Latest Media Releases

MEDIA ALERT: Oxfam TRAILWALKER Sydney, August 28 - 30

Today marks six years since the bombing of the UN office in Baghdad. The casualties from that blast included the top UN official in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello and other UN staff working to help Iraqi civilians in the middle of war. The UN has designated today the inaugural World Humanitarian Day, to honour aid workers and the jobs they do in difficult and dangerous environments.

The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been urged to upgrade Australia’s climate change policy, and take an emissions reduction target of 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 to negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

The failure of the Pacific Islands Forum to match Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s ambitious rhetoric with meaningful action on climate change will spell further disaster for the Pacific’s small island states already suffering the impacts of rising sea levels and more frequent cylones and storms, international aid agency Oxfam Australia said today.

Oxfam Australia Executive Director Andrew Hewett:

"The Australian Government’s focus on climate change in the Pacific is welcome but falls short of the response required to tackle the already devastating impacts of climate change in the region.

Trade negotiations between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns this week must not plunge Pacific people already hit by the economic crisis, food crisis and climate change further into poverty, says leading international aid agency Oxfam.

The National Rugby League (NRL) today became the first sporting code to sign up to Close the Gap, Australia’s largest ever campaign to improve the life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Three months after the clashes in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) began, aid agency Oxfam is emphasizing the right of people who had been forced to flee the fighting to be able to return home voluntarily, and the need to ensure safety and security in their home villages.

An Oxfam Australia report published today highlights the urgent need for next week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns to address the dramatic effects of climate change within the region.

Hear first-hand accounts of how climate change is affecting Pacific communities right now at a special events around the country in July.