Tag Archives: AUSTRALIA

JUST IN: Five die as light plane crashes into mall in Australia.

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A pilot and four American passengers were killed on Tuesday when a small plane crashed in to the roof of a shopping mall after taking off from an airfield outside Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, police said.

The twin-turboprop Beechcraft King Air plane suffered an engine failure and crashed into the mall near the end of the runway at Essendon Airport, Victoria state police assistant commissioner Stephen Leane told reporters in Melbourne.

Witnesses told Australian Associated Press the plane exploded on impact.

“There were five people on the aeroplane and it looks like nobody’s survived the crash,” Leane said.

The crash happened at around 9 a.m., about an hour before the mall was due to open and there were no fatalities other than those aboard the aircraft, he added

“All five occupants were male – the pilot was Australian and the four passengers were from the United States of America,” Victoria police said in later statement.

Sky News showed burning wreckage strewn across the mall’s carpark and a thick column of black smoke rising from the crash site.

The plane had been bound for King Island in Bass Strait between the mainland and the southern island state of Tasmania and Australian newspapers reported that at least two of the men were traveling to play golf on the island’s famed links.

A spokeswoman for Airservices Australia said flights in and out of Melbourne’s main airport were unaffected. Essendon Airport, which is used mainly by light aircraft, remained closed.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the crash.

 

Source: Reuters

Public pays vet bill for hero dog that saved child from deadly snake

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The Australian public has raised funds to pay the vet’s bill for a hero dog which saved a young girl from a deadly snake, local media reported on Friday.

Jo Shaw, the owner of four-year old boxer Mack, was faced with a veterinary bill of 6,000 Australian dollars (4,400 dollars) after the dog was bitten by a tiger snake.

Mack was bitten repeatedly after he sprang on the highly venomous 1.2-metre-long snake when he saw it creeping up on Shaw’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Carmen in their Melbourne backyard.

Shaw said when she found Mack he was paralysed, frothing at the mouth and not breathing.

The dead snake was beside him.

According to a media report, the dog recovered after days in intensive care but was left with kidney damage, while the family faced having to sell their car to cover the vet’s bill.

They, as an alternative, sought the public’s help via the fundraising website GoFundMe, managing to raise more than enough to cover the bill in just four days.

Shaw said on the website that Mack was still very weak but was slowly pulling through and would be home before Christmas.

“We couldn’t have done this without all your support and generosity.

“Our family and Mack are indebted for life, thank you,’’ Shaw wrote on the website.

Police Force Recruits Patrol Cat

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The New South Wales Police Force in Australia recruited Troop Cat Ed, a 2-year-old tabby.

The purple jacket-wearing kitten spends his days patrolling the stables on high alert for pests in support of the police department’s mounted unit, but Ed appears to be most frequently photographed in the middle of a cat nap, or checking out a bird on the window sill when he’s supposed to be on duty.

The troop cat was recently under fire after a video surfaced of him sleeping on the job, while rats freely roamed the stables nearby.

In a video posted to the Mounted Unit – NSW Police Force Facebook page, Ed can be seen snoozing away on the seat of a tractor as rats scour a hay bale right next to him.

Read More: insideedition

Top Pope Aide Investigated For Australia Child Sex Abuse- Report

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Vatican finance chief George Pell is being investigated by Australian police over child sexual abuse allegations, a report by the national broadcaster said Thursday, as the leading Catholic cleric denounced the claims as “totally untrue”.

The new allegations against Pell being probed by police in Victoria State span two decades, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported, and came just months after the cardinal admitted he “mucked up” in dealing with paedophile priests in the state. When he was the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney in 2002 Pell was accused of historic sex abuse claims but was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

The ABC said it had obtained eight police statements from complainants, witnesses and family members helping the police investigation. The report included claims Pell touched two boys inappropriately in a pool in the late 1970s. But the 75-year-old strongly denied the allegations in a statement to the ABC, saying “claims that he has sexually abused anyone, in any place, at any time in his life are totally untrue and completely wrong”.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told AFP they would not be making any comments. The national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is ongoing in Australia and was established after a decade of growing pressure to investigate widespread allegations of paedophilia.

