Kate and William looked every inch safari veterans as they revelled in a two-hour jeep safari into the heart of Kaziranga and found their patch blocked by a rhinoceros – the perfect sighting for tourists to the area.
The Duke and Duchess were touring Kaziranga National Park home to elephants, water buffalo, the endangered swamp deer, tigers, and two-thirds of the world’s population of Indian one-horned rhinoceroses.
The park in the state of Assam in the north east of India is a unique mix of grasslands, wetlands and forest and is more than 800,000 square kilometres in size and has designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Clearly exhilarated by their drive and proximity to the animals the couple were in seventh heaven when later they were introduced to a group of young animals at Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC).
It provides emergency care and rehabilitation for wild animals that have been injured, displaced, or orphaned.
In a large area of grassland and sparse woodland the orphaned baby animals had gathered under the shade of a tree waiting for the royal couple who walked towards them. Armed with large bottles of milk William and Kate fed the hungry baby rhinos and elephants who were impatient to get their meal.
Among the youngest were Murphuli who was aged just four weeks old when she was found in a tea garden trench in October last year. CRWC vets hoped a female who rushed forward and examined the infant with her trunk was the mother but she was found in the same spot the next day.
Buree was another orphan found, aged two-months, a few days after Murphuli when she was rescued by villagers from a rocky pit and after recovering from a swollen hip is making friends with the other animals.
But it was Dunga the smallest and newest resident at the centre who won Kate’s heart. The youngster was found alone by forest staff while on patrol and when they failed to locate the mother he was brought to the centre.
Vernon Menon, chief executive office of the Wildlife Trust of India which established the CWRC with a number other bodies, joined the royal couple for the encounter with the animals.
He said: “They were absolutely thrilled and loved being with the animals. The Duchess loved the baby rhino particularly. The Duke said if he could he would have spent the whole day there.”
WATCH: Duke and Duchess safe after a 6.9 magnitude quake hits Myanmar.
60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown and her crew have been detained in Lebanon while shooting a segment in the country’s capital, Beirut, Nine Network has confirmed.
“We are working with authorities to get them released and home as soon as possible,” Nine Network’s statement read.
Reporter Tara Brown along with producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment have been holed up in a Beirut cell since April 7 when they attempted to recover two children Noah 4, and Lahela, 6 whose Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner claims were kidnapped.
In the botched rescue mission, Channel Nine paid two men to grab the children off the street where they were walking with their grandmother and a nanny.
They are expected to stay in prison over the weekend to face a judge on Monday.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT), Australia has “friendly bilateral relations with Lebanon”.
Last year, The Weekly sat down with the influential reporter to talk about the risks of her work.
The mum-of-two has travelled to the Syrian frontline twice in the past six months to report on female freedom fighters and admits those assignments take on a different complexion when there are two kids waiting at home.
“I don’t ever think I’m gung-ho about it,” she told us at the time. “You stop yourself thinking about the worst consequences because then you wouldn’t do anything.”
In the interview with The Weekly’s Susan Horsburgh, Tara spoke at length about her job’s emotional toll, her kids’ guilt trips and the father she hasn’t spoken to for almost 40 years.
Read the full story below:
In an age when attention-seekers are lionised and self-promotion is an essential life skill, humility is apparently for losers – and yet the 47-year-old 60 Minutes reporter is on a professional high, thanks to old-school qualities like talent, intelligence and a punishing work ethic.
Tara has plugged away on the country’s slickest current affairs program for almost 15 years, but she appears to have taken it up a notch in recent times, nailing a string of big stories in her poised, signature style.
Just in the past year or so, she has covered the capture of notorious paedophile Peter Scully in the Philippines, chronicled the heartbreaking disappearance of Daniel Morcombe and the hunt for his murderer, and grilled the much-maligned ex-mistress of wife killer Gerard Baden-Clay.
