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Current affairs and culture from Australia and beyond

Politics | Elections | The economy | Podcasts | Climate change | Media | Asia | Europe | United States | Africa | Australian Policy Online
Published by the Swinburne Institute for Social Research | Inside Story in print, with the Canberra Times

• Politics & policy

• 
• Tony Abbott, prime minister?
• 08 February 2012

• Can the opposition leader maintain momentum, asks Norman Abjorensen

• 
• Old figures, new money
• 03 February 2012

• This week’s release of data on political donations and spending hides as much as it reveals – and is already many months out of date, write Graeme Orr and Brian Costar

• 
• Section overboard
• 03 February 2012

• References to race should be dropped from the constitution, writes Brian Costar, but the reason section 25 was included in the first place is more complex than some commentators acknowledge

• 
• Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: the “what” and “how”
• 02 February 2012

• Paul Kildea looks at what’s being proposed for Australian constitutional reform, and how we might get there

• 
• The failure of “treaties, targets and trading” and the future of Australian climate policy
• 02 February 2012

• In the first of a two-part series examining the future of Australian climate policy, Fergus Green explains why the international policy consensus, on which Australia has based its carbon pricing scheme, has broken down

• 
• We need to talk about COAG
• 19 January 2012

• The process has been hampered by a breakdown in trust between the Commonwealth and the states, writes Paul Kildea

• 
• All politics isn’t necessarily local
• 10 January 2012

• Closest to the people it may be, but local government is unlikely to make it into the constitution anytime soon, writes Andrew Lynch

• Essays & reportage

• 
• Sarawak’s roads to development
• 03 February 2012

• Logging has changed remote Sarawak in many ways, but the aftermath can produce a new kind of isolation, writes Christine Horn

• 
• “Preserved for the people for all time”
• 02 February 2012

• Is “balanced” development really the best way to manage our inland rivers? Cameron Muir looks at the language that could save or condemn them

• 
• The British ensign
• 24 January 2012

• Australia’s attachment to a flag with the Union Jack in the top corner puts it in odd company, writes Henry Reynolds

• 
• Havel’s legacy
• 09 January 2012

• Václav Havel, who died in December, was Orwell’s true successor, writes Jane Goodall

• 
• At the pointy end of the bayonet conundrum
• 16 December 2011

• Graeme Dobell looks at humanitarian intervention in theory and practice

• 
• The everyday politics of perpetual electioneering
• 08 December 2011

• Must Australian politicians work “tirelessly” for their communities or face electoral oblivion? James Panichi looks for the middle ground

• 
• Is killing Taliban a good idea?
• 07 December 2011

• Intensified military activity has failed, argue John Braithwaite and Ali Wardak. It’s time for a ceasefire

• Media, books & the arts

• 
• Going to the movies, writing about the movies
• 15 February 2012

• Brian McFarlane on the life and work of the formidable American critic, Pauline Kael

• 
• The art of the cover
• 15 February 2012

• New Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney albums in a single week? Close enough, writes Andrew Ford

• 
• A very British summer on your ABC
• 14 February 2012

• ABC TV has returned to normal programming, but the dominance of Britain lingers on, writes Henry Reynolds

• 
• Much too promised land
• 13 February 2012

• Critics of Peter Kosminsky’s series The Promise – released on DVD this week – are misrepresenting its depiction of Arab and Israeli characters, argues Hal Wootten

• 
• Musical alchemy
• 10 February 2012

• If you think every combination of instruments has been tried, think again, writes Andrew Ford

• 
• Power play
• 08 February 2012

• Sylvia Lawson on Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar and this year’s Australian film awards

• 
• The diplomat who read Dostoyevsky
• 08 February 2012

• Tormented by self-doubt, regretting missed opportunities, George Kennan helped shape the postwar world, writes Graeme Dobell

• World briefing

• 
• The ambitious emirate
• 02 February 2012

• Qatar is pursuing a sophisticated modernisation program, writes Matthew Gray. But is social and political change keeping pace?

