The United Nations on Tuesday approved the first treaty on the global arms trade which would regulate a business that amounts to over US$70 billion. There were 154 nations in favour, three against and…
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…
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…
In something reminiscent of the plot to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb, several high-ranking figures of the Assad regime have been killed in an apparent suicide attack. The top level security apparatchiks…
When Barack Obama was under fire for his foreign policy inexperience in 2007, he told the New York Times that his unique biography could be a vital instrument in a new American foreign policy. “If you…
The lines traversing the surface of the globe are legal fictions that determine the fates of nations. Nowhere is this truer than in the South China Sea. China’s infamous U-shaped line claims most of this…
Now we have a new foreign minister, some have suggested it’s time for Australia to give up its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. During his time as prime minister and foreign minister…
Papua New Guinea’s volatile political impasse continues even after Michael Somare was today reinstated as prime minister by the Governor-General, with rival Peter O'Neill remaining holed up in Government…
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…