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P&I Guest Writers
This post kindly provided to us by one of our many occasional contributors.
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African youths make it clear they prefer China over US
The 2022 African Youth Survey released on Monday has sent shock waves across the world. China has surpassed the United States as having the biggest positive influence among African youths. Continue reading »
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Ann Wright: Largest ever US and Nato naval war drills in Pacific a threat to both peace and marine life
Military posturing in the Asia-Pacific also risks nuclear war and the potential extinction of the human species. Continue reading »
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The Teals will force the Greens to get smart at last
John Menadue asks whether the Greens can avoid the perfect obstructing the good. The Teals will force the Greens to Get Smart. Continue reading »
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Keith Mitchelson. How long, how long the climate blues
Chris Bowen has announced reconfiguration of the energy generation system will not ‘commence until 2025’. Can Labor and Australia wait that long? Continue reading »
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RYAN YOUNG. Elon Musk’s gambit: Twitter and Free Speech
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has sharpened philosophical and epistemic differences over speech and content moderation. He will create an interesting natural experiment between different moderation approaches on platforms, if he is successful in changing the philosophical attitudes at Twitter. Continue reading »
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JOHN PRICE: James Madison on Parties
Madison: Federalist #10 … the trouble with parties Right about the time the first fleet was sailing to Botany Bay, three of the American founders, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote a series of articles designed to explore the most controversial issues encountered by the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. They were published and Continue reading »
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Roger Dargaville: Five policy decisions that led to today’s energy crisis
If you aren’t a long-term energy policy news junkie, you’d be forgiven for thinking today’s crisis arrived fairly suddenly. But we arrived here thanks to a series of policy decisions under previous governments – state and federal – that left Australia’s energy system ill-equipped to cope with the demands placed on it. Continue reading »
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Ilhan Omar says 49 million facing famine ‘Should be the biggest story in the world right now’
A United Nations study finds that Russia’s war on Ukraine and the intensifying climate emergency have pushed the number of people facing famine globally to an all-time high. Continue reading »
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Richard Heller: Universities can spearhead regional development & the distributed university model
Universities should take an expanded leadership role in regional development, the Distributed University model provides a mechanism. Continue reading »
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Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falk: The unjustified criticism of High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang.
An artificial atmosphere of hostility, sustained by geopolitical agendas, double standards, fake news and skewed narratives has made it difficult to tackle specific human rights problems particularly in Xinjiang. Continue reading »
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KEITH MITCHELSON: Media advocacy for tax-avoiding, transnational behemoths – the international fossil-fuel companies
The web of international trade has been lauded for a century as a positive binding force connecting nations, making the world a safer place. Who would think it could also do the opposite. Continue reading »
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Geraldine Doogue: Engaging young Australians with their ABC
Another highly engaging Classic 100 music countdown came to a close at 4pm on Sunday, enthralling many thousands of Australians, linking them like maybe nothing else, to their ABC. Crucially, younger Australians engaged like never before with the Classic 100, according to the network’s website. Altogether, 215,486 listeners took action and voted—a record, with an Continue reading »
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Storms at the Summit of the Americas
June 7 was a bad day for Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS). During the ninth Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an assassin and puppet of the White House, instigator of the coup in Bolivia. He said that Almagro cannot come to give lessons on Continue reading »
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ROBIN CAVALIER: Age distinctions increasingly influencing political outcomes
Thanks to the Australian Electoral Commission’s age profile for each electorate it is possible to analyse how younger and older voters across the nation appear to have taken different paths. Continue reading »
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The immoral army
One of the regular refrains from the Israeli government is that they have “the most moral army” on Earth. Continue reading »
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Charalambous: Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is a fundamental barrier to peace
When it comes to the question of achieving peace in the Middle East, Labour is clear: in government, we would immediately recognise the state of Palestine. We want to see a two-state solution, with a sovereign and secure Palestine and Israel existing in peace alongside one another. But we must acknowledge how far away that Continue reading »
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DAVEY HELLER – The Australian election: the working class moves leftward under conditions of crisis
The Federal election showed that despite appearances, including the anti-vax rallies and the best efforts of the press, the working class has shifted to the left rather than the right during the last two years of crisis. The election delivered a severe blow to the project of consolidating far right politics through electoral processes. The Continue reading »
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HUGH SMITH: Justice – the first casualty of peace?
