Showing posts with label Global Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Politics. Show all posts

My latest commentary on Spectator Australia TV

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On Spectator TV's The Week in 60 Minutes Australia on ADH TV, 14 August 2024

My latest commentary on Spectator Australia TV with Alexandra Marshall discussing the Digital ID, NSW Libs stuff up, Musk/Trump, and Douglas Murray.

Next time, the French Wokerati should fight their own wars

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Paul Giamatti to the tune of "I'm Blue", Big Fat Liar, 2002.

Satire is such a wonderful vehicle for addressing contemporary political issues. Like the Olympics, where sometimes it's about sport.

The mainstream media is shoving the Paris Olympics down our throats. But like many other Australians, I want nothing to do with it.

The French have done everything possible to Woke it up this year. A current meme that suggests Norway took all the gold and silver at the Paris Olympics in 845 A.D. has my vote.

France is a free country, but so is Australia, and I hope none of our young working class men harm themselves in defence of France ever again.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Online Editor Alexandra Marshall had this to say:

‘The French’ is a phrase long uttered by those of English descent with a certain tone. Even Australians do it out of habit. I’m sure you’ve heard it. There are different varieties including, ‘How French…’ where being ‘tiresome in a French way’ has become an expression. Britain and France have been sibling nations throughout history, so it is logical that they annoy each other, but when it came to the Paris Olympics, the French managed to annoy most of the world. No doubt a second course of aggravation waits for us at the closing ceremony – unless they are busy re-writing chunks of it to avoid another scandal. Mind you, they’re French, so the closing ceremony might just be some dudes dressed as women wearing gold medals to symbolise the conquest of inclusivity. Anyway, my point is that Michael de Percy has written a great article telling the French that next time they get themselves into political hot water, they can sort it out themselves. Australia isn’t shipping their young men over to fight.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Next time, the French Wokerati should fight their own wars.

Don’t kowtow to useful idiots, and say no to a republic

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Foro Romano. Constitutional monarchy is the most modern form of government

So, our young people are increasingly in favour of a republic? Help them pack for the Democratic Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or any other number of republics where the people there wish they lived here. 

It’s time we stopped this nonsense before we undo years of advancement that enabled people in the West to live longer, happier, healthier lives. 

It’s time we stopped kowtowing to useful idiots.

Alexandra Marshall had this to say in the Unfiltered newsletter:

Speaking of idiocy, Michael de Percy has made a really good point about the ‘useful idiots’ of the West – the kids who have grown up believing that communism is the Holy Grail of politics – the Utopia that they desperately want to install in Australia. It’s weird, because at the same time they go on and on and on about the plight of illegal migrants from the third world. Except, when they talk about the ‘third world’ they forget to mention it’s the ‘communist/socialist/Marxist’ world and that these people’s republics are pretty much all tyrannical sand pits for humanity’s worst individuals.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Don’t kowtow to useful idiots, and say no to a republic.

Trump and Vance will pull the socialist wool from our eyes

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JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy is a great book and now a movie. But read the book first.

The recent alleged assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump has up-ended the virtue-signalling left’s rainbow lollipop la-la land. Trump has emerged as courageous, not just politically, but also physically. Compared to the noticeably ageing President Biden, Trump appears most capable of leading the free world.

Alexandra Marshall in the Unfiltered newsletter:

And Michael de Percy says that new VP JD Vance will ‘pull the socialist wool from our eyes’. The Republicans are still a little bit split on the Vance issue. I wouldn’t say it’s half-and-half, but certainly Vance’s blue-tinged background is holding a few back. It’ll be interesting how this race plays out...

Terry Barnes in the Morning Double Shot newsletter:

Your scribe agrees with Nikki Haley at the Republican convention: you can agree with someone, but don’t have to agree with him about everything. Thus your scribe agrees to disagree with our editor-in-chief on J D Vance. Yes, Vance offers an exciting VP package, a top communicator and, at 39, he is the same age as Richard Nixon when Ike selected him in 1952. But is he too inexperienced in government and, more to the point, too much like Trump to balance the Donald, both on the ticket and in the White House? It’s now done, and time will tell, but Michael de Percy’s in no doubt about a Trump-Vance ticket being an absolute ripper (though did he really have to take a dig at the great John Howard?), and Tim Stanley goes wild about J D in World.

