Ceasefire sparks fresh calls for global media access to Gaza
Jessica Corbett

Ceasefire sparks fresh calls for global media access to Gaza

Press groups are also demanding justice for the more than 200 journalists slaughtered in Palestinian territory over the past two years.

Reclaiming care in the age of AI
Stephen Leeder

Reclaiming care in the age of AI

Sixty years ago, the patient-doctor interaction was, at its best, about human beings connecting, engaging, listening, observing and caring.

Who are 'Advance' and what are they doing to our politics?
John Queripel

Who are 'Advance' and what are they doing to our politics?

Launched in 2018 as a conservative answer to GetUp!, the group Advance likes to style itself as the voice of the average person against “the elite.


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Embedding free, prior and informed consent in Australia’s legal framework
Tiarna Williams

YOUNG GLOBAL LEADERS

Embedding free, prior and informed consent in Australia’s legal framework

Tiarna Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

How the Coalition’s right read the opinion polls
Ian McAuley

How the Coalition’s right read the opinion polls

A superficial reading of the polls suggests the Liberal Party should move to the Trumpian right. This is a stupid and dangerous idea.

Nobel Peace laureate calls for US bombing of her country
Eugene Doyle

Nobel Peace laureate calls for US bombing of her country

Within hours of being named the Nobel Peace laureate for 2025, María Corina Machado called on President Trump to step up his military and economic campaign against her own country, Venezuela.

Shameful distortion that lies at the heart of US conservative politics
George Browning

Shameful distortion that lies at the heart of US conservative politics

The news of ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza is cause for great rejoicing and for giving credit where it is due. But the big questions remain: where to from here, and how did the world allow this to happen in the first place?

From Gaza, Palestinians have reasserted their agency on the world stage
Ramzy Baroud

From Gaza, Palestinians have reasserted their agency on the world stage

If we are to speak of a Palestinian victory in Gaza, it is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology and politics.

From play to performance: Sport as the new Roman circus
John Frew

From play to performance: Sport as the new Roman circus

Reading the recent article Is this the moment that will define cricket's future? by my former university lecturer and continued mentor, Chas Keys, reminded me how sport, once a shared expression of community, is again being redefined by money and media.

Trump’s war for peace: How the Nobel became his battlefield
Stewart Sweeney

Trump’s war for peace: How the Nobel became his battlefield

Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize has been one of the most grotesque spectacles of the modern era – a man trying to win a peace prize by promoting war.

Author Submission,  Paddy Gourley

GOURLEY ON GOVERNMENT

A deserved defeat for Albanese on freedom of information

Thanks to the Leader of the Opposition, Ms Ley, the Government’s disgraceful attempt to squeeze the life out of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act is as dead as a herring. In an elegant note in The Canberra Times of 13 October in which Ms Ley fillets the Government’s attempt to narrow the scope of the FoI Act and says “The Opposition will stand firmly against these changes.” Thus, the Coalition and cross-benchers in the Senate are primed to flush the Government’s proposals away. The Prime Minister had urged the non-government parties to “Engage constructively with this reform….because...

Latest on Palestine and Israel

Ceasefire sparks fresh calls for global media access to Gaza
Jessica Corbett

Ceasefire sparks fresh calls for global media access to Gaza

Press groups are also demanding justice for the more than 200 journalists slaughtered in Palestinian territory over the past two years.

Shameful distortion that lies at the heart of US conservative politics
George Browning

Shameful distortion that lies at the heart of US conservative politics

The news of ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza is cause for great rejoicing and for giving credit where it is due. But the big questions remain: where to from here, and how did the world allow this to happen in the first place?

From Gaza, Palestinians have reasserted their agency on the world stage
Ramzy Baroud

From Gaza, Palestinians have reasserted their agency on the world stage

If we are to speak of a Palestinian victory in Gaza, it is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology and politics.

Israel’s response to the International Court of Justice
Paul Heywood-Smith

Israel’s response to the International Court of Justice

The ceasefire plan in Gaza has dominated our news in recent days and weeks. One aspect of the plan is the obligation of Israel in the first phase to release a number — a large number — of Palestinian prisoners.

