Top 5
Used for weekly email
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Creating a liveable, equitable world
A call to women to put social needs, not just economic needs, back on the political agenda. Continue reading »
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Americans don’t understand: China is not afraid of the US
China knows that, if it has to, it can stand alone and that it can defend itself. It knows, too, that most nations of the world, other than America (which is, despite itself, somewhat conflicted), want to do business with it; to connect with its growing confidence and with its strengthening brand of non-threatening, non-coercive, Continue reading »
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Think-tanked
As a China-watching think tank winds up after Morrison-era cuts, a respected analyst reviews government funding for security-related research and education. Continue reading »
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From imperial romance to practical security history
At the levels of public ritual and private observance, the ANZAC narrative is much about processing loss and assuaging grief. But let us recall here its nature as an imperial romance, and what that might mean for our place in the multi-polarity of the current world order? Continue reading »
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World’s biggest democracy expels ABC journalist but little noise in Australia
One wonders how the Australian mainstream media will react to the news that India, the so-called biggest democracy in the world, has thrown out ABC correspondent Avani Dias from the country. Continue reading »
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Australia’s group think epidemic and the Adelaide AUKUS fairytale
The idea that nuclear submarines can be built in Adelaide under AUKUS has the characteristics of the “group think” that led to invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has been described by former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as a “bit of a fairytale”. “Some government in the future will make the obvious decision and not Continue reading »
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Israel is turning hospitals into mass graves while the West fixates on ‘Antisemitism’
A mass grave created by the IDF has been uncovered at a Gaza hospital, where Palestinian civilians appear to have been the victims of a gruesome massacre. Continue reading »
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Capitalism is the single greatest source of violence
What the present moment reveals, once again, is that Western aggression during the “Cold War” was never about destroying socialism, as such. It was about destroying movements and governments in the periphery that sought economic sovereignty. Why? Because economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core. Continue reading »
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Why conventional economic theory is wrong about technological change
Society as a whole has a critical interest in the direction of technological innovation. This cannot be left uniquely to a limited group of capitalist bosses. Consultation with all the key interest groups and government regulation have a critical role to play in ensuring future economic growth and a fair go for all. Continue reading »
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Was the Covid-19 pandemic a ‘relatively mild pandemic’?
Recently, a former Prime Minister (who also once served as Health Minister) was quoted as declaring “the Morrison government’s Covid response as a ‘grotesque overreaction’ to a ‘relatively mild pandemic’”. Continue reading »
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A state of Palestine? Outrage as US backs perpetual occupation and oppression
Readers will recall my article of 16 April, The end of occupation: A state of Palestine at the UN. It advised of an anticipated vote in the Security Council on April 18. The Security Council was sitting in New York. Because of the time difference, that was early in the morning of 19 April in Continue reading »
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Supporting independent public interest media
Government media funding supports the failing mainstream media (MSM) and right-wing advocacy groups like the Institute of Public Affairs. Continue reading »
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Coral catastrophe signals our own undoing
Five times in the history of life on Earth the corals have perished, swept from the board by conditions hostile to nearly all life. Each time, it has taken them millions of years to evolve anew. Each mass death of corals has been accompanied by the mass deaths of most other species, on land and Continue reading »
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NDIS and Aged Care; from rights first to budget first
When she introduced the first NDIS legislation to the House of Representatives in 2012 Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was to replace “A system that metes out support rationed by arbitrary budget allocations, not real human needs”. It was a radical break with other forms of welfare assistance because it put the human rights Continue reading »
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Why Australia should recognise Palestine
Formal recognition of Palestine by Australia and other allies will not, of itself, resolve the conflict, but it will lead to a political climate that helps to balance the relationship between Israel and Palestine and will push both towards a resumption of face-to-face negotiations. We urge the Australian government to maintain its support for Israel, Continue reading »
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Knowledge and understanding deficit: The dire state of China Studies
Disgraceful gaps have emerged in our knowledge and understanding of Asian countries. This capability is essential to successful navigation of the future, as Peter Varghese and Joseph Lo Bianco have noted. Continue reading »
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The emerging spectre of American fragility: A reckoning
The United States, having learnt nothing from the 20th Century, is, quite characteristically, spoiling for a fight with one of the great success stories of our time, China, on the basis of nothing more than a doltishly unfounded fear of this success and an ever so faintly emerging spectre of American fragility. A fragility across Continue reading »
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Australia’s leadership is destroying the very fabric of this country
Some days I wake up and don’t recognise the country we have become. It is not the country I grew up in. It is not a country I can be proud of. It is not a country that has a bright future under current leadership. Continue reading »
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Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation
With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries. Continue reading »
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Western misinformation and the so-called Xinjiang genocide
The UN Human Rights Report of August 31, 2022 says what’s happening in Xinjiang constitutes “crimes against humanity”. In plain English, this is saying it is not genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. It confirms an earlier Amnesty International report in 2021 to the same effect. Both are clear implicit rejections of unsubstantiated genocide claims. Continue reading »
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Australia’s recognition of the State of Palestine an overdue move in support of peace
Recognition of the Palestinian state is an essential step to achieve peace and stability in the world and to bring an end to the Zionist colonial expansionist project in the Middle East. It is time that Australia be on the right side of history, recognise the state of Palestine and stand up in defence of Continue reading »
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The lobbying scourge
The major obstacle to lobbying reform is that for members of parliament, their staff and senior officials, lobbying provides a very lucrative income when they leave parliament, the military or the public service. So they refuse to act on the lobbying scourge. Continue reading »
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At last, the battle to save the NDIS has begun
Almost unnoticed, the federal government has quietly pushed a Bill into parliament that will transform the NDIS as we know it. Continue reading »
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Staring into a void — of neither two states nor one
I support recognition of a Palestinian state, in the UN context, as an affirmation that our values apply in our approach to dealings between states as well as within states. Continue reading »
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Fossil fuel’s war on protest
Madeleine King, Minister for Resources in the Albanese government, recently announced that she will curtail the ability of Australians to challenge resource corporation projects in court (The West Australian 26/3/24). This attack on democratic rights is built on decades of disinformation shaping the global discussion on fossil fuels and climate change. Continue reading »
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End of peak China?
It is easy these days to grab a headline about the end of peak China. China’s imminent economic stagnation is becoming conventional wisdom, unless of course one happens to be in the resources, energy, green industry, or automobile sectors, just to name a few. There, China’s demand continues to surge or, alternatively, depending on the Continue reading »
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The crimson thread of racism festers in the darker interstices of Australian culture
In 1890 Henry Parkes spoke of “The crimson thread of kinship running through us all.” He believed this “crimson thread” – evocative of blood – united all white people in the Australian colonies and bound them to Britain. The federation he was advocating for Australia was to be exclusively white and eternally British. Continue reading »
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Australia’s disgraceful diversion of responsibility over Gaza war crimes
It seems our PM and Foreign Minister remain able only to show a carefully graduated and modified ‘outrage’ over the death of an Australian aid worker in Gaza. Expressed directly to Netanyahu, Albanese could only deliver restrained diplomatese: sought was a “thorough investigation” with “full accountability and transparency”. That hardly rocked Netanyahu to the core: Continue reading »
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Podcast: Healthcare, Australia and the War on Gaza
Dr Sue Wareham OAM, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) talks with Helen McCue AM, recently awarded the Jerusalem peace prize for forty-one years of passionate advocacy and support for Palestine, through her work as founder of Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA. They discuss the destruction of medical facilities in Israel’s Continue reading »