Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

The conviction of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once powerful warlord, was a landmark ruling by an international tribunal - the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It was the first guilty verdict for a head of state in the history of UN war crimes courts. Taylor's verdict could os

Stop Kony 2012, a video by US-based NGO 'Invisible Children', has become a viral sensation overnight and has seemingly coopted thousands if not millions to the cause of hunting-down Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. While the organisation behind the video is questionable, there is no doubt that

In a story that has been largely ignored by the Western press, the African Union (AU) is flexing every international legal muscle it can find in order to protect Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir from his indictment on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bash

It is not often that "ignore the problem and hope it goes away" is a particularly effective strategy in international affairs. Amazingly, however, the international community seems to have successfully employed this tactic in Somalia to drive the terrorist group al-Shabab from the capital Moghadishu

As explained in a previous post, the drought that is currently besetting East Africa has become a full-scale humanitarian disaster in Somalia, mostly because of the rejection of foreign aid by Somali terrorist group Al-Shabab, who have rejected claims that there is a famine whilst waging a violent c

Throughout its history, Israel has been at odds with the various leaders of Sudan. This enmity was demonstrated recently when Israel allegedly destroyed an arms convoy in Sudan that was headed for Gaza and when, also allegedly, Israel subsequently assassinated a key Hamas weapons smuggler in Sudan,

The catastrophic drought in East Africa has created an all-but unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Commendably, many world leaders - including Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd - have called for the international community to provide immediate aid relief to the millions who are suffering. Whe

Amid the cheers over the birth of the new nation state of the Republic of South Sudan, some commentators are noting the largely overlooked significance of what has just occurred, not least for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process eventually leading to a two state solution. Compared with South Sud

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council congratulates the Republic of South Sudan as it officially joins the family of nations. After so many years of conflict, there is now the potential for peace and reason for optimism.

The biggest threat emanating from Somalia comes from a different source: an ongoing lack of internal order has left the country vulnerable to the rise of hard-line Islamist groups, of which the latest is al-Shabaab (the youth), which rose from obscurity to international prominence in less than two y

The Darfur region of Sudan first made headlines in February 2003 with news of massacres, rapes, mutilations, and other atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government and its allied armed Arab militia, the Janjaweed, against civilians in the black Arab and non-Arab south.