In business, the five Ps are often referenced: “Poor preparation prevents proper performance.” That extends to planning a national economy. (more…)
John Queripel
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Who are ‘Advance’ and what are they doing to our politics?
Launched in 2018 as a conservative answer to GetUp!, the group Advance likes to style itself as the voice of the average person against “the elite”. (more…)
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Sanctions: Sanitised, silent killing
Many will remember the terrible effects of the crippling UN sanctions applied against Iraq, from the time of its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, to the fall of the government of Saddam Hussein, following the loss of the second Iraq war (2003). (more…)
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The creation of a martyr: Eerie parallels
If one wants to understand the current elevation of Charlie Kirk in the US to the status of a martyr, offered as sacrifice linked to national rejuvenation, even salvation, one need look no further than similar elevation by the Nazis of Horst Wessel. (more…)
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Global power shift on show at China summit
The sight of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin, before the two walked over hand in hand to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the three leaders then sharing a conversation marked by smiles, laughter and general bonhomie, will be one haunting many Western leaders. (more…)
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World Bank warns that changes are coming in the global economy
The World Bank’s just released flagship report Global Economic Prospects sounds a warning for the global economy, which is projected to slow dangerously through the next few years, while also showing substantial changes. (more…)
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China is increasingly present in US Latin American backyard
From the time when US President James Monroe announced what has become known as the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning European states to stay out of the hemisphere, the US has considered Latin America to be its backyard. (more…)
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Time to call it. The US doesn’t give a stuff for us
Despite 80 years of Australian unwavering loyalty, as expected the US, “our closest ally”, is now screwing us on tariffs, with a hefty 25% tariff placed on Australian steel and aluminium exports. (more…)
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China: Still ahead of the curve in the global economic game
US President Donald Trump’s decision to first place, and then delay, a 25% tariff on goods from neighbouring Canada and Mexico, along with his hitting China with an additional 10% tariff increase has made quite a splash in the news. (more…)
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Australia: a large land thinking small
At 7,688,287 square kilometres Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It is the oldest continent, also home to the oldest continuing civilisation, the history of Aboriginal people reaching back some 75,000 years. Why then, has such a large nation, with such long existence and a civilisation, become so small in its thinking? (more…)
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Another BRIC in the wall: Indonesia joins BRICS+
Indonesia has just become the 10th full member nation of BRICS+, the first nation in South East Asia to gain such membership. The announcement was made, 1st January, by Brazil, currently holding the revolving chair of BRICS+. (more…)
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Christmas: Beyond the fantastical
One of the fondest memories we carry is of how when we were young, the world was infused with magic, especially at Christmas. We would wake on Christmas Day surrounded by the gifts Santa Claus had mysteriously placed there. (more…)
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The AUKUS delusion just got worse
Much has been written in these pages about the AUKUS delusion: Of how it was haphazardly and secretly put together by Scott Morrison to wedge the then Labor Opposition, about the elasticity of its costings, the improbability of Australia ever acquiring any of the proposed submarines, the enormous cost of the project, the effectiveness of it as best means of defence, indeed whether defence is actually its raison d’etre, and the loss of Australian sovereignty it brings. (more…)
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Does Australia really want to be the “tip of the spear”, projecting Western power?
