• Pearl 
  • About
  • Our authors
  • English
    • English
    • Indonesian
    • Malay
    • Farsi
    • Mandarin
    • Cantonese
    • Japanese
    • French
    • German
    • Spanish
  • Donate
  • Get newsletter
  • Read
  • Become an author
  • Write

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
Politics
Policy
Economy
Climate
Defence
Religion
Arts
Asia
Palestine-Israel
USA
World
Letters
November 1, 2025

Understanding Australia-China research mobility

Australia’s research partnership with China is a significant component of its scientific output, particularly in engineering, technology and applied sciences.

November 6, 2025

New York, 1975: New York, 2025

Zoran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist Muslim, has won his bid to become Mayor of New York. David Rosen looks at how the city he will run has changed in 50 years.

October 31, 2025

The leader most capable of governing a future Palestinian state is languishing in an Israeli jail

As the future of Gaza hangs in the balance, the Palestinian Authority needs renewal if it’s to eventually govern the Strip and play a key role in making the two-state solution a reality.

October 9, 2025

Journos as heroes and villains - 'The Hack' reviewed - Part 1

In films and on the small screen, journalists are portrayed as heroes or villains. In The Hack they are both. Does this reflect the diminished, benighted standing journalists hold in society today or is it a step forward in showing the complexities of the work?

November 28, 2025

Trump is melting down: Is this the beginning of the end?

Mental health professionals are warning that Donald Trump’s behaviour poses serious risks to democratic governance and international security – yet the media largely looks away.

October 16, 2025

Reuniting families: reforming Australia’s approach

Saffron Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

December 10, 2025

Too many states, too little nation: time to fix the federation

Australia’s federal system was designed for the nineteenth century. Today it produces duplication, dysfunction and state parochialism that frustrate national governance and reform.

October 25, 2025

Misinformation was rife during the 2025 election. New research shows many people were unable to identify it

Misinformation has become a routine part of daily life, shaping public discourse and distorting perceptions. A  new report reveals that in the two weeks prior to the 2025 federal election, almost two-thirds (60%) of adults reported coming across election misinformation. Only 19% didn’t come across it and 21% were unsure.

October 17, 2025

Climate change causing oceans to decline at alarming rate

Climate change and human activity are causing the health of the world’s oceans to decline at an alarming rate, the UN has warned.

December 3, 2025

Coalition’s Australian values test is the ultimate dog whistle

Sussan Ley’s so-called “values test” exposes the Coalition’s desperation to court the far-Right under the guise of patriotism.

November 24, 2025

US foreign policy and Sudan: hypocrisy, incoherence and self-interest

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent remarks on Sudan appear empathetic – but they may reveal more about strategic positioning than genuine concern.

November 19, 2025

Breaking free of media group-think is a scary, lonely journey. I know. I was forced to do it

The western media’s failure to report the reality of Gaza didn’t start on 7 October 2023. It’s always been like this. Here’s why journalists won’t tell you the truth about Palestine.

October 15, 2025

Embedding free, prior and informed consent in Australia’s legal framework

Tiarna Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

December 8, 2025

Friends and frenemies: Australia’s China policy is stuck in a four-tier mindset

Australia’s stabilisation of relations with China is welcome, but the old adversarial mindset remains intact. Institutional biases, selective outrage and context-free media narratives still shape how Australia sees China, limiting any genuine foreign policy reset.

December 16, 2025

How Sofronoff became a foot soldier in a war against woke

Judicial findings have significantly undermined the credibility of Walter Sofronoff’s inquiry into the Lehrmann trial, raising serious questions about bias, process and the influence of media on judicial conduct.

October 6, 2025

South Korea’s anti-China protests

This week, South Korean authorities expressed concern regarding the potential impact of anti-China protests during APEC.

December 11, 2025

Judge says law still failing to see "deeper truth" of dispossession

An ACT Supreme Court judge has confronted the limits of native title and criminal sentencing, arguing the law still falls short of reckoning with Indigenous dispossession.

November 13, 2025

After 50 years, it’s time we called it a coup

Fifty years ago today, an elected government was ousted by a representative of a hereditary monarchy. Broadly, Australian society has still not grappled with these events.

