Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit underscores the significance of the Australia-China relationship, especially given China’s status as Australia’s largest trading partner. A deeper relation should develop, but that will take time. Trust needs to be reestablished not only at diplomatic and business levels, but also in the Australian mass media, whose China opinion writers have almost all become Sinophobes arguing that China is trying to subvert and attack its neighbours – including Australia, writes Percy Allan in an interview with China’s Global Times. (more…)
Tag: International relations
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Across the US Empire, deranged shrieks drown out talk of peace
Historically ignorant strategists urge people to their deaths to sustain the illusion of American primacy. But the problem of dealing with a belligerent, crumbling, supremacist USA is the true geopolitical challenge of the age. (more…)
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Negotiate now, or capitulate later: ten incentives for Ukraine to make peace with Russia
As the Ukrainian war appears to be nearing its conclusion, the question is what a peace could look like. (more…)
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“Back from the West Bank”
In answer to Chas Freeman’s devastating question: “Does Israel deserve to exist?”
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Merchants of death prolong slaughter in Ukraine, Gaza
Last week activists in Brisbane CBD took their voices and violin to the doorstop of giant American weapons and aircraft company Boeing. To denounce Boeing, along with other US, Australian and UK based ammunition and weapons manufacturers for prolonging the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine in order to make huge profits from civilian suffering and dying. (more…)
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Dig deeper
I dug a hole in the garden
I don’t why just felt like digging
Just broke up with my girlfriend
I needed something … something to do
Soon I’d dug so deep
The sky was just a window above me
But I didn’t care … mmm
Looking for something deeperJackson Jackson (2006) (more…)
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BBC reporting on Ukraine
The BBC has a loose bolt somewhere. It has now begun a strange campaign saying it is dedicated to non-spin reporting. (more…)
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Tyranny of proximity
The pundits are already in a tizz: What’ll happen to defence, AUKUS, trade and other relationships should Trump win in November? More pressing and certain is how we’ll cope when Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto takes office in October. (more…)
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UN probe finds Israel guilty of ‘Extermination,’ torture, and other war crimes in Gaza
“Israel must immediately stop its military operations and attacks in Gaza, including the assault on Rafah,” said the chair of the United Nations commission behind the investigation. (more…)
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Only on Palestine, words speak louder than actions
“When will you finish them?” These aren’t words you normally hear while waiting in line for a coffee in the Sydney CBD. (more…)
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Biden’s distorted D-Day history seeks to rally others to his endless wars
President Biden’s bellicose nationalism was again on display during the D-Day commemorations. In a pair of addresses, Biden not only sacralised war and exalted the virtues of ‘the American’. In the finest populist tradition, he misrepresented the history of the Second World War to rally Europeans to never-ending-war. It all passed with little real deconstruction from the media. (more…)
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The real truth telling
If anybody in Australia is interested in real “Truth Telling” then look no further than the continued operation of Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre in Darwin, NT. Don Dale has, and continues to provide, the real truth for all to see as regards the disaster that is race relations in Australia and how distant the prospect is of ever achieving Reconciliation. Forget ‘Dreamtime at the G’, NAIDOC and Reconciliation Weeks, Sorry and Apology Days, Welcome to Countrys and Paying our Respect to Traditional Owners Past and Present. (more…)
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I’ve seen every Jerusalem flag march in last 16 years. This one was the ugliest
The Flag March on Jerusalem Day is an accurate thermometer of the condition of Israeli society. It measures the levels of hatred, racism and violence in the religious Zionist society and the tolerance of the police and the rest of society to these traits. This year’s diagnosis is terminal. Wednesday’s march was one of the most violent and ugliest I have seen – and I have witnessed every single one over the past 16 years. (more…)
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Grief & guilt by association
I have been grieving deeply not just since last October, but ever since I woke up to the reality of what Israel is, and what it stands for. First came my human empathy for the Palestinian people and what they have been suffering. Empathy was what gave me the initial push to start to speak out, twenty-three years ago. However, at the time I did not understand that I was a Zionist. My heart ached for the Palestinians. Israel’s behaviour seemed brutal, and unfair, but I was still just a typical ‘liberal’ Zionist. (more…)
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Shaping the policy debate: how does the British media present China?
