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Section: International

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Boris, Brexit and taking it up to political bull

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 03 June 2019
    2 Comments

    An enduring memory of the 2016 Brexit campaign was the claim by pro-leavers that the EU was extracting some £350 million a week. The claim, ignoring EU subsidies, returns and contributions to Britain, was so outrageously proud and inaccurate, it stuck. Which leads us to a novel citizen's experiment on the issue of lying in politics.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Bob Hawke's post Tiananmen legacy

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 30 May 2019
    4 Comments

    The events of 4 June 1989 in Beijing were horrific, but then prime minister Hawke's leadership and the skills, passion and sacrifice of the generation of Chinese that stayed in Australia in Tiananmen Square's aftermath have consequently made Australia a more vibrant society.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    China discourse beyond pandas and dragons

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 22 May 2019
    2 Comments

    While Bob Carr's institute was deemed to be a panda hugger and Clive Hamilton's position on Chinese influence was considered to be dragon slaying, knowledgeable discussion is a distant third. To China-watchers, the relative lack of a sophisticated focus on Australia-China relations during the election was simply business as usual.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Jean Vanier's model for inclusiveness

    • Justin Glyn
    • 09 May 2019
    10 Comments

    Jean Vanier (1928-2019), sailor, academic, companion and man of boundless hospitality, died on 7 May, leaving behind him not only many communities in grief but also a model for how a world free of discrimination might look.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    No compromise in Israel Eurovision boycott

    • Ramona Wadi
    • 06 May 2019
    16 Comments

    One trick used by those opposing the boycott of Eurovision is to describe Israeli colonialism as a 'conflict'. Instead of emphasising the importance of decolonisation, 'compromise' is celebrated. But compromise between the coloniser and the colonised is a dangerous political game.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Shifting views of Israel and Palestine

    • Teresa Pirola
    • 06 May 2019
    14 Comments

    I am on a study tour of Israel and Palestinian Territories. It is my eighth visit over 12 years, and each time I come away with less clarity and more questions about the tensions that plague this tiny land. Who is the oppressor? Who is the oppressed? It all depends upon the lens you look through at any given moment.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The politics of police shootings

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 02 May 2019
    8 Comments

    Found guilty for the slaying of Justine Damond Ruszczyk, Mohamed Noor became the first police officer to be convicted of murder in Minnesota in 'recent memory'. Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder insisted race had no part to play. A closer reading of the entire process presents a more complex, and troubling picture.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Assange and Ecuador's 'traitor' president

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 29 April 2019
    2 Comments

    Ecuadoreans have a popular expression, hacer la casita — roughly, 'they deceived us by promising something that was not going to be fulfilled'. This is what most Ecuadoreans are feeling now about president Lenín Moreno following his economic shift to the right, and the withdrawal of the asylum granted to Julian Assange by his predecessor.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A new narrative after Christchurch & Colombo

    • Justin Glyn
    • 26 April 2019
    10 Comments

    No security measures will ever be able to suppress inclinations to hatred or violence which grow in the depths of the human heart. And yet there is a difference between Colombo and Christchurch which might be worth exploring. Paradoxically, the most useful things that governments can do are those which are least often tried.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Zombie pigs and ethics

    • Kate Galloway
    • 24 April 2019
    8 Comments

    Scientists recently revealed they had 'brought to life' the brain cells of slaughtered pigs, research said to have potential application in resolving brain injuries, disorders and diseases. While there need be no doubt the experiment was carried out in accordance with the relevant ethical research protocols, this rather misses the point.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    China's cultural memory can't be contained

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 18 April 2019
    2 Comments

    One hundred years on, the power of symbol lurks uncomfortably. To honour these students — these young protestors in Tiananmen — rallying for their nation in 1919 cannot but bring to mind other students marching through Beijing decades later. And yet, given the historical weight of 4 May, the government must commemorate it all the same.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Anzac discomfort after Christchurch

    • Daniel Kleinsman
    • 18 April 2019
    27 Comments

    As I wait to be reunited with my fiancée from Afghanistan, my discomfort is heightened by New Zealand's involvement in her country, and by an awareness of her sense of persecution, as a Muslim, after the Christchurch massacres. I do not feel able to partake in any traditional ANZAC service, as if nothing has changed.

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