On 10 May New Zealand and Chinese military officials met in Xi’an, China for their 11th Strategic Defence Dialogue, the first after a Covid gap of three years. The press releases from both sides were brief, anodyne and uninformative. The Chinese Ministry of National Defence said: “The two sides candidly exchanged views on international and Continue reading »
International Relations
The progressive Move Forward Party has crushed its pro-military rivals and beaten the party that has won most votes in every other election since 2001. But its anti-establishment policies mean institutional resistance is inevitable as it tries to form a government. Thailand’s national elections were a triumph for pro-democracy forces and a repudiation of the Continue reading »
On May 12, the former president of the UN Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, warned Hong Kong that it faced ongoing turbulence amidst global tensions. It should expect to be “kicked around like a football” over the next decade, although this has already started. Since 2020, the US has sought to harm Hong Kong in various Continue reading »
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) stands firmly against the extra-judicial killings of militants by Israel and the high number of civilian casualties- including children – in Gaza. This adds to what the AJDS has been saying for many years with respect to Israel’s disastrous relationship with the people and government of Gaza. AJDS Statement Continue reading »
Yesterday, 15th May marked the 75th anniversary of the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, known as “the Nakba” or “the Catastrophe.” In 1948, the Jewish underground terrorist groups – the Hagannah, Stern Gang and Irgun ethnically cleansed more than 850,000 Palestinians from their homeland (70 percent of the Palestinian population) through terror Continue reading »
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) just published a study about: The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions. The results are as any observer of such acts would expect. Sanctions are used too broadly. They hardly ever serve their supposed original purpose and do not reach their aims. They hurt the poor more than Continue reading »
The way mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private army have been waging a significant part of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has been well covered in the American media, not least of all because his firm, the Wagner Group, draws most of its men from Russia’s prison system. Wagner offers “freedom” from Putin’s labor camps only to send Continue reading »
While “leaders” fail to protect the people from global warming and nuclear war, they have succeeded splendidly in hiding the truth through the denial of climate change, accounting tricks and claims of reduction in domestic emissions, while in fact opening new coal mines, oil wells and fracked coal seams, exporting hydrocarbons through the entire global atmosphere. Continue reading »
There are numerous signs that the United States is undergoing a secular and irreversible process of decline, especially relative to China and other powerful developing nations. The global influence of the US in the military, diplomatic, economic, technological, ideological, and cultural realms is declining unabatedly. In recent years, this process has sped up and is Continue reading »
Alexander Csergo, accused of ‘reckless foreign interference’, is being held in a top-security jail cell in Australia. His case is a ‘show trial’, his lawyer says, which reflects ‘an absolute hypocrisy in our approach to doing business with China’. The Australian businessman arrested in Sydney last month on the criminal charge of “reckless foreign interference” Continue reading »