“Your family and your friends are heartbroken and your life will be ended by a firing squad”
— Bali Nine member Andre Chan, in a letter he wrote to his teenage self.
Australia | Conventional torture
THE GIST. A United Nations report has found that Australia's asylum-seeker policies may have breached the Convention Against Torture (CAT), with 'arbitrary detention and refugee determination at sea, without access to lawyers.'
THE REPORT. The report (PDF) found that Australia has failed to meet a bunch of its obligations under the CAT, like providing proper detention conditions, investigating abuses, and particularly by detaining children.
THE CONVENTION. The CAT has been international law since 1987, and Australia signed up to it in 1989, meaning we're legally bound by. It defines torture as "severe pain and suffering, whether mental or physical", and also bans "other acts of cruel, human or degrading treatment."
THE REACTION. Instead of taking credit for massively reducing the number of kids in detention (1500 down to 126), Tony Abbott did his best impression of a Scooby Doo villain, saying "Australians are sick of being lectured to by the UN." We would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids at the United Nations!
Nigeria | Mujahideen M&A
THE GIST. The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, in a video message posted to its Twitter account.
THE PARTNERS. You're probably familiar with Islamic State by now. The latest news from the caliphate is that they have been busy bulldozing an ancient city in Iraq and destroying its priceless artefacts, because they are all "false idols." Boko Haram (literally translated to "Western education is forbidden") is a militant Jihadi group in Nigeria, made infamous by kidnapping and enslaving 276 schoolgirls last year.
THE MESSAGE. The Boko Haram leader said "We announce our allegiance to the caliph...and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity."
THE REALITY. Some commentators think the video can be dismissed as superficial propaganda, and that the like-minded groups won't actually team up. First, Boko Haram has its hands full fighting the armies of countries like Chad and Niger. Second, Islamic State is apparently quiteracist against African people. Unrequited love, then.
Small-talk
Ladies man. A Russian magazine has published an issue in celebration of International Women's Day, featuring on its front cover a picture of a smiling Vladimir Putin being licked by a bear. The caption reads (not joking): "Happy March 8, girls!"
Treasuring. Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has announced that the government is ditching plans to change the GST. Meanwhile, rumour has it that Labor is thinking about trying poach Hockey and get him to change sides, because of his "uncanny ability to kill Coalition policies."
Hot air. Kanye West's fans have been busy on eBay, auctioning off sealed plastic bags purportedly containing air captured at his concerts. One bag, labelled "Air from Kanye show", was bid up to $60,000 before eBay removed it. Word has it that Kanye now wants to sell the bags himself, drawing on his wife Kim Kardashian's wealth of expertise in turning hot air into millions of dollars.
The word
Sanguine Adjective. Optimistic or positive, especially in a bad situation: Florida Governor Rick Scott is admirably sanguine about his state's ability to deal with climate change. So much so that he thinks it unnecessary to even talk about, banning the Department of Environmental Protection from using the terms 'climate change', 'global warming' and 'sustainability'.
