A Labor government has puts guns before butter… how extraordinary! Today, Pearls and Irritations has taken the unusual step of devoting our issue line up entirely to articles on the drive to war with China and the disastrous commitment of $368 billion dollars of Australia’s public funding to nuclear submarines. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Continue reading »
International Relations
Ignorance and fear can be effective weapons in a manipulative politician’s arsenal. They’re guaranteed to pierce the armour of those least protected by doubt and most susceptible to flannel. ‘High tension’ and ‘social unrest’ are likely during the upcoming Indonesian presidential election campaign according to Moody’s investors’ service. That was the case in the 2019 Continue reading »
It seems that poor old Albanese has been sold a very greedy—though only virtual—pup. Think of the comparison with another Labor PM, Ben Chifley. Albanese doesn’t come out of it very well. In 1948, at a time when energy was a major issue, Chifley launched the expensive Snowy Hydro Scheme to provide the country with Continue reading »
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have failed to publish, except in the most cursory sense, the current or recent past associations of their gang of five experts who apparently believe Australia could be at war with China in as little as three years. While it is not a court of law where the ethical Continue reading »
What is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), what are its sources of funding, and why does it so consistently advocate for positions favourable to the United States and the weapons industry? Follow the money trail. Editor’s note: Jocelyn Chey argued in Pearls and Irritations yesterday that hysteria over a supposed immediate China threat is Continue reading »
Embedded within the foreign policy debate in Australia is the claim that an epochal shift of Copernican significance is underway. So disturbing is this transformation in world politics – seemingly from light to darkness, from joy to woe – that its troubling possibilities have dissolved the sense of national self. The consequence: an almost medieval Continue reading »
The comparison between Australia’s response to China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims with India’s treatment of Kashmiris highlights that a commitment to human rights is not the driving force in determining Labor’s position on foreign affairs matters. Last September when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Bali for the G20 Summit he tweeted “So wonderful to see Continue reading »
Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking Continue reading »
Several initiatives highlight stories, narratives, and art performances that articulate the appeal of Pacific Island nations for a more decisive global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
China is the victim of the largest and greatest propaganda campaign in human history. Whether this is a sign of things to come or an aberration based around a particular point in time remains to be seen but propaganda it is. Apparently, in 2017, China incarcerated between 1 and 5 million Xinjiang residents, except there’s Continue reading »