World Affairs
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The Chinese are coming.
After WWII the financial hegemony of the US and Europe in the IMF and International Bank was established. Later, the Japanese came to dominate the Asian Development Bank. That is now being challenged by China. See article below by William Pesek in ‘Bloomberg View’, subject ‘China steps in as world’s new bank’. John Menadue. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-25/china-steps-in-as-worlds-new-bank Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. Russia.
Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have been playing loosely in our relations with Russia even thought those relations are quite modest, at least as far as the Russians are concerned. Threatening to ‘shirt-front’ President Putin is not a dignified way to behave with a major nuclear power. Our recent behaviour towards Russia underlines that prejudices Continue reading »
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Malcolm Fraser. Australia’s dangerous ally.
The National Interest, in its January/February 2015 edition has just published an article by Malcolm Fraser, ‘Australia’s dangerous ally’. The National Interest is not sold on news stands in Australia, but it is available online. Malcolm Fraser concludes his article by suggesting several steps that Australia should take to address problems in our relationship with Continue reading »
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What a disgrace! Australia at the UN on Palestine.
Concluding our two year term on the Security Council, Australia voted against the proposal in the Council demanding Israel and the occupation of Palestinian territories end within two years. For the resolution to pass, nine votes were needed. Eight countries voted in favour of the resolution, including China, Russia, Luxembourg, France and Jordan. Five countries Continue reading »
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Brian Johnstone. Terrorism and torture – the Catholic tradition.
In Australia today, we accept that a person who has expressed ideas that justify terrorism may be restrained from acting out those ideas. But we would not justify torturing a person suspected of harbouring such notions to force him to reveal them or to reject such ideas. However, surveys in the Western world find that Continue reading »
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What will Israel become?
In the International New York Times of December 20, Roger Cohen focuses on the future of Israel. He says ‘Every day … another European Government or parliament expresses support for recognition of a Palestinian state … In the space of a few weeks something has shifted. The Leader of the Labor Party, Isaac Herzog has Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The accident prone Julie Bishop.
I have written before about Julie Bishop’s mistakes as Foreign Minister despite the media spin that she has successfully generated. Those articles were: ‘Julie Bishop – Substance and Style’ on the 18th November; and ‘Julie Bishop -‘Undiplomatic, politically partisan and wrong’ on 22 November. Just recall her foolish attack on President Obama over the Great Continue reading »
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Brian Johnstone. How to Respond to Terrorism?
How can we make sense of the contemporary situation of increasing violence? Some groups engage in terrorism against other groups and these engage in torture as a means of defeating the terrorism of the others? In liberal states torture is condemned as immoral; some seek to prohibit it by law, others defend it as a Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. Intra-religious conflict.
Most violent deaths of Muslims in the world are due to others claiming to be Muslims. The conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are all predominantly conflicts within the Islamic community. This is strongly felt within the communities but not usually reported in the mainstream media. This week in Peshawar in north western Pakistan, Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Sydney seige and social misfits. Will we ever learn?
I posted the following blog ‘Will we ever learn?’ on 27 October this year. Amongst other things it highlighted the domestic risks that would result from the Abbott Government’s decision to join the war in Iraq and Syria. Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association has today described the hostage taker and killer as a Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Petroshenko visit.
President Petroshenko should be received courteously and his visit should be used to seek further trade with Ukraine. There is no reason to avoid cordial relations with Ukraine but our Government is going a lot further than that. Ukraine is a distant European country where we have limited interests. The Prime Minister appears to be Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Japanese election.
Four more years of… Oh, by the way, Japan is having a national election on Sunday. Has anyone told the Japanese? Some are calling it the “Seinfeld election”––the election about nothing. Which probably suits Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who called it two years early, with no apparent justification. Others have cynically observed that some in Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Temporary Protection Visas and the Senate cross-bench.
I wish that the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott Governments had done things very differently on refugee policies. But faced with the impasse at the present time, I welcome the compromise arrangement which the government has negotiated with the senate cross benches – two senators from the Palmer Group, Nick Xenophon, Ricky Muir, Bob Day and Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our Environment Minister is not going to Lima
Almost all countries will have their climate change or environment ministers at the UN Climate Change Conference which commences this week in Lima, Peru. This conference is in preparation for the crucial conference on climate change in Paris next year. But our Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, will not be there. Tony Abbott is sending his Continue reading »
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Refugees – some middle ground is opening up.
See below a speech made in the Senate on 4 December by Senator Xenophon. The Senator was one of six cross-bench senators who negotiated with the government for a compromise on the contentious Migration Bill. Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (12:17): Australia’s migration policies have always had a long and vexed history. They have been, and Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. Making the world safer for children.
