For the second edition of her 3-year term, Melbourne International Arts Festival director Kristy Edmunds promises more challenging material, more flavours from unconventional places and faces, and more cross-cultural dynamism.
Category: Surrealpolitik
The men that control Indonesian volcanos
It has been two months since a massive earthquake struck the city and surrounds of Jogjakarta, killing more than 6,000 people.
Postcard from India’s partition
As India mourns the deaths of the more than 200 people killed in July’s train bombings in Mumbai, South Asia again faces the possibility that simmering religious tensions may be to blame.
Asia Pacific fare for art fair
The biennial Melbourne Art Fair has been exhibiting the works of Australian artists and galleries for more than 20 years, and this year it returns to the Royal Exhibition Building from August 2 to 6.
Rewi Alley’s gung ho life
In today’s look at Language and Identity, we investigate the intriguing story of a New Zealander who played a large part in China’s most volatile period of history.
Rewi Alley lived in China for 60 years, from 1927 until his death in 1987.
And, during that time, he famously coined the phrase “Gung ho”.
Opera key to 60s Canto-Aust salvation
In today’s look at Identity, we’re going to explore how a ship laden with opera-singing sailors saved the culture of one of Australia’s strongest communities.
Arms sales fund Soviet-era Belarus
Just 15 years after gaining its independence from the former Soviet Union, the central European country of Belarus is increasingly adopting many old habits of the Soviets.
Aid worker’s foray into Little Liberia
Next to West Africa where more than 42,000 refugees from the war-torn country of Liberia are currently living in the large Buduburam camp in Ghana.
International aid agencies — coordinated by the Global Volunteer Network — provide young volunteers the chance to help provide education and advice to refugees, scarred by many years of conflict.
New voice of Burma’s Karen
For more than 60 years, Burma’s ethnic minority — the Karen — has been fighting for an autonomous state in the east of the country.
Under the current Burmese government — a military junta that violently suppresses ethnic freedoms — the pressure on the Karen is intensifying and they continue to flee across the border to neighbouring Thailand.
Anniversary: Maradona’s winning hand
It was 20 years ago today… that Maradona taught England how to play.
