Latest Pearls and Irritations – Full Stories

Those critically engaged in understanding and debating the future of Australian defence and national security strategies should pass two votes of thanks: the first is to former President Donald Trump; the second to the recent political-strategic proclamations of the...

On his last day as US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo declared China’s human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region constituted “genocide” against ethnic Uighur Muslims. This outrageous declaration was the last of many that Pompeo has issued in a deliberate attempt to...

 Japan, in consultation with the US, is trying to build a huge military facility for the US Marine Corps by reclaiming a large part of the wondrous, biodiverse Oura Bay. It is akin to Australia offering part of the Great Barrier Reef to the Pentagon to establish a...

The 1776 Commission Report released on 18 January 2021 is a time bomb of extremist propaganda; a source document for the arguments and recruitment of white nationalists and white supremacists, and for the apologists of radical libertarianism.  It will give succour to...

In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it’s also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become an increasingly polarised approach to economic...

For just six months of its 73 years was Israel a democracy. Six months, and not one day more. This shocking fact, which most Israelis and the wider world repress and truth-seekers have no way of denying, must resound in every civics lesson and every debate in Israel....

The land this week: strategies to reduce agricultural land and habitat loss, and improve human health, even as the global population increases; the massive carbon footprint of dairy products; problems in Asia – slow-onset impacts of climate change to displace...

The arrival of more infectious Covid variants means more of us need to be vaccinated than previously thought, with an uptake of at least 80%. The federal government must now drive that promotion campaign with a focus on vaccine safety. Fortress Australia Our priority...

Washington was understandably perplexed that a China-EU investment agreement was concluded a few weeks before the Biden administration, especially a  president who has been advocating for multilateralism and the restoration of trust and an alliance with the EU. Some...

The US presidency is said to be the office of the “leader of the free world” yet, as highlighted by the dying days of Donald Trump’s presidency, one of the most challenging handicaps for US presidents seems to have been on the golf course. The president of the United...

The many Australian friends and colleagues of Professor Andrew Mack will be deeply saddened to learn he passed away in Vancouver on 20 January 2021 after a year of serious illness. As those of us who knew him well can attest, Andy was not only a brilliant and...

The end of coal-fired generation in Australia is inevitable. The key is for an orderly transition to spread the costs fairly. Zero marginal cost, zero emissions energy is now a reality. In most case, wind and solar are cheaper sources of new electricity than coal,...

‘Rentier Capitalism’ is a cracking thesis on a cruel economic order. Read it and you’ll start seeing rentiers everywhere, hearing them in every news bulletin, all involved in massive anti-competitive behaviour and impoverishing the rest of society....

The contrast in the content and tone of the final days of Trump’s Presidency and the early days of Biden’s is stark. Trump bungled, blamed, and bullied; Biden already seems competent, considered, and compassionate. Apart from Me-ness, Trump’s Presidency was also...

On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. While unemployment,...

Donald Trump and the Republican Party alone have the capacity to restore stability to the United States. They have to acknowledge that the game is over, and their claim that the election was “stolen” was a big lie. When the insurgents began their march towards the...

The US empire will fall sooner or later. All empires do. So, this crisis, just at the start of the Biden and Harris years, is a fine time to begin thinking about what might be built in its place. Even in California, one of its richest states we have gross economic...

What people in other forums are saying about public policy America’s long road back to sanity Biden’s inaugural address You might care to invest 22 minutes listening to Biden’s inaugural address – maybe watching it because the Americans excel in the theatrics of state...

You will be acutely aware that, after the ravages of the Trump years, you have a big healing job ahead of you, not only at home but abroad. Too often in recent times America’s allies, partners and friends around the world have found ourselves regarded as...

Post Covid, it will be hard for Australia to grow quickly without China’s market, capital, people exchange and know-how.  Finding a détente is essential. However, Australia targeted China before it targeted us. After signing a free trade and investment agreement with...

Racism was the core of Trump’s politics. The country divided along the lines of the Civil War and of post-reconstruction America. In his inaugural address, Biden acknowledged this reality. His Administration will prioritise tackling the pandemic but success with that...

Weakening responsible lending laws is a bad look for the federal government. It has the hallmarks of political opportunism, with Morrison and Frydenberg using the Covid crisis to be a friend of business at the expense of consumers. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne delivered...

Sycophancy from Joe Hockey; double standards in the corporate world; one-sided coverage of the plan to force Google and Facebook to pay for news content; quarantine confusion, again… Mainstream media serves up the usual. Former Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey...

Political cultures also foster sadism,  justifying such behaviour by an alleged need to protect national security. And once specific population groups have been dehumanised, they become targets for cruelties. Denial, bolstered by the fair-go image of state leaders,...