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Russian windows are best avoided. Last week, Ravil Maganov, the chairman of one of the country's largest private energy companies Lukoil, fell out of one in a Moscow hospital. Nothing to see here? Actually, there is. Maganov was an outspoken critic of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and had called for its end. And he appears to have joined a string of Russian executives who have met sticky ends this year. Six of them were associated with energy - four with Gazprom and two with Lukoil. Gazprom, as we learned this week, turned off gas supplies to Europe and has said it won't turn them back on until sanctions are lifted. Suicides and murder-suicides are the official explanations but family members and former colleagues have voiced doubts. But back to the windows.
Catherine Belton, in her gripping book Putin's People, mentions a trio of deaths by window mishap that occurred within weeks of each other back in 1991, when the Soviet Union was being dismantled and the KGB was busily covering its tracks. All three held secrets about the Communist Party's finances and where the missing billions had gone as the Soviet system unravelled. Thirty years ago perhaps but the fashion for defenestration seems to be making a comeback. In October last year, a senior diplomat fell out of a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin. In December in Moscow, the founder of a nationalist blog who was also a vocal critic of Putin fell to his death out a window. In August, a Latvian-American investment banker and, you guessed it, a vocal critic of Putin, appeared to have fallen from an apartment window in Washington DC. In a "coincidence" likely to snap credulity, his business partner took a window fall from a Moscow apartment in 2017. Four health care workers fell from windows after reportedly protesting the government's handling of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Also in 2020, a scientist working on a COVID vaccine fell to his death from an apartment window in St Petersburg.
However crook our politics can seem - and despite our frustrations at the Not Scott government and the No Longer Scott party jostling in Question Time - at least we don't mysteriously fall out of windows when we criticise our leaders. Indeed, we make a national sport of poking fun at them - our Fiona is a dab hand. Sometimes we owe it to ourselves to remember that democracy trumps autocracy every time.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is there any hope for democracy in Russia? Should sanctions on Russia be toughened further? Or is what happens behind the oligarch curtain none of our business? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Speed could have been a factor in a horror road crash that has killed five high school friends and left people in a small rural community southwest of Sydney grieving, police say. Three girls, two aged 14 and one 15, and two boys, 15 and 16, died in the single-vehicle crash on Tuesday night. The Picton High School teens were crammed into a Nissan ute being driven by an 18-year-old man when it left the road and hit a tree near the Wollondilly Shire village of Buxton about 8pm.
- Australia is tightening its military ties in the Timor Sea in a move analysts say is designed to head off the growing influence of China. And the government has been told its support for Timorese membership of ASEAN could prove a key "bargaining chip" as it looks to counter Beijing in the region. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday revealed the government has signed a defence cooperation agreement with Timor-Leste, describing it as a "significant step" in relations between the pair.
- States and territories will no longer publish COVID-19 case numbers daily, moving to weekly updates on new infections. The decision follows a meeting of health ministers last Friday, but was not made public until yesterday. The weekly figures, to be consistently reported across jurisdictions, will include case numbers, new and total deaths, vaccination rates and hospital data, which will contain a breakdown of intensive care and ventilated patients.
THEY SAID IT: "Putin is a former KGB agent. He's a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election." - Mitch McConnell
YOU SAID IT: We asked: what can the government do immediately to ease cost-of-living pressures? Is it showing enough agility to respond to changing economic circumstances? Would the other mob be doing any better?
Murray has some suggestions: "Abolish the expensive perks that retired MPs and PMs get as our country can no longer afford them and greatly reduce the high salaries of the upper levels of the public service to a more realistic level. Maintain the reduced fuel excise levy indefinitely and make the mining companies pay a more realistic levy for the rich resources they are reaping from our country. Use the Northern Infrastructure Fund to fund infrastructure such as dams, roads and railways in the northern half of Australia and build it now. We cannot continue to overpopulate our capital cities when there is so much underutilised potential in the inland of our country. The major parties and their allies are only concerned about being re-elected, they are not genuinely concerned about the welfare of our country or the people. We need real action now, not just empty talk."
Likewise, David, who says: "Abolish the stage-three tax cuts, increase the pension and benefits scheme for those doing it hardest, roll forward the childcare reforms, maintain the petrol excise relief, improve wages in the community service sector - teachers, nurses, doctors, carers." On whether the government is showing agility: "No. Although to a large extent we are at the mercy of world events. The $243 billion in tax cuts could be much better targeted." And on whether the other mob would do any better: "Of course not - they would be introducing stage-foiur tax cuts for the executive-suite parasites."
John suggests: "A really good start to a fairer economy would be means testing all government welfare assistance, including childcare. The current system of not means testing significant payments to the wealthy mirrors the 2024 tax cuts which heavily favour the better off. Let us also start rolling back negative gearing and other tax breaks, grandfather if needed and spread over a reasonable period but we need to start."
Richard reckons The Echidna was a bit harsh on the government: "All very well to make the comments you have regarding the new government. There is no way they can correct the destructive policies of the past Liberal government that the Australian community kicked out in the short term. It takes planning and considered action. Screaming from the rooftop does not solve the structural problem this government has inherited. We are all suffering from a combination of world events and poor decision-making by the Liberals. We all need to take a deep breath, get on with it and get back to work, also stop complaining and give the new government breathing space."
Felix takes issue with a comment from Geoff: "I appreciate that parroting cynicism about politicians is so popular as to be cliched but, if Geoff is to have the last word as he did on Wednesday, he still needs to get basic facts right: the vote percentage for the three major parties was 80.5 (35.7 Coalition, 32.6 Labor and 12.2 Greens) - to claim that more than 50 per cent of voters abandoned them is just a tiny bit of an exaggeration."
Ross says, "I think you're missing the point of interest rate rises. They are done to make the cost of living higher so we stop spending and therefore slow the economy. Why would the government then turn around and do something to ease that? I don't think interest rate rises are the best way to do this because it takes from some and gives to others. There must be a better way."
Ian also suggests rate rises are the wrong way to go: "When I studied economics at school (a long time ago) interest rates were used to slow down or encourage business investment. Now they are used to clobber household spending, but it isn't working because government spending is increasing (to address the backlog in infrastructure works and fulfil election promises) and the resources market is booming. Inflation will continue regardless and business will put prices up to get the higher return on investment needed when faced with higher interest rates. The system is broken and needs a reset."