Aussies cannot ignore South Sudan’s famine
Right now 26 million people in East Africa are at risk of starvation.
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This is the equivalent of every woman, child and man in Australia regularly going hungry.
Famine is very serious.
It is only declared when four out of every 10,000 children die each day and one in three people are so malnourished they are too weak to go to school or work.
If famine were declared in Australia, 1700 children would die from starvation every single day.
This is a crisis that cannot be ignored.
Over time, we’ve become almost immune to hearing about food in Africa.
It’s easy to scroll by images of hardship in your Facebook feed to something that makes you smile instead.
But this time, we can’t scroll past.
If you’re old enough to remember the 1984 famine and Live Aid, then you must understand that this is teetering on the edge of chaos on a larger, more profound scale.
Right now, conflict is making it very hard to gain access to the famine declared region in South Sudan, Unity State.
But once the door opens, and the TV crews arrive, we will begin to see just how horrific this is.
We already have reports of children eating weeds and water lilies to survive.
The good news is that Plan is working in South Sudan, right now, handing out food and protecting girls and women from being abused, doing all we can to keep children at school as food becomes harder to come by and children are forced to forage.
The UN estimates that it requires $4.4 billion is needed to stop famine spreading to other countries in Eastern Africa.
Plan International intends to raise $40 million to help do our part.
We can avert this crisis from becoming worse, but the time to act is now.
www.plan.org.au/give/appeals/south-sudan-famine or call 13 75 26.
Jane Gardner
Media and Ambassador Manager
Plan International Australia
Truth will set you free
Living due north to that red and white striped sulphur producing lung busting, eye watering monstrosity that is the MIM copper smelter stack, I often get cranky.
But this week I received some news that was truly, a breath of fresh air.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled that comments made by News Corp's Andrew Bolt in 2014 should be withdrawn.
He made some comments about a Human Rights Lawyer who defended some of the most vulnerable people (asylum seekers) on the planet.
Bolt has to pay costs.
Other parts of the judgement are secret.
Free speech is fine.
Just don't deliberately tell lies.
George Harley
Mount Isa
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