Next Wednesday, Australian time, we will be living in the post-truth age. We will know if anti-elitist populism has triumphed over sometimes self-serving knowledge and expertise. Alternatively, we will know the extent of the damage to the surviving rationality of objective self-interest within the framework of a fractured social contract. Either way, rational debate about […]
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If one was to take recent mainstream media reports at face value, one might be excused for thinking that the US presidential race is now neck and neck or that Donald Trump is now leading Hillary Clinton. It is true that Trump squeaked ahead of Clinton in one poll and that, by contrast, some media […]
As the US presidential election enters the ‘death zone’, where there remains little scope for altering voter intentions, the resurfacing of Hillary Clinton’s email saga is generating a lot of noise. It may, however, be generating less movement. The tenuous link between Hillary Clinton, a sense of wrong-doing and the emails in question has been […]
Just when we thought it was safe to think that Hillary Clinton would comfortably win the US presidential election and that, for better or worse, the US and hence the world would continue with business as usual, reality has come back to bite us on the assumption. Clinton is still likely to win but, reflecting […]
Just two weeks out from the US elections, some more populist observers still seem to believe that Donald Trump can do a ‘Brexit’ – that is, produce a surprise result – and win the presidency. It is possible that there will be a surprise in the presidential race but, given that the US votes by […]
Tension is again building in Thai politics following the death of the world’s longest reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The military government had been trying to dampening speculation on the imminence of the king’s condition because, at stake, is the whole orientation of Thai politics and economy. Official reports confirmed that the 88 year old […]
A week is, as they say, a long time in politics. Events are moving so quickly at the moment for Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the US presidential campaign that, by the time you read this, they could have substantially shifted yet again. In all, however, Trump’s presidential campaign has begun to implode. […]
It does not take much political imagination to get to the point where the situation in Syria, particularly the battle for Aleppo, should invoke the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). When a government turns on its own people – in this case largely civilians – it has lost the right to rule and […]
After two years of panic over the future of the Middle East, the Islamic State-held Iraqi city of Mosul will soon be under full assault. While the battle will be hard, it is expected that IS fighters will be forced to leave the city. The recapture of Mosul is seen by US President Barack Obama […]
When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said, at the UN last week, that he would lift Australia’s refugee intake to 18,750 he no doubt thought he was making a generous gesture, or at least one that would be seen as such by its noisy Australian critics. What he did, however, was spark a continued debate about […]