I bought myself a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald this week and was fascinated by two stories. The first was about a nameless Chinese citizen given the moniker "NK". He entered Australia on a student visa not long after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, but in 1992 was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in jail. In 2006 the parole authorities judged him suitable for release. However, as a convicted murderer he is no longer eligible for an Australian visa because he fails the "character test". He should have been deported immediately. However, he is at risk of being retried for the same offence in China and being executed, and the Australian government is prevented by law from returning him to that kind of danger. Unable to resolve the dilemma, the Immigration Department has been holding him in the Villawood immigration detention centre for the last five years. The second is the ongoing saga of cyclist Alberto Contador's positive dr
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson