From RNZ An experienced nurse says she fears for the future of the profession, as thousands of colleagues prepare to go on strike tomorrow.Negotiations between the union, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), and district…
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Covid 19 coronavirus: Govt used influencers in lockdown social media struggle, Cabinet papers show
Influencers were deployed in Auckland’s March lockdown as the Government fretted about irascible social media users undermining the pandemic response.Newly released Cabinet papers also show the lockdown put more pressure on some…
Herald morning quiz: June 8
Test your brains with the Herald’s morning quiz. Be sure to check back on nzherald.co.nz at 3pm for the afternoon quiz. To challenge yourself with more quizzes, CLICK HERE.
Sanaa fights to stop Israel demolishing house to punish estranged husband
Sanaa Shalaby says she had no idea what her estranged husband was up to until Israeli soldiers raided her home in the occupied West Bank last month.
Now she's waging a legal battle to prevent Israel from demolishing the two-storey villa where she lives with her three youngest children.
It's drawing attention to Israel's policy of punitive home demolitions, which rights groups view as collective punishment.
READ MORE: Israel arrests Jerusalem activist in contested neighbourhood
Israeli security forces arrested her husband, Muntasser Shalaby, and accuse him of carrying out a May 2 drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank.
Israel says demolishing family homes is one of the only ways to deter attackers, who expect to be arrested or killed and who are often glorified by Palestinian factions.
The US State Department has criticised such demolitions, and an internal Israeli military review in the 2000s raised questions about their effectiveness.
The case of the Shalabys — who all have US citizenship — could reignite the debate. Israel's Supreme Court is expected to issue a final ruling on the demolition next week.
Sanaa and her husband had been estranged for nearly a decade. He lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he ran a profitable smoke shop and married three other women in private Muslim ceremonies not recognized by US authorities.
"It's allowed in our religion," Sanaa said.
"I didn't agree to it."
He came back to the West Bank in April for what she said was one of his yearly visits to see the children.
He had also sought treatment for paranoia after having been institutionalised in the US in recent years, according to a deposition he gave to her lawyer.
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Sanaa said she knew nothing about the attack and had no indication he was planning anything.
"People commit crimes far worse than this in America and they don't demolish their homes," she said.
"Whoever committed the crime should be punished, but it's not the family's fault."
When the soldiers showed up after the attack they ransacked the home and briefly detained her 17-year-old son.
She said they had a large dog that terrified her and her two younger children, a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.
The soldiers came back weeks later to map out the house for demolition.
Now Sanaa says her children spend all day in bed and refuse to go to school.
"I know my children and they were never like this," she said.
"My son, Ahmed, has to take his final exams and he can't study. He opens his book, reads a couple pages and then he walks off."
An Israeli official said the security agencies believe home demolitions are an effective deterrent.
The official declined to comment on the Shalaby case but said everyone was notified in advance and given the right to contest demolitions in court.
Someone in Sanaa's situation would have a "good legal case" if her account was independently verified, the official said.
"There are clear checks and balances," the official said.
"We are using it only when we feel that it is necessary, and only because we understand that this is an effective deterrent."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security procedures.
READ MORE: The frustration of young Palestinians is stronger than ever
HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that has represented dozens of families seeking to halt punitive demolitions and is currently representing Sanaa, says such petitions rarely succeed.
Of 83 cases brought since 2014, only 10 demolitions were prevented, it said. In the remaining cases, homes were partially or completely demolished, or apartments in multi-storey buildings were permanently sealed off.
Jessica Montell, the group's executive director, said from a legal perspective the question of whether it served as a deterrent was irrelevant.
"You don't collectively punish innocent people just because they're related to a criminal in the hope that that will deter future criminals. It's an illegal and immoral policy regardless of the effectiveness," she said.
The Israeli military prepared a report on punitive home demolitions in 2004 that led to a moratorium on the practice the following year, according to HaMoked, which received a PowerPoint presentation of the classified report in 2008 through a court petition.
