Best of 2025 - Furious Modi rejects Trump’s phone calls – Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week: India turns its attention to Japan and China. Plus: Trump wants US to own land used for bases in Korea; Despair turning young refugees to armed insurrection; Beijing pushing AI as next growth-engine; Manila ramps up its anti-China stance; The wounds that time cannot heal.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Jeffrey Sachs: Ending the genocide now
A UN Security Council vote to grant Palestine permanent UN membership would end Israel’s zealous delusions of permanent control over Palestine, write Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares. But the US stands in the way.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia is one trade deal away from backing authoritarians, says Taiwan
In the grand tradition of diplomatic overreach, Taiwan's deputy foreign minister recently offered some sweet and spicy talking points to our media: semiconductors are tanks, China is akin to WWII Germany, and if Australia doesn't fast-track Taiwan into the CPTPP, we might all wake up speaking Mandarin under a fascist AI regime, as reported by News Corp and 7 News.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Chasing a chimera: The political dream of AUKUS that consumes reality
For the sake of taxpayers, let's hope that the Audit Office is inspecting the AUKUS books closely.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Malign AI could change Australian election results, says judge
Justice David Mossop of the ACT Supreme Court has issued a call to arms for lawyers generally, and the High Court in particular, to prepare for palpable threats to “a small, naive democracy like Australia”.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Taking a win from Alaska
On 15 August, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska, the first head-of-state meeting between the two countries since the Ukraine War began.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia and Taiwan caught between Trump and Xi’s great-man fantasies
If there was any doubt in Canberra that the traditional political alignment with the US is in turmoil, the past week or so confirms it irrefutably.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia must defend International Criminal Court
If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia.
7 November 2025
When in doubt, blame China (every News Corp headline needs a villain)
If you only skimmed the headlines from News Corp, you’d be forgiven for thinking China was launching a krill-powered naval strike from Antarctica, staging an electric vehicle blitzkrieg across the outback and forcing Hyundai into some humiliating act of surrender.
14 January 2025
Best of 2025 - Gunboat hypocrisy in the Caribbean
Even as Donald Trump crisscrosses the globe, bringing his purported peacemaking skills to parts of the world that did not even know they were at war, his administration has openly been preparing for militarised regime change in Venezuela. Neighbouring Colombia too isn’t safe.
14 January 2025
Best of 2025 - From illusion to real peace: Trump’s test in Gaza and Ukraine
Real peace demands Palestinian statehood, Ukrainian neutrality and the courage to defy the war lobby.