A Jumble of Jihadis in war without end

August 13, 2016

The town of Gaziantep is located 30km from Turkey’s border with Syria. Over the past five years it has become an epicentre for the unfinished business of the Syrian civil war. Read more

South China Sea, what happens next?

July 21, 2016

Last week the Hague handed down it’s judgement in the dispute between China and the Philippines. It found that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights over most of the South China Sea and it therefore ruled against China.
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The People Back Beijing

July 16, 2016

He Xiaoliang is a 23-year-old electrician who lives with his parents in Shanghai. Every night, his family gather around the dinner table and argue about current affairs. But on Tuesday night they were in total agreement. Read more

Lessons in Indonesia’s pushback approach to Sino aggression

June 28, 2016

China’s behaviour in the South China Sea is beginning to resemble that of the imperialist great powers it once condemned. Its fishing boats are now intruding regularly into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone around the Natuna Island group at the southern end of the South China Sea, jeopardising relations with Southeast Asia’s largest state and directly challenging the rules based order which Australia supports. Read more

China picks an unlikely fight in its battle for territory in the South China Sea

June 24, 2016

Less than a week after an Indonesian warship clashed with a fleet of Chinese fishing vessels off the coast of the Natuna Islands, the symbolism was unmistakable.

On Thursday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo presided over a cabinet meeting on the exact same ship, the KRI Imam Bonjol, near where the clash took place, more than 1000km north of his usual political areana in the capital Jakarta. Read more

China accused of being more hostile in South China Sea

June 4, 2016

Maritime security analysts say the Chinese are using fishing fleets and armed civilian forces to strengthen control in the South China Sea. Beijing and several countries in the region have overlapping claims over islands in the resource-rich area.
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Greens defence policy would leave us exposed in a perilous world

May 25, 2016

The Greens’ aspiration to become a mainstream political party was underlined last week by leader Richard Di Natale’s foray into defence and foreign policy, an area which is unfamiliar terrain for a party that began life as an environmental protest movement.

The sympathetic Left predictably applauded Di Natale’s sentiments but offered little in the way of supporting arguments for his speech to the Lowy Institute, which challenged many of the ­established tenets of Australian defence and foreign policy. The Right also failed to seriously engage with Di Natale’s arguments. The Daily Telegraph dismissed his speech as the ramblings of the ‘‘loony Greens’’.
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Investment Innovation Institute Insights: Interview with Alan Dupont

May 18, 2016

Flocks of Swans

By Wouter Klijn, May 2016, http://www.i3-invest.com/ins-detail/flocks-of-black-swans/

The idea of a Black Swan, as popularised by the investor and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb, refers to a highly improbable, but nevertheless devastating event and when it comes to investing Taleb argued that it is likely we will see more of these events than has been the case in the past.
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