New leaders in Australia and Indonesia provide an opportunity to strengthen ties

On the surface, Australia and Indonesia are as different as can be. Indonesia has a large variety of South Asian cultures and ethnic groups, and is a Muslim country. Australia has a legacy of British colonization, and a decidedly Western perspective. One has a population 10 times that of the other.


Australia and Indonesia, close neighbors but different societies. Australia straddles a continent with 23 million citizens, while Indonesia is comprised of a complicated land base of 18,300 + islands, holding a population of 250 million. Map from onehallyu.com

Yet both are democracies, and have shared interests in economic development, trade, and South Asian stability.


For many Westerners, we're likely more familiar with Australia and the Sydney Opera House, than Jakarta, Indonesia's capitol city. Here is Jakarta, modern and packed with approximately 10 million residents. Photo from www.tourist-destinations.com

So today we are watching the inauguration of a new Indonesian leader attended by a fairly new Australian prime minister. Good for them as they attempt to strengthen ties and trust, as there are also strains between the two countries.


Australia's 28th Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, leads the nation's Liberal party, and has shown a strong and continued interest in Aboriginal issues. At the same time, he has also been an advocate for limiting illegal immigration and staunchly turning back asylum seekers attempting to reach the country by boat. Photo from theaimn.com

For Australia's part, Tony Abbott, Australia's Prime Minister has offered these words regarding Indonesia, "Australia wants the new president to succeed – because a strong, prospering, democratic Indonesia has so much to offer the world," ... "It has the world's largest Muslim population, it is the world's third largest democracy and, along with India, it's the emerging democratic superpower of Asia," he said. Abbott states that his foreign policy focus is regional; "more Jakarta, less Geneva" though Australia has once again sent military forces to Iraq to battle ISIS.

Indonesia's new President is Joko Widodo, former governor of Jakarta, the special capitol region of the nation. Known in Indonesia as Jokowi, he is only the 2nd directly-elected leader of this nation, and part of his popularity is from distancing himself from the old style of past leadership. He has maintained an active interaction with the Indonesian public, is an advocate for the marginalized, and more or less recognized as an authentic populist president with humble beginnings.

Mr Widodo and his wife Iriana after casting their votes in the recent election. Photo from www.theaustralian.com.au

Points of interaction between the two countries

Two Bali bombings - one in 2002 that killed 242 people and injuring 240 more, and the other in 2005 that killed 20 and injured over 100 - highlight Indonesia's challenge of extremist Islamist groups, and its tourist industry, of which Australians are a key component.


This memorial commemorating the terrorist attacks in 2002 on the tourist island of Bali in which 88 Australians died, has created a shared point of history between the two nations. Photo from mybaliviews.blogspot.com

Asylum seeking via boat from Indonesia to Australia is a current bone of contention. Australia has a rather strong detention policy for those who make it to Australian soil. A major flashpoint for this activity is on Christmas Island - Australian territory close to Indonesia.


Asylum seekers arriving in dangerous overloaded boats to Australia's Christmas Island is not something new, nor limited to Indonesians (Vietnamese and other nation's refugees are also seeking Australia's shores). Here Australian coast guard members rescue asylum seekers in a 2001 incident. Photo from www.smh.com.au


An ever expanding detention center on Christmas Island has been the scene for protests and repeated closure attempts, but the issue and infrastructure remain. Photo from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au

Christmas Island - the map view, from www.humanrights.gov.au

So, there are the two nations - lots of differences, issues, but neighbors nonetheless, and democracies to boot, which implies a respect for citizens and responsive governments. Not a bad couple foundation bricks to build on.

Erratics, eruptions, and a festival

Around the world in Italy, Scotland, and Indonesia. Three anecdotes that illustrate the our amazing world.

Italy's erratics on the move.

In northern Italy's rocky region of Alto-Adige, one must watch out for erratics on the move.

Alto-Adige is one of two autonomous provinces in Northern Italy (up against the Alps) that due to historic ties with Austria (country immediately to the north), have some additional governance powers that other Italian provinces do not have. Graphic from commons.wikimedia.org

Awesome mountains loom high over picturesque Italian villages. Photo from www.empson.com

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A huge boulder from the mountain behind, came plowing through the forest, just missing a house and trampling a vineyard. (What is also interesting is the larger boulder just in front of the new one with a groove, that apparently came down the hill 15 years ago ... It seems the residents of this house might be living on borrowed time.) Photo from the BBC

One of Indonesia's 130 volcanoes erupts

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The archipelago nation of Indonesia is comprised of over 18 thousand islands, sporting 130 active volcanoes. Graphic from thewatchers.adorraeli.com

Mount Sinabung, northwest of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, is the latest to erupt with deadly force. Graphic from www.thejakartapost.com

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The volcano, already covered with new ash, is erupting regularly. Photo from framework.latimes.com

Closer in, the villagers have been evacuated. Photo from http://www.europe1.fr

Unfortunately, villagers were allowed to return to their residences too early, so when the latest eruption took place, several lives were lost, and others fled for their lives. Photo from www.volkskrant.nl

Scots on Shetland Island have their festival

With the gloom of winter firmly entrenched, the intrepid Scots of these tiny island celebrate their Viking heritage at the end of January. Up Helly Aa, taking place in Lerwick, Scotland, has marches, processions, eating, and burnings. What's not to like?

