Public distrust in the reliability of the U.S. nuclear umbrella has sharply increased, with a majority of South Koreans now supporting the development of their own nuclear weapons, a recent survey shows. (more…)
Tag: International relations
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The festering sore of Western civilisation is the only soil in which genocide in Gaza could take root
Some days it’s hard to say which is more horrific: the Gaza genocide itself, or the moral decay throughout our society which makes it possible. (more…)
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Who should be the next emperor of the violent global imperium?
As US voters go to the polls on November 5th, they need to remind themselves that when the US elects its next domestic president, it is also selecting the emperor of a violent, global imperium. Choices made over sundry domestic issues have far reaching effects, far beyond local pocketbook or civil rights issues. They determine who lives and dies across the planet, and how much pain, harm and suffering the rest of the world will have to bear. (more…)
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The ICJ advisory opinion and the UNGA response
A position paper has been published by the organisation BADIL in October, suggesting that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory further fragments the Palestinian people and marginalises their rights. (more…)
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Anomie: Enabled by Western media, Israel’s lies have become a galloping cancer
Israel’s unholy policy trinity – destroy, kill, lie – has been underway for decades. But since October 2023 it has reached horrific levels. The horror of Israeli destruction, torture and slaughter is apparently taken for granted by Israeli citizens and by supporters in western countries, largely because telling lies as a feature of warfare is not challenged. (more…)
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The 2-Israel Problem
Palestine’s problem is only partly expressed as a frustrated 2-State Solution; it might, more effectively be understood as a 2-Israel problem. (more…)
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Israel shreds the UN as it seeks to ban UNRWA
Israel has knocked yet another nail in the United Nations system. (more…)
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The role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in breaking trade barriers and fostering multilateralism
As the world faces increasingly complex challenges—from economic downturns to geopolitical tensions—regional organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are becoming ever more important in promoting multilateral cooperation. (more…)
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Keeping promises to the people of Bougainville
As anger boils among younger generations for allowing themselves to be conned by Australia on independence, a diplomacy of promise-keeping is needed to prevent the fragmentation of Bougainville, followed by the fragmentation of Papua New Guinea, writes John Braithwaite.
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Breaking the deadlock in Japan-North Korean relations
To break the deadlock in Japan-North Korea relations, Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, has proposed liaison offices in the capitals of both countries to resolve the poisonous abductees issue – the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the seventies and eighties. (more…)
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The foundation stones of reconciliation, truth telling postponed again
The failure of last year’s referendum still troubles the country. The focus on the Voice to Parliament took attention away from the far more consequential question of truth telling, while paradoxically displaying how much it is still needed. (more…)
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Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity “extreme under any circumstances”
“The events since October 7 have been absolutely overwhelming. And that means they are overwhelming for everybody, but particularly for the people who are experiencing them, those who are suffering. The victims. It’s regularly said that October 7 represented the greatest killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust. And that’s correct. What’s said less frequently is that the killing of Palestinians since then represents the greatest Slaughter of Palestinians in their recorded history.” (more…)
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China looks to turn a page with Japan, Britain, and Israel
And India announces breakthrough with China on the troubled border. (more…)
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The terrifying parallels between 9/11 and Israel’s response to Oct. 7
The tragedy in the Middle East is that what Hamas’ Sinwar was to bin Laden, Israel is to America. (more…)
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Prabowo Subianto, j’accuse
In a just world, Prabowo Subianto should not be Indonesia’s new president. He ought to be facing the full strength of the law in court, if not serving time. (more…)
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Australia neither moral nor powerful
When did Australia lose its morality, and along with that loss, its status as a respected middle power? (more…)
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We need PM Ishiba’s NATO like we need a hole in the head…
It is difficult to reconcile new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s expressions of concern for the security of his country with his advocation of an Asian version of NATO. (more…)
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Etiquette tips for awed commoners
Being vital deportment behavioural protocols in the face of British flapdoodle. (more…)
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Israel’s “Right to Defend Itself” against the Hezbollah resistance in Lebanon
Readers may recall my recent P&I post, Israel does not have a right to defend itself, as our PM keeps saying, 11 October. Since publication I have been questioned by some: does the argument made in respect of Palestinians resisting from the West Bank and Gaza, occupied by Israel, apply as well to resistance in the form of missiles fired at Israel from non-occupied territory, such as Lebanon, from which Hezbollah operates? (more…)
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Who really owns the South China Sea?
We are told the AUKUS ‘security partnership’ with the US and UK requires Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) to accompany AUKUS. They will operate mainly in the South China Sea, allegedly to deter China’s ‘expansionist’ goals. (more…)
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International students in Australia raise their voice in NSW politics
International student activists have succeeded in passing anti-transport discrimination motions at NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen’s Summer Hill Branch.
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US boots on the ground in Israel demolishes international law
The US decision to send troops to Israel has upended the focus of attention for all those, globally, who have attempted to stop both the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the determination of the current Israeli government to create Eretz Israel: a territory incorporating – at minimum – all Palestinian land now occupied by Israel, but also likely southern Lebanon and parts of Jordan and Syria as well. (more…)
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Australia’s shame
Open Letter to Antonio Guterres on the Australian Government’s failure to publicly defend the office of the United Nations Secretary General. (more…)
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As US puppets the Australian political class rejects international humanitarian law
One thing which was crystal clear from the vigils in Australia on 7 October 2024 was the almost complete unanimity between the Labor-Coalition political class at federal and state levels to only attend vigils solely commemorating the deaths of Israelis, while simultaneously completely ignoring vigils commemorating the deaths of Palestinians, or vigils commemorating the deaths jointly of Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis and other people killed, such as UN aid workers, health professionals and journalists. (more…)
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Anthony Albanese has yet to grow into the prime minister’s job
The prime minister is a political operator rather than a visionary. His inability to persuade and sustain arguments is beginning to show. (more…)
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Imagine that we lived in a country that stood up for international law
Every day I imagine what it must be like to live in a righteous place. Really, what must that be like? (more…)
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From Guernica to Gaza
The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, in Spain, in 1937 “heralded a terrible new age of warfare” that, almost 90 years later, remains graphically notorious as a “wanton man-made holocaust”. Over the last twelve months, Israel has made exceptional progress towards crafting a similar enduring understanding of the hellscape it has created in Gaza. (more…)
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Under the shadow of a NATO-Russia nuclear war, Hibakusha awarded Nobel Peace Prize
As Vladimir Putin deploys mobile missile launchers throughout the Siberian Taiga armed with Yars heavy duty ICBMs, while making nuclear threats and claiming that these forces have been placed on a higher level of alert (though this isn’t necessarily so), NATO seems intent on compounding what seems already threatening and dangerous enough with the performance of the annual Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises, in which NATO literally rehearses for the apocalypse. It seems that this year the exercise is more ‘real’ than previously. (more…)
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Australia, Israel and the United Nations
In 1949 Australia’s Dr H.V. Evatt was described as: “The most brilliant and effective voice of Small Powers – a leading statesman for the world’s conscience.” When will another Australian voice speak up in the name of humanity at the United Nations? (more…)
