https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/UkraineSupport47/Terms_of_Reference
Terms of Reference
Australian support for Ukraine, with particular reference to:
(a) whether the support is timely, coordinated and comprehensive;
(b) whether support is appropriately coordinated on a whole-of-government
and whole-of-country basis;
(c) efforts to hold Russia to account, including by addressing mis- and dis-
information in Australian public debate and the region; and
(d) any related matters.
[The terms of reference (ToR) are quite brief - but it might be worth raising questions that are not directly addressed in the ToR
i.e. The ToR ask “…whether the support is timely, coordinated and comprehensive” but do not ask, for example,
whether the support provided by Australia is appropriate – i.e. should we be sending short-range air defence systems, drones for the Ukrainian military
or whether Australian involvement is actually required for a war so far away from the Asia-Pacific region
or whether Australia should be focusing more on matters in our own region
Given (d) any related matters, submissions could also focus, for example, on what role Australia might be able to play in working towards a sustained negotiated settlement]
About time someone focused on Armenia and Azerbaidjan
Once again, James, you are covering an area glaringly ignored by the mainstream. The silence is particularly odd when, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview), the Armenian genocide of 1915-1916
"[...]triggered an unprecedented public philanthropic response in the United States, involving President Woodrow Wilson, Hollywood celebrities, and many thousands of Americans at the grassroots level who volunteered both domestically and abroad and raised over $110 million (over $1 billion adjusted for inflation) to assist Armenian refugees and orphans."
Also, when you think of how US-NATO is engaging in mass pro-Zionist propaganda in the face of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, in part rationalised as through reverence for Jewish suffering in the Nazi holocaust, yet the same parties are supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and many Jews are protesting about the massacre of Gazans, this is all excruciatingly ironic and utterly mystifying.
Add to that that Azerbaidjan and Armenia would strike most westerners as exotic ancient place-names, hard to imagine as living polities. Then throw in the confusing geography whereby a part of Armenia had persisted on a landlocked hilly region in Azerbaidjan, and its a recipe for too hard to understand and report on for most writers.
This area really needs attention, especially since Azerbaidjan is also an oil producer, currently still supplying Israel, via Turkey, despite Turkey's new policies to stop trade with Israel due to Israel's treatment of Gaza.