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The release on Saturday of Burma's democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi, and last week's Australian high court decisions regarding refugees and bikies, each contain salutary lessons for governments that attempt to rule by popular fear.
The name Sukkur is derived from the Arabic word for intense. For aid workers, the epithet seems apt. This disaster seems as vast as the swollen country-long lake that the Indus River has become. But the real human suffering and loss can be obscured by or sanitised into mere statistics.
Significant agreement was achieved in Copenhagen on the present and future forcible displacement of people because of climate change and environmental degradation. Can global cooperation for the protection of vulnerable displaced persons be renewed to meet new circumstances?
Sitting inside a purpose-built cell within Burma's notorious Insein prison, Suu Kyi today turns 64. Despite the 'bells and whistles' of a Burmese court, Suu Kyi is unlikely to receive a fair trial and will likely spend the next few years in prison.
Bloggers are being hunted and jailed in countries such as Burma and Iran. In Western nations they are incurring the wrath of disgruntled mainstream journalists. The plight of St Mary's South Brisbane holds a useful metaphor for this crusade on free speech.
Harry Nicolaides should never have been jailed, and his release is a cause for celebration and relief. Yet it leaves many unanswered questions about the reason for his imprisonment, and highlights the plight of many other persecuted writers.
The rumoured potential of the Large Hadron Collider to bring about the disintegration of the universe captured the public imagination. 'Hadron' is a word susceptible to misprinting of a kind that destroys the seriousness of any discussion. (September 2008)
The protesters who occupied Bangkok's airports are claiming victory in their political battle, following the Constitutional Court's dissolution of the ruling party. But this is far from the end. The government is down, but not out.
There was good reason for keeping the message simple. We wanted our cards to get past the censors. There is a time for advocacy, and a time for simple words of support. Together they make up the 'human' and the 'rights' in human rights.
George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh occupied opposing aesthetic, philosophical and political poles. This conceptually agile book suggests they attained moral — if not spiritual — agreement from fundamentally opposing directions.
The rumoured potential of the Large Hadron Collider to bring about the disintegration of the universe captured the public imagination. 'Hadron' is a word susceptible to misprinting of a kind that destroys the seriousness of any discussion.
Last Wednesday's killing of three foreign aid workers in Afghanistan marked a new low point for non government organisations. NGOs must lose neither heart nor the support of their constituencies in developed countries.