The grand-daddy of track two dialogues

8 07 2009

Read my recent post on The Interpreter, the weblog of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, about the Asia Pacific Roundtable: the grand-daddy of track two dialogues.





Engaging communities report back online

6 07 2009

The report I co-authored with Hilary Smith, John Pickering and Terry McGrath on Engaging Asian Communities in New Zealand is back online: you can find an executive summary, full report and detailed literature review.





Q & A

2 07 2009

Read my Q & A on Asia:NZ Online, where I took about international students’ returning home, Asia:NZ research and the importance of New Zealanders understanding of Asia.





You say potato

2 07 2009

In his usual folksy style, Garrison Keillor stands up for the potato salad. You read it and you feel like joining the revolution; really, you do. Or at least, making your very own potato salad and celebrating the achievement of it.





Web addresses of the world unite

2 07 2009

I’ve sucumbed to the craze and got myself a Facebook web address, which means you can access my Facebook page directly by typing it in. You’ll still need to log in, however; or become a member of the world’s biggest love-in club; or just ignore it.





Only six came home

29 06 2009

While in Sandakan, Malaysia recently, we visited the Prisoner of War camp that held at least 2,500 mostly Australian prisoners during WW2. (At the time Sandakan was part of British North Borneo).

Like other POW camps I have been to, it was a moving experience. But the camp at Sandakan was especially moving because of the extraordinary tragedy of it all.

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Two different approaches to the Asia Pacific regional dialogue

22 06 2009

Read my commentary on the Shangri La Dialogue and Asia Pacific Roundtable, both of which I recently attended in Singapore and Malaysia respectively here





The Barth Man

26 05 2009

A few years ago, in my ‘introduction to theology’ course at the University of Otago, I met Karl Barth. Not him personally, of course. He’s been dead for forty years, but I encountered his writing. And immediately I was enthralled.

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I don’t have swine flu

21 05 2009

The temperature here plummeted last night to a toasty five degrees. And it’s not even July. This morning, with the wind chill factor, it was about -20 degrees, even though the LED clock on the high building said it was 7 degrees. Heat rises, that’s all I can say.

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Hob-nobbing, pip-counting and talking turkey

20 05 2009

Next week I leave for Singapore and Malaysia where I will spend almost two weeks hob-nobbing, pip-counting and talking turkey.

It will be a little more serious than all that – there are serious matters that will be discussed. And I will have that feeling that, as a non-defense person, I am an absconded Private in a room full of Generals.

In Singapore I will be attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, the preeminent Asia Security Summit. Amongst its attendees will be people like Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Prime Minister Lee of Singapore. It’s not every day that I find myself in a room with those three men – and even when I will be in a room with them, so will about 100 or so other people – and they’ll be about ten feet away and untouchable. But even so. I’ll be in the same room. It’s fame by proxy, you understand.

Then onto Kuala Lumpur, when I will attend the larger though less distinguished Asia Pacific Roundtable. I went to this last year (as I did to Shangri La) and it will be good to catch up with friends and colleagues from around the world. These things are worthwhile for the contacts you make. And it will be nice to be back in Malaysia, for the third time in the last twelve months and, I think, the sixth or seventh time in total.

While I’m away, I’ll meet more military people, spooks, navy men, army officials and the rest, that I’ll need to remind myself of my place in this hallowed world of international relations: one who has somehow found himself sitting at the adults table even though he didn’t finish his mains but nobody has found that out yet…