Julia Gillard's first visit to Papua New Guinea as prime minister, starting tomorrow, is loaded with symbolism. Following on from the

Bob Bowker on Syria: 'there is no serious foreseeable prospect of the regime collapsing or suffering a game-changing military defeat.' (Thanks Jerry.)

Associate Professor Lily Zubaidah Rahim, from the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, is an affiliate of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre.

Andrew Selth, a Research Fellow? at the Griffith Asia Institute, will appear on a panel at the Lowy Institute tomorrow on Burma's transition.

With Europe stagnating, America in a limp recovery and Japan still mired in its lost decades, world growth has been sustained over the past two years by the performance of the emerging countries, which accounted for half of world growth.

Later this month, a high level panel convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will deliver its recommendations on what should come after the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Steve Weintz comments on our thread about political leaders as recreational painters:

Help wanted: the Lowy Institute is looking for a new Director for its Global Issues program, and a Research Fellow for the G20 Studies Centre.

Michael Green served on the US National Security Council staff from 2001-2005 and is now Senior Vice President for Asia at CSIS and a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute.

Goodness knows how they got John Howard to agree to this, but it comes out pretty favourably for him. Click 'read more' to see parts 2 and 3, and see you next week.

The Australian Government was right not to set up grand expectations for its 2013 Defence White Paper released today. This is a less ambitious and in some ways more sophisticated document than the 2009 p

Here's an interview my colleague Anthony Bubalo did with Martin Indyk yesterday following his excellent speech at the Lowy Institute.

The full text is here, and the Minister has put out various supporting media releases.

The Defence White Paper is due to be released within the hour. Luke Maynard, a graduate of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, writes:

Philippa Brant is a Lowy Institute Research Associate.

A bland media release from Europe's officials statistics agency tells a tale of a vast human misery: unemployment in Greece and Spain is around 27%, with youth unemployment approaching a sta

Michael Harris is Chief Economist for the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science (ABARES).

Ghassan Salem writes:

Roger Pielke Jr is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado.