The Wargame Podcast Episode 2 Truth vs Lies This episode explores a battle between truth and lies that’s threatening democracies around the world. It looks at how information is used as a weapon, not just by hostile foreign states, seeking to divide and weaken rival nations, but also by domestic politicians and other actors. We can no longer agree even on facts, let alone what they mean. “Active measures” are planned to achieve a political goal in a covert way. The measures can cross international borders. For example, in the 1960s the KGB took footage of American racial attacks and used it in Africa to dissuade decolonizing nations from aligning themselves with the US and to turn to Russia instead. We think that misinformation is bad now, but the Golden Age of Disinformation was during the Cold war. Techniques in disinformation include 1. dismissing it as ‘fake news’ 2. Distorting 3. Distracting ‘Look over there!’ Whataboutism and 4. Dismay.
How Did We Get Here? Israel and the Palestinians Episode 7: From the Six Day War to the Lebanon War After the Six Day War Israel had tripled in size. Amidst the jubilation, the Labor government was happy to let the Gaza Strip and West Bank return to Arab hands in exchange for peace. However in 1977 Likud came to power and aligned itself with the conservatives. Arafat was increasingly identified with the Palestinian struggle. Many Arab leaders distanced themselves from the terrorist campaign which included the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalim and started the peace agreement that culminated in the Camp David Agreement. This took the largest Arab army (Egypt) out of the equation but did nothing for the Palestinians, Jordanians or Syrians. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon because it ‘needed to eliminate the head’ of Palestinian terrorism. Originally it was planned to create a 40 km border, but Israel kept going, aided by Lebanese Christian militias who committed massacres in refugee camps. Sharon was deemed responsible for this unauthorized action, which was seen as a war of choice. Features the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen, and Mark Tessler, Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA.
The Rest is History Ep. 648 The Fall of the Incas Episode 5: Battle for the Sacred City We’re now three years in. Manco, the puppet emperor, rules over Cusco, his authority bolstered by the concession by the Spaniards in allowing religious festivals to take place (they’d obviously learned something along the way). Mind you, the Spanish comprised only about 2000 maximum in a population of 12 million. There was an illusion of harmony and unity but the Spanish/Inca relationship was under strain because Pizzarro was giving away land and labourers to new arrivals. Now the Spaniards were seen as occupiers, especially when they took the women (ah…the old story). There was the feud between Pizzarro and Almagro, who was sent off to Chile to find his own fortune. Pizzarro was off establishing Lima, but his brothers acted in a particularly bullying way in his absence. Then there were the splits between the Inca themselves as Manco was captured (twice) for fomenting resistance. He gathered an army of 200,000 Inca warriors and laid siege to Cusco in early 1536, taking advantage of Diego de Almagro’s absence. The whole situation was a stalemate.
From our own Correspondent (BBC) May 16 Laura Bicker has been in Beijing where military parades, red carpets and singing choirs of children greeted Donald Trump as he arrived for talks with President Xi. Wyre Davies has been in Bethlehem watching on as runners from around the world took part in the 10th Palestine Marathon – a burst of positivity after the race was postponed amid the war between Hamas and Israel, following the October 2023 attacks. They had to squeeze between the wall and refugee tents, and couldn’t have a continuous marathon track- but they did it anyway. The Venice Biennale and the Eurovision song contest were both founded with the intention of bringing nations together through art – but Kirsty Lang finds, upon visiting Venice, an art festival swept up in a clash with global politics. The Ukrainian pavilion in particular sounds excellent. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, Tanya Datta travels with a young woman in search of her birth-mother after she was adopted by a French family and grew up in France. As she goes to the place of her birth, she finds an unexpected connection. And Megha Mohan recounts a hair-raising journey travelling in the motorcade of Sierra Leone’s first lady, Fatima Bio – en route to interview her in the Presidential Palace.
Real Survival Stories. When I can’t sleep, I listen to podcasts and they usually help me drop off within about five minutes. But I listened to Tasmania Emergency: Needle of Rocks in the Waves and THAT was a mistake because I wanted to know what happened. What a nightmare: two experienced rock climbers climb a slender spire of rock is just 13 feet in diameter and the male climber gets injured, leaving his partner to haul him up from the base of the rock to leave him on a ledge out of the reach of the rising tide, then go for help.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 