In June, it was disgraced “wellness” entrepreneur Belle Gibson, and a clearly fed-up Tara seemed to win more social media plaudits with every withering look she shot the cancer fraud. “Tara calls BS,” typed one tweeter. Another posted a picture with Tara’s face superimposed on Tony Abbott’s body, and the words: “TARA BROWN FOR PM.”
In that interview, Tara was exasperated with Gibson’s doublespeak and she showed it – just like earlier this year when she quizzed wife beater Steve, who claimed his spouse had brought out the worst in him and she called him out for blaming his victim. Moments like those make for compelling television and give viewers a tantalising glimpse of the woman behind the journalist.
The audience, it seems, can sense she’s a good egg and an afternoon in her company would suggest they’ve got it right.
Tara Brown on working at 60 Minutes
Tara Brown is as unassuming as the 60 Minutes HQ – what looks to be a fibro shack under Nine’s old Sydney transmission tower.
At the network’s Willoughby compound, Tara shares an office with reporter Michael Usher at the back of the program’s dilapidated cottage, which hasn’t been refurbished since George Negus and Ian Leslie first walked its halls 36 years ago.
Today, looking model-thin in a fitted jacket and pencil skirt, Tara has just taped the studio intro to her Gibson story, due to air five days later, as well as an interview for the website’s “Extra Minutes”. According to producer Stephen Taylor, she was here working on the script until midnight on Saturday and then back at nine on Sunday morning.
Like most journalists, she would prefer to be the one posing the questions – and, despite fronting 60 Minutes for so long, almost nothing has been written about her.
Still, sitting at her desk, surrounded by a photo of her beautiful boys, six-year-old Jack and four-year-old Tom, and shots on the job with AC/DC and Powderfinger, Tara is warm and accommodating – even if she does spend half the chat torturing a screwed-up tissue in her hands as she talks.
She may seem a picture of calm on screen, but she isn’t completely devoid of neuroses. “Tara frets over interviews,” says 60 Minutes’ Executive Producer, Tom Malone, “because she knows, if the interview doesn’t fly, then the story isn’t going to fly.”
Tara is known for her forensic approach and nowhere was that more evident, says Tom, than in her interview last year with baby Gammy’s father, David Farnell, a convicted child sex offender who abandoned his son with Down syndrome in Thailand with the child’s surrogate mother.
“She got the tone right, and it’s a hard thing to do because you can’t just go in and beat someone up,” says Tom. “You know you’ve got Australia riding on your back, wanting you to ask the tough questions, but you’ve got to do it delicately and in a manner that is as objective as it can be.”
It would be naïve, however, to think that total objectivity is possible. Since becoming a mother, Tara says, she has become more prone to tears and more strident in matters involving the mistreatment of children. “As a journalist, you try to go into these things open-minded, but I think the truth of it is, you still come with a bias,” she says.
In her recent “Baby Bling” story, she met a mother who fake-tanned her toddler and put the child on stage to hip-thrust in a Hooters costume. “As a mother, I probably go into it much more judgmental because I do think it’s a form of child abuse,” she says. “I don’t understand why women would do that to children.”
On growing up
Tara spent her own childhood riding horses and devouring Enid Blyton books. In the early years, she grew up with her two younger brothers on a property outside the small NSW-Queensland border town of Wallangarra, in a house built by her father, a stonemason.
When she was about nine, though, her parents divorced.
“It was a very bitter split,” recalls Tara, “and I haven’t seen him since shortly after that time.”
Tara believes her father is still alive, but hasn’t tried to contact him for almost 40 years.
“[The separation] was abrupt and felt traumatic at the time,” she says. “I will never understand how a parent can choose to have nothing to do with their children, especially after having my own, but it’s a decision my father made and so I’ve always felt it should be his choice to be in touch with me if he ever had a change of heart.”
Asked how she has coped with the loss, Tara replies, “I’m not sure. I just do. I think it’s sad, but it hasn’t been crippling – as much as I can tell. After all, I really don’t have an option but to accept the reality for what it is.”
