At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 16 June, Malcolm Cook and Andrew Shearer discussed how the Australia-Japan relationship can help both countries respond to the emerging new order in international relations. This order is characterised by changing global power balances, the move towards a more multi-polar world, and traditional multilateral organisations increasingly unsuited to resolving complex global problems. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 23, 2012•58 min
At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch Club on 16 June, distinguished international speaker Minar Pimple addressed the Club on the important question of how well the Asia-Pacific region is doing in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and what role we and broader civil society can play in helping to achieve this ambitious agenda to tackle extreme poverty, adopted by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 23, 2012•52 min
In federal systems like Australia, international policy and broader international engagement are usually, and incorrectly, seen as solely matters for the national government. However, state governments can and do play an important role in Australia's global engagement, both economically and socially. New South Wales, as the largest and most cosmopolitan state in the country, is well placed to significantly deepen economic ties in Asia and beyond. Barry O'Farrell MP, leader of the NSW Liberal Par...
Apr 23, 2012•57 min
Twelve months after the election of the Rudd Government, in the final Wednesday Lunch at Lowy for 2008, Lowy Institute Executive Director Allan Gyngell reflected on what we have learned about the Rudd Government's emerging foreign policy, about the Prime Minister's own contributions to it and what questions it raises for the future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 23, 2012•1 hr 3 min
The political and economic unification of Europe through the European Union is one of the modern world's greatest political projects. Indeed, it questions many of the conventional wisdoms of political science. The evolution of the European Union is also perplexing, particularly for countries such as Australia, who are geographically distant but maintain very close ties to many European countries. On 26 September at a special Tuesday version of the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy series, Professor Jean B...
Apr 23, 2012•1 hr 3 min
In the Lowy Lecture series on 13 July 2011, International Organisation for Migration Director General Ambassador William Lacy Swing addressed factors driving contemporary international migration – demographic change, labour market demand and widening disparities between developed and developing countries. He focused on the contribution migration can make to social and economic development at global and national levels. He concluded with an analysis of the policy orientations that are available t...
Apr 23, 2012•57 min
On 2 March 2009, as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institute hosted a speech by Mr Pascal Lamy, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, on the values of the multilateral trading system. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 23, 2012•1 hr 2 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 8 April 2009, Professor Warwick McKibbin explored how well the global financial crisis can be understood as a series of unexpected shocks, what these shocks were and how conventional economic models explain the global adjustment and the implications of alternative policy responses. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 23, 2012•58 min
Disarming Doubt, a new book-length report produced by the Lowy Institute in partnership with the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Japan Institute of International Affairs, provides a window into the debates about security, disarmament and extended deterrence in Japan, South Korea and Australia. The book was launched in Canberra on 19th April 2012. The panel discussion at the launch can be heard here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 23, 2012•1 hr 3 min
Is China ready for global economic leadership? The East Asia Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy was pleased to host the third China Changing Lecture, presented by Professor David Daokui Li on 19 April 2012. In this year's China Changing Lecture, Professor Li discussed China’s role in the changing world economy. Dr Li's presentation was entitled: 'Is China ready for global economic leadership?' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 23, 2012•59 min
Mr Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, spoke at the Lowy Institute on 17 May on the situation in Iraq, including the prospects for the current US strategy and the consequences if it fails. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•1 hr
This week’s Wednesday Lowy Lunch focused on the foreign policy dimensions of Paul Kelly’s new book, 'The March of Patriots: The struggle for modern Australia'. Divided by temperament, politics and values, Paul Keating and John Howard had passionate views about Australia’s role in the world and the national interest strategy best calculated to realise their objectives. In his lecture Paul Kelly reviewed the different conceptions of foreign policy held by Keating and Howard and assessed the legacy...
Apr 20, 2012•50 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 12 March 2008, International Security Program Director Rory Medcalf proposed a new type of arms control initiative for the Rudd Government, one focused primarily on Asia and its rising nuclear-armed powers China and India. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•52 min
For much of the twentieth century the West's conception of Asia largely focused on Northeast and Southeast Asia. For decades, this largely maritime and 'vertical' view of Asia accurately reflected the distribution of the region's economic and strategic power. But as the world enters the second decade of the twenty-first century this vertical view of Asia has outlived its usefulness, obscuring rather than illuminating emerging geo-strategic realities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...
Apr 20, 2012•33 min
On 9 April at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Singapore-based analyst and journalist Andrew Symon spoke about the increasing interest in nuclear energy in Southeast Asia, to coincide with the launch of a Lowy Institute Analysis written by him on the same topic, 'Nuclear power in Southeast Asia: implications for Australia and non-proliferation'. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•59 min
On 6 June, at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Professor Warwick McKibbin provided a preliminary assessment of the report released on 1 June by the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading. This joint government-business task group was established by the Prime Minister on 10 December 2006 with a mandate to advise on the nature and design of a workable global emissions trading system in which Australia would be able to participate. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 20, 2012•56 min
Our regular Lowy Lunch was held on Thursday, May 3 to allow a special visiting speaker, Archbishop Pius Ncube, to update us on the current situation in Zimbabwe. Pius Alick Ncube was ordained as the Archbishop of Bulawayo (the second largest city in Zimbabwe and the centre of Matabeleland) on 25 January 1998. As a prominent critic of the Mugabe regime, Archbishop Ncube is an internationally recognised human rights activist. He has worked tirelessly in favour of social justice and against human r...
