Author: Pacific Outlier

By Andrew Lim 15th March 2019 is a date which will live in infamy for New Zealanders. On that grim day, a White supremacist and self-proclaimed “eco-fascist” murdered 50 people and wounded 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch. Fortunately, the New Zealand Police authorities acted swiftly, apprehending him and three other suspects. At the … Continue reading The 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings and implications for New Zealand society and public policy | Andrew Lim

By Andrew Lim The 14th Malaysian general election (GE14), held on 9 May 2018, will be long remembered as an important date in Malaysian history. For the first time in the country’s 61-year history, the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN; National Front) lost its majority in the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives), the Malaysian Parliament’s … Continue reading Malaysia boleh! Making sense of the 2018 Malaysian general election

In the past year, religious rioting and other forms of communal violence have increased in several areas of India. In the past two weeks alone, riots have broken out in West Bengal, Bihar and Rajasthan killing a handful of people and causing extensive damage. The police have arrested local officials from the ruling nationalist Bharatiya … Continue reading Sanjal Shastri & Chris Wilson: Religious Riots as Political Strategy in India

“The Spanish dictator Franco died more than forty years ago, in 1975, but his political legacy – a centralist government in a de facto multinational country, has emerged as a major problem in present days.Today, millions of citizens are marching in the streets of Catalonia calling not for more autonomy, as they did only ten … Continue reading Aitor Jiménez Gonzáles | The Catalan conflict: a partisan perspective

New Zealand has a long history of televised debates between political party leaders during election campaigns, stretching back more than four decades.  That has continued up to the present, with a raft of debates this year between both major and minor party leaders on television, and lesser figures, thanks to online coverage. The first such … Continue reading Mark Boyd|New Zealand election debates better quality this year as close election looms

Three years ago, David Cunliffe led the New Zealand Labour Party to its worst electoral defeat in recent history. Labour received barely a quarter of the vote. NZ Herald journalist Claire Trevett described the 2014 result as ‘rock bottom’– suggesting it could not get any worse. But seven-and-a-half-weeks out from election day 2017, things are … Continue reading Josh Van Veen | Labour must win back the working class

Keshia Jacotine (Monash University) and Tim Bale (Queen Mary, University of London) It has been twelve months since the United Kingdom (UK) went to the polls and made the decision to leave the European Union (EU) – one that came as a shock both to many Brits as well as to the rest of the … Continue reading Brexit – the big uncertainty | Jacotine and Bale

ISIS-inspired jihadists carried out their latest act of barbarism in London, using a vehicle and knives to kill eight civilians enjoying a Saturday night. This followed a similar attack at Westminster and the bombing at the Arianna Grande concert in Manchester. Other countries have seen far worse violence from ISIS and similar jihadist groups. Who … Continue reading Chris Wilson | Jihadist Terrorism in the West

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Agreement last week does not spell the end of the climate accord by any means, but it is significant. Unlike 2001 when the US failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the global community is now far more unified on climate action. Countries … Continue reading Julie MacArthur | Forget Trump, NZ must up its own climate change game