I used to think of the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars as somewhat Orwellian: the braying voices of politicians committing us to endless war against unseen enemies, the constant lies and the clumsy but barefaced covering up of those lies, the imprisonment of mildly dissenting citizens for crimes the state decides the nature of in secret and at […]

The Australian newspaper continues to speak breathlessly of a Chinese Griff nach der Weltmacht. In the latest instalment, ‘China’s irresistible power surge’, Rowan Callick writes: China has broken out. After countless “dragon rising” conferences and speeches … the past few weeks have seen something new: the most important shift so far in the 21st century. […]

On Radji Beach Ian W Shaw Macmillan The plight of the Second World War nurses who fled Singapore and wound up in Japanese prison camps is not unknown. A number of nurses have written accounts of their horrendous experiences in the camps, the most well known being White Coolie by Betty Jeffrey. The film Paradise […]