The evidence is now in – Chinese tourists are largely boycotting Australia. See the chart below which compares annual visitations from different countries in the year to March 2023 with those from the same countries in the year to March 2019 (well before the pandemic). Tourism is picking up from most countries, especially India which Continue reading »
politics
Why are Australian political leaders so insecure about our capacity to be independent and create a peacebuilding role for our nation when so many Australian military and police personnel have already demonstrated their capacity for strong leadership as peacekeepers? On 27th May in Brisbane’s Anzac Square, I joined with military, police and civic leaders to Continue reading »
Today, there are strong arguments that Australian security and defence thinking, which was historically race based, is now culturally embedded; that the current situation is close to what race theory describes as ‘racism without racists.’ How, then, might Australian colonial racism have conditioned our security culture to put the ‘A’ in the AUKUS nuclear powered Continue reading »
The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. Here are four myths about the utility of nuclear Continue reading »
Sixty years after Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, crucial lessons must still be learned about how to end dangerous conflicts in a nuclear world. President John F. Kennedy was one of the world’s great peacemakers. He led a peaceful solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and then successfully negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Continue reading »
The fight could influence whether Georgia stays blue in 2024’s Senate and presidential races.
The post No One Believes in Cop City. So Why Did Atlanta’s City Council Fund It? appeared first on The Intercept.
News that the FBI continues its investigation into the case around Assange appears to have taken both supporters and the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus by surprise. On 1 June 2023, Foreign Affairs and National Security correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew Knott, quoted from a letter received by Andrew O’Hagen, novelist and Assange’s ghostwriter, on Continue reading »
When a government proposes a policy to improve our diet, it can trigger a gag reflex. Some people feel that deciding what to eat is purely a personal choice, and the ‘nanny state’ should stay out of the way. No-one wants to be lectured, shamed, or forced to eat their greens. Perhaps it goes all Continue reading »
Propaganda is a potent weapon used by politicians and rival nations to wage a war of words, especially those abetted by a biased media. It is used by politicians to deceive, convince and indoctrinate. Terrorist organisations use it to radicalise. Propaganda works like a Covid-19 infection. We catch it and spread it around like carriers. Continue reading »
Prime Minister Albanese spoke moderately and positively at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore last weekend, although his address didn’t really live up to its prior publicity. However the main impression from the exchanges at the Dialogue was of the differences between the US and China. Amazingly, the American Secretary of Defence didn’t seem to realise Continue reading »