Peter Westmore is National President of the National Civic Council The latest coup in the Pacific Islands — on the Solomon Islands, adjacent to Papua New Guinea — compounds the escalating collapse of stability in the “inner rim” of countries adjacent to Australia. The rapidity of the collapse in Oceania and South-East Asia is alarming.…
Professor Sharif Shuja is adjunct Professor of International Relations at Bond University, looks at how the China factor is affecting US relations with South Korea and Japan ten years after the end of the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States of America…
“Today we wonder whether the whole world might become democratic. Acting on the belief that it can, our government has bent its energies toward encouraging the birth or growth of democracy in places around the globe from Haiti to Russia, from Kosovo to the People’s Republic of China. In doing so, it has enjoyed a kind of sanction from the century just past, which was indeed marked by the growth of regimes resting on popular consent and a commitment to human freedom. “That has hardly been the only salient characteristic of the age; the 20th century was also an era…
The battle’s o’er “Conservatism is doomed. True, in the Eastern bloc, in its conclusive demolition of the Berlin Wall, it won the battle of ideas. But in its own Western bloc, it’s lost the battle of process and that’s likely to prove decisive. “In the United States, George W. Bush is opposed to same-sex marriage.…
Bob Browning identifies the real beneficiaries of the globalised, deregulated world economy. His previous articles and reviews of his books are available at www.sprint. net.au/~rwb It is increasingly obvious that there is much more in the globalisation package than the beneficial application of new technology and the opening up of national economies to financial flows and freer international trade. But the term “globalisation” is often used in confusing ways, sometimes deliberately. It can be used to steer people’s thinking in certain directions and divert them from others. It can facilitate the dismissal of critics. “You’re doubtful about globalisation? You must…
The GATT was one of the most successful international treaties ever. It survived almost 50 years. The WTO, its successor, may not achieve such longevity. Colin Teese,former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Trade, explains why. The World Trade Organisation – created at the Uruguay Round of international trade negotiations at the end of 1993 – seems, after only six years, to be in a seriously troubled state. By contrast, its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – upon which the WTO was to be so much of an improvement – was successful from the very beginning,…