• 
• North Korea’s Great Successor and his regional connections
• 29 December 2011

• Kim Jong-un’s accession comes at a time of change in the region, underlining the need for a nuanced response from Western countries, writes Tessa Morris-Suzuki

• 
• Setbacks at home, successes abroad: the mixed fortunes of Vladimir Putin
• 22 December 2011

• A resentful Putin means further strains in East–West relations and a renewed effort to lock in Russia’s western neighbours, writes John Besemeres

• 
• Putin’s Ceausescu moment
• 09 December 2011

• The warning signs rose to a new pitch during the election campaign, writes John Besemeres, and now Vladimir Putin will be looking at ways to re-tighten his grip

• 
• Broadcasting revolution
• 06 December 2011

• Radio allowed Algerians to enter into a “vast network of information… a world where things happen… where forces act,” wrote Frantz Fanon. Daniel Nethery surveys the work of the controversial Martinique-born writer, who died fifty years ago today, and its resonances in the Arab Spring

• 
• Poland’s EU presidency: drawing the short straw
• 05 December 2011

• The mood has become a little anxious at the headquarters of the Occidental Club, reports John Besemeres

• 
• Can Durban deliver?
• 29 November 2011

• These two weeks might turn out to be more interesting than expected, writes Michael Jacobs. The stakes are certainly high enough

• Correspondents

• 
• Greek myths
• 08 February 2012

• In Athens Daniel Nethery finds that the conventional diagnosis of Greece’s problems doesn’t quite fit the reality

• 
• On Green Lotus Street
• 01 February 2012

• Shanghai doesn’t understand the appeal of its oldest precinct, writes Duncan Hewitt

• 
• Politics grips Pakistan
• 19 January 2012

• Heading towards a first round of national elections later this year, Pakistan’s politics and external relations are in flux, writes Alicia Mollaun in Islamabad

• 
• Margaret Thatcher, between myth and politics
• 12 January 2012

• A sympathetic film portrayal of Britain’s most divisive modern prime minister fits a broader mood of reappraisal of her years in power, says David Hayes

• 
• What they see and what they hear
• 16 December 2011

• A growing number of Chinese are bothered by the gap between reality and the way the media portrays society and politics, reports Duncan Hewitt. And the media itself is starting to reflect that concern

• 
• The intimate megacity
• 07 December 2011

• London’s mayoral election might be overshadowed in 2012 by royal and Olympic pageants, but it’s more revealing of the city’s heartbeat, says David Hayes

• 
• How different is Morocco?
• 30 November 2011

• Last week’s election helps illuminate where Morocco fits into the Arab Spring, writes Norman Abjorensen

• From the archive

• 
• Fonts we can believe in
• 23 November 2010

• BOOKS | Great typefaces combine the banal and the beautiful, according to one designer. Richard Johnstone reviews an engrossing account of their vast and ever-increasing variety and uses

• 
• Large questions about a big corporation
• 07 July 2010

• BOOKS | “If it stays humble and moves with the swiftness of a fox, it will be difficult to catch.” Jock Given reviews Ken Auletta’s Googled

• 
• Shoulder-deep in the entrails
• 28 June 2010

• “I pull out my notebook, merge into a cluster of pundits and sidle through.” Shane Maloney was in Parliament House as the coup unfolded

• 
• The strange career of the Australian conscience
• 10 June 2010

• Dean Ashenden traces the collaboration between anthropologists Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen, “bearers, shapers and captives of the Australian conscience”

• 
• My mother’s story
• 07 May 2010

• In this extract from her new book, Maria Tumarkin recounts the events that unfolded after news of war reached the Ukrainian village of Dubovyazovka

• 
• The myth of CPR
• 21 January 2010

• How did such a poorly proven intervention become a routine end to many people’s lives, asks Ken Hillman in this extract from his recent book

• 
• Suburban mayhem
• 17 June 2009

• The Slap captures contemporary Australian life? Andrew Lynch isn’t so sure