John Menadue – Pearls and Irritations

In the spring of 2012, I made an extended visit to Saudi Arabia to report on the effects of the Arab Spring there. The arch-conservative oil monarchy was pursuing a robust counter-revolution, but the uprisings had brought new energy to reformers across the region. I was curious to see how Saudis themselves saw their country’s future. Continue reading →

Race and racism have come to dominate political debate in Australia in recent times. However, as Senator Ian McDonald assured us earlier this year, racism does not exist in Australia! The Liberal Party have declared themselves a racist free zone, although the Sudanese community in Melbourne might see Dutton’s statements that they are nothing more than a collection of crime gangs a little inflammatory. There is no racism in the ALP, although Shorten has claimed that foreign workers are responsible for a rise in unemployment. Both parties share policies that effectively criminalise asylum-seekers. The Greens are not racist, but there has been an appreciable rise in anti-Chinese racism following Greens leader Cassie O’Connor’s outbursts. Nobody is a racist and yet racism is on the rise. Continue reading →

There is some debate whether it was H.L. Mencken or P.T. Barnum who said that nobody ever went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the public.  Either way, the executives of Australia’s self-proclaimed Royal Network followed the advice faithfully when preparing for the current Royal tour.  They assumed that the entire population of our continent is brain-dead.  Judging by Channel Seven’s coverage of the visit by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the assumption was warranted.  Continue reading →

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ottawa refuses to let “politics slip into” the decision to allow Huawei equipment into Canada’s next-generation mobile networks even as the U.S. and Australia have barred the Chinese telecom giant on grounds of national security.

The Prime Minister’s comments come just days after two U.S. senators took the unusual step of publicly urging the Liberal government to ban Huawei from Canada’s 5G networks. Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner warned that Canada’s telecommunication safeguards are insufficient to address the risks posed by the Shenzhen company. They both sit on the U.S. Senate select committee on intelligence and Mr. Warner is vice-chair. Continue reading →