LILONGWE, Malawi — Jones Chinkhwangwa, from Kasungu town, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, has been a dedicated tobacco farmer for the past 10 years. “I inherited the five-acre tobacco farm from my late father,” he told Zenger News. “However, I have to say that tobacco farming has not been easy.” Dubbed the “green gold” of the country, tobacco has been the main cash crop for the southeastern African nation for years. According to Tobacco Commission Control, tobacco contributes 60 percent of Malawi’s foreign earnings. However, the country’s returns from this crop have been shrinking over the years. In January last…
Author: zenger.news
ADELAIDE, Australia — The final kegs are set to come off the production line at Adelaide’s historic West End Brewery, ending more than 160 years of making beer on the site. The last kegs will be filled on June 17 after brewing company Lion announced plans to close the facility in 2020. “Unfortunately, due to excess brewery capacity across Australia, the tough decision was made to close the site late last year,” Ian Roberts, Lion Supply Chain Director, said. “During this transition, Lion has done its best to care for and offer a raft of support to the West End team as each…
CANBERRA, Australia — A Senate committee in Australia will soon scrutinize vegan and vegetarian food masquerading as meat. Nationals senator Susan McDonald has launched an inquiry into food labeling laws as the Australian red meat industry seeks to protect the provenance of its products. The former butcher said it was up to makers of non-meat products to come up with their different terms instead of piggybacking off long-established animal proteins like mince and sausages. “There are intellectual property issues, and in our export legislation, we have clear definitions of meat being the product of an animal, but there are gaps domestically,” she said…
COFFS HARBOUR, Australia — Actor Russell Crowe is the latest to cash in on the country’s film boom, announcing he will build a major film studio in the south-eastern Australian state of New South Wales’s Coffs Harbour on the mid-north coast the Oscar winner lives. The AU $400 million ($308 million) studio, including post-production facilities, will be created at the Pacific Bays Resort and billed as a family-friendly production hub to provide a significant economic boost to the coastal town. The seaside precinct will include a boutique hotel, a state-of-the-art film school, and an indigenous art gallery, and it is just 25 minutes away from…
BRISBANE AIRPORT, Australia — Passengers aboard a fatal helicopter flight were not adequately briefed on operating the emergency exits before the aircraft plunged into waters near the Great Barrier Reef. American tourists Peter and Sue Hensel, aged 79 and 65, were killed when the tourist helicopter they were traveling in crashed near Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands in March 2018. The helicopter, which has never been recovered, “almost immediately rolled” and “rapidly filled with water” when it crashed without its emergency pop-out floats deployed, an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says. “Our investigation emphasizes that for helicopter flights over water, given the risk of inversion, capsize…
MELBOURNE, Australia — South-eastern Australian state of Victoria’s snowfields will welcome Melbourne skiers and snow boarders but only with proof of a negative test. Acting Premier James Merlino confirmed the ban on travel to regional Victoria would be scrapped from 11.59 pm on June 10, paving the way for Melbourne residents to return to snow resorts. However, authorities have placed an additional condition of entry on city-dwellers planning to visit Mt Hotham, Mt Buller, or Falls Creek. Under the new rule, they must get tested 72 hours before leaving Melbourne and show evidence of a negative test upon arrival. Children under two years old are exempt.…
Scientists who set up an expensive wildlife trap disguised to look like a piece of bark are regretting that decision. The team looked on helplessly as its wildlife camera, triggered to film every time there is movement, was pecked repeatedly by a woodpecker until it was destroyed. By piercing the bark of the tree, woodpeckers gain access to insects and larvae. The image of the smashed camera was filmed in the Nizhne-Svirsky Nature Reserve in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. A black woodpecker attacks the camera. (Nizhne-Svirsky State Reserve/Zenger News)The video was posted with the message: “Vandalism in the reserve! The black…
A shoe that was apparently pulled off when the owner stood in a German bog more than 2,000 years ago has been found during excavation work that uncovered an ancient wooden roadway. Researchers from the State Office for Monument Preservation in Lower Austria, along with the excavation company denkmal3D of Vechta, Germany, found the shoe alongside a wooden road believed to be more than two millennia old. The wooden planks were laid down to help people navigate the marshland. In addition to the shoe, a broken axle was found, leading archeologists to believe that while changing it for a new…
A controversial art installation on the side of an Austrian cliff next to a waterfall will be removed in September after complaints it ruined the view for tourists at the picturesque site. The installation, called “Cliffhanger,” is at Myra Falls in the Oetscher-Tormaeuer Nature Park. The artwork by Austrian art collective Steinbrener, Dempf & Huber features a large red fake doorway with “tourist information” written above it next to the waterfall. Florian Schublach, head of the nature park, which describes the site as the “Grand Canyon of Austria” with “thundering waterfalls” and “unique nature,” commissioned the art installation. Schublach said…
The newly expanded and reimagined ANU – Museum of the Jewish People opened March 10, becoming the world’s only museum dedicated to celebrating and exploring the experiences, accomplishments and spirit of the Jewish people from biblical times to today. The Diaspora Museum (Beit Hatfutsot) on the campus of Tel Aviv University was founded in 1978 and later renamed the Museum of the Jewish People. Its new brand identity adds ANU — Hebrew for “we”— to embrace inclusion and reflect the diversity and collective spirit of the Jewish people everywhere, said the museum’s board chair, Irina Nevzlin. “Every nation deserves a…