APSNet 11 August 2010
- Chinese military seeks better links
- Indonesia tries to gag Papuan lecture
- After all these years, the Anzus freeze begins to thaw
- Concerned about China’s rise, Southeast Asian nations build up militaries
- Australia’s Jakarta embassy ‘always’ a jihadist target
- Hurt Timorese left with no recourse
- Our mate, the bloody warlord
- Afghan civilian casualties rise 31 per cent in first six months of 2010
1. Chinese military seeks better links, John Garnaut, Age, 2010-08-11
The Australian Defence Force could be moving towards joint military drills with China, despite intensifying military and diplomatic rivalry between China and the US. China’s invitation to Australia appears to be the considered and strategic extension of recent high-level talks between the two sides. General Liao Xilong, one of 10 generals who sits on the Central Military Commission under President Hu Jintao, told Australia’s Air Vice-Marshal Margaret Staib on Monday that it was time for the two countries to build on their ”pragmatic communication and co-operation” in politics, economics and culture.
2. Indonesia tries to gag Papuan lecture, Daniel Flitton, Age, 2010-08-11
Indonesian officials have tried to put a stop to a public lecture in Melbourne to discuss the troubled province of West Papua. In an echo of the pressure brought by China last year to dump the Melbourne screening of a film about a separatist struggle, an Indonesian official this week asked the Victorian branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs to cancel the event.
- ACCESS event: West Papua’s search for self-determination, Scott Burchill and Mr Herman Wainggai, AIIA, 2010-08-11
3. After all these years, the Anzus freeze begins to thaw, Rowan Callick, Australian, 2010-08-09
The meeting between officials accompanying Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who is responsible for the Asia-Pacific region was the first meeting at such a senior level between the partners in the ANZUS Treaty since New Zealand banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels in 1984, enshrining this in legislation in 1987 – effectively setting the treaty aside.
4. Concerned about China’s rise, Southeast Asian nations build up militaries, John Pomfret, Washington Post, 2010-08-09
The nations of Southeast Asia are building up their militaries, buying submarines and jet fighters at a record pace and edging closer strategically to the United States as a hedge against China’s rise and its claims to all of the South China Sea.
5. Australia’s Jakarta embassy ‘always’ a jihadist target, Peter Alford, Australian, 2010-08-11
Australia’s Jakarta embassy, bombed in 2004, remains a jihadist target, Indonesia anti-terrorism coordinator Ansyaad Mbai said, responding to an ABC report that a group allegedly associated with the arrested Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir had planned to attack the embassy. The 71-year-old Bashir was arrested yesterday morning, after five members of his Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid were captured at the weekend in three West Java locations.
6. Hurt Timorese left with no recourse, Lindsay Murdoch, Age, 2010-08-06
The Australian Defence Force has admitted its soldiers in East Timor have been involved in nine vehicle crashes since 2008 in which civilians have been injured – but has ruled out paying compensation to the victims. One of the previously undisclosed accidents left two Timorese brothers incapacitated and unable to work, causing their families to become destitute.
7. Our mate, the bloody warlord, Tom Hyland, Brisbane Times, 2010-08-11
The Taliban are not the only ones glad to see the back of the Dutch. Their withdrawal is good news for one of Australia’s remaining partners in Oruzgan, a warlord with a bloody record who runs a booming business that’s part of what a US congressional report calls a ”vast protection racket”. Australian troops train and fight alongside his men, who wear Australian flags on their shoulder badges.
- Taliban hails Dutch withdrawal from Afghanistan, AFP, 2010-08-04
8. Afghan civilian casualties rise 31 per cent in first six months of 2010, UNAMA, 2010-08-11
Tactics of the Taliban and other Anti-Government Elements (AGEs) are behind a 31 per cent increase in conflict-related Afghan civilian casualties in the first six months of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said today in releasing its 2010 Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.
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