Two Bangladeshis have been admitted to hospital after staging a hunger strike for nearly a month to protest at their detention by Australia's immigration department, officials said yesterday.
Shah Mohammad Sayan Mahmud and Mohammed Masud Hay, both 28, have refused food for 26 days to press for a review of their visa applications.
The men have been refused protection visas and it is believed one has been served with a deportation notice, the national AAP news agency reported.
An immigration department spokesman said the men had been admitted to hospital in recent days but would not confirm reports they were being fed fluids and vitamins via tubes.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said he understood one of the detainees had breached the restrictions of his visa by working in a Sydney restaurant.
Meanwhile, a suicidal asylum-seeker from Zimbabwe who slashed his wrists and throat with broken glass has been released from hospital and returned to immigration detention.
An immigration department spokesman said Peter Jackson Mode, 24, was under medical care at Baxter detention center in South Australia, but refused to comment further.
Mode used broken glass from the door to his detention cell in an apparent attempt to try to kill himself on Saturday night.
Refugee advocates told AAP that Mode was the fourth Baxter detainee to attempt suicide in the past fortnight but the immigration spokesman would not confirm this.
Mode, a member of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change who arrived in Australia last year, is appealing a failed asylum application. He said last month that guards at the detention center deliberately broke his leg during a protest.
The incidents have again put the spotlight on the government's tough policy on illegal immigrants, including mandatory detention which can last for years.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of