I think, it is not hard to understand, that from the Russians point of view, it is of the utmost importance, that they create all around Russia sufficient buffer zones in order to secure Russian borders as much as possible.
They are very powerful country now! This gives them the means for securing all their borders!
I think they are not out for any wars: They just want to b e able to keep securing all their borders!
All people, that study history objectively, should find it obvious, why the Russians, with Putin as their leader, right now act the way they do!
Hasn’t the West fed them lie upon lie? I don’t see, why they should have any reason to trust us!
Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Bernard-Henri Levy, 2019COURTESY THE AUTHOR
Idon’t know if, by the time this article appears, Volodymyr Zelensky will still be alive.
We do know that he is in Kyiv, surrounded by his generals, in a bunker that the Sukhoi fighter jets seek.
And we have just seen him in a video where he appears helmetless, outside, like a young Churchill walking in the poor neighborhoods of London during the Nazi Blitz of September 1940.
But I also know that he is at the top of the Kremlin’s kill list, according to the English-language press.
His recent farewells come to mind—on Friday, Feb. 25, to his counterparts over Zoom during a special meeting of the European Union: “This is maybe the last time that you will see me alive.”
What is greatness?
True greatness, as taught by European chivalry?
Perhaps it is that.
That heroism, calm and proud.
A touch of Allende the night before the assault of the Moneda by Pinochet’s death squads.
The way he told President Biden, who offered up an exfiltration—“I need weapons, not a taxi”—and Putin, today’s Pinochet: “You can try to kill me, I am ready for it, since I know that the idea lives in me and will survive me.”
The first time I met him was on March 30, 2019, the night before the first round of his stunning election, in a seafood restaurant near the Maidan.
I had just performed, at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Looking for Europe, the theatrical monologue that I was bringing then to the European capitals. My friend Vladislav Davidzon, one of the last American journalists still in Ukraine—reporting for Tablet—had arranged the meeting.
Volodymyr Zelensky was, at the time, a very young man. Looking like a paper boy in jeans, old sneakers, and a black T-shirt with a worn neckline, he had spent the night celebrating the final performance, in an old Kyiv skating rink turned café-theater, of “Servant of the People,” the one-man show that had made him famous.
We talked about Beppe Grillo, that other cabaret actor, and founder of the Five Star movement in Italy, whom Zelensky hated being compared to.
About French Coluche, whose story he didn’t know well and whose final pirouette, a decision to retire from the presidential election, he did not quite understand: “Maybe because there was now a great man in France, François Mitterrand, so his service was no longer needed?”
About Ronald Reagan, by contrast, he knew everything; hadn’t he just done—for the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, which belongs to the Israeli-Ukrainian Igor Kolomoyskyi, Zelensky’s sponsor—the voice-over for a docudrama on the destiny of this actor in bad Westerns who became a great president?
We also spoke about Putin, the other Vladimir, about whom he had no doubt: If he would come face to face, he would make Putin laugh, just as he had made all Russians laugh. “I act in the Russian language, you know; the kids love me, in Moscow; they double over with laughter at my sketches; the only thing is …”
He hesitated …
Then, over the table, in a low voice: “There is one thing … this man does not see; he has eyes, but does not see; or, if he does look, it’s with an icy stare, devoid of all expression.”
The other subject of our conversation was his Judaism.
How could a young Jew, born into a family decimated by the Shoah, in the oblast of Dnipropetrovsk, become president of the country of Babi Yar?
It’s simple, he answered, with a hoarse laugh: “There is less antisemitism in Ukraine than in France; and, above all, less than in Russia where, hunting for the Nazi mote in thy brother’s eye, they end up missing the beam in thine own eye; wasn’t it Ukrainian units of the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz, after all?”
Our second meeting took place at the annual Yalta European Strategy conference, the Ukrainian mini-Davos created by the philanthropist Victor Pinchuk.
Like every year, there were distinguished geopoliticians, American officials, NATO representatives, acting or former European heads of state, and intellectuals.
Zelensky, now president, gave a strong speech in which he laid out his plan for combatting corruption, the scourge of his country’s economy.
The time came for the traditional closing dinner, where the host would, over pears and cheese, offer a “surprise” to anchor the event: one year, Donald Trump, candidate … another, Elton John or Stephen Hawking …
This time the surprise, arriving on the stage, in front of the tables, is the troupe of actors who had performed with the new head of state, up to his election.
One does an impersonation of Angela Merkel.
Another plays a supposed WhatsApp exchange, hilarious and salacious, between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
And here was a third, made up like Zelensky, playing a rustic Ukrainian who speaks poor English searching for someone to interpret for him and pointing, as if by chance, at the real Zelensky, who without being asked twice, bounds out of his chair to join his comrades on stage.
That was the situation.
A fake Zelensky, playing the real one.
The real Zelensky, playing the interpreter of the fake.
The fake, translated by the real, offers up howlers that the other is forced to translate, which make fun of him.
In short, an incredible show.
The room, faced with this quid pro quo, this joyful blurring of original and copy, faced with the self-effacement of a president swallowed by his avatar, hesitates among laughter, uneasiness, and amazement.