My latest in The Spectator Australia,  Trump and Vance will pull the socialist wool from our eyes. 

Julian Assange is not the hero many want him to be

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Julian Assange is not a hero, instead putting our Allies' soldiers at risk.

Some are celebrating the release of Julian Assange while others beg to differ. Were his actions those of a whistleblower interested in calling out war crimes and human rights violations? Or were his actions those of a traitor? Was it freedom of the press or a childish action by a self-centred activist with financial interest that threatened the lives of our military personnel and the lives of our allies?

Alexandra Marshall had this to say in the Unfiltered newsletter:

The Assange coverage continues today, not only with pieces from the World section, which includes Terry Barnes’ less than enthusiastic coverage of the WikiLeaks editor, but also of Speccie regular Michael de Percy and his co-writer Sascha Dov Bachmann. They disagree with other writers we have had on the topic, and instead argue in favour of state secrets for the purpose of protecting military activities and the men and women who put their lives at risk in these foreign countries.

Terry Barnes had this to say in the Morning Double Shot newsletter:

Your scribe upset some readers yesterday in being appalled about Julian Assange’s treatment as a returning journalistic hero and martyr for his cause. My commentary, however, is mild compared to this brutally honest piece by Michael de Percy and Sascha Dov Bachmann. Read it and judge Assange’s Wikileaking against the de Percy-Bachmann yardstick. UK contributor Mary Dejevsky has also raised serious questions about the Assange freedom deal itself. 

My latest in The Spectator Australia with Professor Sascha Dov Bachmann, Julian Assange is not the hero many want him to be.

Rescuing hostages amid the Israel Defense Forces’ trial by media

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Australia's relationship with Israel is unnecessarily strained [Source: Deposit Photos]

My article with Andrew Fox and Sascha Dov Bachmann in The Spectator Australia, Rescuing hostages amid the Israel Defence Forces’ trial by mediaRescuing hostages amid the Israel Defence Forces’ trial by media.

Over the weekend, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) pulled off a daring daylight raid to rescue four hostages held by Hamas from two different locations in Gaza. The hostages were held in civilian houses near a busy marketplace in Nuseirat in central Gaza.

From what we know, after freeing the hostages, an IDF extraction vehicle broke down and drew fire from dozens of Hamas fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

The IDF returned fire using jets and helicopters, surged ground troops into the area, and cleared a safe extraction route. The result was four Israeli hostages from the Nova festival massacre were rescued, and one senior Israeli special forces officer was killed, along with a significant number of Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians, including women and children.

After Israel’s tactical success, civilian casualty figures in Gaza become the focus of the international media and the basis for condemnation.

Writing in the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes had this to say:

When it comes to Israel rescuing her hostages from the barbaric hands of Hamas, she has to do it with two hands tied behind her back. Not only does she have to contend with the rallying of ignorant activists for Hamas, but she must also do everything kosher and above board, under the microscopic scrutiny of a global media and journalists who seemingly loathe the very existence of the Jewish state, and will exploit any excess or slip-up against her. Sascha Bachmann, Michael de Percy and Andrew Fox make this point: ‘If Australian hostages were taken by a terrorist group, we would rightly expect the Australian Defence Force to do everything possible to bring the hostages home safe’. Why shouldn’t the IDF plan to do the same, and its commitment to keep collateral loss of life to a minimum be accepted and respected?

North Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distracted

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Guard Post at YP-Do, 3 June 2024

From Baengnyeongdo, South Korea: Here at what the Americans call PY-Do in the Yellow Sea, we are closer to North Korea’s capital than we are to the South’s capital, Seoul. PY-Do is an ‘island outpost at freedom’s frontier’. It is home to over 4,000 South Koreans and exists in an administrative afterthought of the Korean Armistice Agreement in an area known as the Northwest Islands.