A 21-year old Russian tank commander, Sergeant Vadim Shysimarin, has been tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Ukraine for the murder of a civilian. This is the first war crimes trial arising out of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ – a label which does not exempt any of the combatants from the law of Continue reading »
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Hannon: A Tribute to Father Eric Hodgens – friend, pastor, priest
In my distant memory, when in 1960, I was a grade 2 student at St James’s Primary School in Gardenvale, I have a vague recollection of a newly ordained priest coming to visit the school and talk to us. I also have a similar recollection from 1959, in Grade 2, when Michael Parer likewise had Continue reading »
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KEITH MITCHELSON. Satisfying Expectations
Winning a ‘climate election’ where neither major party presented nor discussed their policy details with electors has generated a blank screen of individual expectations. Can Anthony Albanese’s government satisfy their diverse hopes. Continue reading »
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Mann and Lindsey: It’s great Albanese visited Indonesia, but Australia needs to do a lot more to reset relations. Here are 5 ways to start
A new Australian prime minister flying to Indonesia to “reset” relations is now so routine it would probably raise hackles in Jakarta if it didn’t happen. Continue reading »
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Richard Drake: The American cause in Ukraine: Advancing freedom or the course of empire?
The disasters of war in Ukraine have not yet found their Francisco Goya, but the reporting of journalists conveys a graphic picture of the death and destruction there. This war, like all its predecessors, is hell. Writing about the putatively good war of 1939-1945, Nicholson Baker in Human Smoke described its beginnings as the advent of civilisation’s Continue reading »
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JAKE LYNCH: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism
The murder by an Israeli sniper of the Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Akleh, and the police attack on mourners at her funeral, are not incidental to Zionism, but integral to it. The ‘Green Line’ that bounds the territory the rest of the world regards as belonging to Israel is purely provisional, with no Continue reading »
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KEITH MITCHELSON: Becoming a rooftop superpower
Our household rooftop solar panel network helps fulfil international commitments of the Australian government, yet it also represents a hidden taxation that citizens do not seem to recognise. Can the new Labor government rectify this and other larger taxation anomalies? Continue reading »
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How Australia’s new leaders really see Israel and the Palestinians
In the recent election, aided by a febrile Murdoch press, the right-wing campaign to smear Australia’s opposition as ‘antisemitic’ and ‘anti-Israel’ reached fever pitch. With Labor now in power, it’s time to set the record straight. Continue reading »
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Andrew Stewart – Wages and women top Albanese’s IR agenda: the big question is how Labor keeps its promises
Industrial relations issues were front and centre when federal Labor last won office from opposition in 2007. The backlash against John Howard’s “Work Choices” reforms cost both his government and his own seat. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s detailed “Forward with Fairness” policy provided a blueprint for the Fair Work Act that is still in Continue reading »
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JOHN LANGMORE and ERIKA FELLER – Planning UN revitalisation
Reinvigorating multilateralism has been a growing concern of the United Nations (UN) for many years. The maintenance of international peace and enhancing the global rules-based order are core responsibilities under the UN Charter. A major problem is that many Member States are no longer, if they ever fully were, practicing what they say they believe. Continue reading »
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Beth Doherty-Recovering the “True” Church – Book Review
One of the great chants of Latin American protest marches, is the phrase: “El pueblo unido jamas será vencido”, meaning: “a united people will never be overcome.” Continue reading »
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Neil Westbury: The Albanese Labor Government needs to act urgently to protect women and children in remote NT communities
“The Panel recognises that the negative impacts that arise from the over consumption of liquor in the NT, laid out in detail in this report, are off the scale, not just by Australian but by international standards. The resulting costs in terms of human suffering and social and economic costs cut right across the NT Continue reading »
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Mike Gilligan: AUKUS is not about defending Australia but a possible US attack on China
The hidden legacy of AUKUS is that Australia is on a path to attract thermonuclear attack from China, against which it is defenceless. In April I could only wonder about the illogicality of AUKUS, that peculiar agreement struck in September last year with the US and Britain, for Australia to build nuclear submarines to save Continue reading »