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Tag: Nauru

  • Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner ‘Concerned’ by Nauru Deportation Secrecy

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    SYDNEY (Reuters) -The first deportation of a person from Australia to the Pacific Island nation of Nauru under a billion-dollar deal to resettle non-citizens with criminal records raises “serious human rights concerns”, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner said on Wednesday.

    Australia last month agreed to pay Nauru A$2.5 billion ($1.6 billion) over three decades to host several hundred deported non-citizens.

    The deal has revived criticism from human rights groups that Anthony Albanese’s centre-left government is “dumping” refugees in small island states and has drawn comparisons with U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

    Under a decade-old policy to discourage people smuggling, Australia sends asylum seekers who arrive by boat to offshore detention centres to have refugee claims assessed, denying them Australian visas.

    Nauru said its President David Adeang, re-elected in a national election this month, last week accepted A$388 million from Australia to receive the first “special cohort” on 30-year visas. The island, which has a population of 12,000 and a land area of just 21 square km (eight square miles), is reliant on foreign aid.

    The first deportation there was shrouded in secrecy and “exposes a disturbing lack of transparency and raises serious human rights concerns,” Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said in a statement.

    “As the UN Human Rights Committee has made clear, outsourcing the management of asylum seekers and refugees does not absolve a State of its legal responsibilities,” she said.

    The Australian Human Rights Commission is an independent body that scrutinises the country’s performance in meeting its international human rights commitments.

    Nauru also received a separate A$20 million annual payment under the deal, of which $5.4 million will be used to operate the programme, and the rest spent on immediate budget priorities including public health and school lunches, Adeang said in a speech to parliament on Friday.

    Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has not commented on how many people had been transferred to Nauru, but he previously told the ABC around 20 visas had been issued.

    “When someone’s visa is cancelled they should leave,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Nauru’s internal affairs minister Tawaki Kam said last week that Nauru was committed to “humane, lawful” settlement of the migrants, and the funds would build Nauru’s economic resilience.

    “These settled persons will enjoy freedom of movement, equal treatment, and access to essential services,” he said in a statement.

    ($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)

    (Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • FTX lobbyist tried to buy Pacific island of Nauru to create a new superspecies, lawsuit says

    FTX lobbyist tried to buy Pacific island of Nauru to create a new superspecies, lawsuit says

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    The Nauru ring road runs right around the island nation of Nauru.

    (C) Hadi Zaher | Moment | Getty Images

    Sam Bankman-Fried’s younger brother, who was a top lobbyist for failed crypto exchange FTX, considered purchasing the island nation of Nauru in the Pacific to create a fortified apocalypse bunker state, a lawsuit filed in Delaware bankruptcy court shows.

    Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the “event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, according to the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is seeking to recover billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX.

    Bunker life is a well-documented fixation among tech billionaires, particularly those who identify as doomsday preppers. There’s also a fascination with buying large estates in the Pacific and even owning small islands there.

    In his years running FTX, the elder Bankman-Fried brother touted a philanthropic lifestyle called effective altruism and established the philanthropic arm with that in mind. Devotees of effective altruism work to maximize their income so they can give away their money in a fashion they see as most beneficial to humankind.

    Gabe Bankman-Fried was FTX’s most visible presence in Washington, D.C., and was connected to bipartisan charitable donations that ran into the hundreds of millions. Along with an unnamed philanthropic officer of FTX, he considered buying Nauru, in part to foster “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there.”

    A representative for Nauru confirmed the island nation was not and has never been for sale.

    Nauru, with a population of about 12,000, is a little over 2,100 miles away from Brisbane, Australia. It was there that FTX lawyers allege the Bankman-Fried team sought to establish an emergency base for itself and a select group of “EAs,” or effective altruists.

    In addition to serving as a haven in case of apocalypse, “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too,” according to a memo between the younger Bankman-Fried and the philanthropic advisor, which was noted in the suit.

    WATCH: FTX seeks to claw back $700 million from ex-Clinton aide’s investment firm

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