The presentation raises concerns about the legality of such demolitions and international criticism of them. It also questions their effectiveness, saying the demolitions might even motivate more attacks.
Such demolitions were mostly halted until 2014, when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the occupied West Bank.
A campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem was one of the main causes of last month's 11-day Gaza war, in which Israeli airstrikes demolished hundreds of homes in the militant-ruled territory.
READ MORE: US to reopen Jerusalem consulate, upgrading Palestinian ties
Both forms of displacement summon bitter memories of what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
Shalaby said she has been in continual contact with the US Embassy but was told it couldn't do anything about the demolition.
The State Department declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. But it said it was opposed to the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes.
"The home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual," it said in a statement.
The Israeli Supreme Court will hear Sanaa's case on June 17.
She hopes she will be able to remain in the house that she and her husband built in 2006.
She said she had sold her bridal jewellery to help finance the construction.
She raised her youngest children in the house, and an older daughter had her wedding there last year during a pandemic lockdown.
"My daughter got married here during the time of the coronavirus," she said, pointing to the front courtyard and smiling at the memory.
"It was better than any wedding hall."
London police officer pleads guilty to kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard
A London Metropolitan Police officer has pleaded guilty to the kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard, a 33-year old woman who disappeared while walking in south London in March.
Wayne Couzens, 48, made the guilty plea at the Old Bailey — the central criminal court — in London on Tuesday, an Old Bailey clerk told CNN.
Couzens also "accepts responsibility" for killing Ms Everard but has not yet been asked to enter a plea on the charge of murder, the Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday.
READ MORE: Police identify body of toddler who died crossing English Channel
The defendant is due to next appear in court on July 9, it added.
Ms Everard disappeared on March 3 while walking in Clapham, south London, prompting an extensive police search in the area.
Her remains were eventually found more than 50 miles from where she was last seen.
Couzens, a police constable whose primary role at the time was uniformed patrol duties of diplomatic premises, was arrested in Kent, England and charged with her kidnap and murder.
Ms Everard's disappearance prompted thousands of women in the United Kingdom and around the world to share their own experiences of intimidation or harassment while walking alone at night.
Many also exchanged notes on the habitual precautions they take to try to stay safe when they walk alone — like clutching keys between their knuckles, pretending to talk to someone on the phone, or not wearing headphones at night — and voiced their anger and frustration that it feels like a necessary step.
Jeff Bezos set to win billionaire space race
Jeff Bezos will be flying to space on the first crewed flight of the New Shepard, the rocket ship made by his space company, Blue Origin.
The flight is scheduled for July 20, just 15 days after he is set to resign as CEO of Amazon.
Blue Origin said Bezos' younger brother, Mark Bezos, will also join the flight.
READ MORE: Amazon Australia announces record-breaking Prime Day
"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of travelling to space," Mr Bezos, 57, said in a Monday morning Instagram post.
"On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend."
If all goes according to plan, Mr Bezos — the world's richest person with a net worth of US$187 billion ($241 billion) — will be the first of the billionaire space tycoons to experience a ride aboard the rocket technology that he's poured millions into developing.
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Not even Elon Musk, whose SpaceX builds rockets powerful enough to enter orbit around Earth, has announced plans to travel to space aboard one of his companies human-worthy crew capsules.
British billionaire Richard Branson, whose own space company, Virgin Galactic, is planning on conducting flights to suborbital space for ultra-wealthy thrill-seekers and competing directly with Blue Origin.
Branson has long said he would be among the first passengers aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane, but that flight is expected to take place later in 2021.
Blue Origin's first crewed flight will see the company's six-seater capsule and 18-metre rocket tear toward the edge of space on an 11-minute flight that'll reach more than 60 miles above Earth.
After six years of extensive and often secretive testing of the rocket and capsule, called New Shepard, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to put the first passengers in a New Shepard capsule.
