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Pearls and Irritations

@johnmenadue.com

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Progressive analysis on politics, foreign policy, the economy, media, and culture, with a focus on peace and justice. John Menadue, Publisher & Editor in Chief Read: johnmenadue.com Subscribe for free: https://tinyurl.com/vr2vz4av

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 4m

My vision for my work is ambitious, but grounded. I hope that my policy paper contributes to the national conversation about Indigenous rights in Australia, particularly in light of the 2023 Voice Referendum and the continuing need for reconciliation. #auspol #GlobalVoices #youthvoices #UNGA

Embedding free, prior and informed consent in Australia’s legal framework

Tiarna Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 19m

Advance’s core campaigns against renewable energy and Aboriginal rights constitute the vested interests of many of their major contributors, particularly in the mining and energy sectors. other campaigns are to garner popular support. #auspol #Advance

Who are 'Advance' and what are they doing to our politics?

Launched in 2018 as a conservative answer to GetUp!, the group Advance likes to style itself as the voice of the average person against “the elite.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 34m

The next phase of progress in healthcare will depend less on technical capacity and more on ethical stewardship and the healthcare community's ability to keep humans at the centre of design and deployment. Not replacing care AI could rediscover it. #auspol #healthcare #AI

Reclaiming care in the age of AI

Sixty years ago, the patient-doctor interaction was, at its best, about human beings connecting, engaging, listening, observing and caring.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 50m

Israel’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a related case next week, “but there is no reason to wait that long,” the group added. “Enough with the excuses and delay tactics. The restrictions on press freedom must come to an end.” #auspol media #Gaza

Ceasefire sparks fresh calls for global media access to Gaza

Press groups are also demanding justice for the more than 200 journalists slaughtered in Palestinian territory over the past two years.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 21h

How Israel lost a war by not deserving to win

It is ultimately futile and probably wicked to calculate winners and losers in a war against civilians, least of all on any sort of balance sheet weighing and measuring the value of dead bodies.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 22h

Sixty-eight percent of inter-BRICS trade is taking place outside the dollar system, rapidly enabling countries to escape the illegal imposition of financial sanctions by the US and the West. A fundamental redistribution of power in geopolitics. #auspol #BRICS

The West’s crucial strategic failures

The Earth is littered with the ruins of empires that once believed they were eternal. Camille Paglia.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 22h

Among Palestinians articulating liberation as an inclusive project is Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, who said “If you have a problem with freedom and justice for everyone, the problem is not the chant, it is you.” #auspol #Palestine

Time for a 'just peace' for all peoples in Palestine

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong took a long time just to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. And their belated declaration of Palestinian statehood is an empty gesture when we are still sending F-35 jet components to Israel.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 23h

In Gaza or anywhere else, an ambrosial holiday resort "like no one has ever seen before", a "riviera of the Middle East" boasting "a colossal golden statue of Trump", or a peace plan to bring this about that is "an amazing thing", will not make the hatred go away. #auspol #warcrimes

The half-life of humiliation and the hunger for revenge

The trauma, humiliation and rage of those that survive are concomitants of the indiscriminate killing with impunity and the deracination of innocent men, women and children by the invaders and occupiers of a country.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 23h

Finally, the Komei party’s long neglected principles have overcome expediency. Recent electoral defeats were forcing the LDP to seek other coalition partners. Their search will be even more frantic now, and Japan will be better for it. #auspol #Japan #komei #takaichi

Japan's LDP coalition splits – what does this mean?

So, finally there is some room for principles in Japanese politics after all! Not much, but when it comes to the point of white having to embrace black something has to give.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 23h

#Israel has carried out murderous assaults on #Gaza for decades, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn”. No peace accord or ceasefire agreement has ever gotten in the way. This one will be no exception. @chrislynnhedges #auspol #PeacePlan #Palestine

Trump’s sham peace plan

There will be no peace in Gaza. Only the temporary absence of war.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 23h

Importantly, these decisions solidify superannuation tax arrangements in a manner the community can now rely upon for the long-term security of their retirement savings and with it, their peace of mind. Paul Keating. #auspol #superannuation

Keating welcomes changes to taxation of super

Yesterday the Government made some key changes to its superannuation tax scheme, after struggling to get the plan through the Senate. Paul Keating says the changes restore confidence in the retirement savings system.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

Amelie Szczecinski's paper to the #UNGA recommends that Australia amend the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) to require social media companies to be subject to independent algorithmic auditing as a form of regulatory oversight and transparency. #auspol #GlobalVoices #youthvoices