November 4, 2025

A United States that is disintegrating and no longer a leader in Asia

The second Trump administration has transformed US foreign policy, with immediate implications for economic and security ties with Asia and long-term implications for regional and global order.

October 24, 2025

Republicans ‘holding US economy hostage’ as nearly half of states face recession

“At a time when costs are rising and tariffs are wreaking havoc on people’s pocketbooks, Republicans are doubling down on their agenda of raising healthcare costs on millions of Americans.”

December 9, 2025

Writing as resistance in a year that refused to slow down

After a dizzying year of global upheaval, this reflection looks back on writing as resistance – against war, media failure, imperial power and silence – and why truth-telling still matters heading into 2026.

November 29, 2018

ALEXANDER KAUFMAN, CHRIS D'ANGELO. Federal Climate Report Predicts At Least 3 Degrees Of Warming By 2100 (Huff Post).

The White House’s decision to release the report over the holiday weekend is likely to bury the sobering new findings.

October 27, 2025

After OpenAI’s new ‘buy it in ChatGPT’ trial, how soon will AI be shopping online for us?

Buying and selling online with  e-commerce is old news. We’re entering the age of A-commerce, where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly able to shop for us.

October 29, 2025

Why the Coalition can’t win without losing itself

The Coalition faces not a messaging challenge but a structural impossibility. Voters abandoning them won’t be satisfied by marginally tougher rhetoric.

October 19, 2025

Stephen Stockwell 1975: The Ballads of the Whitlam Dismissal

The 50th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government on 11 November 1975 should prompt all Australians to ponder the strength of our democracy.

December 13, 2025

The Colby Review, AUKUS and lopsided commitments

The Colby review of AUKUS highlights how deeply Australia has tied itself to US strategic priorities while offering little clarity on what Canberra receives in return.

November 21, 2025

Australia’s science crisis reveals a century of structural failure

Private capital will not build Australia a world-class science system. Only the public sector can do that. And it must do so at a scale that matches the challenges ahead.

November 12, 2025

Our lopsided and unfair tax system

There is something weird and unfair in a tax system that requires young and productive workers to subsidise the lifestyle of the old and idle.

November 6, 2025

The press and the Dismissal – Part II

Following the Dismissal on 11 November 1975, the editors of the major newspapers understood the national mood was volatile.

October 24, 2025

Hundreds of prominent Jews and Israelis urge world powers to hold Israel accountable 'for Gaza atrocities'

An open letter, signed by at least 460 Jewish and Israeli intellectuals, celebrities and political figures, calls on the UN and heads of state to address “the underlying conditions of occupation, apartheid and the denial of Palestinian rights” that are absent from US President Trump’s Gaza ceasefire agreement.

November 9, 2025

Tony Abbott’s history of Australia wants us to be proud of men like him

Former prime minister (and journalist) Tony Abbott has published a political history of Australia.

October 28, 2025

Trump's rare earths deal to counter China was a badly needed 'Sputnik moment'

The other day US President Donald Trump said: “With a communist in charge? Look, you just go back a thousand years, it’s been done many times, a thousand years, it’s never worked once.”

December 4, 2025

With a sneaky tweak the government has made welfare recipients guilty until proven innocent

New social security laws allow payments to be cancelled for people with outstanding arrest warrants, even if they have not been charged or convicted, raising serious concerns about justice, rights and harm.

November 29, 2025

Hong Kong tower fire – contractor for fire-hit Tai Po project has record of safety offences

The contractor behind renovation work at the site of Hong Kong’s worst fire in decades had previously breached safety requirements for construction projects on multiple occasions.

November 18, 2025

50,000 march to celebrate death of fossil fuel industry at COP30

An estimated 50,000 people took to the streets of Belém do Pará, Brazil, on Saturday to demand a just transition toward a more renewable energy system and egalitarian economy.

October 10, 2025

Jeffrey Sachs: Twenty-point plan minus the US-UK colonialism

Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares offer a revised version of the Trump plan for an end of the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.

October 9, 2025

Cancelling Chris Hedges: What price balance?

On its homepage you will read that “The National Press Club (NPC) is a vigorous champion of media freedom and a home away from home for journalists”.

November 27, 2025

Non-aligned and successful: Indonesia’s lesson for Australian foreign policy

Australia’s new security agreement with Indonesia comes at a critical moment. Jakarta’s non-aligned tradition offers lessons for a country still tied to a lopsided alliance with the US.

November 8, 2025

How Zohran Mamdani’s ‘talent for listening’ spurred him to victory in the New York mayoral election

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, has been elected as New York City’s mayor. He became the first New York mayoral candidate to win more than a million votes since 1969, and looks set to secure more than 50% of the total vote.

December 11, 2025

Beijing warns foreign media in Hong Kong over crossing ‘red lines’

In meeting with wire agencies and other outlets, national security office says reports on fire relief efforts and Legco poll must adhere to law.

December 15, 2025

If government won’t deliver reform, citizens can

Governments routinely ignore expert advice and community lobbying. Caroline Fitzwarryne argues that Australians must organise, draft reforms and lead practical projects themselves, rather than waiting for politicians to act.

December 9, 2025

Australia’s social media age ban is days away. Here is what it really means

Public debate about Australia’s social media age ban has focused on parents and children. But the burden sits with platforms, and the deeper risks lie in what replaces young people’s online communities.

November 2, 2025

What Israel's genocide has laid bare

Two years into an ongoing genocide — recognised as such by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights, Doctors without Borders, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, the University Network for Human Rights and countless scholars of international humanitarian law, genocide and Holocaust studies — we are now to normalise the obscene, and move on.

October 22, 2025

Readying the north for war

Few Australians realise that the tropical north occupies more than 40% of our land mass while holding only 5% of the population. But governments — colonial, state and national — have speculated about its destiny since the middle of the 19th century.

October 16, 2025

Gaza: The peace of the genocide alliance

The great war may be coming to an end, but the violence of occupation, apartheid, and territorial expansion is not.

November 4, 2025

The West’s double game on Gaza

In the aftermath of the attacks of 7 October 2023 and for months afterwards, Western governments that have been long-standing supporters of Israel — including the Australian Government — invoked “self-defence” to justify the severity of Israel’s response.

October 21, 2025

Palestinian Mandela beaten unconscious. Our leaders yawned and looked away

Israel and the West pretend they want a real peace in Israel-Palestine yet the Israelis just beat unconscious the man most likely to help realise a sustainable end to the conflict: Marwan Barghouti.

November 20, 2025

Investigative journalists are the heroes of our time

Investigative journalists and whistleblowers must be cherished and protected if there is to be any chance of maintaining our fragile democratic system.

November 3, 2025

Israel’s repeated ceasefire violations are part of its strategy to keep waging war on Gaza

Here’s Israel’s strategy to continue the war on Gaza: find a pretext, no matter how baseless, use it to kill dozens of civilians and fighters, stop fire and claim you’re honouring the ceasefire. Then do it again.

  • ««
  • «
  • 462
  • 463
  • 464
  • 465
  • 466
  • »
  • »»

We recognise the First Peoples of this nation and their ongoing connection to culture and country. We acknowledge First Nations Peoples as the Traditional Owners, Custodians and Lore Keepers of the world's oldest living culture and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Help
  • Donate
  • Get Newsletter
  • Stop Newsletter
  • Cancel Payments
  • Privacy Policy
Write
  • A Letter to the Editor
  • Style Guide
  • Become an Author
  • Submit Your Article
Social
  • Bluesky
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
Contact
  • Ask for Support
  • Applications Under Law
© Pearls and Irritations 2025       PO BOX 6243 KINGSTON  ACT 2604 Australia

 

Strengthen independent media with a tax deductible donation

Pearls and Irritations has again proven that independent media has never been more essential. We have continued to push the issues ignored by mainstream media, building our voice as a trusted source for local and global issues. We ask you to support our plans for 2026. For the next month please make your tax deductible donation via the Australian Cultural Fund.

Make a tax deductible donation