CN Newsletter: December 15
Issue 11/24: Palestinian history being erased, council raises Lebanese flag, western Sydney bus services woeful, UTS wins at Ossie Awards, Foreign Correspondent Study Tour.
Happy Sunday!
To catch up on the latest news this week, just keep scrolling.
In this week’s edition, Central News brings you the latest stories that are shaping communities here in Australia and around the world from political debates, Sydneysiders' commute struggles, what's happening in the arts and culture scene, and the latest news out of Thailand from our newly returned CN foreign correspondents.
Leo Chau talks to a representative from the Canterbury-Bankstown Council after a unanimous vote by councillors to raise the flag of Lebanon in solidarity with the Lebanese community. Zaryab Ahmad investigates commuters frustrations surrounding western Sydney bus services. Emilia Louw talks with artist Claudia Nicholson as she explores new themes in her latest exhibition, If the Mountain is Burning, Let it Burn.
Nathan John Dela Torre Carlos and Pitchaya Wongchitt bring you all the updates from Thailand’s Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, press conference earlier this month. Chatmongkon Luanginta and Chayanit Kosutho visit the Nai Boon Yuen Market, located in the northern Thailand district of Mae Sai, where market vendors are struggling to bounce back after devastating floods hit the region two months ago.
Nominations are now open for the UTS Media Awards 2025 to honor exceptional journalism.
As the semester has come to an end, Central News is slowing down for the year. As students take a well earned break, this edition will be one of the final publications of the newsletter for this year. Make sure to keep an eye out though, as the CN Newsletter will be hitting your inbox again in the new year. We have some exciting special editions in line for you, as our group of students who took part in a Foreign Correspondent Study Tour earlier this month are working hard to bring you a range of stories from their time in Thailand that you won’t want to miss!
News 🗞️
Palestinian history being ‘erased’ by establishment and media, say experts
Palestinian history is being deliberately ignored and effectively ‘erased’ as part of western media narratives, while establishment forces work to shut down anyone speaking out against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, a conference of legal and Middle East experts has said. The two-day online summit Erasure and Defiance: the Politics of Silence and the Voice of Palestine, hosted by the UTS Diversities and Social Inclusion Research Centre highlighted how reporting in mainstream media normalised violence against Palestinians. The conference took place over one and-a-half days in July, bring together Arab, Muslim, Jewish and Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Australia, Germany, Japan, the USA and the UK. The release of the conference proceedings comes over a year on from the start of the Israeli War on Gaza, now extended into Lebanon and Syria. At least 44,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, while Israeli forces have killed at least 188 Palestinian journalists in Gaza. The conference posed major questions about the erasure of Palestinian history, and how it enables present-day war crimes, as well as how defiance has resonated and inspired ongoing resistance.
To find out more about the conference and the ongoing situation in Gaza, read the full article on Central News.
Council raises Lebanese flag in solidarity
Canterbury-Bankstown Council, in Sydney’s south-west, has raised the Lebanese flag in support of the local community, after months of bomb and missile attacks by Israel have left thousands dead. The flag was raised in two locations in Bankstown and Campsie on November 22, coinciding with Lebanon’s national independence day. The move also came as the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Canterbury-Bankstown’s proud Lebanese Australian community is unmissable, with the area home to more than 20 per cent of Australia’s Lebanese population, around a quarter of a million people, according to the 2021 census. The flying of the Lebanese flag was warmly welcomed by the community, after the UN reported 1.2 million people, a quarter of Lebanon’s population, have been forced to leave their homes. Councillors voted unanimously on October 22 to fly the Lebanese flag and acknowledge the trauma felt by local people. It is not the first action the south-west Sydney council has taken in supporting the Lebanese and Palestine communities though. Last year, the council also voted unanimously to fly the Palestinian flag until a ceasefire is declared, the first council in Australia to do so. You can read more about the council’s decision in the full article by Leo Chau.
Bus services in Sydney’s west still woeful
Western Sydney bus services have been found to be neglected and often unpredictable according to frustrated commuters. In February, the Transport for NSW Bus Industry Taskforce found that 235 Sydney bus routes did not comply with minimum service standards, with the taskforce later handing down its final report in May which concluded that neglect and lack of coordination by Transport for NSW had caused degradation to bus services. Senior traffic engineer, Behzad Saleh, believes the disparity in services is a result of the greater distance Western Sydney buses have to cover due to lower population density, which is pushing costs up and leaving limited funds for infrastructure updates. To hear what commuters think, take a look at Zaryab Ahmad’s story.
You can read the final report from the NSW Bus Industry Taskforce here.
