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Section: International

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Delhi's Commonwealth Games refugees

    • Cara Munro
    • 04 October 2010
    6 Comments

    The smell of hot bitumen asserted itself in the chilled winter air. A family of saried women, nimble men and children sifted gravel and carried piles of stones on their heads. The driver, seeing the direction of my gaze, nodded towards the ghostly work party and explained: 'Delhi Games.'

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Gillard's climate coup

    • Tony Kevin
    • 29 September 2010
    6 Comments

    If the Gillard Government manages to serve a full term, there is a good chance that Parliament will pass a well-designed, effective national carbon pricing policy into law in 2012. This would be a major policy success that Gillard could legitimately boast of going into a 2013 full-term election.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Communities confront flood fallout

    • Ben Fraser
    • 28 September 2010
    4 Comments

    Amid the horror and gloom there have been moments of inspiration in the flood crisis that have largely gone unreported. While they warmly accept the staples of relief, they know through a history of crippling food insecurity and mass displacement that they are masters of their own destiny.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Time for detention reform

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 24 September 2010
    9 Comments

    The recent tragic death of a man in Villawood Detention Centre has again raised questions about the need for Australia's harmful detention policy. Strong leadership is required to reform the process and abandon the 'race to the bottom' we saw during the election. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Resisting the duty to die

    • John Kleinsman
    • 21 September 2010
    11 Comments

    The debate about euthanasia arises only in certain societies that see the world as belonging to those who are independent, strong and productive. In a society in which the sick, dying, disabled and elderly are undervalued, the 'right' to die will all too quickly become a 'duty' to die.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    What liberated women wear

    • Alison Sampson
    • 16 September 2010
    25 Comments

    One day when I was out shopping for underwear five women in burqas came into the store. Chatting and laughing, they headed straight to a selection of lacy g-strings, holding up the garments for all to see as they checked sizes and made loud comments about each pair of panties.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Remembering the other 9/11

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 14 September 2010
    24 Comments

    At least those of us who survived Chile's 9/11 didn't have to stomach the phoney sombre Australian journalists 'live from New York' or the sight of a former Prime Minister crossing the Brooklyn bridge wearing an ACB tracksuit. But more than 30 years on, the Chilean people are still waiting for the United States' admission of guilt.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Hedonists miss the point of travel

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 13 September 2010
    4 Comments

    'The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page,' said St Augustine. Drunk, libidinous and scantily-clad tourists unleashed on idyllic locales were certainly not what Augustine had in mind when he spoke so eloquently of the virtue of travel.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australian invasion anxiety in adolescent fantasy

    • Tony Kevin
    • 09 September 2010
    13 Comments

    What do young Australians take away from John Marsden's novels - and now, the film Tomorrow, When the War Began? They are more than escapist fantasies. They convey value messages, calling on young Australians to cherish our country, not to take it for granted, and to be prepared if necessary to kill and die for it.

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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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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A modern approach to refugee resettlement

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 20 August 2010
    5 Comments

    According to the Coalition, 'bad refugees' who come on boats take places that could otherwise go to 'good refugees' who wait patiently in camps. Labelling refugees as 'good' or 'bad' according to how they arrive in Australia reflects an insular opinion that does not reflect what is happening worldwide.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Tales from the kingdom of force

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 August 2010
    2 Comments

    Flicking the frisbee with a well practised arm, Jimmy told me about his former home in Sri Lanka. 'Last time I was there, I was carrying bodies to their graves in my arms, even the bodies of friends.' Homer's Iliad is a poem of force in which, at all times, the human spirit is shown modified by its relations with force.

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