Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 3/3

Storyline:

In this episode the six Australians travel to two of the deadliest countries in the world to experience the scars of war first hand.

Episode recap:

The episode starts off at the refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, home to 80,000 refugees. The three Australians at the camp lined up to get their food. It took them an hour and a half to get their food. The small rations of food the refugees are given need to last them two weeks.

The three Australians in Kenya visited relatives of the family with whom they stayed in Albury-Wodonga in episode 1.

The refugee camp in Kenya stretches over 75km and refugees are given a small section of land to build their own shelters.

The relatives at the camp did a Skype video call with their family members in Australia. It was a very emotional segment.

The Australians in Kenya were offered the chance to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two of the three travelled to Congo whilst the other Australian decided to stay in Kenya.

The two went to a refugee camp and offered a small donation to help with the rape the women within the camp face.

The three Australians in Jordan went to a hospital and saw the scars of war first hand.

Later in the show the 3 Australians in Jordan accepted an offer to travel to Iraq and be taken to Baghdad by the U.S. Army.

The three in Jordan flew to a military base in Kuwait. After they arrived in Baghdad they drove through the notorious “red zone” and experienced what it is like to be on the front line.

By the end of the series most of the Australians have changed their views on refugees and asylum seekers. All the participants now understand the difficulties the refugees and asylum seekers face in their countries.

Some of the facts:

• The refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya is home to 80,000 refugees.
• There are 9 million displaced people in Africa.
• Close to half a million refugees first fled to Jordan after war broke out in Iraq.
• Jordan has 2 million refugees which equates to one third of their entire population.
• 5 million people have died from war in the Congo of a population of 70 million.
• More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq due to the war.
• Four and a half thousand U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq. This is more than the total number of people killed in the September 11 attacks.

Fact of the day

There are 9 million displaced people in Africa.

Source: SBS' 'Go Back To Where You Came From' television series. 

U.S. President Barack Obama unveils plan withdraw troops

U.S. President Barack Obama has proclaimed that he will withdraw 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the middle of next year. In a nationally televised address from the East Room of the White House, Obama said 10,000 forces will be withdrawn by the end of the year and the other 23,000 troops will leave Afghanistan by September 2012.

After the 33,000 troops have been withdrawn there will still be roughly 70,000 until the combat mission in Afghanistan is over. The mission in Afghanistan is planned to end in 2014.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that the decision has no affect on Australia’s mission in Afghanistan.

Obama said that U.S. troops still need to work hard to hold on to the territory which they have gained whilst fighting. 

Fact of the day

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22 1963 in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald while travelling in a Presidential motorcade. 


Oswald fired three shots from the sixth level of the Texas School Book Depository but only one hit Kennedy. There had to be a second shooter as Kennedy was hit from behind first and then from in front.

Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 2/3

Storyline:

This episode focuses on refugees in ‘transit’ awaiting resettlement in another country. It also features a police raid with the aim to capture illegal immigrants.

Episode recap:

At the beginning of the episode the six Australians are flown to Malaysia. From there, the six visited slums where refugees wait to be resettled in countries such as Australia. Many of the people in the flats fled Burma due to a military regime.

The six Australians moved in with a refugee family and were taken on a tour of the flat in which the family lived. The flat was crammed; there were 50 people on just one floor. The children living in the flat had no beds so they slept on the floor. There was one toilet for all the 50 people. It was a very primitive and unhygienic environment. This is the same for all flats and apartments in the slums.

The refugee children hardly know life outside the walls of the flats. Some of the children were born inside the flats. The children stay in the flats all day because the refugees are treated as illegal immigrants even if they have UN documents. If a child is arrested on the streets the authorities will show no mercy and the child will be sent to prison.

The bathroom was very unhygienic and one of the Australians went in and cleaned the toilet with a disinfectant.

The Australians ate the same food as the refugees and late at night the children were still bounding with energy.

The six found it very hard to sleep due to not having a bed, the noise from the street and the Muslims belted out their prayers early in the morning. The refugees in the flats have to deal with this every night.

The refugee children attend a makeshift school in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur. This is the only time the children are allowed out.

The refugee children in Malaysia will never have access to higher education. The children have a will to learn and are happy at school.