After the split, Tara moved to Sydney with her mother, who pre-trained racehorses and later married a businessman with two younger children.
Although reluctant to psychoanalyse herself, Tara says her parents’ divorce – “like all experiences” – has shaped her.
“I guess I learned early of the impermanence of things,” she says, “and the fragility of what we might take for granted.”
Close friend Kate Rouse suspects it helped mould Tara into the strong, independent teenager she met in 1987.
The pair “clicked” in their first year at Bathurst’s Charles Sturt University, where Tara was studying for a communications degree. “At a time when everyone is trying to work out who they are, she was just who she was,” recalls Kate, a primary school teacher.
“Just so genuine – never looking over her shoulder to see if there was anyone better to talk to. You felt you could really trust her.”
Kate describes her friend as unflappable, even amid the chaos of two small kids. “If she’s ever flustered or frustrated, I can never tell,” says Kate. “She talks so nicely to the boys, she’s beautiful to them.”
On motherhood
A relative latecomer to motherhood – her boys were born when she was 40 and 42 – Tara has apparently taken to it with gusto, relishing trips to the park, colouring-in sessions and living-room concerts.
Jack and Tom, she says, are “gorgeous boys” – sensitive and determined. “Jack is probably more of a worry wart,” says Tara. “Tom’s a bit more of a free spirit. And they’re both really articulate and happy to tell you what they think.”
Especially when Mum is going away. “They can be quite vocal about not liking the idea … and sometimes that’s really difficult to walk away from,” she says, “but sometimes they don’t raise an eyebrow at all. I bribe them with presents – I’m terrible.”
Tara may have one of the most coveted jobs in Australian journalism, but it takes a brutal toll on family life, demanding at least six months on the road every year, often with no warning.
She might be helping with homework in the kitchen one day and donning a flak jacket in Western Kurdistan the next.
She has travelled to the Syrian frontline twice in the past six months to report on female freedom fighters and admits those assignments take on a different complexion when there are two kids waiting at home.
The risks, though, are calculated. “I don’t ever think I’m gung-ho about it,” she says, “but you stop yourself thinking about the worst consequences because then you wouldn’t do anything.”
Earlier this year, she travelled to the Philippines to cover the manhunt for depraved paedophile-murderer Peter Scully. It was one of the most emotionally wearing stories she has done.
“Our shoot started with the exhumation of a little girl’s body,” says Tara. “Every step of that story was incredibly harrowing. And depressing – just depressing that there was such evil and there were so many people exposed to that.”
At the end of each day, the team talks about their disturbing experiences – sort of like group therapy – but Tara says she has never sought professional help. After each extraordinary work assignment, she just re-enters ordinary suburban life. “They are very different existences, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the two kids coming into my bed or my friends who stick by me, despite not hearing from me for a long time,” she says, “because that is real life and it’s not mundane at all. It’s exciting and challenging and busy and guilt-ridden … but I’m very grateful for both.”
Without family support, Tara relies on a nanny and her husband of 15 years, TV producer John McAvoy. “I think he finds it frustrating at times,” says Tara, who limits her work trips to no longer than two weeks. “Life would be much more simple if I had a nine-to-five job, but … to me it’s swings and roundabouts – I do a lot of swimming lessons and birthday party drop-offs when I’m home.”
What she sacrifices most is personal space – some guilt-free time to take a walk, perhaps, or read that neglected Tim Winton or Ian McEwan novel. “A sense of your own person maybe,” says Tara.
The travel actually isn’t such a hardship. “I’m sad to be saying goodbye to my boys and missing things that are important to them, but I’d be dishonest if I said I hated the travel,” she says. “I don’t. I’m still excited by the adventure of this job.” Tara has wanted to be a journalist since she was 14. After university, she did her cadetship at WIN Television in Wollongong and went on to join Nine’s Nightline in 1992. She scored her lucky break that summer, when she filled in on A Current Affair and filed a gotcha story about a union official extorting a builder. “I was very, very lucky,” says Tara, “and that story exposed me to some people around the network.”
