Asia

Rod Barton was a senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq. He is the author of The Weapons Detective: The Inside Story of Australia's Top Weapons Inspector. It is difficult from media reporting to sort fact from fiction about allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria. The chaos of war and the desire

Cameron Stewart writes in The Australian today about the announcement by the US Chief of Naval Operations (from his Navigation Plan 2014-2018) that he aims to 'provide amphibious lift for US marines operating out of Australia by establishing a fifth amphibious readiness group in the Pacific by

Nick Warner, now the Director-General of ASIS, was the first Special Coordinator of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (2003-2004). This post is drawn from a speech he made in Honiara on 25 July for the 10th anniversary of RAMSI. Nick Warner (right) briefs media in Honiara in

The Wind Rises has been a box office sensation in Japan, and this new trailer with English subtitles has just appeared. The politics of this movie are fascinating. The Wind Rises is, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, 'a fictional take on the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed

Bob Bowker is a former Australian ambassador to Jordan and Egypt. He is now an Adjunct Professor at the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies. In the aftermath of the bloodbath of 14 August, the question of whether US military assistance (around US$1.3 billion per annum) should continue to be

Douglas Fry is a Fairfax Media writer. 'Were it not for drones, the United States would probably have had to have invade Pakistan.' So declared Dr John Nagl at a public lecture hosted by the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in Canberra on Tuesday, 13 August. It's a bold – and alarming

For the latest, just follow the #Egypt hashtag on Twitter. 'Reconciliation now seems hopeless; Egypt is shattered'. The US is complicit, says Ali Gharib, so it's time to cut Egypt loose. Marc Lynch agrees. Tarek Radwan: 'Unfortunately, too many parties in the standoff had too much to gain in

Competing claims for leadership of the Pacific Islands region are reinforcing doubts about the efficacy of regional architecture in the lead-up to the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' summit in Majuro in the Marshall Islands in the first week of September. The Fiji Government hosted the Pacific

Danielle Rajendram is a Lowy Institute research associate. Her work focuses on Indian foreign and domestic policy, India-China relations and Asian security. On Tuesday, five Indian soldiers were killed along the border in Kashmir by a group of Pakistani militants. Why nationalistic clamour

It was great to see Australia's relations with Pacific Islands feature in last night's foreign policy debate and particularly pleasing to see this issue raised outside of the inevitable focus on the PNG asylum seeker deal. Overall, I thought Ms Bishop demonstrated greater commitment to enhancing

Much of the external commentary on the Cambodian election results has had a distinct character of schadenfreude, with the Economist's take a typical example. I have no doubt that Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party colleagues were surprised by the results, as I readily admit I was. I

Dina Esfandiary is an Iran specialist and a Research Associate in the Non-proliferation and Disarmament programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, was sworn in last Sunday. To slogans of 'Ahmadi Bye-Bye', President Ahmadinejad stepped down

Photos emerge of components that could be for China's first home-built aircraft carrier. Naval experts I'm talking to say there's too little to go on from these pictures alone. China sending 140 riot police to Liberia, all of them women. (Thanks Dirk.) A hacking group accused of being operated

Danielle Rajendram is a Lowy Institute research associate. India has a new state, Telangana. Louise Tillen asks what this means for India (thanks Amy), and R Uma Maheshwari argues Telangana will have meaning only if it creates a new language of inclusive politics. Why it's time for India to

Iain Henry is a Fulbright Scholar and PhD Candidate at ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. He tweets at @IainDHenry. Recent events have thrust the Australia-Indonesia relationship back into the spotlight. Managing this relationship will be one of the next Government's highest

Marty Harris is an Assistant Digital Editor at the Lowy Institute. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Middle East and Central Asian Studies from ANU. Secretary of State Kerry today formally appointed Ambassador Martin Indyk as US Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations. Ambassador Indyk

Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party remains firmly in power following Sunday's elections, but with a substantially reduced majority. With an officially announced 68 seats won to the opposition's 55, the Government has a comfortable working majority. Nevertheless, the contrast with the previous

Asahi Shimbun has published part 1 of a new series on the inner workings of China's communist party. How to survive dinner with a China expert. (Thanks Dirk.) Most Chinese activists don't want radical political upheaval. At least, not yet. Last year, China's clean energy investment was double

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. Part 1 of this post here. The initiatives for closer ties between the West and Burma's police and armed forces summarised in the previous post have aroused the ire of the activist community, which has been quick to remind everyone

Part 1 of this post here. The debate Joe Studwell has advanced in How Asia Works (see Sam Roggeveen's three-part interview here) is, in fact, not that novel. Studwell is not alone in advocating industrial policy: Justin Lin, former World Bank chief economist, makes the same argument in his

OK, so China has yet to produce a Steve Jobs, but if there's hope for China moving up the manufacturing value chain, it might lie in its Pizza Hut outlets. My colleague Dirk alerts me to the Chinese phenomenon of strategically loading the bowl to make the fullest possible use of Pizza Hut's

The tenth anniversary of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) causes me to reflect on my personal ten-year anniversary. It was ten years ago yesterday that I stepped on a plane to Honiara to take up a short-term mission as DFAT Policy Advisor to the Special Coordinator of

Martyn Namorong is a multi-award winning writer, blogger and television presenter. His initial reaction to the PNG-Australia asylum seeker agreement appeared on The Interpreter yesterday. From online postings to offline activism, a new generation of protest-hardened Papua New Guineans is making

Dr Daniel Woker is the former Swiss Ambassador to Australia and now a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Gallen. I was amused and intrigued by the recent ruminations on Tony Abbott's stated views on what the 'Anglosphere' means (apparently something anti-Asian, in Hugh White's interpretation