READ MORE: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space colonies plan for humans to live and work among the stars
Though the company has not announced how much it will sell regular tickets for, Blue Origin said one seat would be given to the winner of a month-long auction that's currently in progress. The bidding had reached US$2.8 million ($3.6 million) as of Monday morning (Monday night AEST).
Mr Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, and the company conducted more than a dozen test flights with no one on board at Blue Origin's facilities in rural Texas, about 115 kilometres from Marfa.
He created Amazon in 1994, first as an online bookseller, with US$250,000 ($322,000) from his parents.
Over the following years it grew to become one of the largest companies in the world, with business in everything from Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing services company that counts entities from Netflix to the CIA as customers; to owning MGM, the studio that makes James Bond; to holding a major stake in Rivian, an electric car company.
READ MORE: Amazon's mammoth Sydney robotics warehouse nears completion
It has its own home security company, Ring, and its own grocery chain, Whole Foods. And that's before you get to the airline, Prime Air, with its own fleet of more than 70 aircraft, shipping packages from Amazon around the world.
Amazon's explosive popularity helped grow Mr Bezos' fortune to more than a billion US dollars by 1999, when he was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. He said at one point that he was selling upward of US$1 billion ($1.29 billion) worth of Amazon stock each year to help fund the Blue Origin's rocket development.
Mr Bezos will remain involved in Amazon, though he will transition to the executive chairman role.
He will be succeeded as CEO by Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon Web Services.
Mr Bezos' brother, Mark, formerly owned an advertising agency and is now a senior vice president at Robin Hood, a New York City charity.
In addition to New Shepard, Blue Origin is also working to develop a towering rocket called New Glenn, which the company hopes will be used to send US government and commercial satellites to orbit, as well as potentially make trips to deep space.
Blue Origin also hoped to be involved in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon by 2024, though it was bested by SpaceX for a contract to build the lunar lander that would shuttle astronauts from the moon's orbit down to the surface.
Blue Origin is protesting that contract decision, though NASA has also said that Blue Origin is still eligible to bid to work on future lunar missions.
Bezos has called Blue Origin "the most important work I'm doing," though he has not previously been open about whether he personally would like to travel to space.
"I'm interested in space because I'm passionate about it," Mr Bezos, who also made a cameo in 2016's Star Trek: Beyond, said during an interview with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Axel Springer.
"I've been studying it and thinking about it since I was a five-year-old boy — but that is not why I'm pursuing this work. I'm pursuing this work because I believe if we don't, we will eventually end up with a civilisation of stasis, which I find very demoralising."
Youngest daughter of Biloela family hospitalised with blood infection
A young girl whose family has been detained by the Australian government for more than three years has arrived in Perth to receive medical treatment for a blood infection.
Three-year-old Tharnicaa was diagnosed with sepsis, after almost two weeks of feeling unwell.
She was hospitalised on Christmas Island yesterday after 12 days of a high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, and dizziness.
READ MORE: Biloela family spared deportation for now, but remain on Christmas Island
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Family friend Angela Fredericks told 9News authorities decided to fly Tharnicaa off Christmas Island when her temperature skyrocketed to above 40 degrees.
"It has been a very intense and scary 24 hours," Ms Fredericks said.
Tharnicaa fell ill on May 25 but her mother said detention staff brushed off requests for her to be taken to hospital, instead giving her Panadol and Nurofen, Ms Fredericks said.
When the young girl's temperature eventually passed 40 degrees, she was given medical attention.
"That was after four days of quite severe sickness where she had fever and vomiting and that's on the back of having two weeks of already being unwell," Ms Fredericks said.
After a chest x-ray came back with concerning results a medical evacuation was arranged.
Tharnicaa was flown via medivac flight from Christmas Island to Perth on Monday before an ambulance took her to Perth Children's Hospital for urgent treatment.
"There's just that question of if she had gotten treatment just a few days earlier all of this could have been avoided," Ms Fredericks said.
The little girl's Tamil parents, Priya and Nades Murugappan, and her older sister Kopika had been living in Biloela, Queensland, seeking asylum from Sri Lanka.
