Melbourne, A Perth-based Indian student will spend 14 months in jail for his involvement in a scam to falsify English test scores to get Australian visas. Rajesh Kumar, 31, faced ten charges for his part in fraudulently altering the International English Testing System (IELTS) scores at Perth's Curtin University between November 2009 and June 2010. A Perth District Court sentenced Rajesh Kumar on Monday after he pleaded guilty for changing the outcomes of IELTS test apparently to get permanent residence in Australia. Nine other persons have already been jailed in a scam to increase the IELTS scores to get permanent residence in Australia. The list includes Kok Keith Low, a Curtin University English Language Centre employee who would be behind the bars for two years for playing the key role in falsifying the scores for various, mostly, Indian students. Anyone achieving a score of a minimum 7.0 in four IELTS components gets extra points in the skilled points test to get permanent residence in Australia. Rajesh Kumar was found guilty of taking a total of $32,000 from three IELTS candidates applying for Australian visas. He kept $14,000 for himself while giving remainder ...
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Sydney, Australia's foreign minister resigned on Wednesday amid an ongoing leadership squabble, saying he could not continue in his role without the support of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Foreign minister Kevin Rudd announced his resignation during an early morning news conference in Washington, where he is visiting on official business. The announcement comes amid relentless speculation that he planned to seize power from Gillard. Gillard came to power in an internal coup within her Labor Party that ousted Rudd in June 2010. She became only the third prime minister since World War II to gain power in this way. "I can only serve as foreign minister if I have the confidence of Prime Minister Gillard and her senior ministers," Rudd said. "I therefore believe the only honorable thing, and the only honorable course of action, is for me to resign." In recent days, speculation had been mounting that Rudd supporters were planning an attempt to restore him to power soon. That had become a distraction, Rudd said. "The truth is the Australian people regard this whole affair as little better than a soap opera and they are right," he said. "And under current circumstances, I ...
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Sydney, Australia's unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage point to 5.1 percent in January, lowest since July 2011, data from Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed Thursday. The ABS reported the number of people employed increased by 46,300 to 11.46 million in January. The increase in employment was driven by increased part-time employment, up 34,000 people to 3,400,800, and an increase in full-time employment, up 12,300 people to 8.06 million, the ABS said. The number of people unemployed fell by 15,300 people to 614,200 in January, reported Xinhua. Most economists expected just 10,000 jobs to have been added in January with the unemployment rate at 5.3 percent. Australia's financial services provider CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy told the Australian Associated Press (AAP) that the ABS figures suggested Australia's job market was trending strongly. "That the unemployment rate dropped to 5.1 with an expansion in the participation rate says good things about the economy," he said. McCarthy said the two official interest rate cuts in November and December may have boosted employer confidence. ...
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Adelaide, India suffered the humiliation of their second successive 0-4 whitewash in overseas after they lost the fourth and the final Test against Australia by a massive 298 runs at the Adelaide Oval here Saturday. Resuming at overnight 166 for six in the second innings, while chasing a world record target of 500 to win, India were bowled out for 201 in 58 minutes of play at Adelaide Oval. India, thus, suffered their eighth straight overseas defeat after having whitewashed 0-4 in England last year. . Australia's 298-run win came after spinner Nathan Lyon claimed his best figures for the series of 4-63 in India's second innings. It took just 13.4 overs for Australia to pick up the last four wickets to wrap up a great summer. Ishant Sharma (2) fell caught behind to Ryan Harris (3-41) in the third over of the day and Wriddhiman Saha (2) was out next over in similar fashion to Peter Siddle. Zaheer Khan batted in his usual carefree style and was caught at short cover off the bowling of Ben Hilfenhaus for 15 to make it 9-193. Lyon ended the series when he had Umesh Yadav caught behind for one. Lyon, a former Adelaide Oval groundsman, said his first home Test had been ...
