However, in order to justify this joint venture, they had to prove to the Department of Transportation that this would be in the best interest of consumers. As part of that, American and Qantas said that they’d launch up to three additional new routes between Australia and the US in the next two years, in addition to increasing capacity on existing routes.
Qantas will launch nonstop flights from Brisbane to both Chicago and San Francisco in the next two years. They say they’ll do this once they’re given final approval from the DOT for the joint venture.
Qantas’ 787-9 business class
These two flights are pretty significant:
Qantas already flies from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco, so adding a third destination from the Bay Area is impressive; San Francisco is a huge market, and on top of that Qantas has a partnership with Alaska, which provides them feed to & from SFO
A Brisbane to Chicago flight would cover a distance of nearly 9,000 miles, and would be just about 100 miles shorter than Qantas’ Perth to London flight; this would be the world’s fourth longest flight
Both of these routes would be operated by 787s. Qantas currently has eight 787-9s in their fleet, with a further six to be delivered in the next couple of years. Presumably they’d need a couple of additional 787s to launch either of those routes, unless they shuffle around their current network.
You might be wondering why Qantas would operate their Chicago flight from Brisbane rather than Sydney. Well, the flight to Sydney would be about 330 miles longer, and at ~9,230 miles, that’s a stretch for the 787-9, especially with the headwinds we often see across the Pacific.
As far as additional routes go, in the past Qantas has talked about launching nonstop flights to Seattle. While that hasn’t been mentioned this time around, I imagine it’s something that’s on their radar.
Qantas’ 787-9 premium economy
Bottom line
While I’m generally against the expansion of joint ventures — especially in markets where there’s already not enough competition — we may see some good new routes and capacity increases come from this.
The question is whether Qantas would have launched these routes otherwise. There’s no denying that both American and Qantas have intentionally scaled back transpacific flights in order to make a compelling case to the DOT, so even if they saw a business case for either of these routes without a joint venture, they absolutely would have waited.
What do you make of Qantas launching Brisbane to Chicago & San Francisco flights?
However, in order to justify this joint venture, they had to prove to the Department of Transportation that this would be in the best interest of consumers. As part of that, American and Qantas said that they’d launch up to three additional new routes between Australia and the US in the next two years, in addition to increasing capacity on existing routes.
Qantas will launch nonstop flights from Brisbane to both Chicago and San Francisco in the next two years. They say they’ll do this once they’re given final approval from the DOT for the joint venture.
Qantas’ 787-9 business class
These two flights are pretty significant:
Qantas already flies from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco, so adding a third destination from the Bay Area is impressive; San Francisco is a huge market, and on top of that Qantas has a partnership with Alaska, which provides them feed to & from SFO
A Brisbane to Chicago flight would cover a distance of nearly 9,000 miles, and would be just about 100 miles shorter than Qantas’ Perth to London flight; this would be the world’s fourth longest flight
Both of these routes would be operated by 787s. Qantas currently has eight 787-9s in their fleet, with a further six to be delivered in the next couple of years. Presumably they’d need a couple of additional 787s to launch either of those routes, unless they shuffle around their current network.
You might be wondering why Qantas would operate their Chicago flight from Brisbane rather than Sydney. Well, the flight to Sydney would be about 330 miles longer, and at ~9,230 miles, that’s a stretch for the 787-9, especially with the headwinds we often see across the Pacific.
As far as additional routes go, in the past Qantas has talked about launching nonstop flights to Seattle. While that hasn’t been mentioned this time around, I imagine it’s something that’s on their radar.
Qantas’ 787-9 premium economy
Bottom line
While I’m generally against the expansion of joint ventures — especially in markets where there’s already not enough competition — we may see some good new routes and capacity increases come from this.
The question is whether Qantas would have launched these routes otherwise. There’s no denying that both American and Qantas have intentionally scaled back transpacific flights in order to make a compelling case to the DOT, so even if they saw a business case for either of these routes without a joint venture, they absolutely would have waited.
