Australians can be rightly proud of their government's generous commitment to Indonesia's recovery from the tsunami.
This is a new level of co-operation and goodwill between Australia and its closest neighbor. It also demonstrates how far relations between the two have improved in a very short time.
It was only three years ago that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's predecessor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, famously refused to take John Howard's call when the Prime Minister rang to talk about the Tampa crisis.
To realize just how much things have changed, try to imagine the insular Megawati sharing such a role - any role - with an Australian leader. Yudhoyono is, of course, a leader of a very different stripe. With the authority conferred by a background in the military, he is, as well, Western-educated and outward- looking. From the outset, his presidency has offered unprecedented opportunities for upgrading relations between Indonesia and Australia.
Accordingly, the Prime Minister is right to focus most of our aid on Indonesia, instead of fragmenting it. Arguably, our greatest obligation is, in any event, to our nearest neighbor.
No amount of aid can ever provide adequate solace for those who have been lost, but a new partnership between Australia and Indonesia would be a most fitting memorial. -- The Sydney Morning Herald
Tsunami's global context
A natural disaster like the Indian Ocean tsunami does more than tear away at the fabric of life in the afflicted region. It also opens a window to other world problems.
After an outsized tragedy, people's hearts are often bigger than their wallets.
Donors have deluged charities with tens of millions of dollars, and nations have pledged more than US$1.6 billion to aid tsunami victims. But history shows that governments don't always keep their promises, and even the best relief campaigns lose steam.
After an earthquake killed 30,000 in the Iranian city of Bam in December 2003, relief poured in. Now, a year later, streets are still hidden under tons of rubble, and many survivors are in tents or boxlike pre-fab houses.
Since January 2002, the world has pledged $5.2 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction. Today, only 75 percent of that money has actually been committed by donors, according to New York University's Center on International Cooperation. Private charities usually do better, but no central authority tracks their follow-through.
The best measure isn't money spent, but goals achieved: People with permanent housing. Orphaned children with stable homes. Families with real livelihoods.
For the sake of those suffering in South Asia, today's good intentions mustn't recede as quickly as the waves of a tsunami. -- USA Today
No Delay for Iraqi Elections
Every suicide bombing in Iraq these days brings new calls for a postponement of national elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Those demanding a delay are usually Sunni Muslims -- who've lost the power they held under Saddam Hussein.
But the voices include well-wishers outside the country worried that an election boycotted by a community accounting for 20 percent of the population would permanently cripple representative government.
Delaying balloting for a 275-member interim national assembly that will write an interim constitution and then yield to a permanent legislature in another round of elections later in the year would give terrorists the power to decide if or when elections will be held. A delay would not guarantee that security would improve; it could worsen. Nor would it ensure that Sunni politicians would eventually participate; it might simply embolden them to demand further delays. And a postponement would let insurgents continue to rail against a government picked by Washington.
The Bush administration points to a democratic Iraq as a beacon for the Arab nations of the Middle East. That is a laudable goal, but the imperative short-term need is to at least establish a government in Baghdad that can claim some legitimacy from Mosul to Basra, and that will make most Iraqis feel they have regained their sovereignty. -- LA Times, Los Angeles