World Affairs
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JOHN TULLOH: Be careful what you say about Malaysia.
Perhaps it is time for DFAT to issue a travel advisory about Malaysia, namely be very careful what you say about the country. Uttering anything amounting to ‘fake news’ is now a criminal offence. Offenders can be fined up to $166,000 or be jailed for as long as six years – even if you’ve never Continue reading »
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MAX HAYTON. Inexperience in government brings problems for smiling Prime Minister.
Inexperience, arrogance or ignorance among members of the administration are causing problems for the New Zealand government of Jacinda Ardern. After nine years in opposition, too few members of Ardern’s cabinet have previous experience as ministers and some prefer to follow their own path, leaving the Prime Minister sometimes exposed un-briefed and even misled. Continue reading »
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FRANK JOTZO. China’s emissions trading takes steps towards big ambitions.
China’s new emissions trading scheme will start small, but comes with big potential, Frank Jotzo writes. China recently announced that it will begin to introduce a national emissions trading scheme for carbon dioxide this year. The promise for more market-oriented climate policy in the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitting country is enormous. But it will Continue reading »
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GEOFF MILLER. Korea: a comprehensive and step-by-step solution?
That is the phrase that senior South Korean officials are using for what they hope to see resulting from coming summits, which they now envisage as involving, after the North Korea-US meeting, a tri-partite summit between the two Koreas and the US, in turn to be followed by a four-party summit of those three plus Continue reading »
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JIM COOMBS: The “moral crisis” in Cricket is a “beat up” with media frenzy making a mountain out of a molehill.
One would have to assume that all these outraged commentators have never played cricket with anything more substantial than a used tennis ball. For those of us who have played the game with any interest in the techniques and science of the game (alas, I am one such eccentric) know the true facts. The ball Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. The Dalai Lama, Falun Gong and Australian Democracy.
In his 2010 book, “The Party,” Richard McGregor described the iron grip exercised by the Chinese Communist Party on its homeland. Now Clive Hamilton in “Silent Invasion” traces the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party as it squeezes Australia’s political, corporate and academic bodies. We should all read both books. Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. Russia and Australia: The Empire strikes back?
Russia is the prime suspect in the poisoning but cannot be convicted on the basis of the circumstantial evidence before we get the report of the independent commission. But this article is concerned about what this exercise tells us about Australian priorities. We have joined 28 NATO countries to put sanctions on Russia and ignored Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM. Australia Plus – unfit for export.
Though this starts like a fairy story it’s really a frightener: Once upon a time, Australian governments believed that broadcasting beyond our shores – and particularly into Southeast Asia – was an important responsibility, sowing ideas, informing and influencing. Radio Australia shortwave started in 1939 to counter Japanese propaganda. After the war, it became a Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The Quad and the Japanese Prime Minister
To contain China, Japan has been keen, along with Australia and the US, to develop the Quad, a defence relationship or alliance with India. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has a particular reason to include India. It would burnish his ultra-nationalist credentials and win support for his anti-Chinese posturing. Continue reading »
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PURNENDRA JAIN AND TAKESHI KOBAYASHI, LDP MEMBER. Political dynasties dominate Japan’s democracy
Hereditary political succession is not limited to monarchical and autocratic systems of government. Politicians from families that have previously occupied high office take top positions in many democratic countries. In Japan, hereditary politics show little sign of abating. Continue reading »
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Mapping the division of Malaysia.
Nation’s parliament set to ratify new boundaries to boost the government’s electoral prospects. Continue reading »
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EAST ASIA FORUM. Moritomo scandal miseries
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led a rollercoaster, but often charmed, political life. After being forced to resign prematurely during his first stint as prime minister in September 2007 due to a stinging July 2007 upper house election defeat and a bowel illness, Abe managed a rare political comeback. In December 2012 he led Continue reading »
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MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Tribalism, anti-racism, and over-reach
Living, as the world does, with slavery, colonialism, brutal civil conflicts, and the Holocaust still casting the blackest of clouds over us, the principle of ‘anti-racism’ has – rightly – been developed to become an incontestable foundation of our ethics and morality. This is as it should be, and arguably can be seen as one Continue reading »
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SCOTT BURCHILL. On the Russian gas attack
Given the “sexing up” and outright distortions of dodgy intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s “WMD” in 2002-3 by both the UK government of Tony Blair and US administration of George W. Bush, one can only be astonished at the credulity of those in the Fourth Estate who don’t even feel the need to ask for evidence Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. What Australian interests are involved in the Skripal poisoning?
