Wikileaks: Australians Call For Legislation to Protect Whistleblowers

23/03/2011 0 Comments read Features

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 23.03.2011 (IPS): Some Australians are convinced their government is sharing intelligence information with foreign powers about citizens implicated by documents released by Wikileaks.

The government’s refusal to acknowledge any hand in the case against Wikileaks’ Australian founder Julian Assange has earned the ire of students, academics, lawyers, journalists, and teachers, plus members of the community who are supporting Assange and free speech.

“The Australian government, like other western governments, is increasingly involved in activities which its citizens would renounce if they knew of them,” Julian Burnside, a human rights and refugee advocate here, told IPS.

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It’s not just about more, but better aid

19/08/2010 0 Comments read Environment & Development, Features

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 19.08.2010 (IPS): Australia’s foreign aid budget is likely to double by 2015, but civil society groups say this is far from enough if it is to keep to its “fair share” of commitments to poorer countries.

In fact, they would like the government – including a new one that may come after the Aug. 21 polls – to commit not only to meeting the yardstick of aid funds reaching 0.7 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) but to having better- quality official development assistance.

The 72-member Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), an independent association of Australian non-profit aid organisations, is spearheading calls for political parties to commit Australia to playing its full part in helping poorer countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of development targets from maternal mortality to education that the world’s governments pledged to meet by 2015. Continue reading →

Hunger far from unknown in the land of plenty

25/06/2010 0 Comments read Environment & Development, Features

Ronni Kahn of OzHarvest, one of the many groups helping the hungry, says there is too much wasted food in Australia. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.06.2010 (IPS): Devina Celeste, 50, waits in a queue of about 40 people at the Neighbourhood Centre in the inner-city suburb of Newtown for the only hot meal she will get on this cold winter night.

The queue, comprising 40 percent teenagers and students, is growing. Many have formed strong bonds of friendship while sharing this only meal a day together on weekdays. There is a brief cheer as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) `Food for Life’ van arrives. Chris Smith, an IT analyst and volunteer driver is quick to lay the stall and start serving the meal on bio-degradable plates.

“This is my only nutritive meal. Almost 50 percent of my earnings go in rent and the rest in bills and the basics”, says Celeste, a massage therapist, as she relishes the hot “Khichadi” made of lentil, rice and vegetables and the semolina desert. She is amongst a growing number of “working poor”, who are unable to earn enough to support themselves.

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