World
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Nuremberg trials for imperiling mass extinction of species
While “leaders” fail to protect the people from global warming and nuclear war, they have succeeded splendidly in hiding the truth through the denial of climate change, accounting tricks and claims of reduction in domestic emissions, while in fact opening new coal mines, oil wells and fracked coal seams, exporting hydrocarbons through the entire global atmosphere. Continue reading »
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‘Nearly a third of the world economy is now subject to sanctions’
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) just published a study about: Continue reading »
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Souls for sale – The Times interviews Noam Chomsky
In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong’s recovery: Greatest threat is parochialism
In January, the Finance Secretary Paul Chan went to Davos as part of an effort to encourage the world to join the government in its “embrace of a new start” for Hong Kong and to sell its numerous inherent strengths. Combined with efforts that coincided with the full opening-up of Hong Kong and recent visits Continue reading »
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The militarisation of space – can Australia avoid following America?
America’s space policy reveals its hegemonic obsession and the future quandaries for Australian policy. Even America’s approach to exploration and colonisation of the Moon is only comprehensible in terms of terrestrial geopolitics. It now expects the world to bow to its power in outer space. Continue reading »
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Demonisation and the US encirclement of China
“It’s quite clear from recent policies that the US aims to curb China’s economic development and encircle the country with military bases in unfriendly (from China’s viewpoint) countries. Such demonisation only reinforces repressive trends in China and benefits security-obsessed hardliners in China’s political system. That’s why “de-demonisation” can help those in China who favour a Continue reading »
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A mind held captive
Edward Said’s “Orientalism” encapsulates the essence of why the West resists the rise of China as a major economic and military power. Continue reading »
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In international politics, how the worm has turned for the United States
The historian of American foreign policy Gabriel Kolko would often say that those who seek to determine the destiny of humankind were in for surprises and, ultimately, disappointment. Continue reading »
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Are Pacific nations setting themselves up as US ‘pawn sacrifices’?
Being led by the nose by warmed-over former colonies like the US, Australia and India to fight a country thousands of miles away is neither smart diplomacy nor smart foreign policy. Continue reading »
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Money makes the world go round – and development succeed
The key to economic development and ending poverty is investment. Nations achieve prosperity by investing in four priorities. Most important is investing in people, through quality education and health care. The next is infrastructure, such as electricity, safe water, digital networks, and public transport. The third is natural capital, protecting nature. The fourth is business Continue reading »
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The US silence on Israeli nuclear weapons and the right-wing Israeli government
The Israeli protests against its new right-wing government have now touched on Israel’s nuclear weapons. To underline what is at stake, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak cast aside Israeli ambiguity over whether it possesses nuclear weapons to warn his compatriots that Western diplomats are worried that a Jewish messianic dictatorship could gain control over Israel’s nuclear Continue reading »
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A Kingly proposal: Letter from Julian Assange to King Charles III
To His Majesty King Charles III, On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. Continue reading »
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My meeting with Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf
What the general told me about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the early days of the Obama administration. Continue reading »
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India straddles competing global concepts
India as the Chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) hosted the SCO Defence Ministers’ Meeting on 28 April. Largely unreported in Western media, the meeting underlined important divergences in the narrative promoted by US-centric media that suggests India and China have irreconcilable differences. Continue reading »
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In a multipolar world, the ‘third pole’ is not Europe, but Global South
Ukraine war and new cold war against China have accelerated the re-emergence of the old non-aligned movement of developing nations. Continue reading »
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The Ukraine war – lessons for Australia and the Asia/Pacific
We often look to history or contemporary events to help explain issues and to seek guidance. Thus Graham Allison went back millennia to explain America’s current drive to war with China in his Thucydides Trap. Recently Gregory Clark joined others in making the natural comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan. Analogies are admittedly fraught with danger Continue reading »
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Australia’s special responsibilities
Do some states have ‘special responsibilities’ or obligations to help solve collective action problems as a consequence of their position in the international system? Australia should. Continue reading »
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The American version of “one country, two systems”
Over a period of decades, the US has refined and applied its own exceptional version of One Country, Two Systems. What is most curious is that this has materialised within plain sight yet it has largely remained undetected, as such. Continue reading »
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Best not to know: how secrecy and ignorance feed AUKUS policy
Reports that Australia pays retired senior US military officials up to $7,500 a day for advice on AUKUS related defence projects, reveals a cultural cringe and taste for secrecy. Such practice is coupled to a common policy technique, of avoiding criticism by maintaining public ignorance. Continue reading »
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The coming war: Time to speak up
Silences filled with a consensus of propaganda contaminate almost everything we read, see and hear. War by media is now a key task of so-called mainstream journalism. Continue reading »
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Australia is being goaded into war with China
John Menadue’s article in Pearls and Irritation about Australia being goaded into war with China is a must read for those Australians who desire to live in harmony and leave a legacy for our descendants to live in this lucky country of ours, in peace and prosperity with our neighbours in the Asia Pacific region. Continue reading »
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Reminder: the media once bashed Trump for transgressing the One-China Policy the US now spits on
The US has been increasingly treating Taiwan like a sovereign nation with whom diplomatic relationships and alliances can be formed, in violation of its longstanding One-China policy that has kept the peace for decades. And I just think it’s worth noting that the western media who’ve lately been condoning these moves became outraged at Donald Continue reading »
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The USA and Australia fail on climate change
Nearly two years ago relief was expressed that the USA had emerged under President Biden to offer world leadership on climate change. Sadly this leadership has been a disappointment and today both the US and other high emitters such as Australia are not on track to meet the challenge. Continue reading »
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$368 billion on submarines: not a chance in hell!
This week the Federal ALP Government announced a significant cutback in the number of tanks to be stationed in the north to repel whatever is expected to land there to take our beautiful country away from us. Why – because tanks just won’t do the job in future. Continue reading »
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The nation state is on the skids
The 21st Century is changing much about the world that humans take for granted. Among the more shocking possibilities is that it will sound the death-knell of the nation-state as the main instrument of human self-governance. Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, Indigenous affairs, Politics, Religion and Faith, Top 5, World
Fulfilling human potential and saving the planet
Australia, and my Party too, must make a commitment to restoring the primacy of reason, rejecting a paranoid view of history and ‘telling truth to power’. Our blind adoption of irrational policies, supine and unquestioning acquiescence to anything the United States proposes must end. Our species, facing an existential threat to civilisation from climate change, Continue reading »
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War prevention depends on respecting invisible geopolitical faultlines
If we look back on the major wars of the prior century and forward to the growing menace of a war fought with nuclear weaponry, there is one prominent gap in analysis and understanding: in an imperfectly governed world, spheres of influence in certain regional settings play crucial war prevention roles. Continue reading »
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China’s “Historic” push for multipolar world to end U.S. domination
This is a historic watershed that the world is living through right now. What China is after is true multilateralism. What’s very important to understand is that most of the world also does not want the U.S. as the global preeminent power. Most of the world wants a truly multipolar world, and is, therefore, not Continue reading »
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Japan on the path to becoming a Military Great(er) Power
Promising to double its “defence” expenditure over the coming five-year period and placing huge orders for US military equipment to help it to do so, the sometime “peace state” of Japan is moving into high gear on militarisation. Continue reading »
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Soft power is the way forward
Having worked in all developing countries in East Asia and several in South Asia (World Bank definition), I am very conscious of the value of soft power. Australia is a very small country in all aspects except size and my experience has been that soft power is the best way of expressing our good intentions. Continue reading »