Recapturing the spirit of 1971: towards a new regional political settlement in the Pacific

This paper proposes ways to keep Australia and New Zealand within the Pacific Islands Forum and at the same time meet the concerns of the Pacific island states about ‘charting their own course’. Overview During her visit to Suva in November 2014, Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, received a very warm reception to her attempts to achieve a rapprochement in Australia–Fiji relations. By the end of her visit, diplomatic, economic, and defence relations had been fully restored with the newly elected Bainimarama government. There was, however, one issue that was unresolved: that of Fiji’s reported refusal to accept the invitation to resume its membership of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) unless Australia and New Zealand ceased their membership. As a way of defusing the impasse on this significant issue, and of garnering support from other Pacific leaders for Australia’s continued participation in the PIF, Foreign Minister Bishop proposed that Fiji and Australia jointly host a summit for Pacific leaders to discuss whether and how the regional architecture should be reconfigured to meet the needs of the Pacific islands states in the 21st century. Her Fijian host, Prime Minister Bainimarama, accepted her proposal, and the meeting is now set for early 2015 in Sydney

Whose Oceania? contending visions of community in Pacific region-building

In the past year the ‘war against terror’ and perceptions of state failure within the post-colonial Pacific have sparked an Australian-led initiative to deepen and widen regional integration in Oceania. This paper argues that behind the seeming unanimity of the 2004 Auckland Declaration and agreement by Pacific Islands Forum leaders on a ‘Pacific vision’ and a ‘Pacific plan’ are several contending visions of regional community, and of community-building. The political and moral legitimacy of each vision depends significantly on how these visions answer the question of who is Oceania for, and who has the right to speak for it? The seemingly dominant vision (that of the Australian government) is problematic in this regard. Past practice of Pacific region-building suggests that it may therefore not receive the legitimacy it requires for sustainability. This therefore is in danger of producing an unintended consequence: the replication at a regional level of the legitimacy problem associated with the so-called failing state

Framing the Islands: Knowledge and Power in Changing Australian Images of "the South Pacific"

For several generations Australians have generated powerful depictions of a region they have variously called “the islands,” “the South Seas,” or “the South Pacific.” The most recent characterization is embedded in a forthright salvationist message that warns of an approaching “doomsday” or “nightmare” unless Pacific Islanders remake themselves—just as Australians have had to. Like earlier Australian depictions, the “new doomsdayism” sets up Pacific Islanders for outcomes not of their making. While the images of “the region” and of the potentialities of its inhabitants might at first sight appear to mark a departure from the subordination inherent in the development and security discourses of the cold war era, the underlying preconceptions suggest that it implicitly denies self-determination while claiming to advance it, and promotes superiority and exclusion while claiming to advance equality. At the heart of the new doomsdayism is the assumption of a special right to manage, steeped in old racist assumptions that are the most difficult to acknowledge. The certainty with which the new depiction has been put forward, the evangelical tone with which it has been promoted, and the dramatic and exaggerated imagery associated with it suggest that the answer may lie as much in a changing Australian imagination as in a changing reality “out there.” This is not to deny the existence of significant problems in particular places of the kind described in the general portrait. Nor is it to deny the right of Australians to represent island life. But if Australian knowledge of the South Pacific is to avoid the charge of hegemonic and belittling thought, there will have to be recognition of the subordinating preconceptions that continue to underlie Australian framings of “the islands.

The New Pacific Diplomacy

Since 2009 there has been a fundamental shift in the way that the Pacific Island states engage with regional and world politics. The region has experienced, what Kiribati President Anote Tong has aptly called, a ‘paradigm shift’ in ideas about how Pacific diplomacy should be organised, and on what principles it should operate. Many leaders have called for a heightened Pacific voice in global affairs and a new commitment to establishing Pacific Island control of this diplomatic process. This change in thinking has been expressed in the establishment of new channels and arenas for Pacific diplomacy at the regional and global levels and new ways of connecting the two levels through active use of intermediate diplomatic associations. The New Pacific Diplomacy brings together a range of analyses and perspectives on these dramatic new developments in Pacific diplomacy at sub-regional, regional and global levels, and in the key sectors of global negotiation for Pacific states – fisheries, climate change, decolonisation, and trade

2016 Assessment of Idaho\u27s Transportation Infrastructure and Funding

Idaho’s transportation system and infrastructure are vital to the state’s economy. Transportation infrastructure can help spur responsible growth in terms of employment, job creation, business retention, and property development. However, Idaho, like most states, is facing critical issues in its transportation system. Declining revenues and escalating debt service will reduce Idaho’s ability to maintain its transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair. Ultimately, without adequate investment in its transportation system, Idaho’s economy and its people will be negatively impacted. Yet Idahoans are not aware of the deteriorating transportation system or the negative consequences of underfunding it. By engaging the citizenry and key transportation stakeholders regarding this issue and offering policy alternatives adopted by peer states, Idaho can move toward instituting dedicated funding sources for transportation infrastructure which is critical to Idaho’s future economic competitiveness and vitality

Fifth Annual Idaho Public Policy Survey

The Fifth Annual Idaho Public Policy Survey was conducted December 5-13, 2019, and surveyed 1,000 adults over the age of 18 who currently live in Idaho. The sample is designed to be representative of the population of the state both geographically and demographically. This was a mixed-mode survey which contacted respondents on land line phones (33%), cell phones (33%), online (30%), and via text message (5%). The goal of using multiple means to contact respondents is to increase our coverage of the population to people who may not respond to traditional phone surveys. This survey focused on important issues facing Idaho including growth, education, taxes, and the environment. The survey has a simple random sampling margin of error of +/- 3.1% and was conducted by GS Strategies Group