That night, Zelensky was Woody Allen inviting us, like in The Purple Rose of Cairo, into his film, or, better, into his TV series.
When the show was over, I went to ask him what Putin, in Moscow, might think of this enemy disappearing behind his mask and allowing himself to be silent within his simulacrum. He told me this: “It’s true! The attitude is surely unheard of in the main repertoire of the FSB! But laughter is a weapon that is fatal to men of marble! You shall see.”
We met again, once more, last year.
I was coming back from reporting in the Donbas, where I had run the front lines from Mariupol to Luhansk, with elite troops of the new Ukrainian army. And while my photographers, Marc Roussel and Gilles Hertzog, had laid out some of their best shots on the coffee table in the room where we were being received, a whole other Zelensky revealed himself.
In one of the photos, taken at Novotroitske, Zelensky recognized Major General Viktor Ganushchak, the leader of the 10th Battalion of the Alpine Chasers brigade, mildly paunchy in a chicane jacket straight out of frozen Verdun.
About another photo, taken in the Myroliubovka zone, near Donetsk, he commented to Andriy Yermak, his close adviser, to his right, on the vulnerability of three 155 mm cannons, positioned like prehistoric iron monsters in the middle of a field.
About a third, taken near Donetsk, on a gutted road in the ghost town Pisky, he knew the exact number of brave souls who, dug into the mud and snow, held the line.
And then, in Zolote, not far from Luhansk, in a maze of trenches made from an assembly of planks planted in the black earth, he knew by name, having just inspected them, most of the overequipped Rambos, their faces muddy or hooded, who stood guard every 30 feet and seemed hypnotized by the no man’s land before them.
Did Volodymyr Zelensky already know, on that day, that Putin had decided he’d had enough of the Ukrainian democratic exception, and of his clowning?
Did he understand that he would never, after all, laugh with the cold-eyed man with an assassin’s soul?
At that moment, things became clear.
I understood that this former artist of the LOL and the stand-up, whose true nature I thought I had found at the gala dinner in Kyiv, had transformed himself into a warrior.
I saw him join the exemplary company of the men and women that I’d revered my whole life—from republican Spain to Sarajevo and Kurdistan—who are not made for the part that befalls them, but who take it up with panache and learn to make war without loving it.
And in his silhouette grown heavier, on his features once young like French republican drummer boy Francois Joseph Bara, now resembling the French revolutionary Georges Danton, I saw the resistance fighter whose courage amazes the world today.
This man prefers to die fighting than to suffer the dishonor of forced surrender.
The Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. It is a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, under the supervision of the Swiss government.
The program was founded by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum in 1993 under the name “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” and was renamed to Young Global Leaders in 2004.[1]
Schwab created the group with $1 million won from the Dan David Prize,[2] and the inaugural 2005 class comprised 237 young leaders.
People recognized as a Young Global Leader are allowed to attend one meeting of the World Economic Forum for free.[3]
Reception
BusinessWeek‘s Bruce Nussbaum describes the Young Global Leaders as “the most exclusive private social network in the world”,[4] while the organization itself describes the selected leaders as representing “the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation”.
Denise Booth tends to her sister’s grave every evening before the sun goes down.
“We miss her,” Denise says quietly.
“Miss her ways. And her smiles and that.”
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
So many graves in Doomadgee cemetery belong to young people like Yvette “Betty” Booth.
Just two months before she died, the teenager was diagnosed with an illness that has all but disappeared in most of Australia.
Betty (centre) was just 18 years old when she died.(Supplied/Four Corners: Nick Wiggins)
Denise has the illness too. It’s called rheumatic heart disease (RHD).
Betty was supposed to get weekly check-ups and urgent surgery, but that never happened.
She visited Doomadgee Hospital’s emergency department 12 times in under two months.
On some of those occasions, she was given Panadol through a security grate and sent away.
Her family is heartbroken and angry.
Denise Booth at her sister’s grave.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS)
“We are human beings, you know?” says Betty’s uncle, Martin Evans.
“We want to get the same treatment as the next person.
“What happened at that hospital — it’s just not right.”
Betty’s death is one of three in the space of a year uncovered by Four Corners in an investigation into health care in this remote town.
Diagnosis
When doctor Bo Remenyi visited Doomadgee in July 2019 to screen children for RHD, she recognised Betty Booth and her family right away.
Dr Remenyi started her medical career in the remote north-west Queensland town and the plight of RHD patients had inspired her to specialise in paediatric cardiology.
She had treated Betty as a baby 18 years earlier and even babysat her.
When she examined Betty, now aged 18, Dr Remenyi quickly realised Betty had severe RHD.
Doctor Bo Remenyi (centre) with Betty and her mother Norma Mick.(Supplied/Four Corners: Nick Wiggins)
Betty needed urgent surgery to repair the valves in her heart.
Dr Remenyi’s team left detailed instructions for her care and multiple health bodies — including Doomadgee Hospital’s doctors and director of nursing — were emailed Betty’s referral to a cardiology service.
Despite this, no record of her illness was kept on Doomadgee Hospital’s file.
Betty was supposed to be reviewed weekly, but that never happened.
