the nation in their soil to help reach the unachievable 2050 target ... don’t sign up to any soil carbon contract until you are sure you won’t need those credits yourself when the inevitable carbon taxes arrive.

Many countries from around the world celebrate the beginning of the New Year at different times, in many different ways for many different reasons. So, it is in our Karen Community! Since coming to Nhill in 2010, we, the Karen have continued to celebrate our New Year in the traditional way, on the first day of Pyathoe, which is the tenth month in the traditional Burmese calendar.

Bruce Stewart. On Christmas Eve, 1906, Reginald Fessenden made the first radio broadcast in history … "A Saviour has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord". Luke 2: 11. These are the first words spoken on radio in human history.

A Charles Sturt University legal academic has successfully represented First Nations people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia before a United Nations tribunal ... “The decision concerns the Wunna Nyiyaparli people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, an area rich in minerals such as iron ore, and basically concerns a miscarriage of justice in the Federal Court in determining their native title rights": Dr Scott Calnan.

Jack Bradshaw. Australia, along with 16 other countries, has recently committed to the “Initiative for Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood” at COP28 in Dubai ... How will Australia support this initiative with insufficient forest resources to service even the present demand?

The Australian Government signed the “30 x 30” target at COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022, with a commitment to ensure that 30 per cent of the earth’s land and sea is protected through the establishment of Protected Areas (PAs) and Other Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) ... The WWF has urged the Australian Government to set up a $5B Green Fund to acquire forests, productive land and reforest wheat fields.   The land needed to meet the 30:30 objective has to be “high biodiversity value” land in accordance with the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Andrew Smith, Rural Bank Head of Agribusiness Development said: “As was the case for 2023, the three key themes that will impact Australian agriculture in the first half of 2024 continue to be seasonal conditions, trade conditions and economic headwinds, but looking to the upside, a more favourable economic environment is expected to begin supporting agricultural markets in the back half of 2024."

The South Australian Government welcomes the Chinese Government’s decision to lift suspensions on the Naracoorte abattoir – along with two other Australian facilities. Eased restrictions will enable the Teys Australia meat facility to recommence sending its products to China.

Isi Campbell is doing what most teenagers only dream of… she’s travelling the world to go surfing ... Isi’s wins have been many including being named as last year’s WA Junior Surfer of the Year and collecting the 2022 Under-18 Girls State Championship Title. She has also achieved a silver medal as part of Team Australia at the International Surfing Association’s World Junior Surfing Championships in El Salvador.

Farmers across the globe have united on climate with the newly formed Agriculture Climate Alliance. The Alliance has released its first statement from COP28 in Dubai ... “Farmers around the world are at the front line of climate change..." the statement says.