Author: Samaya Borom

Digital and communications professional. Independent researcher, journalist and author. Specialties include international law and international criminal law, human rights and security. Contact me for freelance rates.

Counterfeiting and Illicit Trade Book Review

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Peggy E Chaudhry (ed), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017 hb

The increased ease with which international trade and commerce occurs across the globe brings with it not only the ability to reach new audiences and markets for goods and services but also the ever-present threat of counterfeiting and illicit trade.

This is a comprehensive and well researched handbook that calls upon experts from industry, law enforcement, the legal community and the private sector (to name a few) to provide working insight into diverse topics covering such things as money laundering and terrorist financing, music piracy and pharmaceuticals.

Divided into five sections, the first part deals with trends and global enforcement issues in relation to illicit trade. Part II details the United States, Mexico and China’s initiatives in stemming illicit trade, which makes for an interesting comparative study highlighting the complexities of regulation and enforcement. The focus shifts in Part III to counterfeit pharmaceuticals, luxury goods and the tobacco sector while Part IV deals exclusively with the internet, including an extensive chapter on social media and intellectual property rights that came out of the 2015 United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Office research into social media platforms and IP infringement. Case studies and industry examples are peppered throughout the handbook, which serves to highlight the enormity and complexity of the issue of curtailing illicit practices on a global level.

The final part of the handbook provides an overview of managerial and consumer perceptions around the various anti-counterfeiting tactics deployed in the international business space and offers real insight into the impacts on consumers of illicit trading. These are supplemented by recommendations that could offer tangible benefits to consumers and business and deal crippling blows to the counterfeiting and illicit trade industry.

This book is essential reading for those interested in the impact of counterfeiting and illicit trade on international business.

Originally published in Law Institute of Victoria Journal ‘in_print’, 2nd July 2008.

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This is Congo Right Now’s HRAFF 2018 film picks

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One of the most resource rich countries in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been ravaged by over 20 years of civil instability and its vulnerable people are the ones who suffer the most.

In the first five minutes of Daniel McCabe’s This is Congo you are given a frightening glimpse into the sights and sound of civil war and this sets the stage for the rest of the film.

The threat of war is everywhere, from the 50 plus armed groups vying for control over areas rich in gold, diamonds and other minerals, to the feared Rwanda-Ugandan backed M23 rebels who are well armed and move through the country with impunity.

The rebels all share one thing in common: they’re united in their mission to overthrow the Kabila government whom they see as corrupt and siphoning away the potential of the country for their own material gain. But is this a recent issue for the DRC? McCabe’s use of archival footage illuminates the path that the country has found itself on, willingly or not.

McCabe’s focus on the four characters that he has chosen – a National Army Colonel, a high-ranking army officer, a mineral dealer, and a tailor – shows the impact of living in a country that is constantly at war with itself.

This is Congo is as harrowing as it is beautifully shot. The frontline footage is confronting but so is the story of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it’s one that needs to be told.

This is Congo screened on Friday 4 May at 6:00pm at ACMI (Melbourne),

City of Ghosts Melbourne International Film Festival Review

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Matthew Heineman’s new documentary, City of Ghosts, focuses on RBSS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently), a group of citizen activists who documented the path of destruction and death inflicted on the city of Raqqa in 2014. The group set out to witness the crimes of both the Bashar Al-Assad regime and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) through active reporting, including the secret filming of events leading to the fall and capture of Raqqa.

Extensive footage shows how ISIS rose to power in Syria, seemingly on the back of Assad regime protests around democracy, and how RBSS silently filmed them to ensure that there was a historical record of the atrocities that would be committed, which unbeknownst to RBSS would eventually amount to genocide and Crimes against Humanity. From the inception of ISIS arriving in the city, to the realisation that they were worse than Assad’s pro-government forces, the documentary frighteningly captures the nightmare that besieges Syrians daily.

ISIS trucks parade through the city centre with crucified hostages, beheaded bodies line the footpath outside a popular park, while mainstream and western media remain silent.

The film’s focus is on RBSS communicating to the international community the atrocities taking place, and pleads with it to spread the news of what is occurring in Syria.

Extremely confronting, City of Ghosts is essential viewing for those interested in the rise of ISIS and how citizens are able to bear witness for generations to come.

City of Ghosts screens at Hoyts Melbourne Central on Saturday 5 August at 9:15pm and on Sunday 20 August at 4:15pm. 

Originally published here.

Representations of the African-Australian Diaspora in Contemporary Australia

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Ways of Being Here
Rafeif Ismail, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Tinashe Jakwa and Yuot Alaak
Margaret River Press

WaysOfBeingHereCoverWays of Being Here is a collection of stories by African-Australian writers showcasing a diaspora that receives little attention in contemporary Australian writing. The four writers, Rafeif Ismail, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Tinashe Jakwa, and Yuot Alaak, trace their lineage to Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and South Sudan, respectively, and it is their strong connection to their homelands, culture and memories that drive their own individual stories.

Easy to read, the novellas provide readers with unique voices and experiences usually hidden in the Australian literary landscape. The stories themselves were exposed through the Ways of Being Here flash fiction competition set up by the Centre for Stories in Western Australia, which seeks to share the work of diverse storytellers, poets, and other creative people in order to strengthen the connections within the community.

Inclusivity within communities is definitely a theme running through all the stories, each highlighting the issue of acceptance in their own poignant way.