‘The shut-up pill’
Betty first went to the hospital four days after her diagnosis, at 11pm with a cough, fever and vomiting.
She was given Panadol and treatment for dehydration and sent home to return in daylight hours.
On that occasion, staff took her temperature and pulse, but that wouldn’t always be the case.
Dr Remenyi says it’s not unusual for patients who go to the hospital on weekends and after hours not to be properly assessed.
“The conversation takes place over a cage, without actually touching the patient or examining the patient or giving that real opportunity to discuss the symptoms,” she says.
Betty would go on to visit the emergency department 12 times, with symptoms including difficulty breathing, fever, an abnormally high heart rate, and coughing up blood.
But she was given paracetamol (and once, antibiotics) – often handed through the locked after-hours security window – and sent away.
Betty went to the hospital several times with symptoms like coughing up blood and difficulty breathing.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS, Nick Wiggins)
On some of these occasions, hospital staff did not carry out basic vital signs observations that are routine in other hospitals – taking temperature, pulse, oxygen saturations.
“How many times can you present, with the same symptoms, pressing symptoms, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, tachycardia, and each time the outcome is not different?” Dr Remenyi says.
She says Betty’s care represents “clearly, a failure of the health system”.
An independent review of Betty’s care would later say, “generally patients do not present in the middle of the night for no reason, and it is rare for them to present frequently at that time”.
Vicki Wade, director of lobby group RHD Australia, says the use of paracetamol in this way is disappointingly widespread in remote Aboriginal communities.
“We know that it’s not the right treatment, but unfortunately, Panadol’s easy to give out, so you know, people will get the Panadol and we’ll say, ‘oh, that’s the shut-up pill’,” she says.
Four Corners investigates how the health system has failed women like Betty, tonight on ABC TV and iview.
‘They are supposed to be professionals’
After multiple presentations to Doomadgee Hospital in August 2019, Betty went to Townsville, where her mother was having an operation.
Townsville Hospital was also aware of Betty’s diagnosis and while there was toing and froing between medical services and Betty to try to set a date for her surgery, it never happened.
When Betty returned to Doomadgee after three weeks, she fell desperately ill again.
Marilyn Haala, a relative who was staying at Betty’s house that weekend, noticed Betty’s face and neck were “all swollen”. Swelling can be a serious warning sign of heart failure.
“She was sick, she just kept coughing — she didn’t look good,” Ms Haala says.
“She was struggling to breathe.”
Marilyn Haala encouraged Betty to go to the hospital.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS)
The family decided Betty should go to the hospital, but when Betty’s sister took her to the emergency department, her family says she was again sent home with Panadol.
“An 18-year-old girl should not be sent home with Panadol,” Mr Evans says.
“They are supposed to be the professionals, check her file for goodness sake.”
Weenie George, the mother of Betty’s best friend, says this practice was commonplace at the hospital.
“They don’t treat them and check them,” Ms George says.
“They just send them home. They don’t do their job at night.”
Monday, September 23
Weenie’s husband Terrence and daughter Shakaya both had rheumatic heart disease, so when Betty turned up to their house, they knew the signs of a very unwell patient.
“She was looking a bit puffy in the face. She was breathless talking to me and Terrence,” Weenie George says.
Weenie George says it’s common at night for the hospital to send people home without checking them.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS)
Terrence George says when Betty sat down on their verandah, he said: “You look sick, Bubba, you better go to the hospital”.
That’s what Betty did. She never came home.
In the afternoon, a nurse recorded Betty had a fever and a fast and irregular heartbeat.
But critically, yet again, there was no alert on the hospital’s online system to show Betty had severe RHD and required urgent surgery.
By 4:45pm, Betty had been waiting for hours, seriously ill, and staff finally decided she should fly out, but she was categorised as “low dependency”, meaning staff had up to six hours to get her on a flight.
An hour later, a plane was ordered from Townsville, 850 kilometres away, instead of the closest big hospital, Mount Isa.
Betty waited for hours before staff decided to fly her out of Doomadgee.(Supplied/Four Corners: Nick Wiggins)
Marilyn Haala and her husband Clennon Bob were pacing around outside the hospital, “stressing out”.
“I wanted to go in to see her,” Mr Bob says.
“No-one would let me go in, even the nurse or the doctors.”
Within an hour, Betty deteriorated badly.
By the time a Royal Flying Doctor Service plane finally landed at Doomadgee, Betty Booth had been dead for almost two hours.
“[The] doctor that was treating her, came out and gave us the bad news: Betty didn’t make it,” Mr Bob says, slowly shaking his head.
“It broke both of our hearts,” Ms Haala says, weeping.
She says it is still painful to talk about Betty, but she hopes it will help other young people in the Doomadgee community with RHD.
“Because what they did there, they just going to keep killing people,” Ms Haala says.
“They going to keep killing them. And get away with it.”
A long wait for answers
Just three months after diagnosing Betty, Dr Remenyi returned to Doomadgee for the teenager’s funeral.
“To see Betty, who was a young, enthusiastic, caring, compassionate young woman with a bright future – to see her in a coffin … devastating,” Dr Remenyi says.
