Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on children, a war on their childhood and a war on their future. Children are dying at an alarming rate from malnutrition and dehydration and doctors are no longer seeing normal-sized babies. On the first Friday in Ramadan this year 36 members of
Independent Commentary > Pearls & Irritations >
The recent ASEAN-Australia Summit in Melbourne was widely well received. Leaders of all member countries, except Myanmar, attended. Some—President Marcos of the Philippines and Prime Minister Anwar of Malaysia—also carried out quite extensive individual programs. Speeches and comments reflected general agreement, and there was an impressive list of ...
“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate” – historian Alfred W. McCoy. On March 14, The New York Times published an article by Ivan Nechupurenko entitled “Shunned By West, Russia
Australians frozen out of the housing market cannot expect that government is going to do anything that effectively closes the gap between current house prices and what most of the unhoused could afford as a deposit. Modern politicians of all stripes are all agreed that their political survival depends on
David Marr’s recent book, Killing for Country, confronts the reality of the dispossession of Aboriginal lands in Queensland by the Native Police Force. It is a recounting of wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of “natives” in order to settle the land that never was Terra Nullius. Most confronting for Marr is
Faith leaders should stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and should call on the Australian government to condemn all violence that threatens a just future for the people of Palestine, Israel and the Middle East. This call comes from Pax Christi, an ecumenical Christian organisation. Pax Christi Australia has sent
On the eve of the Russian election, Vladimir Putin exudes confidence, discounts nuclear war, but warns West on the dangers of escalation. Meanwhile the mainstream western media obfuscates and misleads as usual. There is no better purveyor of unobtrusive, misleading propaganda than Reuters. With most mainstream Western media outlets the
The US has created the conditions for the decline of its own society. TikTok being banned in the USA is not the issue. The fact is, this is a ban on any current or future successful technology owned by a potential adversary and, let’s not make any mistake about it,
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr Wang Yi, is in Australia this week to participate in the China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue with his Australian counterpart, Foreign Minister Penny Wong. This is a good development and very much to be supported. While observing the reporting of this upcoming dialogue from the
The general theme of delusion and the particular theme of ‘dead in the water’ as they apply to the entire AUKUS arrangements are provocations worthy of taking further. These are, of course, extracted from the essays in the most recent issue of Australian Foreign Affairs (paywalled). The most prominent of
In Australia, the ‘Anzac Cloak’ is appropriated, proselytised, prostituted and promoted far too often for perfidious reasons: to lend some dubious activity gravitas and shield it from criticism. Internationally, another ‘Cloak’ has arisen from the horrific circumstances of the Holocaust. Instead of being the touchstone for solemn commemoration of the
Obviously no Australian, much less an MP, should ever sell out his country to any foreign power. However, in recent times, some actions taken by certain MPs arguably amount to doing just that. Mike Burgess, chief of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) appointed by the previous Scott Morrison government,
Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on children, a war on their childhood and a war on their future. Children are dying at an alarming rate from malnutrition and dehydration and doctors are no longer seeing normal-sized babies. On the first Friday in Ramadan this year 36 members of
The recent ASEAN-Australia Summit in Melbourne was widely well received. Leaders of all member countries, except Myanmar, attended. Some—President Marcos of the Philippines and Prime Minister Anwar of Malaysia—also carried out quite extensive individual programs. Speeches and comments reflected general agreement, and there was an impressive list of ...
“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate” – historian Alfred W. McCoy. On March 14, The New York Times published an article by Ivan Nechupurenko entitled “Shunned By West, Russia
Australians frozen out of the housing market cannot expect that government is going to do anything that effectively closes the gap between current house prices and what most of the unhoused could afford as a deposit. Modern politicians of all stripes are all agreed that their political survival depends on
David Marr’s recent book, Killing for Country, confronts the reality of the dispossession of Aboriginal lands in Queensland by the Native Police Force. It is a recounting of wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of “natives” in order to settle the land that never was Terra Nullius. Most confronting for Marr is
Faith leaders should stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and should call on the Australian government to condemn all violence that threatens a just future for the people of Palestine, Israel and the Middle East. This call comes from Pax Christi, an ecumenical Christian organisation. Pax Christi Australia has sent
On the eve of the Russian election, Vladimir Putin exudes confidence, discounts nuclear war, but warns West on the dangers of escalation. Meanwhile the mainstream western media obfuscates and misleads as usual. There is no better purveyor of unobtrusive, misleading propaganda than Reuters. With most mainstream Western media outlets the
The US has created the conditions for the decline of its own society. TikTok being banned in the USA is not the issue. The fact is, this is a ban on any current or future successful technology owned by a potential adversary and, let’s not make any mistake about it,
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr Wang Yi, is in Australia this week to participate in the China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue with his Australian counterpart, Foreign Minister Penny Wong. This is a good development and very much to be supported. While observing the reporting of this upcoming dialogue from the
The general theme of delusion and the particular theme of ‘dead in the water’ as they apply to the entire AUKUS arrangements are provocations worthy of taking further. These are, of course, extracted from the essays in the most recent issue of Australian Foreign Affairs (paywalled). The most prominent of
In Australia, the ‘Anzac Cloak’ is appropriated, proselytised, prostituted and promoted far too often for perfidious reasons: to lend some dubious activity gravitas and shield it from criticism. Internationally, another ‘Cloak’ has arisen from the horrific circumstances of the Holocaust. Instead of being the touchstone for solemn commemoration of the
Obviously no Australian, much less an MP, should ever sell out his country to any foreign power. However, in recent times, some actions taken by certain MPs arguably amount to doing just that. Mike Burgess, chief of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) appointed by the previous Scott Morrison government,