Oceanic Diplomacy: An Introduction

When practitioners and scholars think of diplomacy in the Pacific context they usually have in mind the diplomacy of the post-independent Pacific Island states or the diplomacy of larger powers with interests in the region. Both of these understandings refer to a form of diplomacy built on Western practices and protocols and focused on the engagement between modern sovereign states. What the authors are attempting to bring to the fore in this In Brief, and the research project which it introduces, is a third understanding of diplomacy in the Pacific region which we are calling ‘Oceanic diplomacy’. It refers to the distinctive diplomatic practices and principles which come out of the long history and diverse cultures of the Pacific Islands. These longstanding traditional systems are still important in the conduct of relations among tribes and clans within the postcolonial states of the Pacific. These principles, practices and protocols work alongside Western diplomatic practices in the performance of modern diplomacy by Pacific Island states and are sometimes employed in the region’s diplomatic approaches to the global arena. The purpose of the authors, is to explore the value and significance of these practices in modern contexts within the state, between Pacific Island states, and in Pacific diplomacy in the global arena.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Diesel particulate matter emission factors and air quality implications from in–service rail in Washington State, USA

AbstractWe sought to evaluate the air quality implications of rail traffic at two sites in Washington State. Our goals were to quantify the exposure to diesel particulate matter (DPM) and airborne coal dust from current trains for residents living near the rail lines and to measure the DPM and black carbon emission factors (EFs). We chose two sites in Washington State, one at a residence along the rail lines in the city of Seattle and one near the town of Lyle in the Columbia River Gorge (CRG). At each site, we made measurements of size–segregated particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10), CO2 and meteorology, and used a motion–activated camera to capture video of each train for identification. We measured an average DPM EF of 0.94g/kg diesel fuel, with an uncertainty of 20%, based on PM1 and CO2 measurements from more than 450 diesel trains. We found no significant difference in the average DPM EFs measured at the two sites. Open coal trains have a significantly higher concentration of particles greater than 1μm diameter, likely coal dust. Measurements of black carbon (BC) at the CRG site show a strong correlation with PM1 and give an average BC/DPM ratio of 52% from diesel rail emissions. Our measurements of PM2.5 show that living close to the rail lines significantly increases PM2.5 exposure. For the one month of measurements at the Seattle site, the average PM2.5 concentration was 6.8μg/m3 higher near the rail lines compared to the average from several background locations. Because the excess PM2.5 exposure for residents living near the rail lines is likely to be linearly related to the diesel rail traffic density, a 50% increase in rail traffic may put these residents over the new U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards, an annual average of 12μg/m3

The impact of transport, housing, and urban development interventions on older adults' mobility: a systematic review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies

Background: Age-friendly cities and communities aim to enhance and preserve the functional abilities of older adults. This systematic review assesses the impact of interventions in transportation, housing, and urban development on the mobility of older adults. Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX up to July 2022 to identify studies that evaluated the impact of transportation, housing, and urban development interventions on older adults' mobility. Only randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies with control groups were included to establish a causal relationship between interventions and mobility outcomes. Findings: We included a total of 15 studies, of which six were randomised controlled trials. Included studies were conducted in high-income settings and employed diverse metrics to assess mobility outcomes. Among housing interventions, three studies examined the impact of assistive technology within home environments for frail older adults. Two of these interventions maintained functional status without improvement, while the third showed a significant decline in outcomes, with the control group faring even worse. Public transport interventions, focused on enhancing mobility through educational initiatives and policy revisions, consistently produced positive outcomes. Interventions related to driving training for older adults, including in-class and on-road assessments, demonstrated beneficial effects. Results from studies evaluating urban design interventions were more varied, with some enhancing mobility by making public spaces more accessible for older adults and others yielding mixed results following infrastructure changes. Interpretation: Interventions in the built environments of older adults, specifically targeting transportation, housing and urban development, have the potential to enhance mobility and related outcomes according to rigorously designed quantitative evaluations. Due to heterogeneity in how mobility is conceptualised in the literature, greater harmonisation in measurement of mobility would help us understand how the social and built environment contribute to maintaining and improving mobility in older adults. Funding: World Health Organization

Maternal Influences on the Transmission of Leukocyte Gene Expression Profiles in Population Samples from Brisbane, Australia

Two gene expression profiling studies designed to identify maternal influences on development of the neonate immune system and to address the population structure of the leukocyte transcriptome were carried out in Brisbane, Australia. In the first study, a comparison of 19 leukocyte samples obtained from mothers in the last three weeks of pregnancy with 37 umbilical cord blood samples documented differential expression of 7,382 probes at a false discovery rate of 1%, representing approximately half of the expressed transcriptome. An even larger component of the variation involving 8,432 probes, notably enriched for Vitamin E and methotrexate-responsive genes, distinguished two sets of individuals, with perfect transmission of the two profile types between each of 16 mother-child pairs in the study. A minor profile of variation was found to distinguish the gene expression profiles of obese mothers and children of gestational diabetic mothers from those of children born to obese mothers. The second study was of adult leukocyte profiles from a cross-section of Red Cross blood donors sampled throughout Brisbane. The first two axes in this study are related to the third and fourth axes of variation in the first study and also reflect variation in the abundance of CD4 and CD8 transcripts. One of the profiles associated with the third axis is largely excluded from samples from the central portion of the city. Despite enrichment of insulin signaling and aspects of central metabolism among the differentially expressed genes, there was little correlation between leukocyte expression profiles and body mass index overall. Our data is consistent with the notion that maternal health and cytokine milieu directly impact gene expression in fetal tissues, but that there is likely to be a complex interplay between cultural, genetic, and other environmental factors in the programming of gene expression in leukocytes of newborn children