“I felt angry that in 20 years, nothing had changed.
“I became a paediatric cardiologist because I wanted to stop young women, specifically, dying from rheumatic heart disease.
“When I diagnosed Betty with rheumatic heart disease, I felt really positive.
“I felt like I could change the trajectory of her life.
“Now I’m seeing her in a coffin … I felt responsible.”
A community protest followed Betty’s death. Locals were angry and demanded answers.
Locals staged a protest outside the hospital in September 2019.(Supplied: Aiden Green/Four Corners: Nick Wiggins)
The local area health service promised an independent review into what went wrong, but the family heard nothing for almost two years.
In August 2021, shortly after Four Corners began making calls about this story, Betty’s mother Norma Mick suddenly heard from the local area health service, asking her to come for a meeting to discuss a report into Betty’s death.
Ms Mick was shocked to see the report was dated March 2020 – 17 months before.
In all that time, nobody at Doomadgee Hospital or in the health department had thought to share the report with the family.
It catalogued a series of failures that preceded Betty’s death.
Treated ‘like dogs’
The “Betty’s Story” report found Doomadgee Hospital had “clinical risk and poor governance”, low expectations for Aboriginal patients’ health, and an unwelcoming hospital environment.
“[It feels] like they treat us like animals,” Ms Haala says, angrily.
“It’s the truth.”
Other locals cited in the report said the hospital treated them “like dogs”.
Dr Remenyi hoped Betty’s diagnosis would change her life.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS)
Dr Remenyi says there’s a division between health services and the community.
“It’s racism … one group of people thinking potentially that they are better than the other,” she says.
Pat Turner, who heads the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), the peak body in indigenous community health, says it’s inexcusable for a patient to be repeatedly turned away like Betty was.
“If I present to an emergency department and I’ve got serious symptoms, I don’t want to be handed Panadol through the grate.”
“I want a full triage and I want to have all the work done that any other Australian has a right to expect.
“The racism is absolutely out there, and it has to stop.”
RHD thrives in communities with poor housing and living conditions.(Four Corners: Louie Eroglu ACS, Nick Wiggins)
Despite the high incidence of RHD in Doomadgee for decades, the “Betty’s Story” report found staff at the hospital had “limited understanding of rheumatic heart disease”.
The disease, which had all but disappeared in white Australia by the 1990s, now almost exclusively affects Aboriginal Australians.
What is RHD?
It’s caused when repeated strep A infections in the throat or skin sores are not adequately treated, and they develop rheumatic fever
Getting rheumatic fever repeatedly damages the valves in the heart and leads to RHD, which can cause heart failure, stroke and death
It thrives in poverty – where poor housing and living conditions can allow the strep bug to spread
Rates of RHD have risen from 67 cases in 100,000 in 2014 to 81 cases in 100,000 in 2019.
But the incidence of RHD in Doomadgee’s children is far greater — 4,400 cases in 100,000.
That’s higher than sub-Saharan Africa.
“It is an appalling statistic in a country as capable and competent as Australia,” Pat Turner says.
“We stand back and watch children, time after time again, year after year, decade after decade, having still the same end result,” Dr Remenyi says, “Which is dying far too young.”
Within a year of Betty Booth’s death, two other young women with RHD died after seeking treatment in Doomadgee.
One of them was 17-year old Shakaya George, daughter of Weenie and Terrence George, the other was Shakaya’s aunt, Adele Sandy.
“They’re not helping us,” Ms Haala says of the hospital.
“They’re killing us.”
After being contacted by Four Corners, the Queensland coroner announced on Friday it would hold an inquest into the women’s deaths, including “the adequacy of the care and treatment received”.
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath told Four Corners in a statement that all three cases were under investigation by North West Hospital and Health Service.
“I would also expect any allegations about the standard of care delivered at Doomadgee Hospital to be investigated,” she said.
Follow the investigation into the deaths of these three women tonight on Four Corners on ABC TV and ABC iview.
NSW flood: Sydney residents in west and north-west evacuate as Warragamba Dam spill
NSW flood: a flooded street in Penrith in Sydney’s west. More severe weather is expected overnight and Thursday, with NSW authorities warning communities at risk to evacuate as Warragamba Dam spills. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA
New South Wales authorities have warned communities at risk of major flooding in the Sydney region to evacuate or prepare to evacuate as the Hawkesbury, Nepean and Georges rivers continue to rise.
Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main reservoir, was spilling at a rate in excess of 70 gigalitres a day on Wednesday after torrential rainfall over its catchment exceeded earlier predictions, according to a NSW government official.
The spill, which began at about 3am, was expected to peak on Thursday. The previous expectation of an upper range of the spill at 350GL a day has now been lifted to match or exceed the 440GL/day rate experienced during the March 2021 floods. That event caused widespread damage to areas to Sydney’s north and west.
“Major flooding is occurring in south-west Sydney exceeding March 2021 levels with major flood warnings in place. It’s raining, with some areas hit harder than others and more rain on its way. Keep a serious eye on the warnings and forecasts,” the NSW Bureau of Meteorology tweeted before 9pm.
