In the end as at the beginning all that really matters is how we treat one another. This song of knowing is in our hearts and of our hearts. It whispers of better times. A daily life that can be calmer. Kinder, not something to worry about. Where the healing of memories is subtle but Continue reading »
Tributes
Receiving the Jerusalem Peace Prize is a great honour and I am overwhelmed and humbled indeed. It is particularly poignant at this time as Palestinians in both Occupied Gaza and West Bank are suffering unbelievable, horrific hardship and brutal violations of their basic human rights, for life, for shelter, water and food. Dr Helen McCue Continue reading »
Aaron Bushnell enacted the ultimate sacrifice in the face of atrocities the likes of which have never been seen before and the grotesque, ugly western leadership enabling it to continue. His act captures our anxiety, distress and helplessness. He is all of us. To learn more about Aaron Bushnell and his life, listen to interviews Continue reading »
On Feb 17, aged 93, Norwegian Johann Galtung, polymath Professor of Peace Studies died. In a world riven with conflicts, whose leaders appear to know more about weaponry, destruction and murder than about peace making, Galtung‘s teaching offers a penicillin for peace, an antidote to the arms trade and to persistent violence. Galtung’s significance derives Continue reading »
My late friend and mentor Don Nicholls was one of the great public servants of NSW where he was Chief Economist and then Deputy Secretary, NSW Treasury. The Sydney Morning Herald recognised this on Monday when its Economics Editor, Ross Gittins, wrote a fitting tribute saying: “Some people assume only second-class minds join the public Continue reading »
In 2017, I was privileged to deliver the Lowitja Oration at her invitation marking the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. I thanked Lowitja for her national leadership, for her trust, for her hopeful example, and for her friendship. Through the prism of Lowitja’s early political involvements, I recalled the years of hard labour put Continue reading »
Mark was born and raised in the Boston area. His rough and tumble youth left an indelible mark reflected in his Boston blue collar accent, attitude and life-long membership of the Red Sox nation. He fell in love with Hawaii the moment he arrived in January 1969 to pursue a PH. D. in Oceanography at Continue reading »
In a speech he made in Sydney in 2011, defending Julian Assange, John Pilger recalled how it was always impressed upon him when he was young that Australia was a brave country: that we stood up to authority, and we stood up for justice. Such national myths were at best half-truths, Pilger said, but in Continue reading »
John Pilger, the investigative anti-war journalist who spoke up for China and humiliated the western corporate media, has died—and every single report on this in the western media I have seen has carefully omitted this fact. Here are ten things he said that the world needs to know about the legendary journalist who died in Continue reading »
Henry Kissinger’s death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century. I first met Henry Kissinger in Continue reading »