7 of the newsiest news bites (Thurs, July7)

Well, hello there. Sorry, didn’t see you come in.

What’s that? It’s early and you need to know what’s going on? Well! Do I have news for you. Seriously, here is some news. Hand picked by us, so you don’t have to do any of the work. Enjoy!

1. NZ CEO who said women had more sick days for ‘lady problems’ fired

Alasdair Thompson made the comments on New Zealand radio, saying women had more time off for their periods. Remember? We covered it in the news bites here. He’s been sacked after his position became ‘unsustainable’.

2. Waxing business in trouble for placement of cat in advertisement

That was kind of hard to explain. A Gold Coast beauty salon handed out flyers saying they will donate $1 for every wax booked in to the Animal Welfare League. The flyer featured a young lass, legs akimbo, with a strategically placed cat between them. Cue puns about fur flying. The Australian Christian Lobby complained. Do they have a point?

3. Federal Government reopens live cattle trade to Indonesia – with conditions attached.

Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig last night announced he was lifting the ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia, providing graziers and suppliers signed on for new permits which would ensure ‘a supply chain assurance regulatory model’ which is mumbo jumbo for ‘make sure you know where you are sending your cattle’. The Government says abattoirs in Indonesia will be independently audited to ensure they continue to meet animal welfare standards. Minister Ludwig said: “ These new orders allow the export of live cattle only where animals can be managed through supply chains that meet international standards. These strict new conditions have been written into all export permits. They require exporters to trace cattle from properties, onto vessels, into feedlots and into abattoirs that meet agreed international standards. Permits will only be issued to those exporters who can demonstrate that this will be the case.” All this comes as Indonesia announces it is likely to significantly cut back the numbers of Australian beef exports next year from 25 per cent to around 10 to 5 per cent. Has the Government completely borked this issue? Or did they do the right thing?

4. British tabloid phone hacking scandal grows

Have you been following this? News Corporation’s News of the World is being investigated by Metropolitan police for apparently organising, condoning and having full knowledge of its reporters phone hacking exploits. There may be as many as 7000 victims. That’s a far cry from 2007 when a private investigator and royal editor were charged and jailed for the offences with the paper claiming they had ‘gone rogue’. Actress Sienna Miller has already been paid 100,000 Pounds but News has set aside a fund of 20 million Pounds. Now it’s emerged the phones of murder victims and the victims of the 7/7 London bombings had their phones hacked by the paper – allegedly. The scandal continues to grow. Heads will roll. In fact, calls have already been made for the resignation of News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks with claims she knew about and commissioned phone hacks. She’s in charge of the internal investigation. Hmmm.

5. First person to reach 150-years-old has already been born.

That sounds about right. Biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist at a longevity research institute in the United States Dr Aubrey De Grey also reckons the first person to live to be 1000 will be born in the next two decades. Some say De De Grey bases his predictions on pseudo-science but a $20,000 prize offered to the first person to show his theories were not worthy of debate has never been won. Interesting. Would you even want to live to be 1000? What would you do? I’d play a lot of Bridge.

6. Did you see the enormous dust storm in Phoneix, Arizona?

Wow. It was 96km long and looked something like what I assume the end of the world would look like. Check it out!

7. 7.8 magnitude quake strikes of north-east NZ

The massive quake had caused a tsunami alert to be issued for New Zealand but that was cancelled about 6.30am.

Oh, and for everyone playing along at home, Queensland won its 6th straight State of Origin series last night.

It feels good.