Saving Marwan Barghouti is our duty
Eugene Doyle

Saving Marwan Barghouti is our duty

Seeing video evidence this week of the physical and psychological mistreatment of the great Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti sickened me.

The response to recognition
Paul Heywood-Smith

The response to recognition

The recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia, leading, it is hoped, to full UN member state status, is an important development.

The economic reform roundtable and taxation
Michael Keating

The economic reform roundtable and taxation

Taxation is on the agenda of the Economic Reform Roundtable and, despite Albanese’s reluctance to consider tax changes, it will be impossible to achieve Labor’s goals without reform to raise more revenue.


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Finance’s bleeding hearts think PwC has suffered enough
Jack Waterford

Finance’s bleeding hearts think PwC has suffered enough

Has the Department of Finance entirely lost the plot? Has its thinking about the PriceWaterhouseCooper scandal — that the matter can now be swept under the carpet and PwC brought in from the cold — infected a police force itself compromised by its relationships with PwC?

Bendigo writers' festival fiasco
Warwick McFadyen

Bendigo writers' festival fiasco

If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. A code of conduct for a writers’ festival?

China’s shift to quality is redrawing Southeast Asia’s tech map
Asma Khalid

China’s shift to quality is redrawing Southeast Asia’s tech map

On 1 August, China’s state planner announced a crackdown on “herd behaviour” in emerging industries, targeting the surge of capital into hot sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar.

First they came for the Palestinians
Guest Author

First they came for the Palestinians

A Michael Leunig cartoon from 2012, that holds its relevance.

Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment has been a long time coming
David Spratt

Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment has been a long time coming

The Australian Government’s soon-to-be-released first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), which will be focused on domestic climate risks, has received some recent media coverage here and here. Here is the story on the long evolution of the NCRA and what to expect.

You aren't laughing now, are you?
Noel Turnbull

You aren't laughing now, are you?

The British media has always been populated by larger than life figures – from Northcliffe to Maxwell, Beaverbrook to Harmsworth, Barclay to Lebedev and, of course Rupert Murdoch.

After the genocide in Gaza
Peter Blunt

After the genocide in Gaza

So what happens next, sports fans, fellow Australian citizens? Now that Israel is starting to run out of Palestinian children and women to kill, hospitals to smash, and people to starve.

The Ukraine war after the Alaska summit
Joseph Camilleri

The Ukraine war after the Alaska summit

The Trump-Putin encounter in Anchorage has angered some, disappointed others and baffled many more. Yet it has told us much about the state of the war in Ukraine, and the obstacles to the ending of hostilities.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

The response to recognition
Paul Heywood-Smith

The response to recognition

The recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia, leading, it is hoped, to full UN member state status, is an important development.

First they came for the Palestinians
Guest Author

First they came for the Palestinians

A Michael Leunig cartoon from 2012, that holds its relevance.

After the genocide in Gaza
Peter Blunt

After the genocide in Gaza

So what happens next, sports fans, fellow Australian citizens? Now that Israel is starting to run out of Palestinian children and women to kill, hospitals to smash, and people to starve.

Our bravest journalists today are all working and dying in Gaza
Alex Lo

Our bravest journalists today are all working and dying in Gaza

Palestinian reporters are being murdered before their own cameras to expose true horrors to an indifferent or even pro-genocidal world.

Fifty-five years on, Bertrand Russell's words are worth returning to
Bertrand Russell

Fifty-five years on, Bertrand Russell's words are worth returning to

Believed to be one of the last things renowned philosopher, pacifist and public intellectual Bertrand Russell wrote, it is as relevant today as it was 55 years ago.

Where is the outrage? Israel's systematic mass assassination of journalists
Jeremy Webb

Where is the outrage? Israel's systematic mass assassination of journalists

The killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif is shocking but that it is a culmination of planned mass assassination of journalists by the Israeli Government is an outrage.

Recognition of Palestine: A neocolonial, feel-good gesture
Jeff Kildea

Recognition of Palestine: A neocolonial, feel-good gesture

Recognition of Palestine is a feel-good gesture that will not achieve any tangible benefits for the Palestinian people and amounts to a neocolonial denial of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.


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

Breaking: Chilling ‘News Virus’ sweeps Australia
Fred Zhang

Anti-China Media Watch

Breaking: Chilling ‘News Virus’ sweeps Australia

Chikungunya is a virus first identified in 1952 in what is now Tanzania, carried by mosquitoes, long since a globetrotter.

China’s consumption weighed down by weak expectations
Yang Yao

China’s consumption weighed down by weak expectations

China’s economy registered a respectable GDP growth rate of 5.3% in the first half of 2025.

Why Western hegemony is over
Jeffrey D. Sachs,  Josephine Ma

Why Western hegemony is over

The tariff truce between China and the United States is set to end in August. What do you forecast will happen after that? And what will happen to trade relations between China and the US for the rest of US President Donald Trump’s second term?


John Menadue

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More from Pearls and Irritations


Latest letters to the editor

Australia is moving away from US

Peter Sheehy — Blackheath NSW

Bruce Wolpe needs to catch up. Many Australians realised some time ago that Australia needs to distance ourselves from the US. The US has become unreliable and fickle. It is not just Paul Keating saying that we need to engage more with Asia. Take notice of the reader comments in mainstream papers plus in various podcast and you will see that that is exactly what is already happening. One comment that is becoming more persistent is that Australia should revisit AUKUS with a view to considering an alternative. There is a strong view that AUKUS is not the direction...
Whitlam dismissal

Pamela Curr — Brunswick

As the years pass, those who thought the rumours surrounding the Whitlam dismissal were most likely a bit paranoid are having to rethink. Decades of US regime change and wars provide a devastating insight into their modus operandi and it ain’t pretty.
Disruptive doctoring

Geoff Taylor — Borlu (Perth)

Tony Lawson’s piece invites new approaches to productivity challenges in the health sphere. I invite readers to view this news from China. It certainly promises productivity gains, but there will be a need to discuss the ethical and other concerns that such an approach poses.
At least 242 journalists killed: Inaction is complicity

Gideon Polya — Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria

Excellent article by Dr Jeremy Webb. The recent Zionist murder in Gaza of journalist Anas al-Sharif and four of his colleagues has sparked outrage around the world. Thus the UN: “The secretary-general calls for an independent and impartial investigation into these latest killings. At least 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Journalists and media workers must be respected, they must be protected and they must be allowed to carry out their work freely. Likewise Free Palestine Melbourne (that helps organise huge Sunday Rallies for Gaza): “Killing journalists, nurses, and civilians will not erase the...



Latest from Al Jazeera

Will Iraq integrate the Popular Mobilization Forces into the state?
Iraq is debating a new draft law that would give the PMF militias formal standing in state institutions.
‘Flames that consumed the hills’: Portugal, Spain reel from wildfires
Emergency services are under strain due to the 'worst' fires in Portugal in years, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego says.
Qatari PM, Egyptian president back efforts to reach Gaza ceasefire
Previous indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, facilitated by mediators, ended without any results to end the war.
Greece’s Crete sees surge in boat arrivals despite harsher detention policy
Greece has suspended processing of asylum applications from people arriving by sea from North Africa since July.
New Pakistan monsoon deluge kills 20 people: Local officials
Rains sweep away villages in worst-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as rescuers search for 150 missing people.
Google agrees $36m fine for anti-competitive deals with Australia telcos
The company agrees it acted against rules by making two telcos pre-install its search application on Android phones.