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Keywords: Floods

  • AUSTRALIA

    Addicted to disaster porn

    • Michael Mullins
    • 17 January 2011
    10 Comments

    Durng the past week, we've been treated to wall to wall television coverage of the Brisbane and Queensland floods. Some would argue that television, and indeed the media in general, is all about fulfilling the human need for gratification, prurient or otherwise. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Diary from the eye of the flood

    • Susan Prior
    • 17 January 2011
    12 Comments

    According to predictions based on earlier floods the ground floor of my house was was going to be inundated, so all our worldies were brought upstairs. We waited. It rained. Then on Tuesday morning something interesting started to happen.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't make smokers pay to quit

    • Michael Mullins
    • 13 December 2010
    3 Comments

    The Federal Government announced the inclusion of nicotine patches in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Critics argue that smokers should take responsibility for their habit and pay the full cost of giving up. They miss the point of society.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Why we should aid 'bizarre' North Korea

    • Duncan MacLaren
    • 25 November 2010
    5 Comments

    I have two lasting memories of North Korea. The first was the obstetrics unit of a hospital; it looked like a medieval torture chamber. The second was orphanages where malnourished 14-year-olds looked only eight. The latest escalation of tension can only mean such sights will become more frequent.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beyond the selfish election

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 August 2010
    33 Comments

    The churches, with their tradition of recognising the deeper values in human beings and society, can play an important part in generating a richer vision of Australian society. They'll need to cooperate with other groups who decry the self-interested focus in Australian politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Election year blogs stifle democracy

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 19 July 2010
    6 Comments

    The fact that we are 'discussing' more than ever before due to the internet and the blogosphere, does not prove that our democracy is in better shape. The environment precludes reasoning because reasoning requires a willingness to listen to the other and to approach questions through mutual respect.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Iceland's ash cloud of the apocalypse

    • Brian Matthews
    • 19 May 2010
    9 Comments

    If Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano erruption was disruptive, its cousin Katla may have worse in store. Volcanoes, emanating a kind of preternatural, primal, patience, are landlords whose unchanging message is: you are renting; you haven't bought.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Haiti faces the best and worst of Christianity

    • Beth Doherty
    • 20 January 2010
    4 Comments

    Pat Robertson's comments about Haiti's 'pact with the devil' are unhelpful, when deeply religious Haitians are themselves wondering about God's role in the earthquake. A more welcome image of Christianity is visible in the aid agencies that are assisting in the relief efforts.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Child mortality breakthroughs

    • Matthew Smeal
    • 21 October 2009
    3 Comments

    Globally last year, 65 children out of every thousand died before the age of five. Recent figures suggest that, with the right approach, the road to ending preventable child deaths could be a short one.

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