What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?
Matthew Fisher

What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?

Along with climate change and ecological damage, Australians face an equally important challenge of exposure to stressful social conditions leading to declining psychological health for millions.

Goodbye petrostates, hello ‘electrostates’: How the clean energy shift is reshaping the world order
Niusha Shafiabady,  Xiaoying Qi

Goodbye petrostates, hello ‘electrostates’: How the clean energy shift is reshaping the world order

For more than a century, global geopolitics has revolved around oil and gas. Countries with big fossil fuel reserves, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, have amassed significant wealth and foreign influence, helping shape the world order.

Message from the editor
Catriona Jackson

Message from the editor

I am writing from the back of a minibus in Chongqing this week, the mountainous mega city in southwestern China.


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The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now
Chris Hedges

The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now

The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organisation allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and prosecute them as terrorists.

How AI-based eye scans can detect high blood sugar, heart disease
Devanjali Relan

How AI-based eye scans can detect high blood sugar, heart disease

Retinal scans, aided by artificial intelligence, may soon offer doctors a simple, non-invasive way to detect several medical conditions.

Justice over comfort – Rethinking DEI across borders and battles
Meg Schwarz

Justice over comfort – Rethinking DEI across borders and battles

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are often defunded, dismissed as divisive, symbolic, performative, or reduced to box-ticking exercises, but in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza, we need to ask ourselves – what is DEI really about?

Labor has a narrow window to effect change
Stewart Sweeney

Labor has a narrow window to effect change

Australia is a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century and stuck on a trajectory that cannot last.

Legitimacy or leverage? The battle over what recognition really means
Azmat Ali

Legitimacy or leverage? The battle over what recognition really means

When Britain, Canada, Australia, France and others moved in quick succession to recognise the State of Palestine, observers described it as a “cascade” – a diplomatic avalanche that broke a Western taboo and forced an international conversation about statehood, occupation and impunity.

Bob Brown's latest book is a breath of fresh air
Reese Halter

Bob Brown's latest book is a breath of fresh air

Bob Brown’s latest book, Defiance, is a salubrious breath of a tall peppermint native forest. It’s not a hard book, but rather only hard to heed for some.

Typhoon Ragasa – We hardly blinked
Bob Rogers

Typhoon Ragasa – We hardly blinked

One doesn't have to look very far to find criticism by Western governments and media of the system of governance we use here in Hong Kong. Words like authoritarian, dictatorial, totalitarian flow from these lips on a regular basis.

Our age of unreason
Patrick Lawrence

Our age of unreason

We have lost that connection between reason and morality …. We have decisively lost our idea of the commonwealth as the anchor from which reason will make its case.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

Justice over comfort – Rethinking DEI across borders and battles
Meg Schwarz

Justice over comfort – Rethinking DEI across borders and battles

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are often defunded, dismissed as divisive, symbolic, performative, or reduced to box-ticking exercises, but in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza, we need to ask ourselves – what is DEI really about?

Legitimacy or leverage? The battle over what recognition really means
Azmat Ali

Legitimacy or leverage? The battle over what recognition really means

When Britain, Canada, Australia, France and others moved in quick succession to recognise the State of Palestine, observers described it as a “cascade” – a diplomatic avalanche that broke a Western taboo and forced an international conversation about statehood, occupation and impunity.

Two rights experts to address Press Club on Palestine recognition
Barb Durance,  Guest Author

Two rights experts to address Press Club on Palestine recognition

Two globally renowned figures in the field of human rights will address the National Press Club in Canberra on 1 October on the topic “Palestine recognition: necessary but insufficient”.

Interview that described the hell Gaza has become
Julie Macken

Interview that described the hell Gaza has become

I am sure I am not the only person who stopped what she was doing early on Tuesday morning to listen the most anguished interview I have ever heard on radio.

Free speech and Palestine: Time to push back
Marty Hirst

Free speech and Palestine: Time to push back

The finding in the Federal Court that Antoinette Lattouf’s sacking from the ABC was unlawful is a great win the for the Free Palestine movement in Australia.

