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John Menadue

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…)

Jun 6, 2021
Intelligence agencies have helped precipitate the crisis in our relations with China (An updated post)

In Max Suich’s outstanding series in the Australian Financial Review, on 16, 17 and 18 May, on how we got into the pointless confrontation with China there is no doubt that much of the ‘intelligence’ came from US sources and that our naive and China ignorant intelligence agencies tagged along and served up US intelligence dressed up as their own. But in the end the Australian Government is responsible for the mess. (more…)

May 26, 2021
Israeli deceit and US complicity in attacks on Palestinians

‘We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier.’..Hanan Ashrawi

‘America is behind this war and I am ashamed to be an American’…Anthony Hopkins. (more…)

May 25, 2021
Understanding Beijing’s motives regarding Taiwan, and America’s role

John Culver retired in 2020 after a distinguished 35-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency. During that time, he analyzed East Asian affairs, including security, economic, and foreign policy dimensions. As national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018, he drove the intelligence community’s support to top policymakers on East Asian issues. He routinely participated in meetings at the White House, with leaders throughout the United States government, and with foreign government officials. In a conversation with Brookings Senior Fellow and interim Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies Ryan Hass, the two discussed the risk of future conflict in the Taiwan Strait, how Taiwan is responding to rising pressure from China, and steps the United States could take to support Taiwan in consideration of its interests.

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May 9, 2021
Be not afraid: Daniel Berrigan and his fearless nonviolence, at 100

Five years since his death and 100 since his birth, legendary priest, author, poet and activist Daniel Berrigan continues to offer wisdom and insight on living a life of creative nonviolence.

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May 3, 2021
The repeated lie that Abbott and Morrison stopped the boats has become a ‘fact’. It is just not true.

Our corporate media will not acknowledge that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison did not stop the boats. Despite clear evidence, the Canberra Press Gallery fell for the spin. With a tame media and cooperation by the military, the big lie was repeated time and time again and became accepted as fact. This was all before Donald Trump and his big lies.

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Apr 22, 2021
U.S. Foreign Policy Flow Chart

Here’s a handy U.S. foreign policy flow chart.

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Apr 16, 2021
Melissa Parke successfully settles defamation case against pro-Israeli commentator

Melissa Parke has successfully settled defamation legal proceedings with pro-Israeli commentator Colin Rubenstein over his claims that Parke had been anti-Semitic in her remarks on Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

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Apr 14, 2021
Lobby Land. The power of the health lobby. Health ministers may be in office but they are not in power. An update.

The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers- the health lobby. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform. We have been going around in circles. It is very depressing. The new shadow minister Mark Butler could succeed as Minister if he can find a way to manage and neutralise the provider/lobbyists. But not otherwise. And don’t look the the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing for much help. It was State Premiers, State Health Ministers and State Health officials who drove the fight against the pandemic, not the Commonwealth and its agencies.
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Apr 13, 2021
Statement in support of LGBTIQA+ Catholics

The Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (ACCCR) issues this statement in support of LGBTIQA+ Catholics, their families and friends following the ill-informed statement from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in which it bans “the blessing of unions of persons of the same sex.”
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Mar 29, 2021
Why has there been a spike in anti-asian hate? The NY Times answers their own questions

A collage of panic-inducing anti-China headlines from the New York Times and other major publications can be seen as a factor in the rise of anti-Asian hate seen in western countries.

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Mar 28, 2021
Marise Payne and Kurt Campbell believe their own propaganda about economic coercion by China

The Australian Government and our tame media complain continually about China’s ‘economic coercion of Australia. But the conflict with China has in many cases been provoked by Australia. The US has not looked at the facts and stumbles in blindly. (more…)

Mar 22, 2021
Will the Alaska meeting ease tensions or worsen relations between the US and China?

There is an important face to face meeting between the US and China on Thursday in Alaska. But our media seems disinterested.

