The daily witness of horrors in Gaza has provoked moral dilemmas for us all. How do we face these monstrous events, and not turn our hearts to stone? An Australian historian showed us how in 1998. Continue reading »
politics
The death toll has risen to 12 from Israel’s terror attack in Lebanon on Tuesday which detonated explosive materials hidden in thousands of pagers. Another 20 people were then killed in another attack on Wednesday with a second wave of explosions, this time using walkie talkies and home solar energy systems. The total death toll Continue reading »
Restoring trust and integrity in the Australian Public Service requires tackling the corrosive effects of past politicisation (secretary contracts) and externalisation (professional consultants) that have undermined capacity and independence, as highlighted by the Royal Commission on Robodebt fiasco, and parliamentary committee revelations around the extensive engagement of major consulting firms. Former public service commissioner Andrew Continue reading »
We are witnessing a depraved, rogue nation which perhaps believes that every act of violence and horror it perpetuates is justified in the name of… what? What could possibly justify the horrific maiming of women and children and innocent men in a foreign country who were going about their daily lives? It is a sick Continue reading »
As the war in Ukraine heads into its third winter Western leaders appear to be sinking further every day into a delusional belief in the success of their hydra-headed attempts to first de-fenestrate Russia before moving on to do the same to China Continue reading »
Exploding pagers and two-way radios. What a brilliant act of ….. state sponsored terrorism. Or a classic destruction of an adversary’s command and control communications ability. Continue reading »
In recent years, I have been asked to comment on the Middle East “impasse”, though I am no foreign policy expert. I am merely one of many humanists who mourn this tragic history and rail against the failure of the international community to exert the great influence it has to bring peace and justice to Continue reading »
Thousands of Lebanese citizens, injured or murdered by apparent Israeli planted explosives in pagers and other communications devices, are referred to as Hezbollah operatives, even though victims have included small children. A macabre picture does not end there. The public is given the usual either or account of slaughter in a war depicted as between Continue reading »
The Palestine/Israel narrative in Australia is skewed by the influence of underground forces. Continue reading »