The role of rice in the food security of Asia

It was a pleasure to read an authoritative survey on food security recently. Peter Timmer is an Adjunct Professor at the Crawford School of ANU and was previously at Harvard.

Timmer's article, Food Security in Asia and the Pacific: The Rapidly Changing Role of Rice, is a survey of the changing role of rice in the food security of Asia, the behavioural dimensions of food security, and policy approaches.

Treasury workshopped dealing with recession in 2003-04

The Treasury has released papers, under a Freedom of Information request, documenting how it's Executive Board considered dealing with a possible recession in 2003-04. The issues raised in the papers figured large in Treasury's advice to the Rudd Government in 2008, when considering a response to the global financial crisis.

Lacking political leadership: Comparing the treatment of boat people in 1977 and today

An excellent article by Klaus Neumann, Professor of History at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, in “Queue jumpers” and the perils of crossing Sydney Harbour on a Manly ferry provides the historical context for the current morass that is Australia's refugee policy.

Neumann provides a survey of the Vietnamese boat people "crisis" that occurred in 1977 and draws parallels with the politics of boat people during the last decade or so.