Apr 20, 2012•53 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 20 February, Dr Simon Haines, the Reader in English at the Australian National University, spoke on 'Shakespeare, ideology and terrorism'. Shakespeare's villains subvert or dissolve ideology — it appears not to thrive in the climate of his thought. Could this be a helpful corrective in how we think about terroristic behaviour? Or indeed about 'evil' in general? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 20, 2012•45 min
News which reaches us from Colombia often paints a picture of a country at war with itself. But Colombia is experiencing a transformation. Security has improved sufficiently to support sustained economic growth, despite the current profound global economic turmoil. What does this mean for Colombia's future, for Latin America, and for greater Australian engagement with Colombia and the region? On Wednesday 11 March 2009, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host Mr Luis Guillermo Plata, Colombia's M...
Apr 20, 2012•50 min
Ever since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, a new president’s first hundred days in office have come to be seen as the first important measure of his performance. Next week marks the end of Barack Obama’s first hundred days as president. How impressively has he performed compared to expectations and historical precedent? Are his policies proving to be more similar to those of President Bush than may have been anticipated – or is this change we can believe in? What clues can we detect about the fu...
Apr 20, 2012•55 min
On the evening of Wednesday 27 July, as part of the Lowy Institute’s Distinguished Speaker Series, The Hon Julie Bishop MP, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, spoke on Australia's bilateral relationship with Papua New Guinea. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•47 min
Governing climate and weather, shaping planetary chemistry, generating most of the atmospheric oxygen, the ocean is vital to all life. In the past 50 years, more has been learned about the ocean than during all preceding history, but at the same time, more has been lost. Sharp declines in commercially-exploited fish and other marine life and increasing pollution mean trouble for the ocean - and for us. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 5 August, internationally renowned environmentalist Sylvia E...
Apr 20, 2012•55 min
On the evening of February 25th, the Lowy Institute hosted a lecture by Clinton Dines reflecting on China’s transformation in the last three decades. Clinton discussed the nature of change in the People’s Republic of China in the Reform & Opening Era: then he assessed the significance of these changes in terms of China’s growing role in the world and for governments and companies seeking effective ways to deal with this geopolitical/economic phenomenon, which simultaneously represents both h...
Apr 20, 2012•1 hr
The most significant and positive change in Southeast Asia in the last decade has been the democratisation of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Thirteen days ago, Indonesia held national parliamentary elections and it appears that the biggest winners are President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 22 April, Dr Marcus Mietzner analysed the reasons for the Democratic Party's success and what this tells us about the evolution of ...
Apr 20, 2012•55 min
When Nixon launched the War on Drugs in 1971, it was intended primarily as a political strategy rather than as a public policy. While it has failed as a public policy, the War on Drugs has often succeeded as a political strategy. However, significant health, social or economic benefits are hard to identify. There have been no reductions in deaths, diseases, crime or corruption. Global drug production and consumption is increasing while retail price is decreasing and purity is increasing. At the ...
Apr 20, 2012•58 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 16 April, Dr Michael Fullilove read the tea leaves of the contest for the US presidency and discussed the implications for Australia. Dr Michael Fullilove, the Director of the Lowy Institute's Global Issues Program, writes widely on US politics and foreign policy. This year he is based in Washington, DC as a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•56 min
On 2 December, Deputy Director Martine Letts and members of our Lowy Institute research team wound up this year’s Wednesday Lunch at Lowy Club series with a review of 2009, and what it means for Australia. Director of Studies Andrew Shearer, Program Director for East Asia, Dr Malcolm Cook and blog editor Sam Roggeveen gave their perspectives on the year, what surprised them and what did not. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•1 hr 4 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 25 November a new Lowy Institute Analysis, 'Comprehending Copenhagen: A Guide to the International Climate Change Negotiations', by Dr Greg Picker and Fergus Green, was launched. The authors outlined the issues on the Copenhagen agenda – from carbon markets to adaptation, from avoided deforestation to emissions reduction targets – and highlighted the areas of dispute between the parties. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 20, 2012•59 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 7 October 2009, Ambassador Colin Keating, who was New Zealand Ambassador on the Security Council in 1993/94, and now the Executive Director of Security Council Report, gave an insider’s view of what it takes to get elected and what being on the Council could entail for Australia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•56 min
At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 22 July a Lowy Institute Policy Brief by Fergus Hanson, 'China: Stumbling through the Pacific', was launched. The Policy brief examines the shortcomings of China's current approach to aid-giving in the Pacific region. Fergus Hanson is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute and has written several reports and articles on Chinese development assistance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2012•52 min
