Page 38 of 56
By Paul Collits Australians “want to eliminate Covid”. So says the Zero Covid Man, aka the Australian Prime Minister. Perhaps the greatest fear is that he might be right. If so, then comes the question: is it worse to have… Continue Reading →
From one of the world’s most admired war correspondents, Christina Lamb, comes a searing indictment of the West’s involvement in wars against fundamentalist Islam, Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World. The pointless loss of American, British and Australian lives, has achieved nothing; despite the efforts to eliminate the Taliban from the country, their presence has continued to grow. Insurgent attacks have also increased, and the region still struggles against poverty, an unstable infrastructure and a huge number of land mines. Initially billed as the West’s success story by both Bush and Blair, Afghanistan remains a lawless, violent land. The promises made to its people in 2001 have not been fulfilled. Foreign correspondent for one of the world’s leading newspapers, The Sunday Times, educated at Oxford, a Fellow at Harvard University, a member of the National Geographic Society, former British Foreign Correspondent of the year and a multi award winner, Lamb has been reporting on the region of “pomegranates and war” since the age of 21, when she crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country, a relationship which has dominated her adult life. Lamb has fought with the mujahadeen dressed as an Afghan boy, experienced a near-fatal ambush and head-on encounter with Taliban forces and successfully established links with American, British, Afghan government, Taliban and tribal fighters. Her unparalleled access to troops and civilians on the ground, as well as to top military officials has ensured that Farewell Kabul is the definitive book on the region, exposing the realities of Afghanistan unlike anyone before, compelling, moving and impossible to put down.
By Professor Ramesh Thakur: Pearls and Irritations The blanket and punitive travel ban for Australians returning from India is neither justified, nor does it make much sense in the efforts to curb the spreading of the virus. The Indian Coronavirus… Continue Reading →
By Andrew Baker, Queensland University of Technology Australia has a rich diversity of mammals, with around 320 native, land-based species, 87% of which are found here and nowhere else. Many of these mammals are secretive, only active at night, and… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Not every famous person has a name. And almost no one knew the name of Sandor Berger, one of Sydney’s best known eccentrics. For many years notices appeared on telegraph poles across inner-Sydney: “Psychiatry is Evil, It… Continue Reading →
The Photography of Dean Sewell. With John Stapleton. Wherever I have lived I have always documented my own immediate environs. The photograph above is of my front yard. You don’t get any more immediate. There is an old quip about… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Central to the Prime Ministership of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, his style, substance, policies and behaviour, has been his religiosity. Now the issue has come front and centre after remarkable footage emerged of him addressing a… Continue Reading →
By Margaret Wertheim, University of Melbourne. One hundred years ago this month, an obscure German physicist named Albert Einstein presented to the Prussian Academy of Science his General Theory of Relativity. Nothing prior had prepared scientists for such a radical… Continue Reading →
By Peter J. Dean, University of Western Australia. Defence is always one of the Australian government’s busiest — and most powerful — portfolios. Now, as Peter Dutton takes the helm, this is no exception, and he will have much work… Continue Reading →
By Paul Budde: Independent Australia. Poor management of Australia’s broadband network has resulted in a problem that the Government won’t fix and has left consumers paying for it, writes Paul Budde. FOR MORE THAN A DECADE – dating back to the original… Continue Reading →
By Ramesh Thakur: Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In 2009, as I gazed at the gaping hillside holes in Bamiyan where once two imposing Buddha statues had stood as silent sentinels for more than 1,500 years, two emotions were dominant. The… Continue Reading →
By Suzanne Arnold: Michael West Media. The power of the Nationals in NSW government poses a serious risk to the state’s environmental health. From fracking the Pillaga and pushing for coal mining on the fertile soil of the Liverpool Plains,… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits One of the less noticed aspects of the Year of Living Covidly has been the birth of strange new alliances and unexpected political fissures to which lockdown policies and lockdown scepticism have given rise. We now have… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits. Australia’s ruling Coalition of the Liberal and National Parties is now mired in scandal so deep they are facing electoral oblivion. The tremulous leadership of current Prime Minister Scott Morrison is dragging down the conservative brand; and… Continue Reading →