She joined ACA in 1993 and graduated to 60 Minutes in January 2001. And then her children arrived at the 11th hour. If you believe Tara, her life has unfolded almost beyond her control. “I was incredibly lucky,” she says. “Maybe, in a way, I’ve been very immature in how I’ve lived my life because it’s been a lot more reactionary than planned. My big plan was to be a journalist. Full stop.”
If she could advise her 16-year-old self, she would tell young Tara not to let self-consciousness hold her back. Although she still considers herself shy, she feels less so as she gets older. “I’ve also learned to push myself,” she says. “When I was 16, there’s no way I would have thought I’d be in this job because I just wasn’t confident enough. So the journey has been terrific … because I have grown into that person.”
It is dark now and Tara is due at another work meeting, yet she takes the time to ricochet from one Nine entrance to the other, trying to find the cab she has called for The Weekly. As she races up and down stairs, leading her visitor through the labyrinth that is the Nine Network, she apologises for not giving a more riveting interview. Of course, there’s no apology necessary.
For Rachel Pederson, offhand comments about how tiny her wedding ring was started to get to her. Because according to other people who always made sure to tell her, she needed a bigger ring to show how ‘successful’ she is.
But after her defence of her ring that she posted on Facebook went viral, her critics were silenced.
In the post, she wrote:
“Since when did the size of someone’s ring become an indication of success?!
“For me, the ring is SO much more.
“My ring symbolizes a whirlwind, storybook, ‘make you sick’ love story…. It reminds me of how my husband and I met and fell at in love in one night at a Perkin’s diner.
“He worked as a window washer, and I was a single mother.
“One short week later, and we professed our love to one another, him leading the conversation.
“We couldn’t wait for the future. So we didn’t.
“13 days after meeting, we eloped. I didn’t even THINK about a ring until my husband surprised me before the ceremony. He drained his savings to gift me with a small token of his love.
“I say small, only because it pales in comparison with how big his love is, even now, after years of marriage.
“That, my friends, is success to me.”
BOOM! Take that, haters!
The happy couple have two daughters – 5-year-old Dakota and Delilah, 20 months.
Telling Us, she said: “I used to dream of a Tiffany’s 2-carat, round-cut solitaire. I learned something greater through the process of meeting Poul, and that was that a true love with a foundation of respect and trust is far more valuable than a large diamond.”
Trending video: Sausage dog walks at same pace as his owner
It was a day filled with fairies and flowers for the mini-Queen Bey, who celebrated her fourth birthday back in January.
On Wednesday, Beyonce herself released the photos from her daughter’s magical soiree, and let’s just say that the party was fit for a fairy princess.
It was a birthday bash straight from a page of a storybook.
The guest of honour was dressed to the nines in a bejewelled, baby pink leotard and matching powder pink tulle skirt.
And opting to channel her mum’s effortless style, she complimented the pretty set with a pair of classic black converse.
A princess with an edge! The mini-Queen Bey donned a pair of sneakers with her tutu.
In true birthday girl style, the four-year-old underwent a mid-party costume change and later donned a bright magenta party dress adorned with butterflies of all colours.
This time, she missed no detail with the theme and went straight for a fitting pair of wings and a dazzling tiara.
It would seem that little Blue Ivy picked her second outfit from the glorious racks of costumes seen in the corner of the marquee.
Outfit number two!
Are we too old to have this party?
From the stunning pics uploaded to the hitmakers website, guests enjoyed the festivities from inside mini tents and plush sofas, before sharing cake around a large table complete with eccentric mismatched chairs decorated by assorted fairy wings.
Bouquets of flowers, pom poms and fairy lights hung from overhead as real life fairy princesses popped in to the party for a visit.
Blue – who turned four on January 7 – no doubt had the time of her life at the bash that appeared to look straight from a story book.
