Hamish McDonald

3 weeks ago | johnmenadue.com | Hamish McDonald

There was a time, back in the days of childhood, when everything that was modern and power about Britain seemed to begin with a V: Vanguard and Vauxhall cars, Vickers Viscount aircraft, the Victor, Vulcan and Valiant bombersAlexander Downer wants to build back those days when Brits and Aussies were brothers together. Maybe it was the afterglow of Churchills V for Victory. The world seemed to be returning to its old ways, barring debacles like Suez and the need to call in the IMF.

3 weeks ago | asiasentinel.com | Hamish McDonald |Philip Bowring

This is a rare and excellent book about a region which had to be invented but is nonetheless very real for that. Melanesia, as Hamish McDonald points out early, was defined as islands which were not Polynesia and not Micronesia, and where people generally had blacker skin than those of the other South Pacific islands. Nor did they share, unlike the Poly…Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Asia Sentinel to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

1 month ago | insidestory.org.au | Hamish McDonald |Graeme Dobell

The Melanesian arc running from New Guinea to Fiji is also an arc across Australia, the geography loaded with history and strategic weight. Australia’s life in Melanesia is studded with dreams and dreads that occasionally burst through a fog of forgetfulness. Australia wants an intimate relationship with Melanesia — an influence that serves interests — but no longer makes the ownership claims of an era when the mindset was imperial and the aim colonial.

1 month ago | insidestory.org.au | Hamish McDonald

Establishment circles in Canberra and other Western capitals are abuzz with an unfamiliar debate set off by Donald Trump’s smashing of America’s longstanding alliances and trading partnerships. Suddenly defence and foreign affairs policymakers and their supporters in the media are looking into a post-US abyss.

1 month ago | insidestory.org.au | Hamish McDonald

Oral testimonies from more than twenty-five former policemen, security officials and lawyers pulled out of retirement; fifty-three huge folders bulging with documents extracted from government and judicial archives — this is the evidence gathered by the judicial inquiry attempting to determine once and for all whether six Croatian-Australians convicted of conspiracy in the NSW Supreme Court forty-four years ago were justly treated.