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Keywords: Eyes Wide Open

  • INTERNATIONAL

    State of the death penalty in Southeast Asia

    • Erin Cook
    • 14 November 2018
    2 Comments

    With such a wide range of crimes under the death penalty banner, what will sentencing in the new Malaysia look like? And what timeline can be expected, given the government has a diverse suite of policy priorities for its first term.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Submission to the elements

    • Tony London
    • 04 June 2018
    4 Comments

    Winter fronts roll through, we have had our tongues out for rain, genuflected in case it may have helped, and now another scud rattling on the tin roof, gutters run over like a gushing bereavement.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Apology ten years on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 February 2018
    3 Comments

    Today we celebrate the tenth anniversary of what was a graced day in our nation's history. Back then, our elected representatives on both sides served us well. A heartfelt apology was given and received. We are all the better for it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Writing workshops at the Muslim School

    • Jenny Blackford
    • 22 January 2018
    3 Comments

    I ask the kids to pick a character and write a sentence or a paragraph to start the telling of those lives cut short. A tragedy so far away in space and time is made brand-new, but still as sad, by Aussie Muslim hands and shiny minds.

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  • RELIGION

    From Caracas to Rome: The story of Arturo Sosa

    • 07 November 2016
    1 Comment

    Two days after his election, the communications team of General Congregation 36 sat down with Father General Arturo Sosa to discuss his life and thought. The conversation introduces the new Superior General in a way that is more personal, to Jesuits and the wider Ignatian family around the world.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Being clear eyed and misty eyed about human rights and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 06 October 2016
    8 Comments

    Australia's policy is unique and unrepeatable by other nations because it requires that you be an island nation continent without asylum seekers in direct flight from the countries next door and that you have access to a couple of other neighbouring island nations which are so indigent that they will receive cash payments in exchange for warehousing asylum seekers and proven refugees, perhaps indefinitely. The policy over which Turnbull presides is not world best practice. It's a disgrace.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My life with dwarfism

    • Julie Guirgis
    • 22 September 2016
    5 Comments

    Being unique has its pros. It has made me a compassionate person able to see past the differences in people. And although I am a dwarf by birth I don't identify as that. Being the creative free-spirit that I am I have come to reject any labels put on me. I haven't let my medical condition define me; instead I have created my own identity. As the writer Helen Keller once said, 'Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Moonlight conventions

    • Ross Jackson
    • 06 September 2016
    2 Comments

    I put in my journal: 'a full moon tonight, crisp and splendidly clear for our walk around the shore and back to the resort' ... What did the Israeli professor remark? 'It bodes well on Hoshana Rabbah that we are casting shadows in moonlight.' Though our Chinese friend had little to say following this evening's lecture, he was right about the yellow plum at the bottom of the lake.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Letting go of bicycle grief

    • Ben O'Mara
    • 03 June 2016
    7 Comments

    I found the remains of my bicycle on the carport wall. They were broken and twisted, like the body of a victim left to rot in a serial killer movie. The police officer told me it was strange. So strange that his partner took photos and dusted for prints. I couldn't make sense of the robbery. While sturdy, my bicycle was seven years old, and had seen better days. It wasn't worth much money. Who would buy worn leather and a few scratched bits of metal on eBay? Or risk being caught for second hand parts?

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Calculated risks, incalculable rewards in India

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 27 May 2016
    3 Comments

    In 2013 I attended an event so exclusive, so unique, it wouldn't happen again for another 144 years. It was the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, where, over a six-week period, an estimated 120 million Hindu pilgrims converged on the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Sarasweti Rivers in order to perform puja, or the cleansing of their sins. If we're open to what travel seeks to teach us, we'll gain from it the most superior of educations, and the most profound lessons in humility.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The last year

    • Diane Fahey
    • 19 January 2016
    2 Comments

    They'd stopped by then, your half-filled crosswords with their fey surmises — inspired leaps from the backs of routine clues ... I glimpsed alcoves of dusty treasure: kris — 'Malayan dagger'; obi — 'a Japanese sash'; écus — 'old French coins'. You summoned bird names from the air: rhea, erne; had the secrets of ponds and streams at your fingertips: eft, orfe, elver ... 'open', 'small seeds'; six letters. You would have got that.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Mistaken for Jewish in cold, grand Moscow

    • Howard Willis
    • 19 February 2014
    6 Comments

    On the occasions I got into detailed discussions with strangers in Moscow, a pattern emerged. Saying I was Australian prompted a polite request for clarification: 'But your ancestry?' The reply that I was fifth-generation Australian was treated as an evasion, or met with the assumption that my ancestors were 'bandits'. Generally, Muscovites took a second look at me and the box they ticked was 'Jew'.

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