I have a friend Julian King, who Duncan Graham reports has been subjected to a stun grenade as our Australian Federal Police burst through his door to seize his PhD research, phone and computers. Reportedly, the AFP are concerned about OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka _Free Papua Organisation), the indigenous independence movement in West Papua.

‘We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster’, scientists conclude. Donkeys: feral pests or nature’s saviours? Climate change threatens global food security and farmers’ incomes.

Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand. The two projects–Israel and New Zealand’s–are linked more than many would like to think. Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at this critical moment.

The U.S. empire is addicted to a belief in its exceptionalism, grounded in aggression both at home and abroad, and finding it hard to admit mistakes.

Last month in New York at separate forums, two senior Democrat figures–John Kerry and Hillary Clinton–pointed to what they saw as major problems: the First Amendment was ‘an obstacle to building consensus’, and the ‘narrative’ in the press needs to be (even more) ‘consistent’.

Whoever owns the narrative owns the world–and things just got a lot tougher for those of us opposed to the metastasising brain cancer known as U.S. influence campaigns–or “perception management”.

The U.S. decision to send troops to Israel has upended the focus of attention for all those, globally, who have attempted to stop both the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the determination of the current Israeli government to create Eretz Israel: a territory incorporating–at minimum–all Palestinian land now occupied by Israel, but also likely southern Lebanon and parts of Jordan and Syria as well.

The Australian Labor-Coalition political class has ignored, and by its actions rejected, UN decisions that Australia is legally obliged to stop its support for the Israeli settler-colonial project, to actively seek to stop Israel’s racial segregation and apartheid, and to cease military, diplomatic, economic, commercial, financial, investment, trade, political, and legal relations with the Israeli occupation.

That warning was 20 years ago, but in the years since, the U.S. has continued in its violent and aggressive ways, cloaking its violence and aggression with bromides about a rules-based international order and defence of democratic values. If only that was true.

What democracy would accept a member of parliament agreeing that it was permissible and acceptable for its soldiers to sexually abuse political prisoners?

An interesting new article in the prominent American journal, “Foreign Affairs”, by three academics from Georgetown University, argues that “Washington should place less emphasis on slowing down China and more on improving its own innovative prowess.”

An extraordinary chart from ‘The Pioneer’ below compares nations whose largest trading partner was either the USA or China in the year 2000 and the year 2020. Over one short decade, it is a powerful visualization of how the world’s economic centre shifted.

As the United States’ imperial system and Western hegemony circles the drain, lucid thought is becoming a rare commodity. But there is hope.

The core idea of the Summit of the Future is that humanity is facing a set of unprecedented challenges that can only be solved through global cooperation.

In Asian media this week: Dangerous turn adds new anti-Beijing flashpoint. Plus: Bangkok banks used to supply Myanmar military; Why Hindu nationalists back Israel; Thais opt for neutrality in great-power war; How to stop China slipping into Japan trap; Online gambling an Indonesian epidemic.

It may be time to think the unthinkable: all the signs are pointing to the West preparing to launch a proper war in Europe. Once started it could bring, for the first time in living memory, millions of Western civilians into uniform and see the cities of the West attacked. Preposterous? Jumping the Shark? Listen to what the leaders in the West are saying. The time to stop the madness is now, not once the elites drive us into the abyss and civilians are stripped of all rights to oppose.

After meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last April, New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, sa­id that the two countries had pledged “to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests.” In recent moves exemplifying this support, New Zealand has deployed a targeting team to a United States-led coalition conducting strikes against Yemen, extended its military participation in the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, and is considering membership of AUKUS, the anti-China military agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In World War III the enemy is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge industries, the enemy within.

We might not like to read this, but here are a few things Western media completely forgot to tell you about Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang…

The Armavir Incident–the destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence–means the Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight.