It may be that we have inched back from the precipice of war in Syria, if for no other reason than a hefty gust of sheer luck. Russia’s intervention and neutralisation of the escalating tension…
Tag: Australia
The Malaysian political activist and lawyer Haris Ibrahim was refused a Visa to Enter Australia by the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur indicates a new attitude on the part of the Abbott Government towards…
After only being prime minister for around six weeks, Kevin Rudd called on the Governor General to dissolve the Parliament for an election on September 7th. There is some great irony in this date as…
The “military machine” of the United States is “out of control” as it is spreading its military tentacles throughout the Asia-Pacific region amid a massive and unprecedented series of war games in Australia, an antiwar activist says. Approximately 20,000 US troops descended on Australia’s east coast for a joint military exercise this week in the biggest such exercise to date.
“This is part of the Obama administration’s signaled so-called Asia-Pacific shift or Pivot,” Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO organization said in a phone interview with Press TV’s US Desk on Thursday.
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history….
If you go and ask the “average” Australian on a Melbourne or Sydney street who owns the banks and large public companies in Australia, most will answer “Australians through superannuation and mutual funds”. This belief gives Australians a sense of pride in “Australian private enterprise”, and may even assist Australians grudgingly accept high bank charges and interest rates; “after all we own the banks”. However if one examines the annual reports of most of the large Australian public companies, names like HSBC, JP Morgan, Citibank, and BNP are very prominent in the tops 20 shareholders lists. There has been a major shift in the Australian corporate ownership-scape over the last decade. And a silent one at that.
The policy you have when you don’t have a policy Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a statement about the country’s national security policy to a carefully selected crowd of defense, public service, and academic personnel at the Australian National University late last month. The 58 page paper titled Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia’s National Security supersedes the last one given by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd back in 2008 and is considered a supplement to the White Paper, Australia in the Asian Century presented by Premier Gillard last October. The paper outlines the country’s assessment of priorities, risks, and capabilities.
The national narrative is the source of power What society discusses and the way society speaks about these issues constitutes what could be called the national narrative. The national narrative encapsulates societies shared assumptions, beliefs, and values about people, issues, events, and situations. Consequently there are a number of national narratives that continually run; such as ideas and realities about the society we live in. The national narrative creates a mental map of our reality. It tells us what is, what should be, what things are like, and what we should value and talk about. The national narrative encapsulates our existence, what is possible and not possible. Narrative tells us how to interpret things and bonds people together in society. Narrative sets our beliefs and values and is a powerful influence upon our actions.
Overbalancing: The Folly of Trying to Contain China Former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser As the US reorients its foreign policy toward Asia, with the attendant redeployment of military assets to the region, fears…
Power and Australian Politics – Living in a temporary world Australia appears to have a vibrant representative democracy. The Australian political system is centered upon parliaments around the country and which party commands the majority of seats in each legislature and forms a government. If the government doesn’t perform to the satisfaction of the public, electors in the next election have the opportunity to vote out the government and install another one in its place. Over the last few decades this has been the pattern where both major parties have each spent time in government and opposition. Democracy seems to be well in Australia.