Carolin Liss of Murdoch University discusses “the possible benefits and disadvantages of Australian participation in an international, UN approved, anti-piracy task-force operating in the Gulf of Aden and off the Horn of Africa. In themselves, Liss notes, “the patrols of pirate-infested waters are of limited use because they will only foil individual attacks, and only...

Richard Tanter and Arabella Imhoff from Nautilus Institute at RMIT University write that the Indonesian government proposal to build a large nuclear power station on the north coast of Central Java on the Muria Peninsula gave rise to considerable local opposition on the basis of concerns about unacknowledged seismic and volcanic risk, a lack of...

Allan Behm of the Canberra group Knowledge Pond, writing after the Nautilus Institute workshop on Mapping Climate Change Complexity in Indonesia and Australia, notes that “for Australia's populous neighbour, Indonesia, the problems of climate change are real and mounting. And Australia has such fundamental security interests in Indonesia that it cannot sit on the sidelines...

Richard Tanter of the Nautilus institute writes that “by virtually every dimension, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghani civilian population.” “The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent”, Tanter argues, “and the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling”...

Christopher Snedden of Deakin University writes that on the basis of his record, Pakistan’s new president, Asif Zardari, has neither the skills nor the aspiration to effectively address Pakistan’s deep-rooted and threatening problems. With more than a thousand Australian troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, Snedden argues that "there also appears to be little that Australia can...