Helen Hill reports on the current debate in the UN Security Council on Kofi Annan's recommendation to establish a new UN mission in East Timor. Why is Australia trying to sabotage the Secretary General's proposal for a UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), a proposal which has the full support of the East Timorese Government...

The Australian SLR remains the experienced criminal's assault weapon of choice writes Philip Alpers. Of the 7,664 M-16 and SLR assault rifles delivered to the PNG Defence Force since 1971, only 2,013 (26 per cent) remain in stock. Now, Australia faces the near-inevitability of its own peacemakers facing its own guns.

Richard Broinowski, former diplomat and author of the 2003 study 'Fact or Fission - the Truth about Australia's Nuclear Ambitions', writes that in his call for a 'full-blooded' nuclear debate, Prime Minister Howard probably doesn't wish to see such a taboo subject raised. But for more than three decades Australian politicians and military, scientific and...

Yeo Lay Hwee and Cynthia Chang of Southeast Asia Peace and Security Net write that amidst internal problems of battling bird flu, dealing with the after effects of the earthquake in Central Java, and now flash floods and landslide, Indonesia played host to the second International Conference of Islamic Scholars, topping off with SBY's budding...

Nick Bisley of Monash University writes that recent security crises in the Asia-Pacific region illustrate the institutional limits of security in the region and the pressing need to rethink the broader basis of regional security and more specifically, the nature of the American alliance system. Bisley argues that security in the region requires a multidimensional...