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AFA Monthly is a free email published each month by Australian Foreign Affairs.
Written and curated by editor Grant Wyeth, it features news and insights on crucial world events and their effect on Australia, in a style that’s clear, succinct and free of jargon.
It also offers a round-up of the month's key articles by leading foreign policy thinkers from Australia and around the world.
Read previous editions
27 October 2021
Global disparities
The International Monetary Fund has warned that the pandemic has caused a “dangerous divergence” in the economic outlook of rich and developing countries.
In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the IMF suggests most rich countries will return to their pre-pandemic growth paths next year and will be ahead of them by 2024. By contrast, …
20 October 2021
Myanmar sanctions
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has excluded Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing from its leaders’ summit this month, marking its first substantive action against the leaders of the military coup.
ASEAN announced the surprise decision last Friday night after a meeting of the group’s foreign ministers, saying that Myanmar had …
13 October 2021
Carbon capitalism
Australia’s biggest companies are putting pressure on the Morrison government to commit to reaching net zero by 2050 ahead of the UN climate change conference in November.
In a plan released on Friday, the Business Council of Australia said that using new technology to achieve the net-zero benchmark could improve employment and economic …
29 September 2021
Japan’s new PM
Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has called a snap election for 31 October, presumably to take advantage of a potentially brief increase in the government’s popularity since his appointment.
Kishida announced the election on Monday night, hours after he had assumed his role as Japan’s 100th prime minister and appointed a new …
29 September 2021
The Quad rises
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has announced it will begin holding an annual leaders’ summit in a move that will swiftly elevate the group’s significance.
The four members of the Quad – Japan, Australia, India and the United States – only revived the partnership in 2017, after an earlier attempt to create such a group foundered …
22 September 2021
The subs deal
Australia’s decision to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet was last week met with criticism from a spurned ally in France and a potential enemy in China.
Australia intends to use American and British technology to build the new fleet, scrapping plans to invest in up to twelve French-designed diesel-electric submarines.
The Morrison …
15 September 2021
Payne and Dutton on tour
Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton have embarked on Australia’s most intensive streak of in-person diplomacy since COVID-19 began, attending meetings in four countries in one week.
The “two plus two” meetings with foreign and defence ministers in Indonesia, India, South Korea and the United States mark a …
8 September 2021
Japan’s future
Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga announced last week that he will resign to allow an open competition for the job on 29 September, ahead of a general election in November.
Suga only took office a year ago, when Shinzō Abe resigned due to ill health after an unusually lengthy eight-year term. Combined with Abe’s earlier stint as prime …
1 September 2021
Taliban recognition
China has urged the United States to treat the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, as the international community grapples with the future status of the new rulers of the war-torn country.
According to China, its foreign minister Wang Yi told US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Sunday that world leaders should be aiming …
25 August 2021
US ties
Scott Morrison has refused to say whether he supports the United States’ withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan as Canberra struggles to adjust to Washington’s increasingly inward-looking agenda.
Questioned on ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, Morrison would only say that Australia’s role in Afghanistan was “entirely conditional …
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