Storm Tide Recurrence Intervals – A Statistical Approach Using Beach Ridge Plains in Northern Australia

The marine inundation generated by Tropical Cyclone Yasi, north Queensland, February 2011, flooded at least 130 beachfront homes and many commercial businesses, becoming the most substantial marine inundation impact in Australia's modern history. As a consequence, guidelines for building in storm tide impact areas have been developed and discussions are beginning on whether Australia needs a national standard for buildings impacted by these events. Central to this will be determining which areas of coastal land need to be subjected to the standard, and this will likely be based upon the magnitude of a particular return interval event. The veracity of the current method for determining these return intervals is difficult to determine as there has been no objective way to assess the accuracy of this approach. One such method is developed here – applying extreme value theory statistics to millennial scale sedimentary records of tropical cyclone marine inundations. The approach is applied to a 5000‐year‐long beach ridge record of tropical cyclone inundations near Tully Heads and the results suggest that the inundation generated by Tropical Cyclone Yasi here had a return interval of approximately 1000 years. This is a substantially lower figure than the approximately 5000‐year return interval suggested by the currently accepted approach. Irrespective of which method is more accurate, the marine inundation generated by Yasi was a very rare event and one that may become more common under a future altered climate.     

Modelling Potential Socio-economic Determinants of Building Fires in South East Queensland

This paper investigates the relationships between areas of building fire incidence, levels of socio-economic disadvantage and the underlying socio-economic characteristics in the South East Queensland (SEQ) region, Australia. Disaggregated fire incident data was acquired from the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service (QFRS) and then aggregated to the Statistical Local Area (SLA) level. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defined index of socio-economic disadvantage (called ‘SEIFA’) has been used as the basis to identify relationships between socio-economic disadvantage and building fires. A regression model was then developed to predict the incidence of building fires using a range of socio-economic variables. Five significant predictors were identified that include: i) percentage of unemployed, ii) proportion of Indigenous population, iii) families living in separate dwellings, iv) one parent, and v) parent families with children less than fifteen years of age. Results also show that the distribution of building fires varies markedly across the SEQ region, with some of the Brisbane inner suburbs, areas of high socio-economic disadvantage, and parts of inland SEQ associated with relatively high fire rates.     

Why conventional wisdom on radicalization fails: the persistence of a failed discourse

Politicians, the media, and some academics are getting it wrong about radicalization. Relying on simple narratives to explain how an individual departs from point a (‘a good Muslim boy’) to point b (‘a suicide bomber’), too many recent contributions to academia rely on assumptions and ‘conventional wisdom’ rather than testable and falsifiable empirical research and methods. Through specific cases, this article seeks to demonstrate how the over‐simplification of ‘conventional wisdom’ privileges convenient political narratives over the complex realities of such situations. In light of this failure to account for reality, this article seeks to challenge current thinking on radicalization by exposing its limitations, as currently being used, as a meaningful basis and departure point for rigorous social science research. The article concludes by showing how the current persistence of this ‘conventional wisdom’ approach to radicalization ultimately betrays the normative political assumptions of those who insist on using this term, and how this adherence to ‘conventional wisdom’ now deprives radicalization from being a relevant and useful academic or policy discourse. This is because radicalization as an area for study has been corrupted by its instrumental political application.     

Iran's nuclear challenge: nine years and counting

The technical and political evidence that Iran is seeking to establish a ‘nuclear hedging’ capability has gradually increased over the past nine years. The regime in Tehran has continued to insist that its nuclear ambitions are purely civilian in nature and it has resisted the international community's dual‐track policy, encompassing both negotiations and sanctions, to persuade Iran to be fully transparent about its nuclear activities and plans, and to suspend work related to uranium enrichment and plutonium separation. While the prospects for a negotiated solution currently appear slim, the regime does not yet appear to have decided whether, or when, to produce nuclear weapons and to break out of the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty. It is essential, therefore, to maintain and if necessary to build up the pressure on Iran and to strengthen efforts to disrupt its procurement of technology and materials for its nuclear programme. It is also imperative for the international community to maintain negotiations and also consider alternative diplomatic approaches to enhance the prospects of keeping Iran focused purely on civil nuclear ambitions, while at the same time resolving questions related to the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme.     

The blowback of repression and the dynamics of North African radicalization

The narrative of the historic struggle against colonialism is subject to a high degree of political manipulation in North Africa. Myths, memories and symbols based on the struggle against colonial oppression, whether 'true' or not, provide a latent and continually relevant context for understanding and interpreting contemporary events. For both recent North African immigrants, and second, third and fourth generation immigrants to Europe, contemporary injustices and violence, whether perpetrated in Europe or in the Maghreb, are being understood in this historical colonial context. For some, these myths, memories and symbols may be the reason why they join a peaceful, democratic group to lobby for democracy and political transparency. For a minority of North Africans, these symbols of the past are invoked to justify a jihadist challenge to North African regimes and the West. Based on extensive interviews with North African activists and community leaders, this article will show how the collective memory of the abuse of power by the state, both during and after the colonial era, has created a latent mistrust of the West, especially of France. Political repression in North Africa since independence has created a rupture between what was expected from independence and the realities of political life, and North Africans often ascribe this disappointment to the inherently French character of the regimes which were in power during the 1950s and 1960s. North Africans also believe that this is reflected in the continuing active intervention on the part of the West to support these illiberal regimes in the face of democratic and popular challenges. The subsequent senses of injustice and disappointment, relating to the use and abuse of state power, continues to shape North African political mobilization and, worryingly, has created a latent basis for radicalization among North Africans living and working in Europe.