Pearlcasts
As we review 2025, the temptation is to look for neat summaries and settled conclusions.
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15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - When truth can no longer be silenced
In Australia, secretive and remote institutions armed with increasingly restrictive laws are seriously eroding civic freedoms.
15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The new political economy of innovation: Why Australian policymakers need better tools
When the Commonwealth Government reorganised its innovation responsibilities for the fourth time in a decade, public servants made jokes about updating their email signatures again.
15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat
Anti-immigration rallies around Australia in late August and mid-October exposed public divides over migration, social cohesion and national identity.
15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The second Dismissal – the loans affair and meetings with Kerr
The second part in a series of first-hand accounts of the Dismissal, from the man who was there: John Menadue.
15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - In memoriam: The slow death of the Quad
Quietly, but surely, life is ebbing away from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad).
15 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Ambush and deceit
The first in a series of first-hand accounts of the Dismissal, from the man who was there: John Menadue.
14 January 2026
Trump is delusional about Venezuelan oil
Trump is banking on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to justify US intervention. But the state of the industry, global energy shifts and basic economics point to failure.
14 January 2026
Why Australia should walk away from AUKUS
Trump’s actions in Venezuela and rhetoric elsewhere confirm that the United States no longer respects international law or allied interests. Australia should rethink its strategic dependence accordingly.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The ABC and News Corp finally agree on something: China panic
Last week, a friend asked if I was worried about Chinese “nuclear threats.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Gaza under siege: The continuation of Zionist demographic cleansing policies since the 19th century
Israeli propaganda tries to present the war on Gaza as a “defensive reaction.” Yet the historical record tells a very different story: systematic genocide, the destruction of civilian life and deliberate attempts to uproot entire populations. All of this is a direct continuation of Zionist colonial policies that began in the late 19th century.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Taiwan as an integral part of China: A historical, legal and geopolitical analysis
The status of Taiwan remains one of the most contested topics in modern geopolitics and one of the most misrepresented.
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Latest on Palestine and Israel
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Gaza under siege: The continuation of Zionist demographic cleansing policies since the 19th century
Israeli propaganda tries to present the war on Gaza as a “defensive reaction.” Yet the historical record tells a very different story: systematic genocide, the destruction of civilian life and deliberate attempts to uproot entire populations. All of this is a direct continuation of Zionist colonial policies that began in the late 19th century.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - From illusion to real peace: Trump’s test in Gaza and Ukraine
Real peace demands Palestinian statehood, Ukrainian neutrality and the courage to defy the war lobby.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The three core myths driving Israel’s war on Palestine
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, one of the most outspoken moral critics within Israel itself, once summarised what he called the “three core values of Israeli society”: the belief that Jews are the chosen people; that they are the world’s ultimate victims; and that Palestinians are not equal human beings.
13 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Chris Sidoti on the International Court of Justice Gaza ruling
Yuji Iwasawa, president of the UN's highest court, says international law prohibits the use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare.
13 January 2026
Best of 2025 - On Israel, Zionism and being Jewish
No political conflict contains as many journalistic minefields as that between Israel and Palestine.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 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?
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 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.
11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Between two wounds: Gaza confronts Trump's plan to end the war
On a cold morning in central Gaza City, Nevin Al-Barbari, 35, sat in what remained of her family home, watching her two-year-old daughter, Reem, explore the rooms she had only recently come to know.
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
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The ABC and News Corp finally agree on something: China panic
Last week, a friend asked if I was worried about Chinese “nuclear threats.
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Taiwan as an integral part of China: A historical, legal and geopolitical analysis
The status of Taiwan remains one of the most contested topics in modern geopolitics and one of the most misrepresented.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 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”.
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14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Gunboat hypocrisy in the Caribbean
14 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Trump’s risky American economy
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