In the US, extraction of non-conventional fossil fuels is booming. Investment in extra-heavy and heavy oils, oil shales and sands, tight oil and gas, shale gas and coal seam gas is taking off as companies…
The US remains the most militarily powerful nation on Earth – but will budget cuts bring it back to the fold?
EPA/Zurab Kurtsikidze
The maelstrom surrounding budget cuts that has engulfed the United States over the last twelve months seems no nearer to reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
The U.S. Congressional House and Senate currently…
Mourners accompany the remains of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez through the streets of Caracas.
EPA/David Fernandez
The recent death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez from cancer comes as no great surprise. The former military leader had rarely been seen in the public eye since December last year when he travelled…
The treatment of Quvenzhané Wallis at this year’s Oscars highlights prejudices that still exist in Hollywood.
Michael Nelson/EPA
Young actress Quvenzhané Wallis was one of many women subjected to derogatory misogynist “jokes” during this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Those directed at her were particularly vicious. When the satirical…
The IEA has made a sketchy prediction that the United States is to be the world’s biggest oil producer within five years.
Zoe52/Flickr
The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and will become a net oil exporter by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently predicted.
According…
Hopes and anxieties: the US' approach to China’s economy is often tempered by its foreign policy outlook.
AAP
When I taught foreign policy in the United States, my students would often answer one question incorrectly, albeit in a way that speaks to a larger truth about US foreign policy. In lecturing on President…
A group of Iranian pilgrims captured by the Free Syria Army who claim are Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Al Arabiya
This week the Islamic Republic of Iran made a blunt statement, reiterating its position in relation to the on-going conflict in Syria.
According to Saeed Jalili, a senior advisor to the Iranian Supreme…
President Nixon’s meeting with China’s Communist Party Leader Mao Tse Tung in 1972 began closer ties between the two countries.
Wikimedia/Office of Presidential Libraries
Now, as at the time of the Vietnam war, the global primacy of the United States is increasingly being questioned.
Among the reasons are its role in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the continued and…
Western Governments will be recklessly ignoring their human rights obligations if they continue to support Shell in its US supreme court case.
EPA/George Esiri
We all know corporations do bad things. Big corporates have been publicly named and shamed for their participation in causing harm to people and the planet, and they are not always held to account.
As…
Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow proudly affirms his Christian faith during NFL games.
AAP/Smith
Just as acquiring a perfunctory understanding of the AFL is inevitable in southern Australia, living in New England Patriots' heartland has forced me to pay a little attention to America’s NFL.
Despite…
Suspect Bradley Manning is accused of “aiding the enemy” and faces court martial by a US military court.
EPA/BradleyManning.org/
The controversy over Wikileaks will today, at least temporarily, shift its focus from the website’s founder Julian Assange to suspected informant Private First Class Bradley Manning.
Today Manning will…
Senator for South Australia Cory Bernardi has attracted controversy with some of his right wing views.
www.corybernardi.com
Welcome to our In Conversation between Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi and Dr Timothy Lynch, lecturer in American politics at Melbourne University.
Since being appointed to the Senate in 2006, the Senator…
2500 US Marines will be deployed near Darwin in coming years, but we could also see an expanded American military presence elsewhere in northern Australia.
AAP/Malone
Negotiations are underway that could see some the US military’s most advanced drone aircraft based on the Australian Indian Ocean territory of the Cocos Islands.
Combined with discussions around having…
The Palestinian delegation to UNESCO await the outcome of the vote on membership.
AAP
The United States announced last Monday that it would refuse to pay its 2011 funding commitment to the United Nations' lead cultural and educational body following that organisation’s decision to admit…
The East Asia Summit could be a useful start on the road towards a ‘concert of powers’.
EPA/Christophe Archambault/Pool
AUSTRALIA IN ASIA: In the eighth part of our series, Sandy Gordon of the Australian National University looks at the possibility of an agreement which would draw the key Asian states together.
The CIA…
Barack Obama’s handling of the economy will be closely scrutinised in the US presidential election campaign next year.
AFP/Mandel Ngan
President Barack Obama’s handling of the US economy has come under close scrutiny following the publication of Confidence Men by Ron Suskind – which charts his struggle to contain the Wall Street crash…
Mourners at the New York 9/11 memorial on tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
AAP
This past weekend, whole sections of the United States community felt something like a duty or desire to attend sites linked with the events of 11 September 2001.
The public memory ceremonies at these…
American public transport employs biofuels instead of petrol .
AAP
“We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats…
Mourners will gather on the site of the Twin Towers to remember 9/11 victims today.
AFP/Alex Fuchs
Ten years ago today, on September 11th 2001, al-Qaida terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Passengers on a fourth jet overpowered hijackers, bringing…
Jubiliant Libyans celebrate the arrival of rebel forces in central Tripoli.
AAP
The situation in Libya remains fluid but with armed rebel fighters now in Green Square in central Tripoli, it appears the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is in its final hours.
Two of the dictator’s…
Change will again come to the White House. And it will come courtesy of another Texan.
EPA/Alex Jones/pool
We now know the name of the next president of the United States: Rick Perry. The range of poor choices facing Republicans – from the bland Mitt Romney to the polarising Michele Bachman – has been transformed…
Anti-US feelings run high after drone attacks in north-western Pakistan EPA.
Washington’s decision last week to suspend $800 million in military aid to Pakistan should not have come as a surprise to anyone who has been following recent developments in the US-Pakistan relationship…
