'Shocking': Mining damage in Sydney's catchment prompts calls for halt
Flows from a "significant" water source for one of Sydney's dams are turning orange and disappearing beneath the surface because of an underground coal mine.
Gangsters, gamblers and Crown casino: How it all went wrong
Former Crown Resorts employee Jenny Jiang was arrested and jailed for breaking Chinese gambling law. But even she didn't know what her company was really up to.
*How organized crime uses casinos to launder money
*How organized crime uses casinos to launder money
Israeli 'mafiosi' killed in Mexican brazen daylight hit
The woman in the wig called it a crime of passion, but police have a different explanation.
$445,000 in nine cash deposits in one day: fifth person charged over $100m syndicate
A fifth person arrested over an alleged $100 million money laundering syndicate allegedly delivered regular cash deposits from organized crime groups to different banks across Sydney.
Danhui Xu (J.D. 2020, Fordham), Free Money, But Not Tax-Free: A Proposal for the Tax Treatment of Cryptocurrency Hard Forks, 87 Fordham L. Rev. 2693 (2019):
Cryptocurrency has attracted extraordinary attention as one of the greatest financial innovations in recent years. Equally noticeable are the increasingly frequent cryptocurrency events, such as hard forks. Put simply, a cryptocurrency hard fork happens when a single cryptocurrency splits in two, which results in original coin owners receiving free forked coins. Such hard forks have resulted in billions of dollars distributed to U.S. taxpayers. Despite ongoing regulatory efforts, to date, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has yet to take a clear position on the tax treatment of cryptocurrency hard forks. The lack of useful guidance when filing tax returns has left taxpayers genuinely confused in the past few years.
Vibrant, global cities don't close down at sunset
NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet is having himself on when he equates Sydney with London and Paris as global cities.
James Weir on the place where celebrities go to die ... was papped stumbling through Sydney airport wearing a red puffer vest
Grieving in the internet age: would posting photos of my dead friend look performative?
Maybe my social media conundrum is all part of accepting the futility of grief. Nothing I do, or don’t do, will change his fate
The little-known Aussie screenwriter behind some of Hollywood's most well-known blockbusters
Writer Stuart Beattie wrote scripts for Johnny Depp, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Tom Cruise, but it's his newly released Vietnam War epic that he is most passionate about.
After a fallout with her sister, legal battles with her Bar Machiavelli investors, bad business deals, liquidations and out-of-court settlements, Paola Toppi tells the Wentworth Courier she is ready for her next challenge.Bar M owner to launch most audacious fine diner yet Powerhouse restaurateur Paola Toppi is used to putting out fires. The 55-year-old force of nature has spent a lifetime doing it, ever since her SP bookie dad died when she was 22 and her Italian mamma handed her keys, an $80,000 cheque and six weeks to convert a cockroach-infested grease trap.
The author is Walter Scheidel and the subtitle is The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity. Imagine a whole book on what he calls “the second Great Divergence,” namely that China developed a large, relatively unified hegemonic state early on, while Europe remained (mostly) politically fragmented.
Have you ever wondered why the Roman empire did not, in some manner, re-form in the Western part of Europe? And how did it matter that China had a tradition of having to defend against the steppe while Europe did not? Here is one brief excerpt:
…East Asia was characterized by a unipolar or hegemonic political system for 68 percent of the years between 220 BCE and 1875. This pattern presents a stark contrast to the prevalence of a balanced system in Europe for 98 percent of the years from 1500 to 2000, or indeed at any time after the demise of the mature Roman empire.
And:
Remoteness from the bulk of the Eurasian steppe was a constant, invariant across Europen history. Just as it did not matter if Latin Europe’s states were weak, it also did not matter if a large empire was in place. Unlike Chinese dynasties, the Roman empire did not bring forth a nomadic “shadow empire”: there was no ecological potential for it. The Pontic steppe, where Sarmatian tribes might have coalesced in response to the inducements of Roman wealth, was too detached from the Roman heartlands that lay behind the Carpathians, the Alps, and the Adriatic. To the west of the plains of Eastern Europe, both components of the “steppe effect” were conspicuous by their absence: and so — at least after Rome — was empire-building on a large scale.
If you wish to read a book to ponder the second Great Divergence, this is the one. You can pre-order it here.
Angela Merkel: ‘I distance myself’ from Donald Trump’s racist comments DW
Angela Merkel: ‘I distance myself’ from Donald Trump’s racist comments DW
