section: International
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Mark Green
- 30 September 2013
2 Comments
The conflict in Syria has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. And the need for a peaceful solution is great. I hope that Australia's successful aid program remains a priority for our Government. We must not ignore the needs of those lying at our gates simply because their communities do not hold trade or economic interests for us.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Evan Ellis
- 27 September 2013
3 Comments
Last week most Australians had not heard of al Shabaab. But after a grisly four-day 'performance', complete with social media strategy, this has changed. The Nairobi shopping mall massacre was made for media consumption. Kenya might be tempted to simply seek revenge, but a measured, discriminate response that prioritised the safety of all Kenyans would allow the government to draw a line between the 'bad men' and themselves.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 26 September 2013
1 Comment
Jihadi tourism is big business, oiled by a global recruit base from which various diasporas can be tapped. The attackers on the shopping mall in Nairobi were linked to a Somali based outfit calling itself al-Shabaab, a standing affiliate of al-Qaeda operating in the Horn of Africa. But the Somali case is far from unique. The Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts netted their fair share of foreign recruits in the fight against US-led forces.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- John Langmore
- 19 September 2013
8 Comments
This has been a turbulent two weeks. One's attitudes have oscillated through anger and despair to a glimpse of hope and ended with renewed confidence in Obama's values and intentions. What a time for Australia to be chairing the Security Council! My impression is that our diplomats are working with professional skill, commitment to the rule of law and to peaceful conflict resolution.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 September 2013
6 Comments
The proposed military action against Syria lacks justification. Even if the cause for it were just, it would be vitiated by the lack of proportion between the limited good secured by it and the increased violence and sectarian division that will surely follow. That the strong should do what they can and the weak suffer what they must is real politik. But it should not be dignified with the name of justice.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Cecily McNeill
- 18 September 2013
2 Comments
As the Australian Labor Party embarked on its month-long process towards a grassroots election of a leader to replace Kevin Rudd, the New Zealand Labour Party was ending its long and sometimes brutal election of a new leader. The lesson from across the Tasman is that a grassroots election of a leader can broaden the base of those with a say in the party's destiny, and steer it back towards a more traditional social democratic stance.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Anthony
- 10 September 2013
17 Comments
The United States, a country of cricket illiteracy, spent more than $1 million constructing the Kabul Cricket Stadium, recognising the major impact cricket is having in the country. Australia, one of cricket's 'first nations', has done nothing. It is tragic that, for ordinary Afghans, the vast majority of whom have never considered seeking asylum, Australia's most visible contribution to their country is the message to 'keep away'.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Evan Ellis
- 27 August 2013
5 Comments
In some ways the intense focus on chemical weapons and red lines is diversionary. Enough blood has been spilt to paint a thousand red lines. 100,000+ people have been killed already. Is it somehow easier on the International Community’s conscience to think of families being ripped apart by artillery shells than dying from chemical warfare?
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 August 2013
11 Comments
Disrepute and disaster are twins. If suspicion persists that football players were encouraged to take drugs whose long term effects are unknown, it would lead parents to discourage their children from playing the game at senior level, with incalculable commercial consequences. It is a much more serious thing to bring a nation's polity into disrepute. And that sadly is what the military rulers of Egypt have done.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Jemma Williams
- 16 August 2013
2 Comments
Many Pacific Island nations question what they will gain from PACER-Plus, the free trade agreement that is being negotiated this week between these nations, Australia and New Zealand. If Australian and New Zealand really want to achieve development in the Pacific, why are they pushing these islands to reduce their barriers to trade in a manner which could restrict their achievement of human development goals?
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Bill Calcutt
- 09 August 2013
1 Comment
Since the turn of the millennium several major technology-enabled developments have significantly altered the balance between national security and civil liberties. In Australia, the hyper-politicisation of national security finds voice in the discourse on the issue of border security, turning a complex humanitarian and policing challenge (asylum seekers arriving by sea) into an enormously controversial and expensive imbroglio.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Walter Hamilton
- 07 August 2013
13 Comments
Welcome to Nauru. Land area: 21 square kilometres. Permanent population: around 10,000. Chief economic activity: human dumping ground. Nauru has joined PNG in the Cohort of the Willing — willing, that is, to take dollops of Australian money to hide away an Australian problem. Substitute 'asylum seekers' for 'convicts' and it recalls the way Australia was used by Great Britain in the 18th century to dispose of a British problem.
READ MORE