Weekly Wrap: This week opened with a hostage crisis in Sydney’s CBD after a lone gunman took a number of employees and customers hostage in a cafe in the CBD. The incident ended with the deaths of two hostages, as well as the gunman. Later in the week, over 140 people, most of them children, were killed in an attack by the Pakistani Taliban on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. This week’s Wrap includes links to analysis of and reactions to these events. The Martin Place Siege - These events demonstrate that even countries like Australia are vulnerable to acts of politically motivated violence, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters (see video below). - It’s simply incorrect to claim that the day of the siege was a day that changed Australia forever, argues Rory Medcalf for The Interpreter: bit.ly/1vWOEZJ - On the ABC’s World Today program, the Lowy Institute’s James Brown discussed aspects of the attack which differentiated it from typical terrorist acts: ab.co/1ySbRmZ The Peshawar School Attack - Seven militants attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, in Pakistan’s northwest, killing over a hundred civilians. The attack is the Taliban’s deadliest in Pakistan’s history: bbc.in/1DEWt0m - Will this attack finally change Pakistani attitudes towards the Taliban, asks Shashank Joshi for The Interpreter: bit.ly/1ClEgAr - By favouring short-term military thinking, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif is losing the battle for hearts and minds, argues Rafia Zakaria for Al Jazeera: alj.am/1waftKb Indo-Pacific - The FBI have stated the hacking of Sony Pictures had links with North Korean hackers, a charge North Korean officials have denied: bit.ly/1vcpuXS - The US response to the hack must be proportionate; leaping to action may save the day in movies, but not necessarily in geopolitics, writes Katharine H. S. Moon for Brookings: - Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was recently re-elected, would strengthen Japan by working towards his own Nixon-to-China rapprochement, argue the editors of Bloomberg View: bv.ms/1ssSnOG - With open lawfare in full swing in the South China Sea, how will China react to an unfavourable legal ruling, asks Richard Javad Heydarian for The National Interest: bit.ly/16Ec2a4 - The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launched the nations first rocket equipped with an astronaut module: bit.ly/1v49cj2 - China is ready to send a working group to Afghanistan to discuss the national infrastructure development plan with Afghani officials, according to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang: bit.ly/1wacWzD Bits and Pieces - US President Barack Obama has announced he will move to lift several restrictions that make up the 54-year-old trade embargo with Cuba: nyti.ms/1HfcyWZ - By moving to normalise relations with Cuba, Obama is betting that the nation has sufficiently turned a political corner since the Cold War era, argue Karen Tumulty and Anne Gearan for the Washington Post: wapo.st/1r2KMuN - OPEC has destroyed the Russian Rouble, argues Frances Coppola for Forbes: onforb.es/1A43p31
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 08:00:04 +0000
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