World

Created
Thu, 05/09/2024 - 04:55
A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness (as Four Corners can still manage (see:Inside Iran: The proxy war Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 02/09/2024 - 04:56
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza. For most of human history human rights did not exist. The struggle to secure them arguably began in 1215 with the Magna Carta in England, which promised protection from illegal imprisonment as a right. But it took another 733 years and Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 28/08/2024 - 04:54
Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to global fossil carbon emissions. With less than one-third of one percent of the world’s population, we are responsible for about 4.5 percent of fossil carbon emissions globally, and around 80 percent of this comes from our fossil fuel exports. Our nation is thus responsible for Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 28/08/2024 - 04:56
These massacres bring us closer to the central questions that the inquiring mind might ask about the Gaza genocide. Every genocide is different from the one before. Organised extermination is their similarity, but no two genocides are the same. They are not unique except in themselves. In fact, history is in part a running sequence Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 27/08/2024 - 04:58
This short history of China over the last three decades is mainly based on the first of a three part series in the SCMP. It describes how the adoption of neo-liberalism by President Deng made China rich but also created social problems that President Xi is trying to fix. President Deng enabled China to become Continue reading »