Pearls and Irritations guest Omar Ahmed
Omar Ahmed is a UK-based analyst and journalist focused on the political and religious affairs of West Asia. He holds an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.
Irene Watson
Irene Watson belongs to the Tanganekald, Meintangk, Portuwutj and Bunganditj Peoples. With a long commitment to obligations to care for country and people Irene is a research Professor of Law at the University of South Australia. A prolific writer her book Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law, was published in 2015.
Chelsea Hunnisett
Chelsea Hunnisett is a Laureate PhD Candidate and Government Relations Specialist in the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse at The Australian National University. Chelsea’s research focuses on planetary health equity metrics within Australia’s approach to the wellbeing economy. Chelsea is also an experienced policy, advocacy and government relations specialist with expertise in planetary health, commercial determinants of health and preventive health policy.
Wang Wen
Wang Wen is the dean of Chongyang Institute of Financial studies, Renmin University of China, and the executive director of the China-US People to People Exchange Research Centre.
Liu Chang
Liu Chang is a senior editor at the International News Department, Chinas Xinhua News Agency. He used to station in the agencys Cairo office for two years, and was a visiting scholar to Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in 2018.
Andrew Jaspan
Andrew Jaspan is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder, 360info; previously created and founded The Conversation websites; Editor-in-Chief of The Age; Editor of The Observer, The Scotsman, The Big Issue (London), Glasgow Sunday Herald
Stephen Lake
Dr Stephen Lake is a founding member of Academics for Public Universities and Public Universities Australia. He studied history and theology at Flinders University and completed his PhD on medieval monasticism at the University of Cambridge. He subsequently taught at the University of Tbingen and the Universit de Paris IV-Sorbonne followed by a research position at the Universitt Konstanz. He is currently enrolled in a second PhD at the University of Sydney with a project on ‘The Contingency of Perception: The Responses of the Frankfurt School and Contemporaries to Fascism, ca. 1920-ca. 1950’. He lectures regularly for his local U3A group in the Southern Highlands, NSW.
Amy King
Amy King is Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She has published widely on China-Japan relations, the economics-security nexus in Asia, and the role of ideas in International Relations. The author of China-Japan Relations After World War II: Empire, Industry and War, 1949–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016),
Paul Smyth
Honorary Researcher, University of Divinity Formerly, Profesoor of Social Policy, University of Melbourne Director of Research & Policy, Brotherhood of St Laurence Research Officer, Uniya- Jesuit Research and Action Centre, Kings Cross.
Terence Wood
Terence Wood is a Fellow at the Development Policy Centre. His research focuses on political governance in Western Melanesia, and Australian and New Zealand aid.
Gregory Elich
Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute board member. He is a contributor to the collection, Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (Haymarket Books, 2023). His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich.
Scott Ritter
Scott Ritters areas of expertise include American foreign policy, national security, arms control, the Middle East, Iran and Russia. He recently wrotethe rift between the CIA and Donald Trumpmay not be such a bad thing given that the president is pushing a policy of reconciliation with Russia that the CIA neither supports nor is equipped to effectively advise him on. In addition to his impeccable credentials, Ritter is an electrifying public speaker who is world-renowned for correctly insisting Iraq had no significant weapons of mass destruction when the Bush administration claimed otherwise. His eighth book,Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the Wests Road to War, will be published in June.
Aaron Boxerman
I am a reporter for The New York Times covering Israel and Gaza. I’m based in Jerusalem.
I work on the Live team, a department of The Times dedicated to breaking news. Recently I have worked almost exclusively on the Israel-Hamas war, although I also occasionally write about other parts of the Middle East.
David Lindenmayer
Professor David Lindenmayer is a distinguished Australian scientist and academic, specialising in landscape ecology, conservation, and biodiversity. His research focuses on integrating nature conservation with agricultural production, improving biodiversity conservation in forestry and plantations, and enhancing fire management practices. With over 940 peer-reviewed papers and 49 books, David is one of the most published ecologists globally. He leads large-scale, long-term research programs in south-eastern Australia. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, he has received numerous prestigious awards, including the ESA Whittaker Award, multiple Eureka Prizes, and the Australian Natural History Medal.
Narelle Bedford
Narelle Bedford, is a Yuin woman and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at Bond University. Her area of expertise is Administrative Law, concentrating on all forms of accountability over government decision-making. Prior to academia, she was Judges Associate, and a public servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Attorney-Generals Department.
