Global Issues
What climate change means for mosquito-borne diseases
Mosquitos currently kill more than a million people each year. Diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Rift Valley fever and Zika virus borne by these irritating insects are…
Australia-Indonesia: burn the boats
Last week, Australian Border Force released photographs of burning Indonesian fishing vessels allegedly caught fishing illegally in Australian waters. Border Force reported it had…
The forest for the trees: trouble at the Poland-Belarus border
The 418 kilometre border which separates Poland and Belarus does more than divide two states. It forms part of the Eastern border of the European Union and of NATO. Loosely…
China: rejecting rubbish
On hearing Beijing had instituted the ominously named “Operation National Sword” it would have been easy to imagine Chinese warships crashing across the Taiwan Strait or perhaps…
National self-interest cannot govern global vaccine distribution
As Australia emerges from its local state-based lockdowns – largely due to its high vaccination rates – many low-income countries in Southeast Asia and Africa remain at risk of…
Economic diplomacy: Supply chains, sanctions, and Telstra Pacific
Sovereign nation
It is 18 months since Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent Australians off to their first locked-down Easter with the somewhat mixed message that the government…
Regulate against the machine
Book review: We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law, by Simon Chesterman (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
From Tesla’s self-driving cars…
Politics and Covid-19 funds in Papua New Guinea
In 2020, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape directed 20 per cent of the District Services Improvement Program funds (DSIP), which are paid to the 89 open MPs…
It’s time to talk about existential risk
Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi was having lunch with his colleagues in 1950 when he asked a now famous question: where is everybody? He was referring to the apparent…
Filipino migrants are agents of change
The Philippine labour diaspora is one of the largest in the world with around 9 million people or 10 per cent of the population working overseas, and sending massive remittances …