DocumentsDate added
Podcast: David Forde - The Palestinian homeland dilemma and the disappearing two-state solutionhot!
23/02/2011
David Forde was born and educated in Dublin, Ireland and has lived in Australia since 1992. He is employed in the public service and married with two boys and another one on the way. He first became interested in the issue of Palestine and Israel when he served in 1982 with the Irish Army in South Lebanon as part of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL). He again served at various stages up till 1990.
David established and is co-convener of an advocacy group within the Australian Labor Party known as, Labor 4A Just Palestine, which was formed due to lack of debate on this issue within the Australian Labor Party.
He has a firm view that resolution to this conflict will lead to greater regional and world peace, including on issues relating to terrorism. He believes that Australians need to take a balanced view based on international law and UN Resolutions.
David’s presentation is based on a trip to the region earlier this year that took in Lebanon, Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territories (including Gaza) and Israel.
Prof Andrew O'Neil spoke at Harris Terrace in Brisbane on the 8th of February to members and friends of the Queensland Branch of the AIIA. We are pleased to present a podcast of this presentation.
Abstract
Assessing North Korea’s intentions—and its grand strategy more generally—remains one of the toughest intelligence challenges for those working in government. Similarly, oceans of ink have been spiltt by scholars seeking to explain Pyongyang’s behaviour and how it affects the security dynamics of East Asia. While much of the literature is characterised by a default assumption that key actors in the region will cooperate to “manage” North Korea, recent developments suggest cause for renewed pessimism about the situation on the Korean peninsula. A major succession process within the DPRK with real potential for crisis, growing hostility within South Korea towards Pyongyang, and North Korea’s emergence as a nuclear-armed regional power provide the ingredients for a period of significant instability on the peninsula over the coming decade.
About Prof Andrew O'Neil
Andrew O’Neil is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University. Andrew is the author of a wide range of journal articles and book chapters in the areas of security and strategy and is the author of Nuclear Proliferation in Northeast Asia: The Quest for Security (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007). Before joining Griffith in January 2010, Andrew was Associate Professor in the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University. Prior to taking up his first academic post in 2000, he worked as a strategic analyst with Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation as part of its North Asia and Global Issues branch. In 2009 Andrew was appointed editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs, Australia’s leading scholarly outlet for International Relations research.
Dr Ian Hall spoke at Harris Terrace in Brisbane on the 1st of November to members and friends of the Queensland Branch of the AIIA. We are pleased to present a podcast of this presentation.
Abstract
In a famous article published in Foreign Affairs in 1999, Gerald Segal asked: “Does China Matter?”. His answer was that China mattered, but not in the way that Westerners often think it does, and – more importantly – not as much as they think it does. For Segal, China was destined to remain a second-rank power of limited military power, a far less profitable market than is commonly assumed, and a negligible source of innovative ideas. This paper – with apologies to Segal – poses the same question of India. By the middle of this century, India is predicted to be, if not a superpower, then a great power playing an indispensible role in the Asia-Pacific region.
About Ian Hall
Ian Hall is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. His publications include The International Thought of Martin Wight (2006), British International Thinkers from Hobbes to Namier(edited with Lisa Hill, 2009), The Dilemmas of Decline: British Intellectuals and World Politics, 1945-75 (2011), and a number of essays on international relations theory, diplomacy, global governance, and Indian foreign policy.
Dr Hall has contributed an article to the newest AIIA Policy Commentary on Indian Ocean issues. This booklet is available free to all members at AIIA events.
Tom Switzer spoke at Harris Terrace in Brisbane on the 9th of November to members and guests of the Queensland Branch of the AIIA. We are pleased to present a podcast of this presentation.
Abstract
Conservatives say Barack Obama's ideological overreach -- big spending stimulus, universal health care, automobile/bank bailouts -- has ignited an angry backlash from Middle America. Liberals say Obama and congressional Democrats have failed to prosecute a truly left-liberal agenda in Washington during the past two years. Both explanations are limited.
The repudiation of President Obama and the Democrats has more to do with America's spiritual doldrums. In 2008, Americans embraced Obama's optimistic vision of change and renewal. But in the two years since, he has failed to meet the lofty expectations that the public, the media and he himself set. Polls consistently show a significant majority of Americans think the U.S. is heading down the wrong path. Hence the rapid mood swings within the electorate, epitomised in Obama's fall from adulation to anger within only a few months in 2009. Of course, America has undergone crises before, but it has never endured one quite like this. It is not just that the US military is stretched to breaking point. Nor is it just that the US is mired in near double-digit unemployment and skyrocketing levels of debt. It is more to do with whether Americans will gracefully accept a lesser role in an increasingly multi-polar world.
About Tom Switzer
Tom Switzer is a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney where he also teaches undergraduate courses in American politics and Australian political and diplomatic history. He is also editor of The Spectator Australia and a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne.
In 2009 he was a candidate in the Liberal party primary for the federal seat of Bradfield in northern Sydney. In 2008 he was senior adviser to former federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson. Before that, he was opinion page editor for The Australian (2001-08), an editorial writer at The Australian Financial Review (1998-2001) and an assistant editor at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC (1995-98). He has also contributed articles to the Wall Street Journal (US, Asia and Europe), International Herald Tribune, the American Interest, Far Eastern Economic Review, the American Review, ABC The Drum, the American Conservative, the American Enterprise, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Literary Review, Courier Mail, Newcastle Herald, Quarterly Essay and Quadrant magazine. He has a Masters in International Relations in 1994 and a Bachelor of Arts in History (First Class Honours) in 1993, both at the University of Sydney.
2009 Heindorff Memorial Lecture, Bob McMullan MP, "Aid and Trade: Prosperity in the Pacific"hot!
16/03/2010
A PDF to accompany the presentation given by Hon Bob McMullan MP, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance on 18 September, 2009 at the AIIA Queensland.
A PDF to accompany the presentation given by Tom Conley Griffith University, 1 March 2009, at the AIIA Queensland.
A PDF to accompany the presentation given by Morey Wolfson, Colorado Governor’s Energy Office, appearing by invitation of the U.S. Speaker and Specialist Program, U.S. State Department, in August, 2009 at the AIIA Queensland.