-
Subscribe to our weekly and daily Pearls and Irritations newsletter!
-
Most viewed recently
-
Recent posts
- MUNGO MACCALLUM – What Bob Hawke meant by aspiration. 17 June 2019
- RICHARD BUTLER The Espionage Olympiad and the Art of “Plausible Deniability”. 17 June 2019
- NOEL TURNBULL. Remember the Alamo, remember the Maine etc etc etc 17 June 2019
- TREVOR WATSON. Hong Kong and Beijing – two cities, one fearful regime. 17 June 2019
- JOHN TÖNS JP. Is the trend towards Artificial Intelligence a threat to Employment? 17 June 2019
Categories
- Arts and Reviews (50)
- Defence/Security (918)
- Drug Reform (30)
- Economy (1,268)
- Education (262)
- Environment and climate (530)
- Health (621)
- Housing (93)
- Human Rights (451)
- Indigenous affairs (82)
- Industrial relations (36)
- Infrastructure (206)
- International Affairs (2,036)
- Asia (383)
- Links (10)
- Media (612)
- NBN (83)
- Politics (3,297)
- Refugees, Immigration (666)
- Religion and Faith (646)
- SERIES: Freedom, opportunity and security (60)
- SERIES: Making housing affordable (15)
- Sport (56)
- Technology, start-ups and new media (6)
- Tributes (52)
- Uncategorized (225)
Archives
Recent comments
- Cameron Leckie on NIALL McLAREN IT’S TIME…. TO QUESTION THE US ALLIANCE.
- Charles Lowe on JOHN STAPLETON Australia’s Vicious Assault on Freedom of Speech…
- Bill Legge on LAURIE PATTON. The Assange dilemma. What is journalism in the online age?
- Jim Kable on NOEL TURNBULL. Remember the Alamo, remember the Maine etc etc etc
- Charles Lowe on MARTIN WOLF. The looming 100-year US-China conflict (The Financial Times)
Category Archives: International Affairs
RICHARD BUTLER The Espionage Olympiad and the Art of “Plausible Deniability”.
If there was a competition between the key ways in which international relations is conducted, aside from the use of military force, then the area of intelligence gathering and the covert pursuit of national objectives – all-round spookery – would … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs, Politics
1 Comment
TREVOR WATSON. Hong Kong and Beijing – two cities, one fearful regime.
Millions of students, blue collar workers and professionals poured into the streets of Hong Kong in protest over proposed legislation that would allow people to be extradited for trial in China.
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
MACK WILLIAMS . North Korea : The tangled web becomes more so !
That the past few months have seen no real progress towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula is not all that surprising given the swirling global environment demanding priority attention for President Trump and other key stakeholders. Post mortems of … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs, Politics
3 Comments
ALI KAZAK. Another side of Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke was long known as a great friend of Israel, but in his years after retiring from Parliament, I came to know him as person increasingly concerned about Palestinian rights and getting a fair peace deal for Palestinians and Israelis.
Posted in International Affairs
3 Comments
RAMESH THAKUR. Modi vs who? The question needed a clear answer in a quasi-presidential contest (The Times of India)
No Bihari political scientist can possibly understate the importance of caste and religion in shaping the electoral contest. However, there is one other factor that is of growing importance. In all parliamentary democracies across the world, including Australia, power is … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs, Politics
1 Comment
KISHORE MAHBUBANI. A ‘yellow peril’ revival fuelling Western fears of China’s rise (East Asia Forum)
Do we arrive at geopolitical judgements from only cool, hard-headed, rational analysis? If emotions influence our judgements, are these conscious emotions or do they operate at the level of our subterranean subconscious? Any honest answer to these questions would admit … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
5 Comments
GEOFF RABY. What a Morrison Government could do on China.
The Accidental Morrison Government needs now to face up to Australia’s most important foreign policy challenge: how to restore relations with China. Under Turnbull/Bishop’s mismanagement, the relationship plumbed its lowest depth since diplomatic relations were established 47 years ago. Doing … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs, Politics
Leave a comment
DENNIS ARGALL. Tiananmen in context
There has been feverish interest in the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, in Australia with some focus on repression in China, fuelling antagonism towards China. In this essay I want to provide context that is lacking: in the evolution … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
LINDSAY HUGHES. Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Plans: The Regional Danger (Future Directions International)
Saudi Arabia remains one of the largest oil producers (it produced 9.8 million barrels of oil a day in April this year) and the largest oil exporter in the world, despite the fact that Venezuela has larger proven oil reserves … Continue reading
BOB CARR. Making a multilateral Belt and Road (East Asia Forum)
Between 2012 and 2030, China will add 850 million people to its middle class. This is unprecedented in human history, even exceeding the numbers of the European, North American and Japanese industrial revolutions. It is the biggest rolling back of … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
MARTIN WOLF. The looming 100-year US-China conflict (The Financial Times)
Donald Trump’s unnecessary fight for domination is increasingly being framed as a zero-sum game.
