Photo courtesy of Australian War Memorial

When war broke out between Australia and Japan 75 years ago, it had a profound impact on the lives of Japanese civilians living in Australia.

During the Second World War, around 4,000 men, women and children were rounded up and sent to civilian internment camps in Australia, which were already detaining thousands of Italians and German civilians.

Joe Murakami was just 14 years old and living in Darwin when his life was thrown into chaos.

Read and watch the full story here – http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/04/20/japanese-survivors-recall-australias-wwii-civilian-internment-camps 

The Hazelwood power station and coal mine are just visible from David Briggs’ property up in the mountains that surround the town of Morwell. He sweeps an outstretched arm across the valley and points, in case I miss it. His old fluorescent mining jacket hangs loosely on his frail limbs.

Morwell is a small town encircled by open-cut coal mines and power stations in the Australian state of Victoria, less than a hundred miles east of Melbourne. A few miles to the north of it stand the massive exhaust stacks of the Yallourn power plant. Farther east lies the Loy Yang plant. The Hazelwood power plant and mine complex pushes right up against the town’s southern border; only a four-lane freeway and a thin strip of grass separate the mine from some homes. All power lines from here lead to Melbourne.

Full article – http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/life_beyond_coal/

Adelaide Uni is in damage control over its links to Taib Mahmud, writes freelance journalist Jarni Blakkarly.

Australian universities have been confronted with a new cautionary tail about the perils of accepting donations from potentially corrupt foreign officials.

Full article – https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/07/21/malaysian-pollie-gets-uni-forecourt-named-in-his-honour/

At Yamakura Dam, 45 km southeast of Tokyo, construction workers are screwing together a 51,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of floating solar panels. When completed, it will be one of the world’s largest floating solar projects.

Roughly 30 percent of the work on the project in Chiba Prefecture is complete, and when it comes online in 2018, the 13.7 megawatt facility will provide enough electricity to power almost 5,000 households annually.

Full article – http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/07/22/business/hurdles-mar-japans-renewable-energy-equation/#.V8kAKGM_sw0

Melbourne, Australia – Nauru is a tiny, 34 square kilometre island of barren land in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. Despite the palm trees and picturesque blue waters, the island, home to around 10,000 people, is far from a tropical paradise. 

The history of detention centres on Nauru is brief, but the island has been central to Australia’s asylum policies.

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/nauru-detention-centre-suicide-160517120527051.html