MP News Group journalist David Harrison is in Thailand supporting his mate Alan Morison and his wife Chutima Sidasathian, who were charged in late 2013 with criminal defamation and computer crime over a story they published on their online website Phuketwan about abuses against Rohingya migrants in Thailand. The charges centred on a paragraph in Phuketwan on 17 July 2013 citing an investigative report by Reuters alleging that some navy officials were involved with trafficking Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar (Burma). The trial generated widespread condemnation from human rights groups and the United Nations. Morison and Sidasathian faced up to seven…
Author: Bayside News
THERE have been countless happy campers at Mt Eliza over the past 90 years. Apart from when being used to recuperate US soldiers wounded in the Pacific campaign during World War II, the camp has provided a place to get away from it all for families and groups since 1925. The Sunnyside Rd camp site was given to the YMCA by Thomas and Alice Baker. Camp Manyung’s 90th anniversary last month and the unveiling of a historic interpretive display of the camp’s history from 1925 to the present brought back family memories for Jenny Little (nee Stevens), a camper from…
EARLY Sunday morning is certainly not the time to explode a home-made pipe bomb in the local park. But that’s what residents living near Skye Valley Park, Santa Clara Mews, woke up to last week. Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the 6am detonation of the aerial exploding device made from PVC tubing and tape. Emergency services were called after witnesses reported the loud bang. An arson and explosives chemist attended. There was no damage to people or property but police said it could have been worse if the device had gone off later in the day as it was…
A LIFE-CHANGING operation has given a bright future to a Timor Leste woman – partly thanks to Seaford Carrum Downs Rotary. The club brought Jesuina da Costa Belo to Melbourne for open heart surgery, which is not available that country. Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children organised the trip for Jesuina and her mother, Teresa, for the operation at the Monash Medical Centre, Clayton. She was treated pro bono by cardiac surgeon Professor Andrew Cochrane. Seaford Carrum Downs Rotary Club members John and Judy Berends enjoyed their role as the women’s hosts. “Despite the language barrier everything went well and…
THE Rotary Room at the Frankston Arts Centre will come alive this Sunday for the grand final of The Voice of Frankston 2015. Last Sunday, 25 singers performed over four age categories: junior, teen, adult and senior, at the semi-finals. In the lead up, the show’s panel of judges had gone through blind auditions to sort through more than 100 entries. …