The Australian government yesterday named a special envoy to confront a rise in anti-Semitism across the nation since the Israel-Hamas war began.
A similar envoy is soon to be appointed to challenge Islamophobia in Australia and both will promote social cohesion, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
Photo: EPA-EFE
TARGETS
Albanese’s Sydney office has been targeted with pro-Palestinian graffiti as rival activists clash over the Israeli-Hamas war in Australian cities and university campuses.
Albanese appointed Jillian Segal, a Sydney lawyer and business executive, to be “special envoy to combat anti-Semitism in Australia” for three years.
She will consult with community groups and report back to Albanese and Australian Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Andrew Giles.
Segal called statistics on anti-Semitism in Australia “shocking.”
Reports of anti-Semitism spiked 700 percent immediately after Hamas militants sparked the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on Oct. 7 last year, and are still running 400 to 500 percent higher than before the conflict, she said.
The reports include Jewish-owned businesses being boycotted and vandalized, as well as Jewish artists being excluded or subjected to social media shadow bans that restrict their visibility on platforms, Segal said.
“Unfortunately, there is no single answer to the perennial problem of anti-Semitism,” she said.
CONFRONTING EVIL
“But the creation of this role shows a determination by the government to confront this evil and to ensure that it does not erode the goodness that exists in our society,” she added.
Albanese said a graffiti attack that marked his inner-Sydney office as a Hamas target in December was being taken seriously and acted upon.
He also condemned last month’s vandalism with spray paint at the Australian National Korean War Memorial and the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Canberra.
“I have spoken with members of the Jewish community here, in Melbourne, right around Australia, who have not felt safe, members of the Jewish community whose children are worried about wearing their school uniform in our capital cities,” Albanese said. “That’s not acceptable. Not acceptable, ever. And certainly not in Australia in 2024.”
“What we need to do is to make sure that the conflict that is occurring in the Middle East that has caused a great deal of grief for the Jewish community, for members of the Islamic and Palestinian communities — Australians overwhelmingly do not want conflict brought here,” Albanese added.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS