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P&I Guest Writers
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CHRIS HEDGES. Banishing Truth – The story of Seymour Hersh. (Truthdig 24.12.2018)
The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, in his memoir “Reporter,” describes a moment when as a young reporter he overheard a Chicago cop admit to murdering an African-American man. The murdered man had been falsely described by police as a robbery suspect who had been shot while trying to avoid arrest. Hersh frantically called his editor to Continue reading »
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ROSS BURNS. US Withdrawal from Syria
There is everything wrong with the way in which Donald Trump reached his decision to pull US forces out of Syria, apparently without touching base with his own advisers and commanders. Australia is also now exposed to such impromptu creativity in foreign policy as in PM Morrison’s attempt in October to float a new initiative Continue reading »
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JONATHAN STEVENSON. How Jim Mattis failed (New York Times 24.12.2018)
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who submitted his resignation on Thursday, was the last “adult in the room” of the Trump administration — or so claim a small army of pundits, who now worry that the president, finally unchecked, will unleash an unvarnished, unpredictable America First foreign policy on the world. Continue reading »
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M.K.BHADRAKUMAR. Trump’s Afghan withdrawal could pave the way for peace (Asian Times 24.12.2018)
The US president’s controversial decision signifies a well-crafted political and diplomatic move aimed at ending the 17-year conflict There has been withering criticism from within the United States regarding the reported decision by President Donald Trump on troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. Predictably, Trump’s detractors in Washington are painting the town red lampooning his decision (especially Continue reading »
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M.K.BHADRAKUMAR. Trump made the right decision to quit Syrian conflict (Asia Times 21.12.2018)
Despite the criticism, there is a strong argument that the US president has done the right thing by withdrawing his forces from Syria If 700 days out of US President Donald Trump’s 1,461 days of presidency seem a wasteland of unfulfilled promises and expectations in foreign policy – except, perhaps, on the Korean Peninsula – Continue reading »
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PETER MAGUIRE. Regulate It, Man. Marijuana
One of the few issues that many Americans can agree on in 2018 is, improbably, marijuana legalization. Pot is now legal in thirty-three states and Washington, D.C. In April, John Boehner, the former Republican Speaker of the House, made the rounds of the morning TV talk shows to announce that he now supported decriminalization. Boehner, Continue reading »
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CHARLES M. BLOW. What Happens If … (New York Times, 02.12.18)
I no longer think that anyone in America, including Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters, can afford to put off the consideration of the central question of this administration: What if Donald Trump or those closest to him were compromised by the Russians or colluded with them? Continue reading »
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LESLEY HUGHES. The Best of 2018: Cognitive Dissonance in the Big Dry.
Climate change is worsening the drought now affecting huge swathes of the continent, bringing gut-wrenching misery for farmers and the communities they support. And what have some of the parliamentary representatives of those regions been up to? They have been trying to convince the Japanese to invest in more coal-fired power generation in Australia. Continue reading »
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ANNETTE GORDON-REED : What We Lost. Martin Luther King
“Well, they killed King.” The matter-of-fact statement hung in the air of the kitchen where a roomful of women—including my mother (I was the lone child)—had gathered on that April day in 1968 to learn to make hot tamales for sale at church fund-raisers. Our herald, the adult son of the kitchen’s owner, delivered the Continue reading »
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SYLVAIN CYPEL. From Sans Culottes to Gilets Jaunes: Macron’s Marie Antoinette moment.
In Soviet times, Russia’s Jews told a joke about a man named Rabinovitch who was distributing pamphlets in Red Square. In a matter of minutes, the KGB had found him and taken him to headquarters. Only there did the agents realize that the sheets of paper were completely blank. “But there’s nothing written here,” one Continue reading »
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PETER RODGERS. Israel-Palestine – the fallacy of the two-state solution.
I posted the following on Pearls and Irritations mid-year. I have been involved in Middle Eastern affairs for more than 30 years and, like many others, have clung to the notion of two states like a life-line. Letting go is painful, it creates even greater uncertainty. But to suggest that there is the slightest chance Continue reading »
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TONY BOYD. ‘Trump’s evidence-free trade war’, Australian Financial Review, 22 Dec 2018, p.56
Rarely has there been a more comprehensive dissection and damnation of a government policy founded on misinformation than economist Stephen Roach’s analysis of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Roach, who traded his job as chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia for faculty membership at Yale University in 2012, was masterful in his use of humour, Continue reading »
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KATHERINE FRANKE. The pro-Israel push to purge US campus critics.
There are signs that we’ve reached a tipping point in US public recognition of Israel’s suppression of the rights of Palestinians as a legitimate human rights concern. Increasingly, students on campuses across the country are calling on their universities to divest from companies that do business in Israel. Newly elected members of Congress are saying what was once Continue reading »
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GABRIELLE CHAN. Nationals face their biggest threat yet after an annus horribilis (The Guardian).
