Stories from Quick Reads and Oceania
Gay penguin parenthood stories ruffle some conservative feathers
From Australia to United States, some conservatives are blocking the inclusion of gay penguin stories in schools and libraries.
Call for Urgent Climate Change Action After Cyclone Pam Devastates Vanuatu
Following the devastation of Pacific islands nation Vanuatu by Category 5 Cyclone Pam, John Englart (aka @Takvera) looks at links with climate change: Vanuatu has suffered its worst disaster on record with the impact of Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Pam, with the President of Vanuatu blaming climate change for extreme...
Indigenous Tweets Highlight International Mother Language Day in Australia
Wamut,aka @kriolkantri on Twitter, and blogger of ten years, shared indigenous tweets on Storify: “February 21 is International Mother Language Day and this year, Australians showed off Aboriginal and Islander languages in a spectacular way and highlighted the amazing-yet-fragile linguistic diversity found across the continent”. Happy International #MotherLanguage Day! We're...
Ireland's Cricket World Cup Win Against West Indies No Laughing Matter
Irish satirical website Waterford Whispers News certainly enjoyed the Ireland cricket teams’ victory over the West Indies on 16 February in Nelson, New Zealand: THERE were concerns this morning among the Irish Cricket Union after the success of the Ireland team at the World Cup caused massive strain on the...
Questions About Australian Media Freedom After Egypt Releases Peter Greste
Max Chalmers, from Australian independent online media site New Matilda, welcomes the release of Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste after 400 days in Egyptian prison. He also calls for “the speedy release of Greste’s colleagues who remain behind Egyptian bars”. However, he questions Prime Minister Tony Abbott's support for media...
Experiences After Working at a Youth Hostel
Queralt Castillo Cerezuela describes herself as a ‘wanderer’, natural born nomadic and, of course, journalist. That's possibly the origin of her blog's name, Errabundus. On one of her posts, this globetrotter tries to report about her time working at a youth hostel in the Southern Alps and lists six things...
Covert Surveillance ‘Project Speargun’ Fires Up New Zealand Election
ANNA MAJAVU of Pacific Media Watch reports for The Daily Blog on an extraordinary event in Auckland on 15 September 2014: NEW ZEALAND Prime Minister John Key has been accused of allowing the secret installation of equipment that would enable spooks to tap into New Zealand’s undersea fibre optic cable...
Accessibility and Lack of Appreciation for Young HIV Carriers Fighting AIDS
Under the premise that AIDS is the second cause of teenager deaths in the world and the nvisibility for vulnerables populatons in this field, Puerto Rican journalist Natalia A. Bonilla Berríos writes about the participation of L’Orangelis Thomas Negrón, HIV carrier from birth, on the XX 2014 AIDS International Conference...
Deported Sri Lankan Asylum Seekers Speak of Mistreatment by Australian Authorities
Thirty seven Sinhalese and four Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka sailed in a boat towards Australia and were intercepted west of the Cocos Island late last month by Australian authorities. They were returned to Sri Lanka, their point of origin, and they appeared in a court in the country's southwest...
Protecting Journalists’ Sources: Don't Take Your Smart Phone
Mark Pearson of Journlaw.com interviews Cameron Stewart, National security reporter and associate editor at The Australian newspaper. They discuss the challenges facing investigative journalists in the era of technological surveillance. Among other gems of advice: leave your smartphones back at your office when you are meeting confidential sources. More at:...
East Timorese Protect Land Rights Against Australian Cement Plant Deal
The announcement of a new cement plant project by an Australian company in Baucau, northeast of East Timor, has led local community groups to set up a non-governmental organization “to protect and preserve the communities’ rights to their culture, development and traditional land rights.” According to the community organization, Kapeliwa, the government...
AC/DC Call It a Night After 41 Years
Daryl Mason pays tribute at The Ostrahyun blog to iconic rock band AC/DC following reports that they will retire after 41 years. More than a month ago, founding member, rhythm guitarist, co-producer and co-songwriter Malcolm Young had a stroke, which left a blood clot on his brain. Confirmation may come...
Australia's #MarchInMarch Street Party Protests
Prolific tweeter @geeksrulz reports on the No Fibs citizen journalist website about Melbourne's part in the nationwide marches against the Australian government: Melbourne #MarchInMarch Street Party Protest A grassroots movement that started on Twitter managed to get tens of thousands of people onto the streets away from their keyboards. That...
Seeking Asylum in Australia Is ‘Getting Real Ugly’
Gary Sauer-Thompson pulls no punches in his assessment of the latest crisis at Papua New Guinea's Manus Island asylum seeker detention centre. It is part of the so-called Pacific Solution. In a post for his blog Public Opinion, it's getting real ugly, he calls it a concentration camp… designed to...
Australian Journalist Peter Greste Caught in Egypt's Media Crackdown
Writing in Working Life, Andrew Casey highlights the risks to media freedom in Egypt as international journalists and other media workers face terrorism charges. Among them is Australian Peter Greste, an Al Jazeera journalist.
Young Romanian Builds First Car Entirely Made of LEGO Blocks
20-year-old Raul Oaida from Romania has built what many dreamed of as children – the world’s first life-size LEGO car. The car, including the engine which actually runs, was built using 500,000 LEGO pieces. The vehicle can only achieve a speed of some 20 to 30 kilometers per hour, but...
A Papuan Woman's Love Letter to an Indonesian Soldier
EngageMedia has uploaded a video about a Papuan woman's love letter to an Indonesian soldier who was once stationed in the border patrol unit in a village near Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The video also highlighted the sexual assaults allegedly committed by some Indonesian soldiers in the border. The...
PHOTOS: Cyclone Ian Devastates Tonga
Online news site NZ Kaniva Pacific presents graphic images of the devastation caused by cyclone Ian in Tonga on 11 January 2014: In pictures: Cyclone Ian aftermath. Oxfam New Zealand has details and links for those wishing to make donations.
Australia: ‘What Happens When A Politician Pisses Off The Internet’
Controversial Australian senator Cory Bernardi's latest book ‘The Conservative Revolution’ has enraged many netizens, especially his views on abortion, single mothers, IVF and same sex marriage. BuzzFeed Australia staffer Jenna Guillaume complied reactions in Oz in This Is What Happens When A Politician Pisses Off The Internet.
Artist Project Illustrates “Fear and Folly” of Nukes
A map created by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto – 橋本公 – shows all the 2,053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998. According to the CTBTO website that hosts the time-lapse video, the artist created it with the goal of showing “the fear and folly of nuclear...
Australia: Celebrating International Day of People with Disability
3 December 2013 is International Day of People with Disability. Award winning blogger Carly Findlay writes about her experiences as a person with the skin condition ichthyosis in Disability has meant finding my tribe: Disability is showing them – the underestimators. It's a sense of community. It's friendship and a...
