Australian Perspective
China makes its formal climate-change pledge
China's long-anticipated formal pledge to international climate change negotiations, it's 'intended nationally determined contribution' or INDC, has arrived.
China's target is a…
Is the US Congress the main impediment to a rules-based order?
President Barack Obama finally has authority from the US Congress for advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a signature foreign policy of his final term in office. The…
Four observations about the AIIB's Articles of Agreement
With the signing of the AIIB's Articles of Agreement in Beijing yesterday, how is the Bank shaping up? Here are some key things that struck me reading the Agreement:
Membership…
IMF belatedly rethinks austerity
When we get enough perspective to write a balanced history of the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent feeble recovery, fiscal policy mistakes will surely feature…
Attribution is key to broader ISIS strategy
The suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Kuwait, shooting of Western tourists in Tunisia, and a beheading and attempt to blow up a chemical factory in France.
Three continents,…
For Papua's independence activists, the struggle is about more than human rights
This is part 6 of former Fairfax Media Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard's series on Papua. Here is the introduction, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.
On a…
Malaysia: Opposition collapse offers new risks, opportunities
Only days after the somewhat inevitable dissolution of the opposition alliance in Malaysia, the disparate parties are jostling to create new partnerships.
For better or worse, the…
In Papua's health centres, a glimpse of dysfunction and corruption
This is part 4 of former Fairfax Media Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard's series on Papua. The introduction to the series is here and here are part 1, part 2 and part 3.
…
Papua's education malaise
This is part 3 of former Fairfax Media Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard's series on Papua. Here is the introduction, part 1 and part 2.
One sunny November school day at…
This week in Jakarta: The politics of Ramadan
Indonesia is the country with the greatest number of Muslims in the world, but it is not an Islamic state. Nor is it strictly secular – the first principle of the state ideology…