By signing up to sanctions against Russia along with 22 European and North American countries Australia has made it very clear to the 100 countries that did not sign up where we think we belong. We seem to be telling our Asian neighbours that Dr Mahathir was right to say that Australia is a European Continue reading »
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The Skripal affair: ‘curiouser and curiouser’
On 4 March a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who came from Moscow on 3 March to visit her father, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury. Both remain in critical condition in hospital. Prime Minister Theresa May said the two had been poisoned with Continue reading »
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Dutton ventures where fools fear to tread
The Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, has gratuitously interfered in the internal affairs of South Africa. His comments on what he termed ‘the horrific circumstances’ relating to white South African farmers, at the urging of white right-wing extremists, has done harm to finely balanced race relations in South Africa and to the relationship between Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. The Brexit withdrawal agreement for the transition tabled
The Brexit negotiators have produced a lengthy and complex draft agreement to provide for all procedural aspects of Britain’s withdrawal over the transitional period. It is concerned to preserve acquired individual rights and to enable the institutions (including judicial and law enforcement institutions) to operate effectively meanwhile. The substantive issue of Britain’s trade and ‘community’ Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. The ASEAN Summit – lots of hyperbole and some successes
While the ASEAN summit was a public relations success it demonstrated to all that the only common factor in the group is that they belong to the one region. If tensions with China were to increase it might not last long as a group. With unresolved ethno-nationalist issues at play we cannot expect much change Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. Reflections on the ASEAN-Australian Summit.
The ASEAN-Australian summit provided an opportunity for Australia to get close to countries and leaders important to us and to make a public statement to that effect. The media coverage in Australia tended to focus on human rights in Cambodia and Myanmar which was not what ASEAN was here to discuss. However, Prime Minister Najib Continue reading »
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SUSAN RYAN. Homelessness, Australia’s disgrace ignored.
The last few days have seen a media preoccupation with relentless attacks on a new federal Labor proposal to eliminate the payment of cash cheques to those who don’t need their dividend imputation credits because they pay no tax. The media has channelled expressions of shock and rage, and accusations of robbery, from Coalition politicians Continue reading »
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SUE WAREHAM. Parliamentary debate on going to war is long overdue.
This week marks the 15th anniversary, on March 20, of one of Australia’s most disastrous foreign policy decisions – our involvement in the invasion of Iraq. To characterise this as “our” involvement, however, does a great disservice to the millions of Australians who were vehemently opposed to the decision that was made by just one Continue reading »
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The Nuclear Ban Treaty Embeds the Nuclear Taboo
The non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945 is largely explained by the strong moral taboo. There have been many occasions when they could have been used without fear of retaliation but were not, even at the price of defeat on the battlefield, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Norms, not deterrence, have anathematised the use of Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Teresa May’s rush to judgment on nerve agents
The British Prime Minister Teresa May failed to produce any evidence that the Russian state used a nerve agent called Novichok before she announced measures to punish the Kremlin. At least Tony Blair famously produced a “dodgy dossier” claiming Saddam Hussein possessed a deadly arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. The Bush White House peddled Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Egypt – The rise of an Erdoğan on the Nile.
These are sensitive times in Egypt. A leading singer was sentenced to six months in prison for joking about a song she was asked to sing ‘Have you drunk from the Nile’. Drinking from the Nile, she said, ‘will get me schistosomiasis’ (aka bilharzia, a most unpleasant illness caused by parasites from contaminated fresh water). Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Happy Anniversary Iraq
If there are any Australians who think we have anything to celebrate on the 15th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq and the start of our longest war, they must know something the rest of us don’t. In fact, there’s a lot nobody knows. Continue reading »
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ERIC SIDOTI. What if anything Corbyn can teach the ALP?
Populism is rapidly evolving as the catch-all explanation for the maelstrom engulfing national and international politics. It is said to be driving the rise of the authoritarian right in Europe and to be evident in the re-emergence of ‘strong man’ politics associated with Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China and Duterte’s Philippines. While Trump appears to Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The ASEAN Summit in Sydney this weekend.
The meeting this weekend will highlight for Australia the importance of our relations with regional countries. It will also highlight the importance of our relationship with the US and China, and how that rivalry can best be managed in association with regional countries. As background to this weekend’s Summit meeting, I provide links to five Continue reading »
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TIM LINDSEY and DAVE MCCRAE. Australian-Indonesia: strangers next door
At the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with President of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi) on the margins of the Australia-ASEAN Special Summit. Although Turnbull seems to have built the positive personal relationship with Jokowi that eluded Tony Abbott, managing the bilateral relationship won’t be any easier for Turnbull than his predecessor. Continue reading »
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NANDINI PANDEY. Rome’s “Empire Without End” and the “Endless” U.S. War on Terror (Replaying the Roman Civil Wars in Reverse Since 9/11)
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by Continue reading »