World Affairs
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David Stephens. The children suffer.
Osbert Sitwell’s The Next War, published in 1918, depicts some plutocrats deciding what would be an appropriate war memorial. The senior plutocrat puts a suggestion which his colleagues eagerly take up. “What more fitting memorial for the fallen Than that their children Should fall for the same cause?” Rushing eagerly into the street, The kindly Continue reading »
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Michael Sainsbury. Will China’s crackdown save or sink the Communist Party?
In launching an investigation into former security chief Zhou Yongkang, Chinese President Xi Jinping has entered uncharted and possibly dangerous territory. It not only raises the stakes for Xi’s increasingly iron fisted rule, but also for the Communist Party itself. The case announced last week targets an official who until recently was ranked the third Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. The persecutions.
In March 2001, the Taliban dynamited the ancient Buddha statues of Bamian because the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, claimed they were ‘idolatrous’ and idolatry is banned in Islam. In July 2014, ISIL destroyed the ancient tomb of the prophet Jonah in Mosul for the same reason.[1] This site was considered a sacred site for Jews, Continue reading »
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Tessa Morris-Suzuki Rare Earth, politics and human rights.
On 5 July 2014, the ABC’s PM program ran a report which revealed that “a leading Asian human rights activist has urged the Federal Government to investigate a Queensland-based resources company and a prominent Australian geologist over mining deals with North Korea that he believes may breach United Nations sanctions”. (http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4061381.htm) The report looked at Continue reading »
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Mike Steketee. Mandatory detention punishes but it does not deter.
“It has not been easy for organised world opinion in the United Nations or elsewhere to act directly in respect of some of the dreadful events which have driven so many people from their own homes and their own fatherland but at least we can in the most practical fashion show our sympathy for those Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Suffer the little children to come unto me…
Well, not so if they are Palestinian children or asylum seeker children in our detention centres. At last counting there were 1,230 Palestinians killed in Gaza as a result of 3,000 or more air and artillery strikes. 56 Israelis have died. Close to 1,000 of those Palestinians killed were civilians, including children. Only three Israeli Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. US: What Leadership?
There is continuous debate, within the US, about President Obama’s handling of international affairs. To some, he has responded to their wish to see the US less entangled, everywhere; to others, he’s a feckless weakling and should be impeached. The only thing that seems clear about this debate is that it is agitated, apparently, interminable Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Overplaying one’s hand.
With the benefits that governments get with incumbency, presidents and prime ministers need to be careful not to overstate their case or overplay their hands. The temptation is great, particularly when there are national outpourings of grief and when a global stage awaits. Tony Abbott was certainly on the world stage over MH370. On 21 Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The Grief and Pain of Life in Gaza.
‘Gaza is a tragic place’, observed John Lyons, The Australian’s Middle East correspondent, the other day. It certainly is. Gaza must be one of the worst places in the world in which to live or at least try to survive. For starters, its population of more than 1.7 million long-suffering Palestinians has to live in Continue reading »
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Noura Erakat. Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza Debunked.
Five Israeli talking points on Gaza debunked. Why does the mainstream media keep repeating these false claims? Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in Continue reading »
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Wiryono Sastrohandoyo. The new Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Joko Widodo is an upright, decent and honourable person. It is the general feeling in Indonesia that his election is a victory for the Indonesian people and the generally peaceful election process. This is a sign of the growing maturity of Indonesia’s young democracy. Jokowi was great during his two terms as mayor of Solo, Continue reading »
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Ben Saul. The Occupation of Palestine.
There is very partisan criticism of Hamas for firing home-made rockets into Israel. But the core problem is not rockets. It is the occupation of Palestine by Israel and the imprisonment of two million Palestinians in a sliver of land called ‘Gaza’. I often think how we should or could respond if our country was Continue reading »
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Another Israeli massacre of Palestinians.
One thousand and thirty-five Palestinians in Gaza, mainly innocent civilians, women and children have been massacred and so far the world turns its head away. And the number is increasing by the hour. We don’t want to feel the suffering of the Palestinian people. Alongside this 1,035 dead Palestinians there are 42 Israeli’s who have Continue reading »
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John Menadue–President Jokowi and Australia
The election of Joko Widodo as Indonesia’s seventh president is a victory for burgeoning democracy in our neighbour with 240 million people. It was a victory for civil participation by ordinary people to defeat Prabowo Subianto by a margin of 53% to 47%, by 8 million votes and winning in two thirds of Indonesia’s provinces. Continue reading »
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Richard Rigby. Tiananmen 25 years on.
