12 April 2025
AUKUS turning point – Sydney Morning Herald calls for review defence, policy, politics
Since the AUKUS deal was signed in 2021 Pearls and Irritations has led a high-profile debate on the $368 billion deal, questioning whether it serves our interests. This week we saw a significant turning point. An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald calls on the Australian Government to follow the UK lead, and launch an inquiry into the deal. Below is the full text of the editorial.
12 April 2025
Australia’s fading democracy calls for radical rethinking
Donald Trump has declared a global trade war and unsurprisingly America’s most faithful ally has not been spared.
12 April 2025
Is China really the main threat to Australia's security?
What are the nature of the security threats Australia faces? How valid are the assumptions that have informed our economic, foreign and defence policy?
Israel's war against Gaza
Media coverage of the war in Gaza since October 2023 has spread a series of lies propagated by Israel and the United States. This publication presents information, analysis, clarification, views and perspectives largely unavailable in mainstream media in Australia and elsewhere.
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12 April 2025
How an imaginary expert crashed the world economy
On 16 December 1773, the Boston Tea Party (a protest against de facto tariffs on imports) marked the start of the American colonies’ liberation from British rule.
12 April 2025
Republic of Korea – Tricky transition times ahead
The unanimous decision of the ROK’s Constitutional Court ( 8-0 including those judges nominated by his party) to uphold the National Assembly’s decision to immediately impeach former president Yoon Suk Yeol marks a very significant milestone in the country’s short democratic history.
11 April 2025
If I were health minister…
Ministerial time is a scarce commodity. Hence setting priorities is critical. But, unfortunately, the minute I walk into my new office I will be assailed by the smell of a dead cat on my desk emanating from a stack of briefs on private sector issues.
11 April 2025
Zionist Federation lodges Federal Court complaint against journalist Mary Kostakidis
The Zionist Federation of Australia has filed a legal action with the Federal Court of Australia against renowned Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis relating to a complaint it first raised with the Australian Human Rights Commission in July 2024, claiming posts she made on social media platform X were antisemitic in nature.
11 April 2025
A statement by the minister for the environment in the new Australian Government
My fellow Australians: you cannot exist, and your grandkids will not exist without a safe, healthy, habitable Earth for us all to dwell upon.
11 April 2025
ABC has Four Corners with just one angle: Anti-China Media Watch
In the midst of a federal election campaign, China is front and centre, with the major parties falling over themselves to look tough on national security. The mainstream media is once again aiding and abetting the political narrative without any serious analysis; Albo and Dutton are going to swipe back the Port of Darwin from its CCP-linked owners, but the mainstream media is clueless as to how that will happen; Tony Abbott tells his former chief of staff we’re being bullied by China; and a heavily-promoted Four Corners program fails to scale the great wall of objectivity.
11 April 2025
Probing Thatcher’s role in Golden Temple massacre
Phil Miller reports on efforts to spur the Labour Government to investigate British complicity in a massacre of Sikh pilgrims by Indian troops 40 years ago.
Latest on Palestine and Israel
11 April 2025
Zionist Federation lodges Federal Court complaint against journalist Mary Kostakidis
The Zionist Federation of Australia has filed a legal action with the Federal Court of Australia against renowned Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis relating to a complaint it first raised with the Australian Human Rights Commission in July 2024, claiming posts she made on social media platform X were antisemitic in nature.
10 April 2025
Federal election: Time to hold MPs accountable for stance on genocide
Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, and now its seizing of their land is the worst example of genocide since the horrors of the genocides of Darfur in Sudan in 2003 and Rwanda in the 1990s.
9 April 2025
An arresting American Gaza challenge
Recent US commentary backing President Trump’s extraordinary American Gaza takeover project has regularly stressed how critics should come up with a better plan.
6 April 2025
Was Israel complicit in the 7 October 2023 massacre?
The dreadful atrocities by Hamas on 7 October 2023 horrified the world and triggered the destruction of Gaza, the deaths of more than 50,000 Gazan men, women and children and the wounding of tens of thousands more.
5 April 2025
Palestine is the issue to consider when you enter the voting booth
On the day Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the election date, Jews Against the Occupation '48 issued an open statement addressing the current government in the hope that Labor would shift its policies on Israel/Palestine.
3 April 2025
Peter Slezak's speech to the University of Technology Sydney rally on 26 March
Remarks made by UNSW academic Peter Slezak at a rally at UTS on 26 March, have attracted considerable negative coverage in the Murdoch media. [The Australian and The Daily Telegraph] Pearls And Irritations is carrying the full text of the speech so that readers can make up their own minds.
3 April 2025
Israeli practices exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
The Gaza Strip has witnessed catastrophic humanitarian crises during the genocide committed by the Israeli occupation. The war has caused widespread destruction of infrastructure, leading to the near-total collapse of the healthcare system and essential services.
3 April 2025
The West and inconvenient memory: The destruction of history
“Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past and historians are the people who produce it.” – Eric Hobsbawm
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11 April 2025
ABC has Four Corners with just one angle: Anti-China Media Watch china, media, politics, topfive
In the midst of a federal election campaign, China is front and centre, with the major parties falling over themselves to look tough on national security. The mainstream media is once again aiding and abetting the political narrative without any serious analysis; Albo and Dutton are going to swipe back the Port of Darwin from its CCP-linked owners, but the mainstream media is clueless as to how that will happen; Tony Abbott tells his former chief of staff we’re being bullied by China; and a heavily-promoted Four Corners program fails to scale the great wall of objectivity.
10 April 2025
US tariff policies strengthening China's position in Asia
In geopolitics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, but there are permanent interests. While many countries in Southeast Asia have tried to maintain their economic ties with the US and China, President Donald Trump's economic and tariff plans are inadvertently helping China strengthen its position in Asia.
10 April 2025
Will there be a war between China and the US?
Will there be a war between China and the US? This question suddenly gained popularity in early April 2024, mainly because, in response to Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariff” policy, China was the first country to impose strict countermeasures.
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