Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
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Question: Forget the GST on food. Abbott needs to present a new 'grand bargain' to the nation. The problem with not applying the GST to fresh food is that rich people aren't paying GST on fresh food . Taxing the purchase of fresh food is estimated to provide an additional $6bn in government revenue each year . For a federal government with a revenue problem, it must be infuriating to forego billions from people who can fairly easily afford to pay . The problem with applying the GST to fresh food is that poor people would be paying GST on fresh food . Households in the lowest 20% of income earners pay almost two and a half times more GST, as a percentage of income, than households in the highest 20% . For a federal government with a now-cemented reputation for unfairness, it would be foolhardy to make life even more expensive for those who can least afford to pay . Sure, the government could provide GST relief through compensation payments to low-income people , but such payments are inefficient at meeting the actual cost of the tax . They also create another ongoing obligation on the public purse . Some people might consider this a political conundrum, but not some of the fearless members of the Abbott government . Senators Ian Macdonald and Dean Smith, MP Dan Tehan, and trade minister Andrew Robb are rushing forth to call for changes to the rate and base of the GST, including applying the tax to fresh food . The father of Australia's GST, John Howard, has opined in recent years that it was a "pity" Labor did not support the GST on fresh food in 1999 . Now others are stepping forward with proposals . Unsurprisingly, business groups want to increase the GST and decrease company tax . The Australia Institute has argued the government could lessen the regressive impact of the GST by expanding the base to include private education and private healthcare- services largely consumed by those on higher incomes  - which it estimates would raise an additional $2.3bn a year . It's an intriguing idea with political appeal , but there are potential budgetary disincentives if the tax pushes people off private services back on to free government services . All this public speculation is leading to the impression that the Abbott government does not have control of the GST agenda . The implications are dreadful for the Coalition . Just ask Campbell Newman and Mike Baird how delighted they are to campaign in a climate of GST hypotheticals . Some conservative commentators have claimed that all the Abbott government needs to do to stem the freefall in the polls is to get its messaging right . Surely in 2015, they say, a better sales pitch - and a fresh-faced young assistant treasurer in Josh Frydenberg - will turn around the public's opinion of the government and its budget . What these folks misunderstand is that good policy makes good politics and no policy makes terrible politics . Right now, the Abbott government has no overarching policy agenda, no coherent narrative, no holistic approach to the nation's current budgetary challenges . Rather ,  it has surprise measures (reintroduction of fuel indexation), broken promises (cuts to the ABC, health, education and the pension), wild new spending commitments (PPL), counter- productive new taxes (GP co-payment), and random thought-bubbles of the kind currently proffered by minister Robb and co . Where to start in solving the problem? First ,  instead of pushing a lot of random levers in its budget and hoping some of them work, the government needs to put forward a "grand bargain" to the people of Australia : fixing our budget means we need to fix our complicated, inefficient federation . We need to work out who is going to do what to whom, and who is going to pay for it . It also means fixing our tax system, not just tinkering with high-income levies or raising the GST by a couple of per cent . In short ,  the federation and tax reform white papers should come out as soon as possible . Frankly, these should have come out much, much earlier . What were Coalition members doing as they sat on the Opposition benches waiting to win the "unloseable election"? Secondly, as part of this "grand bargain", the government needs to get real about ending the age of entitlement . Right now, it is just code for punishing the poor and protecting the rich . The tax system doesn't just have to be fair ; it has to be seen to be fair . Asking the lowest income people to pay GST on fresh food while continuing to give high-income superannuants and investment- property owners massive tax concessions would keep the age of entitlement alive - for those at the top of the income scales .

