A global temperature rise of 2° Celsius — the target set at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December — is a death sentence for Tuvalu.
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Eleven men detained in the Christmas Island detention centre have been charged and appeared in court on January 20 over a fight that broke out among 150 asylum seekers on November 21. They were remanded until a later date.
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Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have had a policy of treating refugees as enemies for at least 20 years. Probably the most infamous occasion was the Coalition’s November 2001 federal election victory, where the major parties adopted a joint policy of turning back 438 refugees who had been saved from drowning by the Norwegian freighter the MV Tampa.
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A total lockdown was imposed on the Christmas Island detention centre for three days after fighting broke out on November 21.
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The brutal nature of the Rudd Labor government’s “Indonesian solution” to deal with asylum seekers was revealed on November 15 when the Indonesian coastguard fired upon a boat carrying 61 Afghan asylum seekers headed towards Australia. Two of the passengers were shot and injured.
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The NSW state government wants to jail people as young as 13 for carrying a can of spray paint. Anyone with a spray can and no “legitimate reason” could face up to six months in prison
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The University of Wollongong Environment Collective (EC) has gone from strength to strength this year. Its meetings are now averaging more than 20 people each week and the list of its campaign achievements is growing.
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The Rudd government plans to double the capacity of Christmas Island detention centre to maintain its of policy mandatory detention of all refugees that arrive by boat. Plans are under way to expand the prison-like facility to house up to 2300, the Age said on October 31. Already, the government has installed an extra 200 bunks. It has also transported cramped and unsafe shipping containers to the island to house new arrivals.
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The Australian government is getting desperate and showing its true colours. Not long after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd personally intervened to turn away a boat of 260 Tamil refugees in international waters, a second boat — also carrying refugees from Sri Lanka — sent out a distress signal off the coast of Sumatra.
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On October 15, almost 260 Tamil refugees were stranded at an Indonesian port in west Java. They were refusing to disembark from the boat that had carried them from Malaysia and pleaded for the Australian government to hear their case. That evening they declared a hunger strike.
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In a sick mockery of the rising boatloads of refugees coming to Australia, the federal government will pay one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to spread fear and propaganda among Tamils escaping genocide in Sri Lanka.
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Shortly after two dust storms swept the entire east coast of Australia over September 22-26, concerns were raised that radioactive materials from central Australian uranium mines could make the same journey.