The almost total lack of any positive coverage of China in the British media further closes off the scope even for making arguments that policy should reflect opportunities from dealing with China. (more…)
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“Forever Learning”: the Hoc Mai medical exchange program, 1998-2024
During the 1990’s Associate Professor Phillip Yuile of Sydney University visited Vietnam many times, helping hospitals to establish Radiotherapy there. In 1998 he met with Professor Ton That Bach the Dean of Hanoi Medical University (HMU) who subsequently invited me to visit Hanoi with a view to establishing a connection with postgraduate medical education in Australia, specifically Sydney Medical School, as Vietnam’s links had previously been with France. (more…)
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Rafah massacre demonstrates urgent need to cut ties and sanction Israel
The Jewish Council of Australia renews our calls for the Albanese Government to use all possible diplomatic pressure to stop Israel committing the crime of genocide. (more…)
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Palestine, from the river to the sea, between colonialism and liberty
When Labor and Liberal politicians repeat deceptive Israeli propaganda without scrutiny and knowledge of the facts, they lose credibility and reveal their undignified ignorance and sycophantic submission to Israel. We heard leaders from both sides repeating Israel’s accusation that those who raise the slogan “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” are being antisemites. Let us examine the facts. (more…)
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Israel massacres children, which the Western Press says is fine
Israel has not only completely disregarded the orders of the International Court of Justice to cease its assault on Rafah as we expected it to do, but has actually ramped up its ruthlessness as though trying to make a point. There were reportedly more than 60 Israeli airstrikes on the southernmost city in the Gaza strip in the 48 hours after the ICJ ruling, including a horrifying massacre on a displacement camp full of civilians in tents. (more…)
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Time for Israelis to self-reflect and acknowledge responsibility for the war in Gaza
“For 57 years, Israel has been maintaining a regime of wrongdoing and evil, and now, at last, the world is waking up and starting to act against it. Will it also be able to wake up at least some Israelis from their heedless, twisted sense of justice?” writes senior Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy. (more…)
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What would James Crawford “Australia’s greatest international lawyer” say about Palestine today?
James Crawford has been described as “Probably Australia’s greatest international lawyer of all time” (SMH, 16 June 2021). James Crawford died on 31 May 2021. But perhaps he still has something to contribute to the major controversy facing today’s world: Palestine. (more…)
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ICC takes a scalpel to Western moral authority
With the surgical precision of a scalpel, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has severed what remained of the moral authority of the West. (more…)
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Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s treacherous gambit is doomed to backfire
Taiwan’s new leader, Lai Ching-te, delivered his inaugural speech on Monday, comprehensively expounding his stance on “Taiwan independence”. Unlike his two predecessors, Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen, Lai failed to clearly refer to the 1992 Consensus and the one-China principle, indirectly indicating his rejection of both crucial notions. Instead, Lai unabashedly referred to the notions of “two Chinas” and “one China, one Taiwan”, calling the island a “sovereign and independent country”. (more…)
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If you can’t even elect a candidate who’ll end a genocide, how real is your “Democracy”?
The Biden administration has reportedly approved of an Israeli assault on Rafah, the last slightly safe city in the Gaza Strip, and is openly preparing to work with Congress to punish the International Criminal Court for seeking arrest warrants of Israeli officials for war crimes. Biden is a monster who belongs in a cell at The Hague. (more…)
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Ghost shark
The Ghost Shark, a new underwater drone being developed for the Australian Navy, could kill off the deeply flawed plan to acquire eight nuclear submarines for a projected cost as much as $360 billion. (more…)
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New US trade salvo at China shows an emotional West playing with fire
Those who curb real trade and expand financial sanctions don’t seem to understand the likeliness of a destructive outcome for all. The West is wrecking the foundations of its prosperity. (more…)
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The Philadelphi Corridor: Egypt joins South Africa’s ICJ genocide case
Why has Egypt confirmed that it will support South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide? The answer lies in the significance of the Philadelphi Corridor or the Salah Al-Din Axis. (more…)
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The crisis in New Caledonia
The claim by Paris officials that ‘foreign interference’ is behind the civil turmoil in New Caledonia not only attempts to deflect responsibility from France for the crisis but is also an insult to the Kanak peoples’ long struggle for independence. (more…)
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Restraining Russia through friendship
The late historian Paul Schroeder offered insights into how to bring Russia into a collective security arrangement. (more…)