The United Nations Command (UNC) established a Northern Limit Line (NLL) in 1953 at a time when the North’s navy was barely existent. In effect, South Korea stays below the NLL while North Korea does not recognise it. The five Northwest Islands, of which PY-Do and Yeonpyeongdo (YP-do) are a part, remain a flashpoint for hostilities between the two nations.

PY-Do is the site of annual South Korean and US military drills designed to ‘bolster their readiness against North Korean nuclear threats’. Technically, North and South Korea remain at war, but general hostilities ceased in 1953. The threat of tit-for-tat skirmishes, however, is ever-present.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say about my article:

I was chatting to Michael de Percy before Speccie TV the other day and he was telling me all about his trip in South Korea. ‘You should be our foreign correspondent!’ I unfairly badgered him on air. Michael was kind enough to dutifully reply with an excellent story of what it’s like in the demilitarised zone. He writes: ‘It is confronting and gives one a sense of gratitude for the lifestyles we enjoy in the West. But it also makes me realise how important it is that we actively defend our way of life and celebrate the achievements of the West.’

My latest in The Spectator Australia, North Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distractedNorth Korea trash politics sky-high while our pollies are distracted.

Hamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacy

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Solidarity for Palestine protest in Cardiff, Wales, 4 November 2023 [CC0]

On May 20, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan KC (a British national), called for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes alongside Hamas’ leaders. Equating democratically elected politicians with terrorists is morally wrong and will further weaken the legitimacy of the ICC.

Israel is defending itself against Hamas, which is an internationally and nationally proscribed terrorist organisation and an enemy whose explicit aim, as captured in the chant ‘from the river to the sea’, is the genocide of the Jewish people. The Israeli civilians who were butchered during the surprise October 7 attacks are a testament to the aims of Hamas.

The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants still needs to be reviewed by a panel of ICC judges and will only become binding once a confirmation has taken place.

My latest in The Spectator Australia with Sascha Dov Bachmann and Andrew Fox, entitled 'Hamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacyHamas is being supported by TikTok diplomacy'.

Cognitive Warfare, Lying Politicians, and North Korean Political Cartoons

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Spectator TV Australia, ADH TV, Season 2, Episode 12, 10 May 2024

You can watch the North Korean cartoon, Squirrel and Hedgehog below:

Cognitive warfare: How the West is losing its youth

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Cognitive Warfare: Beyond PSYOPS to misinformation and disinformation [CC0]

Pro-Palestinian student protests across the US have led to allegations of anti-Israel hate crimes and damage to property and occupations of university buildings that have created an environment in US academia which is – rightly – perceived as hostile to Jewish students and staff. Following the lead of elite campuses in the US, students at Australian universities began their own protest action, protest camps, and even occupation of university buildings.

The current situation indicates that the West is losing its youth to anti-Enlightenment ideas about liberty and security perpetuated through cognitive warfare.

Unfiltered had this to say about our article:

Is the West losing its mind? Allow me to rephrase that, are the university-educated class losing their collective sanity? Michael de Percy and Sacha Dov Bachmann are leaning toward the ‘yes’ category, although the more I read, see, and hear about the pro-Palestine protests on campus, the more convinced I am that the bulk of these kids simply don’t want to go to class. Learning is hard. Learning requires merit. Learning is a drag compared to camping on the lawn with your mates. Remember, this isn’t their only protest ideology, they’re quite happy to skip classes for feminism, Net Zero, Black Lives Matter, Sorry Day, and rainbow activism. Why doesn’t the university simply offer the ‘Useful Idiot’ qualification?

