When Foreign Minister Julie Bishop launched Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2015, gender equality and indigenous people’s rights were two of the five ‘pillars’ of the campaign. …
Articles by: "Sofia Patel"
The world The Economist published two excellent pieces that provide the context for President Trump’s growing Iran problem. The first explores the prospect of Iranian regional hegemony and nuclear ambitions. The second examines the mess …
Welcome back to our weekly digest of current affairs. To get the difficult bit out of the way first, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation has published a diagram showing the seismic signals of the six …
Kicking off with the thematic side of things this week, different facets of identity politics are stirred up in two pieces about President Trump. First, The Economist warns that Trump’s divisive ‘us versus them’ rhetoric …
There’s been a lot going on in Australia’s near region this week, the closest of which is the continuing conflict in the Philippine city of Marawi. RAAF Orion surveillance aircraft are already providing intelligence support …
The risk of prison radicalisation has been a complex challenge to national security for decades. Whether arising from ethno-nationalist, separatist or jihadist inmates, the threat of extremist ideas and beliefs spreading inside prison walls is …
Since President Trump’s visit to Riyadh last month, the events that have played out on the ground in the Gulf have exposed long-standing rifts between powerful Sunni monarchies that belie the simplistic logic of sectarianism …
This article is part of a series on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ that The Strategist is publishing in recognition of International Women’s Day 2017. Julie Bishop’s new aid policy framework which seeks to include countering violent extremism …
Women have a long and colourful history of involvement in violent extremism, with roles ranging from active combatant to passive supporter. Similarly, violent extremist causes have ranged from secular nationalist movements to religiously motivated movements. …
Satire has long been a friend to those wishing to expose the absurdities inherent in extremist ideologies. During the 1930s, British fascists were lampooned by the literary satire of P.G. Wodehouse, Nancy Mitford and Joseph …
The Islamic State has been the focus of international counterterrorism operations for the past two years. Despite military operations successfully reducing the IS caliphate over the past 12 months, the 2016 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) …
Lone wolf attacks are nothing new, but they’ve become more common and increasingly harder to predict over the past 12 months. The threat picture is disparate; some plots show evidence of external direction and coordination, …