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Mar 17, 2021
QUAD: A public relations exercise to disguise Big Pharma’s obstruction and to combat Chinese vaccine successes

QUAD (US, Japan, India and Australia) was regarded as a strategic bloc to contain China. However, the recent virtual meeting between President Biden and Prime Ministers Suga, Modhi and Morrison ,whilst highlighting the provision vaccines to the region was really about curbing Chinese vaccine successes- an expression of soft power. (more…)

Mar 15, 2021
The Iraq war, the Murdoch war and media culpability

The media here thought the terrorism in Australia fell from the deep blue sky and had no relationship to the help John Howard gave to George Bush in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. The Australian media continue to fail us badly over its coverage of the Middle East wars, terrorism and the continuing human disaster and political and sectarian confusion. (more…)

Mar 10, 2021
Why dental care was excluded from Medicare and why it should now be included (an edited repost)

In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political. Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well. Forty-six years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare.

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Mar 8, 2021
The French submarine boondoggle is Australia’s biggest defence blunder and compounded by media failure

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…)

Mar 5, 2021
Our C18th health workforce structure is riddled with demarcations, inefficiencies and antique work practices. (An edited repost)

Casual workers are fair game but the government is not prepared to tackle the very serious workforce inefficiencies in our large and growing health sector.

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Mar 1, 2021
Two decades after 9/11, US war machine is in 85 countries

Since 2018, the US has provided “counterterrorism” training or assistance in 79 nations and its troops have carried out bombing or ground attacks in 10 countries, according to a new interactive map. Meanwhile, China has one official overseas base, in Djibouti.

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Feb 28, 2021
Japanese Ambassador rapped over the knuckles by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

But did he get the message? (more…)

Feb 26, 2021
What is the Japanese Embassy in Canberra up to?

Is it trying to stoke anti-China sentiment in Australia? (more…)

Feb 19, 2021
People in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones

A group of Australian journalists in their never-ending hostility to China keep throwing stones at China for human rights breaches in Xinjiang, but largely ignore Australian and other breaches. Their ignorance of China explains a lot. (more…)

Feb 18, 2021
Australia: Clinging to a declining and aggressive US. An updated repost

Declining empires never go gracefully. And neither will the US empire – addicted as it is to a belief in its ‘exceptionalism’ and its grounding in aggression both at home and abroad.

The attack on the US Capitol reminds us how fragile our ally is. The civil war is unfinished business.Western media have sought to minimise this constitutional crisis- a democratic blip and nothing more!

Joe Biden will smooth a few rough edges but he won’t do much to arrest the decline. He will keep telling us that ‘America is back’ and leading again!

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Feb 14, 2021
Murdoch and his role in the Trump Presidency

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd dissects Rupert Murdoch’s role in creating the Trump presidency. “Donald Trump may have lit the match that detonated his country’s turmoil but it was Rupert Murdoch who diligently crammed the joint full of explosives.”

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Feb 10, 2021
China’s vision of hegemony: the view from India – Vijay Gokhale

China speaks of the ‘community of the shared future for mankind’, and ‘win–win cooperation’; it plays balance-of-power politics and acts in ways that take advantage of others in adversity. China’s aim is to establish its supremacy in areas of productive technology, trade networks and financing options in ways that shut out competition. (more…)

Feb 8, 2021
Rupert Murdoch’s faulty memory. (edited repost from 21 Dec, 2016)

Rupert Murdoch has asserted many times that he has never asked anything from a prime minister yet the Guardian has proof that contradict that claim, as do I.

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Jan 28, 2021
How Murdoch, Abeles twisted the arm of the Hawke Government to help Ansett at the expense of Qantas. (Edited and reposted from 1.1.2019))

Rupert Murdoch repeatedly says that he has never asked a prime minister for anything. That is quite brazen. I know, from personal experience, that this claim is just not true.

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Jan 20, 2021
The Matthew Fisher Sarcoma Research Fund

My granddaughter Naomi’s husband, Matt Fisher, died of an aggressive sarcoma cancer earlier this month. He was aged 39. The sarcoma was diagnosed in February last year.

A research fund has been established to promote research at the Garvan Institute.

Would you consider making a donation? Click here.

Jan 17, 2021
Media concentration in Australia and the Murdoch damage

It is important that any arrangements made for Facebook/Google/Twitter to pay media companies for content are made transparently and equally available to ALL online media publishers who meet (a very low) bar and wish to participate.No government should ever facilitate the handing over of money to tax shy oligopolies. (more…)

Jan 15, 2021
The love affair that made America grate

Between rides and walks on the Trump Golf Course and embracing at the White House, Murdoch and Trump have debauched democracy.

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Jan 13, 2021

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