When you have a serious illness, one thing that can help is hope you can recover. Kaden Centre gives you that hope. We have our own personal programs, fully supervised on high quality gym equipment. We are empowered by being in control of our recovery, wanting to improve our health. If this amazing place does close, not only would it devastate Sue, her great staff and everyone attending here presently, it would also affect every person in the future who could benefit from being here at the Kaden Centre. I only hope the Kaden Centre can remain open as personally it has been so wonderful for me in my own recovery as I am sure it has been for many, many others

I TOTALLY agree with the frustration over school buses here in Catherine Hill Bay ('Parents 'need more buses'', Herald 26/2). I have two children who attend Belmont Christian College and I have to drive them to Swansea everyday and pick them up in the afternoon. I too own a small business and it's a complete logistical nightmare having to juggle my business around having to pick up my two children who are more than capable of being home in the afternoons by themselves until I get home if there was a bus that came in here.

We moved here from a town 25 minutes out of Cessnock, and the school bus there came to the end of our street. It seems ridiculous that 34 children from Catherine Hill Bay attend Belmont Christian and there is no bus service.

IN reply to Adz Carter, I go shopping all the time and since people were told to wear masks I would be lucky to have seen more than five people in shopping centres not wearing masks. The rules say you don't have to wear masks when eating or drinking. Take Argyle House; people mostly go there to drink in close proximity, and what happened there resulted in hundreds of cases of COVID in one night. Mr Carter, tell me when that's happened at a shopping centre.

A BURGEONING democracy has been snuffed out. While the West tut-tuts and imposes ineffectual economic sanctions on Russia, Putin has created another buffer state against NATO, regained some former Soviet glory, and reinforced his own hegemony in Russia. What happens now?

I expect a puppet government will be installed in Kyiv. Military parades will occur in Moscow. The puppet leaders of this government will vow their allegiance to Putin and be welcomed back into the bosom of Mother Russia by Comrade Putin. The dead will be buried. Many Ukrainian patriots will disappear. The refugee flow within Ukraine will be cut off. Without Western finance, rubble heaps in Ukraine will not be replaced by new buildings for many years.

A new iron curtain will have descended upon Europe. Eastern European states that are not NATO members, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia will renew their efforts to join NATO. An emboldened China will eye off an invasion of Taiwan.

A humanitarian test for Australia's new federal government will be its willingness to throw open Australian borders and admit Ukrainian refugees.

THANK you to the handful of commuters who slowed down on Monday morning while I retrieved another innocent dead animal off Burwood Road. It becomes a speedway for commuters going to and from work.

Burwood Road is a suburban street that has a 60km/h speed limit, just like the one most people live in. No matter if you are travelling on it in the cover of darkness or peak times, have some respect for the safety of residents, both elderly and young families who walk with their families and pets, run, ride bikes or are just trying to get in or out of their driveways safely.

And congratulations to the disgusting person who ran over the fully grown echidna who has lived in this area for years peacefully, trying to cross the road. He was slow and small, easy to avoid if you slowed down like many respectful commuters had during the morning so they didn't run over it again.

TED Burns (Letters, 19/2) suggests that steel, concrete and fertilisers cannot be made without gas or other fossils. But the threat of global warming has inspired innovation all over the world. Sweden's Hybrit uses renewable electricity and hydrogen to replace thermal and coking coal in steel making. Last year it delivered its first run to Volvo, for trucks. Full commercial production is expected in 2026. Several innovative green concretes are already available.

The second largest cement manufacturer on Earth, HeidelbergCement, has announced plans to convert one of its facilities into the world's first carbon neutral cement plant by 2030. The current industrial method used to make urea for fertilisers is costly and fossil fuel reliant but Nanyang Technological University has found a more sustainable and energy-efficient method that doesn't need gas feed stock. Net zero emissions is going to be incredibly difficult, especially if leadership from governments is lacking, but a lot of good people are doing amazing things. We should not give up hope. We should support these changes for the better.

THE constant flow of alternative views about providing tomorrow's secure electricity supply needs access to today's real time data of all the current energy inputs. Everyone should take the time to study the supply and demand contributions from all forms of power to fully understand how this mix constantly changes. All five remaining coal fired power stations in NSW (9920-megawatt capacity) are still contributing, 24 hours a day, at a long term average of 65 per cent of their capacity. The numbers suggest that Liddell can be taken out soon, but I suggest a test run shutdown for reassurance - the remaining generators would, and can, increase to 78 per cent capacity to compensate. Thanks for considering this.

I HOPE to get my holiday in at the end of March before we get nuked ('Putin puts Russian nuclear forces on alert', Newcastle Herald 28/2). I'll be a bit unhappy if I'm turned into a silhouette before I get to catch a few King George whiting down south. Oh, will nuclear war have an affect on climate change or is it only coal we need to worry about? If it's only coal, thank goodness for that, now I'll sleep easier

UKRAINE cooperated with Russia until a change in the Ukrainian government denied them access to the Black Sea. Let Ukraine fight its own battle. In my opinion they poked a stick at Russia and now they wear the consequences. Australia should pull its head in, it has nothing to do with us. Just as the US, UK and the rest of the world should do the same, the US-led invasion of Iraq was no less a breach of their so called international law.

HAVING learnt about the court case involving Luke Lazarus ("Beach 'Boycott'", Herald, 24/2) I no longer support the current owners of The Beach Hotel. I will, however, support and congratulate the new owners, and I hope they make the most of the approval for renovations and extended trading hours.

I'M always happy when I hear a politician say the price of electricity has come down, I'd be even happier if I ever saw the bottom line on the bill come down.

UKRAINE now, Poland next?

I WOULD like to congratulate Eraring's board of directors for deciding to shut down the power station. Shareholders will no doubt reap the rewards and Lake Macquarie can start on the long track to being clean again ('Lake life to power on after Eraring', Herald 26/2).

JANE Caro's run at a NSW senate seat is just another gust of fresh air destined to blow the cobwebs from our Parliament. For too long we've had manic single-issue candidates or stale old party hacks to vote for. In Jane Caro, and her colleagues standing as Independents, we now have someone who is intelligent and articulate, but more importantly, she's experienced broadly in life the way most of us have to face it. She'll know that bread and milk come in range of styles and prices because she's bought them to make her kids' school lunches

JEFF McCloy should be congratulated for cleaning up the CBD graffiti, if he'd have done it a few weeks earlier, he may have been re-elected. Maybe, his next project could mowing the grass on the median strips on our arterial roads that create the first impression on visitors to Newcastle. Unfortunately in my opinion we have a council that wastes money on Supercars races and putting skate bowls in the wrong place, like South Newcastle beach, instead of Gregson Park, near to residents.