Prof Wang Gungwu, who is now 94, is an historian without equal. When someone alerted me that he would be giving an online lecture at HELP University in Kuala Lumpur on 10 August, I lost no time in signing up for a seat at the university’s Damansara auditorium. Well before the present US-China tensions, Prof Continue reading »
politics
A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness (as Four Corners can still manage (see:Inside Iran: The proxy war Continue reading »
Nicholas Ross Smith, from the University of Canterbury, argues that the temptation to essentialise China as simply being a Xi-led CCP monolith that will stop at nothing to re-integrate Taiwan and seek global domination overlooks the complexity of domestic politics in China. Basing policy on a simple caricature of China is a recipe for disaster. Continue reading »
You never see the dehumanisation of Palestinians in Western society exhibited so clearly as when something bad happens to Israelis during the genocidal assault on Gaza. Western officials are publicly weeping about six dead Israeli hostages, including one Israeli-American, who the IDF says were recently killed by Hamas. Whoever’s been writing Joe Biden’s press releases Continue reading »
Israeli citizens’ demand to bring home an estimated 100 Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas is assumed to depend on a Gaza ceasefire which would include a Palestinian prisoner release. By contrast, Palestinian citizens’ “bring them home!” cry concerns the estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, who are also hostages in Israeli jails, including as many Continue reading »
The NSW Liberal party, fresh off discovering one of their politicians has been charged with rape, has been placed into administration by the Federal Lib’s, with leader Peter Dutton telling his NSW counterparts to not worry, as Daddy’s here. ”It... Read More ›
Gina Rinehart’s favorite play thing, Opposition leader Peter Dutton, has come out strongly to defend his decision to appoint the ghost of former PM, Bob Menzies, to head up the NSW Liberal party. ”The fact that Bob has been dead... Read More ›
China intervened in the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), insisting Pacific leaders remove any mention of Taiwan from their communique on the forum.
The recently published book 'Nuclear is not the answer' by Prof. M.V. Ramana at the University of British Columbia provides a comprehensive and well-researched response to the evolving debate on the relevance of nuclear in our energy mix. Continue reading »