Can we save a 'livable Earth'?
Julian Cribb

Can we save a 'livable Earth'?

In reshaping the world for prosperity, humanity has undermined the very foundations of progress.

‘No safe place left’ as Israel moves to ethnically cleanse nearly 1m Gazans
Brett Wilkins

‘No safe place left’ as Israel moves to ethnically cleanse nearly 1m Gazans

“This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip,” said Oxfam International.

Why key leaders attended China’s military parade – Asian Media Report
David Armstrong

Why key leaders attended China’s military parade – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Nations “must adapt” to new power politics. Plus: Raid “will hurt” South Korea’s US investments; Trump’s strategic shift towards Pakistan; What’s next after Nepal’s 8 September massacre; Thailand gets its first minority government; Why India has the world’s biggest diaspora.


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Climate action can feel slow – but the fastest energy leap in history has begun
Peter Newman,  Ray Wills

Climate action can feel slow – but the fastest energy leap in history has begun

It’s increasingly common to hear from experts and the general public that the global shift away from fossil fuels is glacially slow, or even non-existent.

From 9/11 to 9/9: How recent events reshaped understandings of power and deception
Raghid Nahhas

From 9/11 to 9/9: How recent events reshaped understandings of power and deception

On 9 September 2025, Israel struck Qatar. Two days later, the world marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

The long-term damaging effects of COVID
Don Edgar

The long-term damaging effects of COVID

Just as the Great Plague ravaged Europe and changed the course of history, we face a different society and future because of the COVID pandemic. Differing responses to dealing with the virus reveal gaping holes in the social fabric.

SA’s algal bloom and the big, beautiful, bureaucratic ballet
John Schumann

SA’s algal bloom and the big, beautiful, bureaucratic ballet

The café owner at Edithburgh gave me a wintry smile. We were on Yorke Peninsula to play a concert as part of the opening of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Walk from Coobowie to Edithburgh.

Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N – Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N
Warwick McFadyen

Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N – Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N

In Palm Beach, there lives a man who, when not living in the White House, enjoys the balm of temperate climes. He lives in a mansion, extravagant and luxurious. He wants for nothing.

Old people are the victims of neoliberal profiteers
Jane Timbrell

Old people are the victims of neoliberal profiteers

Being the minister for Aged Care or Seniors is hard work and it is not a glamorous portfolio.

'Go for it!': Kevin O'Brien's Long Tan
Greg Lockhart

'Go for it!': Kevin O'Brien's Long Tan

Brigadier O'Brien's Long Tan is the most important account of our iconic battle in 40 years. The book spins 23 short chapters around a short exclamatory order.

Climate change, not China, is the real threat in the South Pacific
John Menadue

Climate change, not China, is the real threat in the South Pacific

Countries of the South Pacific have good reason to encourage China and other countries to assist them with infrastructure. And there is nothing that Australia should, or could, do about it.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

‘No safe place left’ as Israel moves to ethnically cleanse nearly 1m Gazans
Brett Wilkins

‘No safe place left’ as Israel moves to ethnically cleanse nearly 1m Gazans

“This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip,” said Oxfam International.

Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N – Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N
Warwick McFadyen

Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N – Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N

In Palm Beach, there lives a man who, when not living in the White House, enjoys the balm of temperate climes. He lives in a mansion, extravagant and luxurious. He wants for nothing.

Displacement and death in Gaza City as Israeli depravity continues
Ayman Qwaider

Displacement and death in Gaza City as Israeli depravity continues

This week, Israel killed my cousin Mohammed, a young and cheerful lawyer, along with his wife Myriam and their only seven-day-old baby, Jaber.

Israel and the Palestinians: Just one piece of the American plan
Howard Debenham

Israel and the Palestinians: Just one piece of the American plan

In his P&I article ’The Real death toll in Gaza’ posted on 5 September, John Menadue reminded us that Israel has become a criminal state and Now it is committing genocide.

The suppression of the Arab voice and the genocide in Gaza
Jaron Sutton

The suppression of the Arab voice and the genocide in Gaza

The United States’ unwavering military and political support for Israel is now accepted as the key enabling factor in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Liberal Party and Israel
Dennis Altman

The Liberal Party and Israel

The Liberal Party is correct in claiming Australia’s relations with Israel are at their lowest point ever. The real questions to be asked are: who is responsible, and how much does it matter?