And Morning Double Shot had this to say:

The West is losing the battle for the hearts, and especially the minds, of its youth to the evil troglodyte likes of Hamas. But instead of redoubling resistance to this ideological cancer on our civilisation, defenders of pro-Western values are passively giving in. The directive of LaTrobe University yesterday, that pro-Palestinian agitators who want to address classes should be allowed to do so, is just the latest capitulation to hatred and bigotry. Michael de Percy and his collaborator Sascha Dov Bachmann address this problem and conclude thus: ‘Rather it is by protecting freedom of speech at any cost, unless of course it is antisemitic, we are losing our youth to cognitive warfare that is designed to use our way of life against us’. Patrick West has a related piece in World.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, with Professor Sascha Dov Bachmann, Cognitive warfare: how the West is losing its youth.

AUKUS is Much More Than Submarines

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AUKUS is much more than submarines.

06 MAY 2024

By Dr Michael de Percy and Professor Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann
This article originally appeared on Australian Outlook and is republished here using a CC BY-ND 4.0 licence. 

AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK, and the US, is a major security alliance that just happens to include the transfer of nuclear technology to Australia, which has otherwise been denied since 1946. Given that Japan is also expected to join the alliance, albeit without nuclear technology transfer, AUKUS represents an important platform for Australia in terms of future security alliances, particularly since ANZUS’ aim to protect the security of the Pacific lost its regional character after the security relationship between NZ and the US deteriorated in 1984. AUKUS will also strengthen Australia’s role as a NATO-enhanced opportunity partner (as is Japan) which aims at maintaining and intensifying security cooperation along shared security challenges. Perhaps too many commentators have over-emphasised the usefulness of nuclear-powered submarines and their capabilities versus the strategic importance of the technology and capability-sharing alliance.

Any argument about the efficacy of nuclear-powered submarines versus uncrewed subs has little to do with technology transfer or alliances. If Japan joins the AUKUS alliance and Australia doesn’t exploit the opportunities provided by nuclear submarines, then it will seem as if Australia is uncommitted to its regional security role in the Asia-Pacific and therefore no longer a serious middle power. Indeed, given Australia’s declining military capabilities, driven by inefficacious procurement practices, and amid poor recruitment prospects and unserviceable materiel, there are large social elements that define Australia’s lack of defence capability.

Australia’s nuclear history

Following the Second World War, the Chifley Labor government set about securing atomic weapons for Australia. As the United States went on to jealously guard its nuclear technology, along with its strategic and uranium-rich partner, Canada, the British turned to Australia as a potential source of skills, resources, and space to conduct their own nuclear testing.

Much of the blame for the human impacts of nuclear testing in Australia was placed on the Menzies Coalition government. Yet the desire to procure atomic weapons has emerged at times with the rise of various crises, including the Malayan Emergency, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. At this time, Australia was conscious that not only had Britain, post-WWII, become a potentially unreliable ally for regional security, but that the emergence of the Cold War and the Soviet Union’s development of atomic weapons in 1949 meant that the US was otherwise distracted from events further south.

Australia’s uneasy relationship with nuclear weapons is very much a product of revisionist history. The McClelland Royal Commission’s terms of reference for the impacts of nuclear testing in Australia were limited from 1952 onwards. This effectively cleansed the historical record of bipartisan support for Labor’s desire to obtain atomic weapons from Britain, and Chifley’s commitment to the Woomera Rocket Range, uranium exploration, and significant funding for the Australian National University to use the nearby Snowy River Scheme to conduct nuclear research.

Indeed, the Snowy River Scheme was established under the Commonwealth’s defence powers in a not-dissimilar fashion to former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s recent “multi-ministries” controversy. The McClelland Commission’s ambit ensured that Labor’s part in Australia’s nuclear ambitions was excised from living memory. Yet many parallels from that time can be observed in the present, particularly with the Albanese Labor government’s approach to Australia’s major liberal democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel.

During the early part of the Cold War, Australia’s recruitment prospects were so poor that various national service schemes were implemented from 1951 to 1972. National service was effectively a form of conscription that saw the military and the Citizen Military Forces swell to numbers that are unimaginable in our current recruitment drought, where things are so bad the Albanese government is recruiting non-citizens for Australian military service.

