Tens of thousands of people turned out yesterday to hear local and international stars at two Australian concerts to raise funds for victims of wildfires that killed hundreds of people.
British supergroup Coldplay started off the “Sound Relief” concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground with their hit Yellow, while local band Jet opened the show in Australia’s second biggest city Melbourne.
US group Kings of Leon were also due to perform before a crowd of 80,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before specially reunited Australian protest rockers Midnight Oil close the concert.
Midnight Oil’s frontman is Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, who told a news conference he had no problems swapping his formal role for the chance to rock and roll again.
“We didn’t have to convince the prime minister [Kevin Rudd] or anyone else about us playing,” he said. “Naturally, I consulted with my colleagues because I’ve got responsibilities but I think everybody recognizes that it was just a really extraordinary situation and occasion that had come about.”
Garrett, 55, and Midnight Oil rose to fame with worldwide hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Beds are Burning and Blue Sky Mine, before splitting in 2002. The minister said the Victorian bushfires had been an “extraordinary and at times traumatic experience” for the state’s people.
“The music industry coming together to put its hands in its pockets and get itself out on the stage and perform in an arena like the Melbourne Cricket Ground is a very, very special day for us,” he said.
The two concerts are expected to raise about A$5 million (US$3.25 million) to help victims of the worst wildfires in the nation’s history.
At least 210 people were killed and more than 2,000 homes destroyed as fires fanned by record high temperatures and strong winds swept through drought-stricken southern Victoria state last month.
Ironically, rain fell in the state capital Melbourne as the concert got under way, but it failed to deter fans, while in Sydney a thunderstorm halted proceedings.
Sensitivities about the fires gave some of the stars pause for thought, though, with Kings of Leon declining to play one of their biggest songs, Sex on Fire. It was also seen as unlikely that Garrett and Midnight Oil would perform their hit Beds are Burning.
“I think that you can look at lyrics out of any songs and clearly, there are going to be lines there that pertain to any human situation,” he told the news conference. “But the songs stand in their own right and in their own time.”
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS