World
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Media censorship or incompetence by the ABC and others?
Last week the ABC carried a story about the death of many Israelis on 7 October 2023 as a result of firing by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships. Continue reading »
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Drafting the first laws to govern AI
Yesterday the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Ed Husic, released a discussion paper proposing a set of ‘mandatory guardrails’ for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Science Fiction fan, Richard Creswick thinks he beat the Minister to the punch. Continue reading »
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The democracy metanarrative
In its strategic competition with Russia and China, the United States has constructed a metanarrative based on democracy versus authoritarianism (i.e. good versus evil). Continue reading »
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The sound of enforced silence
Our censors, as the record shows again and again, have no special concern about acting in a serious manner. Power has no such obligation. Continue reading »
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Land Forces comes to Naarm
It seems bizarre that a massive police contingent will be deployed to disrupt a massive public protest against a massive arms fair. Continue reading »
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Gaza happened because we forgot Korea
History didn’t start on 7 October. True that. To get a deeper sense of why the shocking destruction in Gaza is happening, we have to revive the forgotten war that the US waged against North Korea in the 1950s. In many ways, it was the template for all that followed. Continue reading »
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Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs confirm mainstream Western media mostly a shabby cabaret
A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness (as Four Corners can still manage (see:Inside Iran: The proxy war Continue reading »
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The world’s population is poised to decline – and that’s great news
Some 18 months ago, the news broke that China’s population was beginning to contract. There was a knee-jerk reaction from business commentators who were wringing their hands eagerly over the implications this would have on China’s economic forecast and its place in the world – namely that fewer people would result in less consumption, ultimately Continue reading »
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How human rights are disappearing before our eyes
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza. Continue reading »
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Evil fruit of seeds sown long ago – what makes Gaza genocide different?
These massacres bring us closer to the central questions that the inquiring mind might ask about the Gaza genocide. Continue reading »
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Prioritising global overheating over AUKUS: a kumbaya opportunity for hawks and doves
Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to global fossil carbon emissions. With less than one-third of one percent of the world’s population, we are responsible for about 4.5 percent of fossil carbon emissions globally, and around 80 percent of this comes from our fossil fuel exports. Our nation is thus responsible for Continue reading »
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How China moved from a command to a free market economy and is now restoring socialism
This short history of China over the last three decades is mainly based on the first of a three part series in the SCMP. It describes how the adoption of neo-liberalism by President Deng made China rich but also created social problems that President Xi is trying to fix. Continue reading »
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Exiting Pax Americana could save our bacon
Ordinary New Zealanders and Australians have little idea about the momentous changes coming our way. For a couple of centuries we have been outposts of a Western empire that is losing its dominance of the region. Continue reading »
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Bangladesh on the spot
If the interim government formed after the departure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina holds a fair election, the people will find out if political Islam is a dispensation they wish to vote for. Continue reading »
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A critique of ‘a world call to action’ on the multiple crises now enfolding humanity
This initiative is important in making a strenuous plea for urgent action on the global “poly crisis”. But it fails to make clear the fundamental cause of the problem, or the way out of it. Continue reading »
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A dream: of world leaders meeting to make peace
“Everything begins with a dream” – Rumi Continue reading »
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Australia, developing countries and the US clash over WTO electronic commerce rules
Despite ongoing debates about the need to regulate Big Tech companies Australia is sponsoring a deregulatory international agreement in the face of opposition from both the US and developing countries. Continue reading »
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Why organised crime puts its money on online gambling
Illegal online casinos are used by criminal gangs to launder billions in profit garnered from transnational crime. Continue reading »
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The geopolitics of cyber espionage
In March 2024, the United States government and its Five Eyes allies issued dire warnings about a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as “Volt Typhoon.” They alleged a shadowy entity had compromised thousands of devices worldwide to target critical infrastructure in Western nations. Continue reading »
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What is Zionism? Who is responsible for Israel’s crimes, Jews or Zionists?
Israel and Zionists try to confuse the public by conflating Judaism with Zionism; they commit their crimes and hide behind the Jewish people. Palestinians, on the other hand, distinguish between Jews, Judaism and Zionism and hold the Zionists responsible for the crimes they commit against them, not the Jews. Continue reading »
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Shocking news: China is kicking more global goals
Is China mired in economic misery while bogged down by old habits- or very successfully developing its exceptional manufacturing prowess as it expands and consolidates its influence across the Global South (and well beyond)? Never mind any apparent contradiction, one leading global weekly answers yes and yes to these two questions. Continue reading »
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Bangladesh’s inspiring new leader: inaugural Sydney Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus
In the last several years, democracies around the world have been led by leaders of low calibre, who displayed little vision, not much courage and in whom voters had shown no confidence. But in strife torn Bangladesh, a country of over 174 million people, the inaugural (1998) Sydney Peace Prize recipient Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Continue reading »
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A world conspiracy designed to sow doubt for consumers
ABC Media Watch told of the unreliability of electric vehicles (EVs), their poor resale value, and their falling sales. The claims are false, yet hundreds of such stories have been reported throughout 2024. They indicate a campaign from oil companies to discredit EVs, and maintain sales Continue reading »
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Remembering the US atomic bomb that demolished Hiroshima, killed 200,000
On 6 Aug, 1945, approximately 200,000 people in the hitherto untouched town of Hiroshima perished in the worlds first use of a nuclear weapon in anger. On 9th Aug, a somewhat smaller number in Nagasaki likewise perished. Only the authority of secretary of state Stimson, who had visited the city of Kyoto, famous for its Continue reading »
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Spaceship Earth is experiencing turbulence
Spaceship Earth remains a compelling metaphor for our collective reality. Unfortunately,
our ship looks as if it may have been made by an inter-galactic branch of Boeing. Continue reading » -
Slogans masquerading as policies – the Dutton playbook?
I don’t expect that Donald Trump, presidential candidate, or Trump, elected president, gives a toss whether Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton is prime minister of Australia after the next Australian election. Continue reading »
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Trump and Vance’s theocratic republic of America
A Trump-Vance administration would likely enthusiastically embrace the Project 2025 agenda. No surer path exists for the fracturing of American society. Continue reading »
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Being true to truth
Truth /truːθ/ noun the quality or state of being true. a fact or belief that is accepted as true. Continue reading »
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Finding hope, giving hope, by remembering our roots
On Wednesday 31 July we listened to two people who were speaking to us from near Hebron, where Abraham and Sarah are buried. Continue reading »
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Jeffrey Sachs: “US Subservient to Israel”
A MUST-WATCH 29-minute interview in which Jeffrey Sachs tells it like it is and as few others dare to tell it. Continue reading »