The major parties are not serving Australia well, and voters know it. If independents held the balance of power in the House of Representatives, it would be a good thing for our democracy.
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John Menadue
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We need independents to hold the balance of power after the next election
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John Menadue: From deputy sheriff to the 51st state of the Union
Paul Keating put it succinctly yesterday in The Sydney Morning Herald that we are selling our country to another power. Or, as former ambassador John McCarthy put it, “we are moving from being a country with the self-respect of true independence”. (more…)
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What does the ALP stand for?
Apart from Paul Keating and a few others I do not know what the Australian Labor Party (ALP) now stands for on key issues.
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Blessed are the rich in securing vaccines
Australia is among the rich, western countries siding with Big Pharma to thwart the widespread manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines.
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White Man’s Media or the Western Media Hegemony: a series commencing next week
Fearful of our region, Australia has clung to remote imperial powers, first the UK and now the US. Similarly our derivative main stream media clings to the legacy media of the UK and the US. We have a White Man’s Media in which the hegemony of the UK and particularly the US is entrenched. This hinders our task of equipping ourselves for our future in Asia. (more…)
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Afghanistan: the graveyard of empires and the opium poppy (Repost from May 9, 2018)
They have all failed to conquer Afghanistan – the Greeks, Indians and more recently, the British in the mid 19th Century and the Soviets in the late 20th Century. And now the US empire is failing to subdue the tribes of Afghanistan despite enormous cost of people and treasure. What has not received much attention is that the Taliban depends very heavily on the opium trade which finds its market in the US and other developed countries. That opium trade determines what happens in Afghanistan and not military intervention.
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The gold medal for anti-Beijing hysteria goes to the NYT for its unhinged attack on China’s Olympic success
Not even China’s sporting excellence can pass without comment in the United States, as a highly critical article in the New York Times on Thursday demonstrated. It’s typical of the hysteria culture that’s now rife in America. -
Privatise for efficiency, or not at all
Privatising assets without allowing for competition or regulation creates private monopolies that raise prices, reduce efficiency and harm the economy.
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Australia and the White Man’s Media. A repost from 2015
I have said many times that a person from Mars who read and listened to Australian media would conclude that we are an island parked off London or New York with little relationship to Asia. Our news and media coverage is so derivative, relying heavily on the BBC, CNN and other news and entertainment houses in the UK and the US. We are recyclers. Tony Abbott delights in our being part of this Anglosphere with its British monarchy, Sirs and Dames.
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Human rights in Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel to be examined.
President of Human Rights Council appoints Members of Commission of Inquiry
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Biden promised diplomacy, but he’s overseeing military buildup against China
Shortly after Joe Biden took office, the president delivered a speech at the U.S. Department of State, declaring, “I want the world to hear today: America is back…. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy…. By leading with diplomacy, we must also mean engaging our adversaries and our competitors diplomatically, where it’s in our interest, and advance the security of the American people.” Instead of de-escalation with China, we are witnessing an enormous U.S. military buildup through massive military exercises in the Pacific. (more…)
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Gareth Evans versus the Surveillance State: application of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme
See below a letter exchange between Assistant Secretary, Integrity and Security Division Attorney-General’s Department and ANU Professor Gareth Evans and former Foreign Minister regarding the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
Gareth Evans did not give his response to the media but did copy his reply to a number of former Cabinet, diplomatic and ANU colleagues, from which it found its way into yesterday’s The Australian. Some of the story being out, he has now agreed to put the full exchange on the public record. His colleagues enthusiastically welcomed his robust response.Several have offered to visit him in prison. (more…)
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Pegasus-India’s Watergate moment
A journalist hacked by Pegasus says he will survive, but Indian democracy may not. (more…)
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The CCP’s greatest strength is “Self-Reinvention”
An advocate for China argues the party’s capacity for renewal has kept it at the vanguard of the nation’s youth. (more…)
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Russia’s vaccine curse
The Sputnik V vaccine was an incredible achievement for Russian science. The measure of success, however, will depend on the ability to vaccinate a majority of the Russian population in order to reach herd immunity. (more…)
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William H. Overholt- Biden cannot counter China with a team that lacks expertise
President Biden’s foreign policy team says China is the priority, but the team lacks China expertise. Other than trade experience at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Biden’s Cabinet has no China expertise. (more…)
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Australia is suffering from a defense information dearth
Australia’s defence reporters are being denied access to senior Department of Defence officials under a clampdown imposed by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton.
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Being open, despite the past: article by Russian President Vladimir Putin
An article by the President of Russia has been published in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit and is timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic war.
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Can the success of the NHS vaccination rollout in the UK be applied in other areas of healthcare?
The success of the NHS covid-19 vaccination programme shows the benefits of national leadership and local delivery in healthcare. Working at speed and scale, the programme put in place a service delivery model that delivered a standard offer to the public with the aim of achieving equity in vaccine delivery and zero waste. The question now is whether these lessons can be applied in other areas of care as the NHS embarks on restoring non-covid services, arguably the biggest challenge in its history. (more…)
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Militarism has become the norm. We now even have an Army Lieutenant General heading the vaccine roll out
What a reflection this is on the standing of the Australian Public Service and the Morrison Governments lack of interest in a robust and well functioning civil society. We invariably turn to the military. (more…)
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Our failure in Asia as viewed nine years ago. The situation is now far worse.
Nine years ago, in the speech below, I was pessimistic about our understanding of Asia and our future. The situation has got markedly worse since then. (more…)
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Julian Assange and the collapse of the rule of law
Chris Hedges gave this talk at a rally Thursday night in New York City in support of Julian Assange. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian’s father and brother, also spoke at the event, which was held at The People’s Forum.
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Moral bankruptcy and cruelty in the treatment of the Biloela Family.
The government is hiding behind legislation as a reason for not doing anything. This is truly a morally bankrupt position as anyone who understands Immigration law knows. (more…) -
Deepfake maps could really mess with your sense of the world
Satellite images showing the expansion of large detention camps in Xinjiang, China, between 2016 and 2018 provided some of the strongest evidence of a government crackdown on more than a million Muslims, triggering international condemnation and sanctions. (more…)
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The use of US armed forces abroad, 1798-2020, by US Congressional Research Service: 20 July, 2020
This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.(Covert activities are not included) (more…)
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Letter regarding Afghan staff who have worked for the Australian Government in Afghanistan
Dear Prime Minister and Minister for Immigration,
The undersigned are a group of Australians who have worked in the Indo Pacific in government, business and the media from the sixties until the present day. -
What has the US done that China hasn’t?
It might be the right time to make a list a list of things China did not do. -
The French submarine boondoggle is Australia’s biggest defence blunder. Our tame corporate media hardly noticed.
For the first time in over five years of delay and evasion the Secretary of Defence has at last told us that the Government is looking at an alternative to the French submarine. Our corporate media has failed to hold the government to account in its scandalous handling of the $90 billion French submarine purchase. For five years, the media has failed us. It is now rewarded in the new Media Code with 90% of the tax on Google and Facebook to be handed over to the three failing monopoly media companies. (more…)
