When it comes to a ‘pivot state’ in Asia against China, the security apparatus of South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol is ignored or given a free pass by the West. (more…)
Category: World
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We need an Earth System Treaty to save civilisation. And we need it now
The world stands in urgent need of a universal accord to ensure it remains a Planet that our children and grandchildren can inhabit and enjoy, far into the future. (more…)
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Australia may ban WeChat – but for many Chinese Australians, it’s their ‘lifeline’
One morning in February 2021, I was woken by a WeChat call from my brother in China. Mum had died the previous night, he told me. I wasn’t shocked to hear about Mum’s death – she had been very ill for a couple of years. (more…)
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Racism, the ‘No’ campaign and the Americanisation of Australian politics
There may be some Coalition politicians and Murdoch employers who are motivated by genuine racism to oppose the Voice to Parliament. Some might believe First Nations Australians are unworthy. Some probably believe in “reverse racism.” That, of course, is the belief that there is a correct direction for racism to travel. (more…)
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Ukraine: Putin’s war or proxy war?
The claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a proxy war is not borne out by recent history, nor supported by Russian democrats, Ukrainians of all stripes nor most Western Russia specialists. They mostly see its roots in an authoritarian Russian state and the revanchist views of Putin and his acolytes. (more…)
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The real history of the war in Ukraine: A chronology of events and case for diplomacy
The American people urgently need to know the true history of the war in Ukraine and its current prospects. Unfortunately, the mainstream media ––The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN –– have become mere mouthpieces of the government, repeating US President Joe Biden’s lies and hiding history from the public. (more…)
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Presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo promises a strong lean toward China
The prior political experience of 2024 Indonesian presidential election candidate Ganjar Pranowo illustrates a strong pro-China lean for Indonesia if he is elected. Leading the largest party, his chances of success are considerable. (more…)
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Our carbon colonialism
On his way to Beijing to repair bilateral climate change relations John Kerry announced to the world the US would ‘under no circumstances’ pay climate change ‘reparations’ to the developing world. Why such a statement? (more…)
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Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The failures of the Global Economic System
“Of all of these four objectives that I call sustainable development. 1. Material Sufficiency; 2. Social Justice; 3. Environmental sustainability; and 4. Peace; we’re off track on all of them” – Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. (more…)
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Ambitions of NATO in Asia are simply a delusion of grandeur
The North Atlantic military alliance has no business in the continent and it should just stop going on about the so-called China threat. (more…)
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Profit-driven systems are driving us to our doom
I just read a disturbing paragraph in a New Yorker article about the Instant Pot, a popular electronic pressure cooker whose parent company recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy: (more…)
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NATO seeks stage props; EU seeks trade protection
The convergence of the NATO Summit in Lithuania, and trade talks with the European Union in Brussels, saw Prime Minister Albanese and Trade Minister Don Farrell head to Europe. The former should not have gone, and the latter should be prepared to walk away without agreement. (more…)
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The art of vassalisation: the new middle kingdom of the United States
An EU paper explains how traditional Western allies on the continent are being turned into vassal states of the US as part of Washington’s strategy to contain the rise of China. (more…)
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Con job: Australian Sea Dumping Bill facilitates fossil fuel mining
Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable. (more…)
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Why is Australia so scared?
The world has just spent two decades paralysed by fear. Ever since 11 September 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has changed the lives of most people for the worse. Millions have been killed, either by terrorists or by militarists fighting them. Fearing violence, many people have fled their homelands as refugees. Others have absorbed repeated warnings about Islamist terrorism, and fearfully accepted that the response to it has to be militarism. (more…)
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Average earth temperature last week was highest in 120,000 years
The earth is getting especially hot this year, as record after record falls. Seth Borenstein at AP reports that three times this past week, the average temperature of the earth topped anything ever recorded. Thursday’s average 17.18 °C. (62.9 °F.) broke the record yet again. (more…)
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They lied about Afghanistan. They lied about Iraq. And they are lying about Ukraine
The U.S. public has been conned, once again, into pouring billions into another endless war. (more…)
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For Xi Jinping, economics and unification don’t mix
While unification with Taiwan and building a strong economy are the twin pillars of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it’s dangerous to assume, as Washington does, that a faltering economy makes Beijing more aggressive towards the island. (more…)
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Will the New York Times apologise for its Tiananmen coverage?
