What is the point of the International rule book of law and order? What is the point of UN treaties and conventions if justice is only dealt out to the chosen few? Why are they chosen and who chooses them? Continue reading »
politics
On 3 July 2024, The Age’s Chief Reporter, Chip Le Grand, emailed, called and sent a text message to my phone, posing a series of bad faith, disingenuous accusations and loaded questions which cast me as a “holocaust denier” and anti-semite. “October 7 denial, like holocaust denial,” Le Grand wrote to me, “has taken many Continue reading »
Last week the ABC carried a story about the death of many Israelis on 7 October 2023 as a result of firing by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships. The controversial “Hannibal Directive”, which Israel says isn’t named for the famous Carthaginian general who took poison rather than be captured by the Romans, was reportedly enacted Continue reading »
As has been the case every month since around 2015-16, the number of asylum seekers in Australia continued to set records, reaching 116,389 at end July 2024. The total number refused at both the primary level and at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), but not departed, is now a record of 43,499. On current policy Continue reading »
It’s hard to imagine how the government could have made a bigger mess of questions about gender identity and sexual orientation for the 2026 Census. Last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) expressed regret that its framing of a relevant question in the 2021 Census left some with feelings of exclusion and discrimination and Continue reading »
Hold on to your mobile phones, civilians, this is gonna get rough. If you thought the Sopranos and Corleones were intimidating, check this out. ASML, a Dutch firm that currently is the world’s only manufacturer of the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that produce the most advanced chips, is repeatedly getting stiff-armed by the US – Continue reading »
"Since it was impossible to change the politics of the system, it became necessary to change the type – or stereotype – of the person in charge of carrying out the policy." Fidel Castro, in Obama and the Empire, 2012. Continue reading »
Dave Kellaway reports from Italy, and reflects on the media coverage of the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily compared to the way the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean are usually reported. The recent tragic sinking of tech magnate Mike Lynch’s yacht has been front page news in the Continue reading »
“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese. An independent United Nations expert has warned that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western Continue reading »
Our censors, as the record shows again and again, have no special concern about acting in a serious manner. Power has no such obligation. Is there some connection — not quite official but it may as well be — between censorship and presidential politics? I pose the question as a survivor of the Russiagate years, Continue reading »