A US military ‘base’ in Darwin will necessitate foreign weapons systems and armaments being stockpiled, retained and transited on and in Australian territory. That is likely to be yet another international embarrassment for Australian arms control, writes NAJ Taylor
READ MORENovember, 2011
War reaps $400 million in 24 hours – don’t worry, it’s just “entertainment”
In the first 24 hours of launch, Modern Warfare 3 – a first-person computer game by Activision Blizzard – has sold 6.5 million copies, earning the game’s publisher $400 million in sales, and enabling them to taut it as the “biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium”. But is this harmful, asks NAJ Taylor
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Australian uranium sales overlook India’s nuclear history
NAJ Taylor discusses uranium exports in the context of nonproliferation and disarmament, after Labor yesterday announced its proposal to sell uranium to India.
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Benny Wenda: Indonesia’s silent genocide
The Australian Government has so far refused to condemn the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua. Worse still, they continue to arm and train the deadly Indonesian Detachment 88 forces, who are responsible for some of the most grave acts of torture against my people, says exiled Independence leader Benny Wenda.
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Must arguments for a denuclearised Middle East be “breathtakingly naive”?
Following my posts about Iran and Israel in relation to nuclear weapons over the past few weeks, I had a number of offline discussions which is always an incentive to reflect further on issues. One of the more critical exchanges took place on Twitter between Michael Brull - a blogger from Independent Australian Jewish Voices - and myself, which [...]
READ MOREThe “bomb Iran” contagion: don’t believe the hype
In the week since the nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, issued its report on Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme, there has been an alarming amount of hype concerning the immediacy of any Iranian nuclear weaponisation. This pressure is emanating from governments of Israel (who in some circles want to “preemptively” strike Iran) and the US (who appear [...]
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Criminalizing diplomacy: fanning the flames of the Iran War option
How many times have we heard in recent weeks either outright threats to attack Iran mainly emanating from Israel or the more muted posture adopted by the United States that leaves ‘all options’ on the table including ‘the military option’? What has Iran done to justify this frantic war-mongering in a strategic region that is sorting out the contradictory effects of [...]
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Australia driving the push for nuclear disarmament? Hardly
Fifteen years ago in The Hague, the International Court of Justice – the highest legal authority in the world – handed down one of its most contentious advisory opinions. To the chagrin of the nuclear powers, it declared that all governments are legally obliged to disarm, and to do so without unreasonable delay. “The destructive [...]
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Remember, Tehran’s “nuclear ambiguity” was learnt from Israel
Consider this: you are a willing outcast, with few solid friends and many formidable enemies. How do you survive? By trying to convert enemies to friends, or by instilling fear in your many enemies? More than any other state on earth, Iran is presently keeping her enemies on their toes – expertly. Iran categorically and [...]
READ MOREOccupy and the problem of local council regulations
As eluded to in a previous post, the major challenge that has emerged for the global Occupy movement is not shadowy networks of capitalist conspiracies or repressive totalitarianism, it’s something far more benign: discretionary local council by-laws. The problem facing the Occupy movement is not the lack of a clear message or the incoherence of the protesters’ concerns. [...]
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