In recent days, U.S. media have been proclaiming that North Korea plans to initiate military action against its neighbour to the south. An article by Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried S. Hecker, neither previously prone to making wild assertions, created quite a splash and set off a chain reaction of media fear-mongering. In Carlin’s and Continue reading »
politics
A landmark event in global public health is taking place in Panama City on Feb 5-10: the 10th Conference of Parties (COP10) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Since 2003, the FCTC has been ratified by 183 countries, and all of them, including China, have made steady progress in monitoring tobacco Continue reading »
A number of commentators have proposed that the Aged Care Funding Taskforce would, and indeed should, recommend increasing user charges. With particular reference to services delivered through Commonwealth Home Care Program (CHSP), this step would be achieved by splitting care services and ordinary daily living supports; the former would be subsidised and clients would pay Continue reading »
In what world does a dominant state claim they have a right to defend themselves against those they have unethically, immorally and illegally imprisoned for decades, killed and persecuted without trial? There’s been an abundance of evidence… Our intelligence sources say… It is very credible intelligence… A complete and transparent investigation… According to the intelligence Continue reading »
Last month, news bubbled that the Victorian State government had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Israeli Defence Ministry in December 2022. “As Australia’s advanced manufacturing capital, we are always exploring economic and trade opportunities for our state – especially those that create local jobs,” a government spokesperson stated in January. In March Continue reading »
The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it. There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the Continue reading »
Australia’s former foreign minister Bob Carr and 49 others are supporting an appeal for easing of hostility between the two superpowers. The Asean leaders’ meeting in Melbourne could provide a platform for discussions on peace security and boosting areas of cooperation with China and the US. A congregation of Asean leaders in March could prove Continue reading »
The campaign to ‘punish’ enemies of the USA and Israel shows that states which argue from strength have no wish for justice – merely revenge. Response? Vengeance? Punishment? Retaliation? Holding to account? Culpability? Justice? Choose your euphemism in the fight against ‘terror’. Following the death of some US military personnel on the border of Syria Continue reading »
In most democratic western countries, certainly in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, politics manifests as a duopoly. Why is it that in spite of cultural, racial and social divisions the world over, personality takes precedence over policies? Decisions about which party to vote for is more often than not based on the perceived Continue reading »
In December, an impressive young Papua New Guinean named Jason Siwat, the director of the refugee program for the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and the Solomon Islands, travelled to Canberra bearing two important documents. The first was a letter from the bishops to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil asking the government to urgently bring Continue reading »