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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Dodson honour deflects neoliberal orthodoxy

    • Myrna Tonkinson
    • 29 January 2009
    9 Comments

    Dodson can be expected to show courageous leadership, and not shrink from challenging government. The responses of Tony Abbott and some Aboriginal leaders exemplify the fact that many see the focus on Indigenous rights as passé.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How lax commentary is failing cricket

    • Tony Smith
    • 27 January 2009
    20 Comments

    Today's commentators seem determined to speak about anything but the cricket — their lunches, last night's frivolities, films, politics and, most of all, themselves. Much more than the Australian players, Test cricket commentators are in crisis.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Obama and Baz Luhrmann's Australia

    • Brian McCoy
    • 23 January 2009
    4 Comments

    Australia Day comes this year shortly after Obama's entry into the White House. Like the child in Australia — a film that captures something of the mixed history of our Australian footprint — Obama embodies the possibility of healing across racial and other divides.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Indonesia's Obama dreaming

    • Dewi Anggraeni
    • 22 January 2009
    3 Comments

    In the big cities in Indonesia, most taxi drivers want to talk about the new president in the USA. Obama lived four years in Indonesia, and the country, the people and the culture left their marks on him, too.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Grandeur and banality as Obama ascends

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 21 January 2009
    4 Comments

    One reporter described the crowd gathered for the inauguration as a 'mass of humanity' with 'children living their history'. How Obama's leadership takes shape will be a point of curiosity and perhaps a dread. But in searching for consensus, Obama has started well.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Obama's victory for African Australians

    • Saeed Saeed
    • 20 January 2009
    6 Comments

    Upon hearing my ambition to become a journalist, elders in my community suggested I adopt a western pen-name to increase my chances of employment. Obama's win goes a long way to short circuiting the negativity in African Australian communities bred by historical grudges and ineffective social services.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tim Fischer's Bhutanese blind spot

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 January 2009
    16 Comments

    Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer is an outspoken promoter of Bhutan and its culture, which includes the concept of 'gross national happiness'. Human Rights Watch has used the term 'ethnic cleansing' to describe official attempts to preserve the country's cultural values.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How the world is failing the Palestinians

    • Shahram Akbarzadeh
    • 19 January 2009
    11 Comments

    Despite its offer of a ceasefire, it is doubtful that Israel has achieved its objectives in the Gaza Strip. The popular grievances that propelled Hamas onto the political stage in 2006 will continue to sustain it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    National pride revives Russian soul

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 January 2009
    2 Comments

    When it comes to political debate, being a foreigner can be difficult. Former president Vladimir Putin's recent State of the Nation address, made on the eve of his departure from the presidency, called for national unity and 'stable development' to the exclusion of foreign influence. (March 2008)

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On toffee and feminism

    • Ruby J. Murray
    • 14 January 2009

    Paradoxes can be hard to digest, but it doesn't mean they're not good for you. During question time, the panellists try hard not to disagree with each other on the state of modern feminism. My g-string's giving me a wedgie, and I shift uncomfortably. (October 2008)

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mem Fox and the parable of the green sheep

    • Sarah Kanowski
    • 13 January 2009
    1 Comment

    Working mums were 'offended' and 'disgusted' by Mem Fox's childcare slam. Other critics berated 'selfish mothers' and a society sick with affluenza. There was one word missing word from all the brouhaha: 'fathers'. (September 2008)

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Taking housing back from the banks

    • Chris Warren
    • 12 January 2009

    The housing crisis is here, but its effects are just beginning to be realised. A 'common equity' model suggests an alternative means of home ownership that excludes profit-driven banks and lenders, so that housing becomes a right rather than a privilege of the privileged. (June 2008)

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