MELBOURNE, Australia — Thousands of Australian meat workers are off the job for a second day after a cyberattack crippled the largest meat processing company in the world. The company José Batista Sobrinho, popularly known by its acronym JBS, is also Australia’s largest meat and food processing company, with 47 facilities across the country including abattoirs, feedlots, and meat processing sites. But not a single one of its killing floors were operating nationwide on June 1 after a cyberattack targeted the global food company, which services 100 countries across six continents. Australian staff learned of the attack when they were turned…
Author: zenger.news
MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian economists are finalizing their forecasts for key economic growth figures as the Reserve Bank board sits for its monthly meeting. Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy and his senior team are also due to face a Senate hearing in Canberra to dissect the federal budget and the national economic outlook. The central bank is widely expected to leave its key interest rates unchanged at a record low 0.1 percent after its meeting on June 1. The bank has already flagged any changes to its bond targeting and buying program will be announced in July. “The Reserve Bank of Australia…
Israeli biotechnology company Bonus BioGroup recently announced positive preliminary results of its Phase I clinical trial for treating severely ill Covid-19 patients, perhaps bringing closer a cure for the coronavirus. The trial involved treating 10 Covid patients aged 45 to 75 hospitalized at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa with MesenCure, Bonus BioGroup’s cell therapy drug candidate. “All of the patients being treated with MesenCure were severe Covid patients whose illness was manifested in acute respiratory distress, in chest X-rays that showed diffused pneumonia and other blood indices that point to a cytokine storm,” said Rambam’s Dr. Shadi Hamoud, the…
An ancient bronze necklace pendant attesting to its owner’s fear of demons and the evil eye recently made its way to the Israel Antiquities Authority — 40 years after it was unearthed near the site of a Byzantine-era synagogue. The amulet was originally found near the remains of the ancient Arbel synagogue by Tova Haviv, a nearby resident. When she died, a family member brought it to the National Treasures Center at the IAA, where it was examined. The reverse side of an ancient bronze amulet found near the ruins of the Arbel synagogue in northern Israel. (Dafna Gazit/Israel Antiquities…
SYDNEY — Australia’s softball team is ready to do the hard yards during a two-month lockdown in coronavirus-ravaged Japan, having waited since 2008 for a chance to compete at an Olympics. The softballers flew out of Sydney on May 31 to Tokyo, becoming the first of almost 500 Australian Olympians to make a journey that many considered impossible. The squad, starved of international fixtures during the past 15 months, will be based in an Ota City hotel before entering the Olympic village. Players will only be allowed to leave the hotel for training and games during the coming weeks, while even stricter protocols likely…
QUEENSTOWN, New Zealand — Barring a late change in plans, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will touch down in New Zealand for his first trip of 2021. Queenstown, a city in South Island, New Zealand, is hosting the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders Forum. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern chose the ski town to highlight the best in Kiwi tourism to Australians. The opening of the trans-Tasman bubble last month means Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand, is the only international destination that Australians can visit with ease during the pandemic. Ski fields, hotels, and hospitality businesses are licking their lips…
PERTH, Australia — Western Australia’s gaming regulators opted not to investigate allegations of money laundering against Crown after the company’s “persuasive” former legal boss told them it was a media beat-up, a royal commission has been notified. The Crown Perth inquiry this week completed its first phase of hearings focused on the regulation of gambling in Western Australia. Former Gaming and Wagering Commission member Andrew Duckworth described how the regulator had responded in 2019 when Nine aired claims linking Crown to money laundering and fast-tracked visa applications for wealthy clients. He said the Gaming and Wagering Commission had resolved to take a…
CANBERRA, Australia — Software engineer Casey Whitelaw would love to drive an electric car in Australia but doesn’t have anywhere to charge it. Like so many people, he can’t make cutting-edge technology work for him just yet. “Electric vehicles are absolutely the way to go, but the reality is widespread uptake is about 10 years away,” Whitelaw said. But being a former Google engineer, he’s managed to build a whole business around the idea that most people will have to keep driving their greenhouse-gas emitting petrol cars for some time. He’s designed an online platform called Go Neutral, where motorists can directly…
CANBERRA, Australia — The Chief Executive of Westpac, an Australian bank and financial services provider, Peter King, wants the corporate sector to be allowed to step in and help Australia’s flagging vaccine rollout. The bank boss said vaccinations were critical to getting lives back to normal and warned closing international borders and relying on lockdowns in response to outbreaks was unsustainable. “I understand there are varying views among Australians concerning vaccines,” he wrote in an Australian national daily on May 31. “But from my perspective, given the need to protect our families and friends when further outbreaks occur, as well as the…
SYDNEY — Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says there’s little Australia can do to exit the Chinese “freezer” of punitive trade measures, and should instead continue to prioritize the protection of its sovereignty. But he also warned “gratuitous belligerence” towards Beijing was unhelpful, saying quiet diplomacy should win the day over slogans and media headlines. Turnbull appeared at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on May 31 to launch a book on China by journalist Peter Hartcher, the same day that Australia and New Zealand sought in bilateral talks to project unity on China. Hartcher’s new book “Red Zone: China’s Challenge…