WAGGA WAGGA, Australia — A former air force officer, who initially avoided jail time for choking a woman to death during sex, has been jailed after the lawyers informed the judge about the unlawful sentence given out by him. Rian Toyer, now 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September last year, after causing the death of Mhelody Bruno, a 25-year-old Filipina woman, in Wagga Wagga, a city in New South Wales, Australia. “I made an error, and that error was fundamental and significant and one of which I must take ownership,” said Judge Lerve in a new judgment on March 29.…
Author: zenger.news
BRISBANE CITY, Australia — Struggling tourism businesses in Queensland, the northeastern Australian state, have been hit with a “cruel blow” of virus restrictions days out from the Easter holidays. Thousands of businesses have already been hit by the end of the federal government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy on March 28. “Tourism businesses were hoping the Easter break would provide a much-needed boost after a year in the doldrums,” said officials. However, Brisbane’s three-day coronavirus lockdown, new restrictions on regional venues, and potential quarantine requirements for people departing Queensland have left those hopes in tatters. Daniel Gschwind, chief executive, Queensland Tourism Industry Council,…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s Liberal Member of Parliament Andrew Laming‘s Facebook page is offline after downplaying his apology for bullying constituents. Laming apologized on March 25 after harassing two prominent women from his federal electorate in eastern Brisbane over several years. His statement in parliament came after the prime minister reprimanded the backbencher’s “disgraceful” behavior. However, he later downplayed his offering in a post on Facebook on the night of March 25. “In this climate — I willingly apologize — I didn’t even know what for at 4 pm when I did it,” Laming wrote, following it up with three tongues sticking…
CANBERRA, Australia — Former spy Witness K may finally get a day in court after years of political and procedural delays to stop the exposure of Australia’s operations against its friend and neighbor, East Timor. The retired Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer is being prosecuted for breaches of the Intelligence Services Act after blowing the whistle on the bugging of oil and gas talks with East Timor that he says occurred in 2004. Allegedly acting on instructions from then ASIS head David Irvine, Witness K reportedly installed listening devices in the East Timor cabinet room as Australia and the nascent democracy prepared to slice up…
No CEOs want their company’s business to be hacked. And yet, hundreds of Fortune 500 firms pay Reuven Aronashvili and his CYE to break into their presumably secure servers. CYE, in Herzliya, Israel, is based on the “red team” expertise Aronashvili developed while in the Israel Defense Forces, where he established the army’s center for encryption and cybersecurity. So-called red teams hack into computers to find vulnerabilities. Blue teams, in contrast, defend a company’s infrastructure once an attack is identified. CYE, which stands for “cyber-eye” but is pronounced simply “sigh,” was established in 2012 and employs 70 “ethical hackers” using…
The United Arab Emirates plans to launch a $10 billion fund that will invest in what it has deemed to be strategic sectors in Israel, including energy, manufacturing, water, space, healthcare and agri-tech. The Emirates News Agency recently reported that the decision to establish the fund was made following a phone call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. The fund, it said, follows through on the Abraham Accords, or the normalization agreement that Israel signed with the UAE and Bahrain in September. It was followed by an agreement with Sudan in…
AMSTERDAM — The political landscape in the Netherlands is shifting. The March 17 general elections may have swung in the direction of right-wing parties, but they also left the country with a more diverse parliament than ever before. Among the 27 people of color who were elected are Sylvana Simons, the first black woman party leader in the Second Chamber, and Jorien Wuite, the first to claim a win from Dutch overseas territory Sint Maarten. “I have an assignment,” Simons said after the election. “That more than 85,000 people dared to give my party their vote says that people did not want to wait…
NAIROBI, Kenya — The clock is ticking on an ultimatum by the Kenyan government that the UN Refugee Agency close the sprawling Kakuma and Dadaab camps, citing concerns about terrorism. In a March 24 tweet, Kenya’s Ministry of Interior issued a 14-day ultimatum to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to plan for the closure of the largest refugee camps in Africa. The government contends the camps provide breeding grounds for terrorists linked to Al-Shabaab, a fundamentalist group based in East Africa and Yemen. The government also said in a statement from the Ministry of Interior that it is not…
Mexico’s return to normalcy could be just around the corner if the vaccine offers the promised protection. “This is the beginning of the return to our pre-pandemic life,” said Guadalupe Ramírez Ramírez, a 72-year-old housewife from Boca del Río, in Veracruz, Mexico. “The vaccine gives me hope that soon people will be able to go out to the streets again, be able to see their loved ones and hug their friends.” However, precautions cannot be lowered yet. “Although I know that I will be able to go out and do my shopping without fear of contracting the virus, I also…
Peppers are among the main staples of Mexican food. Diners worldwide often associate Mexican dishes with a spicy twist that makes them fun to eat. Spanish even has the word “enchilado” to describe when someone’s mouth is on fire. “If you didn’t add pepper to it, don’t expect the food to taste. Although one must say that there is spicy food and spicy food,” said David Alonso López, a gastronomy graduate from the Mexican University. “We are talking about something that goes hand in hand with our national culture.” Mexicans have enjoyed peppers since pre-Hispanic times. The word “chilli” comes…