Wesa Chau
 
Melbourne - It’s a tragedy that international students are being killed on our streets – but it will become a scandal if Governments don’t act swiftly to protect them and the $15 billion industry they sustain.
 
Thursday’s high-profile police operation in Melbourne’s western suburbs is a good start and should be maintained. 
It shows authorities can act on the ground to protect the community against thugs like those who killed graduating Indian international student Nitin Garg.  This kind of active policing is to be applauded and encouraged.  However, it cannot end there.
 

By Fatima Dennaoui
 
Melbourne is a city of festivals, with regular celebrations of art and culture taking place throughout the year.
 
February marks the Lunar New Year with partying in Chinatown, while March has both Moomba, and the Greek Australian community’s Antipodes Festival.
 
In the western suburb of Newport, a twice-yearly Eid festival is a big celebration for local Muslim and non-Muslim residents.
 
This audio report from Fatima Dennaoui.

By Frud Bezhan

 Melbourne - For the women of Afghanistan, it is yet another brutal message — that death awaits those who choose a public life.

By Katie Fraser

 Melbourne - When I first started working with African clients six months ago at a Community Legal Centre in Melbourne’s western suburbs, I had a slightly sensationalized idea of what I might expect. Disaffected youths picked up for loitering, concealed weapons, and drug possession? Crimes involving gang violence and assault?

By Samantha van Zweden

 MELBOURNE - Victoria’s Indonesian community jammed the Immigration Museum in mid-March for a one-day festival celebrating the diverse culture, activities and food of their homeland.

By Akech M Manyiel

 Melbourne - Sudanese youths have moved to counter racist attacks by holding a national Sudanese basketball tournament.

By Thuong Du

 MELBOURNE - A new television show aimed at increasing the status of  young Vietnamese women in Melbourne will be underway soon.

The driving force behind the project is Helen Huynh and her team, already successfully transmitting radio programmes from the Yarraville studios of Channel 31.

 “Nothing we set our minds to is unachievable.We’re just joining the dots - skills we can acquire, resources we can beg, borrow and steal. People will support you if you really believe in what you do,” says Huynh.

By Frud Bezhan

  Melbourne -  Nazifa Nader endured more than her fair share of  the upheavals in Afghanistan for two decades before coming to Australia.

After the death of her husband, father, brothers and uncles during the war between the Soviet Union and the Mujahidin in the 1980s Nazifa, then a 26-year-old widow, was left alone to fend for her six-month old daughter, two sons aged three and five and an elderly mother.

In April 1992 Nazifa fled Afghanistan and escaped to a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, teeming with widows, children and elderly men and women.

By Frank Lin*

 Melbourne - A new satellite TV installation at the Atherton Gardens Public Housing Estate in Melbourne means many migrant residents now enjoy television in their mother tongue.