Posts in ‘International Politics’

Capital punishment – on our doorstep soon

Thursday, November 10th, 2005

I have no issue with political, religious, community and other leaders seeking clemency for the young Australian citizen having execution in Singapore…though I suspect the sum total of their efforts will lead to absolutely no change in the position of the Singapore Government. However, we had better get used to capital punishment being applied by […]

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Posted by Jeff Wall at 4:28 pm | Comments (3) |

Beyond left and right

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

Jennifer Marohasy was at last night’s lecture by David McKnight about his new book “Beyond left and right”. So was I. She appears to be confused about McKnight’s stance, so was I, and so, I think, was McKnight. It’s a pretty bleak time for the left, particularly when the Republicans can win four straight terms […]

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Posted by Graham at 9:20 pm | Comments (4) |

A good news story about public office

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

At a time when Mark Latham is trashing public office thanks to his pathetic diary “revelations”, it is time for a good news story about good people still being prepared to offer themselves for public office. But, sadly, it’s a New Zealand story not an Australian one…and one has to fear it is the kind […]

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Posted by Jeff Wall at 4:47 pm | Comments (1) |

In the war on terror we are all footsoldiers

Saturday, July 9th, 2005

Last time an event like the London bombing occurred I deliberately left this page blank in what I thought might be the blogger’s version of half-mast. This time I just didn’t post. It’s not that I didn’t care. It’s that I cared enough that if I didn’t have anything significant, or sympathetic, to say, then […]

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Posted by Graham at 6:13 pm | Comments (4) |

Sandra Day O’Connor retires

Sunday, July 3rd, 2005

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court has retired. Justice O’Connor tended to be the swing judge on the US Supreme Court, with some difficult-to-predict decisions. For example, on affirmative action she ruled against legislation that took account of race in federal government contracts, but for racial affirmative action […]

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Posted by Graham at 1:59 pm | Comments (1) |

Convert don’t forgive international debt

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005

The British push seems to have tipped the balance in favour of debt forgiveness for poor countries, with an agreement by the G8 to write off US $40 billion in debt. Is this really what is needed? To me it seems like “go away” money. “Go away” in the sense that it will allow the […]

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Posted by Graham at 12:46 pm | Comments (1) |

Christian Right the morning after

Saturday, May 28th, 2005

The latest fantastic obsession of the left is the imagined dominance of the religious right in the US, which is then projected to be on the verge of engineering the same feat here. Thus the last but one edition of the Griffith Review Weekly tackled the issue of fundamentalism by splashing the photo of an […]

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Posted by Graham at 11:13 pm | Comments (5) |

Blair has solid Antipodean result

Monday, May 9th, 2005

Scale the British election results back in size to what they would have been in an Australian context, and you can see just how impressive Tony Blair’s third win really was. There are 646 House of Commons seats in Britain versus 150 House of Representatives seats in Australia. Applying the proportion of the seats won […]

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Posted by Graham at 5:55 am | Comments (2) |

Chinese character

Tuesday, April 19th, 2005

The Weekend Australian devoted its opinion section on the weekend to a special on China. On Line Opinion asked “Is this the Chinese Century” back in November, 2003, showing just how responsive online media is to issues…or have I got that in reverse? Whatever, it’s clear that the Middle Kingdom is going to be a […]

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Posted by Graham at 9:09 am | Comments (2) |

Sadr does Ghandi

Wednesday, April 13th, 2005

I reckon most analysis of Iraqi politics is off-beam because it analyses the actions of the players in terms of their presumed principals rather than their actual pragmatism. In an earlier post I branded Moqtada al-Sadr a warmonger because he was fairly obviously waging insurrection so as to increase his prominence in the post-war negotiations. […]

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Posted by Graham at 10:09 pm | Comments (3) |