National Observer - Australia and World Affairs articles from March 2002

National Observer - Australia and World Affairs archives from March 2002

The general agreement on trade in services: another detraction from Australia's sovereignty. (Editorial Comment).
March 22, 2002... The recent impetus towards "globalisation" has been so strong that the constraints upon states to surrender progressively parts of their sovereignty have often been difficult to resist. But as has been commented in this journal, the vague...

Mr. Alexander Downer--Mr. Howard's court buffoon. (Editorial Comment).
March 22, 2002... All Cabinets contain weaker members, such as Mr. Daryl Williams, the Attorney-General, who has been much commented upon on past occasions. (1) But gradually Mr. Alexander Downer, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, has been emerging as...

The immigration policies of the Commonwealth Government.
March 22, 2002... I offer my congratulations to the Samuel Griffith Society for providing forums to facilitate discussion of constitutional issues, as I share the Society's view that the Australian Constitution has served this nation well, and that we should...

Lieutenant-General Cosgrove and the born-again Vietnam protesters.
March 22, 2002... The timing of Australian Chief of the Defence Force, Lieutenant-General Peter Cosgrove's foray into the field of history, by criticizing Australia's participation in the Vietnam War that ended decades ago, is unfortunate. His revaluation came...

A reality check on radical Islamic terrorism.
March 22, 2002... Recently newspaper headlines featured yet another Palestinian suicide bomber who killed himself and massacred scores of Israelis--not soldiers, nor even illegal West Bank settlers, but working class Jews playing pool in Tel Aviv, the old...

Watersheds in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
March 22, 2002... One can carbon date the origins of a conflict like the Arab/Jewish disputation back to the First Cause, if one has the time and the misplaced energy. Or one can select a particular stage in the process--an event, a repositioning of forces, or...

Sir Walter Crocker at one hundred.(Biography)
March 22, 2002... Sir Walter Crocker was born in rural South Australia in 1902. His great-grandparents all came from the West of England, except for the Brays who were from Norfolk and were partly descended from Sephardi Jews. According to Crocker, his father...

Looking forward by looking back: a pragmatic look at nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control.
March 22, 2002... For the most part, the evidence of the 1990s would seem to suggest that the stability and prosperity of Asia-Pacific have flowed in part from the widespread adherence by regional countries to the non-proliferation norms and regimes, the...

The unlamented departure of Justice Gaudron. (Legal Notes).(Mary Gaudron)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... The retirement of Justice Mary Gaudron from the High Court has been announced. Appointed in 1987 to the High Court by the government of Mr. Bob Hawke, and having previously been appointed the Solicitor-General of New South Wales by the...

The Secret History of the C.I.A.(Book Review)
March 22, 2002... By Joseph J. Trento Roseville (California): Forum (Prima Publishing), 2001, pages 516 and index, $55. The author is an investigative journalist who has worked within the U.S. media. The Secret History of the C.I.A. hence has a...

Life at the Bottom.(Book Review)
March 22, 2002... by Theodore Dalrymple Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001, pages 263 and index, $61.95. Theodore Dalrymple will be known to many readers as a regular writer in The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph. He is an English psychiatrist who spends much of...

Keeper of the Faith: A Biography of Jim Cairns.(Book Review)
March 22, 2002... By Paul Strango Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002, pages 395 and index, $49. Dr. Paul Strango is a research fellow at Monash University. It will be recalled that Dr. Jim Cairns was one of the most left-wing and ideological...