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Trump is like a bee in a bottle

Re Wang Wen’s article today. The tariff war has seemingly been more or less staved off for 90 days for most countries except for China, only hours after being activated. In which time, according to Donald Trump, US$2 billion has already been collected. Why the pause? Well, according to Trump, “[he] thought that people were getting a bit yippy, a little bit afraid.” “It looked pretty glum, I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history. He said: ”I know what the hell I’m doing”. “No other president would have done what I did. ”World...

Was Assad really responsible for chemical attacks on his own people?

This article begins with the following unproven allegations: Remember Bashar al-Assad? The man who crushed his own people under a mountain of rubble and fear? Who turned peaceful protests into mass graves, dropped barrel bombs on neighbourhoods, and used chemical weapons on children? Seymour Hersh, among many, many others, including UN investigators, who refused to sign the trumped-up report on the so-called chemical attacks, have proven that the lies about Assad were equal to the charge that Saddam had WMDs. Why does Pearls and Irritations publish these US claims, crap and propaganda?

Perhaps reading the truth might answer some of Barb’s questions

No doubt Barb Dadd writes with the best of intentions but linking Bashar al-Assad to some of the world’s worst villains is wide of the mark. Assad was a victim of the United States' wrong-headed desire for regime change to benefit its national resource exploiters to the detriment of the host country. To that end it armed rebel Muslim extremist groups and set them to undermine the Assad regime. Russia supported Assad (who headed a secular Christian country). But with the aid of US weaponry, the Muslim extremists were able to oust Assad, replacing his regime with a...

Article fails to address its title

I am surprised that John Stace's article fails to consider informed media commentary about the degree of involvement of the Israeli military in the events immediately following the Hamas breakout and attacks which occurred on 7 October, 2023. There was no mention of the Israeli military's Hannibal doctrine or of the role of the military's helicopter gunships in the violence which occurred after the attacks commenced, or of their impact on Israeli party-goers attending the rave event that had been curiously relocated to the very edge of Gaza and inadequate security offered for the event. There was no...

Trump’s irresponsible insouciance

Bob Douglas’ article raises the existential threats facing us. Yet Trump has just boosted coal and is ending any US green plan. His latest statement that [any resulting sea level rise] will increase the amount of waterfront property is just mindblowingly stupid and callous. In parts of the Pacific, it threatens to sink all property.

Is this WIN News article true?

I have not seen any confirmation of the veracity of this article in the mainstream media. I have checked Snopes who also cannot trace its veracity. If it is actually happening, why isn’t it all over the media? I would really like to know the truth and not some dreamt-up thought bubble analysis. Editor's note: Not sure what you consider to be a reliable publication, but you can read a similar story on Bloomberg. There has been a genocide going on in the Gaza Strip for more than a year, but one does not see coverage...

If I were Albanese...

If I were Anthony Albanese, I would say that Peter Dutton has no policies of his own, that all his policies are copied from Trump and that you only have to look at the US to see what will happen in Australia if Dutton is elected. If I were running as an independent, I would promise to cut all ties with the US, cancel all contracts and accords, and remain friendly, but not friends. Before you ask why should Albanese have the same policy, remember this is a  small target election. But I would adopt the independent position...

Should we now look to join BRICS?

Now that ANZUS is superseded and presumably AUKUS is as dead as can be, we should be looking for a group of friends who are more naturally connected to Australia. Geographically – Indonesia, Malaysia,Thailand, Vietnam. Trade – China, and India. British background – South Africa Perhaps we are more naturally associated with BRICS and now is a good time to open some diplomatic dialogue about Australia joining this organisation. It would presumably take about five years for such work to bear fruit. BRICS appears to be a very tolerant organisation so we should fit in rather nicely....

Donald Trump and climate change

While we are all seriously concerned about Donald Trump's tariff war, we need to take even more seriously, his recurrent war against climate change action. His withdrawal for a second time from the global agreement on climate change action, and his interest in the promotion of company profits (including fossil fuel companies), should be deeply concerning to our nation’s leaders. The world is already suffering deeply, from droughts, floods and fires, that are influenced by fossil fuel emissions. Our two major Australian political parties are divided on climate change action. While one is committed to renewables and batteries, with...

Members of RCEP are worst hit by tariffs

All but three of the countries you cite as being mostly heavily affected by US tariffs, are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes China and Australia. We’ll just have to put more effort into that. There is also still APEC, but I guess the US’ membership of that is effectively ended by Trump, and Russia’s membership is problematic.

