News agencies reported Saturday morning that weeks ago President Obama signed an order, kept secret until now, to authorize continuation of the Afghan war for at least another year. The order authorizes U.S. airstrikes “to support Afghan military operations in the country” and U.S. ground troops to continue normal operations, which is to say, to […]
November 2014
President Obama has authorized ‘a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned’. Imagine that, like the late U.S. war veteran Jacob George, you’re sent on this ‘more expansive mission’. Your military helicopter is landing on farmland amidst mud-house villages, like a futuristic war machine inserted into an agricultural community […]
Suicides are less likely in small remote communities and instead are more likely in larger remote and regional towns. Western Australia’s Premier linked ‘high suicide rates’ in remote communities to justifications for the State to shut down 100 to 150 small remote. These small communities are actually places of respite and refuge, safe havens, where […]
On November 7, 2014, while visiting Kabul, The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, noted that NATO will soon launch a new chapter, a new non-combat mission in Afghanistan. But it’s difficult to spot new methods as NATO commits itself to sustaining combat on the part of Afghan forces. Stoltenberg commended NATO Allies and partner nations from […]
On November 14, a father of four was remembered after being shot dead four years ago by police in a northern NSW town. The family of the man believe that justice has evaded them. But they will not give up. It took the coroner’s office three years to complete the investigation into the Aboriginal man’s […]
In seven days, the most diverse gathering of the First Peoples of the Australian continent in the one place will occur. The two day convergence will bring together hundreds of Traditional Owners, senior Elders and other leaders from within their people, to Mparntwe (Alice Springs), in the heart of the nation. Convoys of Traditional Owners, […]
The rates of removals of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children during the last decade have gone beyond the alarming. During those years, despite the unheard outcries from less than 3 per cent of the population – First Peoples – departments of child welfare went carte blanche in removing children. The high rates should have […]
Yesterday, ten years ago Mulrunji Doomadgee was bashed to death in a Palm Island police cell. His death is one of many deaths in custody which occurred in either murderous or in the least – dubious circumstances. Despite the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADC), deaths in custody continue at inexcusable rates. But […]
She entered the Northbridge tunnel in her little 4 Cylinder car. She adjusted her Hijab on her head and commenced her drive of the 1.6 kilometres to get to West Perth. She was in the left lane. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a car coming up on the inside emergency lane. […]
The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report, despite some positive trends found what most of us know, that for the marginalised and vulnerable nothing has got better and for far too many has got dangerously worse. Acute poverty indicators such as access to water, sewerage and electricity have regressed – 3rd world akin-conditions in the world’s 12th […]
General News
- March 9, 2021
Australia’s governments must end health discrimination in its prisons. An incarcerated child must not be a second-class citizen. Nor any adult. We must ask, why are our governments dishing the vulnerable jailed, second-class healthcare? When evaluating the nation’s carceral system, we are […]
- February 2, 2021
When will the cries of the homeless be heard? Is there some sort of grotesque caste system in Western Australia? The anti-humanism is a brutal public spectacle. On the last day of January, the Western Australian Government actuated five days […]
- December 3, 2020
West Australia is the nation’s backwater. It is the mother of injustices, inequalities and the draconian. West Australia and the Northern Territory leave the have-nots that far behind, for many their lot appears irreparable. If there is a Mason-Dixon line […]
- September 22, 2020
There are many faces to homelessness. A 51-year-old woman walked into my Perth office. She has lived thirteen consecutive years street-homeless. Not long ago, she spent eighteen months sleeping her nights in the same park. She is weary, harrowed by […]
- September 3, 2020
Often beleaguered by international aid work I have lifelong been involved in; the increasing unmet needs, the mongrel injustices, I have argued the horrendous lie of our generation is that poverty is being reduced around the world. There are countries […]
- March 10, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – In 2014, I disaggregated to the Kimberley’s First Nations peoples, the nation’s highest suicide rate, one of the world’s highest, at over 70 suicides per 100,000 population (First Nations), thereabouts seven times the national rate. Fortunately, although […]
- February 18, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – More than 51 months ago I wrote an article on the imperatives of forgiveness and redemption. This remains true. We journey together in one form or another, we can either salt the earth or jag the road, […]
- January 29, 2020
By Gerry Georgatos – Trae lost his eleven-year-old brother to suicide. Nine months later he lost his mother to suicide. Trae was the last to see his brother. Half an hour later he went looking for his little brother. In the […]
- January 21, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – Children as young as 9 years have been lost to suicide, three in fact in recent years. Australians should ask, why? Proportionally, more children aged 14 years and less have been lost so far this century compared […]
- December 10, 2019
Gerry Georgatos – A mother suicides, a father suicides, their child was a suicide. Not once has this occurred but untold times. Over the years I have warned of mothers and fathers that would be near certain lost to suicide […]
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