Our leading humanitarian and civic institutions, including major medical institutions, refuse to denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This exposes their hypocrisy and complicity. There is no effective health care system left in Gaza. Infants are dying. Children are having their limbs amputated without anaesthesia. Thousands of cancer patients and those in need of dialysis lack Continue reading »
politics
A Syrian friend in Damascus was commissioned to translate Bridge of Clay, a tender, beautiful novel by Australian author Markus Zusak. As it is not an easy novel for a Syrian who has never lived in Australia to translate, my friend and I have had quite a few WhatsApp calls to discuss tricky bits in Continue reading »
Indonesia, Australia’s largest neighbour, will go to the polls on 14 February 2024 to elect a new President. Some 160 million eligible voters are expected to turn out in the largest single-day contest. Under Indonesian law, the candidates must secure more than fifty per cent of the votes to avoid a run-off, scheduled on 26 Continue reading »
International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, was recently quoted in the Guardian (Tuesday 16/1/24) saying that “in most scenarios artificial intelligence (AI) would probably worsen overall inequality across the global economy and could stoke social tensions without political intervention”. Australia’s vulnerability to such AI-induced inequality would appear to be high, while our chances Continue reading »
Is there a word for when you are in a rage and in despair? Respair? Dage? Cause whatever that is – I am both in rage and despair as a woman who works in both politics and technology over the latest example of how the media treats powerful women; in this case Georgie Purcell, member Continue reading »
The Bangladeshi elections of 7 January, like most polls, including those in democratic nations of the developed world, have their own shortcomings and should not be lightly dismissed. But what my group of international observers witnessed on election day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was democracy in development. It was a day free of violence and free Continue reading »
Veterans of Middle East affairs say wryly that anyone who claims to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict has been misinformed. This paper reviews the complex and emotionally fraught history of the Conflict; looks at 10/7 and Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza in retaliation, and then speculates on possible pathways to the conflict’s resolution that could Continue reading »
It was bound to happen in one form or another. The AUKUS arrangements were a guarantee of it. The ‘it’ in question is the alleged discovery and lamentation that, possibly, “Australia has one of the weakest research security frameworks in the developed world.” Redress is demanded and of a draconian character; not to do so Continue reading »
There is clear evidence that US efforts to build a coalition of allies in our region is directed at containing Chinese power and developing the capability to eventually confront the Chinese military. That scenario is a nightmare for Australia. We now find certain elements of a Labor government flirting with containment and confrontation with China Continue reading »
By way of introduction let me quote Richard Falk, noted international law professor and former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Falk: the decision by the ICJ “marks the greatest moment in the history of the [Court]”. The initial response to the decision on 26 January suggested that South Africa Continue reading »