Fiji has now experienced four coups in the past 20 years, after two military takeovers in quick succession in 1987 and one civilian-led coup in 2000. Many commentators believe that Fiji is now in the grip of a dangerous 'coup cycle' that needs to be broken if the country is to have any hope of...

Christian Enemark writes that the expansion of interest and investment in biotechnology in East Asia is being driven mainly by infectious disease challenges, economic interests, and security concerns about biological weapons. A key challenge will be to ensure strict biosafety measures extend to all new laboratories - it would be tragically ironic if a leaky...

After disastrous leakages of government guns in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, Australia led the charge to help island nations lock up their small arms, building secure state armouries across the region. But of late, regional implementation of the UN Programme of Action has lagged.

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.