National Observer - Australia and World Affairs articles from January 2003

National Observer - Australia and World Affairs archives from January 2003

World economic uncertainty: indefinite risks for Australia. (Editorial Comment).
January 1, 2003... Will the United States' economy recover soon? Or will it suffer a long, slow, decline as has Japan's? Will Australia's economy be gravely affected by any U.S. decline, or will its dealings with Asia protect it sufficiently? These and...

Is the A.B.C. any longer necessary?(Australian Broadcasting Commission)
January 1, 2003... The reporting by the Australian Broadcasting Commission on the recent war in Iraq has raised again serious accusations of bias. There has been a perception that A.B.C. presenters and supporters evidenced a strong prejudice against Coalition...

The political assassination of Dr. Hollingworth.(Australian Governor-General, former Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia)
January 1, 2003... When Dr. Peter Hollingworth, the Governor-General, announced on 25 May 2003 his intention to resign he succumbed to one of the most unpleasant, politically-inspired witch-hunts of recent years. For some time he had been under distasteful attack...

The case for a state of Palestine.
January 1, 2003... First, a personal statement: I am neither anti-Arab nor anti-Jewish. I have friends in both camps. My main concern is the need for international peace, and above all for the end of international terrorism. During the long Cold War, I was an...

Arc of instability.(relations between Australia and Indonesia)
January 1, 2003... The phrase "arc of instability" was coined originally to describe the geopolitical consequences for Australia of the collapse of the Suharto regime, the economic impact of the Asian economic crisis in effectively destroying Indonesia's growth...

Wars, demonstrations and peace movements: memories and observations.
January 1, 2003... There was a recent report of a thousand school children marching past the Melbourne State Library protesting about the Iraq War. Some bore signs reading "Books Not Bombs" (try dropping books on Hitler or Saddam); others carried Iraqi flags....

Australian journalism and Mr. Andrew Bolt.
January 1, 2003... It has become trite that the quality of Australian journalism is very poor. A conspectus of The Australian and The Age confirms a superficiality in the assessment of news and a lack of independent and thoughtful analysis. A major part of...

Montezuma's revenge: Mexico, the United States, and demography.
January 1, 2003... Good fences make good neighbours.--Robert Frost, "Mending A Wall" Mexico, like the United States, underwent an epoch-making presidential election in 2000. In contrast to the notoriously inconclusive American outcome, Mexico's poll saw the...

Who killed John Curtin?
January 1, 2003... When I began studying John Curtin several years ago I thought him a decent man but an overrated political figure, who, as Australia's Prime Minister in World War II after October, 1941, simply took on a task that was beyond him. I now also...

An important biography of Sir Owen Dixon. (Legal Notes).(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The history of the High Court of Australia has disclosed three judges of the greatest distinction: Sir Owen Dixon, Sir Wilfred Fullagar and Sir Harry Gibbs. It is unfortunate that until the publication of Professor Philip Ayres' work here...

The Politics of Deviance.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... by Anne B. Hendershott San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002, pp. 194 and index. There is a certain type of lazy-minded Australian who imagines, on the strength of various thoroughly objectionable sociologists, that the whole idea of...

The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Bernard Lewis London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2003, pages 134 and index, $35. Professor Lewis is the emeritus professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and is an acknowledged expert on Islam. His concise book, The...

Australia's Bid for the Atomic Bomb.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... by Wayne Reynolds Melbourne University Press, $29.95 Whether or not one thinks, to borrow a phrase from 1066 and All That, that the nuclear bomb is a Good Thing, this book vaporises a number of historical myths about Australia and the bomb....