Similarly, the Australian Communist Party and its hold on some of the more militant trade unions was complicit in providing intelligence to the Soviet Union, which arguably facilitated the Soviet Union’s ability to develop the atomic bomb. The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), established by the Chifley Labor government, was born out of Australia’s leaking intelligence sieve. ASIO’s establishment went some way to developing a professional intelligence capability and restored Australia’s reputation as a reliable ally.

Sympathy for communism in the Labor Party’s hard left, however, created the great Labor split of 1955 where anti-communist Labor supporters, influenced by Bob Santamaria, left and created the socially conservative Democratic Labor Party. The split along ideological lines in 1955 was not dissimilar to circumstances that are arising again in the present concerning Israel’s war with the proscribed terrorist organisation, Hamas. Labor’s left is playing down Australia’s alliance with Israel in favour of domestic politics where critical Labor-held seats are at risk from pro-Palestinian supporters who are against support for Israel’s war and may use their influence at the ballot box.

Technology transference is key 

Much like Australia’s experience at the beginning of the Cold War, ideology is front and centre in the current geopolitical situation and again nuclear technology is a backdrop. At the same time, the key issue to emerge from this historical period was the ANZUS Treaty, and the fledgling nuclear capability centred around the HIFAR research reactor at Lucas Heights near Sydney was a consolation prize for years of helping Britain develop its own nuclear capability.

Australia now finds itself in a similar position in that recruitment is grossly inadequate, capabilities are hampered by materiel and procurement decisions, and any future capability is so far on the horizon that it provides no tangible assurances about Australia’s ability to defend itself, let alone contribute to essential coalition operations against Houthi rebels in the Red Sea or indeed freedom of navigation exercises closer to home.

But to talk of AUKUS as being about crewed nuclear-powered submarines that will be obsolete before we receive them is to deny the importance of the technology transfer and the resulting deepening of the alliances with our allies who have historically bled for Australia’s defence. AUKUS also represents the part acquisition of a technical capability that had bipartisan support from 1946 until the Whitlam Labor government ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1973.

The importance of Australia’s alliances in the absence of any credible defence capability cannot be overstated. Any spending that contributes to strengthening interoperability along a multitude of capabilities and technologies (under the second pillar of AUKUS) as well as in terms of the size and capability spectrum of the allied submarine fleet is a tangible outcome that contributes directly to Australia’s ability to deter a potential aggressor both physically (through nuclear-powered submarines and technologies) and numerically as part of a larger, coherent coalition of like-minded allies.

AUKUS is about much more than boats and it is one boat that Australia should not miss if it is to ensure its security into the uncertain global future.

Michael de Percy is a political scientist and political commentator at the University of Canberra. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is also a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. He was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022.

Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann is Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra), University of Canberra, and a Research Fellow with the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. He is also a Fellow with NATO SHAPE – ACO Office of Legal Affairs where he works on Hybrid Threats and Lawfare.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.

Eshays, imported riots – are water cannons next?

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WaWe 10 with the earlier WaWe 9000 in green. [Photo: Dirk Vorderstraße CC BY 2.0]

Queensland is suffering from a crime wave, and both of my grandmothers (in their nineties) have been victims of youth crime. Following the weekend's eshay-fest, is it time to bring in the big guns?

Whether it’s antisemitic pro-Palestinians or a gathering of ‘eshays’ in Logan in Queensland, our police forces have lost control of the streets. We’ve used up our smugness and we can no longer say, ‘We are so lucky that doesn’t happen here.’

Well, now it does.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Eshays, imported riots – are water cannons next?

Discussing the death of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny

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Discussing the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

My political commentary on The Week in 60 Minutes, Spectator TV, Episode 4, 2024 with Alexandra Marshall. This week we discussed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the state of US southern border security, the French ban on dissenting voices on vaccines, and Australia's archaic industrial relations laws.

Below is a snippet from our discussion of the death of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny:

My comments on US southern border security

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Discussing the US souther border security problem with Alexandra Marshall

My political commentary on The Week in 60 Minutes, Spectator TV, Episode 4, 2024 with Alexandra Marshall. This week we discussed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the state of US southern border security, the French ban on dissenting voices on vaccines, and Australia's archaic industrial relations laws.

