China's man in Canberra – a hard act to follow?
Xiao Qian’s term as China’s ambassador saw the Australia-China relationship move from deep freeze to cautious stability, though many tensions remain unresolved.
The UN cannot be left to starve while military spending soars
Global military spending is soaring while the United Nations faces financial crisis, even as conflicts rise and the need for cooperative security becomes more urgent.
Before we debate migration, we need to ask: who will care for Australia?
As Australia ages, the care workforce will depend on better training, stronger retention and skilled migration – not a narrow debate about population or monoculture.
Australia should vaccinate threatened wildlife against bird flu
With H5N1 now killing Australian wild birds, targeted vaccination could help protect threatened species and prevent local extinctions before catastrophe strikes.
Pay where you play can fix global tax abuse
A proposed UN tax convention could shift global rules from taxing profits where companies declare them to taxing profits where they are actually earned.
Gaza’s talent needs doors, not only aid
Gaza Sky Geeks shows another side of Palestinian life under catastrophe: skilled young people still creating, learning and building futures, if the world is willing to open doors.
Hothouse Earth is arriving faster than predicted
New climate data and risk modelling suggest global heating is accelerating far faster than expected, with catastrophic consequences unless fossil fuel use is rapidly reduced.
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Why I support a carbon method for limiting the emissions from native forest logging
Carbon offsets have rightly earned distrust, but the new Improved Native Forest Management method could protect native forests, store carbon and penalise future logging rather than delay decarbonisation.
Omar Musa’s Miles Franklin win rewards epic, ambitious writing with a global scope
Omar Musa’s Fierceland has won the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award, recognising a formally adventurous novel that links family inheritance, colonial violence and environmental destruction across borders.
Environment: Shoddy impact assessments satisfy fossil fuel companies and governments
Oil and gas risks in the Arafura and Timor Seas are being underplayed, small bushland remnants deserve protection, and solar’s rapid growth still has not displaced fossil fuels.
Making Indigenous incarceration strange again
When too many young Aboriginal men come to see prison as a normal stage of growing up, the question is not only what has gone wrong with them – but what has happened to the society around them.
The political cartoonist is becoming an endangered species
Fiona Katauskas’ departure from Guardian Australia points to a larger decline in permanent cartooning jobs, even as political cartoons remain vital to satire, public debate and local media culture.
Are US subs really temporary visitors?
Pat Conroy’s assurances about US submarines at HMAS Stirling raise more questions than they answer about rotation, sovereignty, nuclear ambiguity and Australia’s control of its own naval base.
When leaders break the deal – Message from the Editor
Much of our focus this week has been on what happens when democracy, or the leaders we elect, let us down.
What drives someone to be a 'Hardcore Harry'?
Extreme endurance events may look pointless from the outside, but they reveal a deeper cultural drive towards discipline, self-denial and achievement for its own sake.
Not really like us - a new view of Trump's America
Kieran Kelly’s Not Really Like Us traces a lifelong fascination with America that gives way to a more cautious view of the US as powerful, vital to Australia – and fundamentally different.
The AI arms race is putting safety last
The US and China are racing to build ever more powerful AI, but speed without safeguards risks catastrophic failure, political instability and dangers no country can contain.
“Very concerned” is not a foreign policy
While Gaza and the West Bank remain under siege, settlement and violence, Australia’s repeated support for a two-state solution sounds increasingly hollow without action.
How East Asia’s internet cafes became a cheap urban refuge
Across East Asia, internet cafes are no longer just places to get online. They have become cheap accommodation, workspaces and informal safety nets for people caught between jobs, homes and futures.
Victorian Labor's collapse isn't about debt. It's about 2020
Victorian Labor’s collapse is not only about debt, crime or infrastructure blowouts, but a delayed reckoning from communities that felt broken by lockdowns and ignored by the recovery.
Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan win is a blow to AIPAC
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary marks a major defeat for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and pro-Israel spending, and could signal a wider shift in Democratic politics over Gaza.
Plug-in solar could bring renters into the renewables boom
New Zealand has recommended legalising plug-in solar, potentially opening rooftop-style savings to renters, apartment dwellers and others previously locked out of renewables.
Voters are not abandoning democracy – they are waiting for it to work
Australians are not tuning out of democracy; they are losing faith in a political system that produces constant conflict but too little capacity to solve the problems it contests.
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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The antidote to today’s world
Alyssa Aleksanian — Hazelbrook
More on the South China Sea
John Curr — MANLY QLD.
Still not a light bulb moment
Hal Duell — Alice Springs
Fauci has questions to answer
Jani Brodie — Melbourne
Menadue hits the bullseye again
christopher baker — manly nsw
Nothing succeeds like excess
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
The attack on Tony Fauci beggars belief
Graeme Stewart — Avalon Beach, NSW
Imposing definitions of racism will not succeed
John Turner — Inverloch, VIC