The family's home in the rural Queensland town was raided at 5am on March 5, 2018, and the family has been held in immigration detention ever since.
They have been on Christmas Island since 2019.
Kopika and Tharnicaa were both born in Australia.
Sri Lanka Tamils are considered by many to be a persecuted minority in the country.
Luxury sports car goes up in flames on Queensland road
A luxury Porsche convertible has gone up in flames on the side of a Queensland road this morning.
The fire was so intense the road had to be closed and bus services were shut down.
9News understands the 1997 Boxster Coupe was driving down a Gold Coast road near Warner Bros Movie World and Wet N Wild Waterworld before it started overheating.
READ MORE: Two charged after allegedly ambushing and torturing woman south of Brisbane
The driver was forced to pull over when it then erupted into flames.
Multiple fire crews were able to contain the blaze sometime later.
The rear engine of the vehicle appeared to flare up multiple times during the fire, including one instance that saw a firefighter be within inches of the spark up.
The charred vehicle was towed from the scene just before midday.
Stolen iPad used to help catch alleged car thieves
An iPad has helped Queensland police track down an allegedly stolen vehicle on the Gold Coast, with the device's tracking software allowing its owner to give authorities precise updates.
Two girls, 13 and 15, were allegedly captured on camera over the weekend rolling up to a suburban Gold Coast street in an already stolen vehicle.
They allegedly helped themselves to the contents of one of the parked vehicles on the street, including an iPad.
READ MORE: How to apply for Gold Coast holiday dollars travel voucher
When the vehicle's owner realised his tablet and other items were gone, he took to Apple's "Find My" tracking application.
He was then on the phone to police while he tracked the stolen device and the vehicle for two hours.
"I've just been following them around all morning," the owner told 9News.
"They'd (the police) ring me, and they'd be like, where are they? And I'd be like they're sitting on the corner of Wardoo."
The alleged offenders were finally stopped at an Ashmore address where two girls, 13 and 15, were taken into custody and the owner reunited with his iPad.
The 13-year-old girl is tonight on bail and will face court charged with numerous offences, including possession of a dangerous drug.
The 15-year-old girl remains in police custody.
Queensland Premier defends receiving Pfizer COVID vaccine
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she received the Pfizer vaccine instead of the AstraZeneca jab in case she has to travel to Tokyo for the upcoming Olympics.
Ms Palaszczuk, 51, had been under mounting pressure to receive her shot, despite her insistence she was waiting to receive the flu vaccine first.
Health advice suggests people should wait two weeks between getting the flu shot and the COVID jab.
READ MORE: Victoria records 11 local COVID-19 cases as aged care cluster grows
Commonwealth health advice also suggests people over the age of 50 should receive the AstraZeneca, and those under 50 should receive Pfizer.
"There may be a requirement for the state to present to the whole Olympics committee about the Olympics, and I would've been unvaccinated and that is why I had the Pfizer," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"Because of the timelines, the only way I or Sterling (Queensland Sport Minister Stirling Hinchcliffe) can be fully vaccinated is if we had received the Pfizer vaccine."
The two Pfizer vaccine doses can be administered 21 days apart, whereas recipients need to wait 84 days between AstraZeneca.
The premier said she had also received a tetanus shot before her flu shot two weeks ago.
"I had an accidental dog bite, so I had to go get my tetanus, and they ask you if you had your tetanus you need two weeks before you've had your COVID, then I had my flu vaccine," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"I have done everything I have physically been required to do."
Ms Palaszczuk is the last state or territory leader over the age of 50 to get the COVID vaccine.
The premier was offered the vaccine in February, but turned it down because she said she didn't want to jump the queue.
The Queensland Government today said over 63,000 COVID vaccines were administered across the state in the last week.
Today also marks the first day COVID-19 vaccines have been administered through a community pharmacy in the state.
The Boonah Pharmacy, about 48.2 kilometres south of Ipswich delivered its first vaccine this morning.