Iran’s voice of dust and dirt stands up to regime
7/5/10 It takes a brave man to stand up to Iran’s state media and tell them to stop broadcasting his songs. But Mohammad Reza Shajarian – Iran’s beloved and acclaimed Persian classical musician – did just that following last year’s disputed presidential elections. After President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected amid allegations of voting fraud, he […] read more…Australia among top 10 environmental offenders
Jason Om; 7/5/10 A new study ranks Australia among the top 10 worst environmental offenders in the world. Researchers from Australia and overseas have sized up more than 150 countries on land clearing, carbon emissions and species loss. They say the findings dispel the view that poorer countries are mainly to blame for trashing the […] read more…Wars can’t be decisively won until peacekeepers become lifesavers
Mark Dodd; 1/5/10 The UN should accept that conflicts today are not about gaining territory but protecting civilians. Angered by the rising civilian death toll in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, the blunt-speaking US general in charge of the war, warned his commanders the conflict would not be won by the number of enemy combatants killed but […] read more…Wars can’t be decisively won until peacekeepers become lifesavers
Mark Dodd; 1/5/10 The UN should accept that conflicts today are not about gaining territory but protecting civilians. Angered by the rising civilian death toll in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, the blunt-speaking US general in charge of the war, warned his commanders the conflict would not be won by the number of enemy combatants killed but […] read more…Afghans go home in droves
Amanda Hodge; 28/4/10; (4 Items) Afghan refugees are returning in unexpectedly high numbers to their war-ravaged homeland, with more than 22,000 fleeing Pakistan’s rising insurgency and employment squeeze for an uncertain future across the border in the past month. Close to 1000 Afghans a day have filed through the UNHCR’s two reprocessing centres – in […] read more…Boat people unfazed by processing freeze
Yuko Naurushima; 17/4/10 A veiled woman cradling a baby girl was the first asylum seeker helped off a fishing boat yesterday, caught sailing to Christmas Island despite the government’s hardened immigration policies. She was among 82 asylum seekers, believed to be Iraqi, spotted close to the island late on Thursday and trailed by a navy […] read more…Refugee suspensions turns victims into criminals
Damien Kingsbury; 13/4/10 Imagine, if you can, that you have spent the past 30 or more years in an environment of war, where your security is at best not guaranteed and at worst you and your loved ones have been regularly exposed to physical attack. Some, or many, people you have known and loved have […] read more…UN warns of surge in Indonesian boats
Tom Allard; 9/4/10 People smuggling is ”totally out of control” in Indonesia, with thousands of asylum seekers now preparing to come to Australia, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The commissioner’s senior representative in Indonesia, Manuel Jordao, told The Age that a ”huge percentage” of almost 4000 asylum seekers registered there would […] read more…Israel fears US shift in peace policy
Abraham Rabinovich; 30/3/10; (2 Items) Israeli officials fear that the US government, in a radical shift of policy, is planning to impose a permanent peace settlement on Israel and the Palestinians within the next two years. The public snub of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the White House last week is seen […] read more…Playing hardball with Netanyahu?
Sherine Tadros; 26/3/10 When Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, arrived in Washington on an official visit and met with the US president, he received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”. Or so read the editorial pieces in some of Israel’s main newspapers. Israel feels humiliated after Netanyahu’s Washington adventure. They believe […] read more…Trade beats conservation at summit
26/3/10 Trade interests have trumped conservation at a UN wildlife conference at which proposals to step up protection for polar bears, bluefin tuna, coral and several kinds of shark all failed, delegates said. Economic concerns hampered efforts to restrict trade in several commercially lucrative marine species at the 175-nation Convention on International trade in Endangered […] read more…UN wildlife body rejects bluefin trade ban
Anne Chaon; 19/3/10 Lobbied aggressively by Japan, delegates at a UN wildlife trade meeting on Thursday massively rejected a ban on cross-border commerce in Atlantic bluefin tuna, a sushi mainstay. The controversial proposal was crushed with 68 votes against, 20 in favour and 30 abstentions at a meeting in Doha of the Convention on International […] read more…Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu moves to placate furious US
Abraham Rabinovich; 15/3/10 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned his inner cabinet to an unusual late-night meeting to order a probe after furious American reaction to the announcement of housing construction in East Jerusalem during US Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit. Mr Netanyahu’s move yesterday came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out […] read more…Japan angry on nuclear shift
Dennis Shanahan; 15/3/10 Diplomatic relations between Australia and Japan are spreading beyond the emotional issue of whale hunting in the Antarctic, as Japanese resentment grows at Kevin Rudd’s decision not to attend a nuclear disarmament meeting in Washington next month. Tokyo’s anger over the Rudd government’s renewed threat to take it to the International Court […] read more…UN must step up for the women of Burma
Lucy Turnbull; 8/3/10 Australian women should never settle for anything less than full equality and equal pay for equal work. On International Women’s Day, we should also cast our minds to the unsatisfactory fact that there are not nearly enough senior women managers, chief executives or directors of our large corporations. But we should also […] read more…Israel’s cost-benefit calculation
Robert Grenier; 2/3/10 In the various commentaries we have seen concerning the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Israel’s Mossad is coming in for a great deal of criticism. How, it is asked, could the vaunted Israeli spy service have left behind so much evidence? Isn’t the point of such operations to “eliminate” […] read more…