Search Results
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Stan Grant on Good Friday, Easter, and God’s absence in our suffering world
I never thought I’d see an inspiring Easter reflection in the usually secular, The Saturday Paper. But last Saturday (March 23) there was Stan Grant, writing on the Christian feast. Continue reading »
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Is China an Imperialist nation?
I was recently sent a complete list of China’s invasions of other countries in the last 2,245 years to demonstrated that China is historically an imperial nation and hence dangerous. Continue reading »
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The empire slowly suffocates Assange like it slowly suffocates all its enemies
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met. Continue reading »
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Russia: A steel wall against the West
In 1942, a Finnish sound engineer Thor Damen, secretly recorded 11 minutes of a conversation between Finland’s Commander-in-Chief, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim and Adolf Hitler, without the latter’s knowledge. Continue reading »
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China steals a march on a distracted world
For China these days it doesn’t get much easier to pursue it geostrategic objectives. With the US distracted on two fronts in Europe and the Middle East, and Russia mired in its intractable invasion of Ukraine, among the great powers, China is largely free to advance its interests on an increasingly global scale. Sabre rattling Continue reading »
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The urgency of Diplomacy
Now is the time for talks that will bring us closer to peace and away from a deadly and destructive war with no end in sight. Continue reading »
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A Republican victory in 2024 will be a climate disaster
After the Super Tuesday results signalled Trump would become the Republican presidential candidate in November, a first promise was that “We’re going to drill baby drill.” One of the most important reasons to watch American politics this year is that a Trump victory will push the world faster towards catastrophic climate heating. Continue reading »
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Environment: Booming oil and gas profits mainly benefit shareholders
The oil market is twice as large as all ten largest metal markets combined. Most oil and gas profits go to shareholders, not reinvestment in the industry. Since 2001 only 5 months have been cooler than the average for 1981-2010. Extinction Rebellion perform at the National Gallery of Victoria. Continue reading »
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Geopolitical grand larceny and its risks
One of the Ten Commandments says, with awkward bluntness: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Predictably, some are inclined to read certain qualifications in to this prohibition. As it happens, this sort of adaptive-thinking underpins arguments made in a recent article in the leading US journal, Foreign Policy. Continue reading »
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Authorised atrocities
Israel’s lawlessness has a history that those in the West share with the apartheid state. Continue reading »
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The superpower with a persecution complex
This week, Gideon Levy interviewed by Phillip Adams on the ABC’s Late Night Live and Gershon Baskin in the Times of Israel, reminded us why the Israel Palestine conflict is so intractable. Continue reading »
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A terrorist state and a declining US empire wage genocide
Hamas is the excuse for the Israeli attack on Gaza. The real intent is to expel all Palestinians not just from Gaza but from the West Bank as well. Continue reading »
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Détente: Towards a balance of power between the USA and China
Former Foreign Ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, other former Cabinet Ministers, former State Premiers, a Nobel Laureate, diplomats, writers, academics and human rights advocates are among 50 Australians supporting an appeal to establish détente between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. Continue reading »
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Australia must recall its ambassador to Israel and condemn the horror of Gaza
We need much more than the “Gaza Pose”. We’ve seen the furrowed brows and sorrowful looks. We’ve heard the regretful tones, the exhortations, the warnings, the carefully studied words. Continue reading »
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Australia’s moment of choice: illegal war on show in 2003 Cabinet papers
What has changed since 2003? Nothing, except for the worse. Australian governments continue to accept the US enemies as their own, and shoot whoever the sheriff says. Continue reading »
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In 2022-23, onshore asylum seekers were 33% less than under Peter Dutton
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) this week published full year data on onshore asylum seekers in 2022-23 compared to 2022-21. The data highlights a post-pandemic high of 18,738 asylum applications in 2022-23 compared to 10,564 in 2021-22. That is still well below the record set under Peter Dutton of almost 28,000 asylum applications in Continue reading »
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The failure of Western on-the-ground war reporting
On the ground reporting by Western media of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been weak. Continue reading »
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The Vampire Ball is ending for the US Empire
“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate” – historian Alfred W. McCoy. Continue reading »
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Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for peace in Ukraine
On the eve of the Russian election, Vladimir Putin exudes confidence, discounts nuclear war, but warns West on the dangers of escalation. Meanwhile the mainstream western media obfuscates and misleads as usual. Continue reading »
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The US-dominated International Order is collapsing
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” Continue reading »
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Reversing Europe’s and Australia’s slide into irrelevance and insecurity
Europe and Australia are facing a common existential threat: a creeping irrelevance caused, on the one hand, by our failure properly to invest and, on the other hand, by our ill-considered slide from a strategic dependence on the United States to a non-strategic, self-defeating servility to Washington’s policy agenda. Continue reading »
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How well is the Albanese Government communicating with Australians?
Since the 1980s I have been urged by my Labor Party colleagues to keep political messages simple and to listen to the local community. Continue reading »
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Unmanned ships for RAN : Here we go again – idea without a concept !
There has been significant media discussion (including P&I) of Defence Minister Marles’ recent announcement of the Surface Ship Review for the RAN – a step towards remedying the Defence procurement shambles inherited by the Albanese government and conducted by yet another retired US admiral! But there has been scant attention to the rabbit out of the Continue reading »
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Do China’s leaders fully grasp foreigners’ concerns about the country?
Beijing has been slow to address the visa and e-payment woes of foreign travellers, and some officials remain complacent about the exodus of foreign investment. Continue reading »
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Asia, America or independence: Australians have decided, will politicians listen?
A recent poll conducted by The Guardian found that nearly twice as many people agreed with Paul Keating’s suggestion that Australia should be an independent ‘middle power’ in Asia, rather than an ally of the United States. Perhaps the electorate are smarter than some of our political class seem to think. Continue reading »
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Ukraine: the dangerous economics of the war of production
After two years of bloody trench warfare and aerial annihilation the economics of the war in the Ukraine are putting the means to end it yet further out of reach. With an avalanche of armaments being poured into the military vortex, the consequences of the unacceptably large losses of life and further massive destruction of Continue reading »
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Gaza’s agony: the hinge point in the loss of Western dominance
The scale of deliberate Israeli cruelty against the Gazan people over the past five months is still difficult for Australians to absorb. But internationally, a key political fact has clearly emerged: that Israel, the US and their supportive Western allies (like Australia, to our nation’s shame) have now shredded any moral standing on the issue of Continue reading »
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The darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth
The ailing nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires ‘effective measures’ to regain its health, writes Dr Marianne Hanson, Co-Chair of ICAN Australia. Continue reading »
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The US sees China through the dark mirror of its own unbridled aggression
As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued – global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home. (A repost from February 2023.) Continue reading »
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The sin of “hubris”
The sin of “hubris” is to shame and humiliate others for pleasure or gratification. Such narcissistic pleasures were considered offensive to the gods of ancient Greece; a case of breaching the boundaries between the human and divine realms. Continue reading »