Here’s a rough guide to Westerners visiting Indonesia. Bali gets chosen for its cheap packaged holidays, knock-out rural landscapes and friendly folk; relax for a fortnight, eat lots, drink more and head home. This year the island expects to welcome almost double last year’s 2.3 million. Some get disturbed by cruelty to animals, trashing of beaches, the Continue reading »
politics
The lethargy in lifting the age of criminal responsibility in Australia from 10 to 14 is scandalous given the numbers of vulnerable children caught up in the brutality of the criminal justice system daily. It’s called SCAGS, the Standing Committee of Attorney-Generals. For many years now the Commonwealth, state and territory first law officers and Continue reading »
Do some states have ‘special responsibilities’ or obligations to help solve collective action problems as a consequence of their position in the international system? Australia should. Policymakers and the general public may find it hard to believe, but academics who study international relations for a living occasionally come up with good ideas. They certainly come Continue reading »
We often look to history or contemporary events to help explain issues and to seek guidance. Thus Graham Allison went back millennia to explain America’s current drive to war with China in his Thucydides Trap. Recently Gregory Clark joined others in making the natural comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan. Analogies are admittedly fraught with danger Continue reading »
Whether the bill, which Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to sign, ends up as law or not, the discrimination is already stinging marginalized communities.
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Carlin gives his impressions of the war in Ukraine during a visit to the country. There may be peace one day, but there will never be love from the Ukrainian side. After a week walking the streets of Kyiv in which, to my enormous surprise, I had not seen any sign of war, the Russians Continue reading »
The reality is emerging that India’s democracy is not only deeply flawed, it has regressed into what the V-Dem Institute calls “one of the worst autocratisers in the last 10 years”. Now that India’s honeymoon with the West seems to be over, perhaps this is the time for the two nations of China and India Continue reading »
It is difficult to imagine a scenario for next year’s Presidential elections which does not increase the already bitter polarisation of American society. The level of irrationality and violence in the United States means that in the coming decades it may well veer between bellicosity and isolationism. In the face of an uncertain American polity, Continue reading »
Reports that Australia pays retired senior US military officials up to $7,500 a day for advice on AUKUS related defence projects, reveals a cultural cringe and taste for secrecy. Such practice is coupled to a common policy technique, of avoiding criticism by maintaining public ignorance. On controversial issues, such as the development of US military Continue reading »