Freelance Journalist
In Social justice on
[Letter from Manus Island, Harper's Magazine, July 2018] The ongoing abuses of Australia's refugee policy LIGHTENING flashed behind the fiberglass banana boat, but ahead of us the night sky was clear and the water was calm. Ezatullah Kakar, a Pakistani refugee, and I were in the South Pacific Ocean, 2 degrees shy of the equator, just off the coast of Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. As we cut smoothly through the flat sea, … Read
Across the road from Springvale train station, about 20 kilometres southeast of Melbourne’s CBD, there is an unmarked café—the Rohingya Bazaar. Along one wall, shelves are stacked with produce from Myanmar—biscuits, rice, noodles, spices and sauces. There are few customers but they stay a long time, sitting on the orange plastic chairs and talking at the long row of tables in the middle of the shop, or charging their phones at … Read
Some Pacific Island communities are already moving themselves beyond rising tides, but there’s nothing simple about how, why or when they’re doing it. FOR the last ten years, Ursula Rakova has been trying to move her small community to higher ground. Rakova grew up on the Carteret Islands, Papua New Guinea. “It’s beautiful – like white, sandy beaches,” she says. “The sea is very clear. I mean, if you wanted a holiday, that … Read