May 10, 2024

For centuries, art has raised its voice in terrible times

In times of atrocity, art and reporting are crucial to evidence, to remember and assert moral witness. To paraphrase Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who will speak for those who are silenced?

September 23, 2023

On sidelines of UN General Assembly, Sri Lankan president calls Aukus a mistake and rejects fears over China

President Ranil Wickremesinghe also derided the term Indo-Pacific as an artificial framework with an inconsistent definition. He also countered recent claims by New Delhi that Beijing was sending ships to Sri Lanka to spy on India.

August 21, 2023

Muralists work to beautify the city, but also calm its soul

A trio of Hong Kong friends thought about the best way to heal Hong Kong as a community after the traumas of recent times and came up with a simple but transformative idea.

May 31, 2021

Mice and men: the mouse plague and aggressive land clearing

Over the years, Australian authorities have made many poor decisions about allowing the introduction of biocidal agents into the environment. In most cases, such decisions have been based on the demands of powerful minorities with no responsibility to the general community. The Berejiklian-Barilaro government looks set to outdo them all by authorising the use of the bromadiolone rodenticide.

September 12, 2024

Rainbow flag genocide vs MAGA hat genocide

Kamala Harris has enthusiastically accepted the endorsement of Dick Cheney.

July 16, 2024

How the Muslim vote can contribute to a more just society

As Australian citizens, Muslims, albeit a small percentage of the total population, living in this democracy have the freedom and the responsibility to be true to their principles when engaging in politics and standing up for justice. In fact, this role has been made easier by the growth of alternatives to the major parties.

May 27, 2024

Washington's hope: will rabid penguins eat the BRI?

China keeps building infrastructure in other countries that is needed by those other countries. Surely this is sinister. But all is not lost. As Joe Biden wonders if cannibals may have eaten his uncle Ambrose during World War II, Washington discovers remarkable new instruments in its geopolitical tool kit.

May 11, 2024

Instigators of violence

Does David Crowe, a journalist at the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and the Age want to be regarded as the instigator of violence against students protesting the Gazan genocide?

September 27, 2023

How Washington fought off the great Chinese balloon invasion

If the US needed millions of dollars to shoot down a couple of hobbyist balloons, a trillion-dollar military budget is not enough to fight China.

August 1, 2023

Opera Buffa in Ukraine

As the war drags on, delusions mount, with no end, or victory, in sight.

June 28, 2023

The promise

The film had us mesmerised. It felt too close. The Promise, created and directed by, Terry George, could so easily have been telling the on-going story of Palestinian genocide. There was one moment in the film when a group of orphans and villagers are seen hiding in a cave. That was me, 75 years ago, aged five, crouching in such a cave, hearing the mortar shells and the gun-fire outside and terrified to my very bones.

May 25, 2023

US war on terror leads bloody way in recent deadliest conflicts

With more than 4.5m killed and millions displaced, American revenge for 9/11 attacks puts Ukraine in the shade for 21st century slaughter.

May 13, 2022

The shadow of Barry Humphries and Morrisons bid for the outer suburbs

For so long in the middle to latter half of the twentieth century the dwellers of the fringe suburbs of Australian cities were the forgotten people. These suburbs housed the people who clustered around outlying factories making the consumer goods that fed the long post-war boom.

September 16, 2024

We're right behind you: The AUKUS delusion

The series Blackadder, set in World War 1, was full of farce built around black humour. In the final episode it has been determined by High Command to send those involved to go “over the top” in a hopeless race toward German machine-guns. The night before they are visited by their commanding general who pompously informs them that when they go tomorrow, High Command will be “right behind them” to which their captain replies, “yes, about 30 miles behind us.”

June 13, 2024

When convicts rule... civil wars may follow

If convicted felon Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November 2024 it will probably herald the end of America as the world and as Americans know it. And maybe ignite the Second American Civil War.

May 25, 2024

A message to university Vice-Chancellors from a child of holocaust survivors

Let me introduce myself. I am a child of Holocaust survivors. My mother survived Auschwitz and my father fought the Nazi war machine as a partisan during the Second World War. Ninety-eight percent of my extended family perished during the Holocaust.