The refugee men work as labourers for nine hours a day as volunteers. As a reward for the labour they are given food and shelter. When asked by an Australian why they don’t work at a construction site and get some money for their work the men said: They can’t work at a construction site because they are afraid that if they go out they will be arrested.

Later in the program the six were invited on a border patrol. Two of the Australians went up in a helicopter and the other four went on a boat.

The people smugglers operate in mangroves as the dense foliage makes it hard for people to see any illegal work.

The Australians were then invited to go on a secret midnight raid to capture people smugglers. The raid was at a construction site. Illegal immigrants face jail and/or deportation if they are caught.

Scores of people were arrested; many of them could’ve been refugees. One man from the refugee family with which the Australians stayed was captured. If they are illegal immigrants they may face caning, jail or deportation.

Later, three Australians were sent to Jordan and the other three are sent to Kenya. These 2 countries are the first ports-of-call for many refugees when they are fleeing their country.

The three sent to Kenya were taken to a collection point where they were collected by UN personnel and taken to a refugee camp.

To get to the collection point the three Australians had to have a security escort due to shootings in the past. The three were given a matt and a bowl and were told to take care of their matt because once it is stolen they can’t replace it.

The toilet was a hole in the ground and the walls, doors and the roof were made out of tin. 

Fact of the day

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is set to open in September 2012 and will showcase some 3,000 artefacts (so far) which have been recovered from the wreckage. The museum will also include many other things.

Source: National Geographic – September 2010 magazine. 

Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 1/3

Storyline:

Six ordinary Australians sign up and agree to test out their opinions about refugees and asylum seekers first hand by embarking on a challenging 25 day journey in which they will travel by sea to countries without being told where they are going and will go to some of the countries with the highest populations of refugees and asylum seekers. 

Episode recap:

At the beginning of the episode the six Australians were introduced and their opinions on refugees and asylum seekers were expressed. The participants were forced to get rid of their phones and their wallets for the 25 days in which they will be participating in the experiment. The 6 people were then split up into two groups of three and were both sent to different places.

Three of the participants were sent to Liverpool, New South Wales, a town that has become home for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers and met up with asylum seekers from Iraq.

One of the Australians asked the men why they came to Australia without the required paperwork. The Iraqi men told the three Australians that before they boarded the boat to flee Iraq they had to give their paperwork to the people smugglers, if they refused to do so they would have been killed.

Later in the program the Iraqi men and the 3 Australians with them went to the local swimming pool. The Iraqi men kill time at the pool whilst they wait to be processed. However, one of the Iraqi men has a fear of water, he can't swim. He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the boat trip.

One of the Australians asks the Iraqi man why he got on a boat which would have to endure rough seas if he couldn’t swim. The Iraqi man said that he was told by the people smugglers that the trip would only take a few hours and that the boat was very nice. When he got on board he was shocked to see the condition of the boat. There were 60 people crammed together on the small boat. The Iraqi man was sick on the boat trip as were many others.

The three Australians with the Iraqi men took a tour of the Villawood Immigration Detention Facility. Most of the people there are on their third and final appeal to be accepted into Australia and to acquire refugee status. If they are not accepted they will be sent back to the country which they have fled and will most likely be killed. One man in the facility was 24 years old and thought that Australia was the land of freedom but when he arrived in Australia he was locked up in the detention facility.

The other three participants travelled to Albury-Wodonga on the New South Wales/Victoria border. The three people move into a house with an African family that fled from their homeland to Kenya due to war and lived in a UN camp for 9 years before acquiring visas to fly to Australia.

One of the participants is a self-confessed racist and especially hates Africans so the encounter came as a huge shock. The Africans told the Australians stories of local people coming in to the refugee camps at night and stealing their food at gun-point. Another issue raised was that the African woman whom the Australians were speaking to lost her baby at the camp before it was born because she didn't have any money.

The African man opened up to one of the Australians and told him that he is happy to be living in Australia and doesn’t want to go back to help out in his homeland because he has such bad memories and he spent a lot of time outside of his homeland due to the war.

