Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop “insists” that Australias relationship with Indonesia is “very positive”. But Indonesias Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is equally insistent that there is a serious problem with the relationship. If there is regular dialogue between Australia and Indonesia, as Bishop claims, it would seem it is being conducted at cross purposes. Bishop […]
Category Archives: Economics and Public Policy
Are you one of the thousands of people around the world in the past couple of days who created your “A look back” Facebook movie? Did it make you cry? Or maybe laugh at your wacky life? The videos were a new feature available to Facebook users developed to celebrate the social network’s 10th anniversary. […]
Australia and Indonesia have worked hard over the past decade to build a strong bilateral relationship, seen as valuable by Indonesia and as critically important by Australia. That relationship is now in tatters. The Australian government has been at pains to explain to Indonesia that recent naval incursions into Indonesian territorial waters, intended to stop […]
Indonesias democracy is being increasingly tested by the triple challenges of anti-reform actors, a high-level political malaise and popular disenchantment with the electoral process. Prabowo Subianto accepts the Great Indonesia Movement Party nomination for the 2014 presidential election (Photo: Wikipedia). One indicator of this has been an increasing tendency by the Indonesian military (TNI) to […]
Australia and Timor-Leste are in a diplomatic lull following the revelations that Australia spied on Timor-Leste’s cabinet via agents working through its aid program. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao is in South Africa for the funeral of Nelson Mandela, who had visited him in prison in Jakarta and thus helped elevate his international status. But one […]
The Coalition governments first months in office have been a crash course in regional politics, with somewhat more emphasis on the “crash”. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has now put in place the first of what is expected to be six steps to repair Australia’s damaged relationship with Indonesia, while relations with East Timor are being […]
For a country that has so much in its favour, Thailand seems to be locked in a historical cycle of elected governments and military coups. The current political turmoil wracking the countrys capital, Bangkok, looks to be bringing it back to the brink of military intervention. The political divides in Thailand that have led to […]
Just having Myanmars pro-democracy icon and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, in Australia is a lovely thing. She is one of those few international figures, along with Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Xanana Gusmao, who seem to be all but universally admired in the West. But despite Daw (to use the polite honorific) […]
Just having Burmas pro-democracy icon and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, in Australia is a lovely thing. She is one of those few international figures, along with Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Xanana Gusmao, who seem to be all but universally admired in the West. But despite Daw (to use the polite honorific) […]
It may be that the letter sent by Prime Minister Tony Abbott to Indonesias President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will start to calm diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Given political sensitivities in Jakarta, it also may be that tensions will continue in any case, particularly if the letter is deemed inadequate. But what is becoming […]