Monthly Archives: January 2014
What China’s Off-the-Books Figures Mean for Australia
Last September, a small news item in China’s official media, that in less skittish economic times might have sailed through unremarked, revealed a disturbing truth about this suddenly most essential of nations – that too often its official statistics are bogus. Portents and truths sprung from China in recent times … read more >>
ASIO Took It – But Was It Timor’s or Australia’s?
Apparently in international law as in life, the most important things get hidden in plain view. And so it was that on Tuesday in The Hague, an International Court of Justice judge from Somalia – a tiny impoverished land that in recent times has come to know a thing or … read more >>
Ghosts and Memory Sticks: Court Hears East Timor Case Against ASIO Swoop
PERHAPS it was a glow emanating from the Mandela bust outside the court, or from the bronzed Gandhi next to it, but an unexpectedly gentile civility pervaded The Hague’s baronial Peace Palace on Monday, as the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) began hearing a case that outwardly seems … read more >>
Morocco: Attijariwafa stakes claims south of the Sahara
It’s a steamy mid-September and l’atmosphere in downtown Casablanca could well be mistaken for a languid late summer in Marseilles. In myriad chic eateries, Fashionable Young Things in oversized Jackie O sunglasses tap instant messages to each other into new iPhones over café au lait, while their male equivalents motor … read more >>