Debris sighting reignites Australian search for flight MH370
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has revealed that debris, including a wooden pallet has been spotted within Australia’s search zone.
The concentrated debris was seen with a naked eye by a civilian search aircraft, tasked by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
Mr Abbott said: “It’s still too early to be definite, but obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope, no more than hope, no more than hope, that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.”
The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Success and two merchant ships have been relocated to try and identify the material, including the wooden pallets that initially marked suspicions the objects could be linked to the missing plane.
You can read Mamamia’s full coverage of today’s developments here.
Abbott in PNG: No human rights inquiry for Manus Island
Fairfax Media are reporting this morning that the Abbott government will back Papua New Guinea’s decision to stop a human rights inquiry into the Manus Island detention centre. The two governments are also looking to deny access of a human rights lawyer to the centre, Fairfax was told by PNG Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Rimbink Pato.
Turnbull asks woman without broadband: “Why did you buy a house there?”
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has come under fire after asking a woman why she chose to live in a rural area if she wanted access to broadband internet. The exchange occurred when Julia Keady tweeted the MP expressing her dismay that she could only access the internet using a dongle when at her house in Victoria’s Ocean Grove. Turnbull tweeted the woman in reply: “just curious: if connectivity was so vital to you why did you buy a house where there was no broadband available?”
Labor to form minority government in SA
Independent MP Geoff Brock has announced that he will support the Labor Party to form a minority government in South Australia. His agreement with Labor will allow him to vote independently from the party “on certain issues”.
Russian forces storm Ukrainian air force base
Russian forces have gained control of one of the last Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. The Russian army used stun grenades and armored vehicles to seize the air force base, following an hours-long standoff. Two people were wounded.
Victim among those appointed to Vatican child sex abuse commission
An Irish woman who was assaulted as a child by a priest is among the eight members of the Vatican child sex abuse commission. Marie Collins, a long-time campaigner for Church accountability, will join the commission, which was established by Pope Francis in December last year. Also named were academics and clergy, including American Sean O’Malley who was the archbishop of Boston during the eruption of the diocese’s sex abuse scandal in 2002.
Mother told police aren’t “tech-savvy” enough to stop 11-year-old from receiving explicit pictures
A mother is unhappy with the treatment she received from the Central Queensland police station. After discovering explicit photos of exposed genitalia and sexual requests on her 11-year-old daughters iPad sent by an anonymous male, she visited the police station and was allegedly told they weren’t “tech-savvy” enough to do anything about it. The police have now revealed the mother did not lodge a formal complaint but if she was willing to do so they would reconsider “further enquiries and investigations”.
NSW public school teachers receive dress code
Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has announced a new professional dress code for all NSW public school teachers. The guidelines which state teachers must no longer wear thongs, singlets, T-shirts, or “suggestive” or “inappropriate” attire, will be implemented from Term 2 onwards.
Mr Piccoli explained, “wearing appropriate dress helps teachers maintain respect and credibility with students, parents and the broader community”. The code was drafted as an ongoing push by the government to enhance professional standards within the public schooling system. It states that male employees must wear collared shirts, whilst female teachers should not expose their midriffs, wear strapless tops, or come to work in clothes that could be interpreted as suggestive or offensive.
Top Comments
It's about time that school teachers were expected to comply with a dress code. My mother was a teacher and my daughter is a special school teacher so I certainly appreciate the difficulty and challenges teachers face and am not critisizing the profession at all, just commenting about something I have been thinking for years. On my daughter's first day of grade 1 I was at her school walking behind a well built woman who was wearing a very, very mini skirt, strappy top and ridiculous platform shoes. My thoughts were that she certainly didn't have the figure to be wearing the outfit and more importantly it was an inappropriate choice of clothing to be wearing to her children's school. Imagine my thoughts when a few minutes later that same woman walked (teetered) up to the dias at the assembly and announced herself as the Principal of the school. Over the years that my kids attended this school I was gobsmacked at some of the inapropriate outfits that I saw on a number of teachers. Jeans so tight that they looked like they had been spray painted on, tiny skirts and shorts and stilletos. One young female grade 7 teacher frequently wore crop tops that showed off from below her pierced navel to her breast, surely pre teen boys have a hard enough time concentrating on their studies without an attractive women showing off so much of her body in class. My daughter has very thick curly hair and to help control head lice she would wear a bandana folded into a triangle over her hair and tied at the nape of her neck. We were sent a strongly worded note home telling us the bandana was inappropriate and indicated a leaning towards gang membership. Hmmm, no skulls, tags etc on the bandanas, only whatever the Leukemia foundation puts on the ones they sell at the supermarket checkouts but still considered inappropriate. I sent a strongly worded reply and included some comments about the mini skirts, shorts etc on the teachers and pots calling kettles black etc. Didn't hear another word about the bandana.
I can't believe that Turnbull comment. So we are all supposed to live in the city if we want to access pretty basic (these days) technology?! As a doctor currently practicing in a rural area (and using a dongle for internet by the way), whether or not I could get broadband wasn't really part of the equation as to whether I actually wanted to provide service to my isolated, disadvantaged patients- this just goes to show what the government really thinks of rural folk, and further enforces the isolation and disadvantage. Grrrr!!!!