Blog
Here we provide a platform for the exchange of information, ideas and analysis on the existential threats that hang over humanity and the planet at this time. The aim is to go beyond the symptoms of our predicament as we try and make sense of the powerful currents that have brought us to the present impasse. Importantly, we explore options for creative policy advocacy and imaginative social action.
Why the world must stand behind ICJ decision on Israeli occupation
Judge and president of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam, delivers a ruling on the legal consequences of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in The Hague on 19 July 2024 (Nick Gammon/AFP)
The sun sets on the American empire: the Gaza debacle
The mayhem of the last eight months suggests that the United States remains ascendant in the Middle East, and its global hegemonic presence undiminished. Reality points in a different direction. In this series, Joseph Camilleri explains how, despite its global military reach and expanding alliances in Europe and Asia, America today stands adrift and diminished. Gaza, Ukraine and the China obsession tell the story.
SHAPE Statement on Gaza
This SHAPE (Saving Humanity and Planet Earth) statement addresses the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza and the deepening regional and global crisis, calling for more to be done.
Palestine, Iran, and Populist Resistance: The Limits of Law, Morality, and the UN
An interview with the Qods News Agency (Qodsna), the first specialized news agency in Iran, focusing on issues related to the Palestinian cause. The interview was published on 23 April 2024 in Iran, and is reprinted in modified form that seeks to take account of the Palestinian struggle as connected with wider regional and global conflict patterns, and is giving rise to worldwide student protests against genocide and complicity with genocide, as well as a tidal wave of global consciousness sweeping away the cobwebs of political and moral complacency.
A looming China-US collision – can détente come to the rescue?
The call issued by Bob Carr and Gareth Evans for a ‘comprehensive détente between the US and China is timely and constructive. But as with all things to do with peace and war, the issues are complex and the way forward strewn with difficulties.
SHAPE Statement on Gaza
SHAPE Statement on Gaza - The barbaric conduct of the Israeli state must be stopped and the dignity and freedom of the Palestinian people must be upheld
GAZA: South Africa Seeks Justice
The leaders of post-apartheid South Africa were among the most vocal in the Global South to denounce inhuman Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu realized that Israeli discrimination and marginalization of the indigenous Palestinians was akin to apartheid. Mandela who described the Palestinian struggle for self- determination as one of the greatest moral issues of our time even observed that South Africans will not be truly free until the Palestinians are free.
Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide
Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide initiated by the Action Committee For Call to Conscience About Gaza
Five Good Reasons that Nuclear-Powered Submarines Do Not Make Sense for Australia
The push-back against nuclear-powered submarines for Australia is gaining strength, and for good reason. The AUKUS security pact, with the United States and the UK, negotiated by Scott Morrison in September 2021, controversially includes a provision to provide nuclear-powered submarines for Australia; and both the conservative Coalition and the new Labor Government have endorsed the agreement. But the opposition is growing.
Globalising NATO to Preserve US dominance
Much has been made of the creation of AUKUS and the agreement to provide Australia with eight nuclear powered submarines. Many have rightly decried Australia’s loss of independence. AUKUS, however, is part of a bigger story, a multi-layered US-led “Indo-Pacific strategy” whose clear aim is to contain China and preserve US regional and global dominance.
An Asia-Pacific NATO: Fanning the Flames of War
There’s something profoundly disheartening about the politics of our countries right now. The deep madness, I’m afraid, is a British Imperial thinking taken over by the United States. My country, the U.S., is unrecognisable now compared even to 20 or 30 years ago. I’m not sure, to tell you the truth, who runs the country. I do not believe it is the president of the United States right now. We are run by generals, by our security, establishment. The public is privy to nothing.
Why is Australia so Scared?
The world has just spent two decades paralysed by fear. Ever since 11 September 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has changed the lives of most people for the worse. Millions have been killed, either by terrorists or by militarists fighting them. Fearing violence, many people have fled their homelands as refugees. Others have absorbed repeated warnings about Islamist terrorism, and fearfully accepted that the response to it has to be militarism.