What do you make of Qantas launching Brisbane to Chicago & San Francisco flights?
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration considered imposing tariffs on imports from Australia last week, but decided against the move amid fierce opposition from military officials and the State Department, according to several people familiar with the discussions.
Some of President Trump’s top trade advisers had urged the tariffs as a response to a surge of Australian aluminum flowing onto the American market over the past year. But officials at the Defense and State Departments told Mr. Trump the move would alienate a top ally and could come at significant cost to the United States.
The administration ultimately agreed not to take any action, at least temporarily.
The measure would open yet another front in a global trade war that has pitted the United States against allies like Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan, and deepened divisions with countries like China. It would also be the end of a reprieve for the only country to be fully exempted from the start from steel and aluminum tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed last year.
The White House declined to comment. But the Trump administration has fiercely criticized past administrations for making concessions on trade policy to accomplish foreign policy goals. Mr. Trump has said the approach has left the United States in the position of subsidizing the world, weakening American industry and pushing factories and jobs overseas, and has pledged to rework America’s trading relationships.
But his decision to hit close allies with tariffs has also prompted an uproar. The Trump administration said it was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum to strengthen American national security, but critics argue that the approach strains relationships with allies that are far more important to America’s defense.
The latest example came Thursday, when Mr. Trump abruptly announced that he would also levy tariffs on Mexico to try to pressure that country to stem the flow of migrants across the United States’ southern border. The move has sent foreign officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill scrambling to head off tariffs that could damage Mexican and American businesses and threaten to derail a newly negotiated North American trade deal.
The tariffs on Australia would have hit imports of aluminum, although measures that would have applied to other products had been discussed as well. Shipments of Australian aluminum to the United States have surged since last year, when Australia became one of the few countries not to face metal tariffs.
Mr. Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum from many countries last year. The move was an effort to shield American producers from low-priced imports, which the administration said were a threat to the domestic industrial base and therefore national security.
Some countries, like Brazil, Argentina and South Korea, won temporary exemptions on some of their imports, but ultimately agreed to limits on how much metal they could ship to the United States. But Australia’s full exemption appears to have been the work of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who reached a handshake deal with Mr. Trump in 2017 to avoid the tariffs. In August 2018, Mr. Turnbull lost the confidence of his party and was ousted from office.
Exempting Australia from tariffs effectively allowed Australian producers to sell cheaper metals to the United States than their competitors from Europe, North America and Asia. Aluminum imports from Australia rose by 45 percent from 2017 to 2018. They are up even more, by 350 percent, for the first three months of 2019, compared with the same period in 2018.
But Australia remains a relatively small supplier of aluminum to the United States, accounting for about 6 percent of total imports so far this year, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, and Peter Navarro, the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, were among the backers of tariffs on Australia. But other senior administration officials, who have cultivated ties to Australia, favor prioritizing other elements of the relationship.
For one thing, Australia has emerged as an important ally — perhaps the most critical one — in helping Washington constrain China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Australian officials have banned the Chinese company Huawei from the country’s online networks, and have investigated the Chinese Communist Party’s influence and interference in Australia. Washington is also relying on Canberra to compete with the Chinese for political clout in the Pacific islands.
Furthermore, a conservative party won a general election last month in an upset, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison intends to enact conservative policies. That means Washington and Canberra are growing even closer, as some American officials find more affinity with their Australian counterparts.
The Australian military has over the years joined important American campaigns. Notably, Australia sent soldiers to Iraq to be part of President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” and to Afghanistan.
Tariffs against Australia could also have broader reverberations, serving as a warning to Canada and Mexico, which recently saw tariffs onsteel and aluminum lifted as part of a bid to secure congressional approval of the renegotiated trade agreement with those countries that the president signed last year.
Instead of tariffs, Canada and Mexico agreed to set up a system for monitoring and enforcement for import surges into the United States. Under the agreement, the United States can reimpose tariffs on individual exports of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum in the case of such surges.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrived in the Solomon Islands on Sunday, the first visit by an Australian leader in more than a decade as Western nations seek to rein in China’s influence in the Pacific.
