APSNet 08 April 2010

1. WMD fears block export cargo
2. Push to end nuclear trafficking
3. Unmanned aircraft could soon patrol borders
4. Defence plan gets backing
5. Bishop puts uranium in poll frame
6. Afghan President Rebukes West and U.N.
7. Can anyone pacify the world’s number one narco-state? The opium wars in Afghanistan
8. [Indonesia] Yudhoyono talks tough on illegal logging

1. WMD fears block export cargo, Sean Parnell, Australian, 2010-04-06

Defence Minister John Faulkner has blocked another Australian shipment feared destined for a weapons of mass destruction program. The $US115,000 ($125,000) GBC shipment to Pakistan is the fourth to be blocked by the minister.

• Implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 (UNSC 1540), Nautilus Institute, Australia
  

2. Push to end nuclear trafficking, Daniel Flitton, Age, 2010-04-08

A crackdown on the nuclear black market will spearhead a push by more than 40 countries to stop terrorists from obtaining atomic materials. But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is yet to decide whether he will attend the special summit of world leaders in Washington, despite Australia confirming it will take part in the talks.

• Rudd is needed at nuclear summit, Rory Medcalf, SMH, 2010-04-08

3. Unmanned aircraft could soon patrol borders, Ari Sharp, Age, 2010-04-06

Unmanned aircraft may be detecting the weather, monitoring crops and patrolling Australia’s borders in the next decade. The government communications authority has begun considering ways to allocate the spectrum space needed to communicate with the equipment to avoid interference with defence force communications.

• Five-year Spectrum Outlook 2010-2014, Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2010-03-31 
  

4. Defence plan gets backing, John Kerin, AFR*, 2010-04-07

Defence Minister John Faulkner confirmed that federal cabinet had approved an implementation plan to save $20 billion in defence spending over the next 10 years.
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5. Bishop puts uranium in poll frame, John Kerin, AFR*, 2010-04-07

An Abbott coalition government would overturn Labor’s ban on uranium sales to India in the interests of Australian jobs and combating global climate change.
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6. Afghan President Rebukes West and U.N., Alissa J. Rubin, NYT, 2010-04-01

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, delivered extraordinarily harsh criticism of the Western governments fighting in his country, the United Nations, and the British and American news media, accusing them of perpetrating the fraud that denied him an outright victory in last summer’s presidential elections.

• Karzai threatens to join Taliban, AP, CBC News, 2010-04-05
• Pressed to Act, Karzai Fires Election Monitors, Richard A. Oppel, NYT, 2010-04-07
• Karzai plays word games in Kabul, Charles Recknagel, Asia Times, 2010-04-08

7. Can anyone pacify the world’s number one narco-state? The opium wars in Afghanistan, Alfred W. McCoy, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2010

In ways that have escaped most observers, the Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit. After a year of cautious debate and costly deployments, President Obama finally launched his new Afghan war strategy in Marja in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.

8. Yudhoyono talks tough on illegal logging, AFP, Jakarta Globe, 2010-04-07

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono identified illegal logging as another form of entrenched corruption he wants to add to his growing list of “mafia.” The former general talked tough about stopping the world’s fastest deforestation rates as he left for a regional summit in Vietnam where the environment looms as a key issue.

• SBY orders taskforce to handle illegal logging mafia, Erwida Maulia, Jakarta Post, 2010-04-04
• Protecting forests is ‘all about the economy,’ experts say, Fidelis E Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe, 2010-04-07