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Perth, Haroon Lorgat, the ICC Chief Executive, has expressed the ICC’s support for the proposals being made by the Australian Government to establish a national framework of laws to combat cheating in sport. In Perth to attend the Third Test Match between Australia and India, Lorgat re-iterated cricket’s zero tolerance attitude to cheating and added: "ICC is pleased to add its support to that of Australia’s Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports (COMPPS) in support of the Australian Government’s initiative to tackle cheating in sport." "Like all sports in Australia, the ICC and its Members cherish the reputation and integrity of the game. All sport needs honest competition and while in Australia I will be restating our well known stance to the Government. "In the past year we faced the sort of challenge which could threaten any sport and I believe we conclusively proved that we will not tolerate any threat to the integrity of the game." He said: "I hope our swift and decisive action to charge, provisionally suspend and eventually prosecute and ban those who dared to sully the good name of cricket as well as the subsequent criminal ...
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Wellington, A hot air balloon caught fire and crashed in New Zealand Saturday morning, killing all 11 people on board, a media report said. The balloon came down in flames near the small town of Clareville, north of Wellington on the North Island, about 7.30 a.m., the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported. TVNZ said there were 10 passengers and a pilot on board the balloon. A cyclist who witnessed the crash told Radio New Zealand that he saw flames licking up the side of the basket below the balloon. He said he saw 10 metres of flames trailing from the descending balloon. "It came down like a bloody rocket and then there was a big bang," the New Zealand Herald website quoted a local resident named David McKinlay as saying. The area is a popular hot air ballooning destination. A ballooning website said the hot air balloon took off after sunrise and lasted for an hour. The crash site was cordoned off and only emergency workers and the families of those in the balloon were being allowed through, said Radio New Zealand. ...
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Islamabad, Thirty-seven Pakistani youths were among those drowned in a boat accident off the Indonesian coast of Java about two weeks ago, the interior ministry said Tuesday. The vessel was heading to Christmas island of Australia with some 250 illegal migrants on board. It sank near the Prigi beach Dec 18. Six other Pakistanis were among some 40 people who survived. About 90 bodies, including that of the Pakistanis, were fished out of the water, while a search was on for the missing. Illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Turkey and the Middle East were also on the boat. Islamabad was in touch with the Indonesian authorities to bring home the bodies, Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying. The Pakistani victims belonged to Balochistan province. Indonesia is a major transit point for illegal immigrants from the Middle East heading to ...
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Moscow, The US has topped a list of countries taking part in charity, followed by Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Russia was ranked 130th in the list. The study of 153 nations was conducted by Britain's Charities Aid Foundation. Called the "World Giving Index 2011", the study ranked the charitable behaviour of people from countries based on how likely their residents are to donate money, volunteer their time and aid strangers. Britain was ranked the world's fifth most charitable country. It moved up from the eighth position last year, and was named the second-most generous nation globally in monetary terms. Results showed that 79 percent of Britons donate money to charity every month, while 28 percent of people in the country do volunteer work each month. The Netherlands, Canada, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Laos completed the top 10 ...
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Melbourne, Two fishermen in Australia climbed up trees to save their lives when a crocodile tried to eat them for dinner. The 3m-long crocodile lunged at the men but couldn’t get at them because spindly mangroves were in the way. The two clambered up small trees to escape but one of them slipped and plunged into the water. Senior Sergeant Greg Pusterla said the man got out of the water and back up the tree in record time. One of the men had a mobile telephone and called police. Officers raced to the scene and saw the crocodile lurking nearby. They rang Parks and Wildlife rangers who shot the animal because it was aggressive. The men were fishing on a rock bar about 300m up Buffalo Creek on the outskirts of Darwin when they became trapped by the rising tide. Ranger Tommy Nichols spoke to one of them by phone. “He sounded a bit edgy… I asked them if the tide was coming over where they were standing,” the Courier Mail quoted Nichols as saying. “They said they were on hard ground. I told them to climb trees if the tide came up any higher,” he ...
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Brisbane, Australian clothing retailer Fletcher Jones has been put in administration after 93 years in business, becoming the latest victim of the national retail gloom, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) said Thursday. ARA Executive Director Russell Zimmerman said Fletcher Jones joined a long list of retail failures, including Colorado clothing chain, fashion retailers Ed Hardy, Satch Clothing and Brown Sugar, and electrical retailer Clive Peeters, in the past nine months, reported Xinhua. Putting into administration is a process for control, where a company is insolvent and facing serious threats from creditors. The Court may appoint a licensed insolvency practitioner as Administrator -- this places a moratorium around the company and stops all legal actions, "It is sad. They join a list of very, very big grand names of retail that have been under stress and either gone into liquidation or have had to reinvent themselves over the last nine months," he told the Australia Associated Press (AAP). Zimmerman blamed excessive overheads such as high rents and excessive penalty rates for weekend trading for the retail slump. Fletcher Jones has been in the ...