Don't forget her name
Meg Schwarz

Don't forget her name

Amina Al-Mufti, a Palestinian child, was only 10 years old. Only a child! She simply stepped out to fetch a bucket of clean water for her family, something for which no child should have to risk their life.

Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision
Refaat Ibrahim

Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision

Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront of international attention, much more legitimacy has accrued to the rights of the Palestinians.

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism
Nick Estes

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism

There is no end in sight for the massacre in Gaza. Nearly two years after the start of Al Aqsa Flood, the United Nations Human Rights Council has — finally — declared Israel’s war in Gaza genocide.


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.

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Latest on China

Liveable cities of China
Jocelyn Chey

Liveable cities of China

No Chinese city appears on the annual lists of the most liveable cities in the world. Is this due to ignorance or to a pervasive anti-China bias?

Revitalising the UN's foundations
Daryl Guppy

Revitalising the UN's foundations

The United Nations grew out of the global co-operation which defeated fascism. It was conceived as a multilateral organisation to deliver a global rules-based order.

Why the planet now needs China
Stewart Sweeney

Why the planet now needs China

The World Bank’s Reboot Development report has belatedly confirmed what scientists have warned for decades: humanity is breaching the safe operating limits of the Earth.


John Menadue

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More from Pearls and Irritations


Latest letters to the editor

A small practical step in aiding Palestine?

Geoff Taylor — Borlu (Perth)

Here is a small step we might take in moving on from mere recognition of Palestine, as Refaat Ibrahim highlights the need for further steps in his article. The RAAF deployed aircraft to Syria to bomb ISIS, which then miraculously became the legitimate government of Syria, and the ADF has shipped Abrams tanks to Ukraine. So the RAAF could partner with the RAF and perhaps the French air force to provide air cover for the Sumud flotilla heading for Palestine, bringing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. The RAF has a base at Akrotiri in...
Betrayal of humanity

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

The vast level of criminality and senseless violence in the world today should be attributed to those that have caused it, participated in it and found snivelling excuses for it. No prizes for guessing that is the self-adulatory West. Our arrogance and loss of humanity is in stark contrast with the sensitivity of those we have oppressed, butchered and deprived. It is well past time for the West to fall into well-deserved desuetude and for far more civilised cultures to rise to save humanity and the planet!
Mea culpa without substance

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

Refaat is, of course, correct. The moral West likes to have it both ways, gestures to satisfy the punters but without a trace of substance to interfere with making money. The vast bulk of the world sees through us and is increasingly moving away from what they perceive as unreliable and devious participants in world events towards a grouping that favours inclusivity, equality, transparency and non-interference in internal affairs. Will our leaders have the gumption to act decisively and with moral purpose? Not if they can avoid, it is my view!
Too many relying on government funding

Jerry Cartwright — Perth

Apparently, Sussan Ley's concerns with those relying on government handouts do not extend to those who use taxpayer-funded helicopters to go house hunting or attending parties, something Bronwyn Bishop would agree with! I'm sure many other names could be added, and yes, there are two sets of rules, as pointed out in a letter by another reader. Hypocrites.



Latest from Al Jazeera

UK’s governing Labour party holds annual conference amid far-right surge
The UK PM, who faces a potential leadership challenge, has also faced criticism over his policy on Israel's war on Gaza.
Multiple people injured in shooting at Mormon church in Michigan: Police
Local police say the shooter is down and the church, located in the Grand Blanc Township, is on fire.
One dead, nine injured in shooting at Mormon church in Michigan: Police
Local police say the shooter is dead and the church, located in Grand Blanc Township, is on fire.
Denmark bans drone flights after latest drone sightings at military bases
Drone sorties over past week have caused the temporary closures of several Danish airports, raising security concerns.
Hamas tells Israel to cease Gaza City attacks as captives’ lives in danger
Israeli tanks are advancing in Tal al-Hawa, Sabra and other neighbourhoods of Gaza City in their ground invasion.
Week in Pictures: From a typhoon in Asia to missile strikes in Kyiv
A global roundup of some of last week’s events.