Never get between bullies in a fight

I agree that climate is a major game and sinking archipelagos (Indonesia etc) are a major issue. To paraphrase the leader of the opposition, will they be swimming to a crowded north or empty south? It’s all very nice to say that in every war game attended, the US lost but there is no mention of how allies (friends) in a bully brawl are the first to suffer. If it came to a nuclear war, the main players will not bomb each others. if they do so it will only be as a last resort. Australia will be...

On the subject of tariffs

What is the position on tariffs on the supplies (I presume) Australian businesses sell to the multitude of US bases and embassy in our country on our soil? I understand their embassy is considered to be on their soil. I think Australia has no jurisdiction over their ships and subs and don’t know about their troops barracked in our bases and Pine Gap. What they eat there is top secret, though I believe there once was a booming market in US muscle cars coming in via a secret installation near Alice Springs. .

It is time to take BRICS seriously

Thank you for Paul Keating’s article. For me, I wonder, can I buy from Australia’s Antarctic Program a robotic penguin made in Heard Island, now subject to Trump’s new tariff on electrical and mechanical equipment from that place? But seriously, he is quoted saying today in The Guardian that he now expects other nations will come crawling to him. That is not a successful approach to a bully. By the way, has Trump actually formally withdrawn the US from the WTO, which would seem to be a prerequisite to his announcement on tariffs yesterday? A very recent P and...

Rigging the US market

Ever since markets have existed — over 5000 years — unscrupulous individuals have known how to rig them. The usual trick is to drive prices up, sell out to promote a crash, then buy in at disaster prices – and get very rich. Amazingly, America, that cynosure of smart business, does not seem to get the Trump gameplan: it is to crash the US economy so his billionaire mates can swoop in and snap up the best pieces at bargain basement prices. Stock exchanges usually have strict rules against this behaviour – but there is no law that...

Has the world gone mad?

Paul Keating is right to question thevalidity of any treaty with the US. There’s every indication that America, socially and economically, is now in the grip of a pirate gang of fanatics hellbent on assaulting any order that sits outside their credulous world image and shown they’ll plundering what they can from whomever they can, even their fellow Americans, in total disregard of the consequences. The evidence is clear. Scattergun targeted tariffs have overturned the global economic barrow. Internal descent has been punished financially and government functionality dismantled. Trumpian puppeteers have control of social media, and the constitutionally authorised...

The failure of Peter Slezak's words

Peter Slezak writes, In fact, there has never been any antisemitism at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime. Peter knows very well that there is, and was, antisemitism in Australia, but he chooses, not merely to discount it, but to reject it entirely. If he was speaking at a different rally and had said, In fact, there has never been any Islamophobia at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime, people in the Muslim community would be shocked at the ignorance of such a statement. Perhaps that's the...

Reject fearful militarism

Gareth Evans writes I totally accept that defence planning always has to be based on worst case assumptions. This voter doesn't accept that. I reject preoccupations with power and weapons. To varying degrees, I fear, loathe and despise them. I like it that Evans puts his argument in tension with decency and prudence, but he doesn't include ethics, neutrality or pacifism. Too many Labor pollies have gotten their jollies from guns and being power hungry.

Albanese should have left before it’s too late

The thing that Labor should have learnt from the US election is to jump ship early, get out before you're told to go (not that Dutton has the charisma of Trump) , and take the subs with them. Albanese and Marles should have stood aside for Chalmers and Plibersek straight after the failure of the Voice vote. Albanese, the loyal workhorse, and Marles, a tin soldier more worried about how his ADF uniform looks than working, neither capable of being dynamic leaders, should have walked all over Dutton, the broken dynamo from the past. But they haven’t! That...

Only global government can save us from ourselves

Growing up in the sixties, under the threat of nuclear annihilation, our mantra was we’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time. It is our generation, and our offspring, who now govern our planet and its major institutions. We’ve never lost that mantra. As Julian Cribb shows, in the decades since we have, through our unsustainable consumption and lack of concern for the environment which hosts us, so damaged our environment that it could become virtually uninhabitable. The rapidly shrinking glaciers, which provide so much of the fresh water on which we, and other...

Columbia's capitulation costs

This capitulation by US universities will surely have them plummetting down the global rankings.

Australia buys Brooklyn Bridge (submarines )

This informative story in The Guardian makes one wonder how a spirited tabloid might have headlined it. Perhaps, “Slippery US submarine team collects the loot, then delivers a ‘sorry Bruce’ message to Down Under chumps. Have I got a deal for you? I've got a vote for the party that dumps the deal.

