Nauru is back in the Australian news which can only mean one thing - Australia is about to exile some more refugees there. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke went to Nauru last week for a series of meetings that culminated in a deal for Nauru to provide permanent residence for up to 280 asylum seekers. In return, Australia has agreed to pay the Nauru government a one-off $400m and then $70m per year thereafter. It's not clear how long this nonsense will continue but if we assume it will last for five years, it will cost the Australian government a total of $750m, or $2.7m per asylum seeker. Nauru from the air. It just so happens that I went to Nauru for a few days some years ago. I can't tell you what I did there, but I can tell you that it was a depressing place. There were a lot of asylum seekers there at the time, living under a regime known as 'open detention'. That is to say, they were free to roam the island at will. Some were still living i...
"Maybe in this day and age, love thy neighbor should also be love thy nature. After all we are all neighbors to nature; we live in a grand neighborhood called the biosphere, the realm of life on earth, and we depend on it. We are it and it is us, from our gut biome to what we eat, drink, and breathe. Love in this case should manifest as active care." Rebecca Solnit