Critic of Chinese Communist Party denied entry
An outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on Australian politics says he was turned back from Shanghai when trying to return his father’s ashes to his homeland with his mother.
Former Parramatta city councillor John Hugh said he asked the officials who met him at the airport their reasoning, to which they allegedly responded, “You should know.”
STEM a “fad” says Stokes
The NSW education minister Rob Stokes has labelled the emphasis on STEM subjects in the education system “intellectual snobbery” and calling the acronym a “buzzword.”
STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths, and has been a government focus since 2015, when all national education ministers agreed on a 10-year plan to boost results.
Mr Stokes, delivering the Balmoral Lecture at Sydney’s Queenwood School, bemoaned “people of influence… piling in to denounce the value of philosophy, the arts, and the social sciences.
Two dead in Helicopter crash on Queensland Coast
Investigations are underway after two people died and three others were injured after their helicopter crashed at Hardy Reef on Queensland’s Whitsunday Coast on yesterday afternoon.
A statement released by The Whitsundays Air Services said the Helicopter crashed on its final approach to Hardy Reef Heliport, with a man and women, both international tourists, pronounced dead at the scene.
The Whitsundays Air Service offered their “deepest condolences” and have suspended all operations while the review process is underway.
$1.4 million for Chermside domestic violence service
The Palaszczuk Government will provide $1.4 million in funding over five years for a new domestic and family violence counselling and case management support service based at Chermside, with outreach services across Brisbane.
The service, which will be provided by UnitingCare Queensland, is a part of a Brisbane Domestic and Family Violence High Risk Team developed in response to the ‘Not Now, Not Ever’ report delivered by the Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland in 2015.
Death Club 7: Forevernevernever
- Unlike -apparently- most people, I get exactly zero sentimental reminiscences -toxic or otherwise- when I hear a play on the S Club 7 moniker. Somehow, inexplicably, I think I managed to miss them the first time round? My bullet-dodging is more skillful than I thought, I guess. I get a whole lot more feels when I hear there’s a new release from prolific producer-performer Death Club 7.
Mount Eerie: Now Only
- When Mount Eerie’s mastermind Phil Elverum suffered the loss of his wife Geneviève in 2016 to pancreatic cancer, his music suddenly became the sparsest and most lyrically bare of his career.
9am Zedlines
This is your 9am Zedlines with Kelseigh and Maria
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
Thai Airways ban obese people and young parents from business class
Thai Airways have banned young parents and passengers with a girth greater than 142 centimetres from business class seats on their new Boeing Dreamliner 787-9.
The reason for the maximum girth restrictions are the new airbag systems and safety belts that were installed in accordance with the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Restrictions on overweight passengers are not new on airlines, in 2013, Samoa Air became the first airline to charge passengers according to their weight.
More Queensland Teens now vaccinated against HPV
The number of teenage recipients of the Human Papillomavirus vaccine has been rising for the last five years.
New figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that 77.6 per cent of 15-year-old girls and 70.8 per cent of 15-year-old boys were fully vaccinated between 2015 and 2016;
This is up from 76.7 per cent of vaccinated girls and 70.8 percent of vaccinated boys between 2014 and 2015, with this upward trend believed to be continuing.
Papua New Guinea schooling crisis after Earthquake devastation
Many children in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea could go without schooling for more than a year due to the slow reconstruction of facilities damaged during a magnitude 7.5 earthquake last month.
Save the Children's Jennifer El-Sibai said authorities need to plan for the education of young people in the region and not only the provision of basic necessities to communities.
Many students will likely be asked to transfer to nearby schools to continue their education due to a shortfall of funding for the Papua New Guinea Department of Education.