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London, Eyes belonging to a giant 500 million-year-old marine predator that sat at the top of the earth’s first food chain have been discovered from Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Scientists at the South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide found the preserved fossil eyes of the fearsome metre-long Anomalocaris in the Cambrian ocean. They explained that the world’s first apex predator had highly acute vision, rivalling or exceeding that of most living insects and crustaceans. The international team behind this discovery includes two Adelaide researchers, Dr Michael Lee (SA Museum and University of Adelaide) and Dr Jim Jago (SA Museum and UniSA), and was led by Dr John Paterson (University of New England). Anomalocaris is the stuff of nightmares and sci-fi movies. It is considered to be at the top of the earliest food chains because of its large body size, formidable grasping claws at the front of its head and a circular mouth with razor-sharp serrations. The discovery of its stalked eyes - showing astonishing details of its optical design - from a 515 million-year-old deposit on Kangaroo Island in South Australia now confirms it had superb vision to ...
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Melbourne, Declassified cables have revealed that Australian diplomats raised no objections to the U.S. pursuit of whistle blowing website WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on charges of espionage and conspiracy. The cables, released under freedom of information to The Saturday Age this week, reveal that Australian diplomats have been talking to the US Justice Department for more than a year about US criminal investigations of WikiLeaks and Assange. While the Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose details of the WikiLeaks probe, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in December 2010 that the investigation was ''''unprecedented both in its scale and nature'''' and that media reports that a secret grand jury had been convened in Alexandria, Virginia, were ''''likely true''''. Last week, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd told Parliament that the Australian government is ''''not aware of any current extradition request [for Assange] by US authorities'''' and has ''''no formal advice'''' concerning a US grand jury investigation directed at WikiLeaks. On Monday, Assange will learn whether he will be allowed a further legal appeal against his extradition from ...
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Canberra, Australian Labour Party member Peter Garrett has said that he would not support Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s decision to lift the ban on uranium sales to India. According to News.com.au, Gillard will soon ask the party to overturn its ban on uranium exports to India, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Garrett, a former Nuclear Disarmament Party candidate, however, said that he would not back the move. “Australia has a substantial and a reasonable position in the international community on disarmament,” Garrett said. “It''s based on the fact that these treaties are signed for a reason and a purpose,” he added. Garrett said he appreciated the need for closer ties with India, but the sale should not go ...
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Canberra, Australia has firmly denied any prospect of pushing for a joint security pact with India and the US. The Australian High Commission said that comments by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd were misinterpreted. Rudd was recently quoted in the Australian Financial Review as saying that Australia was backing the trilateral pact. The Commission, however, said he had been responding to a question about uranium policy, the BBC reports. “Media reports quoting the Australian minister for foreign affairs characterising India’s views on a trilateral security dialogue between India, Australia and the US are wrong,” a statement by the Australian High Commission in Delhi said. “The minister was responding to a question about the proposed change in Australia''s uranium policy when he said, ''the response from the Indian government has really been quite positive. Australia has not proposed such a trilateral arrangement,” it added. India also said that it was not aware of any such proposals. “We have seen media reports about the comments attributed to the Australian foreign minister. We are not aware of any such proposal,” the Ministry of External Affairs had ...
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Sydney, Manufacturing activity in Australia remained flat in November, a monthly survey of manufacturers in the country showed Thursday. The Australian Industry Group/PriceWaterhouseCoopers Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) was broadly unchanged, up only 0.4 points to 47.8 in November, keeping it below the 50 points level, the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) said. Readings below 50 indicate contraction in activity, said Xinhua. The survey found eight of the 12 industry subsectors recorded activity declines, with construction materials, clothing and footwear and wood products and furniture performing the poorest in the month. Transport equipment and miscellaneous manufacturers registered strong levels of activity in November. Ai Group said Australia's manufacturing continued to be impacted by a range of factors, including slow sales, skilled labour shortages and uncertainty over the impacts of the carbon tax. Ai Group Chief Executive Heather Ridout said flat conditions in manufacturing should be addressed by policy makers. "Manufacturing conditions clearly remain tough and have been so for much of the past year, raising critical issues ...
