Reading

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Catriona Jackson as the editor of Pearls and Irritations from 17 March. Reflecting the rapid growth and influence of Pearls and Irritations since its launch in 2013, Catriona will lead our team, managing all aspects of the editorial process. She will ensure sustainability and growth for the journal as it passes 24,000 subscribers, more Continue reading »

I don’t intend to move these round-ups into international relations. There are excellent Australian sources with a foreign policy orientation – Pearls and Irritations, the Lowy Institute and Australian Foreign Affairs. But events around Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine should have repercussions not only for our foreign policy, but also for our domestic policy, particularly in the way we Continue reading »

In a recent lengthy article in Inside Story, Brett Evans discusses a credible Teal threat to the Liberals in Sydney’s Bradfield seat and raises the question: would minority government be so bad? A similar question could be raised in the seat of Cowper where the challenge is from the Independent Caz Heise, who came close Continue reading »

In 1951 Australia turned to its newfound “great and powerful friend” America, consummating the move by signing the ANZUS treaty. ANZUS remains seriously misunderstood by most Australians, especially among the ageing ranks of conservative aficionados in Australia where it has the status of a holy cow. This is despite the fact that the treaty is Continue reading »

With the nation’s worst state debt and the looming budget, we hear almost weekly of the Victorian Government’s desperate funding cuts to essential services. While, for example, our nurses, childcare and aged care workers and our police are very much valued and needed, they appear to come a poor second in financial support to the Continue reading »

“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” – George McGovern (Politician, USA) We seem in this age, in what is deceptively described as the West, to be constantly Continue reading »

A significant intelligence failure to detect live-firing by Chinese warships near Australia, has exposed Defence weaknesses, and the fact that when it counts, we are all alone. Australia is caught in a jam, between an assertive American ally and a bold Chinese trading partner. America is accelerating its pivot to the Indo-Pacific, building up its Continue reading »

An impending deadline spotlights how the federal flood insurance program is forcing low-income households to subsidize the rich.

Den tillträdande tyska förbundskanslern, kristdemokraten Friedrich Merz, har tillsammans med sin tilltänkta koalitionspartner annonserat en uppgörelse om att utnyttja parlamentets två tredjedels majoritet – förutsatt att de får med sig de Gröna – för att släppa på skuldbromsen. Syftet är att finansiera försvarssatsningar över 1 procent av BNP samt att skapa en infrastrukturfond på svindlande 5000 […]

“‘The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,’ Mr. Trump wrote on social media. ‘This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem.’” — New York Times

Ever since Canadians dined on Dolley Madison’s Macaroni Soup à la Napolitaine and Williamsburg Pound Cake before burning down the White House in 1814, we’ve been worried about retaliation. And while we love our American cousins (jazz, warm winters, and forensic crime procedurals), with each generation, their leaders and inclinations have become increasingly fascist. We’ve tolerated Reaganomics, aerosol cheese, and hockey in Arizona, but the second Trump administration is the last paper straw.

Former Trump aides get hired by a foreign drugmaker aiming to kill Medicare’s plan to lower the price of U.S.-funded weight-loss meds.

A while ago, ALLEA (the alliance of European science academies) published a statement on ethical problems in collaborations between academia and commercial parties.* With this post, I want to draw attention to this topic (my impression was that it got a bit overshadowed by all the horrible attacks on academic freedom and academic institutions that […]

During his confirmation hearing last Thursday, Trump nominee Dr. Marty Makary equivocated on whether Americans...

.

A revived and expanded Muslim ban is stoking fears that U.S. residents with “hostile attitudes” toward the country will be targeted.

The post Trump’s New Muslim Ban Poised to Sweep Up Immigrants Already in the U.S. appeared first on The Intercept.

The PM's pronouncement that Britain need not choose between the US and Europe is 'downright reckless' and an 'exercise in dangerous delusion', argues Clive Lewis

Motherhood is all about making sacrifices and supporting your children, no matter how outrageous their decisions may be. I’ve learned to accept the fact that my son Lawrence (whose friends rudely refer to him as “Chunk”) wants to be a “Goonie.” But this? THIS? Nothing in Dr. Spock’s many voluminous books could have prepared me for housing a nearly seven-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound slop-eating human wrecking ball known only as “Sloth.”

Look, I get it. Emotions were running high, the kids were all found safe, and they even grabbed enough of One Eyed Willie’s rubies to save our homes from being demolished. We were all overjoyed.

But then Chunk told Sloth in front of everyone, “You’re going to live with me now,” which totally put me on the spot. It’s like when he would ask if one of his little friends could sleep over right in front of them. Only instead of a seventy-pound child for one night, it’s a disfigured linebacker that could rip a normal man in half like a sheet of paper forever.

Toby Young said he hoped it would be the first of 'many' legal collaborations between X and his organisation

The post Doctor Who Magazine 613 winners appeared first on Doctor Who Magazine.

Every day I become more grateful for the election of Donald Trump. All praise. Millions of millions of people have worked to destroy the American empire, and all failed. Donald is succeeding, speeding the process by about a decade, I’d guess.

Likewise I and many others have hated the neoliberal trade order for decades: since the late 80s in my case. It was designed to destroy countries;sovereignty, making it impossible to truly regulate investors, to run industrial policy or even, in rich nations, to keep wages up. As a Canadian, ever since the FTA Canadian manufacturing has proceeded on a slow death march, till instead of selling the US more good than the US sells us, as was historically the norm, we now buy more goods from the US than vice-versa. (The trade surplus is due to energy.)

As the twentieth anniversary of the Glazer family’s tenure as owners of Manchester United approaches, it’s a struggle to see how it could have been any more disastrous. Over £1 billion in debt, dressing room dramas and fan protests every other week, cost-cutting practices from new part-owner Jim Ratcliffe that would make George Osborne blush […]

Open letter argues stronger worker protections boost productivity and create economic stability as Labour MPs challenge Reform UK to clarify position on popular legislation