Month: February 2014

Who’s Policing Manus Island?

By Kristian Lasslett
PNG police in 2009.

PNG police in 2009.

‘They will knock a few heads in, shoot a few pigs.’ PNG’s mobile squads, involved in the Manus attack, have a fearsome reputation – and Australia is their paymaster, writes Kristian Lasslett

Warning: This article contains graphic accounts of violence.

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If children understand, why can’t adults?

"Jóga" by Björk


All these accidents that happen
 Follow the dot
 Coincidence makes sense
 Only with you
 You don't have to speak
 I feel
 Emotional landscapes
 They puzzle me

 Then the riddle gets solved and you push me up to this
 State of emergency
 How beautiful to be
 State of emergency
 Is where I want to be

 All that no-one sees
 You see
 What's inside of me
 Every nerve that hurts you heal
 Deep inside of me
 You don't have to speak
 I feel
 Emotional landscapes
 They puzzle me
 Confuse

 Emotional landscapes
 They puzzle me

“Michael, Row the boat ashore” by Pete Seeger

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Property Developers move in on BJ’s

My spirit comes from this place
This wide and treeless land
So too with the children and the women...
                    -- aboriginal welcome song

Bowman Johnson Hostel, known as BJs, is a hostel that, according to its website, provides: ‘accommodation to assist homeless Indigenous youth and adults to develop life skills to enable them to live independently within the wider community.’… Go to Article

Israel moves on child justice

The Editor
The Australian

Sir

Your editorial of 11 February says of Israel’s illegal midnight abduction, detention and torture of Palestinian children: “To understand the problem in context, it needs to be acknowledged that the Israeli army faces constant and often dangerous provocation in the area, with children in the vanguard of stone-throwing and violence.”

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