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Geopolitics

"Stain On Our Soul" - Australia Parliament OKs Historic Bill On Aboriginals

THE AUSTRALIAN, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, ABC NEWS (Australia)

Worldcrunch

CANBERRA – Australia’s lower house of Parliament unanimously passed a historic bill on Wednesday recognizing Aboriginals as the first inhabitants of Australia.

Parliament voted in favor of an act of recognition which commits Australia to changing its Constitution to acknowledge indigenous Australians, reports the Australian. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott put their differences aside, joining together in what the Australian called a “momentous symbolic gesture.”

Both leaders committed themselves to address what Julia Gillard called ""the unhealed wound that even now lies open at the heart of our national story"" and Tony Abbott called ""this stain on our soul,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

The bill has a two-year clause forcing Parliament to introduce a referendum to change the Constitution to acknowledge Australia's indigenous people.

Prime Minister Gillard said, "We must never feel guilt for the things already done in this nation's history. But we can and must feel responsibility for the things that remain undone.”

"No gesture speaks more deeply to the healing of our nation's fabric than amending our nation's founding charter," Gillard told Parliament.

Read her full speech here.

Australia is on the path to a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. TeamJG

— Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) February 13, 2013

The legislation passed with unanimous support, and was greeted with applause from the public gallery, writes ABC news.

Aboriginal rights activist Patrick Dodson welcomed the passage of the bill but said there was a lot more to be done: “"The passing of the Act of Recognition today is one hill we have climbed but it does not mean we have conquered the mountain," he said.

— National Congress(@congressmob) February 13, 2013

Singer-songwriter Mandawuy Yunupingu calls on all Australians to support the recognition of Aboriginals in the constitution:

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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