Will Blue be getting a baby brother or sister? Find out in the video player below! Post continues…
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Evidently, Beyonce, 34, and Jay-Z, 46, are big fans of spoiling their little one on her birthday.
Last year in celebration of Blue’s third special day, the doting parents threw a Frozen themed party to end complete with an ice sculpture cake, and the year prior to that, the power couple hired out a WHOLE ZOO for Blue’s Jungle Themed 2nd birthday.
Happy family! Blue, 4, and Jay-Z join super-mum Beyonce on stage at the 2014 MTV Awards.
Perth city council is set to trial ‘female-only’ parking bays.
The 28 bays in the City of Perth Pier Street car park are located at the entrance and exits, and the areas include upgraded lighting and additional CCTV cameras, City of Perth chief executive Martin Mileham told news.com.au.
“Men won’t be fined if they park in the bays but the City encourages men to support this trial,” he said.
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However, the spaces have already drawn criticism over their “unsafe” location.
A CBD worker Briony Whitton told WA Today that the pink parks do not address the drug users who access the nearby stairwells.
She said tradies are the early risers who get the best parks, which means she has to park on the fifth floor and walk through areas of the parking building with no security or night lighting.
“The car park is mostly unmanned during the day and there are kids skating up and down the floors, who know which floors to go on so no one will see them.”
“Anyone spending any time in that car park will know that nothing they’ve done here helps. Not to mention the inherent sexism of painting it pink.”
National Council of Women president Marion Ward told WA Today that she will stand by anything which makes women safer.
The official trial begins next week.
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One famous actor has admitted that in the year leading up to working with Meryl Streep on a new film, he was terrified of her.
So who is it?
Hugh Grant!
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In a new film called Florence Foster Jenkins about a tone-deaf operatic soprano, Grant played the role of Streep’s common-law husband and manager, St Clair Bayfield.
At the world premiere of the movie in London, Grant and Streep cozied up to each other in photos, but it wasn’t always like that with the Oscar-winning actress.
“I was terrified of her really and I signed up a year before we shot so I had a whole year of being frightened,” he said.
“I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming sometimes, thinking ‘I have to do hard emotional scenes against Meryl Streep. You have to raise your game.’”
He added: “She’s such an icon, it’s very odd to be in her orbit at all.”
The film is based on a true story. Despite facing mockery and criticism for her not-so-great voice, Jenkins sold out New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Grant says this ‘underdog’ theme might pull audiences in.
“Someone pointed out to me the other day that in things like Britain’s Got Talent they love the people that are really bad almost better than the people who are really good, so hopefully there is an audience for this film here,” he said.
“I can’t see how she wouldn’t have won, she really was a sensation in her day.”
“It’s quite something to fill Carnegie Hall when you can’t sing a note,” he continued.
Watch the trailer for Florence Foster Jenkins below:
It was bound to happen and yesterday in Panbari village on the border of the Kaziranga National Park, in faraway Assam, India, the Duchess of Cambridge admitted that the sight of the village’s little girls dancing made her sad and miss her daughter Princess Charlotte.
George was also on her mind and when the village elders sneakily asked why the royal couple hadn’t brought their children, Kate replied: “Because George is too naughty. He would be running all over the place. The next time we come we will definitely bring them.”
It is the first time the Duchess, 34, has been apart from her children for a prolonged period and since she and William have been here much of their time has been spent meeting India’s youngsters.
A sign erected at the entrance to this 1800 strong community read: “Welcome the Hon’ble Prince & Princess of UK to World Heritage Place Kaziranga and Panbari Village Thanks”.
Several hundred had villagers turned out for a glimpse of the couple, some wearing traditional Indian robes, others dressed in western clothes and taking pictures with their smart phones.
William and Kate, who was wearing a pink floral Topshop dress with black embroidery and her hair tied back in an elaborate bun, were met by “Headman” Dhurba Krishna Das, 32, who placed traditional white woven scarfs with red embroidery, called “gamchas” around their necks, as is customary in this region of Assam.
