14 July 2002

The telephone call that could have saved 353 lives ~ Russell Skelton (Age)

• It was a phone call that may have saved the lives of Middle Eastern asylum seekers still clinging to wreckage of their boat in international waters near the Sunda Straits. As they drifted in the water, some grasping children, an Australian Federal Police officer in Jakarta telephoned a warning to Coastwatch: a dangerously over-crowded boat was headed for Australian waters...

• The tortuous political marathon of the Senate's children overboard inquiry ground on through another 11 hours of testimony two days ago as seven witnesses - 58 in all, to date - began taking the stand at 9.30am and continued until a halt was called at 11pm. It was the 14th day of hearings since the eight-senator committee of inquiry (three Labor, three Liberal, one Democrat, one Labor Independent) began taking in excess of 2000 Hansard pages of evidence since the opening day on March 25...

• 'Crikey got a pretty savage belting from SMH webdiarist Margot Kingston on Lateline during the Friday forum and we're interested if you feel that we deserved the spray... Afterall, she sledged me for going with a story without evidence and is still making a big deal about it even though it has proved to be correct. Contrast that with her obsession about SIEV X now that she's convinced herself the government was responsible for killing 300 asylum seekers. Margot is telling people at the SMH this story will be "Australia's Watergate" but she's nowhere near having the evidence to support such a claim...'
  

• Transcript of Thursday's hearing now online in PDF format...

Other SIEVX news:

• This Wednesday's Dateline (8.30pm) to feature SIEVX

• Discussion Forum ~ Various Messages