Third World
One criticism frequently levelled against the media is that we habitually devote acres of space to disasters involving ourselves and other first world nations and relegate bigger catastrophes in the developing world to a couple of paragraphs on page 44.
It is true that this happens but I don’t regard it as particularly evil. It is no different from the fact that a television station in Guatemala will run big on an earthquake in nearby Nicaragua yet ignore or downplay something much worse which happened in Australia or Indonesia or Thailand. Proximity and familiarity motivate these news judgments. I doubt the Queensland floods or the Victorian bushfires were on the front page of many newspapers in Africa.
The coverage of Hurricane Sandy in Australia this week has been massive, and understandably so, as we have a close relationship with America, many of us have holidayed there, many of us have lived or do live there.
Continue reading "iPhone hell in the Frankenstorm of the Century" »
She lives on a street corner in Delhi. Not in a house or even a slum but, literally, on the side of a dusty footpath, under a mango tree that’s long since tired of bearing fruit.
She was three or maybe four, dirt-streaked and dung-smeared, her hair shorn not with love but into pest-preventing tufts. Her eyes were still there to look at, but nothing looked back. Hope had already departed.
“She’s probably sick,” my brother said, scooping up the girl’s six-year-old brother and chiding him for not going to school.
Continue reading "We are impoverished by our bitching and bleating" »
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marley says:
@SydneyGirl - oh, I didn’t mean it was a hereditary occupation - obviously most Brahmins aren’t cooks - it’s just that according to a friend of mine there, a lot of the cooks (at least in private homes) happen to be Brahmin for the reason I outlined. Kind of a… Read more »
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Scotchfinger says:
@Inky, y our coffee shop ran out of muffins? There is nothing trivial about that, muffins are a serious business. To hell with the sad-eyed little urchin girls. @Anne71, ‘designer clad brood mare’? Fantastic, just wonderful. Read more »
A little over two months ago, on 9 July 2011, the world celebrated in unison at the birth of the world’s newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan.
As the Prime Minister’s Special Representative, I was privileged to represent Australia at the independence celebrations in Juba, South Sudan’s largest city and the capital of the newly independent country.
It was an historic moment, and the elation was palpable and infectious. With an Australian Akubra hat protecting me from the hot African sun, I shared in the joy and celebrations of thousands of South Sudanese.
Continue reading "Cautious hope for the world’s newest nation" »
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Juani says:
when the war was going on in Sierra Leone, there was hardly any news even about it! HOW can soeomne think hat you can get used to war!!!! If you can donate to charity! focus on people in war zones!! they are beyond suffering!!! I think its great that you… Read more »
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Avoid Future Problems says:
@marley - I disagree I think we know who is going to struggle with their second and third generations. This idea that you can just take poor and unskilled immigrants in our humanitarian program and give them the same benefits as every other Australian, sounds good, keeps the average Australian… Read more »
A lot of people, when they look at pictures on the television about the unfolding famine in Somalia, say “we’ve seen it all before. What’s different about this one? And why haven’t they fixed it up by now?”
I understand some of the cynicism but if you have been to this region as I have just been, you cannot be indifferent to what is happening there. This is the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years.
Famine has been declared in a significant slice of Somalia and by Christmas it is anticipated that the famine will extend to the southern half of the entire country.
Continue reading "A plea for Africa: Now is the time for global action" »
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Europe granted £1.8 million in emergency aid to Ethiopia today in 1984. One million people were believed to have died in the famine of that year and aid workers described the situation as “hell on earth”.
And it’s Monday so what’s on your mind? Share it here.
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acotrel says:
Jim, it’s easy to blame the moving of Australian industry offshore on union wage claims. However I’d point out that Henry Ford paid his orkers 5 times the going rate, so they could afford to buy his products. Reducing Australian wages to third world levels won’t make Australian industry more… Read more »
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acotrel says:
Well Lee, it goes like this. If a Labour government wants a loan from the Arabs - that’s bad. If the Singaporeans want to own a bit more of us - that’s good. If the Chinese want to own a bit more of us - that’s bad. If the Americans… Read more »
New Guinea, geographically as well as historically, is Australia’s closest relative. Separated from the mainland during the last glacial period, the waters filled-in what now separates them: 150km of the Torres Strait.
