Coronavirus
Podcasts
The Director’s Chair: Matt Pottinger on his career, working for President Trump, China and COVID
In this episode of The Director’s Chair, Michael Fullilove speaks with the former US Deputy National Security Adviser, Matthew Pottinger.
Aiding the Pacific during Covid: An update
More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, how much outside financial support is the Pacific receiving and how far does this go in helping the region weather the crisis?
This…
Putting the pandemic in perspective
Book Review: Fareed Zakaria, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (Penguin, 2021)
Perhaps the most original contribution of Fareed Zakaria’s new book Ten Lessons for a …
Thailand’s overcrowded prisons hit by Covid-19 surge
Thailand emerged from the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the best performing countries in the world in terms of minimising cases and deaths. But 2021 has been a…
Fiji: Cannabis should be high on the government’s agenda
Fiji’s capital Suva has been in and out of Covid lockdowns over recent weeks, and my Netflix got a workout. I watched a TV show called “Cooked with Cannabis”. Admittedly…
When border control goes over the line
The failure of the Australian government to return citizens and permanent residents from New Delhi on the first repatriation flight to Darwin since the recent shutdown of air…
Patent waiver for vaccines is a plus, but no panacea
The United States has thrown its support behind demands from developing countries to temporarily waive intellectual property (IP) rights for Covid-19 vaccines. Other rich…
Australia and migration: Will the Covid pause become a full stop?
In late 2019, I published a short book titled Our Very Own Brexit, which argued that Australia might one day break from Asia as Britain had broken from Europe. The trigger I…
India’s Covid-19 wave is spreading south
Images of the pandemic in Delhi that currently saturate the international media depict ailing patients struggling to find beds, oxygen and medical attention. Amid a highly…
Closed borders: The unequal waiting game
The experience of crossing national borders has always been defined by inequality. A hierarchy of mobility determined those who were free and facilitated to move and those who…