They were then led into the central building, which with its corrugated iron roof also doubles up as the village’s place of worship.
The couple were offered a bench to sit on as they took off their shoes – black wedges in Kate’s case and lace up beige suede shoes in William’s, before entering the humble prayer hall, where they sat on mats weaved from bamboo by local women, surrounded by villagers of all ages in traditional dress, including several young children and a suckling baby.
The scent of joss sticks filled the air as the elders told them how the community came to be living in such close proximity to the local elephant and rhino population in Kaziranga Park.
Sitting cross-legged, William asked: “How do the local people view the elephants and rhinos, are they considered sacred?” They were told the villagers “love” the elephants because they are happy to live alongside them and that sometimes they wander into the village.
The couple then met with members of the local community and were treated to a traditional dance performance, featuring a drummer band.
Next they went to a typical home and tea plantation nearby. At the house, which featured mud-daubed walls, they were greeted reverentially by Tilasha Das, 30, and his wife Utala, 25 who knelt down and touched the couple’s feet before they entered the premises.
Along with their daughters Anamika, eight, and Kumkum, five, and surrounded by extended family, neighbours and a pet black baby goat, they chatted to the Royal couple about life in the village and selling “char” at the local market. On their two small plantations, the Das family produce up to 60kg of tea a year.
The couple were then taken on a quick tour of the plantation by Mrs Das’s cousin Morami, 31, who heartily embraced the Duchess. “I hugged her because I love her. I think she’s very very pretty. She acts like a simple girl, not a princess,” said Morami afterwards.
Disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris will face a London court again on a further seven charges of indecent assault against women and girls.
The convicted sex offender also faces one alternative charge of sexual touching.
Last month the 86-year-old pleaded not guilty to all charges. He appeared in the Westminster Magistrates Court via video link from Stafford Prison where he is serving a term of nearly six years.
9News reports the charges relate to seven female complainants aged between 12 and 27 at the time of the alleged offences between 1971 and 2004, one of them a disabled woman at a hospital.
Harris’s case was referred to the Crown Court in Southwark, London, for a preliminary hearing on Thursday before trial.
After two long years Offspring is coming back and it needs a newborn star.
A recent online notice posted by the show’s production company, EndemolShine Australia said it was on the hunt for pregnant mums who want to kick off their bub’s acting career off super-duper early.
While it’s unclear which characters will be hearing the pitter patter of tiny feet, (Nina? Billie? That girl Elvis had a little dalliance with?) think about it mums, you’ll totally get the inside goss about what’s happening on the show – and when you know call us because two years has been way too long to keep us guessing!
Apparently the baby scenes are shooting around 25 April until July – so if you are due anytime between now and the end of July, you can apply by letting showrunners know your due date.
Comedian Eddie Murphy has revealed the newest edition to the Murphy clan will be a baby girl.
The 54-year-old stepped out with his girlfriend, Paige Butcher for a coffee run in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, where he revealed the big news to X17online.com.
“It’s a little girl,” he quipped when asked the gender of his unborn child.
This will make Eddie the proud father of nine children.
The 36-year-old Aussie meet Eddie over a decade ago on the set of Big Momma’s House 2.
While this is Paige’s first child, it will no doubt have a huge support in its eight half-siblings from Eddie’s side, with his children, aged between eight to 26, from four previous relationships.
The actor, who also has a child with former Spice Girl Mel B, is worth an estimated $85 million, but admits he doesn’t like the Hollywood lifestyle.
Eddie chatted to The Washington Post, revealing why many people think he is “reclusive”.
“You know why they think I’m reclusive?’ I don’t do the Hollywood stuff. I’ve never been on the circuit.”
He explained he’s happiest when he’s “hanging out at home with Paige and when his other kids visit, write and work on new songs in his recording studio”.
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