Australia’s parochial company boards are failing to equip themselves for Asia. This is a major barrier to developing our potential in the region and improving productivity. (more…)
Category: World
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Welfare not warfare: advice for the UK’s new PM
The next UK Prime Minister should end Britain’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza and concentrate on the welfare of its citizens. (more…)
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Spoiler alert in the Iran-US peace process
The US-Iran memorandum of understanding has opened a path towards a permanent peace agreement, but spoilers inside and outside the process – including Israel, Donald Trump and Iranian hardliners – could still derail it. (more…)
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Lessons from Manchester’s revitalisation
The Manchester model, which built skills and infrastructure, focused on the long game and it worked. These are lessons for the UK’s next PM. (more…)
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Pakistan PM drops a truth bomb about Iranian missiles
The Western media has failed to report on the Pakistan PM’s unequivocal statement that the US–Iran MOU did not mention ballistic missiles. (more…)
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Reading the rocks in the Pilbara
A new study using mineral dating of rocks in the Pilbara shows the Earth’s oldest crater is more than three billion years old. (more…)
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The implications of the forever war in West Asia
The long-term implications of the Iran war will be a shift in geopolitics, with the decline of Western dominance in West Asia and new regional coalitions. (more…)
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Summer Davos focuses on China’s standards power
A focus of Summer Davos was China’s plan to become a ‘standards maker’ that increasingly writes the rules in key technology fields. (more…)
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Dressing up defeat as victory
The US ‘deal’ with Iran is a humiliation. This outcome reveals not just Trump’s incompetence but flaws in the system that allowed him to rise to power. (more…)
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Hormuz shock tells us to strengthen agricultural systems
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz revealed agriculture’s vulnerability when fertiliser supply chains are disrupted. We need to build resilience before the next shock.
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Seven PMs in a decade: can Britain’s democracy deliver?
The UK’s revolving door of prime ministers raises the question whether its democratic institutions can offer a long-term vision and deliver results. (more…)
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West Papua’s red crosses are resisting rainforest destruction
West Papua’s Indigenous communities are using hundreds of red crosses as symbols of resistance against rainforest destruction, land-grabbing and militarised development, as Indonesian authorities try to suppress a documentary exposing the damage.
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Once refugees, now part of Australia’s story
Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Australians are marking survival, settlement and contribution with a world-first museum in Melbourne dedicated to the refugee journeys that helped reshape multicultural Australia.
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We are spending billions on war and pennies on peace
Investing in the prevention of conflict is a better way to ensure a safer and more prosperous future than money spent preparing for and fighting wars. (more…)
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Keir Starmer resigns: can any Prime Minister survive in post-Brexit Britain?
Keir Starmer’s resignation exposes the fragility beneath Labour’s 2024 landslide, as Brexit-era divisions, weak personal support and pressure from Reform, the Greens and independents pulled apart his shallow electoral support. (more…)
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Australia may feel the shift in US-Israel politics
Israel’s influence over US foreign policy is weakening as the political costs of unconditional support rise, and that shift may also reshape the pro-Israel lobby’s power in Australia. (more…)
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Gaza and the failure of colonial thinking
Plans to remake Gaza as an economic project ignore the deeper reality of land, memory and belonging, reducing historical peoples to statistics while denying the political rights and human dignity that cannot be displaced. (more…)
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South Korea’s middle power diplomacy faces a harder test
South Korea’s middle power diplomacy is shifting from a prestige project to a survival strategy, as Trump’s return, US-China rivalry and alliance dependence force Seoul to seek greater autonomy without abandoning the US security guarantee. (more…)
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Whose grief changes the world?
The suffering in Gaza has forced many people to question whether human rights are truly universal, or whether some lives and some grief are still treated as more politically urgent than others. (more…)
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Indonesia’s new resource nationalism puts the state first
Indonesia’s new commodities regime reflects a sharper form of resource nationalism under Prabowo Subianto, using state power to subordinate private interests while raising serious concerns about discretion, coercion and political targeting.
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Super El Niño threat, nuclear dead letter, and Beijing’s hunky-male theatre – Asian Media Report
Blistering heat and poor rains warning, Xi’s acceptance of North Korean nukes, the Pope’s Pyongyang visit plan, military crowd control in Jakarta protests, India’s recognition of women’s unpaid work, and China’s new ‘she economy’. (more…)
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Israel’s Iran failure is an opportunity to face reality
Israel’s failure to impose its will on Iran should be treated not as a disaster but as a reality check, exposing the limits of military force and the urgent need to end a politics built on permanent war.
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Getting out of the Iranian quagmire
Trump wants to end the war with Iran. That involves protecting Lebanon from Israel. (more…)
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China fear is weakening Australian research
Australia needs to manage research security risks, but exaggerating the threat of collaboration with China could weaken national security by cutting Australian science off from leading researchers, global expertise and crucial STEM talent. (more…)
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Peace needs funding and commitment, not lip service
Australia’s defence budget is set to nearly double over the next decade, while peace research, diplomacy and conflict prevention remain underfunded despite being essential to reducing the risk of war.
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Who will release the next pandemic?
The next pandemic may emerge from wildlife trade, intensive farming, land clearing, laboratories, global travel or antibiotic resistance, as human behaviour continues to multiply the risks of another major disease outbreak. (more…)
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Why Indonesia’s protests won’t shake Prabowo yet
Student protests against Prabowo Subianto’s militarised style of government have exposed anger over prices, corruption and civil liberties, but without broader public support or elite pressure they are unlikely to threaten his hold on power. (more…)
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The Iran deal exposes the futility of Trump’s war
A fragile US-Iran agreement may end a war that failed to topple Tehran or destroy its nuclear capacity, leaving Iran with greater regional leverage, Israel exposed and Washington facing hard questions about what the conflict achieved. (more…)
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Decolonising democracy – part eight
In the final part of this series, John Keane asks whether democracies will have the resolve to stand up to the USA and to find remedies for the maladies of representative democracy. (more…)
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Decolonising democracy – part seven
In the seventh of an eight-part series, John Keane asks if other democracies can decouple themselves from the American empire. (more…)