Answer: For a federal government with a now-cemented reputation for unfairness, it would be foolhardy to make life even more expensive for those who can least afford to pay such payments are inefficient at meeting the actual cost of the tax


Question: The Marshall Islands' latest nuclear test. The Marshall Islands - a country of about 70,000 people located in the Pacific Ocean - is taking the world's nine nuclear powers to court for allegedly violating international obligations to work towards nuclear disarmament . The list of accused is as follows: the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel . Israel has made the cut despite fervently denying possession of a nuclear arsenal . The spectacle is unfolding at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the main judicial organ of the United Nations . A recent New York Times article on the Marshall Islands' "near-Quixotic venture" quotes Phon van den Biesen, head of the country's legal team, on the ultimate aim of the effort: "All the nuclear weapons states are modernising their arsenals instead of negotiating[to disarm], and we want the court to rule on this." A continuing history . The Islands' move might come off as more than a bit incongruous given its established existence as a pillar of the US-Israeli axis in UN forums . Glance at any review of General Assembly votes on Israel/Palestine issues and you'll find the Marshall Islands regularly represented in the exclusive anti- Palestine camp, along with a smattering of other obscure Pacific atolls . The fact that justice in Palestine continues to be as elusive as ever, despite nominal support from an overwhelming majority of countries, underscores both the general futility of taking on the powers that be as well as the frequent toothlessness of rulings emanating from UN institutions . The Marshall Islands presumably has some inkling of the force it's now up against . To be sure, Marshall Islanders are well acquainted with the horrors of the nuclear arms industry . The diminutive nation happens to be the site of no fewer than 67 US nuclear bomb tests in the 1940s and 50s, during an almost 40-year period in which the US administered the Islands under a UN trusteeship . As Greenpeace notes, one of these tests involved a bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 . Such machinations have predictably resulted in thorough environmental contamination and continuing health complications for the local population, ranging from radiogenic cancers to babies born without bones . As Marshallese nuclear survivor Lemeyo Abon told the UN Human Rights Council in 2012:"After the [US] testing programme we've had to create new words to describe the creatures we give birth to." Lexical fallout aside, other US contributions to Marshallese culture include the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll , which continues to generate revenue for US corporations . The widespread territorial displacement necessitated by the previous era of fanatical nuclear testing meanwhile highlights the irony of Marshallese government support for the US-funded entity that displaces and otherwise oppresses Palestinians . Of course , human beings are contradictory creatures , and nations composed of lots of human beings are thus inevitably also contradictory . But in assessing the prospects for the Islands' foray into the International Court of Justice, it's worth taking the contradictions into account . Connecting the dots . The New York Times points out that the court case "comes as nuclear arms are increasingly being linked to other pressing international issues" such as climate change  - which produces rising sea levels that incidentally also pose an existential threat to the Marshall Islands . The Times quotes Marshallese Foreign Minister Tony de Brum on the seemingly parallel threats to survival:"What would it gain mankind to reach a peaceful resolution of the climate change threat, only to be wiped out by a nuclear misunderstanding?" There are certainly common denominators between climate change and nukes - not least that both are filed away in many of our brains under the category of things that we know can swiftly destroy us but would prefer not to think about . However ,  there appears to be a missing link in de Brum's analysis , because you can't resolve the climate change threat without resolving the business of imperial militarism, in both its nuclear and non-nuclear varieties . The connection between the military-industrial complex and environmental catastrophe is fairly clearly spelled out in Project Censored's annual report from 2010 , which confirms the US Department of Defense as the worst polluter on the planet . This is not to imply, obviously, that the US constitutes the one and only problem for the earth ; it's simply to draw attention to the superior egregiousness of American earthly violations . Had there been an Ayatollah Khomeini Ballistic Missile Test Site in the mix somewhere, folks might be more willing to connect the dots . While it may not be very coherent of the Marshall Islands to assist the empire in some destructive endeavours and take it to task for others , its nuclear lawsuit should nonetheless be encouraged  - if for no other reason than the possibly vain hope that awareness can help combat inertia . And another vain hope: that with attention will come context .

