Lawmakers in the US Imperium are getting stroppy. China is on the rise. Russia is not folding. Iran and Saudi Arabia have decided, if not to bury the hatchet then certainly cover it. So it comes as little surprise that Congress now has, before it, the Defund China’s Allies Act (HR 2511), an instrument that is bound to pass and enchant the Empire’s followers in Canberra. (more…)
Binoy Kampmark
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AUKUS and militarising Australia’s universities
In a recent piece by Guardian Australia’s higher education reporter, an academic, who preferred to remain anonymous fearing institutional retribution, likened the modern Australian university to a supermarket. Students were the customers filing through the self-checkout counters; the staff, increasingly rendered irrelevant, were readily disposable. (more…)
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Quiet diplomacy’s failure: The Albanese government and Julian Assange
Prior to him becoming Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese made a number of declarations to the effect that the Julian Assange affair be brought to a close. The US effort to prosecute, nay persecute the WikiLeaks publisher, would finally be resolved. (more…)
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Toothless protections: the public interest disclosure act and Richard Boyle
Australian legal and political history is littered with examples of petty and vicious prosecutions, notably against those considered dangerous tittle tattles who give the game away and seek to shine some light on the unpalatable practices of those in power. (more…)
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Neo-colonial dreams: Australia eyes the Indian education market
Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of the Ukraine War. (more…)
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China threat: Australia kowtows to US masters over pilot’s degrading treatment
The treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material it’s printed on. (more…)
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Willing servant: Australia’s acceptance of US nuclear ambiguity
The AUKUS alliance is increasingly adopting a nuclear tone. First came the promise to furnish Australia with nuclear powered submarines, absent nuclear weapons, a point that did not dissuade critics such as Indonesia. Then came the announcement to deploy six B-52 bombers to the Northern Territory’s Tindal airbase, south of Darwin, an exercise underwritten by the Pentagon. (more…)
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Sinking notions: US lawmakers and Australia’s nuclear submarines
The implications for the AUKUS security pact were always going to be grave, significant, and unnecessary. It further subordinated Australia to participating in future conflicts; it has brought into question Australia’s own already whittled down sovereignty; and it has also raised the spectre of regional nuclear proliferation. (more…)
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HIMARS: Australia’s missile fetishism
The announcement this month by the Albanese government that Australia would be acquiring HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to a few factors. One is that sense of being left out of the club. If European states can have such launchers with seemingly devastating effect, why not us? (more…)
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Don Bradman, Cricket, and the Counter-Revolution
It would not be an exaggeration to call Sir Donald Bradman, cricket’s most metronomic and gluttonous of batsman (runs wise), a counter revolutionary. On the surface, cricketers like to imagine themselves to be above politics and devotees of a game so complex it would lobotomise any darting political mind. In practice, cricket has invited the most political and acrimonious of debates, straddling arguments between amateurs and professionals, to the debate about World Series Cricket and the need for decent pay for its participants. (more…)
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Country for bad dreams: vandalism on the Nullarbor Plain
“This is quite shocking,” declared South Australia’s Attorney-General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher. “These caves are some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of that part of the country.” That evidence was subtracted this month by acts of vandalism inflicted on artwork in Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain, claimed to be the world’s largest limestone karst landscape and covering over 200,000 square kilometres. (more…)
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Australia disregards medical advice, introduces mandatory testing for Chinese arrivals
Australia’s Albanese government has taken the lead of countries in North America, Europe and Asia by introducing COVID-19 testing measures on arrivals from China. The decision was reached in variance to advice from the Commonwealth’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly that there was no “sufficient public health rationale” for the measure. (more…)
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In the shadow of the military: Fiji’s elections
Fiji has gone to the polls three times since 2006, when the country had what has been termed the “coup to end all coups”, sounding eerily reminiscent of wars that supposedly end all wars. History suggests that where one takes place, another will follow in good time. (more…)
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US B-21 tempts the Australian security establishment
The United States does not need it. No air force does. But the lesson of the dazzle from the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber is that what the US develops and acquires Australia must have. Such a lesson ought to be unlearned as quickly as possible, but there is little chance of it with individuals such as Richard Marles in the defence portfolio. (more…)
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It’s a season to be a warmonger
It’s the season to be jolly and appreciate wrapped presents with surprises that are not true surprises. And the Christmas present most appreciated for a good number of the thinktank military establishment in Canberra will be conflict with Beijing. If not now, then when? (more…)
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AUSMIN and Australia’s further militarisation within the US imperium
The Ausmin joint statement does little to dissuade the idea that Australia is moving, inexorably, towards a satellite, garrison state to be disposed of and used by the US imperium.
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Chinese-Australian voters emerge, reject anti-Asian hatred stoked by right-wing politicians
Asian-Australians are becoming an increasingly influential bloc in steering and influencing federal and state elections. Their significance has been noted by aroused psephologists, surprised pundits and the chattering classes since Anthony Albanese won the federal election in May this year. (more…)
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“Extreme overreach”: Bell report exposes Morrison threat to Westminster system
New report by Former High Court judge Virginia Bell is scathing of PM Morrison and head of department Phil Gaetjens for secret ministry appointments, but spares Governor General from scrutiny.
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Personalised politics: the Liberals meet their Jonestown in Victoria
The Victorian Liberal and National parties’ political strategy of targeting premier Daniel Andrews was a dismal failure, underpinned by policies that seemed to fall into a heap of vacuity. Their failure means that Victoria has no credible or viable opposition.
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Australia’s fake coal emissions certificates rort major trading partners
Companies responsible for testing the quality of Australian coal altered “40-50 per cent of the certificates” to make dirty coal look cleaner than it was and sell substandard products for higher profits to Australia’s export partners and underplay carbon emissions.
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From immunity to impunity: the lawsuit against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
For a country that has made human rights the glossy cover of its foreign policy rhetoric, this was not a good look. The Biden administration’s decision to grant Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immunity from a civil lawsuit filed by the fiancé of murdered Saudi journalist and a human rights organisation simply stank. (more…)
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South Australia ignores Khashoggi murder, welcomes Saudi LIV Golf
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness that the lion’s share of the money is coming from a state responsible for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
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A promise of violence: The AFP supplies the Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands has become a regular feature in the defence and security news of Australia’s media sphere. (more…)
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The lunatic’s course: the Northern Territory’s increased militarisation
Another call to arms has been issued by Washington. The venue that features the recipient of such lethal generosity is not new. (more…)
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Australia’s problem with torture
Casting a keen eye over the human rights obligations of a state is tantamount to rummaging through untended, mouldering laundry. Often, the promise to wash such neglected items has been delayed or postponed. The reasons are often many, and not always insensible. And whose right is it to go through such things anyway? (more…)
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Qatar FIFA World Cup: West silent on human rights
Competitors at the FIFA World Cup will grace stadia built in near-slave labour conditions and enjoy the receptions and hospitality of a state with a brutal penal system. (more…)
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Exit Liz Truss; enter lettuce
“When are you going to govern? The only thing you have governed for the past year is your own survival.” Jess Phillips, Labour MP, October 20, 2022 (more…)
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Dated and fractured: Optus and data protections Down Under
Things are not getting better for Optus, a subsidiary of the Singapore-owned Singtel and Australia’s second largest telecommunications company. Responsible for one of Australia’s largest data breaches, the beleaguered company is facing burning accusations and questions on various fronts. It is also proving to be rather less than forthcoming about details as to what has been compromised in the leak. (more…)
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Australian media think that only China has a human rights problem
Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy. (more…)
