Gaza now resembles Berlin at the end of WW2. A bombed out ruin, littered with the decomposing bodies of innocent civilians, entombed in the rubble of their homes. The way is now cleared for Israel to take possession of all of Gaza. To forever banish the Palestinians from their traditional homeland. And the world watches Continue reading »
International Relations
The quick count of Indonesia’s recent elections indicates the winner is previously disgraced Prabowo. Accusations abound of voting fraud, vote buying, court-rigging, and corruption within the electoral commission, and many friends are despairing of Indonesia’s retreating democracy. I share that concern, but I can see a potential different interpretation of the facts. My prayer, and Continue reading »
Penny Wong has a new mantra for Australia China relations. Foreign Minister Penny Wong previously said, “Co-operate with China where we can, disagree where we must.” This week, she has told the press that in her meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi she described her outlook as “Australia will be Australia; China will be Continue reading »
Hamas is the excuse for the Israeli attack on Gaza. The real intent is to expel all Palestinians not just from Gaza but from the West Bank as well. Or as Jonathan Cook put it ‘Israel is not primarily eradicating Hamas. It is eradicating Gaza’ Professor Richard Falk said .. ‘In Gaza, the west is Continue reading »
What has changed since 2003? Nothing, except for the worse. Australian governments continue to accept the US enemies as their own, and shoot whoever the sheriff says. All but two of the missing Iraq War Cabinet papers have now been released to the long-suffering public. But those of us who remember the Howard government’s secretive, Continue reading »
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” During the Cold War period after World War II, two “international orders” emerged in the world, namely the “socialist international order” Continue reading »
Beijing has been slow to address the visa and e-payment woes of foreign travellers, and some officials remain complacent about the exodus of foreign investment. China’s Luckin Coffee, founded in 2017, is the country’s largest coffee chain, with more stores and higher revenue than Starbucks. Its cashless grab-and-go model, where customers order on the app Continue reading »
March 7, Evening, Washington D.C. : Joe Biden announces an incredible plan to provide a route for aid into Gaza, with no American ‘boots on the ground’. Incredible: too extraordinary and improbable to be believed. At least, unless one is a serious conspiracy theorist, because this idea is staggeringly stupid or of Machiavellian cunning. This Continue reading »
Australian governments routinely assert that the country is respected as a “middle power” in regional and global forums. Meanwhile scholars increasingly agree that the middle power concept is more fantasy than reality. In Australia’s case, the uncritical assumption of the middle power self-image, by many politicians and commentators, is undermining the country’s security. Back in Continue reading »
In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once popular theory of an imminent collapse of China, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction. But there is still Continue reading »