The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is off to another Middle Eastern war, which is likely a surprise to many given how contentious the country’s involvement in the Iraq war was. The Albanese government has decided to send a RAAF E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), along with 85 personnel […]
War
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years, has been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on his country, according to US President Donald Trump. Iran did not immediately confirm his death. As one of Iran’s longest-serving leaders, Khamenei has been almost as ubiquitous in Iranian society as his predecessor, […]
US President Donald Trump has insisted the United States will now be “running” Venezuela after US forces bombed the capital on January 3 and whisked Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of the country to face federal charges in New York. Trump has promised that “large US oil companies” would be going […]
Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have filled the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in one of Australia’s largest coordinated demonstrations, held just days after the United Nations confirmed famine in Gaza. Organisers estimated crowds of about 100,000 in both Melbourne and Sydney, while in Brisbane they put the […]
Recent images of an emaciated Gazan child, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, provoked global outrage. Some sought to minimise this harm, attributing it instead to pre-existing conditions or disability. But framing starvation deaths in Gaza in terms of underlying disabilities or comorbidities is misleading. It is essential to recognise these conditions do not justify suffering […]
The bizarre summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska should sway all but the most credulous doubters that the White House is more interested in friendly relations with Russia’s dictator than achieving a lasting peace in Ukraine. An abridged program saw the two leaders swiftly conclude the meeting earlier than […]
A new vision for Middle East peace emerged this week which proposes the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and the West Bank, the disarming and disbanding of Hamas and the creation of a unified Palestinian state. The plan emerged from a “high-level conference” in New York on July 29, which assembled representatives of 17 […]
Australia has joined 28 international partners in calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and a lifting of all restrictions on food and medical supplies. Foreign Minister Penny Wong, along with counterparts from countries including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, has signed a joint statement demanding Israel complies […]
A damning report has declared that British colonists committed genocide against Aboriginal people in Victoria, marking the first time an official inquiry in Australia has applied the term to the colonisation of the state. The Yoorrook Justice Commission—Australia’s first formal truth-telling inquiry—released its interim findings after a four-year investigation into […]
From 2015 to 2018, I spent 15 months doing research work in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. As an anthropologist, I was interested in everyday life in Iran outside the capital Tehran. I was also interested in understanding whether the ambitions of the 1979 Revolution lived on among “ordinary” Iranians, not just political elites. I […]
