There are parallels between Indonesia’s Aceh where an Ozzie surfer faced a flogging, and Papua where a Kiwi pilot is facing death. Both provinces have fought brutal guerrilla wars for independence. One has been settled through foreign peacekeepers. The other still rages as outsiders fear intervention. There were ten stories in a Google Alert media feed Continue reading »
Media
As the people of Thailand say, ‘same, same.’ Here we go again. Another indigenous Australian, and this one an educated, travelled, and articulate First Nation public intellectual is being maligned. Stan Grant has stepped away from the ABC, as a result of persistent and vitriolic racist abuse. The persistence of racism Those most aligned with Continue reading »
Banning harmful advertising such as junk food, gambling, and alcohol advertising should be a political no-brainer. The evidence of the harm they cause is clear, especially among children and young people, the health and social benefits of such restrictions are real and public support is high and undeniable. And yet – tobacco advertising excepted – Continue reading »
Stan Grant is always intelligent, insightful and provocative. He demonstrated this in his extraordinary farewell piece last Monday night on the ABC’s Q+A. I have enormous respect for Stan Grant. Always intelligent, thoughtful and provocative, he has been an important contributor to intellectual life in Australia. His strength has been to move discussions on from Continue reading »
60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a US war against China. A segment they ran a year ago is titled “Prepare for Armageddon: China’s warning to the world,” and features an image of Xi Jinping overlaid with war Continue reading »
The racist vitriol to which our ABC colleague Stan Grant has been subjected, especially over the last few weeks, says a lot about Australia’s media. And it’s not pretty. The decision by Stan Grant to step aside from ABC’s Q+A, after being subjected to shameful racist vitriol, is a wake-up call for all in the Continue reading »
One of the stranger aspects of the current war, at least for this observer, is the sight of Ukrainian military commanders telling BBC cameras in perfect Russian of their anti-Moscow plans. They have yet to learn to speak Ukrainian. Moscow is supposed to be attacking Ukraine out of concern it will bring NATO to Russia’s Continue reading »
For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Assange is a political prisoner who must be freed. But the task remains for those like Stella Assange to convince politicians and journalists Continue reading »
A prince of the realm taking on Britain's biggest newspapers is surely newsworthy? Not if you're a reader of one of these titles, writes Liz Gerard