Vol 30 No 15

26 July 2020

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AUSTRALIA

Why COVID's got me crying in the shower
- Fernanda Fain-Binda
- 06 August 2020
5 Comments
The Stage Four lockdown announced by Daniel Andrews on Sunday shows how precarious it is for working mothers. When the going gets tough; our jobs outside the home are expendable.
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AUSTRALIA

An age of communal and civic responsibility?
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 August 2020
12 Comments
If they are to enlist the support of their people in acting responsibly in the face of coronavirus, governments must themselves practice responsibility. They must look to the good of the whole community, and especially to disadvantaged people who are at the greatest risk of contracting the coronavirus.
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ENVIRONMENT

Solidarity with land and environmental defenders
- Bree Alexander
- 06 August 2020
1 Comment
While the world is largely focused on COVID-19, a recent report from Global Witness revealed that murders of land and environmental defenders, defined as people who take a stand for land and environment in a peaceful manner, reached a high in 2019.
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CARTOON

Respecting our elders
- Fiona Katauskas
- 04 August 2020
3 Comments
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Our neighbour Sam
- Brian Matthews
- 04 August 2020
19 Comments
Our neighbor Sam is in his mid-seventies. He takes things quietly, enjoys a chat where our two gardens converge at a corner of the lambing paddock that unfolds beyond our shared wire fence and, regularly in summer, Sam is partial to a few cooling drinks.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Language made physical in gardens
- Chris Wallace-Crabbe
- 04 August 2020
2 Comments
Since I'm the bloke who needs the out-of-doors. With our language made physical in gardens, those marvellous pink barred clouds and angled rays can be nothing more than merely genuine.
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AUSTRALIA

Human rights in a pandemic
- Cristy Clark
- 30 July 2020
9 Comments
The need to contain the spread of COVID-19 has led to a raft of emergency laws that have challenged us to deeply consider the appropriate balance between community and individual rights.
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AUSTRALIA

Looking back to look forward
- Dustin Halse
- 30 July 2020
4 Comments
In Australia, we have long boasted of our unparalleled prosperity and strong economic growth. We have championed home ownership and the quarter acre block — after all our home is meant to be our castle. But for too many, the basic human right of having a place to call home remains out of reach.
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ENVIRONMENT

Lawsuits over climate crisis risk
- Binoy Kampmark
- 30 July 2020
2 Comments
On July 22, Katta O'Donnell filed an action in the Federal Court in Victoria hoping to make good her promise to put the government on trial for ‘misconduct’. The action notes that, ‘At all material times there has existed a significant likelihood that the climate is changing, and will continue to change, as the result of anthropogenic influences.’ Australia was ‘materially exposed and susceptible’ to the risks posed by climate change.
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RELIGION

Friendship and Ignatius Loyola in isolation
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 July 2020
7 Comments
Ordinarily the last two days of July would for me be occasions of celebration. July 30 is the International Day of Friendship and July 31 is the feast day of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. This July, in Victoria, at least, it is hard to summon energy to celebrate. We are in a time of endurance.
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CARTOON

Wrongs and rights
- Fiona Katauskas
- 28 July 2020
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ENVIRONMENT

Much at stake for Barngarla Country
- Michele Madigan
- 28 July 2020
9 Comments
There’s a long way to go for the Coalition to change from ‘its business as usual’ performance in this as in many other matters. We can all play our part, however, in encouraging Senators to stop another sizable wind back in the nation’s democratic processes. If the Senate defeats this Radioactive Waste Management Bill then the Barngarla and others can, as in any democratic country, take to court the minister’s processes.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Born free
- Gillian Bouras
- 28 July 2020
21 Comments
During times of crisis concepts such as power and liberty are often brought into the light and re-examined, and it is a sad fact that during those same times, people in power often try to chip away at liberty, at democracy’s most basic freedoms: several current world leaders immediately spring to mind.
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INTERNATIONAL

The reconquest of Hagia Sophia?
- Daniel Sleiman
- 28 July 2020
7 Comments
Erdogan’s announcement in relation to the Hagia Sophia is one that is heavily influenced and panders to his Islamist sentiments and supporters. Hagia Sophia, often touted as the pinnacle of Byzantine church architecture and design, was reverted to a museum in 1935 by the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Kemal Ataturk. Altering its status to a mosque is clearly about propping up Erdogan’s Islamist credentials and base, which have slowly been eroding civil freedoms in the Turkish nation.
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Vol 30 No 15