Nauru

One of the best things about the fact that Kevin Rudd was elected as Australia’s new Prime Minister is the scrapping of the “Pacific Solution” — an ominously-named plan that processed refugees seeking to come to Australia on offshore sites, including Nauru. The Age: Under the policy, which was introduced following the Tampa crisis in the lead-up to the 2001 federal election, asylum seekers intercepted before they reach the Australian mainland are processed at camps on Nauru and Manus Island,…

It’s been a little while since I last blogged about Nauru, a tiny island in the South Pacific (Population: 13,000) that entered into a Faustian tale of strip mining itself into oblivion during the bulk of the 20th century. It’s latest industry is running Australia’s awful offshore detention facility for refugees. This past week, The Age ran a story about Mohammed Sagar, a 30-year-old Iraqi refugee who has been held on the island for the last five years. His companion,…