United States
What a Shorten government will mean for the US-Australia alliance
To start, I think it’s pretty likely that Labor will win on Saturday, meaning a change of government in Australia. So my comments will be based on that assumption.
In broad terms…
Peeling back the label in Australia’s America and China relationships
For American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, the test of a great intellect was the ability to “hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.” By this measure, Australian…
The looming international law paradox between the US and Iran
The Trump administration’s confrontation with Iran escalated over the past week, highlighting a series of alarming trends.
First, it demonstrated the extent to which the…
Trump’s tariff tussle
As predictable as Big Ben striking the hour, as subtle as a battering ram, the final stages of the US-China trade negotiations involve upping the ante with a further tariff…
The persistent status quo with North Korea
It is a commonplace in media treatments of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) to view the previous two years as remarkable. This is often premised on…
Visa tussles: here come the Irish again
The Irish campaign to gain access to the E-3 visa in the United States has roared back to life. Currently, Australia is the only country with access to the 10,500 E-3 visa…
The remarkable political influence of the Indian diaspora in the US
Early on in my career teaching postgraduate journalism students at a private college in New Delhi, a student approached me after class. He was curious about how I’d come to be…
Julian Assange’s case is special, and no point pretending otherwise
On a cool May afternoon in Canberra seven years ago, then foreign minister Bob Carr was hot with indignation about the case of Julian Assange. The family and supporters of the…
US bipartisanship on Asia
Two recently passed laws pertaining to US policy to Asia challenge a well-entrenched negative narrative about the Trump administration, and serve as reassuring reminders about how…
The useful myth of central bank independence
One of the sustaining myths of modern economics is that central banks are independent, able to pursue monetary policy free from the pressures of politics. This makes monetary…