BRISBANE, Australia — Protesters have ventured into Queensland’s agricultural heartland with the aim of disrupting the beef industry’s premier event, which has hosted both the prime minister and the premier. Activists from Animal Liberation Queensland claim there are far-reaching environmental and climate change repercussions from the industry, and they are spreading their message at Rockhampton’s Beef Week. “Our message to each of these delegates is that a rational and compassionate discussion about the future of animal agriculture is well overdue,” said Chay Neal, Executive Director, Animal Liberation Queensland. “As a nation, we currently have a powerful opportunity to shift support away from the…
Author: zenger.news
CANBERRA, Australia — Proposed laws intended to keep Australia’s network of intelligence agencies in check will leave out the federal police and Home Affairs. The narrow approach of the intelligence oversight bill does not go far enough. George Williams, head of the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law, and Keiran Hardy, a researcher at the Griffith Criminology Institute, told parliament’s security committee on May 6. “We believe it should be extended to go further,” Williams said. He said the work of the national intelligence community includes covert powers and operations outside the usual bounds of law enforcement and therefore needs more…
SYDNEY — The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has been told to use more open and competitive selection processes in order to undertake procurements. Co-working with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, The Great Barrier Reef Foundation in Australia is an environmental organization that raises funds to protect and regenerate coral reefs as well as help the animals which depend on them. The foundation was controversially given an AUD 443.3 million ($343.1 million) grant by the federal government in 2018. The auditor-general found the grant was handed out without clear assessment criteria that would determine whether it was value for money.…
CANBERRA, Australia — Indigenous groups have raised concerns the Morrison government is considering spending AUD 40 million ($31.02 million) earmarked for water rights on other uses. The coalition promised in 2018 to create the fund designed to allow First Nations people in the Murray-Darling Basin to buy water for cultural and economic benefit. Earlier this year, Water Minister Keith Pitt said he would look at all opportunities to deliver the money in a way that would create jobs. Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations chief executive Paul Paton called on Pitt to confirm the money wouldn’t be used for non-water assets.…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s Migration Minister Alex Hawke has extolled the virtues of immigration detention as he weighs the fate of a Tamil family seeking protection. The family from Biloela in central Queensland is being held on Christmas Island as their case drags through the courts. The federal government has spent more than AUD 6 million ($4.64 million) keeping Priya, Nades, and their two Australian-born daughters in detention for the past three years. Hawke refused to comment specifically on the family’s case because he will eventually be the primary decision-maker but spruik the broader value of Australia’s immigration detention regime. “It…
The Marines stay prepared with rigorous training exercises. On April 22, they provided close air support with a powerful minigun against a simulated enemy at a training ground at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California. Marine Light Attack Squadron (HMLA-269) was flying, landing, piloting and providing close air support by firing a GAU-17 Minigun from UH-1Y Venom helicopters, according to video posted by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. HMLA-269 and other Marine Aircraft Group (MAG-29) squadrons integrate and support various ground-based units as part of the Service Level Training Exercise. MAG-29 is a…
Floretta Mayerson is co-founder of the Mexican startup Violetta, a digital safe space where domestic violence victims can get psychological and legal assistance anytime via a chatbot. After a year of local mentoring, Mayerson applied to the MassChallenge network of zero-equity startup accelerators — not its Mexican branch but its Israeli one. “We believe big opportunities come from big challenges, and this happens once you step out of your comfort zone,” she said. “We have always admired the Israeli startup environment. The growth potential of questioning and re-thinking our project through its lens is huge.” The 42 startups accepted to…
Dozens of fragments of mammoth bones displaying blow marks, confirming that mammoths were hunted by humans living in the cave 30,000 years ago, have been discovered at an archaeological excavation in southern France. The mammoth bone fragments were found in a new excavation at Isturitz cave in the Arberoue Valley in the foothills of the Pyrenees. A team of 20 international archaeologists made the discovery in April. The Isturitz cave was discovered in 1988, when a mammoth scapula was found there, along with thousands of remains. In the latest excavation, more mammoth bone fragments were found, in addition to the…
MODASA, India — Eighteen-year-old Nilanshi Patel was living her life as a “real-world” Rapunzel, the fictional character from Walt Disney’s animation studios. With hair the length of 200 centimeters, she broke her own Guinness World Record for the “longest-hair on a teenager” twice. But she has chopped off her locks now. Brought up in Modasa, a town in India’s western state Gujarat, Patel had been growing her hair since she was six due to a “nightmare of a haircut”. “I cried a lot when I got that haircut,” Patel told Zenger News. “The barber cut my hair too short, and I couldn’t take that. I decided…
DOMBOSHAVA, Zimbabwe — Elizabeth Jairos, 22, was born in Domboshava, a farming village in the province of Mashonaland East, nearly 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) north of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. So were her parents. But they are not recognized as Zimbabwean citizens. “My parents were born here in Zimbabwe as children of farm migrants from Malawi, but they were never documented just like me,” Jairos told Zenger News. She represents thousands of second and third-generation migrants in Zimbabwe whose lives are in limbo due to their statelessness. Descendants of migrant-workers who entered Zimbabwe from neighboring countries over half a century ago remain…