How Israel lost a war by not deserving to win
Jack Waterford

How Israel lost a war by not deserving to win

It is ultimately futile and probably wicked to calculate winners and losers in a war against civilians, least of all on any sort of balance sheet weighing and measuring the value of dead bodies.

Trump’s sham peace plan
Chris Hedges

Trump’s sham peace plan

There will be no peace in Gaza. Only the temporary absence of war.

Time for a 'just peace' for all peoples in Palestine
Peter Slezak

Time for a 'just peace' for all peoples in Palestine

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong took a long time just to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. And their belated declaration of Palestinian statehood is an empty gesture when we are still sending F-35 jet components to Israel.

Childhood on hold: Growing up too soon in Gaza and beyond
Meg Schwarz

Childhood on hold: Growing up too soon in Gaza and beyond

UNICEF has called Gaza the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child.” It estimates every single child in Gaza will need mental health support.


John Menadue's book on Israel's war against Gaza

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 PDF

Latest on China

The West’s crucial strategic failures
Les MacDonald

The West’s crucial strategic failures

The Earth is littered with the ruins of empires that once believed they were eternal. Camille Paglia.

Lack of China capability can only do harm to society: Our current situation is a disgrace
Colin Mackerras

Lack of China capability can only do harm to society: Our current situation is a disgrace

In March 2023, the Australian Academy of the Humanities sounded the alarm on the decline in our understanding and knowledge of China through a report on “Australia’s China Knowledge Capability”.

How anti-China witch hunts in Canada and the UK ruin lives
Alex Lo

How anti-China witch hunts in Canada and the UK ruin lives

Security services such as London’s MI5 and Ottawa’s RCMP appear to be going after individuals and organisations out of pure antagonism and distrust against Beijing rather than having actual evidence.


John Menadue

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Pearls and Irritations leads the way in raising and analysing vital issues often neglected in mainstream media. Your contribution supports our independence and quality commentary on matters importance to Australia and our region.

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Latest letters to the editor

Extremism and fanaticism of every kind

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

I hope that Amelie has an enriching experience at the UN and strongly support the intent of her work to eliminate extremism and fanaticism of every kind on social media. The most serious kind is that promoted by various regimes around the world, not the least of which are Israel and the US. The algorithms that allow this state-sponsored extremism are far and away the most dangerous. That is because the wealth and influence of these state sponsors vastly outweighs that of the many invaded and occupied communities and cultures around the world marginalised by the Western-created algorithms...
The abiding consequences of criminality

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

This is a careful and comprehensive analysis of why those invaded and bastardised by the West in the apocryphal name of spreading democracy remain unconvinced by the fraud!
Neoclassical pseudo-science

Geoff Davies — Braidwood NSW

Further to Evan Jones’ sensible defence of the political economy versus neoclassical economics, he quotes neoclassicist Warren Hogan Jr implying the positive role of the scientific method for the latter. I spent four decades as an actual scientist (studying the Earth) and more time digging into the horrors of mainstream economics. Hogan’s claim is laughable. Neoclassical economics is built on flagrantly unrealistic assumptions, such as that we can all predict accurate probabilities of all future possibilities, that we are selfish competitors and there are no social interactions (in fact, humans are highly social), and that there are no economies...
Eugene Doyle: Magisterial analyst

Keith Mitchelson — brisbane

May I compliment you for your superior analysis of 7 October 2023? I have not read of movements of Hamas in Israeli territory before. Hamas killed Israeli soldiers while overwhelming military bases, and some were also killed when kibbutzim and Nova Rave were attacked. Yet, if the more than 3000 Hamas insurgents could overwhelm the IDF bases so comprehensively, so quickly, and if murder was their intention, surely many more Israeli deaths could have resulted. Similarly, the unknown thousands (?) of Palestinians also did not murder. They were all very inefficient killers. Likely, Hamas came to capture Israelis...



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