On the night of June 3-4, units of the Peoples Liberation Army entered Beijing, killing some hundreds of ordinary Beijing citizens as they made their way to their objective, Tiananmen Square, the focal point of massive protests that had begun in late April following the death of former Party Secretary Hu Yaobang. The square was Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. When Local Becomes Global
Why is Vladimir Putin calling down upon himself the ire of the world by failing to help secure the crash site of MH-17 for international investigators? The answer, I think, is pretty obvious. He does not want to demonstrate how much influence, if not control, Russia has over events in eastern Ukraine. Putin’s response has Continue reading »
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MH 17-Light a candle rather than curse the darkness
In the horror and sense of evil we all feel about the downing of MH17 how should we respond? Perhaps out best response is summed up in the above exhortation which is attributed to Peter Benenson the founder of Amnesty International. The candle cycled by barb wire has become the emblem of Amnesty. The quote Continue reading »
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Chris Mitchell, The Australian and Iraq
As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Australian, the editor, Chris Mitchell, revealed on Monday 14 July that he was a secret opponent of the invasion of Iraq. This will come as a surprise for many who followed The Australian’s wholehearted support of the Iraq invasion and hectored and criticised those Continue reading »
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Creating a Long-Term Framework for Asylum Seeker Policy
Last Friday 11 July 2014, I attended a roundtable at Parliament House, Canberra to discuss possible actions that could be taken to find a way out of the present divisive and harsh treatment of asylum seekers. The media release following that roundtable is reproduced below. The roundtable drew on discussion paper ‘Beyond Operation Sovereign Borders’, Continue reading »
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Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Another Australia-Japan Relationship is Possible.
Today, Australian Prime Minister Abbott and Japanese Prime Minister Abe meet in Canberra, and Prime Minister Abe presents an address to the Australian parliament. This is a historic occasion, and will be remembered as a pivotal point in Australia-Japan relations. In their discussions, the two leaders are highlighting the crucial economic and security ties that Continue reading »
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Joanne Yates. The G20 and the C20.
The G20 has become regarded as the premier forum for the promotion of economic cooperation. It is comprised of 19 nations and the EU and together account for 85% of global GDP, 75% of global trade and two thirds of the global population. As a consequence, its policy decisions have a significant impact on the Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. Abe Over Australia.
In the six years since Kevin Rudd’s speech, in Mandarin, to students at Beijing University appeared to signal a sudden shift in Australia’s foreign policy focus towards China, and away from Japan, much has happened. Some even believe that the replacement of Rudd by Julia Gillard (not linguistically so equipped and keen to distinguish her Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Free Trade Agreement with Japan – ‘turbo charging’ our trade or mainly hype?
Next Tuesday Prime Minister Abe will visit Australia. I expect the Free Trade Agreement with Japan or its new name the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan will feature prominently. I repost below what I said on March 29 about the limited value of these bilateral agreements. Only last week, the Productivity Commission expressed similar reservations. Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Iraq’s road to disintegration.
As far-fetched as this scenario was until recently, it is just possible that international governments may one day face an unprecedented dilemma: whether to recognise a caliphate as an independent country. The newly-declared Islamic State (IS) – formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – is indicating it is separate to Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. The four questions quiz for refugees.
When Malaysian Flight MH370 disappeared, the Australian Government made a major contribution towards the international search operation. Almost daily there were announcements by Prime Minister Abbott and other Ministers about new information they were checking and hopes of finding the plane. Media accompanied the air force on the search and the Australian contribution was a Continue reading »
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Japan and comfort women.
In 1993 the Japanese government issued an apology to comfort women who had suffered sexual abuse by the Japanese military during WWII. This apology was called the ‘Kono Declaration’. Kono was the chief cabinet secretary. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to undo the words of the Kono Declaration without officially withdrawing the Continue reading »
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Thailand – toppling a democratically elected government.
The best article I have seen recently about the confused state of politics in Thailand was in the London Review of Books. It was written Richard Lloyd Parry. See link below. John Menadue http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n12/richard-lloydparry/the-story-of-thaksin-shinawatra Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. How the Bishop was forced to resign because he played too much for the local team
I have followed the Bishop Bill Morris saga closely. My one new insight from reading Bill’s book – “Benedict, Me and the Cardinals Three” – is that he was sacked because he was too much a team player with his local church. By sacking their local leader, the Romans hoped to shatter the morale and Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. A Death in Tokyo
A bespectacled, middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie climbed onto the steel rafters above a footbridge in Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku district and, using a megaphone, began to address passers-by below. According to witnesses, he spoke out against the Japanese Government’s impending decision to embrace the right of ‘collective defense’, which until now has been Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. The banality of evil
Denial has many faces. Some of them are necessary. If any of us entertained what might befall us each day and the harm we could come to, we would never get out of bed. But denial also has corrosive and destructive effect if we deny the facts of our experience or refuse to be honest Continue reading »
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