Wins for UTS students at Ossie Awards
UTS journalism students have picked up four awards and three commendations at the annual JERAA Ossie Awards for student journalism. The award ceremony was held at the University of Melbourne on November 28 by the Journalism Research and Education Association of Australia. Masters student Frances Du won the award for Best Text-based Story by a Postgraduate Student — over 750 words, for her article for SBS on China’s secret female language. Ike Morris won the John Newfong Award for Reporting on Indigenous Affairs, for his article ‘More First Nations kids locked up despite youth detention drop’. Sophie Havilah won the Cait McMahon OAM Journalism and Trauma Reporting Award for her article ‘‘I hate them for what they did to me’ - strip searches are traumatising children’. Yasmine Alwakal won the award for Best Data Journalism by an Undergraduate or Postgraduate Student for her story ‘Seeing red: the high cost of menstruating’. Students Hugh Phillips, Rosa Griffith and Sophia Khouri were also highly commended for their works. Congratulations to all the winners!
Arts & Culture 🎨
The beautiful slipperiness of memory
UTS Artist in Residence, Claudia Nicholson, has taken her practice to new heights, exploring her personal memories and archives in her latest work titled If the Mountain is Burning, Let it Burn. The interdisciplinary artist’s video and photography exhibition which was on display at the UTS gallery last month utilises Nicholson's personal archive of over two hundred photographs documenting her birth country of Colombia and life in Australia. Nicholson, who was adopted from Bogotá, reconstructs her connection to Columbia through three photographic archives of the country, including photos taken by her father, herself, and photo negatives obtained in Bogotá. Nicholson stated that her choice to include photos that showcased historical happenings in Bogotá was central to the work in order to create an “impartiality” against her documentation of her own biographical inclusion. To hear more the significance of the work for Nicholson take a look at Emilia Louw’s article.
You can learn more about Nicholson and see inside the exhibition here.
Foreign Correspondent Tour 🇹🇭
From November 24 to December 7, 13 UTS students took part in the Foreign Correspondent Study Tour to Thailand. They were joined by six students from Chiang Mai University, travelling around the city searching for stories, conducting interviews and shooting videos. The students also underwent training in Burmese language and the political history of Myanmar, in preparation for a short trip to Mae Sai, on the Thailand-Myanmar border. Here, students met with refugees, market stall owners, and victims of the recent floods to learn about their stories.
The study tour provided an amazing experience for the students involved, not only challenging and expanding their skills in journalism, but also creating lifelong friendships with fellow communications students on the other side of the world.
Now back in Sydney, the UTS students are working hard writing up their stories and editing videos, to share their work to Central News. Keep an eye out for the articles over the next few weeks, and for our next special edition of the CN Newsletter.
Thai PM announces flood help for businesses
Thai businesses affected by floods in October will be offered low-cost loans totalling 50 billion Thai baht under a proposal by the government. The package was announced in Mae Sai by the Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on December 2, promising speedy relief for various industries in Northern Thailand, just as floods in the country’s south displaced thousands more people. The arrival of the Prime Minister two months after the floods, which killed 16 people in Mae Sai, was met with mixed reception from locals, some who claimed to not have received the earlier support promised on October 8. A partnership with eight state banks for loan packages was announced during the press conference to help farmers, entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises, on top of the 94 billion THB already set aside for flood relief. Shinawatra said the policy’s focus on relieving debt burden would mean flood victims do not damage their credit.
Historic market survived floods, but still pays a price
Located at the heart of the northern Thailand district of Mae Sai, the Nai Boon Yuen Market has stood the test of time, surviving for almost a hundred years, but recent floods that devastated the greater region and upended the lives of many has taken its toll on the market, with traders experience a sharp decline in revenue as fewer residents and customers return. The market which has been a central source of income and fresh produce for Thai and Burmese traders has also been a pivotal place of community for residents. While the floods did not reach the market, the effects are still felt by traders with few customers returning, continued reduction in the market’s economy, and no rental reduction policy in sight. Take a look at Chiang Mai University students Chatmongkon Luanginta and Chayanit Kosutho’s article to hear why despite the situation being far from ideal two months on from the floods, traders are still continuing to persevere.
UTS Media Awards
Have you read, watched or listened to an excellent piece of journalism this year? Have you found a particular story that engaging, interesting or thought provoking?
If so, we encourage you to nominate the story in our 2025 Media Prize!
Following the success of the 2024 Media Prize, won by the ABC for their story ‘Razed’, the UTS Media Awards are back again, collating a new series of excellent journalism examples.
Nominate your story of choice in the form below: http://bit.ly/cnawards2025
We will calculate the top three stories, and then invite the writers to attend the award ceremony in March next year, giving students the opportunity to network with industry experts.
Until Next Time
In our next issue of the CN Newsletter, we’ll bring you a special edition showcasing the pieces created as part of the Foreign Correspondent Study Tour to Chiang Mai.
Until then, you can keep up to date with the latest from Central News by following us @centralnewsuts via bit.ly/m/centralnews.
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