“This is our worst fear,” the NSW deputy premier, Paul Toole, said earlier on Wednesday evening. “It will get worse before it gets better.”
In a worst-case scenario, Warragamba’s spill rate could peak at 600GL/ day, Toole told a media conference. A potential evacuation could involve “quite a few hundred thousand people”, NSW State Emergency Service commissioner, Carlene York, said.
Sydney Harbour holds roughly 500GL. More flood water, too, is entering the Hawkesbury-Nepean region from other tributaries that enter the flood plain below the dam.
There were also concerns Redbank Dam could fail, prompting the SES to direct people in some parts of North Richmond, north-west of Sydney, to evacuate.
“We just recently issued an evacuation order for the area in North Richmond downstream of the Redbank Dam because it may fail,” York said. “I want all those residents to make sure they do evacuate from that area.”
Residents were told to evacuate in some areas of Agnes Banks, Bligh Park, Camden, Cattai, Chipping Norton, Georges Hall, Lansvale, Leets Vale, Milperra, Moorebank, Sackville, Warwick Farm and other suburbs.
Authorities also told thousands more residents who were affected by Sydney’s 2021 floods to be on standby to leave.
NSW Health told people isolating due to Covid they should still evacuate their home if threatened by rising flood waters.
“If you are told to evacuate, you must evacuate,” NSW acting chief health officer Dr Marianne Gale said. “An emergency evacuation is a valid reason to leave your home.”
The Bureau of Meteorology shifted its forecast for when Sydney’s heaviest falls may land, predicting 120mm to 150mm on Thursday, up from 50 to 70mm. Since 9am on Wednesday, the city had only collected about 10mm, although inland sites were much wetter, with about 84mm up to 5pm at Richmond.
The bureau has also issued a major flood warning for the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers.
“Significant river level rises have been observed along the Nepean River where major flooding is possible from early Wednesday evening,” the BoM said.
“Along the Hawkesbury and Lower Nepean rivers major flooding is also possible from overnight Wednesday into Thursday at Penrith, North Richmond, Windsor and downstream based on forecast rainfall.”
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“We are going to be getting massive, like torrential rainfall,” Stephanie Heard, a spokesperson for the NSW SES, said.
“We want the community to start preparing for the potential for evacuation. We really need to make sure that the community listens and will follow our advice. Basically, it’s really quite a dangerous weather system that we’re seeing.”
There had already been 18 flood rescues in the Sydney region by Wednesday afternoon. Rainfall totals could reach 150mm to 200mm over the Hawkesbury region, Heard said.
While Sydney itself had been spared most of the heavy rain from the developing east coast low, inland areas including the Warragamba catchment had been receiving big falls.
Ben Domensino, a senior Weatherzone meteorologist, said the rain gauge at Warragamba had collected almost 100mm from 9am to 3pm. By comparison, Sydney’s Observatory Hill near the CBD had only about 30mm in the 30 hours to 3pm on Wednesday.
“This system has continued to surprise as to the extent of the rainfall,” Domensino said, noting its evolution from a so-called “rain bomb” over south-east Queensland and northern NSW into a low pressure system near the NSW central coast.
“This system at the moment is causing much heavier rain on the ranges than it is near the coast. There’s likely to be some heavy rain near the coast especially as the low pressure system comes in overnight into Thursday morning.”
People who may need to be evacuated should prepare an emergency pack and gather pets, which evacuation centres will be able to accommodate, the SES’s Heard said. The kit should include key valuables but also Medicare and other ID. More details can be found here.
Not surprisingly given the spill from Warragamba, the dam is 100% full, WaterNSW said. The entire dam network is sitting at 99.2% and it’s likely they will all be spilling by the end of this rain event.
Along with the warnings about floods and heavy rain, there are strong wind gusts and dangerous surf forecast, the latter up and down the NSW coast, the BoM said.
The truth, they say, is the first casualty of war, more so at a time when misinformation spreads so rapidly. But with correspondents on the ground on both sides of the Ukraine-Russia border, in Kyiv, Moscow, Brussels and other European capitals, the Guardian is well placed to provide the honest, factual reporting that readers will need to understand this perilous moment for Europe and the former Soviet Union.
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There is a lot to get your head around with the weather at the moment.
But here are the answers to five quick questions about the floods.
1. How unusual is this rain?
Very unusual.
The rainfall totals from this event have been staggering.
From 9am Thursday to 9am Monday three stations recorded over a metre of rain:
– 1637mm at Mount Glorious, QLD – 1180mm at Pomona, QLD – 1094mm at Bracken Ridge
Brisbane has absolutely smashed its three-day rainfall record with 677mm, by recording over 200mm each day for three days in a row.
Before this week it had never even had two consecutive days over 200mm and had only ever recorded eight in total.
The mean annual rainfall for Brisbane is 1011.5mm and it recorded 741mm in just the four days from 9am Thursday and 9am Monday.
Speaking of records, Weatherzone is reporting Dunoon in NSW recorded the second-highest daily rainfall total in NSW when 775mm fell in just the 24 hours to 9am Monday.