The police investigation is part of a wider probe into complaints that emerge out of the royal commission. The commission’s hearings are covering harrowing allegations of child abuse involving places of worship, orphanages, community groups and schools.

Pell previously told the commission he was not aware of offences that had occurred in Victoria, where paedophile priests abused dozens of children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Credit: Vanguard

UK, Australia Deport 40 Nigerians For Various Offences

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The United Kingdom and Australia on Wednesday jointly deported 40 Nigerians alleged to have committed various offences in both countries.

The deportees comprising 33 males and 7 females arrived at the Hajj Camp area of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport at 7:25 a.m. with two chartered aircraft.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 36 of the deportees were flown into the country in a chartered aircraft with registration number ZTA -4741.

The other four were repatriated through an Air Seychelles aircraft with registration number SND-1.

A reliable source at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) told NAN that apart from the Nigerians, some unspecified Africans from Ghana, Liberia and Egypt, were also deported.

The source said they were deported from their host countries for overstaying their visas and other immigration offences.

According to the source, they were received by various agencies such as the Police, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the National Agency for Protection and Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

NAN, however, gathered that some of the deportees refused to allow the immigration officers to capture their biometrics for record purposes and forced their way out of the airport.

The Public Relations Officer, NIS, Mr Ekpedeme King, confirmed the development to aviation correspondents on phone, but could not provide further details.

It would be recalled that 50 Nigerians were deported from the United Kingdom on Nov. 25, 2015 for similar reasons.

The deportees, made of 44 males and six females, were flown into the country at about 6.30 a.m. in a chattered B767 belonging to PITAN Airways, with registration number ETA.

 

(NAN)

Chris Brown Denied Entry Into Australia, His Concert Cancelled

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The Australian government is serious about not allowing Chris Brown into their country. Earlier this year, they threatened to deny him work Visa over his 2009 domestic violence conviction & yesterday, it was officially announced that the Australian leg of Chris’ ‘One Hell of a Night’  tour has been canceled. See a message from Chris Brown’s promoter posted on Ticketek Austrialian below…

Chris Brown’s December 2015 tour in both Australia and New Zealand will not take place.

The shows scheduled at Perth Arena on 9 December, Rod Laver Arena on 12 December, Allphones Arena on 14 December and Brisbane Entertainment Centre on 16 December are cancelled.

Mr Brown and the promoters both remain positive that the tour will take place in the near future.

Mr Brown wishes to express his deepest gratitude to the fans for their support and looks forward to a successful tour in the near future.

Kylie Jenner Denies Eggs Were Thrown On Stage During In Store Appearance In Australia

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There were reports that Kylie and Kendall Jenner had eggs thrown at them while they were in Sydney promoting their clothing line on Tuesday.
Kylie has since denied the incident took place, telling her social media followers there would have been pictures of it. She said:
However, an image of yolk on the curtain has emerged after a woman was reportedly arrested after throwing eggs and tomatoes on that stage.
See egg yolks on the stage..

The promotional appearance in suburban Sydney was very nearly overshadowed by the surprise egging but the Police quickly apprehended and arrested the 30 year old female culprit.

Australia To Get New Prime Minister

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Australia is to have a new prime minister after Tony Abbott was ousted as leader of the centre-right Liberal Party by Malcolm Turnbull.

In the hastily arranged party leadership ballot, Mr. Abbott, who had been plagued by poor opinion polls, received 44 votes to Mr. Turnbull’s 54, the BBC reports.

Mr. Turnbull said he assumed that parliament would serve its full term, implying no snap general election.

The new leader will be Australia’s fourth prime minister since 2013.

