OCTOBER 27, 2011, 9:35 PM In Famine, Vouchers Can Be Tickets to Survival By TINA ROSENBERG The town of Dhobley, Somalia, sits at the gateway of hell.  Just west of Dhobley is the border with Kenya, and the road to Dadaab, which hosts a giant complex of refugee camps; Dhobley has become the last stop in Somalia […]

American civilians killed in 9/11: 2,977 Afghan civilians killed in the War On Terror over 8,800 Iraqi civilians killed in the War On Terror estimates range from over 150,000 (WHO) to over 650,000 (The Lancet) to over 1.1 million (IIACSS/ORB) to as high as 1.45 million (extrapolation) The Lancet’s estimate 2.5% of the country’s population […]

Simon Smart September 9, 2011 I’m getting ready to duck, but don’t shoot the messenger. The results are in: religious people are nicer. Or so says Robert Putnam, professor of public policy at Harvard. Described by London’s Sunday Times as the most influential academic in the world today, Putnam is not a religious believer. Best […]

By Savi Hensman Riots and looting have wrecked large parts of the United Kingdom. The homes and possessions of some in already disadvantaged areas have gone up in smoke, and others may lose their livelihoods. The past few days have left many across the UK shocked and distressed. Saddest is the plight of those who have […]

THERE are riots and there are riots. Experience shows that mass violence can erupt in the most unexpected of circumstances. In recent decades people have rioted because their football team has lost a match or because their livelihood was threatened by the invisible power of market forces. Thirty years ago in the UK, black people […]

When society feels like it is falling apart it is our job to find ways of binding people back together, to express solidarity over selfishness and hope over fear. Therefore our first reaction to the frightening extent of looting and disorder that has swept our cities must be to reaffirm our common humanity. Those on […]

Elenie Poulos Australian Christians and non-Christians alike are grieving the loss of a moral heart in our country. I have heard countless expressions of disillusionment, sadness and shame over the politics of border control. Many are angry and may well be inclined to join the ancient chorus and say “Amen” to the curse on those […]

Published on Monday, July 25, 2011  by Pierre Tristam Timothy McVeigh, meet Anders Behring Breivik. Those two right-wing reactionaries, two terrorists, two anti-government white supremacists, two Christians—have a lot in common, down to the way the massacres they carried out were first mistaken for the work of Islamists by an American press rich in zealotry of […]

The latest attempt to stem the flow of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat, the so-called ‘Malaysian solution’, is causing great angst in the community and with our political leaders. This proposal involves people trading by the government of a democratic country committed to the rule of law. People trading is wrong even when […]

Quaker argues that patriotism is deadly, no matter where or why it is practiced – Based on my life experience, studies, intellect, and conscience, I am led undeniably to the conviction that patriotism is immoral: It is selfish and irrational, hinders our judgment, divides the world, contributes to militarization, causes war, and contradicts the teachings […]

21/06/2011 by Imad Karam and Kees Hulsman Imam Mohammed Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye from Nigeria were invited to Egypt to deliver training workshops on ‘Early Warning – Early Response’, a technique they developed to combat and prevent communal conflict. They conducted two workshops in Cairo and Egypt’s second city Alexandria. The workshops, which took […]

Greg Foyster June 19, 2011 The year is 2001. You live in a large sharehouse on the south side of town. The place has millions of rooms and people are always coming and going. One day a stranger knocks on the door. ‘Help!’ he shouts. ‘The people in my house are trying to kill me! […]