APSNet 4 February 2008

1. Timor-Leste: A State of Insecurity
2. The Nation Builder
3. RI Nuclear Plan Needs Further Study, Gus Dur
   
4. In Iraq, Three Wars Engage U.S. – Shiite Extremists Pose Greatest Challenge, Military Officials Say
5. Germany Rejects Southern Afghanistan Troop Request
6. Keeping Our Heads below Water: Australia’s Future Submarine
7. Standing on Secret Ground

1. Timor-Leste: A State of Insecurity, Neil Campbell, Open Democracy, 2008-02-01

The Dili government has a golden, if finite, opportunity to address major security problems – and in doing so, demonstrate that Alfredo Reinado is but a distraction from the real tasks facing Timor-Leste. The international security presence – of 1,480 UN police officers and about 1,000 troops under the Australian-led ISF – gives the government in Dili the breathing-space it needs to clarify the respective roles of the Timorese army and police.

• Too Much Friendship, Too Little Truth: Monitoring Report on the Commission of Truth and Friendship in Indonesia and Timor-Leste, Megan Hirst, International Center for Transitional Justice, January 2008 [430 KB, PDF]

2. The Nation Builder, Paul Keating, SMH, 2008-02-02

Australia’s postwar history would have been very different but for the former Indonesian president. The misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life, can be attributed to the “get square” policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.

Witness Denied: Australian Media Responses to the Indonesian Killings of 1965-66, Richard Tanter, Inside Indonesia, (71) July-September 2002

3. RI Nuclear Plan Needs Further Study: Gus Dur, Tony Hotland and Ella Davison, Jakarta Post, 2008-02-01

The debate continues on whether Indonesia should risk using nuclear energy, amid the search for urgently-needed alternative renewable and efficient energy sources to ease dependency on costly and depleting fossil fuels. The government has said it is looking to have its first 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant up and running in 2017, but so far plans have only included the search for a suitable location, research and a feasibility study.

4. In Iraq, Three Wars Engage U.S. – Shiite Extremists Pose Greatest Challenge, Military Officials Say, Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 2008-02-03

Three separate but related wars are being waged in this country now, and the third one, against Shiite extremists, is the most worrisome, according to the commander and senior staff of the U.S. Army division patrolling Baghdad.

• As Iraqis See It, Michael Massing, New York Review of Books, Vol. 55, No.1, 2008-01-17
• Iraq Conflict has Killed a Million Iraqis: Survey, Reuters, 2008-01-30

5. Germany Rejects Southern Afghanistan Troop Request, Afghan News, 2008-02-01

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung says Berlin has no plans to deploy combat troops in battle-ravaged southern Afghanistan, after an urgent US request for NATO partners to do more to stabilise the country.

• Canada PM Threatens Afghanistan Pullout, Yahoo News, 2008-01-31

6. Keeping Our Heads below Water: Australia’s Future Submarine, Andrew Davies, ASPI, 2008-01-30

Media reports of the endorsement of the launch of a planning process to replace Australia’s Collins class submarine fleet sometime in the 2020s have cited a cost of up to $25 billion.  This paper explains why the cost might be so high, and examines some of the compromises that would be necessary to reduce the price tag.

7. Standing on Secret Ground, Paul Toohey, Australian, 2008-02-02

Seven months on and the dust has settled. Mal Brough has gone but his final screeching orders to Aborigines still hang in the air across the Northern Territory. Is the national emergency response still an emergency? The person most able to answer the question is Major-General Dave Chalmers, operational commander of the emergency response taskforce. 

• Operation Outreach, Department of Defence

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