Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading and listening: (more…)
John Menadue
-
TIM LINDSEY. Watch out Indonesian democracy – Islamism, communism and Jokowi’s Neo-New Order?
On 16 September, police broke up an academic discussion at the offices of renowned activist NGO the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH). The topic was the killings of alleged leftists in 1965 and 1966 in the wake of the failed coup that brought former president Soeharto to power. (more…)
-
JIM COOMBS. The neo-liberal failure on energy
JIM COOMBS: The source of our current “economic imperatives” and crises, especially in the fields of energy, is that we can’t see beyond the “neoliberal” (does it have a meaning?) insistence that only a “market solution” answers economic problems. Surely, “economics” is better than that. (more…)
-
SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE. The Rohingya exodus.
The most recent Rohingya exodus has been making headlines during the past few weeks. But just a week ago Daw Aung San Suu Kyi broke her silence. In her more than 30 minute speech addressing the Myanmar Parliament and diplomats on 19 September, the term Rohingya was not used. Rohingya continues to be “forbidden to name”. This explicit denial of the name not only works against the existence and human rights of Rohingya but also against any desire of the Myanmar government to work towards peace and harmony as well as to fulfil its international commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms. (more…)
-
OISÍN SWEENEY: Will the Coalition degazette the Murray Valley National Park and cement its anti- environment reputation?
Up to now, Australian Governments of both sides have largely honoured national park declarations made by each other. However, it’s now official National Party policy to degazette the Murray Valley National Park which would be a low point in Australian conservation history. Given the success of The Nationals in dictating NSW environment policy in the last few years, and the degree to which the Coalition has regressed on environment protection, this is something we need to be worried about. (more…)
-
WE ARE ALSO READING …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading:
Dance of the elephants – Inside Story (Matthew Ricketson). When governments and Big Media dance together, it is not a pretty picture.
US Senate Democrats show off anti-religious bigotry – Washington Post (Michael Gerson)
Pope Francis Calls Out Trump, Accuses Him of “Pro-Life” Hypocrisy – Vanity Fair (Tina Nguyen)
Bangladeshis helping Rohingya: “I gave them shelter because I am a human being” – Aljazeera
Debate about energy needs to put people first – Pearls and Irritations Repost (Tony Maher). What coal mine workers think about the energy mess, by the National Secretary of the CFMEU.
Rooftop solar and storage, cheaper than subsidising old coal – RenewEconomy (Giles Parkinson). Coal is expensive, dirty and old hat!
The life my brother never had because he was gay – Canberra Times (David Kirby). David Kirby writes about his brother, Michael.
We’ve turned our universities into money-grubbing exploiters – Ross Gittins. It’s not just the current government’s assault on university funding. Commercialisation of our universities goes back at least 30 years and has left academics with the dismal choice of a crippling workload or a lowering of teaching and research standards.
-
EVAN WILLIAMS. Nanny state? Bring it on!
Among conservatives, the term “nanny state” is enjoying a new vogue. And its use is by no means confined to a handful of loony libertarians. Any action intended to protect personal safety or curb anti-social behaviour is now seen as evidence of the dreaded nanny state taking over our lives. Gun-control laws, mandatory helmets for bike riders, plain packaging on cigarettes, compulsory vaccination for kids – all are part of a sinister left-wing plot to destroy capitalism. (more…)
-
JEAN PIERRE-LEHMANN. The Clouds of Imminent Trade War Are Looming
In the conclusion of her outstanding book on the First World War (The War That Ended Peace) historian Margaret MacMillan asks whether, as many have argued, war in 1914 was inevitable. She refutes this view; the final sentence of the book contains these four words: “There are always choices.” (more…)
-
JOHN BENSON. Biodiversity is threatened in New South Wales
The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) was the first of its type in Australia. Established by a Liberal government, its lyrebird emblem became world-renowned. But the Service is not valued by the present Government and now faces grave uncertainty. (more…)
-
PETER FLINN. The brave new world of fire services in Victoria: is it go or woe?
The Country Fire Authority (CFA)in Victoria has long been recognised as one of the world’s leading volunteer fire-fighting organisations, but its boundaries with Melbourne’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB),which comprises career fire-fighters, have not changed since 1945. (more…)
-
TRAVERS McLEOD. Opportunity for regional leadership on Rohingya refugees.
Australia and Indonesia, the Co‐Chairs of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, have been asked by regional experts to fulfil a promise made after the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis by responding quickly to the refugee crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. This is an historic opportunity for the Bali Process to demonstrate its value and the benefit of cooperation problem solving in the region. (more…)
-
RANALD MACDONALD. Testing times for the ABC with a ‘competitive, neutrality enquiry’.
One of our most trusted institutions is under real threat- and, like Humpty Dumpty, once broken may never be able to be put together again. (more…)
-
WE ARE ALSO READING …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading. (more…)
-
WARWICK ELSCHE. From as far away as Australia it is difficult to assess America’s Trump administration.
Reading as widely as possible and watching American news reports helps but does not altogether solve the problem. Indeed, many Americans, far closer to the action are finding themselves similarly baffled. The President of just eight months has, in his own words, given us a picture of a truly remarkable occupant of the world’s top office. (more…)
-
KOMALA RAMACHANDRA. Australia’s ‘Modern Slavery’ Proposal Falls Short
In mid-August Australia’s justice minister proposed a new law requiring the country’s biggest companies to report on their practices and policies to prevent forced labour in their operations and supply chains. The government wants to ensure that consumer products like food, electronics, and clothing – whether they’re made abroad or domestically – are not produced by people forced to work against their will. It is a laudable goal, but the steps they’ve taken are inadequate. (more…)
-
JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. University challenge: Asia in the scales of global knowledge.
The Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES) has published its 2018 World University Rankings. Rankings are rankings are rankings. They are not Holy Writ! Still they can be interesting fodder for drawing some interpretations and implications. I admit I may be partly biased as Oxford has come out number 1! (I was at Oxford from 1967 to 1970 and did my doctorate there.) The rankings are based on five key criteria: teaching, research, citations, income from industry and international outlook. (more…)
-
PETER HAYES and DAVID VON HIPPEL. North Korea – How crucial are oil imports for its nuclear and missile programs?
A recent report by the Nautilus Institute by Peter Hayes and David von Hippel suggests that the impact of strong sanctions against oil imports by North Korea from China may not have a telling or early impact on its nuclear and missile development program. (more…)
-
ANNE O’BRIEN. Clericalism is alive and well in the Catholic Church
The Royal Commission has provided few grounds for optimism concerning the future of the Catholic Church in Australia. The institution is moribund and its leaders are unable or unwilling to face reality. (more…)
-
EVAN WILLIAMS. Dunkirk – film review.
We all know the story – or do we? It was one of Britain’s great wartime triumphs. With the British Expeditionary Force driven back to the French coast by advancing German armies, thousands of Allied troops were stranded on the beach at Dunkirk, and the call went out from Winston Churchill to rally the little ships and bring them home. Countless small craft – fishing boats, launches, dinghies, even rowing boats – crossed the Channel to gather survivors and ferry them home for joyful reunion with their families. (more…)
-
MICHAEL LAMBERT. Australia’s electricity markets policy: The shambles continues.
Over the last week we have been treated to the depressing spectacle of the Prime Minister and his government reacting in a knee jerk, wrong-headed manner to two sensible and useful reports that have been released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). This highlights the folly of not having a national plan for transitioning the National Electricity Market towards an increasingly renewable energy system. (more…)
-
ALAN KOHLER. Coalition’s retreat back to coal-fired power stations and the loony fog
In 2015 Australia’s businesses made the mistake of thinking the Coalition government was serious about tackling climate change, and solemnly lined up to support it….There won’t be any new coal power stations and the lives of existing ones won’d be extended unless the government bizarrely and unnecessarily pays for it. If that happened,it would bring about the final divorce of business and the Coalition and the final retreat by Malcolm Turnbull into the loony fog inhabited by Donald Trump and the coal dancers on the Coalition’s right. (more…)
-
PAUL GREGOIRE AND UGUR NEDIM. Asylum seekers left destitute at hands of Dutton
Stooping to a new low, the Turnbull government has begun cutting off the welfare payment to vulnerable asylum seekers and given these people three weeks to vacate their government-supported accommodation. (more…)
-
ROD TUCKER AND JOHN DE RIDDER. How to fix the NBN pricing model: An open letter to Bill Morrow.
Dear Bill,
The NBN pricing model is in urgent need of repair. In this letter, we offer our thoughts on how an overhaul of the pricing model can solve a number of problems facing the NBN. (more…)
-
KATHARIN R. LESTARI. Indonesia speaks up as global support for Rohingya grows
The Indonesian government has stepped up its support for ethnic Muslim Rohingya promising humanitarian aid and a new hospital in their homeland in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as the military continues to torch villages while battling homegrown insurgents. (more…)
-
PAUL FRIJTERS. What does the North Korean situation say about China?
It is easy to get drawn into the drama of rockets fired over Japan, and massive hydrogen bombs tested by a North Korean regime that likes to threaten mass extinction of its enemies, particularly with the tweeter-in-chief responding in kind. I worry though that the real game is in China, because the suspicion is that China has helped NK develop its technology, and one has to wonder what could drive the Chinese leadership to do such a thing. (more…)
-
TEJSHREE THAPA. Watching Burma in Flames from Bangladesh
I stood at the edge of the Naf River on the Bangladesh border watching heavy smoke rise from a village on the Burma side. Bangladeshi border guards talked of fires all along the border targeting villages of Rohingya Muslims. (more…)
-
PAUL FRIJTERS. It’s not about state versus markets.
It is said that all generals prepare for the last war. So too it often seems in ideology land, where the conflict with the Soviet Union seems to have left us with an obsession with state versus market. Just as we are not preparing for the cyber wars of the future by building obsolete submarines that would only have been useful in WWII, we are not addressing today’s economic challenges by thinking in Cold War economic terms either. (more…)
-
PETER MCCULLAGH. Good Suicide versus Bad Suicide
Will legalised suicide, even when presented as ‘assisted dying’, adversely impact on efforts to reduce do-it-yourself suicide?
If it looks like a duck and it quacks, then . . . (more…)
-
MAUREEN TODHUNTER. Imaginations of the world, unite!
As news and other media apparently edge us toward a war-ready footing, we need to think critically about what informs our views, to imagine our way into more enlightened, more peaceful co-existence. (more…)
-
K. HUSSAN ZIA. American Objective in Afghanistan
The Afghans are not a nation as such but a composition of numerous tribes. These form loose groupings based on ethnicity. Individuals owe their allegiance first and foremost to the tribe and after that to the ethnic group. Among the latter, Pashtoons constitute the dominant force and are the main element in the insurgency. They are divided into a number of tribes and sub tribes that have a common code of conduct known as Pakhtoonwali. There are more Pashtoons in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. They have traditionally treated the border between the two countries as informal and interacted with each other freely. (more…)