Traditional party of the bush wracked by personal scandals, leadership instability and a raft of new competitors on their turf. Continue reading »
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TONY DOHERTY. Do we really know the Christmas Story?
In a year in which the Church we cherish has been shaken to the core, what has the Christmas story have to offer our understanding of faith? Continue reading »
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LISA NANDY. Let the people take back control of Brexit.
With 100 days to go until the United Kingdom officially leaves the European Union, the British government is in crisis, political parties are riven by deep divisions and Parliament is gridlocked. Without something to break the deadlock, caused by politicians who hold such different views on Brexit that we are unable to agree on any Continue reading »
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TIM CAREY. It’s despair, not depression, that’s responsible for Indigenous suicide (The Conversation, 14.12.18)
Last year, 165 Indigenous Australians died as a result of suicide. Despite continued efforts to improve suicide prevention programs, there has been no no appreciable reduction in the suicide rate in ten years. Continue reading »
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JAMES BUTTON. The ALP Federal Conference.
It looks like the times will suit Bill Shorten. Voters don’t love him, yet in a year in which the feral rump of the Liberal Party hopelessly botched a coup that felled a Prime Minister but failed to install his self-anointed successor, by-election after by-election and poll after poll showed Shorten’s party poised to take Continue reading »
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SATYAJIT DAS. Australia’s flip-flop policies put off Asia. (Nikkei Asian Review 19.12.2018)
If the opinion polls are correct, Australia will have a new federal government around May 2019. A new prime minister will likely take charge, which would make seven in the past decade, compared to four in the previous 32 years. This instability has long prevented consistent domestic decision making. Now it is starting to change Continue reading »
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COLIN HESELTINE. In a war against Huawei, we are the likely losers. (AFR 20.12.18)
Let’s call a spade a spade. The efforts by western powers, Australia included, to cut Huawei out of major telecommunications projects such as 5G, where Huawei is arguably the world’s leader, are aimed at containment of China (of course, we don’t officially call it this – we call it “push-back”). Much has been reported recently Continue reading »
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BRAD CHILCOTT. Refugees and the ALP Conference.
On Monday night, late in the evening after Labor’s national conference had debated asylum seeker and refugee policy, I sat at a bar with a mix of refugee advocates, conference delegates like myself, people seeking asylum and refugees. Continue reading »
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PETER RODGERS: Morrison and Jerusalem – a special sort of dunce
We have to hand it to Scott Morrison. He has been at the heart of two major shifts in Australian political life. One made him Prime Minister, the other overturned a sensible long-standing approach on Jerusalem. Yet the new PM struggles to offer a coherent explanation how either development benefits Australia. His approach on Jerusalem Continue reading »
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AMANDA MEADE. Positive finding on ABC and SBS a bitter pill for News Corp (The Guardian).
Rejection of competition complaints wasn’t what the Australian was hoping for. Plus: Ray Hadley sees the light. Continue reading »
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MICHELLE GRATTAN. Rudd says Murdoch media is a “political party” (The Conversation, 18.12.2018)
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has used an address to the Labor national conference to deliver a fresh swingeing attack on the Murdoch media, declaring “it is not a news organisation, it is a political party”. Continue reading »
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PETER DAY. From Classical Christianity to Quantum Christianity.
Christmas time is both very predictable and inexhaustibly mysterious. Continue reading »
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HAL PAWSON. Shorten places housing at the centre of the 2019 election
With his weekend announcement of a $6.6 billion affordable rental construction program, Bill Shorten has dramatically reinforced Labor’s emphasis on housing as central to the Party’s 2019 election policy pitch. The initiative, Labor’s first significant housing investment pledge in four federal elections, aims to help qualifying low-to-moderate income earners increasingly squeezed out of urban housing Continue reading »
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MARIANA MAZZUCATO. Can the STATE deliver?
Visitors to Australia are drawn to this country’s iconic coastline. After landing in Sydney early in the morning I went straight Bondi’s famous Icebergs ocean pool to do a few laps. It was spectacular. A gorgeous pool in the depths of the sea, a symbol that it’s not just infrastructure, but well-designed infrastructure that makes Continue reading »
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NILE BOWIE. 1MDB dragnet closes in on Najib, Goldman Sachs (Asian Times, 14.12.18)
Legal wheels are turning fast in Malaysia and US to jail the ex-premier and hold the American investment bank responsible for money laundering and fraud worth billions of dollars Continue reading »
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TIM COSTELLO. World Vision Australia Chief Advocate on our ODA failing
On a recent trip to Stockholm, when Swedish politicians complained that aid had slipped from one per cent of Gross National Income to 0.8 per cent, I cringed with shame – then changed the subject. Continue reading »
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Peter Drake- Vale FRANK HAMBLY AM.
Francis Sutherland Hambly, the doyen of university education in Australia, died in Canberra on 21 November 2018, aged 83. Frank served the universities as Director and Secretary of the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee (AVCC) from 1966 to 1996; indeed he personified the AVCC. Continue reading »