Global Issues

The uprisings that swept across the Arab world from late 2010 are, to put it mildly, faltering. Egypt has returned to authoritarianism. Syria is a bloodbath. It is getting harder to decipher what is actually going on in Libya and Yemen. We cling to Tunisia as a glimmer of hope, but the outcomes for

The plunge in the global oil price is a hot topic. Between June 2014 and January 2015, the price of crude has dropped by 57%. Most of the attention has been on the boon for consumers, with a litre of petrol in some parts of Australia now counted in cents, not dollars. But while Australia is

The Australian parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) will soon review the proposed treaty between Australia and India on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, signed by Prime Ministers Abbott and Modi in New Delhi on 5 September 2014. A 1984 cartoon on Australia's

In the decades leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, international trade typically grew much faster than GDP. This reflected increasing global economic integration: tariff barriers were coming down, trade groups (eg. the eurozone, NAFTA, ASEAN) facilitated trade through regulatory simplification

In the last week, digital graphic designers such as Isaku Ogura have suddenly found themselves in strong demand for media commentary on the plight of two fellow Japanese taken hostage by ISIS. Broadcast media have given exhaustive attention to doubts over the authenticity of several disturbing

When the IMF produced its last World Economic Outlook in October, one of the risks it forecast was a possible oil price increase. A US$25 per barrel increase, the IMF said, would take at least 0.5% off global economic growth. Now, even with the change in oil price twice as large and in the opposite

The UN is the go-to organisation for virtually every forgotten international crisis. While the West has struggled on in Afghanistan and Iraq, the UN and its peacekeeping missions have been deployed to just about everywhere else: Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Darfur, Mali, Liberia

One of Australia's last acts on the UN Security Council was to vote against a resolution being brought by the Palestinian Authority. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel and John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2009 Washington regarded this piece of paper as so one-sided against Israel

Headlines blaming the IMF for the Ebola crisis are something you may expect in the tabloid press. However, a robust debate on the role of the IMF in the spread of Ebola was started by an article in The Lancet, a leading health journal. Four British professors claimed that the fiscal austerity

What is happening with Cambodia's Lower Se San 2 dam? Elliot Brennan's citation of a Bangkok Post report of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's speech at the opening of the Stung Russey Chrum Krom hydroelectric dam in Koh Kong province in Tuesday's Southeast Asia links is interesting for a number

January should be called pundit accountability month. On websites such as this, we make all sorts of predictions and forecasts, or we identify structural trends or leadership changes as critical, and so on. The temptation to choose our ideologically-preferred independent variables, or to otherwise

Chinese urbanisation will be a globally consequential trend in the 21st century. The path policymakers follow is of profound importance. A noisy debate about city planning has been ongoing for years, essentially between laissez-faire advocates of 'mega-cities' and those arguing for more

As haggard negotiators left the UN climate change conference in Lima in the early hours of Sunday morning, many observers noted the contrast between the political acrimony that characterised the final days of these tortured discussions and the sense of optimism that many felt going into the talks

Australia had a prime chance to demonstrate its adult status in chairing the G20 Summit this year. What did it do with the opportunity? It showcased some of the characteristic behaviours of an adolescent country, my term for Australia in a new Lowy Institute Paper. Tantalisingly, it also showed

The IMF, OECD and the Russians themselves have substantially downgraded their Russian economic growth forecasts for 2015. The fall in the oil price is partly responsible. However, heightened 'geopolitical risk' was also mentioned as a drag on activity, along with the effect of sanctions. But just

The G20 party may have ended in Brisbane, but the show rolls on. The leaders' forum will head to Turkey in 2015 and, in his final act as G20 chair for 2014, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed 2016 will see leaders heading to China. I've just co-written a paper on what the first ever

This morning it was announced that the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5-1 have been extended for another seven months; or to be specific, another four months to reach a political agreement and another three months beyond that to finalise technical details. That the talks did not end

Part 1 of this two-part series here. I would argue that, for the Obama Administration, a nuclear deal with Iran is central to its recalibration of America's policy and posture in the Middle East. Of course it is not explicitly articulated that way, and for obvious reasons cannot be, but it's not

Thirty years ago to the week, New Caledonia was torn apart by violent protests. The pro-independence FLNKS boycotted an election and town halls were burned throughout the country. It provoked a four-year long civil war euphemistically known as 'the events'. At first, Australia supported the Kanak

I am from Brisbane, and somewhat ironically, my original ticket out of this city was the G20 analysis I conducted while studying and working at the University of Queensland. In a serendipitous turn of events, Australia and my hometown city were announced as 2014 G20 hosts during that research, which

By Hugh Jorgensen, Research Associate and Tristram Sainsbury, Research Fellow, both at the Lowy Institute's G20 Studies Centre. Infrastructure has been a priority of the Australian G20 presidency, but we haven't seen much in terms of bricks and mortar proposals. Until now. Writing in The

The APEC Leaders' Meeting underway in Beijing seems to be finessing the various conflicting and overlapping trade initiatives and avoiding serious damage. But it is not resolving any of the underlying tensions. At the multilateral level, the WTO remains in limbo after India pulled the rug out

A few months ago I stood on a beach in Tarawa, the most populous of islands comprising the Micronesian nation of Kiribati. It's long and thin sliver of land where you can walk from one side of the island to the other in minutes. It has a population density up to twice that of Sydney or New York, but