BRISBANE, Australia — A local mayor has entered territory no state or federal politician has ventured after apologizing for the blackbirding practices that helped build Queensland’s sugarcane industry. Bundaberg Mayor Jack Dempsey said the practice of “forcing indentured labor into Queensland cane fields was equivalent to slavery and abhorrent.” “Today, I wish to extend a sincere apology on behalf of the Bundaberg region community for the abuse which occurred in ‘blackbirding’ people from Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands to work in the Queensland sugarcane industry,” he said. “Our sugarcane industry was built on the backs of Pacific Island labor, along with much of…
Author: zenger.news
SYDNEY — Up to a thousand police officers will be on duty to meet anyone considering attending an anti-lockdown protest in Sydney this weekend, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has warned. Fuller said in a press conference that police had already detained 60 people from the last week’s protests and issued more than 200 infringement notices. After monitoring online activity, the commissioner said police had to “expect there is going to be a protest.” “Please do not come into Sydney tomorrow to protest,” said Fuller. “If you do, you will be met by up to 1000 police who will be ready…
DARWIN, Australia — Environmentalists have launched legal action challenging the federal government’s use of taxpayer money to search for gas in the Northern Territory. Environment Centre of Northern Territory is challenging the lawfulness of the federal government’s AU$21 million ($15.50 million) grant to gas company Imperial Oil and Gas for exploration in the Beetaloo Basin. It said federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt did not follow the proper process when he made the decision to award the money. “We want to see taxpayers’ money used wisely and with all the consequences being fully considered,” said Kirsty Howey, director. “It is not apparent from the available public documents…
CANBERRA, Australia — New Zealand’s nurses are set to walk off the job again after union members rejected the latest pay offer by Jacinda Ardern’s government. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) says a clear majority of its 32,000 members voted against the latest offer as it didn’t improve “chronic and systemic safe staffing issues.” Lead advocate David Wait said that while the district health boards made promising moves on pay, the offer contained “too many ambiguities.” “Members have been clear from the beginning that their safety at work and the safety of their patients is a priority, and that is where they…
BRISBANE, Australia — The Sunshine State government’s proposed satellite hospitals will not have emergency departments or overnight beds, with the Opposition labeling them little more than health clinics. A satellite hospital is an extension of the main facility and could be either wholly or partially managed by that hospital. In the northeastern Australian state, Queensland, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pledged AU$265 million ($195.8 million) for the seven facilities across the southeast during last year’s state election. Bribie Island, north and south Brisbane, the suburbs of Caboolture (north of Brisbane), Ipswich (west of the city), the Redlands local government area, and the Tugun coastal suburb…
ACCRA, Ghana — Alarmed by the rate at which the Covid-19 pandemic is spreading in their country, a group of Ghanaian girls from Labone Senior High School in the capital, Accra, invented a touchless smart sanitizer dispenser to help curb the spread of the disease. “We wanted to reduce the rate at which Covid-19 was spreading, and also to make it easier for people to keep themselves safe,” their group leader, Princess Anetor, told Zenger News. “Besides, most students tend to forget their sanitizers at home. We hope to produce more of this product and place it at strategic points in every class…
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Each morning, Juma Sefedin Shaibu, a physician assistant at the cardiology department at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, scrolls through social media for the latest updates from his war-torn homeland, Darfur, Sudan. “Bandits still rape women, burn huts to the ground, and every day people are running for their lives,” Shaibu, 42, told Zenger News, examining the smoking ruins on the edges of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. “Children are starving, and people can’t get adequate water. Even when they run to camps for the internally displaced people, the attackers overrun the camps, displacing the victims…
A Syrian doctor has been charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly torturing people in military hospitals in his homeland and killing at least one of his victims. The physician Alla Mousa, who moved to the German state of Hesse in 2015, is accused of 18 counts of torment and is charged with murder, severe bodily harm, attempted bodily harm and dangerous bodily harm for crimes committed in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus, according to a statement from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was arrested on June 19, 2020. Prosecutors accuse Mousa of molesting and…
Even as athletes from around the globe compete in the delayed 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, a growing movement is seeking to move or postpone next year’s Winter Olympics in China. The reason: the Communist country’s alleged use of forced labor for products and many things in supply chains of multinational corporations. The latest salvo in the push to move or delay the 2022 games slated for the Chinese capital of Beijing comes from an American congressional committee set up to observe China’s human-rights practices. Committee officials say that relocation would serve as a sanction for the country’s alleged…
In addition to being used in gastronomy internationally, garlic has myriad health benefits. Its use goes way back in time. There is historical evidence that the Egyptian and Indian cultures cooked with garlic 5,000 years ago. “It is one of the main ingredients in Mexican and international dishes. People usually have it cooked or [add it to their dishes] dehydrated,” said Elvia Prieto Mendoza, a gastronomy graduate from Le Chef College in Boca del Río, Veracruz. “Garlic has such a strong smell and flavor that diners often cannot stand it even when cooked. For this reason, I try to chop…