The need for submarines

Peter Briggs presents a strong case for the value and advantage of nuclear submarines over conventional submarines as well as their advantages for an island nation. However the article needs to be read in the context of what is critical to the security of this country and how best to address that. The greatest immediate threat to our security is the impact of global warming and Australia's defence resources should be focused on that. Nuclear submarines are not likely to be part of Australia's naval defence fleet until the 2040s, if ever. Meanwhile, we face extreme weather events which...

Why Australia needs Australian submarines

A convincing article. I’m convinced, Now convince me why they need to be nuclear. Where do we store the waste? Why we need to buy them from the US? Most importantly, why have we waited until the locally made product was so far past its use-by-date that we find ourselves in our current dilemma? Looks to me like our ADF and politicians have got it very wrong, given a lifecycle of 25 years before major refit. That’s five LNP and three Labor governments and a lot of generals who haven’t done their well-paid jobs.

Pacifism and neutrality

I particularly like Marcus Rubinstein's sceptical stance regarding expectations of war, and especially the calls Australia should respond with armaments. I have read with concern the reports of China's intentions regarding imminent invasion of Taiwan. I feel pity for those who could be invaded, and living in apprehension, and wonder about the extent of China's war pose. Could it possibly be as bad as the US? No, says Rubenstein. I know that only neutrality and pacifism could make me proud to be Australian. Peter Briggs's argument for AUKUS is laudable for its quiet rationality, but it recreates and...

Hooray for Barb Dadd!

Yes indeed, mainstream politics and politicians aren't working, and we the people might could should withhold payment. But take it a little further, perhaps? Party politics is largely broken, and Lib and Lab parties have long existed in order to hold power. Hence,  Anthony Albanese said early in this term, I intend to be in power a long time and Keir Starmer undermined Jeremy Corbyn and then triumphantly declared, Labour is not the party of protest. Party politics has destroyed democracy all over the world. Party politics is illegitimate and due to be abolished. Vote independent!

Hegseth’s tatts and the Christchurch shooter

The five-minute scroll 105 notes the bombing of Yemen. Some years ago the Christchurch shooter killed 51 Muslim worshippers. His inscriptions in Georgian channeled 400-year-old battles against Muslims in eastern Europe. At the beginning of this week of 24 March, 53 were killed in Yemen by US air weaponry. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly has tattoos including one channeling the 1000-year-old Crusader fight against Muslims, and one with the word “kafir”, meaning an unbeliever in Muslim eyes. In an “accidentally” released Signal message, he was shown to be ordering actions which would inevitably cause similar killings, but...

Climate security risks abound

Thank you to David Spratt for highlighting the issue of Climate Change and National Security. As independent Senator David Pocock has suggested, the government sitting on the Office of National Intelligence’s Climate Risk Assessment report since early 2023 is “recklessly negligent” (“Exclusive: Secret briefings on climate national security risk”, The Saturday Paper, 15/3). The public deserve to be informed and have the ability to hold the government accountable to act on such reports. Commendably, independent MP Dr Monique Ryan recently hosted what was considered to be the first public forum about Climate Change and Security in Australia. Former Chief...

Queens and WA land rights

David Lee’s article brings back memories of what could have been from just over 40 years ago. Senator Susan Ryan got a bill through the Senate for land rights in Queensland in 1982-3. Here in WA we in the Aboriginal Treaty Support Group crafted a land rights act for WA based on Senator Ryan’s bill. Senator Michael Macklin, Australian Democrats, was having it prepared by parliamentary counsel and announced in the Canberra Times in November 1982 so that it would be introduced. The WA Burke government introduced a much watered down bill in the mid-80s, but it failed to...

The democratic police state of Australia

For whatever arguably good reason these laws are passed they eventually apply to any other good cause that the public may be protesting about. Any curtailing of our right to peaceful protest moves us closer to the dictatorial/fascist states we see on our nightly news and the violence that invariably follows them. We have sufficient laws about damage, graffiti, violence and freedom of speech without politicising everything and every opinion. My concern is not that we have too many public servants, it’s that we have too many politicians with nothing better to do than pass laws only...

American attitude to China

Jimmy Stewart made many movies. In 1960, he made The Mountain Road, set in China in 1944, when America was supposedly helping China against Japan. Stewart's character slowly developed an antipathy to the people he was helping and the final scenes escalate as the innocent Chinese villagers become collateral damage in his attack against Chinese brigands. (Yes, some Chinese fought anyone with whom they crossed paths). Some say it was Stewart's anti-war movie, but I cannot help but notice comparisons with American attitudes to Asians, especially Chinese, today. A lot of collateral damage can be expected if a...

