There is no doubt that the war in Gaza has placed Australia’s multiculturalism and social cohesion under strain. Continue reading »
politics
“Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny” (Charles Reade, 1814-84) ‘Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast’ is an aphorism often wrongly attributed to management guru Peter Drucker. It was more likely first coined by Apple founder Steve Jobs, or Continue reading »
The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) has just published “The Most Moral Army”- an excoriating review of Israel’s continuous reliance on deceitful medical imagery to disinfect its horrific abuse of power in Gaza. Continue reading »
The political and military leader of Hamas is dead. Some cheer. Some weep. History will judge the living and the dead. I wish Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar had appeared before an international tribunal of judges for their role in October 7th, rather than being murdered by the Israelis. All who committed crimes in the Continue reading »
“… the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”, as Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, is said to have put it.
The end of WWII was an uneasy time for East-West relations. Grateful as they were for Stalin’s help, the U.S. and its allies remained wary, as Churchill's 1946 “iron Continue reading »
It’s ranking season again, and universities are once more fixated on their positions in global league tables. These rankings, such as those from Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings, often shape decisions for students and funders alike. While an institution’s rise in the rankings can be celebrated as a success, a drop can Continue reading »
While most of us are fixated on why the King needs to travel to this country with his own supply of fresh blood or how many pomps his ceremonies will need, there are more serious issues raised by the visit to Australia of Charles Mountbatten Windsor, who by birthright holds central powers in Australia’s constitution. Continue reading »
“Do you agree that Israel has the right to defend itself?” This question, so often and repeatedly put by journalists, is irritatingly banal. Invariably, it’s pitched as a kind of provocation, as if to infer that the person being quizzed has never considered the matter, or worse, is a closet antisemitic. The seemingly obvious answer Continue reading »
Events in Jabalia over the weekend have still not shocked the world into action; men, women and children rounded up shared with the world in footage taken by IDF soldiers. We are awakened to the knowledge Australia’s US bases are take off points for US planes heading to the Middle East and witness the protest Continue reading »
The horrific incarceration of Australian Daniel Duggan, a political prisoner in his own country, will have lasted two years next week. In that time he has been locked up in four different maximum security prisons, based only on untested allegations from the United States government. He has no charges against him in Australia and has Continue reading »