The Australian government will hold talks with cricket authorities to cancel a Zimbabwe tour that could be seen as giving a ”blessing” to President Robert Mugabe, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Monday. ”I don’t want them to tour Zimbabwe. I think that is the wrong look,” Downer told journalists.
In a lycra revolution, a cover-all swimming costume is bringing Muslim women on to Australian beaches as lifeguards, unzipping racial tensions which divided parts of Sydney little over a year ago. The two-piece ”burqini” is proving key to reshaping surf lifesaving down under — once a bastion of white Australian culture and still a heartland of the country’s sun-bronzed, heroic self-myth.
Australia’s south-west was bracing on Thursday for a destructive weather front that could link with remnants of a tropical cyclone to create a ”perfect storm”. Military and emergency teams on standby in Western Australia state expected a deep low-pressure system to cross the coast mid-afternoon, bringing 120kph winds and heavy rain.
Phil Glendenning has had guns jammed in his ribs as he scours the globe to check the fate of asylum seekers his nation rejects. Fed up with what he believes is the Australian government’s hollow promise that thousands of people rejected in recent years would be safe in their homelands, Glendenning searches for rejected asylum seekers to tell their harrowing stories.