FILE PHOTO: Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media as he arrives at the Horizon Church in Sutherland in Sydney, Australia, May 19, 2019. AAP Image/Joel Carrett/via REUTERS
The trip comes as the United States and its regional allies try to ensure that Pacific nations with diplomatic links to Taiwan do not severe those in favor of ties with Beijing.
The Solomon Islands is one of six Pacific countries to recognize Taiwan, a policy now in question after recent elections. China views Taiwan as a renegade province with no right to state-to-state ties.
Morrison flew into the capital Honiara on Sunday on his first overseas trip since winning re-election last month. He did not make any public comments on arrival, but has said the visit will show Australia’s commitment to the region.
“The Pacific is front and center of Australia’s strategic outlook,” he said in a statement last week.
Morrison’s trip comes just a few days before a visit to the Solomon Islands by New Zealand deputy prime minister Winston Peters, who will also travel to Vanuatu this week.
Australia has historic ties with the Pacific, but China has raised its influence in the region in recent years.
Keen to undercut China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to recreate the old Silk Road to link China with Asia and Europe through big infrastructure projects, Australia has directed ever larger amounts of its foreign aid to the Pacific.
Australia has offered Pacific countries up to A$3 billion in grants and loans to build infrastructure, as Morrison declared the region was “our patch”.
Canberra said last year it would spend $139 million to develop undersea internet cable links to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, amid national security concerns about Chinese telecoms company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Australia became the first country to ban the world’s largest maker of telecom network gear from its nascent broadband network, a step the United States followed this year by effectively banning U.S. firms from doing business with Huawei.
President Xi Jinping said last month China has offered to help developing nations and is not seeking a sphere of influence in Pacific Ocean island states.
The issue of climate change, which has at times strained Australia’s relationship with its Pacific neighbors, will probably feature prominently during the visit, Australian broadcaster SBS News said on Sunday.
Peter Kenilorea Jr, a Solomon Islands legislator, said he wanted Australia to show “stronger leadership” on climate change, SBS News journalist Pablo Viñales said in a tweet on Sunday.
Last month, Fiji’s prime minister hit back at remarks by an Australian politician that Fijians should seek higher ground in response to higher seas.
Reporting by Colin Packham and Will Ziebell; editing by Darren Schuettler
The comedy Australia exports to the global stage is evolving. And, as Gary Nunn reports from Sydney, experts say it's moving Australia away from past stereotypes and into thoroughly modern, woke humour.
The nation's comedy has long punched above its weight overseas, basking in the success of cult classics and "ocker" humour - brash, endearing tales of an unpretentious Australia.
More recently, that humour has occasionally drawn controversy or been criticised as dated. It has paved the way for new players to enter the scene.
"We're in a really interesting cultural moment where there's discontent for comedy that punches down [to the powerless] instead of up [to the powerful]," says Dr Stayci Taylor, a screenwriting expert at RMIT university.
Whether the shift is in quantity, quality or tone, one thing seems clear: Australian humour is having a moment.
'Seriously formidable'
The new guard's most prominent member is Hannah Gadsby. Her stand-up show, Nanette, won international acclaim for pivoting away from self-deprecation and into serious testimony halfway through.
Nica Burns, director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, says Gadsby is part of a national influx: "In the last decade, Aussie comics have grown in number, talent, confidence and ambition across every comedy genre."
She cites recent Australian winners of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe best comedy award - Gadsby (2017) and Sam Simmons (2015) - as well as Tim Minchin, named best newcomer in 2005.
"Given you're a small population, you're a seriously formidable group in comedy now," she tells the BBC.
Dr Taylor says: "Gadsby started as an outlier but then it became very apparent she's leading an exciting new Australian wave which is subverting comedy."
Audiences are more sophisticated and want to be taken further than before, she says: "There's less tolerance for the dominance of the straight, white male position."
