Section: The Conversation (USA)
Why can’t the UN protect civilians in places like Syria?
Wartime Syria Stringer/ReutersTo many Americans, it feels as if the world is becoming a more violent place. Besieged nightly with video of conflicts across the Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Middle East and Ukraine, it would be easy to draw that conclusion. Surprisingly, perhaps, the opposite is true: fewer people die in wars than ever before. The...
Can the EU keep the peace in Europe? Not a chance
Reuters/Yves HermanThe European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 because of its “six decade-long contribution to peace and human rights in Europe”. In 2015, as the UK gears up towards its referendum on EU membership, we hear very often that the EU played a key role in building peace after World War II. For all its faults, the argument...
Homeland, Snowden and fictional defences of the CIA
James Bond may be pro-Snowden but Carrie Mathison’s lot aren’t so sure. Channel 4This article contains spoilers about season five, episode three of Homeland. The battle for public opinion over whether former CIA employee Edward Snowden was right to blow the whistle and leak state secrets might just be won, not in the press or the US...
Netanyahu, the Grand Mufti and the Holocaust: why it is important to get the historical facts right
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, met with Adolf Hitler in 1941. Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1987-004-09A, Amin al Husseini und Adolf Hitler” by Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1987-004-09A / Heinrich Hoffmann, CC BY-SAIn a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on October 20, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused...
Putin meets Assad in Moscow – and runs rings around his Western critics
Just watch me. Reuters/RIA NovostiWith the sudden news of a surprise meeting with Bashar al-Assad in Moscow, Vladimir Putin has once again left his critics in the West with egg on their faces. Even before the visit, Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict had surprised the US-led coalition with both its speed and its efficiency. Against all...
MH17 ‘justice’ takes several forms, none simple
Achieving ‘justice’ for the victims of the MH17 downing is not a straightforward task. AAPThe Dutch Safety Board’s final report into the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 definitively found that the crash was caused by the detonation of a 9N314M warhead. The warhead was launched by a Russian-made Buk...
A tale of two tragedies
SuppliedLast week’s release of the Dutch Safety Board’s final report on the downing of MH17 held no surprises. While this essentially technical report had no brief to cast blame for the tragedy, no-one familiar with the evidence seriously doubts that it was shot down by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine using a Buk missile system...
Toni Morrison’s Desdemona invites us to listen not just hear
Desdemona is one of several productions at this year’s Melbourne Festival that invites its audiences to listen to tragedy and its reverberations. Mark Allan/Melbourne FestivalIn Desdemona, Toni Morrison’s response to Shakespeare’s Othello, which opens today at the Melbourne Festival, we are invited to do something – something it...
MH17 crash report establishes the cause, but only criminal investigation can find those responsible
Tjibbe Joustra announces the Dutch Safety Board’s findings. Robin van Longhuijsen/EPAThe Dutch Safety Board’s report into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines MH17 and the death of all 298 people on board presents compelling evidence that the aircraft was destroyed by a missile launched from a 320 square kilometre area in Eastern...
MH17 report leaves questions unanswered, and casts a light on the state of international law
Rebuilding MH17 from the wreckage was hard, but building a legal case is harder still. Michael Kooren/ReutersWhile the final report of the Dutch Safety Board’s investigation into the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 points no finger of blame, the evidence – bow-tie shaped fragments in the debris and...