AUKUS, increasingly seen as a dud deal, though an expensive one, with a $368 billion price tag, stands as the clearest example of the cognitive dissonance besetting the Australian body politic. (more…)
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We’re right behind you: The AUKUS delusion
The series Blackadder, set in World War 1, was full of farce built around black humour. In the final episode it has been determined by High Command to send those involved to go “over the top” in a hopeless race toward German machine-guns. The night before they are visited by their commanding general who pompously informs them that when they go tomorrow, High Command will be “right behind them” to which their captain replies, “yes, about 30 miles behind us.” (more…)
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NATO ‘sabre-rattling’ at the gates of Asia yet again
It has been said, ‘the barbarians are at the gates,’ but with NATO they have already stormed the citadel, and having done so they now want to spread their madness to Asia. (more…)
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The Assange non-verdict: the threat remains
The champers toasting the release of Julian Assange was delightful after many years of struggle against his clearly unjust indictment and years of imprisonment. I am sure we all enjoyed sipping it. After the excitement and sweetness has assuaged however, a certain bitterness still remains, a cold realisation just what his plea bargaining signifies. (more…)
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The US and Western allies commit to another forever war
Ho hum, the US has just committed itself to another ‘forever war.’ Its faithful obedient Western allies, like puppies wagging their tails, have fallen in behind. One would think they would tire, or at least learn lessons from, the game. Seemingly not. (more…)
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Western decline: Denial and anger at China’s vitality
In her work, ‘On Death and Dying’ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote of the stages one goes through on being told one is dying. She called these ‘Five Stages of Grief,’ of adjusting to reality: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. (more…)
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Australia abandons Nuremberg principles as post-war international order crumbles to ruin
A legal ruling in Australia this week sentencing military whistleblower David McBride to 5 years imprisonment for disobeying orders to expose war crimes has stood the principles established at the Nuremberg trials on its head. (more…)
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Even-handed? No. Just inane
I think if I hear again, in some attempt at a supposed even-handedness an interviewer ask a representative of the Palestinian people in this terrible time, ‘do you also oppose the actions of Hamas on 7th October?’ I will puke. That is not a pleasant prospect. (more…)
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Russia: A steel wall against the West
In 1942, a Finnish sound engineer Thor Damen, secretly recorded 11 minutes of a conversation between Finland’s Commander-in-Chief, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim and Adolf Hitler, without the latter’s knowledge. (more…)
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Zionism ≠ Judaism
The collapsing of the two categories, Judaism and Zionism to become synonymous seems to me to be a very dangerous, even foolish thing to do. Yet, to my amazement it seems many Jews are doing precisely that. It would be fair to say that such is representative of the deeply conservative Jewish establishment in Australia. (more…)
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Two boats and hysteria is unleashed
According to the evening news, Australia stands on the precipice of one of the greatest security threats to Australia since World War II, with the Imperial Japanese Army in the Owen Stanley’s overlooking the lights of Port Moresby. A few dozen impoverished, bedraggled refugees right up there with the Imperial Japanese Army as threat! It is a joke isn’t it, except that this stuff is taken seriously. (more…)
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China: learning from Canute
Regularly, Western media claims that China’s run is near an end and that collapse is just around the corner. So constant has this become, it is like a broken gramophone record. Recently predictions of this collapse have been couched around the indebtedness of some major players in the Chinese property market. The ‘inevitable collapse’, however, never comes. (more…)
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Genocidal Israel, condemned by words and actions
In the indictment brought against Israel by South Africa in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC asserted it was, ‘the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.’ (more…)
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Western democracy: failure of system
Western nations are always ready to proclaim their system of governance as superior, particularly in regards to China, dismissed as being authoritarian. Increasingly however, ‘western liberal democracy’ finds itself under scrutiny with trust in government falling. (more…)
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UN Secretary General throws support behind G77 and global multipolarity
The meeting of the Group of 77 developing countries (G77) plus China, held last month, 15-16 September in Havana, Cuba, passed with little note from our mainstream media, despite being attended by more than 100 countries, with thirty-one heads of state and 12 vice presidents present. That such should pass largely unnoticed by them however, hardly surprises. (more…)
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The referendum: So little asked, so graciously, but seemingly too much
Why do so many of my fellow non-Indigenous Australians seemingly have such a deep aversion towards the Aboriginal peoples of this land? Sadly, I am compelled to ask that question as we approach a referendum asking for constitutional recognition of Australia’s First Nations and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament. (more…)
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In the grim dark face of military madness
Increasingly I keep finding myself singing, even humming or whistling the old Graham Nash song, ‘Military Madness,’ sometimes hardly aware that I am doing so. (more…)