What worked previously
Early successful incarnations in Australia's modern comedy history include Barry Humphries' character Dame Edna Everage, which gained fame in the 1960s, and the film Crocodile Dundee (1986). Both played off what many regard as now-dated Australian female and male stereotypes.
Then there was what Dr Stuart Richards calls "the glitter cycle", a trio of Australian cult comedy films: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Muriel's Wedding (1994) and Strictly Ballroom (1992).
"At heart they're still ocker comedies - quintessentially Australian in their endearing lower-middle-class humour which develops empathy," says Dr Richards, a screen studies expert from the University of South Australia.
Immediately preceding the newest wave of Australian comedy, and bookending the old school era, was a raft of exports which included Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High (2007) and Kath & Kim (2002-2007).
The former satirised Australian private v public school culture; the latter lampooned domestic suburbia. Both took aim at lower socio-economic classes.
Dr Ian Wilkie, lecturer in comedy writing at the University of Salford, says Kath & Kim joined with contemporary taste for "shows with a more dangerous 'underclass' family and non-metropolitan vibe".
Lilley's comedy won many fans, but some his characters and use of blackface caused controversy.
"It makes you wonder about comedy's often inevitable bluntness," Dr Wilkie says. "Its need for a target is problematic in making gentler, inoffensive, satire."
Woke comedy
More recently, comedians such as Gadsby, Minchin, Adam Hills, Zoe Coombs Marr and Josh Thomas have directly tackled topics such as misogyny, homophobia and disability discrimination.
The theme tune to this new era could be Minchin's song Prejudice, which satirised opposition to political correctness with the lyrics "only a ginger can call another ginger ginger".
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Hills, who was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award, was recently rewarded with his own UK show, The Last Leg, a pun on the fact he only has one.
It's popular with UK audiences, as Dr Karina Aveyard from the University of East Anglia explains: "It's sensitive but also pushes the envelope - the disability of him and his co-stars gives him a platform to do a different type of comedy than if he'd been an able-bodied white male comedian."
Dr Richards says this is reflective of the post-marriage equality era: "Australian comedy has become savvier, especially with Nanette and Josh Thomas's Please Like Me, which are boldly feminist and boldly queer. It has grown up."
By contrast, he says, the reason for many poor reviews of Lilley's new show Lunatics could be because his comedy hasn't evolved: "It hasn't developed empathy or grown."
Dr Richards says: "Part of Australian larrikinism is about self-deprecation - but more importantly punching down. Lilley's characters increasingly have a bullying element, which differentiates his satire from other current Australian comedy."
Humphries recently faced criticism for "punching down" when he described being transgender as "a fashion" and gender-reassignment surgery as "self-mutilation", leading Gadsby to say he has "completely lost the ability to read the room".
Dr Taylor says technology such as YouTube and Netflix has played a big part in the change, as it as globally.
"This new wave understands internationally spreadable media, and how that changes your audience from the broadest possible appeal necessity of yesteryear. These digital natives go out looking for minorities rather than avoiding them," she says.
It also brings a wider diversity of "far-flung" Australia to the world, she adds.
Evolution rather than shift?
But not everyone views Australia's comedy exports as progressing from a ribald, larrikin past.
Wayne Federman, stand-up and professor at the University of South California, says the shift is just a natural part of comedy's evolution, and the deviation away from brusqueness isn't so new.
"Jokes have gotten longer - it's no longer set-up, punchline, laugh, repeat. Narrative comedy is in again."
He also argues the Gadsby pivot isn't new: "Dick Gregory did a similar thing. He gave up a lucrative comedy career in the 1960s because stand-up didn't allow him freedom to speak as freely as he wanted about black civil rights."
There's another problem with labelling this new comedy wave as woke: it's very white.
Popular local shows like Black Comedy and The Family Law, which showcase indigenous and ethnic minority talent, don't yet share the same international recognition as others.
Experts say this is possibly because audiences don't know enough about Aboriginal or Asian Australian culture to be in on the jokes. Either way, it seems there's still a way to go.