Answer: The Marshall Islands - a country of about 70,000 people located in the Pacific Ocean - is taking the world's nine nuclear powers to court for allegedly violating international obligations to work towards nuclear disarmament


Question: Putin and Ukraine: Expect more brutal aggression from Russia's desperate leader. The renewal of fighting this week over the Donetsk airport in Eastern Ukraine- an important symbolic target for Russian proxy fighters-- should come as no surprise . The U.S  and Western Europe should expect even more extensive Russia-directed attacks . Why? Because of the choice Vladimir Putin made five years ago, confirmed on his reelection in 2012 - and is continuing to make . After Russia's GDP plunged by almost 8 percent during the 2008-9 world financial crisis , there was a virtual consensus among Russian economists that Putin's economic model, which depended on the redistribution of revenues from ever-increasing oil prices, along with growing state control over the economy and rampant corruption, was nearly exhausted . Russia needed to "modernize and diversify," as the catch words among such thinkers went . But to do so, the country first and foremost had to "improve the investment climate." That was a euphemism for tapering off the state's grip on the economy; getting rid of bureaucratic shakedowns of private businesses; ensuring that courts were no longer for sale or open to "instructions" from authorities; strengthening private property rights; and eventually decentralizing and liberalizing the political system . In short ,  deep institutional reforms . These were advocated by, among others, Alexei Kudrin, Putin's personal friend and confidant, former finance minister and former first deputy prime minister . Kudrin was to be a disappointed man . While paying lip service to "modernization," the Kremlin did nothing to advance that agenda . Two years later, Russia was shaken by pro-democracy, anti-Putin demonstrations in all of Russia's largest cities . Putin got the same message that almost every authoritarian leader gets sooner or later : reform and democratize to improve the economy or tighten the screws of repression to deal with discontent . We all know what Putin did . Upon his presidential reelection in 2012, he issued a slew of laws constraining already limited freedoms of public protest and speech . The consequences came quickly: even with oil prices over $100 per bbl, growth dwindled to a crawl and capital flight reached record levels . By the end of 2013, Putin's popularity was at lowest point in 13 years . Around half of Russians did not want to see him as president again in 2018 . Yet Putin doubled down once more, using another tried-and-true authoritarian tool: manufactured nationalist patriotic frenzy mixed with paranoia and served up by deafening propaganda . The anti-corruption, pro-European revolution in Ukraine was presented as an American plot against Russia . Following the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, those who opposed the regime were labelled the "fifth column" and "national traitors." Then came war in Ukraine -- aggression by proxy or, last fall, by uniformed Russian troops . The daily poisoning of Russian hearts and minds on state-controlled national television is now beginning to surpass even Soviet totalitarianism . Western democracies are portrayed as Russia's mortal enemies , who seek to undermine Moscow's sovereignty and enslave its people . This Stalinist-style propaganda is designed to justify the Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine, excuse increasing domestic repression, explain away mounting economic hardships and-- most troubling-- perhaps prepare the country for possible aggression against other neighbors . Both in his end-of-year press-conference and in his New Year's message to the nation, Putin fixed the propaganda pitch to the highest point :. "We are defending our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist," he declared . "We need to accomplish, to realize all that we planned- for ourselves, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of Russia." After this, can anyone expect the Russian commander-in-chief to go wobbly on foreign enemies or to abandon ethnic "brethren" fighting against an allegedly genocidal "Nazi junta"-- known to the rest of the world as the elected government in Kiev? U.S  and European diplomats keep talking about providing Russia with an "off ramp." Judging by Putin's rhetoric, there is no ramp high enough for the task . So long as Putin sticks with the anti-reform choice , escalation appears to be his only tactic for staying in and consolidating power . This choice preceded the drop in oil prices and Western sanctions - and it will outlive them as well . The West should expect no magic turn-around and prepare to confront but also engage with this Russia over the long haul .

Answer:
The U.S  and Western Europe should expect even more extensive Russia-directed attacks


