APSNet 10 June 2010
- Leave Afghanistan before more die
- Australian officials to help reintegrate Afghan deportees
- Steroid-abusing Australian soldiers sent home in disgrace
- Bribery charges eyed
- [Malaysia] Nuclear power plant will cost US$2.5-US$4 billion
- [East Timor] Withdrawal of aid forces winning project to fold
1. Leave Afghanistan before more die, Major-General Alan Stretton, Letters, Age, 2010-06-09
It is time that our politicians stopped being US lackeys, looked beyond the next election and concentrated on building a future Australia of which we can all be proud. The first step would be to ignore American advice that we are winning in Afghanistan and bring our forces home before more Australians are sacrificed.
- Deaths bring to light the enduring search for the enemy, Dan Oakes, SMH, 2010-06-10
- Digger losses cast hard light on Afghan war, Editorial, Age, 2010-06-09
- News from the German front: The West’s Afghan policy ‘has failed’, Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2010-05-30
- Friedensgutachten 2010, Editors’ comments: current developments and recommendations, focus on Afghanistan, [in English], Christiane Fröhlich, Margret Johannsen, Bruno Schoch, Andreas Heinemann-Grüder and Jochen Hippler (Hg.), Friedensgutachten der Forschungsstätte der Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft (FEST), des Instituts für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik an der Universität Hamburg (IFSH), der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (HSFK), des Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), des Instituts für Entwicklung und Frieden (INEF), 2010-05, [PDF, 106KB]
2. Australian officials to help reintegrate Afghan deportees, Yuko Narushima, SMH, 2010-06-09
Australia is preparing to deport hundreds of asylum seekers to Afghanistan, and immigration officers will be sent to Kabul to reintegrate them. In a significant policy shift, the federal government has allocated $5.8 million for two immigration staff to work on the reintegration of returned Afghan nationals in the capital.
- The Kuchi-Hazara conflict, again, Fabrizio Foschini, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2010-05-27
3. Steroid-abusing Australian soldiers sent home in disgrace, Dan Oakes, SMH, 2010-06-08
Four Australian special forces soldiers have been sent home in disgrace from Afghanistan after being caught abusing steroids. The soldiers, who were stationed at the Special Operations Task Group camp at Tarin Kowt, are likely to be kicked out of the Defence Force as a result.
- Australian troops using hard drugs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Samantha Healy and Yoni Bashan, Daily Telegraph, 2009-11-22
- Is the Army losing its war against drug abuse? Michael Savage, Independent, 2010-03-15
- Revisiting British army drug testing, 2003-07: test thresholds, efficient targeting, and underlying trends, Sheila M. Bird, RUSI Journal, Volume 153, Issue 3 2008-06*, [PDF, 723 KB]
*[Subscription required]
4. Bribery charges eyed, Nick Mckenzie and Richard Baker, Age, 2010-06-09
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is considering whether federal police have sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges against executives of two Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiaries for bribery. The revelation that the DPP has been asked to review aspects of the case – involving the RBA banknote companies Securency and Note Printing Australia – is the strongest indication yet that the probe could lead to Australia’s first-ever prosecution for bribery of an overseas official.
5. [Malaysia] Nuclear power plant will cost US$2.5-US$4 billion, Bernama, 2010-06-07
A 1,000 megawatts (MW) nuclear power plant will cost US$2.5-US$4 billion (RM8.3-RM13.3 billion) to build, Dewan Rakyat heard. Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said the amount did not include research and development in soft infrastructure like human capital development and improvements to support the nuclear plant.
- Malaysia, Nuclear power in ASEAN, Richard Tanter and Arabella Imhoff, Nautilus Institute, Australia, 2010-06-10
6. Withdrawal of aid forces winning project to fold, Lindsay Murdoch, SMH, 2010-06-10
The President of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, has attacked the Australian government’s aid agency for forcing the closure of what he said was one of his country’s few successful aid projects. Dr Ramos-Horta said he would tell the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in Canberra that the “vast majority” of donor aid sent to East Timor was spent on consultants, study missions, reports and recommendations.