Dr Taylor says that reading the room in comedy is the privilege of modern times. "It's easier to laugh at a more equal society," she says.
SYDNEY — The Australian teenager who cracked an egg on the head of a politician for his remarks about the New Zealand mosque massacre has donated almost $70,000 to people affected by the killings.
Will Connolly, 17, became known worldwide as “Egg Boy” for assaulting right-wing federal Sen. Fraser Anning, who had drawn scorn for saying Muslim immigration was to blame for the March massacre, in which 51 people were killed.
As police investigated the incident, supporters of Connolly raised 99,922 Australian dollars ($69,171) through two crowdfunding accounts to pay for his envisaged legal fees.
But a law firm volunteered to handle the case for free in which Connolly escaped charge. The Melbourne youth announced on Instagram on Wednesday he had donated the money to two support groups for people affected by the Christchurch shootings — the Christchurch Foundation, and Victim Support.
“Finally!!! After a huge amount of red tape, $99,922.36 has today been transferred to the Christchurch Foundation and Victims Support,” Connolly posted.
“I decided to donate all monies to help provide some relief to the victims of the massacre … it wasn’t mine to keep.”
He added: “To the victims of the Tragedy, I whole heartedly hope that this can bring some relief to you.
“Keep spreading the love.”
Victim Support confirmed it had received a portion of Connolly’s fund, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Police issued an official caution to Connolly over the incident, which occurred at a political rally in Melbourne. They also investigated Anning, who twice struck the teen after being egged, but also opted not to charge the 69-year-old, saying he’d acted in self-defense.
Anning, who had sat in Australia’s Senate as an independent lawmaker after quitting the One Nation party early last year, is no longer in Parliament after he was voted out in the country’s May 18 general election.
"Some helicopter pilots had lasers pointed at them from passing fishing vessels," Euan Graham of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote on The Strategist blog, who was aboard the warship from which the aircraft were operating.
Graham told CNN he did not witness the incidents, but Australian pilots told him they were targeted multiple times by commercial lasers during South China Sea missions.
Graham was aboard HMAS Canberra, a helicopter landing dock and flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, as it operated in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean on a three-month mission that ended this week.
Australian forces across the region have noticed the increased use of lasers, an Australian Defense Department spokesperson said in a statement.
"The reason for vessels using the lasers is unknown, but it may be to draw attention to their presence in congested waterways," the statement said.
At sea, fishermen are known to use lasers to warn off other vessels that may be getting too close to them.
"That makes sense for collision of vessels, but obviously there is no direct threat from aircraft to vessels in the South China Sea," Graham said. "The maritime militia is, I think, not beyond argument as a tactic which is employed deliberately."
Graham said that the Canberra and other Australian ships operating with it were shadowed almost continuously by Chinese warships while in the South China Sea, even though they did not approach any of the islands and reefs occupied by the Chinese military.
Radio communications between the Australian and Chinese forces were courteous, Graham said.
CNN reached out to the Chinese Ministry of Defense but did not immediately hear back.
Military militia?
China has claimed almost the entire 1.3 million square mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory. In recent years it has aggressively asserted its stake in the face of conflicting claims from several Southeast Asian nations.
In Hainan, a South China Sea island, local fishermen assisted in more than 250 law enforcement operations at sea over a three-year period ending in 2016, according to a report from China Military Online.
"It's no secret that the broader thrust of China's approach in the South China Sea is to try to make life difficult for foreign aircraft and warships there," Graham said.
Pilots targeted by laser attacks have reported disorienting flashes, pain, spasms and spots in their vision. The dazzle effect can trigger temporary blindness, with "catastrophic" consequences, according to John Marshall, a professor at University College of London's Institute of Ophthalmology.
"The inappropriate use of lasers would pose a potential safety risk to all those operating in the region," the Australian Department of Defense statement said.
No injuries were into Australian Navy pilots were reported from the recent incidents, the statement said.
Qantas’ 787-9 business class