Despite being endowed with enviable mineral stores, economic and political exploitation has left New Guinea housing many of the poorest people on earth – particularly in the western half of West Papua.
Amidst a program toward independence from the Dutch, the international community neglected West Papua in order to realise a business deal between U.S. mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (“Freeport”) and Soeharto – at the time an Indonesian army general.
Continue reading "Rio Tinto: A tale of rampant capitalism" »
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Nicholas A.J. Taylor says:
Hi Keith, Rio Tinto held a share in Freeport-McMoRan (US) for some years - it was eventually sold along with their proportional representation on the Board, but their stake in Freeport (Indonesia) was retained in order to continue to access the Grasberg mine. Despite this change in arrangement, Rio Tinto… Read more »
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Keith says:
Nick. Since you’ve spent so many years in the investment industry, tell me have you ever been a shareholder in mining companies? Have you ever held any shares in financial institutions who were also shareholders of these companies? If you did, did you take any responsibility with your little ‘control’?… Read more »
Let me tell you the story of Shane Dolan.
I met him two decades ago, when I was in Ethiopia for Four Corners, filming “The Forgotten Famine”, which I wrote about in this space a month ago.
Shane was an aid worker. Not the kind who hands out food at emergency relief centres, but the kind who works for the long term.
Continue reading "How a black cloud was lifted in an impoverished land" »
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Mr Subramanian says:
Fabulous. I hope articles like this encourage people to increase their giving towards charitable organisations as much as ones about others’ poor experiences with charities discourage them from doing so. Because it’s all really about how effective such aid is, rather than one’s own personal willingness to give, isn’t it? Read more »
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Chuck says:
Mark, what Eric said is true. We rarely comment on your stories, but keep them going. Each one is a great read Read more »
Just once I’d like to see a celebrity, the kind that make a lot of fuss about pledging money to a cause like Haiti, to follow through.
It doesn’t matter which one. I just want to see them turn up again a few months-even a year- later to check how things are going. After the camera’s been turned off and around the time we’ve all started to forget how badly we cared about it.
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BT says:
MarK, what you are saying is true, and I think a lot of people are sincere about wanting to help those in impoverished nations, however my point is that people give their hard earned cash, willingly or as part of foreign aid spending allocated by government, without any accountability for… Read more »
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MarK says:
Sogge is not against helping/giving aid but the they way thigns have been done, you have failed to serperate Joe blogs giving to disaster relife, from NGOs implementing effective long term developemnt projects, government directed foreign aid and the likes of the IMF/World Bank and their path of destruction. Joe… Read more »
As the rescue operation in Haiti begins to shift to one of recovery, the global community is now beginning to see the true scale of the disaster which has struck the tiny Carribean nation. Natural disasters such as the Haitian earthquake, the Samoan and Tongan tsunami of last year and the Asian tsunami of 2004 always bring out a truly astounding expression of a shared humanity.
Natural disasters bring poverty to the fore but the fact is extreme poverty is a daily reality for far too many people around the world.
25,000 children will die today from preventable diseases, 900 million people around the world will go to sleep hungry tonight, and tomorrow 1.4billion people will be forced to survive on less than US$1.25 for the day – more than two-thirds of them women and children.
Continue reading "We should be proud of our response to the Haiti quake" »
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Dan Lewis says:
Is there any chance we can fly Marilyn Shepherd over to Haiti, permanently? Actually, never mind. Those people have suffered enough already. Read more »
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Marilyn Shepherd says:
$15 million and a few airport controllers? WE spend over $100 million per year locking up a few hundred innocent refugees and another $300 million in illegal activity all over Asia to stop a few hundred more from getting here. You need to take your hand off it old son. Read more »
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