Stuart Rees

Jan 9, 2025 | johnmenadue.com | Stuart Rees

In numerous journals and newspapers, death and destruction in Sudan is described as probably the greatest, certainly the most neglected, humanitarian catastrophe in existence. Save the Children identifies 15 million people, more than one third of a population displaced, of whom 5.8 million are children under 18, one quarter of whom are under five.

Jan 4, 2025 | johnmenadue.com | Stuart Rees

Voted many times by UK and US magazines as the most important public intellectual in the world, Noam Chomsky, scientist, linguist, human rights activist, suffered a stroke at age 95 and can no longer speak. Yet as 2025 begins, Chomsky at 96 gifts the world his examples of inquiry and dissent. These qualities he might say, remain the much needed means to strive for freedom, justice and peace. His early life tells us something of the promise to follow.

Dec 29, 2024 | johnmenadue.com | Stuart Rees

In the 2022 federal election, Labor members in the supposedly safe seat of Fowler were not allowed to choose their candidate. Instead, head office parachuted star performer Kristina Keneally into the seat and were rewarded with a huge “up yours” by voters. The seat was lost with an 18% swing against Keneally, a punishment which prompted a senior Labor member’s comment, “I bloody hope we’ve learned that imposition from on high is deeply resented”. That lesson has not been learned.

Dec 17, 2024 | johnmenadue.com | Stuart Rees

US diplomat Peter Galbraith insists the Australian Government and Opposition are exaggerating the dangers of even trying to bring 10 Australian women and 30 children home from Syrian camps. In an affidavit to the Australian High Court, Galbraith explained he had made 20 visits to camps in north-east Syria and had helped to extract several women and 29 children. In May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on all countries who still have citizens in the camps to bring them home.

Dec 4, 2024 | johnmenadue.com | Stuart Rees

Israeli leaders insist that all the people of Gaza are Hamas. In the same breath, Prime Minister Netanyahu boasts that victory in his war depends on the complete annihilation of Hamas, by which he presumably means a whole people? Finance Minister Smotrich claims to halve Gaza’s population within two years, calls for permanent military occupation of the Strip and says the same should happen on the West Bank and in Lebanon.