SYDNEY // Australia will offer to resettle some 4,400 people fleeing violence in Iraq and Syria, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said Sunday, adding the places had been freed up by success in stopping asylum-seeker boats.
Boat arrivals have all but dried up since Australia said it would refuse resettlement to any refugees arriving on unauthorised vessels, sending them instead to Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the Pacific.
“The government’s policies under Operation Sovereign Borders have not only saved lives at sea, but also allowed more places to be returned to our humanitarian programme for the world’s most desperate and vulnerable people,” he said.
The minister said a minimum of 2,200 places would be for Iraqis, including ethnic and religious minorities fleeing the violence in the north of the country.
“The government has also committed a minimum of 2,200 places for Syrians, including those now living in desperate conditions in countries such as Lebanon,” he added.
Australia accepts 13,750 people into its humanitarian refugee programme each year, and Morrison said the government would ensure that 11,000 of these places would be for people overseas in need of resettlement.
“This government has made it very clear that priority in the humanitarian programme should be for those waiting overseas and entering Australia under an orderly process,” he said.
Last year, Australia took more than 1,000 people from Syria, more than 2,000 from Iraq, 2,754 from Afghanistan and just over 1,800 from Myanmar.
Morrison said while the situation was improving in Myanmar, Australia would continue to support the resettlement of its refugees, “in particular those from the many Christian ethnic minorities currently living in Malaysia and Thailand, such as the Karen and Chin”.
The Refugee Action Coalition criticised the government’s announcement, saying the conservative administration had cut the overall refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,750 after taking office in September 2013.
“The number of refugees the coalition (government) says they will take from Iraq is paltry and hides the fact that the government has cut the refugee intake,” said spokesman Ian Rintoul. “It is phoney generosity.”
He said the announcement did nothing for the more than 100 Iraqi asylum-seekers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
* Agence France-Presse
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Under 19 World Cup
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
The Saga Continues
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.