Welcome to Eureka Street
Looking for thought provoking articles?Subscribe to Eureka Street and join the conversation.
Passwords must be at least 8 characters, contain upper and lower case letters, and a numeric value.
Eureka Street uses the Stripe payment gateway to process payments. The terms and conditions upon which Stripe processes payments and their privacy policy are available here.
Please note: The 40-day free-trial subscription is a limited time offer and expires 31/3/24. Subscribers will have 40 days of free access to Eureka Street content from the date they subscribe. You can cancel your subscription within that 40-day period without charge. After the 40-day free trial subscription period is over, you will be debited the $90 annual subscription amount. Our terms and conditions of membership still apply.
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
The globe is being split into two, with Australia nervously sitting between the two sides: America and China. At least we have a trade deficit with America so are not an immediate target. But we might want to consider becoming more self-sufficient and broadening our industrial base.
The recent federal election showed us that refugees and people seeking asylum do not need to be instrumentalised for votes. Perhaps refugee policymaking could be separated from politics. Perhaps it could be evidence-based and humane. Alas, the prevailing frames and politics of border protection quickly came to the fore post-election.
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.
The stoush between Erdogan (who said New Zealanders and Australians visiting Turkey would leave it 'in coffins ') and Morrison (all options to erase this insult were 'on the table') amounts to less than meets the eye. But it speaks volumes about what a toxic brew hypocrisy and the prospect of a forthcoming election can produce.
It has been postulated that there are three types of war: kinetic, informational and economic. America has been losing its kinetic conflicts in the Middle East and recently has escalated its informational war. The favoured weapon with economic warfare is sanctions, and Trump has started to use them to an extreme degree.
A Faili Kurd, who fled Iran by boat aged 16 with his mother, Shalikhan has been detained since arriving on Christmas Island in August 2013. Suffering from a developmental disorder and mental health issues exacerbated by his father's death in Iran, he has in the past attempted suicide and displayed volatile behaviour.
That Trump is a narcissistic braggart was never in doubt. The more intriguing question was always how a businessman would behave once he became president. His administration sees business-style standover tactics as a thoroughly good option. The system-wide shifts that are resulting may have a lasting impact.
Australia has too many security and diplomatic interests in Iran to squander lightly. The fact its officials are willing to jettison these without getting anything in return vindicates the suggestion that the rather nebulous fact of relationship with the US features much more heavily in Australia's security calculus than its own interests.
What do the Liberal leadership spill and the Syrian War have in common? Both demonstrate how force of habit, like any other force built up over a long period of time, is very difficult to stop, even when the results are plainly self destructive.
Collars and ties, or lack of them, can have a specific political application. In 2007 Robert Mugabe, fearsome Zimbabwean dictator, was invited to an EU summit in Lisbon. The Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, cut up his clerical collar on television and vowed to replace it only after Mugabe had gone.
Some days I feel like a people trafficker, though I'm not making a zack out of the trafficking. Other days I see myself as a latter-day Oskar Schindler. But mostly I just feel trapped along with the 1000 refugees and asylum seekers I'm doing my not-very-successful best to get the hell out of an open prison called Bangkok.
How are we to honour the commitment to peace of these Japanese and Maralinga survivors of nuclear conflagrations unleashed maliciously or negligently last century? We need to renew our commitment to painstaking negotiation of international treaties and agreements designed to ensure peace and security for all, insisting on the dignity and human rights of all.