If you are not sick of stats yet, Doon Doon in NSW picked up a whopping 1040mm of rain in just the 48 hours to 9am Tuesday. That is over a metre of rain in just two days.
But it is not just the big totals that have made this rainfall event unusual.
Bofu Yu of Griffith University’s School of Engineering and Built Environment and Australian Rivers Institute observed that while the rainfall amount over south-east Queensland from Thursday to Sunday was huge and widespread, the intensity of rain was moderate at around 50mm per hour.
“This is distinct from the 2011 event when rainfall was concentrated in the western part of the Brisbane River Basin with a much higher peak rainfall intensity,” Dr Yu said.
The result is the rainfall has been spread far more liberally around the catchment this time and more water is flowing down the small creeks and tributaries, which has a flow-on effect further downstream.
Skinner and Lowes Heritage Wharf, Murwillumbah, Tweed River.(Supplied: Fran Silk)
“The peak discharge may not be as high compared to the 2011 flood, but high flows will persist over a much longer period of time,” Dr Yu explained.
South-east Queensland and northern NSW are historically flood prone and have certainly flooded before but this event is definitely different from those we have seen in the past.
2. Is climate change involved?
Attributing any one event to climate change is tricky, especially in the case of rain, which has many contributing factors.
But there is a clear link between a warming atmosphere and its ability to hold more moisture and deliver that moisture in the form of heavy rain.
“With each degree increase in the atmospheric temperatures, air can hold roughly 7 per cent more water vapour that is eventually available to fall as rain,” as Nina Ridder, research associate in the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, explained.
“This means that under future conditions which are likely to be higher than what we have seen in the past.
“Over the past decades we have already seen an increase in the number and intensity of extreme rainfall events and we are expecting this trend to continue into the future.”
Another major climatic factor at play at the moment is the La Niña, which the BOM declared last year. It has been busy enhancing the rainfall over Australia all summer.
When La Niña conditions are in place warm tropical waters in the north and strong trade winds from the east encourage moisture onto Australia.
So, when individual weather systems come through it gives them another moisture kick.
David Karoly, Honorary Professor in the University of Melbourne School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, concludes that both climate change and the occurrence of La Niña are likely to have contributed to the increased risk of heavy rainfall in south-east Queensland in the current event.
“The difficult part is to precisely quantify the increase in risk or the contribution to the amount of rainfall, both of which are uncertain,” he said.
Brisbane has experienced an extraordinary amount of rain over the past few days.(ABC News: Michael Rennie)
3. What is a rain bomb?
This event has been commonly referred to as a “rain bomb” over the past few days.
But while it may have felt like the rain has been bombing down, a “rain bomb” is not a meteorological term.
There is a thing called “bomb cyclogenesis”, which is when a low pressure system develops unusually quickly, but that is not what happened this week.
Likewise there is another phenomena called a “wet microburst”, which is when a huge amount of rain drops suddenly from a storm, but that is generally over a small area.
What has been going on over the past week has been a surface trough, with upper atmosphere enhancement funnelling tropical moisture off the Coral Sea onto the coast which was blocked from moving off.
This created a large area of prolonged heavy rain.
Flooded canals at the Gold Coast.(Supplied: Reign Scott Drone Imagery)
4. What’s to come?
More extreme weather is forecast over the coming days as an east coast low develops off the NSW coast.
Severe thunderstorm warnings are in place for large parts of New South Wales this evening and flood watches are in place for parts of the NSW coast from Newcastle to Bega, pushing down into Victoria.
Wind gusts are forecast to be up around 90kph and could uproot trees and powerlines.
Where exactly the worst of the impacts will be felt in the coming days will largely depend on where the low moves to.
But heavy rainfall is expected on the southern side of the low, and Sydney residents have been urged to brace for flooding.
Impacts along the NSW coast are expected to linger until Thursday.
Back up in northern NSW and south-east Queensland it looks like showers and storms could return as soon as Wednesday afternoon.
The BOM is saying there is the potential for severe thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, damaging winds and large hail.
With catchments already on the edge, it is a worrying time for low lying areas
Longer term, summer may be over but there are still two months left of the tropical wet season.
The autumn outlook suggests wetter-than-average conditions are likely to remain across much of the country.
BOM’s autumn outlook indicates above median rainfall is likely for much of the county while fairly average conditions are likely elsewhere. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
There is still plenty of time for more tropical moisture to make its way south, bringing more heavy rain with it.
With the catchments so sodden, it won’t take much now to trigger more flooding.
If you are in a potential risk zone and have not yet thought about what you would do in a flood situation, this would be the time.
5. Where can I find the latest information?
ABC Emergency is the go-to place for up-to-date local emergency warnings.
The website also has a number of resources on how to prepare for and protect yourself from different disasters and emergencies.
It also release near daily severe weather updates during big events on its YouTube page.
If you would like the latest updates on rainfall numbers and where all the river levels are sitting across the country that can also be accessed through the BOM website here: http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/flood/?ref=ftr
Flood maps for your local area should be available on your local council website.