Disarming extremism in the algorithmic age

Amelie Szczecinski is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

That #Israel is no more safe and secure in 2025 than in 1948, or after 1956, 1967, and 1983 shows the limitation of its overwhelming power. Israel will never have peace or security until it has provided peace, justice and security to the people of #Palestine. @waterfordjack #auspol

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

Japan’s leadership vacuum comes at the moment it needs a new strategic vision, as the international order that enabled its prosperity and security dissolves. Their leaders need new strategies to deal with domestic and foreign policy challenges. #auspol #Japan #Takaichi

Takaichi’s victory will only accelerate the LDP’s decline

If the Liberal Democratic Party’s leaders thought that dumping Shigeru Ishiba as party president and prime minister would lead to greater party unity and make the LDP more popular with the general public, they were sorely mistaken.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

As for the US and its supporters on the issue of the ceasefire; do not confine any agreement only to Gaza. Consider the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to end. The integrity of our international legal system is otherwise at stake. #auspol #Israel #ICJ #Palestine

Israel’s response to the International Court of Justice

The ceasefire plan in Gaza has dominated our news in recent days and weeks. One aspect of the plan is the obligation of Israel in the first phase to release a number — a large number — of Palestinian prisoners.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

Countries like Australia can play a critical role by providing medical transfers and offering refugee pathways, helping these children to have a life beyond violence. #auspol #Gaza

Childhood on hold: Growing up too soon in Gaza and beyond

UNICEF has called Gaza the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child.” It estimates every single child in Gaza will need mental health support.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

Seoul’s abstention at the UN was not just caution. Another Middle East war will sap US power, making US alliances in East Asia, starting with South Korea, hard to sustain. #auspol #Korea #UN

South Korea's caution on US Iran aims

Just last month in New York, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

What is also being heightened is the responsibility of politicians and policy makers to ensure that a prisoner’s mortality is not differentiated from that of other citizens. #auspol #incarceration #health

Dying in prison

The political predilection for punishment is contributing to yet another stressor on prisons. As Australia’s prison population ages, so, too, do inmates risk dying inside.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

The first problem in finding accessible accommodation is its scarcity. Some providers of motel rooms or caravan park cabins do have even one such facility. Rarely more than one. #auspol #accessibletourism

Who would be a carer?

Whether because of temporary disability or permanent need, the demand for accessible holiday accommodation is growing with our ageing population.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

The first core Political Economy course, Economics I(P), was mounted in 1975. It was the product of considerable upheaval in previous years and would signal further upheaval. #auspol #economics #USYD

Fifty years of political economics at Sydney University – what has it meant for us?

Earlier this year The Journal of Australian Political Economy published a special issue devoted to recollections and implications of 50 years of Political Economy courses at Sydney University.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 1d

No British Government, Tory or Labour, has ever classified China as an “enemy state”. The more recently amended Official Secrets Act no longer cites “enemy”. #auspol #UKpolitics #RCMP

How anti-China witch hunts in Canada and the UK ruin lives

Security services such as London’s MI5 and Ottawa’s RCMP appear to be going after individuals and organisations out of pure antagonism and distrust against Beijing rather than having actual evidence.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 2d

The urgency couldn’t be clearer. From Gaza to Yemen, Congo to Afghanistan, civilians are paying the price of the world’s indifference, and Australia’s silence. #auspol #GlobalVoices

Ignorance is complicity: Australia must end its arms trade with those committing crimes

Rayana Ajam is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 2d

In America’s war of words, grim facts are ignored. The US has the highest number of school shootings in the world with at least 53 this year. Daily 125 Americans are killed with guns.

These are fighting words

As political violence escalates in the United States, chaos is spreading and democracy itself is under threat. The words of anger, ill-considered and increasingly crude, are accelerant on the American bonfire.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 2d

Message from the editor

Message from the editor

This month we are working hard on a new initiative, a P&I podcast series called Pearlcast. Pearlcast will kick off with a topic close to our hearts, the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government.

johnmenadue.com

Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 2d

We should treasure the China diaspora and go out of our way to treat it well as part of our community, just as we ought to do Jews, Muslims or other cultural groups. #auspol #China

Lack of China capability can only do harm to society: Our current situation is a disgrace

In March 2023, the Australian Academy of the Humanities sounded the alarm on the decline in our understanding and knowledge of China through a report on “Australia’s China Knowledge Capability”.

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