The New York Times has in recent years tried to redeem its reputation with a mea-culpa admission over its coverage of the blatantly transparent Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction myth that enabled the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But over its key role earlier in cementing the Tiananmen Square horror story we have as yet had no admissions of guilt. (more…)
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US-China relations and the decline of US dominance
What is the path to peace for the war in Ukraine? Is America still powerful enough to impose global order? The US has just 4.1% of the world’s population, while the BRICS countries have 41.5%. In this conversation with economist Jeffrey Sachs, we discuss the origins of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO enlargement, US-China relations, and the decline of US dominance. (more…)
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Propaganda works: But Australians still do not want war
The latest Lowy Institute Poll reflects a range of complicated and confusing Australian reactions to our place in the world; the threats we face; and what we think we should do about them. (more…)
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The West must prepare for a long overdue reckoning
Five major trends illustrate how the world is changing, and that the West must grapple with the reality that it can no longer impose its “leadership” on the world as it once did. (more…)
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US Reforms of WTO dispute settlement: the ‘Rules-Based Order’ takes another hit
One of the more arcane developments in contemporary trade policy is the recently tabled US proposal for reform of the arrangements for managing trade disputes between members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is a landscape marked by statistics, legal texts, and arguments. However, reflected in the microcosm is a wider universe featuring the inequities, instabilities and unsustainability of global capitalism and the global security risks arising from the resistance and protests of the declining hegemon. (more…)
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Prigozhin’s Insurrection; U.S. admits defeat in war on Russia, China
Some thoughts on the insurrection attempt in Russia. I wonder who or what lured Yevgeny Prigozhin into staging this farce. In twelve or so hours things are likely to have calmed down. ‘Western’ anal-cysts will spend weeks fantasising about their wished for outcome which, of course, was never to happen. (more…)
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Ukraine and the battle for Skaro
Over the past eighteen months, I’ve often found myself under scrutiny for not outrightly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Any acknowledgment of Russia’s stance—that the hasty expansion of NATO played a role in the current conflict—earns labels: indifferent to Ukraine’s plight, a “Putin” apologist, a victim of Kremlin misinformation. (more…)
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Our planet is imploding: when will we act to save ourselves?
While much of humanity was glued to the unfolding drama over one tiny submarine, the Earth we all inhabit is slowly, steadily and implacably imploding around us. (more…)
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Chasing shadows in Cuba
Why does Washington believe they have the right to conduct joint military exercises off the Chinese Pacific coast, but will not tolerate even the barest hint of those activities by China and Cuba in ‘their’ maritime neighbourhood?
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“Like the Hydra”: Strategic incapacitation fails to decapitate the climate movement
Blockade Australia’s return this week, in larger numbers and across three locations, represents a victory over ‘Strategic incapacitation’, a policing technique that aims to smash the organising ability of a group of people, such that the group can no longer function. “Like the hydra, we are back threefold. You cannot decapitate the climate movement,” they stated. (more…)
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Competing with the US and the West for discourse power
For a long time in the future, in the increasingly fierce and implacable competition between China on one side and the United States and the West on the other, the competition for global discourse power will be the decisive battlefield between them. And who can defeat the enemy on this battlefield will determine to a considerable extent which country will be the final winner in this strategic game related to the world’s future. (more…)
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The discourse of dominance
I was rather amused, or to use the American expression “tickled pink”, when I read the article titled “Coexistance: the only realist path to peace” by Stephen M. Walt in Pearls & Irritations. The article’s claim to the “realist path” to peace would make sense only to those who have dominated others for so long (albeit only a blip in the history of the people whom the author is giving a talking to) that they have forgotten the language and discourse of equality. (more…)