And the Japanese Embassy in Canberra is leading the anti China campaign in Australia. Penny Wong should have a serious discussion with the Ambassador. With QUAD and maybe JAUKUS, Japan is anxious to recruit us and others as spear carriers against China. As Michael Auslin in the AFR put it, ‘A new QUAD is coalescing Continue reading »
politics
Cardinal Pell has spent his first year in hell complaining to the Devil about not being able to get coverage of Sky News Australia on the television in his suite. ”Most people on their first year in hell do have... Read More ›
The US is pressing an (over) eager Japan to develop offensive capabilities, with an eye to a conflict with China.
Brussels insists Italy must surrender more of its economic sovereignty in exchange for any assistance.
On 5 January, the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan signed a contract with Chinese companies Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. (CAPEIC) to extract oil from the nation’s northern provinces. The oil is set to be extracted from the Amu Darya basin, marking the first time Kabul signs a public commodities extraction deal with a Continue reading »
Venezuelanalysis’ Ricardo Vaz offers a hard-hitting take on the demise of Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president.” And so it ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. After all, it was made of cardboard. It is very rare to have a political phenomenon beautifully encapsulated in a single moment or image. But in the case Continue reading »
The German government recently arrested 25 members of a conspiratorial right-wing group plotting to overthrow the government. One of those arrested was a member of a defunct German royal family that the group hoped to install as Germany’s new leader. In the United States, the Republican Party did well enough in the mid-term elections to Continue reading »
The Liberal Party Review has once again recommended a 50 per cent target for women but the apparent belief that this will win back electoral support from women is misplaced. The Liberal Party’s Review of the 2022 Federal Election, co-authored by former federal party director Brian Loughnane and Senator the Hon Jane Hume, makes a Continue reading »
An important debate is developing in Pearls and Irritations on the need to reduce consumption. In his article “Labor’s Environmental Denialism”, Stephen Williams acknowledged several positive steps being taken by the Labor government to help protect the environment, and then argued that Labor was failing to address the fundamental drivers of environmental disaster, which he Continue reading »
The destruction of the Brazilian congress by supporters of the former, and now self-exiled, President Jair Bolsonaro is yet another example of the power and real consequences of misinformation and deceit peddled on the internet. Viewing events from the afar, it’s easy to be bewildered by the fact that someone like Bolsonaro was elected in Continue reading »