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This week’s Wednesday Lowy Lunch focused on the foreign policy dimensions of Paul Kelly’s new book, 'The March of Patriots: The struggle for modern Australia'. Divided by temperament, politics and values, Paul Keating and John Howard had passionate views about Australia’s role in the world and the national interest strategy best calculated to realise their objectives. In his lecture Paul Kelly reviewed the different conceptions of foreign policy held by Keating and Howard and assessed the legacy they bequeathed to Kevin Rudd.

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 12 March 2008, International Security Program Director Rory Medcalf proposed a new type of arms control initiative for the Rudd Government, one focused primarily on Asia and its rising nuclear-armed powers China and India.

For much of the twentieth century the West's conception of Asia largely focused on Northeast and Southeast Asia. For decades, this largely maritime and 'vertical' view of Asia accurately reflected the distribution of the region's economic and strategic power. But as the world enters the second decade of the twenty-first century this vertical view of Asia has outlived its usefulness, obscuring rather than illuminating emerging geo-strategic realities.

On 9 April at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Singapore-based analyst and journalist Andrew Symon spoke about the increasing interest in nuclear energy in Southeast Asia, to coincide with the launch of a Lowy Institute Analysis written by him on the same topic, 'Nuclear power in Southeast Asia: implications for Australia and non-proliferation'.

On 6 June, at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Professor Warwick McKibbin provided a preliminary assessment of the report released on 1 June by the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading. This joint government-business task group was established by the Prime Minister on 10 December 2006 with a mandate to advise on the nature and design of a workable global emissions trading system in which Australia would be able to participate.

Our regular Lowy Lunch was held on Thursday, May 3 to allow a special visiting speaker, Archbishop Pius Ncube, to update us on the current situation in Zimbabwe. Pius Alick Ncube was ordained as the Archbishop of Bulawayo (the second largest city in Zimbabwe and the centre of Matabeleland) on 25 January 1998. As a prominent critic of the Mugabe regime, Archbishop Ncube is an internationally recognised human rights activist. He has worked tirelessly in favour of social justice and against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 20 February, Dr Simon Haines, the Reader in English at the Australian National University, spoke on 'Shakespeare, ideology and terrorism'. Shakespeare's villains subvert or dissolve ideology — it appears not to thrive in the climate of his thought. Could this be a helpful corrective in how we think about terroristic behaviour? Or indeed about 'evil' in general?

News which reaches us from Colombia often paints a picture of a country at war with itself. But Colombia is experiencing a transformation. Security has improved sufficiently to support sustained economic growth, despite the current profound global economic turmoil. What does this mean for Colombia's future, for Latin America, and for greater Australian engagement with Colombia and the region? On Wednesday 11 March 2009, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host Mr Luis Guillermo Plata, Colombia's Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, who spoke on the opportunities and challenges Colombia and the region provide.

Ever since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, a new president’s first hundred days in office have come to be seen as the first important measure of his performance. Next week marks the end of Barack Obama’s first hundred days as president. How impressively has he performed compared to expectations and historical precedent? Are his policies proving to be more similar to those of President Bush than may have been anticipated – or is this change we can believe in? What clues can we detect about the future directions of his administration?

On the evening of Wednesday 27 July, as part of the Lowy Institute’s Distinguished Speaker Series, The Hon Julie Bishop MP, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, spoke on Australia's bilateral relationship with Papua New Guinea.

Governing climate and weather, shaping planetary chemistry, generating most of the atmospheric oxygen, the ocean is vital to all life. In the past 50 years, more has been learned about the ocean than during all preceding history, but at the same time, more has been lost. Sharp declines in commercially-exploited fish and other marine life and increasing pollution mean trouble for the ocean - and for us. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 5 August, internationally renowned environmentalist Sylvia Earle explained in her presentation, 'Thinking Blue', why 'hope spots' - fully protected areas in the sea - are critically important to our collective future.

On the evening of February 25th, the Lowy Institute hosted a lecture by Clinton Dines reflecting on China’s transformation in the last three decades. Clinton discussed the nature of change in the People’s Republic of China in the Reform & Opening Era: then he assessed the significance of these changes in terms of China’s growing role in the world and for governments and companies seeking effective ways to deal with this geopolitical/economic phenomenon, which simultaneously represents both huge opportunities for global development and serious challenges to the existing status quo. Clinton Dines is one of Australia’s most knowledgeable and respected business leaders in China.

The most significant and positive change in Southeast Asia in the last decade has been the democratisation of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Thirteen days ago, Indonesia held national parliamentary elections and it appears that the biggest winners are President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 22 April, Dr Marcus Mietzner analysed the reasons for the Democratic Party's success and what this tells us about the evolution of Indonesia's political party system.

When Nixon launched the War on Drugs in 1971, it was intended primarily as a political strategy rather than as a public policy. While it has failed as a public policy, the War on Drugs has often succeeded as a political strategy. However, significant health, social or economic benefits are hard to identify. There have been no reductions in deaths, diseases, crime or corruption. Global drug production and consumption is increasing while retail price is decreasing and purity is increasing. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 15 July, Dr Alex Wodak addressed these problems.

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 16 April, Dr Michael Fullilove read the tea leaves of the contest for the US presidency and discussed the implications for Australia. Dr Michael Fullilove, the Director of the Lowy Institute's Global Issues Program, writes widely on US politics and foreign policy. This year he is based in Washington, DC as a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.