United States

Considering the complex cloak and dagger diplomacy surrounding US-Iran relations deputy US State Department Spokesman Robert Duguid comes out with a pretty open account of how and why the State Department asked Twitter not to close down during the post-election uprising in Iran. 

“We don’t have anyone on the ground in Iran; we haven’t since our hostages were set free in 1981. So for us just knowing the information was coming out that this real information, or at least piecemeal information that you knew was happening on the day was important,” Mr Duguid told The Punch from Washington.

“It was also evident to us that without social media being available that those groups who were opposing the crackdown and opposing the election results would not have a voice. So yes we learnt that Twitter was going to go down for maintenance. So we talked about it upstairs at the public affairs section, and one of our number knew the folks at Twitter.”

Continue reading "The diplomatic tightrope in the age of Social Media" »

No doubt there will be swooning all round when President Barack Obama descends upon Australia next month for his first official visit “Down Under” since coming to office just over a year ago.

While the precise details of his itinerary are understandably a closely guarded secret there can be no such mystery as to what the reaction of much of the local media will be.

Breathless comparisons with the charismatic US leader and his young family to the photogenic heyday of Camelot are sure to be exceeded only by gushing commentary of his wife, Michelle Obama. And given our sunny climes are more accommodating of sleeveless gowns than chilly Washington DC, fashion observers might just be rewarded with a glimpse of the First Lady baring those famed biceps.

Continue reading "Hillary and Barack: a love story" »

US President Barack Obama will visit Australia in March.

The White House has just confirmed a rumour that has been circulating in Queensland since last November.

President Obama’ visit will commemorate the 70th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the US and Australia and there is mounting evidence that the visit will feature Queensland prominently being the home state of Prime Minister Rudd. 

Continue reading "Queensland to get large share of Obama sunshine" »

Earlier this afternoon President Obama made an official State of the Union address in Washington.

Continue reading "Live: State of the Union" »

New York City is immortalised in pop culture as the place where anything can happen and dreams come true.

Frank Sinatra reckons if you can make it there you’ll make it anywhere. The Sex & the City gals have made us believe there’s an endless pool of dreamy bachelors waiting to show us their skyscraper. Fame promises that any over acting, annoying teenager in a leotard can crack the big time. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York proves that NYC is just a giant playground. Even Ugly Betty and 30 Rock show us that book smarts and quick wit can get you just as far as big bucks and good looks.

But after living and studying in the Big Apple last year, I discovered the city is less like Gossip Girl and more akin to Sylvania Waters with rats. And cockroaches.

Continue reading "New York, the Rotten Apple" »

Barack Obama craves a historic presidency. Witness his pledge to single-handedly rescue the US health system in which millions lack insurance coverage. “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he announced in September.

Now, following a crucial Christmas Eve vote in the US Senate, the Democratic-controlled Congress is about to approve a major healthcare package.

Hurdles remain: the two houses must still confer to iron out differences. Public financing of abortion remains a flashpoint. But the near-certain outcome, sometime in January, is a bill on the president’s desk.

Continue reading "Is Obama digging his own grave on healthcare?" »

You’ve got to hand it to those Americans. For them, there is much more to democracy than theory. It’s there to be practised and even better if it can be done in the streets.

A now-ageing generation took democracy to the streets and forced the politicians to bring an unpopular war in Vietnam to an end. And against the odds they changed America and world history campaigning for civil rights laws that paved the way for a black American president.

And though small in number by comparison, those freedom-of-speech loving Americans were back in Washington streets at the weekend to protest against the policies of that same black president.

Continue reading "America’s mastery of free speech, even for maniacs" »

Faced with the debate over President Obama’s project to overhaul American health care, I’m finding it difficult to maintain the impartiality required of an ABC Current Affairs presenter.

I’ve had rather a lot of care from what the Americans call “socialised medicine”, here and in the UK – in fact without it, I’d be dead several times over – and some of the things that have been said against it strike me as plain ridiculous.

We’ll come to my own experience shortly, but first a taste of what I mean about the American debate. According to Sarah Palin, for example, the Obama plan will involve a system of sinister committees – “death panels” - which will decide whether the old or infirm have the right to live or die.

Continue reading "If I lived in the United States I’d be dead, or dead broke" »

The Lars von Trier film Dancer in the Dark was one of Bjork’s only forays into film. The final scenes are a haunting depiction of capital punishment. 

Bjork plays a Czech immigrant who moves to rural America with her young son in 1964. She works in a factory and suffers from a degenerative eye disease and after suffering an extraordinary betrayal at the hands of her neighbour she is accused of murder and hanged in the state gallows.

The final scene where she lies singing, a capella, in the death chamber is hard to forget. Bjork herself was reported to have been so disturbed by the role she regularly ran away from the set.

Continue reading "Execution: it’s not as popular as you might think" »

The alliance between Australia and the United States is currently being managed by a Labor prime minister and a Democratic president – a situation that has not existed since the period 1993-1996, under Paul Keating and Bill Clinton.

The relationship between John Howard and George Bush was famously close, however the replacement of these two leaders by Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama has turned out to good news for the alliance. Howard was wildly out of synch with the new Democratic rulers in Washington and his regrettable comment in February 2007 that Al-Qaeda in Iraq should pray for a victory by Obama and the Democrats might have presented us with real diplomatic difficulties had he been re-elected.

Bush’s retirement has also benefitted the alliance. It is good news for Australia when our strategic ally is well-liked around the world rather than disliked.

Continue reading "Kev and Obama’s friendship bolsters the Alliance" »

Sarah Palin said goodbye overnight to the governor’s mansion (barely halfway through her first term) with a picnic in an Alaskan park. Hello, to what? Well, who knows?

The self-described moose-hunting Rottweiler with lipstick didn’t want Alaska, or Russia’s ‘close neighbour’, to be stuck with a “lame duck” chief executive. So, she flew out of office, and into private citizenship.

The decision has left America largely confused. Critics interpret the hockey mum’s resignation as an antecedent to a move from Wasilla to Washington DC to take on Obama in 2012.

Continue reading "There’s no end to what Sarah Palin has to offer" »

Few things make me more nervous than the morning of a job interview. 

I can’t relax. I wake up too early and change my outfit three or four times. I forget how to iron and by the time I get there it takes a strong coffee for me to look alert.

So it’s with huge admiration that I watch Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s calm and poised exterior as she fronts up to what is potentially the longest, most in-depth and important interview of her life.

Continue reading "Five reasons to care about Sonia Sotomayor" »

In August 2007, Barack Obama promised that if he were elected president he would ‘travel to a major Islamic forum and deliver an address to redefine our struggle.’

His impressive speech in Cairo yesterday fulfilled that promise.

Obama is the finest orator in a generation. His national political career was kicked off by a single speech: his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004.

Continue reading "The speech that could make the world a safer place" »