Steve Waugh – Signing Off: All Good Things Must End

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 26.03.2003 (Press Trust of India): Australian Test captain Steve Waugh, one of the greatest batsmen in cricketing history who also won millions of Indian hearts for his charity work, today announced his retirement from international competition at the end of the upcoming series in India.

The 38-year-old Waugh, a living legend who turned the Australians into an invincible team in world cricket, will bring his illustrious 19-year-old career to an end after the fourth Test in early January.

“My present form and fitness suggests I could play on but all good things must come to an end and I believe Sydney is the perfect place,” Waugh told a press conference at the Sydney Cricket Ground, televised live throughout Australia.

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Australia’s `Stifling blanket of silence’

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.09.2003 (Panos Features UK): Elaine Shaw was repeatedly raped and sexually abused from the age of four by her father and uncles. Her partner physically assaulted and psychologically tormented her, locking her in a room for three years to separate her from the children.

Aboriginal women like Shaw – her name is changed to protect her identity – are 45 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than other Australians. And such violence is common in Australia: research shows 23% of all Australian women have been attacked by a partner or family member.

Says New South Wales magistrate Pat O’Shane, who is Aboriginal, “Women are subjected to violence daily, if not hourly, if not by the minute.”

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Talking Tough: Australia and India

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By Neena Bhandari

Adelaide, 28.08.2003 (PTI): Australia on Thursday said there was ‘irrefutable’ proof that Pakistan was a source of terrorism and there had been support for terrorist outfits in the country for many years.

“Pakistan has been one of the sources of terrorism and the Taliban really developed out of Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told PTI when asked about visiting External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha’s remarks in an Australian newspaper that ‘Pakistan is the epicentre of world terrorism’. “There has been support in Pakistan for terrorist organisations over many years. The evidence there is irrefutable,” he added.

Downer said Australia was ‘very concerned’ about boarding schools and private Islamic educational institutions being used as breeding grounds for people ‘who have gone on to become fundamentalists, extremists and in some cases terrorists’.

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