Pearlcasts
As we review 2025, the temptation is to look for neat summaries and settled conclusions.
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21 February 2026
Bring these Australian children home, PM. They did not make their own beds
Dozens of Australian women and children remain trapped in dangerous detention camps in north-east Syria, despite Australia’s legal obligations, available security powers, and repeated international requests for repatriation.
21 February 2026
Message from the Editor
I gasped in disbelief when I heard our Prime Minster invoke his beloved mother, when blocking the return of family members of ISIS fighters to Australia this week. He said: “My mother would have said, ‘If you make your bed, you lie in it’. And he doubled down the next day, saying of the 11 women and 23 children: “I have nothing but contempt for these people.”
21 February 2026
Prince Andrew arrested – why not King Trump?
If no one is above the law in the UK, not even royalty, presumably no one is above the law in the US, not even a president.
21 February 2026
Let’s not turn back the clock on immigration
Australia needs a forward-looking, evidence-based immigration policy from the Liberal Party. They should drop the slogans, fear mongering and backward-looking thinking.
21 February 2026
Australia’s renewable surge leaves energy politics behind
New data shows Australia’s renewable energy transition has passed a tipping point – with wind, solar and batteries now supplying half the national grid and rapidly expanding.
21 February 2026
Board of Peace plans 5,000-person military base in southern Gaza
Leaked contracting documents detail plans by the Board of Peace to build a large military base in southern Gaza, including armoured towers, bunkers and a “Human Remains Protocol”.
21 February 2026
With more restrictive laws across the country, how can we protect the right to protest?
Recent state laws passed in the name of public safety are expanding police powers and narrowing the right to protest, with uneven safeguards for human rights across Australia.
20 February 2026
The three big challenges facing Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor has assembled his shadow ministry, but unresolved tensions with the Nationals, policy baggage from the last election and doubts about his own authority leave his leadership exposed.
20 February 2026
AI, productivity and the long stall in living standards
Artificial intelligence may offer the best chance to lift stagnant productivity and living standards – but without deliberate policy choices, its benefits will be uneven and limited.
20 February 2026
Reverend Jesse Jackson's legacy on the Middle East
Tributes to Reverend Jesse Jackson rightly honour his civil rights leadership. Far fewer acknowledge his long, consistent support for Palestinian self-determination – and the political costs he paid for it.
20 February 2026
Shame hasn’t vanished. Care has
Public outrage fixates on the absence of shame among elites. But the deeper problem is cultural and structural – a political economy that has pushed care to the margins of public life.
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Latest on Palestine and Israel
21 February 2026
Board of Peace plans 5,000-person military base in southern Gaza
Leaked contracting documents detail plans by the Board of Peace to build a large military base in southern Gaza, including armoured towers, bunkers and a “Human Remains Protocol”.
20 February 2026
Dual nationals in Israel’s military face growing legal scrutiny over Gaza
Newly released data shows that tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers hold foreign citizenship, placing Western nationals directly within the scope of international war crimes law over Gaza.
19 February 2026
The ceasefire as a weapon: the genocide in Gaza continues in silence
Killings, arrests, displacement and aid restrictions have continued under the ceasefire. The violence has not ended – it has been reorganised and made less visible.
18 February 2026
Muslim women face violence, prejudice, exclusion
Reported Islamophobic attacks in Australia have surged dramatically, with Muslim women overwhelmingly targeted. The failure of political leaders and institutions to respond meaningfully is deepening fear, trauma and exclusion.
17 February 2026
UN defends Rapporteur after coordinated European pressure campaign
UN warns of attacks on independent experts after European states target rapporteur over disputed Gaza remarks and sanctions.
13 February 2026
Iran’s comprehensive peace proposal to the United States
A regional peace settlement grounded in Palestinian statehood, international law and mutual security guarantees offers a real alternative to perpetual conflict.
12 February 2026
The Herzog visit and the Israelisation of antisemitism
Inviting Israel’s president to Australia in the wake of the Bondi attack has blurred the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel, weakening rather than strengthening social cohesion.
12 February 2026
Cowardice dressed up as authority on Sydney’s streets
The violence surrounding protests against the visit of Israel’s president was not an accident of crowd control. It reflects a deeper political failure – where authority suppresses dissent rather than confronting uncomfortable truths about Gaza, protest rights and democratic responsibility.
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.
Download the PDFLatest on China
16 February 2026
Playing deputy sheriff on Taiwan comes with costs Australia will wear
Calls for Australia to take a more forward-leaning stance on Taiwan repeat a familiar pattern – moral symbolism paired with strategic vagueness. Past experience suggests the applause is loud, but the economic consequences are real and largely borne alone.
15 February 2026
A loneliness crisis is the price China is paying for rapid modernisation
China’s Spring Festival masks a deeper social problem. Beneath the world’s largest annual migration lies a growing crisis of loneliness shaped by migration, inequality and institutional design.
9 February 2026
Confucianism, not coercion – China’s long export of a governance philosophy
Claims that China is exporting authoritarianism rest on a shallow reading of both Chinese political tradition and how governance ideas actually travel. A longer historical view points instead to Confucianism – a philosophy that has shaped governance across East Asia for centuries.
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Latest letters to the editor
Continued puerility!
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
Vastly expensive but a failure in reality
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
History is not conditional
Hal Duell — Alice Springs
Is it the regime or the west that must change?
Susan Dirgham — Viewbank