Below is a snippet from our discussion of US southern border security:

My comments on the French National Assembly criminilising vaccine debate

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The Week in 60 Minutes, Spectator TV, 21 February 2024

My political commentary on The Week in 60 Minutes, Spectator TV, Episode 4, 2024 with Alexandra Marshall. This week we discussed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the state of US southern border security, the French ban on dissenting voices on vaccines, and Australia's archaic industrial relations laws.

Below is a snippet from our discussion of France's vaccine debate gag order:

The Institutional Origins of Canada’s Telecommunications Mosaic

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Bell payphones at the Montreal Bus Station, 6th July 2007

Context: This is a work in progress article that stems from my PhD research over a decade ago. The paper suffers from numerous conceptual issues that remain unresolved and I am keen for feedback from the PPN group to progress my ideas. Alyssa Attioli, current graduand of the University of Canberra, has been working as a co-author on the paper.

With Alyssa Attioli at PPN2024
Abstract: The paper argues that the political circumstances leading up to Canadian Confederation resulted in a significant and lasting impact upon the institutional origins of Canada’s telecommunications market that persisted into the 21st century. It does so by first outlining the ideas and institutional dynamism that flowed from political rivalries in the lead-up to Confederation and coincided with the deployment of the telegraph. Second, the article discusses how commercial disputes created separate telegraph and telephone industries that embedded Canada’s unique telecommunications mosaic. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of considering the local and regional imperative, and the legacies created by the original rationale, in developing national telecommunications policy. Canada’s approach sits somewhere between the private ownership model adopted by the United States and the public ownership model adopted in Australia. The major lesson from Canada is that, where diverse circumstances exist, addressing local and regional political imperatives can provide opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked by attempts to provide a standardised national solution in the delivery of telecommunications services to citizens.

The slides from our presentation are available below:
 

Conservatives have no solutions, or so the story goes

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Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism and a key proponent of classical liberalism (1723-1790) [CC0]

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Conservatives have no solutions, or so the story goes.

Alexandra Marshall in Unfiltered:

Leading Flat White, Michael de Percy addresses the criticism that ‘conservatives only have complaints, not solutions’ where he rightly points out that socialists keep inventing ‘solutions’ to problems that don’t exist which triggers some of these complaints. In this case, the best solution is to simply stop doing stupid things. If only the left would listen.

Terry Barnes in Morning Double-Shot:

But in the very next piece, Michael de Percy castigates conservatives and classical liberals for not having any solutions at all, and hence always playing catch-up to the Left. De Percy insists he’s a classical liberal and not a conservative, but we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: until the Centre-Right agrees on what unites us and defines who we are and what we stand for, the ideological wilderness is ours for years to come. Labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘classical liberal’ simply are barriers to ever finding that unity.

My Comments on Spectator TV: The Week in 60 Minutes

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My latest commentary on Spectator TV with Alexandra Marshall.

New Zealand’s dance with division is not over yet

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New Zealanders aren't mugs, but they are not in the clear yet.

New Zealand’s October 14 election coincided with the Voice referendum where Australians decisively said ‘No’ to enshrining divisive race-based politics in the Constitution. Watching from across the pond, New Zealanders might reflect on the Australian experience that divided and continues to divide the nation as elite activists double down on their pre-referendum positions. However, New Zealanders may have little influence on the outcome as their Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system forces coalition governments. This may mean the Act Party, the National Party’s junior coalition partner, will expect the government to test the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by referendum. The decolonising trend that is currently shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracies is still evident in New Zealand politics. Indeed, it may well be a long, slow accident in the making if things don’t go in Chris Luxon’s favour.

The Korean War: The Long March to Liberty

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Nuclear Missile Deterrents, Korean War Museum [Michael de Percy CC BY-ND 4.0]

I visited the Korean War Memorial on 22 September 2022. I have never seen a B-52 in the flesh. I will let these photos speak for themselves for now.















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