Later, all six participants met up at a wharf in Darwin and embarked on a boat trip to an unknown location. They had to travel on the same type of boat with the same equipment and items, the only difference was that there were fewer people on the boat.

After a few hours on board one of the Australians felt sick and tempers flared, even though there were only 6 people on the boat as oppose to the 50-60 that asylum seekers and refugees face.

Early in the morning, the boat started letting water in and the Australians used buckets to get the water out. After three hours of bailing the boat kept on sinking. Most refugee boats have no communication so they can’t call a mayday.

The boat then started smoking and that really opened my eyes to what it must be like for asylum seekers and refugees travelling on these boats.

At the end of the episode after the Australians are rescued by the coastguard the host reveals that the boat on which the participants travelled on was actually a sea worthy yacht converted to look like an Indonesian fishing vessel.

Some of the facts:

• 28,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Australia by boat since 1976.
• 2,000 refugees arrived in Australia last year on boats.

Why this three-part series has come at the right time:

Australia is currently in a debate over a plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing. The plan has been criticised by the United Nations. In the past, asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat have accounted for a tiny part of the overall number of refugee applications in Australia but recently the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat has escalated significantly.

According to data from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, from July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009 only 16 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents. However, from 2009 – 2010, 47 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents.

The December 2010  incident, in which 27 asylum seekers drowned when their boat smashed into rocks on Christmas Island and riots at detention centres over inhumane conditions has left the Australian Government looking for answers.

Episode 2 is on SBS tonight from 8:30 - 9:30(EST) and episode 3 is on SBS Thursday night from 8:30 - 9:30(EST) 

To watch online and for more information on the documentary visit: 

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/goback

If you have an opinion on this issue please comment. 

Fact of the day

By 2045 global population is projected to reach nine billion.

Source: National Geographic. 

Rory McIlroy wins US Open by eight shots

Rory McIlroy has won his first major golf championship with an eight-shot victory in the 2011 US Open at the Congressional Country Club today.

The 22-year-old golfer from Northern Island went into the final round with an eight-shot lead and held steady to finish with a two-under-par 69 to end the tournament on 16 under. McIlroy broke the record for the lowest score over 72 holes in the tournament’s 111-year history.

Australian golfer Jason Day finished second after shooting a 68 to finish the tournament at 8 under par. The result was Day’s second consecutive runner-up finish at majors after finishing in a tie for second at the Masters in April.

Four players finished at 6 under par including England’s Lee Westwood and South Korea’s Y.E. Yang.

McIlroy’s putting was flawless over the four days and became only the sixth man to win after leading at the end of every round at the US Open.

In April of this year McIlroy had a four shot lead heading into the final round of the Masters but gave it up with a final round score of 80.

As McIlroy went on his charge 23-year-old Jason Day’s exciting finish means he has now had a top 10 finish in his last three majors and is without a doubt Australia’s newest golfing star.

London to Sydney in 3 and ½ hours.

The world’s first hypersonic passenger aircraft has been revealed, guaranteeing flights from London to Sydney in just 3 and ½ hours.

The ZEHST (Zero Emissions Hypersonic Transportation) is being called the new Concorde. Its rocket engines currently used in missiles will boost the plane to speeds of 5029km/h.

The jet will be propelled by a mix of hydrogen and oxygen, making its only emission water.

The jet can carry up to 100 passengers and will use conventional airplane engines to launch the aircraft from the runway. Once in the air, a pair of rocket engines will be turned on and then a final set of engines known as ramjets will turn on.

The aircraft design was revealed at the Paris Air Show.  

Fact of the day

Cougars are the largest cats that purr and can leap over a bus the long way.

Source: National Geographic Wild channel, California's Wild Coast documentary.

 

On this day: 2009 - Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew are killed.

Air France Flight 447 was a flight intended to go from Rio de Janeiro to Paris but crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 2009, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board the flight.

The investigation into the flight is ongoing but a recent discovery on May 27 2011 revealed that the plane came to a stall before plummeting to the ocean.

The aircraft’s black boxes were only recovered off the ocean floor 2 years later. The accident was the deadliest ever in Air France’s history and has been described as the worst accident ever in French aviation history.

It was the first deadly accident to occur whilst flying an Airbus A330.