In Rafeif Ismail’s piece, ‘Light at the End’, she notes “You were born to deserts and rushing rivers. Summer is in your soul, in your bones, buried deep beneath inches of ice and cement. From the moment you arrive, you’ve been too much and not enough.” Tinashe Jakwa, in ‘No Child of One’s Own’, takes the reader on a journey that further considers the impact of childhood memories, folk tales, and history, stating “As it is, some bridges conspire with the waters beneath them.”

In Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, ‘When the Sky Looks like a Donkey’, it is shown how cultural and linguistic explanations can conflict with the social expectations placed on new Australians. Through the eyes of Ermi, a security guard in training who is trying to navigate workplace conversations and expectations, the reader sees how Ermi’s formal migrant English challenges the often lazy Australian drawl.

Yuot Alaak’s story ‘The Lost Girl of Pajomba’, about the terrifying separation of mother and child during war, highlights the importance of humanitarian and human rights effort with the powerful statement “I can only wish Mum and Dad were alive to witness the kindness of the human spirit. That my brothers survived to experience the innocence of childhood.” Whilst the shortest of the four stories at only eight pages, Alaak’s strong and sharp prose captures the reader immediately and is a fitting finale to the collection of stories that makes up Ways of Being Here.

Originally published at RightNow here

Defiant Lives Review Sydney Film Festival 2017

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Sarah Barton’s Defiant Lives details the struggle for disability rights in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Featuring interviews with key disability activists and supplemented with archival footage, the film provides powerful insight into the treatment of people with disabilities from the 1960s to today.

Barton’s film explores the recent shift in conversations around disability, from disability being viewed as troublesome and something to be pitied, to disability being centred on respect and recognition of rights. Yet people living with disabilities are still institutionalised and hospitalised in alarming numbers; Barton estimates around 30,000 people under 65 in Australia and more than 2 million in the United States.

Institutionalisation is not the only struggle activists have fought against. Disability as a spectacle, as entertainment to aid fundraising, only disappeared from television screens recently.

American comedian Jerry Lewis’ annual Las Vegas telethon in 2011 paraded child wheelchair users across the stage in a bid to elicit donations, and telethons in the United Kingdom and Australia, up until 1992 and 2000 respectively, used similar tactics.

Defiant Lives tells the powerful story of disability activists fighting against entrenched attitudes towards disability and highlights the ongoing struggle for recognition of rights that able-bodied people often take for granted.

Originally published here.

Do Not Resist, Human Rights Film Festival Review

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Do Not Resist | Craig Atkinson

The opening scenes of Craig Atkinson’s Do Not Resist are confronting in their similarity to scenes of war. Heavy military grade transportation – Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles – roll down streets. Police wearing what appears to be military-issued gear fire tear gas into a crowd of protesters where children are present. Cars are set alight and the sound of shots ring out over and above the sound of screams and sirens.

Welcome to Ferguson, Missouri, United States of America. The site where protesters gathered peacefully calling for justice in regards to the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot six times by police officer Darren Wilson. Wilson was later exonerated by the Grand Jury for any wrong doing.

Surprised with the excessive police response? Don’t be.

Do Not Resist by Craig Atkinson focuses on the increasing militarisation of the police force in the United States and the very real possibility that they are being turned into an occupying army.

Atkinson notes that since 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security has provided police departments with over $34 billion in grants to purchase military-grade equipment.

This has been supplemented by $5 billion in free military equipment from the Department of Defense resulting in a police force that looks, and acts, like it is at war; deviating dramatically from the idea of protecting and serving their own communities.

The film features interviews with an assortment of law enforcement characters, however most concerning is the rhetoric from Dave Grossman, a US Military and Law Enforcement trainer, whose central argument revolves around the idea that the police are at war – spurring on the purchasing of military-grade weaponry in order to protect themselves.

Do Not Resist is compelling to watch and one wonders just how far the militarisation can go given it’s already seemingly well embedded within the police force and supported by endless pockets.

Do Not Resist screens on Wednesday 17 May at ACMI (Melbourne).

View the trailer:

Originally published here.

Constance on the Edge, Human Rights Film Festival Review

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Constance on the Edge | Belinda Mason

In 2005 Constance and her family, refugees from war torn South Sudan’s Agoro, settled in Wagga Wagga, regional New South Wales, on a humanitarian visa.

Belinda Mason’s Constance on the Edge follows Constance and her family as they settle into life in Wagga. Confronting racism, depression, drug addiction, fear of the police, and initial language and cultural barriers – it was not always an easy fit. Constance and her family members each work their own path trying to fit into the tightknit regional community. Charles, her son, has had a particularly bad time, with over ten suicide attempts and trouble with the police. While Constance’s daughter, Vicky, studiously works towards her dream of assisting children. She has her sights on studying nursing or paediatrics at Charles Sturt University.

Mason expertly weaves the family’s refugee experience into the story, providing the viewer with an insight into how traumatic experiences can shape an individual – for better or worse.

While Constance and her family escaped war, their experiences left an indelible imprint. Constance describes it as if she lives in “a world of sweet dreams and horror, a world of living and walking with the dead”.

Constance on the Edge is a moving story that is captured and shared with honesty and openness.

Constance on the Edge screens on Friday 5 May at ACMI (Melbourne), on Tuesday 23 May at 6:30pm at Dendy Cinemas Newtown (Sydney), and on Friday 2 June at 6pm at The University of Tasmania (Hobart).

View the trailer:

First published here.