LAHORE, Pakistan — After months of social media hate speech targeting, the Ahmadis or Ahmadiyyas — a minority community in Pakistan — continue to live in fear. In Garmola Virkan, a village located in Gujranwala in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the situation was on the edge after a few locals raised complaints against an Ahmadi mosque. But nothing could’ve prepared the community for what ensued on March 17. A mob assembled near the mosque in board daylight. Soon, the local municipal authority members — armed with axes, hammers, and rods — came and climbed atop the building. They began tearing the minarets…
Author: zenger.news
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — North Korea has closed its embassy in Kuala Lumpur and severed diplomatic relations with Malaysia over the extradition of one of its citizens to the United States. The Malaysian government gave embassy staff and their dependents 48 hours to leave the country after a court ruled that a North Korean man could be extradited to the United States to face money laundering charges, state media KCNA reported on Friday. Malaysian police officers stand guard near the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur after the country severed diplomatic ties with Malaysia in response to the extradition of a…
SYDNEY — Five years after saying farewell to the world at a series of iconic Sydney Opera House forecourt shows, Crowded House, a rock band, is touring again. Not that their revival should surprise. Twenty years before the 2016 shows, Neil Finn and Nick Seymour gave the band’s last rites at the same venue in front of one hundred thousand people. This time around, as the beloved trans-Tasman outfit return with a string of New Zealand shows, any crowd at all feels like a triumph. In Wellington, Finn joined founding member Nick Seymour, long-time friend Mitchell Froom, and his two sons Liam and…
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s opposition believes trans-Tasman relations have sunk to a 40-year low as a new front opens in the deteriorating relationship. The deportation of a 15-year-old boy from Australia on a flight has been described as “taking out the trash” by Peter Dutton, Home Affairs Minister, Australia. The comments by the minister have infuriated Kiwi politicians across the spectrum. “Mr. Dutton’s comments only serve to trash his own reputation,” said Nanaia Mahuta, Foreign Minister of New Zealand. New Zealand’s Greens have labeled Australia a “rogue nation” that persistently flouts human rights laws. Mahuta didn’t attack Australian counterparts further…
BRISBANE CITY, Australia — The Queensland government admits that its tourism stimulus won’t be enough to make up for the looming loss of the JobKeeper wage subsidy. The subsidy was one of the most important sources of income for the tour operators during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The JobKeeper Payment scheme is a subsidy for businesses significantly affected by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Thousands of tourism operators have survived international border closures thanks to JobKeeper. But many are set to go under and lay off staff when the program ends at the end of this month. The state…
BRISBANE, Australia — An alarming number of school principals were threatened with violence or were victims of physical violence in the past year. Australian Principal Occupational, Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey 2020, conducted jointly by researchers at the Australian Catholic University and Deakin University, reveals that school principals across Australia were subjected to offensive behavior. Out of 100, 83 principals were ranging from gossip to violence and bullying. “Long work hours and constant exposure to stress during 2020 had left school principals exhausted,” said Professor Herb Marsh, co-chief investigator of the survey, ACU Institute for Positive Psychology and Education. A total of…
CANBERRA, Australia — Violent extremists and foreign spies have taken to the internet during the coronavirus pandemic, posing a new range of challenges for Australia’s top intelligence agency. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess Wednesday delivered his second annual threat assessment in Canberra. Mr. Burgess said for that intent on violence, more time at home online meant “more time in the echo chamber of the internet on the pathway to radicalization.” “They were able to access hate-filled manifestos and attack instructions, without some usual circuit breakers that contact with the community provides,” said Mr. Burgess. “Extreme right-wing propaganda used COVID-19 to…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s share market was a little lower, while the Aussie dollar picked up after a big drop in the unemployment rate in February. The S&P/ASX200 benchmark index was lower by 16.3 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 6778.9 at 1200 Australian Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday, March 18. The All Ordinaries was lower by 13.4 points, or 0.19 per cent, at 7034.6. There were losses of more than one per cent for property, health and utilities. The financial sector was down 0.29 per cent. The commodity sectors of materials and energy were about half a per cent higher,…
VICTORIA, Australia — A former and much-lauded headmaster who lied about his qualifications and faked his way through a 24-year teaching career has been spared jail. Neil Lennie dropped out of university and used his father’s legitimate teacher registration in Victoria between 1976 and 2000. He taught at Victoria’s Mount Scopus Memorial College, Haileybury College, and Overnewton Anglican Community College. Lennie also spent six years as a headmaster at Caulfield Grammar School through the 1980s and 1990s. The 73-year-old was spared jail in Victoria’s County on Thursday after he admitted obtaining AUD 1088455 ($843,567) in remuneration by deception. Instead, he was handed a suspended three-month sentence…
A world champion kayaker and his younger brother have denied trying to smuggle cocaine worth up to $200 million into Australia. Olympic silver medalist Nathan Jon Baggaley and his brother Dru Anthony Baggaley are accused of being involved in a plan to get 650kg of cocaine from a foreign vessel hundreds of kilometers off the NSW coast. Dru Baggaley and Anthony Draper – who is expected to testify during the trial – were allegedly on a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) that met the larger vessel on July 31, 2018, crown prosecutor Ben Power told the Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday.…