OCEANIA

AUSTRALIAN ARMS EXPORTS TO ISRAEL IN FOCUS AMID COURT CASE, PORT PROTESTS

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Photo Credit: David Gray

Protests at shipping ports and a unique court case are bringing attention to Australian weapons exports to Israel amid the war on Gaza, a trade that critics describe as secretive and unaccountable.

“Few people know that Australia has one of the most secretive, unaccountable weapons export systems in the world,” Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge told the Australian Senate on Tuesday.

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INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS CALL FOR ‘WEEK OF SILENCE’ AFTER REFERENDUM FAILURE

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Photo Credit: Lukas Coch / AAP via Reuters

By voting no, Australians also voted against creating a new consultative body – a “Voice” to Parliament – that could have had a say on issues related to Indigenous affairs in Australia.

Indigenous supporters of the Voice said it was “a bitter irony” that “people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000” years.

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AUSTRALIA HOLDS LANDMARK REFERENDUM ON INDIGENOUS REPRESENTATION

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Photo Credit: Andrew Leeson / AFP

Australians will on Saturday vote whether to recognise First Nations peoples in the country's constitution for the first time. But the lead-up to the referendum has triggered a torrent of racist abuse, with toxic debate spreading online and in the media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday issued an emotional, final-day plea to salvage the poll, telling voters: "Kindness costs nothing."

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AUSTRALIAN ICEBREAKER HEADS TO ANTARCTIC STATION TO RESCUE EXPEDITIONER SUFFERING MEDICAL CONDITION

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Photo Credit: AAP

An icebreaker is on its way from Australia to an Antarctic research station to rescue an expeditioner suffering from a medical condition, the government said on Saturday.

The expeditioner is at Australia’s Casey Research Station which is on an ice cap 3,420 kilometers (2,125 miles) south of the Australian Antarctic Division headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania state.

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AUSTRALIAN CASTAWAY RECOUNTS COMFORT HE FELT ADRIFT AT SEA, THANKS TO MEDITATION, SWIMMING AND DOG

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Photo Credit: Fernando Llano / Associated Press

He quit his corporate job and moved to Mexico to pursue his dream of sailing solo across the ocean.

Australian Timothy Shaddock, 54, bought his 30-foot catamaran two years ago in the Mexican Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta. He needed a place to live and he liked the isolation.

“Of course, living on a boat and sailing on a boat is two different things and that was more of a challenge,” Shaddock told The Associated Press Wednesday after stepping onto land for the first time in months.

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