John Menadue

RICHARD FLANAGAN.- Australia is Committing Climate Suicide

As record fires rage, the country’s leaders seem intent on sending it to its doom.

Read Richard Flanagan in the New York Times of January 3, 2020.

s://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/opinion/australia-fires-climate-change.html

GEORGE MONBIOT.-There is an antidote to demagoguery – it’s called political rewilding(The Guardian 19.12.2019)

This form of radical trust devolves power away from top-down government, often with some very unexpected results.

GEORGE GRUNDY.- The Leadership Vacuum

On 25^th April 2006 the Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania collapsed. One man was killed and two others trapped nearly a kilometre below the ground (more…)

GEORGE GRUNDY.- The Slow Death of Retail in Perth

Champagne corks were conspicuous by their absence as Amazon recently announced plans to expand their operation in Australia by opening a new warehouse in Perth. (more…)

Jan 4, 2020

NOURIEL ROUBINI.-Trump will make China great again.(Project Syndicate 23.12.2019)

Despite the latest Sino-American “skinny deal” to ease tensions over trade, technology, and other issues, it is now clear that the world’s two largest economies have entered a new era of sustained competition. How the relationship will evolve depends greatly on America’s political leadership – which does not bode well. (more…)

Jan 4, 2020

KERRY GOULSTON. Vietnamese and Australian doctors learning together: reflecting on 20 years of collaboration

This is a story of friendship and support between doctors in Australia and Vietnam, originating some 20 years ago, which shows how modest beginnings have evolved into important and lasting relationships of mutual respect and learning with one of our increasingly important Asian neighbours.

Jan 3, 2020

ANDREW SALMON.-Gruesome find may shed light on Korea’s Tiananmen(ASIA TIMES 21.12.2019)

Gwangju Uprising and its brutal suppression still hugely contentious; discovery of 40 more bodies fuels fire

Jan 3, 2020

JOHN MENADUE. Failed leadership. A repost from 17 September 2018

Good leadership is about facing the group up to the hard issues. Without clearly defining why and how we need to change and creating some disequilibrium there will be no worthwhile change. We have have had failed leadership on climate change. (more…)

Jan 2, 2020

TOBY HALL.-The surprising truth about Australian hospitals — we don’t need so many(ABC 17.12.2019)

For a long time I’ve argued that a significant barrier to substantial reform in healthcare in Australia is that the main players are too captive to their membership bases or special interests to be willing to leave their corners and engage in meaningful discussion. (more…)

Jan 2, 2020

SOURABH GUPTA Deconstructing US–China decoupling(EAF 14.12.2019)

There is too much fraternising with the ‘enemy’ for US–China economic ties and global technology ecosystems to be disentangled into neat geopolitical coalitions. Nevertheless, in the short course of 18 months, US President Donald Trump’s administration has provided ample signals of how selective decoupling of US–China ties could transpire if regularised as policy.

(more…)

Jan 2, 2020

FRANCES RUSH: Reflections on the year for people seeking asylum

Last year was a very challenging year for people seeking asylum and the many Australians who support them. (more…)

Jan 1, 2020

Greg Dodds: The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko. A repost from 30 December 2013

The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko was first published in April 2012. This repost might be interesting holiday reading. (There has been little improvement in 8 years .John Menadue) (more…)

Jan 1, 2020

MICHAEL ARRIA. Brown University committee votes to divest from companies connected to the Israeli occupation (Mondoweiss 6.12.2019)

On Dec 2, Brown University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP) voted to recommend that the school divest from companies that facilitate Israeli human rights violations. Six ACCRIP members voted in favor of divestment, two voted against it, and one member abstained. (more…)

Jan 1, 2020

ARTHUR SING.- Thailand also cruelly treats asylum seekers. It has it’s own Black Hole of Calcutta.

