Category: Inside Story

A gang of five poppets beams through a circle chain. They are so vividly drawn as almost to eclipse their national emblems. The Chinese girl’s smile is beatific, the Korean’s as radiant as her costume, while the American’s wink matches her cute blonde bob. A smart, green-shirted Japanese boy and

I was in the middle of writing an article about the three great Australian Medeas — Judith Anderson in 1947, Zoe Caldwell in 1982 and now, in 2020, Rose Byrne at the Brooklyn Academy of Music — when I learned of Caldwell’s death. A “sexy dame” with red hair and

Saturday morning saw the widely anticipated announcement of a new parliamentary majority in Timor-Leste, led by Xanana Gusmão. Assuming it is installed by president Francisco “Lú-Olo” Guterres, the alliance will become the country’s ninth government since the restoration of independence in May 2002. Assembled at a long table in Dili

China’s coronavirus problem is one more complication for a leadership that is struggling, not always successfully, with the complexities of a very difficult transition. COVID-19 affects both the politics and the economics of this transition. Like the other Asian miracle economies, most notably South Korea and Taiwan, China started out

When senator Bridget McKenzie moved to the backbench in the aftermath of the sports rorts controversy, the federal government was no doubt hoping that the furore provoked by self-interested funding decisions had run its course. But reports suggest that funds from another grants program, the Female Facilities and Water Safety

https://insidestory.org.au/rural-rebels/Labor had its turn at civil war during the tumultuous...

As the protracted bushfire crisis gives way to storms and floods, the damage bill mounts in towns and communities around the country. And after the furore over the federal government’s failure to prepare for the firefighting emergency, another kind of failure is becoming evident. There are no coordinated strategies for

The catastrophic wildfires of the past year, not only in Australia but also in California, the Amazon and even the Arctic, have brought millions of people into direct contact with the effects of catastrophic global warming. Attempts have been made to estimate the economic costs of these disasters, though at this stage

Germany’s politics are in turmoil. The election of a little-known Free Democrat as premier of Thuringia, a state that accounts for just 2.5 per cent of Germany’s population, has prompted the resignation of the national leader of the Christian Democrats and may well spell the premature end of Angela Merkel’s