September 22, 2023

Humanitarian imperialism created the Libyan nightmare

NATOs military intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, resulted in a chaotic and murderous failed state. Libyans pay a horrific price for this catastrophe.

August 30, 2021

Would you trust Morrison to open up safely?

Scott Morrison has now been Prime Minister for over three years. That means he has spent more time in the job than Turnbull, Whitlam, Rudd, or Abbott did.

August 24, 2021

Identifying antisemitism is not always clear cut

The Jewish community’s awareness of the threat of racism and antisemitism is longstanding. That awareness extends across political boundaries and is part of a general desire to live in a cohesive society, tolerant of diversity.

October 21, 2020

Joseph McCarthy smiled in his grave

McCarthyism was re-incarnated when Senator Eric Abetz asked three young Chinese Australians to “unequivocally condemn” the Chinese Communist Party. Congratulations to Chiu, Jiang and Chau for having the courage to defend themselves when bullied.

August 26, 2024

Could mpox become established in the Indo-Pacific?

While the Indo-Pacific has been one of the regions least affected by mpox in the past, that could change if the virus spreads unchecked.

July 27, 2024

Prospects for our progeny

We live in treacherously dangerous times. The recent attack on the life of Donald Trump, is just one of many pieces of evidence that every human on our planet is living under threat. Thanks to the actions of former PM, John Howard, the threat of gun violence here in Australia is less than that in the United States. But, as both the Club of Rome, and prominent Canberra Science communicator, Julian Cribb, have been saying for some years, we are not dealing adequately, with a series of interacting issues that threaten the very survivability of our human species.

June 15, 2024

Judah Tana: Asia is witnessing one of history's largest trafficking events

Judah Tana is the Australian founder-director of Global Advance Projects which has rescued hundreds of trafficking victims who arrived in Myanmar from more than 60 countries as far-flung as Uganda and Morocco.

June 6, 2024

Why Israel’s Gaza war violates Just War principles

Israeli defences of their current military assault on Gaza invoke various defences of it couched in moral terms that evoke the concept of a just war. What follows discusses the war and its defences from the perspective of the widely acknowledged (though often misused) theory of the just war and find that the defences offered by Israeli leaders and spokespeople fail badly.

May 28, 2023

Rearmament and Europes welfare

Lets see how Europeans respond when they are told their peace dividend is henceforth to be spent on the machinery of war when its howitzers instead of hospitals now, as aNew York Timesarticle puts it.

May 18, 2023

The march of death

Ever since the six-day war of 1967, when Israel occupied the whole of Jerusalem, a triumphant march of conquest, called Jerusalem Day March takes over the Holy City. How would you feel if this was your home, your neighbourhood and you and your family were faced with hoards of religious fanatics, waving the Israeli flag, chanting Death to all Arabs and Your Second Nakba Is Coming. Last year a new curse was added, May Your Village Burn and, of course, the usual cry repeated over and over, Kill Them All.

October 5, 2024

Chagossians 'deplore' deal allowing US-UK to keep Diego Garcia Air Base

“We remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland,” one diaspora Chagossian said in response to the agreement.

September 26, 2023

Karla Grant explores Norway's 34-year Indigenous Voice to Parliament

As Australia nears its referendum, Karla Grant takes a closer look at Norway’s Voice To Parliament.

July 4, 2023

Silence and the horror of Jenin

Why hasnt the devastation of almost an entire people been called out for what it is?

June 25, 2023

How the media do PR for Biden and Zelensky

Coverage of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and Nord Stream pipelines shows a western media willing to prioritise anti-Russian propaganda over facts.

April 18, 2021

Myanmar steps back into darkness

Since the February 1 coup, the Tatmadaw the official name ofMyanmars armed forces has escalated itscrackdownon citizens protesting against the military takeover that ousted Myanmars democratically elected government.

May 23, 2024

Chinese experts urge tariff hikes on imported fossil fuel cars to accelerate green transition

Liu Bin, chief expert of China Automotive Technology & Research Centre (CATARC), explained that raising the temporary tariff rate on imported cars with large engines can further accelerate the green transition in China’s auto industry; and an article analysing the Biden Administration’s Section 301 Tariffs on China by a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security.

April 23, 2023

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.