The United Nations has developed an elaborate system of committees to oversee compliance by nation states with a broad range of international human rights instruments. These committee processes are sometimes used by nongovernmental organizations pushing their own particular causes. Of late, a group called SNAP — the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Why the ABC is unique and important.
The BBC is the most successful public broadcaster in the world. It is a good model, not to copy but to adapt to our own needs and circumstances. Lord Reith who was Director General of the BBC 1927-38 pithily described the BBC’s purpose in three words…educate, inform and entertain. He was famously determined that the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The smoko continues.
In April 2012 Greg Dodds and I posted an article on this blog ‘The Australian Century and the Australian smoko’. We argued that while we responded well to the opportunities in Asia for over a decade in the 1980s, we went on ‘smoko’ from the mid-1990s. There was widespread complacency and fear of Asia was Continue reading »
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Kerry Brown. Australia’s vanishing China policy.
One of the side effects of the visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping to Australia, New Zealand and the region in mid November was to raise questions about whether each of these countries has what might be called a strategic vision of their relationship with a country that has quickly become their largest trading ally. Continue reading »
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Rethinking the cost of Western intervention in Ukraine.
In the Washington Post on November 25, Katrina vanden Heuvel had a very interesting article on the mistakes that Europe, NATO, and the US have made in their approach to Russia over the Ukraine and Crimea. She quotes Henry Kissinger as saying ‘Nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The ABC on the slippery slope in Asia.
‘The overall objective for the International News initiative is to focus resources on original storytelling of the highest quality, ensure our international newsgathering operations are sustainable and ensure all audiences – digital, television and radio – are considered in our coverage’. ABC announcement, November 2014. This is a worthy aim for that fickle and Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. Reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas -Time to Negotiate
In the last few days of the 2014 Parliament, the controversial Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 remains to be considered. The Bill contains a wide range of proposed changes to the asylum system reflecting, amongst other things, concern by the government that the current system is too Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our ‘best friend’ in Asia is in trouble.
Japan now faces its fourth recession since 2008. The Japanese economy has contracted in 13 of the last 27 quarters. In effect, there has been no growth for six years. The Japanese economy has been moribund for two decade. So far Abenomics is not delivering as Prime Minister Abe had hoped. His attempt at money-creation Continue reading »
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Elaine Pearson. Australia should reconsider refugee transfers to Cambodia
The Australian government should press Cambodian authorities to implement key reforms to improve treatment of refugees in Cambodia before transferring any refugees from Nauru. In new Human Rights Watch interviews, asylum seekers and refugees living in Cambodia described hardships as a result of the Cambodian government’s failure to process regular nationality documents and due to Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Undiplomatic, politically partisan – and wrong!
Julie Bishop has decided to take on the President of the United States over his comments to an audience at the University of Queensland on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. It shows immaturity to jump in so quickly to defend what I think is the indefensible by attacking others without any real basis. Continue reading »
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Geoff Hiscock. Cleaning up the coal energy pillar a central task for Modi and Abbott
Narendra Modi and Tony Abbott explicitly defined energy as a “central pillar” of the India-Australia economic relationship in their joint statement this week. That’s a good sign, but if they want to make a truly significant contribution to the long-term economic and social benefit of India and Australia, then they need to deliver forcefully and Continue reading »
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Is capitalism redeemable? Part 9: Restoring a moral voice
It is easy to allocate blame for our apparent entrapment in bad public policy. Tony Abbott’s truculence, disregard for reason, inflexibility and broken promises all come to mind. As does the blatant partisan stance of the Murdoch media. Those who look for more general causes draw attention to dysfunctional party structures, an adversarial parliamentary system Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 7: Inequality – a shameful waste
“Australia’s program to increase world growth seems to be to cut social security benefits from the poor.” When Geraldine Doogue asked Malcolm Fraser to comment on Abbott’s G20 agenda, that was his summary of the present Government’s economic policy Unfortunately, ministers such as Hockey and Cormann may not understand the sarcasm in his comment, because Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Russia and the G20
Contrary to some media reports the G20 did not mention Russia in any of its documents and criticism came only from the West. Nothing happened which is likely to change Russian attitudes or actions. The Russia bashing by Australian politicians and media is not likely to worry Russia and the criticism by Western nations is Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Japan: when in doubt, call an election
Japan, Australia’s second biggest export market, has fallen back into recession. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reacted by calling a snap election for mid-December, a year ahead of schedule, claiming he needs a new mandate to tackle the nation’s economic problems. Trade deals or talk of trade deals between Australia and both China and India Continue reading »
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