https://www.scmp.com/rss/16297/feed Norman is a former Australian Journalist of the Year (Graham Perkin Award) and former chief of the Asia Desk at The West Australian Newspaper in Perth. He has reported on conflicts in Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com “What I feel the most about these days is human stupidity,” says 93-year-old Bun Hashizume, from her home in the Japanese temple city of Kamakura. “I was a victim of the first atomic bomb in human history and I have advocated throughout my life for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but the world leaders still do not understand their true horror. “Even my poems cannot describe it.” Rewind to 8.15am on August 6, 1945 in the final throes of World War II. A US atomic bomb named “Little Boy” was... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3273031/true-horror-japans-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivor-campaigns-nuclear-free-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3273031/true-horror-japans-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-survivor-campaigns-nuclear-free-world?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Aug 2024 06:00:20 +0000 Carina Hoang is proud to have been labelled a 'boatperson', because she credits the experience with having shaped her life. The Saigon-born 47-year-old said it made her stronger, more compassionate and more resilient than she would otherwise have been. It also led to her first book, Boat People: Personal Stories from the Vietnam Exodus 1975-96, which is being released this month. Boat People is a powerful collection of testimonials by 38 people with direct involvement in the flight of some 1.5... https://www.scmp.com/article/735865/powerful-tales-give-voice-time-shared-suffering?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/735865/powerful-tales-give-voice-time-shared-suffering?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Three decades on, Talbot Bashall retains many horrific memories of his 31/2years spent among the thousands of boatpeople who poured into Hong Kong from communist Vietnam. But one case stands out for sheer 'awfulness', says the former controller of the Refugee Control Centre, the body created in early 1979 to handle the developing crisis. The tale involves a boat that arrived in 1981 with a handful of refugees, including a youth - aged about 15 - who was tied to the mast. 'Interrogation of the... https://www.scmp.com/article/735864/shelter-storm?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/735864/shelter-storm?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Interesting times awaited Talbot Bashall when he left a forestry job in Britain in 1953 and moved to Hong Kong. Starting as an officer in Stanley Prison, he later ran the Prison Staff Training School, then an institution for young offenders, and a street-hawker-control force before becoming controller of a refugee centre handling a 'deluge' of Vietnamese boatpeople that started in 1979. And there was something else: for a time he also maintained a long-distance friendship with a convicted Nazi... https://www.scmp.com/article/724518/my-friend-fuhrers-aide?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/724518/my-friend-fuhrers-aide?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000