The prime minister-elect is expected to be sworn in after Mr. Abbott writes to Australia’s governor general and resigns.

The vote took place at a meeting of Liberal Members of Parliament late on Monday. They also voted for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to remain deputy leader of the party.

Read More: thenationonlineng

Indonesia Convicts Sang Praises To God Before Execution – Witnesses

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As they walked to face the firing squad on an Indonesian prison island, eight condemned drug traffickers defiantly sang praise to God, witnesses said, while in a town across the water a group of tearful supporters was also uniting in song. Read more as reported by the AFP:

The convicts — two from Australia, one from Brazil, four from Africa and one Indonesian — made the long journey from their prison to clearings on a prison island to meet their fate early Wednesday. But rather than bow their heads in defeat and resignation, the convicts all reportedly refused blindfolds and raised their voices in song, including a rendition of “Amazing Grace”, until the gunfire from the firing squads rang out.

The husband of Pastor Christie Buckingham, who gave spiritual guidance to one of the Australians in his final moments, said his wife told him the men conducted themselves with “dignity and strength until the end”. “She told me the eight of them walked out onto the killing field singing songs of praise,” Rob Buckingham told 3AW radio in Australia.

Across the water in the town of Cilacap, the final crossing point for inmates destined for death on the high-security Nusakambangan island, a small band of mourners held a candlelight vigil, and also sang “Amazing Grace”. The haunting sounds filled the night sky, drowning out the sobs of those too distressed to contemplate what was taking place in the jungle-clad hills of the prison island. One man wailed loudly and implored Indonesian President Joko Widodo to have mercy. Another supporter read out the names of each inmate one by one.

ISIS No ‘Romantic Adventure’, Australia Warns Girls

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A worrying number of Australian women are heading to Iraq and Syria to become so-called Islamic State group “jihadi brides”, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Thursday, warning against notions of a “romantic adventure”.

At least 110 Australians have left to fight alongside militants in the Middle East and security officials said between 30 and 40 women were among them or were actively supporting the group in Australia.

“Sadly we are seeing a younger cohort seeking to join the conflict in Syria and Iraq and an increasing number of young females,” Bishop said, responding to the high-profile case this week of three British teenage girls heading to Syria.

“This defies logic. Family and friends need to reach out to young people at risk before it’s too late.”

She cited the case of 22-year-old Amira Karroum who left her Sydney home just before Christmas and died in fighting in Syria.

“Her death was not martyrdom, it was a tragic senseless loss,” said Bishop.

She added that many women heading to conflict zones were either attracted to male foreign terrorist fighters, were accompanying their partner, or actually looking for a husband and being told online they could find one in Syria and Iraq.

Bishop warned they faced a brutal regime that treated women appallingly.

“This is a terrorist organisation that has an appalling track record when it comes to women,” she told ABC radio.

“They actually have online instructions on how to treat a sex slave. They encourage sexual assault on children who haven’t even reached puberty.

“So their attitude towards women is utterly appalling and so young women shouldn’t be led to believe that there’s some romantic adventure attached to supporting Daesh (Islamic State) and similar terrorist organisations.”

An estimated 550 women from across Europe have also travelled to join the jihadists and Bishop said Australia was working with Muslim communities to highlight the risks.

“We have a number of community initiatives and programmes, working with local communities, working with schools, working with families,” she said.

“Our initiatives in tackling the spread of online extremist content on websites is also part of that, working with local mosques, working with community groups.”

Her comments came as an Australian man who travelled to Syria to battle militants was reportedly killed — the first Westerner to die fighting alongside the Kurds.

“An Australian man was killed in an assault on Tuesday by the Islamic State against a position of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) near Tal Hamis in Hasakeh province,” said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Australia’s foreign affairs department said it was aware of the reports but its “capacity to confirm reports of deaths in either Syria or Iraq is extremely limited”.

“Australians who become involved in overseas conflicts are putting their own lives in mortal danger,” it added.

Credit: AFP

BREAKING: Australian Siege is Over

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Police say a hostage situation in Sydney is over after a swarm of heavily armed police stormed a downtown cafe where a gunman had been holding an unknown number of people.

A police spokesman confirmed “the operation is over” early Tuesday but would not release any further details.

Police swooped into the Lindt Chocolat Cafe shortly after five or six hostages were seen running out of the building.

After the police moved in, one weeping woman was helped out by the officers and at least two other people were wheeled out on stretchers.

Credit: Yahoo News

Australians Bury Heads in Sand to Mock Government…

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More than 400 protesters stuck their heads in the sand on Australia’s Bondi Beach on Thursday, mocking the government’s reluctance to put climate change on the agenda of a G20 summit this weekend.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s perceived failure to address climate change is all the more galling in the wake of an agreement between the United States and China on Wednesday to limit their carbon emissions, they said.

“Obama’s on board, Xi Jinping’s on board, everyone’s on board except one man,” activist Pat Norman, 28, bellowed into a megaphone on the Sydney beach.

“Tony Abbott!” the protesters shouted back.

Folks with babies, school children and working people in business suits dug holes on the beach and stuck their heads in them. The ostrich is said to stick its head in the sand in futile bid to avoid danger.

Ornithologists say the African bird does no such thing but that didn’t spoil the cheeky protest.

“Wiggle ya bums if you feel like it,” Norman shouted over the megaphone. A few athletic types did handstands with their heads in the sand.

Abbott called climate change science “crap” in 2009 and said coal was “good for humanity”. Australia repealed a tax on greenhouse gas emissions in July, the only country to reverse action on climate change.

Justin Field, 36, a former army intelligence officer who is running for a seat in state parliament for the Green Party, said Australia had to act.

“To be so far behind the rest of the developed world embarrasses progressive Australia,” he said.

Credit: Yahoo News

Ginger Jihadist is Stupid, says Family

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Ginger-haired Australian jihadist Abdullah Elmir, 17, has been condemned by his relatives over a chilling video in which he declares ISIS will not stop their murderous campaign ‘until the black flag is flying high in every single land’.

In a propaganda video for the terror group published on YouTube, the young white, Sydney born man calling himself Abu Khaled from Australia is flanked by other ISIS fighters.

Elmir reportedly told his mother he was ‘going fishing’ when he disappeared from his home in Bankstown, west Sydney, in June.

In the video, Abdullah Elmir made threats against Australia, America and Britain, warning the terrorists can’t be stopped.

It is believed to be the first time Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been explicitly mentioned by name in an Islamic State propaganda tape.

“To Obama, to Tony Abbott, I say this: These weapons that we have, these soldiers we will not stop fighting, we will not put down our weapons until we reach your lands”, he said.

 

 

U.S Forming “Core Coalition” to Fight I.S

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Isis fighters parade through Raqqa

The United States said on Friday it was forming a “core coalition” to battle Islamic State militants, calling for broad support from allies and partners but ruling out committing ground forces.

President Barack Obama sought to use a NATO summit in Wales to enlist allied support in fighting the Islamist militants, but it is unclear how many nations might join the United States in air strikes in Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told foreign and defense ministers from 10 nations on the sidelines of the summit on ways they can help. Kerry said, “We need to attack them in ways that prevent them from taking over territory, to bolster the Iraqi security forces and others in the region who are prepared to take them on, without committing troops of our own. Obviously I think that’s a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground.”

Hagel said, “This group here this morning is the core coalition,.. It is the core group that will form the larger and extended coalition that’s going to be required to deal with this challenge.”  And nations involved include, The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Poland and Denmark, whose Ministers have met to discuss a strategy for addressing the Sunni militant group.

Kerry also said he hoped the allies could develop a comprehensive plan fighting IS in time for this month’s annual U.N. General Assembly session in New York.