South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political, and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million[2] people out of the state’s population of 5.1 million.[1][4][5]The area covered by South East Queensland varies, depending on the definition of the region, though it tends to include Queensland’s three largest cities: the capital city Brisbane; the Gold Coast; and the Sunshine Coast. Its most common use is for political purposes, and covers 35,248 square kilometres (13,609 sq mi)[6] and incorporates 11 local government areas,[3] extending 240 kilometres (150 mi) from Noosa in the north to the Gold Coast and New South Wales border in the south (some sources include Tweed Heads (NSW) which is contiguous as an urban area with Brisbane/Gold Coast), and 140 kilometres (87 mi) west to Toowoomba (which is simultaneously considered part of the Darling Downs region).
South East Queensland was the first part of Queensland to be settled and explored by Europeans. Settlements initially arose in the Brisbane and Ipswich areas with activity by European immigrants spreading in all directions from there. Various industries such as timber cutting and agriculture quickly developed at locations around the region from the 1840s onwards. Transport links have been shaped by the range of terrains found in South East Queensland.
The economy of South East Queensland supports and relies on a wide diversity of agricultural manufacturing industries, commerce and tourism. The region has an integrated public transport system, TransLink. The gross domestic product is $ 170 billion[2]
South East Queensland, classified as an interim Australianbioregion, comprises 7,804,921 hectares (19,286,380 acres) and includes the Moreton Basin, South Burnett, and the Scenic Rim along with ten other biogeographic subregions.[7] The term South East Queensland has no equivalent political representation. The area covers many lower house seats at the federal and state levels. As Queensland has no upper house, there are no Legislative Council provinces or regions to bear the name either.
South East Queensland was home to around 20,000 Aboriginals prior to British occupation. The local tribes of the area were the Yugarapul of the Central Brisbane area; the Yugambeh people whose traditional lands ranged from South of the Logan River, down to the Tweed River and west to the McPherson Ranges; the Quandamooka people whose traditional lands encompassed the Moreton Bay Islands to the mouth of the Brisbane River to Tingalpa and south to the Logan River; and the Gubbi Gubbi people whose traditional lands were known to exist north of the Pine River, to Burrum River in the north, and west to the Conondale ranges. According to history researchers the Aboriginal population declined to around 10,000 over the next 60 years.[8]
Early explorers in the area including Matthew Flinders, Allan Cunningham, John Oxley and Patrick Logan. Around 1839, European settlers were able to move into the region. Logging was the first industry to develop. The first railway built in Queensland linked Grandchester to Ipswich in 1865 along a narrow 1067 mm gauge.[9]
An emergency alert has been issued for the Gympie area from the Gympie Regional Council regarding major flooding.
Council advises if you live at Southside and are in an impacted area, you need to evacuate now and seek shelter with friends or family on higher ground. If you live on the hospital side of the river and are in an impacted area, you need to evacuate now and seek shelter with friends or family on higher ground. Take essential medication and secure your property.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is having a meltdown over being told by the courts that it must now procure the first monthly batch of 55,000 pages of data from Pfizer backing the company’s Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine.”
The agency had initially asked if it could get away with producing just 500 pages per month instead, which would have allowed many decades of buffer time to obscure the truth. Legal challenges are speeding up that timeline, however, and Big Pharma is really not happy about the situation.
You see, Pfizer has been raking in the mega-dough from selling its mRNA (messenger RNA) Fauci Flu shots to countries around the world. This year, Pfizer expects to generate upwards of $54 billion in sales – that is, unless its little scam completely falls apart, which is becoming more of a possibility.
In its most recent earnings report from Q4 of last year, Pfizer warned investors that things are not looking to good moving forward. It turns out that whatever is contained within the disclosures is not exactly favorable to the company and its covid injections.
Many now believe that they reveal fundamental fraud and deception as the basis behind the “science” that was used by the FDA to first emergency use authorize (EUA), then approve, Pfizer’s experimental gene therapy injection.
The Q4 earnings report explains to investors that there could be “unfavorable new pre-clinical, clinical or safety data and further analyses of existing pre-clinical, clinical or safety data or further information regarding the quality of pre-clinical, clinical or safety data, including by audit or inspection” revealed throughout this process.
The report further mentions that “challenges driven by misinformation” could affect the company’s stock price moving forward, this being a signal to investors that the Pfizer gravy train is soon coming to an end due to “concerns about clinical data integrity.”
Now that Pfizer has made billions due to fraud, the company says covid could magically “disappear entirely”
Interestingly, Pfizer also made reference in its report to the fact that the time of the plandemic could be coming to an end right – how convenient! – as a critical mass of the world’s population finally wakes up to the truth about the plandemic scam.
Pfizer actually admitted in the report that the plandemic will probably now “diminish in severity or prevalence, or disappear entirely” – again, how convenient.
It would seem as though Pfizer’s goal all along was to milk the planet for obscene profits for as long as possible on the back of its “vaccine” scam. Knowing that people would eventually start figuring it all out, however, the plan was baked in such a way as to hide all of the incriminating clinical trial data until 2076 when many of the people currently alive are long gone, allowing Pfizer and its investors to run with the cash scot-free.