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Canberra, Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard’ s salary will increase by 90,000 dollars to 470,000 dollars, making her higher- paid leader than US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister c. The move, which is expected to be implemented soon, is a part of the parliamentarians’ salary hike plan. The Australian Government had earlier announced the plan to cut billions of dollars public spending in a budget, Adelaide Now reports According to The Advertiser, the base salary for even the most junior parliamentarian will increase form 140,000 dollars to 180,000 dollars, and Speaker Peter Slipper would earn at least 315000 dollars. Australian Shadow Ministers Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Chris Pyne will receive additional special "loading" for the first ...
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Canberra, Australian Labour Party member Peter Garrett has said that he is against Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s plan to lift a ban on uranium sales to India, and that he will continue to appeal to his Labor mates not to reverse the standing ban. “I''m bound by the party policy and I''m a loyal team player, but I will argue against selling uranium to India because they haven''t signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,” the Herald Sun quoted Garrett, as saying. Garrett said toeing the party line was the nature of politics, but he would still try to lobby for change behind the scenes. “It doesn’t mean that I won''t keep arguing for the things I believe in, so let us wait and see what happens at the national conference,” “I''m not the only one who feels this way,” he added. Australia has a long-held policy banning uranium exports to countries that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but Gillard says the 2005 civil agreement with the US paved the way for exports to ...
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Bali (Indonesia),Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard seems bent on taking on all disbelievers in her country and going ahead with uranium exports to India. Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the 19th ASEAN Summit and the 6th East Asia Summit here, Gillard said: "I''m taking the change of policy to my party conference in December." Earlier this week, Gillard had said that she would lobby the Australian Labor Party to change its stance on the export of uranium to India, despite India not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Gillard said that Australia could miss out on lucrative economic opportunities by shutting India out. Gillard''s stand won the support of United States President Barack Obama during his stopover in Australia this week on his way to the ASEAN summit. "India is a big player and the Australia-India relationship is one that should be cultivated," Obama said in apparent support to Gillard''s move to lift the ban on uranium exports to India. Gillard is planning to overturn the long-standing party policy that allows uranium to be sold only to nations that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Senior Australian ...
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Jalandhar, January 29 (Doaba News Service)- Indian students have started social networking in Australia to develop close relationship with the people there. President of the Sikh Federation of Australia Jaspreet Singh said the organisation was holding blood donation camps in this regard. “We have organised a few blood donation camps that have been highlighted by the leading Australian newspapers also,” he said, adding that “We have planned to organise one more in a next few days.” He said unfortunately some of the people were issuing hostile statements in India and creating troubles for Indian students in Australia. He pointed out that the statement given by the Shiv Sena against Australian cricket players, who are keen to play in the IPL, had sent a wrong signal. It had added an element of bitterness among relations between Australians and Indians, he added. Jaspreet has urged the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister that efforts should be made to create harmonious atmosphere among Indians in Australians and the people there. The government should also start some PR exercise in this regard, he ...
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Amritsar, January 24 (DMS)- Expressing concern over the increase in the number of attacks on Indian students in Australia, veteran Congress leader and MP Partap Singh Bajwa has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to send an all-party parliamentary delegation to Australia to study the deteriorating situation there. Bajwa has also asked the Australian Government to take the necessary steps to check the “unbridled violence” against Indian students who had opted to go to that country after spending billions of dollars and had given a big boost to the economy of Australia with their efforts and money. “The PM should give personal attention to the issue. A large number of Indian students have gone to Australia after spending huge amounts and with very high hopes and ambitions. But their dreams have gone sour with increasing attacks against them. The Australian Government should also realise its duty to ensure the safety and security of Indians and to protect them against violence which has become a blot on an otherwise safe, secure and developed country,” said ...
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