Peter Curtis
Peter Curtis is an educator in the public system in the ACT and has taught the early years through to high school. He has recently published, ‘A Meeting of Minds’, an imagined dialogue between Paulo Freire and Karl Marx.
Bernadette Zaydan
Bernadette Zaydan is an Australian lawyer with a diverse practice in commercial, public, and regulatory law, with about 10 years of experience. She’s particularly passionate about the intersection of law and human rights.
Sophie Howe
Sophie Howe was the inaugural Future Generations Commissioner of Wales from 2016 to January 2023. Sustainability futures and Wellbeing adviser and the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales TED Speaker and public policy expert.
Walden Bello
Walden Bello, a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, is the author or co-author of 19 books, the latest of which are Capitalism’s Last Stand? (London: Zed, 2013) and State of Fragmentation: the Philippines in Transition (Quezon City: Focus on the Global South and FES, 2014).
Maria Tanyag
Maria Tanyagis a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, and the Deputy Director for the Philippines Institute, at the Australia National University.
Elizabeth Thurbon
Elizabeth Thurbon is Professor of International Political Economy, Deputy Head of School and Director of Research in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Sydney. She is also Director of the Green Energy Statecraft Project, a collaborative initiative between UNSW Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney.
Guest author Rod Taylor
Rod Taylor Co-editor of Sustainability and the New Economics. And radio broadcaster and science columnist with ACM newspapers and author of Ten Journeys on a Fragile Planet (Odyssey, 2020).
Guest author Nicholas Farrelly
Nicholas Farrelly Professor and Head of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
Meg Hart
Meg Hart is an organisational psychologist and writer. She spent over 30 years in Hong Kong and China and is a graduate and post-graduate of Hong Kong and Sydney Universities. Currently a Fellow and Guest Lecturer at Nan Tien Institute for Buddhist Studies in Wollongong, she is writing a book about her lived experience of the two different but potentially complementary cultures of China and Australia.
Stephen Semler
Producer of charts and policy analysis for the working class. Co-founder, SPRI (@security_reform, securityreform.org). Available for consulting. Find me on Bluesky & Twitter: @stephensemler
Dean Ashenden
Dean Ashendenhas worked in and around schools as a teacher, academic and consultant, and in journalism. He has contributed to all major print outlets and to many professional, academic, and social affairs journals. His previous book,Telling Tennants Story, was inaugural winner of the Australian Political Book of the Year Award. He is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
Dean Ashenden has commented on education in all major Australian print outlets. His Unbeaching the Whale: Can Australian schooling be reformed? was published earlier this year by Inside Story
Judge Napolitano
Hard hitting legal/political news from a man who knows and respects the Constitution and the importance of defending individual freedoms. Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. As Fox News’ Senior Judicial Analyst from 1997 to 2021, Judge Napolitano gave 14,500 broadcasts nationwide on the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. He is nationally known for watching and reporting on the government as it takes liberty and property. The Judge is the author of nine books on the U.S. Constitution, two of which have been New York Times Best Sellers. His most recent book, SUICIDE PACT: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Assault on Civil Liberties.
Jerome Mellor
Jerome Mellor is a former general practitioner with a lifetime interest in political history.
JJ Rose
As a writer and advisor, James (JJ) Rose has written features, commentary, essays and analysis (on my by-line and for others) for various publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, Al-Jazeera, The Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post and, the South China Morning Post. In 2006, he was advisor to the Special Ambassador to the United Nations World Food Program, The Hon. Mr Abdul-Aziz Arrukban.He has taught Journalism at Griffith University, and is founder of The Kick Project, a registered charity which seeks to bring conflicted or challenged communities together through soccer/football. James has written many books, the most recent a political thriller based on the 2022 Qatar World Cup in Qatar. He has spent time in Israel and the Occupied Territories and has recently returned from the region.
Jonathan Symons
Jon teaches international relations and public policy in the School of International Studies, Macquarie University. He has published widely on international climate politics and policy. His most recent book ‘Ecomodernism: Technology, Politics and Climate Crisis’ (Polity, 2019) explores the argument for increased state investment in low-carbon innovation and deployment of low-carbon technologies. His previous book ‘Queer Wars: The New Global Polarisation over Gay Rights’ (co-authored with Prof. Dennis Altman, Polity, 2016) explored the debate between those arguing that ‘LGBTQI rights are human rights’ and those who believe rights protections should not extend beyond the ’traditional values of mankind’.