September 27, 2024

Silent voices: Multifaith and multicultural leadership at a crossroads

Twelve months after the tragic events of 7 October, the silence from Australia’s faith communities is deafening. Confronted with the devastating war on Gaza and the ongoing suffering of Palestinians, faith leaders had a moral duty to speak out against these injustices. Yet, they have largely remained absent, their influence fading into obscurity.

May 14, 2024

Our great leap backward in China trade ignores China specialists

Last month Prime Minister Albanese cheerfully welcomed the Chinese government’s removal of import duties on Australian wine.

September 8, 2023

Deploying Australias Navy to Ayungin atoll makes no strategic sense

I wonder how many Australians know where the Ayungin Shoal/Second Thomas/Renai Jiao is? Do they know that their Navy has been deployed to this atoll, ostensibly to defend their national interest!

August 29, 2023

Republicans push for Mexican-American war: Don't rule it out

One of the what-ifs that the Albanese government should be asking itself is; what would it mean if America invaded Mexico in 2025? If the leading Republican presidential candidates are to be taken at their word this is not a foolish question. Could anything have a greater impact on the foundations of Australias foreign and strategic policies?

August 20, 2023

A Voice for On Country and one for the city

There is barely an Indigenous murmur in The Centre about the Voice from the Heart.

August 24, 2024

Inequality is about more than just who has the money

Rising inequality in Australia needs a new understanding of how people live, not just economics.

July 19, 2024

AUKUS submarine deal will damage Australia’s interests

The now-notorious AUKUS agreement was secretly conceived between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States prior to being publicly announced in September 2021 by the Morrison government in Canberra. It was aimed at eventually allowing Australia to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines at an exceptionally high, initial estimated cost of up to A$368 billion ($249.1 billion), with the joint assistance of the US and the UK.

September 7, 2024

Land Forces comes to Naarm

Next week, Land Forces 2024 will take place in Naarm. “Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition” to give its full, rather innocuous title, is the largest land-based weapons expo held in the Southern Hemisphere and — as its website proudly announces — “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe.”

March 11, 2020

JOHN AUSTEN. Placating the Infrastructure Club

Infrastructure Australias 2020 priority list doesnt recognise let alone address fundamental problems.

August 23, 2024

Majdal Shams: lies, law and war

The picturesque town of Majdal Shams — just a 40-minute drive from Damascus — featured in Israeli director Eran Riklis’s award-winning film The Syrian Bride.

July 24, 2024

Why we filed a complaint against Netanyahu to the National Office of Investigation in South Korea

“An almost daily occurrence. At least eight schools hit in the last 10 days, including six @UNRWA schools. The war robbed the girls and boys in #Gaza of their childhood & education. Schools must never be used for fighting or military purposes by any party to the conflict. Schools are not a target. The blatant & constant disregard of international humanitarian law continues unabated. All rules of war have been broken in #Gaza. Losing our common humanity must not become the new norm.” - Philippe Lazzarini_ , Commissioner-General of the UNRWA_

June 21, 2024

A Chinese mother's journey to accept her transgender child

“I didn’t tell my husband that our child is a transgender person who likes girls, until months later. His smile froze after hearing what I said."

April 29, 2024

Opening the door to the devil

As Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines all move closer to US-led military architecture in the Asia-Pacific region, experts warn of the consequences.

April 7, 2024

Its a pity Bernie Sanders isnt the president

A few years ago, I gave a talk at the annual conference of the Australian Institute for International Affairs. Afterwards, one of the local luminaries observed that it sounded like I was channelling Bernie Sanders. It was not meant as a compliment. On the contrary, both of us were clearly regarded as unrealistic and nave, if not downright flaky.

July 15, 2023

Jenin attack created 4,000 new refugees, part of the endless cycle of Palestinian displacement since 1948

The Israeli armys recent attack on Jenin refugee camp resulted in 13 deaths (12 Palestinians, including four children, and one Israeli soldier killed by suspected friendly fire). An additional 143 Palestinians were injured, with 20 in critical condition, and up to 4,000 displaced.

August 12, 2024

Raising awareness and shock tactics go hand in hand

The Council for the Human Future and the Club of Rome have stated clearly that solutions to the inter-related world problems mainly exist. The problem is the political will and business leadership is not there to implement them. This will not eventuate without strong demand from the general population.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal