John Menadue

Canada has decided not to join Australia and the United States in barring Huawei Technologies Ltd of Shenzen from participating in the development of Canada’s 5G mobile networks. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued that his government’s decision on Huawei is based “on evidence and data”, and in particular on recommendations from the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the federal agency that collects foreign signals intelligence and protects telecommunications networks. (more…)

Despite the outcry, Aung San Suu Kyi does not deserve most of the blame for the tragedy unfolding in Myanmar. The Nobel Foundation got it right. (more…)

Israel may prove to be the biggest winner from the prime ministership of Scott Morrison. Events this week raise not only a legitimate question about the degree of political influence being exercised by Israel in Australia but also a question about Morrison’s political common sense.   (more…)

The Prime Minister has denied that his proposal, or was it just a ‘thought bubble’, to transfer the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, ‘has anything to do with my faith or my religion’. If so, it is in striking contrast to the views of many other Pentecostalists who strongly assert that a united Israel with Jerusalem as its capital presages the second coming of Christ. His Assistant Treasurer, Stuart Robert, also a Pentecostalist is a tour leader for visits to Israel.   (more…)

First visit to Beijing by a Japanese prime minister since 2011 expected to bring economic cooperation that prepares the way for warmer political relations. (more…)

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A special Roy Morgan SMS Survey taken on December 14-15  2017 shows a large 76% of Australians opposed to US President Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel with only 24% of Australians expressing support for Trump’s decision earlier this week.

This article was published by Roy Morgan on the 16th of December 2017.  (more…)

By now, few doubt that Jamal Khashoggi is dead. It is most likely that the Saudi journalist – who once advised kings and billionaires – was killed by an interrogation team sent from Saudi Arabia to meet with him in Turkey.

This article was published by Asia Times on the 18th of October 2018.  (more…)

If you grew up, as I did, in the 1960s and 1970s, watching (albeit through a child’s eyes) the civil rights movement notch victory after victory, you could be forgiven for thinking at the time that that happy condition was normal. By high school, in the late 1970s, I began reading some history and learning about the struggles people endured to win the right to vote in this country. I thought then that these battles were over and done and won—that a new consensus had been achieved.

This article was published by The New York Review of Books on the 11th of October 2018 issue.  (more…)

If you wanted to launch a thought bubble to see if there was any room for manoeuvre on Australia long-standing position on the central Middle East issues, would you do it the way chosen by PM Morrison this week? Certainly not if you wanted to justify it in the context of Australia’s commitment to a ‘two state solution’. A decision to follow Trump’s move of the American embassy to Jerusalem would essentially ditch any outcome based on negotiations between the two parties, handing Israel in advance most of the key points of a ‘final status’ outcome. (more…)