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
BRETT McGURK. American Foreign Policy Adrift (Foreign Affairs)
Pompeo Is Calling for Realism—Trump Isn’t Delivering
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
MURRAY SAYLE. On Tiananmen Square – June 1989
On May 13, with Gorbachev’s visit imminent, the students began a hunger strike in seven-day relays. How did the regime react? The People’s Liberation Army sent one thousand quilts; the Chinese Red Cross brought water, salt, and sugar for the … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs, Politics
Leave a comment
HAJO DUKEN. High time for Australia to understand and embrace the EU
It has been said that in the world order of the 21st century, countries will end up as a colony of either the US or China or be a member of the EU. This may sound overly simplistic but one … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
ROBERT FISK. The final punishment of Julian Assange. (Counterpunch 3.6.2019)
Shame and the fear of accountability for what has been done by our “security” authorities, not the law-breaking of leakers, is what this is all about.
Posted in International Affairs, Politics
1 Comment
KOICHI NAKANO. The Leader Who Was ‘Trump Before Trump’ (The New York Times)
Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has taken a decidedly authoritarian turn.
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
Leave a comment
RAMESH THAKUR. Tiananmen anniversary revisited
Readers of my generation will recall the horror story told to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus on 10 October 1990 by a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl. ‘Nayirah’ claimed to have witnessed invading Iraqi troops storming a Kuwaiti hospital, ripping … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
7 Comments
JOSH RUEBNER. Kushner’s plan to sugarcoat the occupation of Palestine (The New Arab)
In 2018, prosecutors in Brooklyn subpoenaed information from the family-run real estate development business Kushner Companies to investigate how it “routinely filed false paperwork that resulted in the company netting millions during a three-year period” when presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
Leave a comment
DIRK VAN DER KLEY. What should Australia do about… the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has grown so large that it has become difficult to separate from the international economic and technology policies of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC). Policies crafted in the name of BRI are reshaping … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
Leave a comment
IAN BURUMA. Deng Xiaoping’s victory. (Asia Times 3.6.2019)
China’s massive protest movement in the spring of 1989, centered in (but not confined to) Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, seems to have been the anti-Communist revolt that failed. As the brutal crackdown on and following June 3-4 played out, political freedom … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
JOCELYN CHEY. Remembering June Fourth
As people in Australia and around the world remember the events of June Fourth 1989, I think back to my own experience. The story is worth repeating and perhaps can give some guidance to all who are presently trying to … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
JONATHON MANTHORPE. Trump’s shambolic Japan visit and America’s decline (Asia Times)
The age of the United States dominating in Asia is drawing to a close, and the president is leading the way
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
DENNISS ARGALL. Thinking through the choppy issues in trade and strategic threat.
The public discussion of trade war and security issues is too simplistic. Trump’s bilateral adventures in liking and bullying will mean discussion of structural changes in regional affairs to which Australia will not be party. Trump is not a passing … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
1 Comment
IAN JOHNSON. China’s ‘Black Week-end’ (New York Review of Books, 27 June 2019)
The Last Secret: The Final Documents from the June Fourth Crackdown edited by Bao Pu Hong Kong: New Century Press, 362 pp., HK$158.00 When Chinese law professor Xu Zhangrun began publishing articles last year criticizing the government’s turn toward a … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
3 Comments
RICHARD BUTLER US Foreign Policy: Preference for Conflict
US foreign and military policy is thoroughly fused. The cliches which assert that: military postures are designed to shore up diplomacy and, the other favourite; articulated by the US in virtually every situation:- “all options are on the table”; do … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs, Politics
Comments Off on RICHARD BUTLER US Foreign Policy: Preference for Conflict
DANNY SJURSEN. Key US Allies in the Middle East Are the Real Tyrants (Truthout, 01.06.19)
American foreign policy can be so retro, not to mention absurd. Despite being bogged down in more military interventions than it can reasonably handle, the Trump team recently picked a new fight — in Latin America. That’s right! Uncle Sam … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
Comments Off on DANNY SJURSEN. Key US Allies in the Middle East Are the Real Tyrants (Truthout, 01.06.19)
ANDREW FARRAN. ‘America First’: Strategic Choices
President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies are shaking established structures. Regardless of Trump’s future they are unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. His split with China opens unprecedented opportunities for Australia. Indeed a brave new world, if we have the intelligence … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
NATHAN GARDELS. The Digital Curtain Descends (The World Post)
While China’s last few decades of “opening up and reform” welcomed foreign investment and the global integration of supply chains for manufacturing and export, it followed an “import substitution” strategy in the digital realm. This kept out the likes of … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs, Media
Comments Off on NATHAN GARDELS. The Digital Curtain Descends (The World Post)
ANTHONY PUN: The Battle of Huawei escalates with new fronts opening.
President Trump has upped the ante on the US-China trade war by opening several new fronts in the Battle of Huawei. These fronts are designed to kill Huawei off by banning Tech companies in supplying essential chip hardware. This has … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
PETER DRYSDALE. Getting the Australia–China relationship right (East Asia Forum)
There’s no more important issue for Australia at this time in the history of its international economic and foreign affairs than to get the relationship with China right. It’s an issue that went through to the keeper during the election. … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
2 Comments