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Keywords: Rescue

  • INTERNATIONAL

    In the shadow of SIEV-X

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 01 November 2021
    38 Comments

    Two decades ago, an Indonesian vessel given the name SIEV X sank with loss of life that should have caused a flood of tears and a surge of compassion. Instead of being seen in humanitarian terms, the deaths of 353 people became a form of rich political capital, placed in the bank of opportunism to be amortised at a federal election.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    From persecution to protection and the purgatory in between

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 October 2021
    6 Comments

    Mark Twain is reported to have said ‘history does not repeat, it rhymes.’ Watching a US helicopter evacuating people from the US Embassy in Kabul, that was rhyming. Many have seen this picture before, 30 April 1975, but then it was Saigon. The massive confusion, mixed messages, terrified people, lack of human rights protection happened in 1975, and still happens in 2021.

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  • RELIGION

    Valuing human life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 September 2021
    24 Comments

    In recent weeks the value of human life has become a topic of public conversation in different contexts. Proposed legislation on abortion and assisted dying has continued to focus attention on it. Debate about loosening COVID restrictions has also balanced the risk of death from the disease with risks to health and economic welfare from lockdowns. In Afghanistan the victory of the Taliban has again raised questions about the morality of the war and the killing involved by both sides.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The Tampa legacy 20 years on

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 September 2021
    23 Comments

    It took 438 desperate human beings upon the overladen wooden fishing boat, the KM Palapa, to present Australia’s Howard government in August 2001 with an electoral opportunity. At first, there was feigned ignorance from Canberra about any signs of desperation. The vessel, lacking power, lay some 100km off Christmas Island. Despite a coast guard plane noting men jumping up and down on the roof in a frenzy, nothing was initially done.

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  • ECONOMICS

    The economy is never as good as it looks and never as bad as it seems

    • David James
    • 04 May 2021
    2 Comments

    But although the Coalition will never admit it, it looks suspiciously like there has been some bipartisan institutional learning about how to manage financial crises. If you want to stimulate an economy in times of crisis put the money directly into the economy, either into people’s pockets or to businesses who then pass it on to workers.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Locked in and locked out

    • Zaki Haidari
    • 23 March 2021
    9 Comments

    I am a refugee from Afghanistan, and I belong a minority ethnic group, the Hazaras. We have been persecuted for a long time because of our ethnicity, religion and values. In 2012, I was forced to leave Afghanistan. I was 17. Back home, my father was a medical doctor. The Taliban accused him of working with international armed forces in the country at the time. One day the Taliban took him away, and nobody has seen him since.  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Crossing borders in a Kombi van

    • Brian Matthews
    • 16 February 2021
    6 Comments

    The border-obsessed times we live in reminded me of some really tough borders I encountered in years past. It is October 1961, the place: rural Turkey. Where you would have expected to roll on down the deserted dusty road, there is a boom gate and four sentries. This can’t be a border, however.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Biden's middle class in a divided America

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 November 2020
    9 Comments

    The priority given to the middle class was not new — Biden stressed it in speeches through the primaries and again as a candidate. And it is no doubt important. But when seen in the light of the passionate polarisation of the campaign, the closeness of the results, and the continuing mutual antipathy of the supporters of each party, rebuilding the middle class seems an unlikely source of healing.

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  • CARTOON

    As good as his word

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 14 October 2020
    1 Comment

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Food insecurity, health privilege and COVID-19

    • Maddison Moore
    • 01 September 2020
    2 Comments

    The global impact of COVID-19 has further increased inequality in food security, with nations already facing widespread famine, malnutrition and food insecurity being hit the hardest.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The art of storytelling

    • Julie Perrin
    • 18 August 2020
    31 Comments

    The capacity to story our experience is a powerful tool for reflection and understanding. As adults we learn that no story is pure and we are capable of telling ourselves spin, but the shaping of experience into story is the bread and butter of our lives. Narrative, it has been said, is a primary act of mind.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Women deserve a bigger role in our economic recovery

    • Nicola Heath
    • 30 June 2020
    2 Comments

    It turns out that the COVID-19 economic crisis is disproportionately affecting women — so much so that some have dubbed it a ‘pink-collar recession’. Unemployment figures show that since February, 457,517 women have lost their jobs compared to 380,737 men.

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