These devious plans are now getting thwarted, thankfully, as the 2076 timetable is moving closer towards a now timeline due to ongoing lawsuits. This has basically forced Pfizer’s hand, resulting in a death knell for its stock price.
“How would a trial for crimes against humanity impact the business?” asked someone at Zero Hedge, reading the writing on the wall.
“It wasn’t for nothing,” said someone else about the persistence of lockdowns and mandates, which we now know did nothing to stop the spread.
“It was for depopulation, profits, control and they probably were able to figure just the right formula to get most of the population to drop dead at about the same time. Brought to you by Pfizer.”
More related news about Pfizer’s deadly covid injections can be found at Corruption.news.
Cameron Stewart says, that the unvaccinated at some point will have to be reintegrated into mainstream life.
I am going to get my second vaccination with Astra Zeneca on Sunday, 17th of October 2021. A few days ago I turned 87. Of course, at my age, I am not free of underlying health conditions. And, of course, we have quite a few experts in Australia who could testify to this. Our decision makers in government in this country claim, that all their decisions are made on the advice of experts for the good of all Australians. So, the advice is, that just about everybody should be fully vaccinated, and that the available vaccines are totally safe. They do admit, that even if you had your two doses of vaccines and are regarded as being ‘fully’ vaccinated, you can still catch the virus in a milder form, and this is most likely the DELTA variant you would catch. And when you catch it, you can also transmit it to other people! In my book this means, that one cannot go back to normal at all. For instance, I would still have to observe social distancing, and I would have to wear a mask wherever there is no adequate ventilation and other people around.
They say, the advantage of you being vaccinated is, that if you are admitted to hospital and have had your vaccinations, you are not likely to have a severe infection. I can understand that the health authorities want to keep as far as possible most Covid cases out of the hospital. If too many severe Covid cases are being admitted to hospitals, the health system is in danger of being overwhelmed. With most people being vaccinated, there is less danger of severe Covid cases. And they claim, hardly any double vaccinated people are likely to die of a Covid infection. People that do die under these conditions, would probably have some underlying health conditions. Not only elderly people, but also younger people can have severe underlying health conditions. But overall, younger people usually are in better health than most of the elderly.
The way I see it, all these different forms of Covid 19 are still going to be with us for many years, and we just have to learn to live with it.! All the tests, lockdowns and vaccinations won’t make the virus go away! What we have to do, is, adapt our lifestyle to living with the virus. It is as simple as that. Why are people not being told, that they have to adapt their lifestyle for years to come, so that people can prepare for this?
Coming back to what Cameron Stewart wrote about the unvaccinated, what do you think, can they be reintegrated into mainstream life at some point?
Now, I want to stress a few things that have to do with my approaching end of life. After all I am 87, right? Who in their right mind would not think of the end of life when they are of such an advanced age? Does everybody really want to be saved until they reach 90 or 100? I for one would prefer, to be allowed to die a natural death! I already told my GP, that I want him to put in my files: AND (Allow Natural Death). So far I did not get any confirmation, that this actually does appear in my files. But that my children are already informed, maybe could be of some help.
So, I already underwent to be vaccinated once, and soon there is a second time! All my family thinks, that this is marvelous. Personally, I do not believe that these vaccinations alter my life one bit. I still intend to observe social distancing, for I do not want to end up in hospital, not even with a mild form of the disease. If the family would want to visit me, they could do it now. Only these constant lockdowns prevent them from seeing me! Whether I am vaccinated or not, should in my opinion, not make any difference. But we have to follow the rules, right? However, I do not have to agree that these rules are the best they could have come up with.
The government does not always know what is best for the majority of people. Otherwise they would not have accommodated people that arrived from overseas in unsuited lockdowns in hotels, and they would a long time ago have made an effort to improve the ventilation in every building, and to help families that have to live in overcrowded apartment buildings with no fresh air! Instead they spend billions on vaccinations that do not get rid of the virus. And they urge people to get vaccinated, but they did not make sure, that very vulnerable people and all essential workers were being given priority.
The following is a copy from the comment section from
September, 26th, 2021
Cameron Stewart says: ‘The vaccinated feel they need protection from the unvaccinated — but if the vaccinated are somewhat protected and can spread the disease, isn’t it the other way around? It is the unvaccinated who need protection from the vaccinated.’
I think he has a point there. However, I would say, even if I am fully vaccinated, I am in danger of being infected by someone who is fully vaccinated too, for I do not want to end up with Covid even if it is in a mild form; for living on my own, I am in danger of being admitted to a Covid ward, even with a mild form of the disease, since I might not be able to look after myself and be needing some sort of full time care.
It is true, I might have a good chance of recovering from the disease if I am being treated in a Covid ward. But being treated in a Covid ward, do I have the guarantee that they let me die a natural death if my condition worsens? And are they willing to let my children see me before I die?
Speaking about costs. This is what Cameron Stewart says: “Australia’s new two-tier vaccination society is almost certainly going to be a temporary one. The costs on businesses and governments of enforcing the rules indefinitely would be exorbitant.”
So, enforcing the rule is going to be too costly? He may be right, for we have to look only of overseas experiences in some other countries. We should really learn something from these experiences in some other countries!
AuntyUta 
