The Wire

Outside Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office in Sydney today protesters gathered to draw attention to the issue of a group of Tamil refugees fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka who have been stuck on a boat in Merak near West Java in Indonesia for 150 days. Greens Member for New South Wales, Sylvia Hale, says the situation for the refugees is dire and Kevin Rudd needs to have urgent talks with the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to try to resolve the issue.