What did you do in the war, Daddy?

We boomers asked our fathers what they did in WWII. How many children of this generation will ask their parents what they did during the Palestinian genocide when the major victims of WWII did their level best to wipe Palestine and Palestinians off the map? I suggest there won't be any equivalent of the many Holocaust memorials. Not enough people care to see that the same and worse is happening now, committed by the descendants of those memorialised in those museums. They won't want to be shamed in the future. We haven't made a mark on our government...

What budget? What democracy?

If nothing else, the recent events and behaviour of both major parties proves to me that we don’t live in a democracy and never have and that there is little point in a budget. The weeks leading up to the budget should be parliamentary leave without pay. What point is a budget when without any transparent discussion in Parliament the then prime minister can sign off on $300 billion and counting that wasn’t included in their own last budget? How can the present prime minister actively pursue the commitment of Australian troops to a peace-keeping force or the...

Future of Americans loyal to Trump working in DIO

Jack Waterford presents a masterly piece of analysis. In P and I on August 3, 2023, Mike Scranton described the setting up of the Combined Intelligence Centre (CIC-A) within DIO, which includes US intelligence analysts. Well, Alan Kohler in ABC online on Monday called the Trump presidency a regime. We have our Australian Government Personnel Security Adjudicative Standard, which among other items includes loyalty to Australia. In view of the loyalty of US citizens to Mr Trump and the rapid changes for the worse in both US internal and external policies, what should happen about the American analysts...

Titanic struggle for the climate

The World Meteorological Organisation’s just-published ‘State of the Global Climate 2024’ report makes sobering reading. While the world is not yet beyond the possibility of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees, achieving this will need a co-ordinated global effort. The report shows many climate risk markers at dangerous levels. The WMO say that they ‘are intensifying efforts to strengthen early warning systems and climate services to help decision-makers and society at large be more resilient to extreme weather and climate’. At the same time, as Bruce Thom reported, Donald Trump is reversing American climate policies, downsizing the National...

Five-minute scroll provides invaluable information

I would like to commend the Pearls and Irritations team that gives us A five-minute scroll. I often find the information given invaluable. Today was no exception. I also call on the international community to do more to prevent the erasure of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. Apathy and indifference kills. Albert Einstein pointed out that the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch and do absolutely nothing.

I’m forever blowing thought bubbles

Where do our First Nations People fit into this discussion? They may well want to send us all home with our First Nations/Australian dual citizenship. Would it require a referendum to fix and how much is budgeted by our superior economic manager leader of the oppose everything party?

Dutton has no idea about the Constitution

Peter Hughes' excellent article in response to the usual thought bubble that emanates from Peter Dutton's 'pea brain amply illustrates why the latest is a horrible idea. In response, one has to ask how this would manifest itself as an amendment; Would it add another sub-paragraph to s51 or would it (like the failed Communist Party referendum of the 1950s, equally ill-considered) be a new section 51A and exactly what would it say? If the point is to stop antisemitism or anti-islam or similar persecution, would it mention these by name? If it were to focus on the...

The population has exploded

In his rambling complaint about forecasting, Stan Glaser overlooks one salient detail: Ehrlich, broadly, got it right. When he wrote The Population Bomb in 1967 there were 3.4 billion humans and today there are 8.2 billion. The bomb exploded by 241%. However, in 1967 nobody foresaw the success of the Green Revolution in sustaining the boom in numbers. Ehrlich predicted famine, because that was what was happening in overpopulated countries at the time – but not the success in doubling the world food supply. His book was intended as a caution — as it still is — of...

The state with power to grant citizenship

Peter Hughes' article warns, cogently, against Dutton's thought bubble about giving ministers power to strip Australian citizenship from criminal dual nationals who have served their time. One aspect of citizenship law that Hughes only alludes to is the fact that a person's right to citizenship is determined solely by the country granting citizenship. Consequently, a minister deciding to remove the citizenship of a dual national cannot be sure the person actually remains a dual national. It is quite possible the other country has already taken its citizenship from the person. In that event, the minister would be...

