Pearlcasts
As we review 2025, the temptation is to look for neat summaries and settled conclusions.
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12 January 2026
Grief, proximity and the failure of moral judgement
After Bondi, intense grief and fear shaped public response. But emotional proximity can distort moral judgement, narrowing debate and crowding out the analysis needed to prevent future violence.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Mr Albanese goes to Washington
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump in Washington on 20 October.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Blame and frame: How Chinese Australians are counted when blamed, discounted when needed
We say we want to understand China. Then we glance past a million Chinese speakers at home and start counting somewhere else.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - A deserved defeat for Albanese on freedom of information
Thanks to Opposition leader Sussan Ley, the government’s disgraceful attempt to squeeze the life out of the Freedom of Information Act is as dead as a herring.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 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.
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.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Disarming extremism in the algorithmic age
Amelie Szczecinski 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.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - These are fighting words
As political violence escalates in the United States, chaos is spreading and democracy itself is under threat. The words of anger, ill-considered and increasingly crude, are accelerant on the American bonfire.
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”.
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Ignorance is complicity: Australia must end its arms trade with those committing crimes
Rayana Ajam 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.
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Latest on Palestine and Israel
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.
11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 7 October not a day to abuse protesters
When it comes to the domestic political fallout from the Gaza conflict, there are no more reliable and uncritical friends of Israel than Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan and her New South Wales counterpart Chris Minns.
11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1
At dawn, on 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters blast over 100 holes in the walls and fences that separate the Gaza Strip from Israel.
10 January 2026
Francesca Albanese and the lonely road of defiance
The UN special rapporteur investigating Gaza is sanctioned, blacklisted and treated as a criminal. The response reveals how power reacts when accountability is applied to the powerful.
10 January 2026
Best of 2025 - No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan
The Trump Plan is designed to reframe the issues in favour of Israel. Palestinians have been betrayed again.
10 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of international law
The Israel Defence Force has intercepted a flotilla of humanitarian vessels seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, taking control of multiple vessels and arresting activists, including Greta Thunberg.
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
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”.
11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - A masterclass in agency: What Singapore can teach Australia about China
Singapore’s new Prime Minister Lawrence Wong sat down with the ABC on 2 October and offered something rare in Australia’s China debate: clarity, confidence, and a middle-power strategy that doesn’t involve shouting or submission.
7 January 2026
Best of 2025 - If we want to win the Pacific, we must first listen – and stop blaming China for everything
A 9 September editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, titled China and Australia in a high-speed race to win control of the Pacific, offered a vivid picture of the daily contest for influence in the region.
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11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - ‘Disaster season’: What is that?
11 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Inequality and the future of democracy
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