By Sam Barron, Australian Catholic University Last week, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland announced they might have discovered a brand new force of nature. Or, to be precise, they unveiled “new results which, if confirmed, would suggest… Continue Reading →
TOTT News The Australian Medical Association’s Queensland President is calling for a overhaul of privacy laws to give companies the power to see which of their staff have been vaccinated. The call comes as Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout incrementally continues,… Continue Reading →
By Jack Waterford: Pearls and Irritations. Perhaps a day will come when the champion rorters, liars, and conscious mis-managers of public resources are before a serious corruption commission and out on their ears. The political and administrative dominance of the… Continue Reading →
By Sam Baron, Australian Catholic University. In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive, a hypothetical way to skirt around the universe’s ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton He could feel the interest gathering; there to be used and reused and discarded, a threat that could neither be eliminated nor controlled. He was trying to make alliances, there in that place, there in those hours,… Continue Reading →
By John Blaxland, Australian National University. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared Australia will withdraw its remaining 80 troops from Afghanistan by September, marking the end of its longest involvement in a war. This follows President Joe Biden announcing the… Continue Reading →
By Paul Gregoire: Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog. “This shows how our government facilities and systems will treat you if your skin colour is black,” declared Dunghutti activist Paul Silva at the 10 April Stop All Black Deaths in Custody Rally in Sydney…. Continue Reading →
By Jenny Hocking: Pearls and Irritations A culture of corruption is engulfing the Morrison government. It’s not just the endless graft and largesse – the million-dollar contracts to Liberal linked companies, the generously (mis)allocated ‘grants’ to coalition seats, the personal… Continue Reading →
By Ben Egliston, Queensland University of Technology and Marcus Carter, University of Sydney Microsoft has reportedly been awarded a ten year contract worth close to US$22 billion, to provide 120,000 military-grade augmented reality (AR) headsets to the US Army. Popularised… Continue Reading →
The onslaught of Covid incompetence came at a time when the nation itself was on rocky ground. Those who would doubt Australia’s democracy were spread far and wide. Trapped in circumstance, Old Alex was reliving his own version of The… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur This is not an article I had expected, intended or wanted to write. I have politely declined requests to write on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in relation to the current crisis in Myanmar and the climbing civilian… Continue Reading →
By Sabine Bock: Pressenza international Press Agency With the title “Collateral Crucifixion”, the artist duo Captain Borderline has completed this motif as a giant maximum Assange mural in Berlin on a complete house facade directly in front of the Willy… Continue Reading →
By Elizabeth Minter: Michael West Media Australia’s biggest private and corporatised charities in aged care are threatening the government with a political campaign if they don’t get more money, on top of the $21 billion in government funding they get… Continue Reading →
By Jayne Wilkins, Griffith University and Sechaba Maape, University of the Witwatersrand A rockshelter in South Africa’s Kalahari documents the innovative behaviours of early humans who lived there 105,000 years ago. The rockshelter site is at Ga-Mohana Hill — a… Continue Reading →
Australian authorities will consider a radical measure to ‘prevent online bullying and trolling’, requiring all users of social media to provide 100 points of ID before use. Experts say the proposal would involve serious privacy risks for internet users, who… Continue Reading →
Alexandra Schnell, University of Cambridge A couple of years ago an octopus named Heidi was filmed changing colours as she slept. The footage shows her flickering from a ghostly shade of white to yellow and then turning a deep shade… Continue Reading →
By Sue Price One thing can be totally assured: Despite the billions of dollars the Australian Government is throwing at domestic violence programmes, next year all the same bureaucrats and lobby groups will have their hands out for yet more… Continue Reading →
Old Alex was alive to the whole End of Days narrative for multiple reasons, including his own childhood. Having grown up in a Christian cult, members of his family were preparing for the end of the world way back in… Continue Reading →