A better way to determine our defence needs

Paddy Gourley presents a superb novel idea: Australian defence spending should be calculated on the basis of a careful definition of the kind of country we want to be, a clear-eyed analysis of our strategic circumstances and the risks it poses and an assessment of the extent to which those risks can be negated or satisfactorily minimised by military power used in concert with whatever reliable allies are prepared to associate themselves with us. The world's greatest warmonger and seller of arms, currently involved in genocide in Palestine and led by a deranged president, should not participate in any...

Stuart, be more precise, please!

As far as we are aware, among the cohort currently sitting in the federal parliament, only two independents (Lydia Thorpe and Fatima Payman) and the Greens MP and Senators have clearly taken a principled stand in support of the Palestinians, calling for a boycott of the Israeli State in all areas (economic, military, cultural, academic, sport) and appeared as speakers in the frequent pro-Palestinian rallies. So Stuart Rees — rather than only advocating a vote for humanity, for human rights, for support of candidates who uphold the rulings of the International Court of Justice that a plausible Israeli genocide...

Atrocious defence of Falun Gong

I cannot believe you would publish this utter garbage. The man is such a liar and his characterisation of Jerry is defamatory. To suggest Jerry is too stupid to be able to research what falun gong, the epoch times and the new tang dynasty are an insult to your readers. I'm astounded you gave this China hater the oxygen to spread this poison. The CCP? Only racists and bigots refer to them by that. If you can't find the countries name as the PRC or their political party, the CPC, then you know the person is being vengeful. ...

US Israel game plan support from Israeli newspaper

Further to Stuart Rees and Margo Reynolds’ incisive article, it is chilling to read an Israeli newspaper opinion on the weekend which recommends a “political solution” envisaging the total depopulation of Southwest Palestine. Further, it advances the view that those two million people can easily be accommodated elsewhere.

Albert Roman on Falun Gong

I read the recent article by Albert Roman with a sense of deja vu, as, back in 2021, when P&I published a piece I submitted providing the other side of the widely promulgated West Good-China Bad narrative I was described, in a counter article, as an entitled expatriate totally out of touch with the real people of Hong Kong, words not disimilar to those used by Roman to describe Jerry Grey's status as a long-term resident of PRC. And just as Painter who had enjoyed a short period in HK and so considered himself to be an expert on...

Last week it was antisemitism, who’s next?

Last week it was antisemitism, this week it is Islamophobia. A new poll must have been released. One of them is being driven by a group of racist white supremacists among us.

Can Barrow make AUKUS-SSN as well?

Paddy Gourley mentions again the cost of the USUKA (Aukus) subs. According to Sky yesterday, reporting on Keir Starmer’s visit to the UK’s nuclear sub factory at Barrow, “the visit highlighted ongoing challenges facing the UK's aging nuclear submarine fleet, which has been forced to extend its typical three-month patrols to much longer durations due to maintenance delays and the postponed delivery of replacement vessels. The current fleet has now exceeded its intended 25-year service life.” So where, when and how does the AUKUS-SSN work fit in? Or are we going to give Britain too a three quarters of...

Pool the national risk

Ross Gittins’ suggestion for some form of a regional diaspora for flood-prone centres like Lismore might be technically correct. The Insurance Council of Australia wants $30 billion spent on mitigation. Even if both were immediately implemented by government, they are still long-term programs. Property owners need premium relief now. The unsustainably punitive premiums reflect the insurance industry’s targeting large regions with small populations to bear the brunt of costs, a methodology dictated to us by international reinsurers. The federal government Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation originally established to provide reinsurance for terrorism events post 9-11 was expanded to pick...

The very model of a modern major linguist

Paddy Gourley's incisive article, of course, teases the memory of us old lags: Beazley was nick-named Bomber in his time as defence minister. It was a rather good fit; just as Biggles was for Nelson and Poodles for Pyne. All of them have gone on to bigger and better things, one way or another. Paddy is absolutely en pointe that Beazley's defence (see what I did there??) of his attachment to several armament manufacturers is somehow linked to a safer defence of Australia, is irrelevant to the matter at hand – and it is irrelevant to the purpose...

Diplomacy

John White's article in linking Trump, Putin and Netanyahu shows no regard to the relevant histories. The history of the Ukraine conflict goes right back to the break-up of the USSR and many events since then: eg Putin's 2007 Munich speech, Minsk 1 and,2 and Istanbul and Boris Johnson. Netanyahu presides over the horrific and ongoing attempt to exterminate the Palestinian people. He and his government are better described as Zionist. There are many Jewish people opposed to their actions. To imply that the US and Russia are now aligned is untrue – there is brinkmanship going on...

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