Israel’s Bedouin community has undergone major shifts in the past decades, transforming from a nomadic people into a more modern one, complete with town dwelling, formal education and technology. But this change came with the danger that the ancient Bedouin traditions could become completely forgotten with the passage of time. A new collection in the works at the National Library of Israel preserves 50-odd years of documentation of the Bedouin community conducted by a world-renowned expert. It will be made available online within the next year. Bedouin riders at the Gulf of Eilat. (Courtesy of Clinton Bailey)The collection will be…
Author: zenger.news
BRISBANE, Australia — Former Auburn mayor Salim Mehajer has spent most of the past five months in segregation, held in his prison cell for 23 hours a day, and could face years more in prison for lying to the courts. The judge who will sentence him for two counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of making a false statement under oath suggested at a hearing that Mehajer’s intelligence could be part of his undoing. “He’s not an unintelligent man,” said Peter Zahra, New South Wales District Court Judge, at the sentencing hearing. “He acts quite deliberately.” The charges arose…
CANBERRA, Australia — Facebook has conceded that the internet needs new road rules but wants to keep its billions of users in the driver’s seat. Whether governments choose to tighten online debate or private companies do it, don’t assume people can’t be trusted, the social media giant’s spin doctor has warned. Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs, said in an essay published overnight, critics were wrong to say minds were being controlled by algorithms or sinister intentions of Big Tech masters. No editor is dictating the front-page headline that millions of people might read on Facebook. Instead, there’s a “rich feedback…
CURRUMBIN VALLEY, Australia — The New South Wales transport minister has said the Australian state’s new intercity train fleet would be operational within weeks. Still, the railway workers’ union says that’s an “April Fools’ Day joke.” Andrew Constance, on April 1, took a test ride on the South Korean-built trains, which are awaiting approval from the federal safety regulator. The 55 new trains will replace the intercity “V-set” trains, which are now 40 years old and will operate on the Central Coast and Newcastle, the Blue Mountains, and South Coastlines. Constance said the trains — which were initially expected to be…
SOUTHBANK, Australia — The founder of Bush Doof festival Earthcore was the happiest on the day he died on the floor of a Melbourne bar, long-time friends who had seen him that day said. Spiros Boursinos had just secured sites for two dance festivals and was celebrating with friends who helped arrange the events. Boursinos started his event business when he was just 17, building Earthcore into a festival that attracted thousands of music lovers like himself. But he was battling untreated anxiety and slipped into a drug-induced psychosis in the early hours of October 20, 2018. He called triple zero five times in under…
PERTH, Australia — Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan has urged the killer of teenager Hayley Dodd to reveal where the killer left her body more than two decades ago. Convicted rapist Francis John Wark, 65, was found not guilty of murdering the 17-year-old after a six-week retrial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. He was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Hayley was last seen alive in 1999, walking along a road near rural Badgingarra, about 200 kilometers north of Perth. Her body has never been found. Premier Mark McGowan has confirmed Wark, who will be sentenced on April…
CHARLESTOWN, Australia — An Australian man who threatened a New South Wales Parliament member by writing, “you will be hung until you are dead,” is now the subject of a second terrorist-related interim supervision order. Two envelopes were stuffed under the front door of state labor MP Jodie Harrison’s Charlestown office in March 2017. In a recent development related to the incident, the New South Wales Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Ian Harrison granted an application by the State of New South Wales for Christopher Bruce Hardy to be subject to a 28-days interim supervision order. The letters were addressed “To the Minister,…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia needs to think differently to achieve a meaningful reduction in family, domestic and sexual violence, including appointing a national commissioner to tackle the crisis, a parliamentary inquiry recommends. Ten years after the first national plan to stamp out the problem, the economic cost of violence against women and their children in Australia is estimated at AUD 26 billion ($20 billion) each year. A bipartisan report tabled by the House of Representative’s social policy and legal affairs committee on April 1 makes 88 detailed recommendations centered on a “whole of society” response. The committee recommends a new independent…
MELBOURNE, Australia — An extremely rare and valuable Australian coin featuring a “sour” looking Queen Victoria was placed for a show in front of the public in Melbourne these Easter holidays. The Five Pound Coin, also known as a quintuple sovereign, fetched $660,000 (AUD 867,600) at an auction in the Texas city of Dallas on March 27. It was the second-highest price paid for an Australian coin in history behind the 1930 Proof Australian Penny, which sold for AUD 1.15 million in 2019. One of three Proof 1930 Pennies available to collectors, this particular example was obtained by exchange from the British…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s new Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, who openly called for change during the recent turmoil over the treatment of women in Parliament, has been accused of bullying. The claims have been made by a female senior adviser, who’s now reportedly on stress leave after complaining about the workplace culture in the minister’s office. The Australian reports the woman made an initial written complaint in August and another in March when Andrews was still an industry, science, and technology minister. “How I have been treated is disrespectful, humiliating and demeaning,” the woman claims in the March letter. “This…