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Australia invokes emergency powers to block coal exports in energy crisis
Australia invokes emergency powers to block coal exports in energy crisis
Australian authorities have given themselves the power to block coal exports if the resource is needed to ease the country’s crippling power crisis in the latest measure taken to avert the risk of blackouts.
Rising coal and gas prices, coupled with outages at ageing coal-fired power stations, have plunged the market into turmoil this week, forcing the Australian Energy Market Operator to take control of the wholesale market to ensure reliable supply of electricity to eastern states.
The government of New South Wales invoked emergency powers on Friday to oblige miners operating in the state to redirect coal heading overseas to local generators. The precautionary move was taken to strengthen energy security on the advice of AEMO.
“We’re just giving ourselves all the levers we need to give the community certainty that we’re doing everything we can to keep the system going,” said Matt Kean, the energy minister and treasurer for New South Wales, the country’s most populous state.
The energy crisis has highlighted the failure of Australia, one of the world’s largest producers of fossil fuels, to prepare for the transition to renewable energy sources by investing in modernising the country’s electricity infrastructure, analysts say.
“We are in an invidious position. It is a global story as there is a gas shortage and prices are skyrocketing but for Australia it is combined with coal-fired power stations going offline,” said Ben Oquist, executive director of the Australia Institute think-tank. The crisis has highlighted how a failure to prepare for renewable energy becoming a larger part of domestic supply was hitting the country’s consumers in the form of higher bills and potential blackouts, he added.
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Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used ‘Emergency Powers Act’ To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens
Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used ‘Emergency Powers Act’ To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has learned that Prime Minister Trudeau “will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. But in a meeting with the Liberal caucus, the PM said there were no plans to deploy the military.”
The move follows a meeting Sunday of the federal cabinet and its Incident Response Group (IRG).
Trudeau tweeted late Sunday that the IRG discussed “further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations.”
Earlier that day, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live that the federal government has discussed invoking special emergency powers to deal with ongoing protests in Ottawa.
Blair described the attitude around invoking the Emergencies Act as “appropriate caution” rather than “reticence.”
As CBC concludes, the law gives the federal government carte blanche to cope with a crisis, including the ability to enact emergency powers that allow it to prohibit travel within a specified area or remove personal property, while imposing fines or jail time on people contravening new orders.
This is basically the ability to unleash ‘selective’ martial law on Canadians.
This comes after reports on Sunday, Canadian officials cleared the roadway and arrested “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators who held the line and blocked the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing for nearly a week. Canadian officials confirmed the bridge reopened earlier Monday morning as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to invoke emergency powers to squash protesters around the country.
Traffic cameras on Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Canadian automotive plants with Detroit, show increased traffic flows around 0930 ET in both directions, into the US, and into Canada.
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American Pharoah: What A Perfect Description For The Guy In The White House
American Pharoah: What A Perfect Description For The Guy In The White House
A horse named “American Pharoah” just won the Triple Crown. Is this some sort of a sign for America? The office of the presidency was greatly strengthened under previous administrations, but now Barack Obama has grabbed an unprecedented amount of power for himself. In this article, I am going to focus on immigration, but Obama’s power grab is certainly not limited to this area. And as I have written aboutpreviously, if there is some sort of major “national emergency” over the next year or so, the legal framework has already been created for Obama to use his “emergency powers” to take total control of virtually everything. So is comparing Obama to the pharoahs of ancient Egypt unfair? I don’t think so at all. He is certainly acting as if he would like the powers of a dictator, his policies in the Middle East would make the pharoahs proud, and without a doubt Obama loves the adoration and worship of his fans. In my opinion, he is the closest thing to a pharoah that the United States has ever seen.
Just consider Obama’s approach to immigration. The laws of our land require him to protect our borders, but he has left them wide open and has openly encouraged illegal immigration because that is what he decided was best. He also attempted to use his “executive powers” to grant amnesty to millions upon millions of immigrants that were in this country illegally. Fortunately, that action has been blocked in the courts (at least for now), but Obama says that he is going to keep trying to do everything he can to “bring them out of the shadows”.
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