APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, November 12, 2007

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"APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, November 12, 2007", APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, November 12, 2007, https://nautilus.org/apsnet/apsnet-for-20071112/

APSNet for 12 November 2007

Austral Peace and Security Network (APSNet)

Twice weekly report from the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, Australia.

Monday 12 November 2007

  1. Case Dropped against ‘Terrorism Trainee’
  2. MoU Signed for Australia-US Joint Military Communications Ground Station
  3. Iraq: Call an Air Strike
  4. ‘Climate Bomb’ Warning over Deforestation for Palm Oil
  5. Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia’s Fisheries
  6. Timor-Leste: UN Human Rights Report Lauds Progress but Warns Gains Still Fragile
  7. Defence Tables Annual Report 2006-07

Austral Policy Forum 07-20B: A Reply to Richard Tanter – Martine Letts


  1. Case Dropped against ‘Terrorism Trainee’, ABC, 2007-11-12

    A Sydney judge has described as “grossly improper and unlawful” the conduct of two ASIO officers who interviewed a former medical student accused of training with a terrorist organisation. Earlier, New South Wales Supreme Court judge Michael Adams ruled that interviews with him were inadmissible because of the conduct of ASIO and Australian Federal Police officers involved.

  2. MoU Signed for Australia-US Joint Military Communications Ground Station, SpaceWar, 2007-11-09

    Australian Department of Defence and US Navy have signed an MoU for a joint military communications ground station near Geraldton, WA. The station will support the US Navy’s Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) – a satellite-based mobile phone network designed to support US and Australian military users. Once complete, the station will be unmanned.

  3. Iraq: Call an Air Strike, Pepe Escobar, AsiaTimes, 2007-11-10

    There might be less violence in Baghdad, but that’s because sectarian clashes have died down as there are virtually no more neighborhoods to be ethnically cleansed. And US engagements are declining, but only because troops are spending more time in the bases. Now, whenever there is a mission in Baghdad, it inevitably means an air strike.

  4. ‘Climate Bomb’ Warning over Deforestation for Palm Oil, John Aglionby, Financial Times*, 2007-11-09

    Rampant deforestation in Indonesia for conversion to oil palm plantations could “detonate a climate bomb” if it is not controlled, Greenpeace warned. A report cited the predicted destruction of millions of hectares of peatland forests as being of particular concern, since they contain some of the densest carbon reservoirs on earth.
    * free subscription required

  5. Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia’s Fisheries, Meryl J Williams, Lowy Institute, November 2007 [1.3mb, PDF]

    Southeast Asia’s oceans are fast running out of fish, putting the livelihoods of up to 100 million people at risk, leading to more illegal incursions into Australia’s northern fisheries and putting the future of shared stocks between Australia and Southeast Asia at grave risk. This paper looks at the sources of this depletion and what can be done regionally to address it before it becomes too late.

  6. Timor-Leste: UN Human Rights Report Lauds Progress but Warns Gains Still Fragile, United Nations News Service, 2007-11-08

    The United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) today released a report showing progress in promoting human rights in the nascent country while calling for further measures to help displaced persons and prevent impunity.

  7. Defence Tables Annual Report 2006-07, Australian Department of Defence, 2007-10-31

    Secretary of Defence Mr Nick Warner has described the tabling of the Annual Report 2006-07 to the Senate as proof that Defence reforms are moving in the right direction. The Department of Defence presented the Annual Report to the Senate in accordance with the caretaker conventions.

  8. Austral Policy Forum 07-20B: A Reply to Richard Tanter – Martine Letts

    Martine Letts of the Lowy Institute for International Policy writes that “Richard Tanter appears to have carefully deconstructed my contribution to the Lowy Institute’s Voters’ Guide and put it back together again through the rather artificial conceit of a ‘realist’ approach to international relations, which leads to some wrong conclusions about what my article really means.” Letts argues that, “a future government should consider the ‘what if’ questions too – what if we live in a region with not just one, but two and maybe three nuclear-armed states. I for one hope that the very prospect of Australia needing to revisit its decision not to consider a nuclear deterrent would be sufficient to encourage us to work harder to shore up and strengthen the existing global nuclear governance arrangements and not to further undermine them. This involves more than pious slogans and adherence to old ways of doing things. To conclude that the logical consequence of this line of argument is to advocate for an Australian nuclear weapon is about as credible as the search for those elusive weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

    Read the full essay


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