Lerwick, Scotland, in the Shetland Islands (hint look to the far north of the graphic.) Graphic from yymaule.pixnet.net

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Fire processions... photo from www.uphellyaa.org

Marches - photo from www.thenational.ae

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General fun, frivolities and healthy sandwiches ... photo from blogs.glowscotland.org.uk

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Culminating in a burning of a Viking gallery where 1000 "Vikings" cast burning torches into the vessel. Photo from www.sabah.com.tr

The World Trade Organization announces progress ...

There are these global institutions out there that we tend to lose track of, yet provide frameworks within which the nations on our small globe interact. One we hear about a lot - the UN with its headquarters in New York - has many forums dealing with security, peacekeeping, development, women and children's rights, etc.

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In front of the UN headquarters in New York, a gift from Luxemborg. Photo from visit.un.org

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are more obscure in what they do. The World Bank, according to its website, "provide[s] low-interest loans, interest-free credits, and grants to developing countries. These support a wide array of investments in such areas as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. Some of our projects are co-financed with governments, other multilateral institutions, commercial banks, export credit agencies, and private sector investors."

The IMF is, according to its website, "an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."

The WTO, according to its website, develops agreements between groups of nations, that "cover goods, services and intellectual property. They spell out the principles of liberalization, and the permitted exceptions. They include individual countries’ commitments to lower customs tariffs and other trade barriers, and to open and keep open services markets."

All three institutions have their critics, and examples abound where agreements or sets of principles have hurt or hindered development and prosperity as much as foster it. Developing nations often charge that these institutions are oriented to serve the developed nations interests as much if not more than those without political or economic clout. Prosperous Asian nations in the past decade have also been asking when they will have a turn at leadership positions, and capitalism is clearly the economic approach favored over other models (though one might ask what is the alternative... certainly communism was not a success story).

Indeed, it has been customary for the IMF to be led by a Western European (currently France's Christine Legard), while the World Bank has from its 1944 beginning been led by an American (currently Dr. Jim Yong Kim). Both headquarters are in Washington D.C.

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>Christine Legard, President of the IMF, photo by Adam Sage Paris, The Times

World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim, photo from World Bank website

The World Trade Organization, however, is a slightly different animal. Though also headquartered in the developed nation and storied city of Geneva, Switzerland, the leadership has rotated much more globally, especially in the past decade. (From 1948, WTO - formerly GATT - leadership has come from the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Thailand, France, and now Brazil).

Brazilian Roberto Azevêdo, has taken on the WTO leadership position since September 2013, photo from www.valor.com.br

The buried lead

If the reader is still here (ha ha), this context brings us to the most recent announcement of a successful round of trade talks that took place this week in Bali, Indonesia. WTO member nations debated a variety of arcane issues around growing trade among themselves, but India made the headlines by championing the rights of developing nations to "protect" their food growing sectors, in the face of developed nations' push of additional opportunities for their own agricultural industries to export grain and other food commodities.

From the Washington Post before a final agreement was reached, "A possible World Trade Organization deal moved closer to approval Friday after a row over food subsidies was set aside following hours of global negotiations that went late into the night. Trade ministers had come to the four-day WTO meetings on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali with little hope that a slimmed-down agreement would be reached, with India refusing to budge on a provision that could endanger subsidies for grains under a policy to feed its poor. ... The meetings in Bali were seen as crucial after more than a decade of inertia, with failure possibly signaling an end to WTO’s relevance as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations among its 159 member economies."

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WTO chief Avezedo shakes hands with Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan (hosting the conference), AFP photo from Sonny Tumblekaka

The bottom line is that India's stance to protect national food growing sectors was accepted (for now), streamlined customs guidelines reached, and global trade could increase up to $1 trillion from its current level in the near future. And for the WTO, broad international agreements were highlighted compared to an increasing number of regional trade pacts that had been growing as alternatives to international understandings. In Teatree's opinion, it is refreshing to see an important developing nation, India, standing up to business as usual, as well as a Brazilian leader injecting a personal urgency into often comatose negotiations at these events. (Food security - always behind the scenes of world trade talks.)