Forty-nine years ago, the Australian Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia met in a tiny sugar town in North Queensland and tried to convince the world they were discussing beef cattle exports, and not the invasion of East Timor. They never fooled the locals who didn’t see much action on the cattle front, just Continue reading »
politics
In a critical forum addressing the Migration Legislation (Removal and other Measures) Bill 2024, Kalyani Inpakumar, representing the Tamil Refugee Council, shed light on the troubling direction of the Albanese Labor Government’s migration and refugee policies. The implications of this bill are stark and unsettling. The bill, as outlined by Greens Senator Meereen Faruqi, carries Continue reading »
Visits to the historical sites of Israel and beyond provide stark reminders that the past – including the recent past – is always with us, with places and monuments marking conflicts of ideologies and conflicts of people. The region of the Levant – Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – are blessed with Continue reading »
Iran has never had a nuclear bomb—why does Israel insist that it’s an imminent threat? It remains a classic moment in United Nations history. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the dignified setting of a General Assembly speech in the fall of 2012 to raise the spectre of an Iranian nuclear bomb. He displayed a Continue reading »
Janet Yellen came, she pontificated and postulated, ate some nice Chinese food, drank a beer with Nicholas Burns, a man that Chinese people loathe and hold little respect for; then she left. This tells the world all about her trip, what she ate and drank was more important than what she said and did. It Continue reading »
Housing inequality has put Australia on a destructive trajectory, how the Coalition blocks economic reform, Australia’s changing politics played out in Tasmania. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Our road to destructive inequality Inequality is manifest in many domains, and Continue reading »
The dire state of truth in Australia’s civic space crystallised in 2023. We had seen the waning influence of News Corp’s impact on our elections and assumed it meant that enough of us were becoming inoculated against the propaganda. The defeat of the notoriously mendacious Coalition government might have signalled a ceasefire, a moment for Continue reading »
“We are really running out of time. We need to reduce our emissions immediately,” one expert warned. “We cannot expect to save the Great Barrier Reef and be opening new fossil fuel developments.” Marine conservationists warned Thursday that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may be suffering its worst-ever coral bleaching event amid record ocean heat fuelled Continue reading »
In journalism and politics there are beat ups every day of the week. But some are so outrageous that they make a zephyr breeze look like a tornado. The ABC and others recently reported that Labor was losing support in the Calwell seat due to what they see as Labor’s support for Israel. The evidence Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: Resistance has regime capital in its sights. Plus: Japan, US, boost Tokyo’s anti-Beijing role; International law ‘backs China’ in islands’ disputes; Tech giants will not solve climate change, social injustice; South Korea voters deliver rebuff to president; Given a chance, Chinese and American folk like each other. Anti-junta forces in Continue reading »