![Nicholas Stuart.](/web/20170225112321im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/z/q/o/3/r/image.related.landscape.460x307.gugrp2.png/1487567004575.jpg)
From desert village to new Silk Road
Pakistan has the imagination to turn this impossible trade route into a reality.
Nic Stuart is a Canberra writer.
Pakistan has the imagination to turn this impossible trade route into a reality.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan must talk to avoid a deadly arms race.
Populist rabble-rousers are winning election after election, all over the world.
Chaos and dysfunction have a terrible way of sneaking up on perfectly civilised societies. Just 103 years ago, for example, European society was as integrated as it had ever been. A couple of years later and it was engaged in the most horrific mass slaughter imaginable. Wars like this were exactly the sort of thing the alliance system was meant to prevent. The concept of a "balance of power" was meant to make war futile. Many thought, hoped, that as trade intensified and weapons became more deadly, war would become a thing of the past. It didn't.
Here are a few predictions for the coming year, starting with Malcolm Turnbull losing his job.
Nobody has a mortgage on the truth about anything and everything; not even me, says Nic Stuart
Those with a disability (and their carers) can't just shrug off their problems and relax at Christmas time.
Innovation needs to be much more than just a word. Things are changing and we'll be rapidly left way behind unless we evolve.
It's easy to take a quick look at Peter Dutton and simply write him off. That would be a mistake.
Taiwan's National Day parade this year was all about sending subtle signals to mainland China. The great fear is that Beijing may have no need, or desire, to change its attitude.
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