Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Natural Disaster

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Exploiting natural disasters

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 10 February 2011
    2 Comments

    The Tsunami is recreated in spectacular fashion, but robbed of significance, except as a catalyst for one white-skinned European tourist, who survives despite the deaths of hundreds of thousands of brown-skinned Indonesian villagers. This is exploitative in the extreme.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Natural disaster fund could be Gillard's easy path to glory

    • Michael Mullins
    • 31 January 2011
    5 Comments

    It is difficult for Prime Ministers to impose short term pain for long term gain if they want to be re-elected. But Gillard faces a different situation because the Independents are her masters, not the 2013 voters.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Making flood reconstruction fair and sustainable

    • Lin Hatfield Dodds
    • 28 January 2011
    18 Comments

    The levy announced yesterday is progressive, precisely the type of approach that social justice principles and practicality dictate. But it is a one off response and another example of why we need to fix Australia’s taxation system for the long term.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Thirty years of Jesuit Refugee Service

    • Mark Raper
    • 17 November 2010
    3 Comments

    May I tell you about one refugee whom I met during the 20 years I lived and worked JRS? The story has no happy outcome, indeed far from it. But it may help to communicate some of the feelings that inspire many who accompany the refugees.

    READ MORE
  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Being humanistic about fish

    • Susie Byers
    • 20 October 2010
    2 Comments

    Harry Wetnose the Bigeye Tuna will probably never adorn any T-shirts. Nevertheless, the endangered Bigeye Tuna is in big trouble and could do with some help. The way we relate to fish raises some important questions about what it is to be a responsible person in the world.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Insect empathy

    • Chris Wallace-Crabbe and Margaret Cameron
    • 19 October 2010

    Industrious servant of excellent fame .. You sting to protect the hive, then you die ... Instinct is such an unworthy name .. Which calls a selfless attitude, a lie.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Natural disaster and human greed in Pakistan

    • Simon Roughneen
    • 01 September 2010
    5 Comments

    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.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Why we're slow to help Pakistan

    • Michael Mullins
    • 30 August 2010
    4 Comments

    The Australian public is being delivered a profoundly misleading subliminal message that, because the Taliban are active in the region, they are tied up in providing relief for flood victims. We need to forget politics for a while and think about the part we can play in helping Pakistanis through their crisis.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Chile's tremble

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 04 March 2010
    7 Comments

    Concepción, the second largest city in Chile, was worst affected by the weekend's earthquake. I was there little more than a month ago, visiting old comrades and my sister and her family. At the moment of writing I have been unable to contact them.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2009: Fatal firestorm's distant witness

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 05 January 2010

    A year ago, on the day of the National Apology, the emotion was palpable over the seas. But it was hard not being there, standing on the same dirt as your fellow countrymen. It is similarly difficult to be away from home during a time of natural disaster. February 2009

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Deadly tsunami and dangerous pride

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 October 2009
    3 Comments

    The parochial Australian press reaction to last week's Samoan tsunami shows how editors play on people's sense of pride to sell newspapers. But the misuse and manipulation of information can have adverse consequences for third parties.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    On blaming God for swine flu

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 May 2009
    15 Comments

    An American priest reportedly claimed that swine flu was God's punishment for sin. The idea that God might use natural disasters to punish people is repugnant. But at first glance the Scriptures do seem to represent God as doing just that.

    READ MORE