Word: sieve
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...Five months later, the cause of the explosion on Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (SIEV) 36 - as the Australian government later named it -has not been determined. But The Australian has reported that the fuel was deliberately ignited by the Indonesian crew members, believed to be human smugglers, as an attempt to prevent authorities from turning the boat back to Indonesia. Afghan elder Hassan Gulam, who interviewed the refugees, recently told the press that it was an accident that occurred during refueling. Wherever the truth lies, the investigation became a political powder-keg when rumors started to circulate that the Australian...
...says Sharman Stone, the immigration spokeswoman the Liberal Party of Australia. Stone says the Rudd government's "relaxed" approach to refugees has been a strong draw for the hundreds of desperate people who ride on rickety vessels towards Australian shores. Many boats don't make it: In 2001, the SIEV X sank near the Indonesian island of Java, taking 353 lives with it. "The way the policy is at the moment there is very little that can be done to deter those with the cash and the contacts...
...story concerns "a certain maritime incident," also known as the children overboard affair. In October 2001, two days into an election campaign in which Prime Minister John Howard successfully portrayed his government as tough on border protection, ministers claimed that illegal immigrants aboard a fishing boat code-named SIEV 4 (suspected illegal entry vessel 4) had thrown children into the sea. This, government ministers suggested, was an attempt at blackmail: sailors from H.M.A.S. Adelaide, which had apprehended the vessel, would be forced to rescue the children, thus improving their families' chances of gaining entry to Australia. Defence Minister Peter Reith...
Pictures indeed showed people in the water. But they were taken the day after SIEV 4 was intercepted, after it had begun to sink. Senior bureaucrats and military officers had differing ideas about exactly what had happened, but it gradually became clear to them that the first reports given to the government were inaccurate. Two inquiries have now established that military commanders told Reith before polling day that no children had, in fact, been thrown overboard. At the time, no one in the government moved to correct the record, and no inquiry was launched. Perhaps ministers believed that admitting they...
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