Manus and Nauru remain a focus in Australia for everyone concerned about the cruel treatment of refugees and asylum seekers and rightly so. (more…)

YVONNE PATTERSON. An Australian Fairy Story for 2020: Religious Freedom

There comes a point in public discussion about policy or legislative proposals where academic analysis isn’t enough to get to the heart of the matter. (more…)

KERRY BROWN.-Everything remains up for stakes in Hong Kong. (EAF 29.12.2019)

This year was a torrid time for the city of Hong Kong and one where the year’s end brought only a little respite.The complacent image of Hong Kong being a place of political passivity conveyed throughout the period under British colonial rule up until 1997 had been dispelled long ago by major protests in 2003 and then the Occupy Central movement in 2014. Yet, the events of 2019 offered something of an order of magnitude distinctly different from anything that had occurred before.

JOHN MENADUE. The anti-China ‘think tank’ receives farewell largesse from the Coalition. (A Repost from 5.4.2019)

The ASPI is not an ‘independent’ think tank that it claims to be. It is ‘joined at the hip’ to the US defence/arms and intelligence complex and an enthusiastic supporter of almost all things American. Fed by our intelligence agencies it is paranoid about China and has become the ‘go to’ organisation for anti-Chinese commentary. (more…)

MICHAEL JANDA.-Ken Henry’s tax review is gathering dust, but its ideas could kick-start Australia’s economy (ABC 23.12.2019)

Ten years ago to this day, Ken Henry handed then-treasurer Wayne Swan a wish list of tax reforms to set Australia up for the 21st century.

ROBERT FISK.-How Skewed Polling and Media Bias are Warping American Attitudes About the Green New Deal

What are opinion polls and what exactly do their outcomes signify? (more…)

NASSRINE AZIMI. Nakamura Tetsu: humanitarian doctor, farmer, and hero of Afghanistan (Asia Pacific Journal, 16 December 2019)

Afghanistan has lived through so many tragedies throughout its recent modern history that one would be forgiven, to think it inured to still one more tragedy. Yet the nation-wide outpouring of grief and outrage, at the murder of the Japanese physician and development worker Dr. Nakamura Tetsu and five of his colleagues in Nangarhar, in eastern Afghanistan, has been intense and heartbreaking. (more…)

CRAIG WHITLOCK.-At War with the Truth(Washington Post 9.12.2019)

A confidential trove of Government documents obtained by the Washington Post reveals that senior US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18 year campaign, making rosy announcements they knew to be false and hiding the unmistakable evidence that the war had been unwinable.

(Behaving like a US colony ,Australia joined the disastrous Afghanistan War like so many other US led wars of intervention that ended in defeat ,untold human suffering and brought terrorism to our shores. John Menadue)

See the Washington Post documents . (more…)

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.-A Sermon for Christmas Day

“THERE ARE two principal lessons which we are taught on the great Festival which we this day celebrate, lowliness and joy. (more…)

Dec 25, 2019

ANDREW AILES. Father Christmas loves everyone

Father Christmas lives many lives, Because he’s a master of disguise.

You may have met him on a train, Or seeking shelter from the rain.

Dec 25, 2019

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN -Christmas Lessons

John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and who became very influential in the Catholic Church in England. He was highly educated, but had a simplicity about him that attracted many people. Newman’s sermons in particular were very enlightening, geared at the common person, but steeped in spiritual insight.

For Christmas he highlighted two principal lessons, lowliness and joy, when reflecting on the shepherds on that Christmas night.

Dec 24, 2019

NURADZIMMAH DAIM.- Dr Mahathir Poses Questions on Muslim World Issues (Malaysian New Straits Times 19.12.2019)

As the Kuala Lumpur Summit kicks off today, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad raises issues in the Muslim world, calling delegates to ponder on the root causes as they seek for solutions. Muslim nations are in a state of crisis. (more…)

Dec 24, 2019

ALICE PRIEST. It’s beginning to look a lot unlike Christmas

How far can it go before the lack of Christmas look and Christmas feel actually indicates a total loss? How far can the sacred, intangible architecture stretch, be refashioned or reframed, before it no longer holds.