Who is a terrorist?
Paul Heywood-Smith

Who is a terrorist?

Since 7 October 2023 there has been a growth of the use of the allegation of terrorism for propaganda purposes.

The State of the ‘State of Palestine’
Patrick Lawrence

The State of the ‘State of Palestine’

The upcoming United Nations General Assembly may show whether those nations who have pledged to support a Palestinian state really mean business.


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

Climate change, not China, is the real threat in the South Pacific
John Menadue

Climate change, not China, is the real threat in the South Pacific

Countries of the South Pacific have good reason to encourage China and other countries to assist them with infrastructure. And there is nothing that Australia should, or could, do about it.

A nation of narcissists
Patrick Lawrence

A nation of narcissists

Narcissism is the open-and-shut condition of the elites who fashion and execute American foreign policy. And they are utterly incapable of seeing their country as it is.

If we want to win the Pacific, we must first listen – and stop blaming China for everything
Fred Zhang

ANTI-CHINA MEDIA WATCH

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.


John Menadue

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More from Pearls and Irritations


Latest letters to the editor

The real threat to the South Pacific

Rod Madgwick — Mt Victoria

Cogent and clear analysis and recipe for appropriate Australian policy in the Pacific. If we truly had the best interests of the Pacific nations at heart, we would encourage appropriate Chinese help to them. By pitting ourselves with the US against China, we encourage inappropriate injections of Chinese money and trinkets like flash SUVs to dubious recipients to buy favour.
Australia backing the wrong horse

Bob Pearce — Adelaide SĄ

It is no wonder that successive Australian Governments have been unable to reach an agreement on gambling advertisement reform. We, as a country, have a mug punter mentality, a culture of backing the wrong horse. We march blindly off to wars. Once again we are heading down a very dangerous path, betting our houses in a housing crisis and backing the wrong horse trotters in a steeplechase. We need to stop sticking our noses into the internal affairs of other countries at the behest of waning powers. We need to adopt a policy of friendship to everyone, helping...
Denying Armenian genocide sets the template

Simon Tatz — Melbourne

Jaron Sutton asks if atrocities in Gaza will be “effectively suppressed. If history is a guide, then yes. For more than a century, most nations have been co-opted to effectively suppress the Armenian and Ottoman Christian Genocide (also called Assyrian and Greek Genocide). Between 1913-23, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians and 250,000 to 500,000 Assyrians were slaughtered, along with an estimated 300,000 Pontic and Anatolian Greeks. Denial, including the refusal of mainstream media and policy commentators, reinforces the words of Adolf Hitler, who said on the eve of unleashing the Holocaust: I have placed my death-head formation...
Mysteriously superior or mysteriously doomed?

Richard Cullen — Middle Park, Victoria, 3206

Witheringly convincing. Electing a petulant, five-alarm snake oil salesman as President (who has assembled a like-minded governing cult within the White House) is not what has caused the dismal Western trajectory so well analysed in this article – but it has certainly accelerated this development. The US — and its Global West posse — are steadily looking more mysteriously ill-starred (even doomed), rather than mysteriously superior.



Latest from Al Jazeera

NATO announces plan to strengthen Europe’s eastern flank
The new initiative, known as Eastern Sentry, follows the incursion of Russian drones in Polish airspace on Wednesday.
UN General Assembly backs two-state push for Israel and Palestine
Israel slams landmark vote, supported by 142 member states, as ‘disgraceful’ as it continues to pound Gaza.
Israeli attacks on Gaza kill 59, including 14 members of the same family
At least 42 killed in Gaza City as Gaza authorities claim some 1.3 million people remain in north of bombarded enclave.
‘Going to Memphis’: Trump to deploy troops to another Democratic-led city
Trump says Memphis 'deeply troubled,' as he plans to replicate Washington's federal control measures to address crime.
Charlie Kirk shooting suspect identified as Tyler Robinson, 22: All we know
Utah Governor Spencer Cox and FBI Director Kash Patel reveal details of the alleged gunman at a briefing.
Suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting in custody, named as Tyler Robinson
Robinson is believed to have acted alone in what Utah Governor Spencer Cox called a 'political assassination'.