TV’s top interviewer has unmasked Defence Minister Kevin Andrews on ABC’s 7:30 report on Tuesday night.
The Defence Minister, who was on the program after the government announced they were sending 300 Australian Defence Force personnel to Iraq to help train Iraqi soldiers, could not name the leader of the Islamic State militant group despite being repeatedly asked by Leigh Sales.
After the Minister dodged her question multiple times by claiming there was “fluidity between groups”, Sales slammed Andrews who was appointed to head the Defence portfolio in December.
“Minister, you’re responsible for putting Australian men and women in harm’s way in the cause of this mission. I’m surprised that you can’t tell me the name of Islamic State’s leader. The US State Department has a $10 million bounty on his head?”
“Well, as I said, ISIL is a combination of groups, Leigh,” Minister Andrews said again.
“It’s not just one person involved: there’s a series of people involved and we must ultimately destroy all of them if we’re going to degrade their operations in that area.”
Just before ending the interview, Sales informed her interview subject that “The specific person to whom I have been referring is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”
Ouch.
ACTRESS Rita Wilson, who is married to two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks, has had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Wilson, 58, said the prognosis is good revealing she hopes to be back on Broadway next month.
In a statement to People magazine Wilson thanked her doctors. “I share this to educate others that a second opinion is critical to your health,” she wrote.
Wilson had been offered and agreed to have a reconstruction at the same time as her mastectomy, an option rarely given to Australian women, who often wait months for reconstructive surgery, if they get it at all.
Wilson married Hanks in 1988 and the couple have two children.
DID your parents let you walk home from primary school alone? What about trips to the park to play on the swings?
Yes, well, you can now get arrested for that.
Child protection officers in the US state of Maryland have launched a child neglect case after two children, aged 10 and six, were found alone in a park.
Officers are concerned that Rafi and Dvora are also allowed to walk home from school alone.
Their parents, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv, practice “free-range parenting” which Danielle describes as “parenting the way I was parented and the way that almost every adult I know was parented.”
The children often wear tags saying: “I am not lost” but that has not stopped neighbours from reporting them to police whenever they wander from home.
Local laws say children under eight must be in the care of somebody aged at least 13.
SOME 330 Australian troops will travel to Iraq today to fight the Islamic State (IS) group.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the deployment yesterday, explaining it was a training mission – not a combat mission.
The Prime Minister said it would be a two-year mission, where troops are put to work training Iraqi soldiers.
But he warned “it is a dangerous place and I can’t tell you that this is risk-free.”
IN an Australian first, Federal Court judge Michelle Gordon will replace her husband, Justice Kenneth Hayne on the High Court.
Justice Hayne, who has been on the bench since 1997, is due to retire when he reaches the compulsory retirement age of 70 in June.
His wife, Justice Gordon, who has been a lawyer, barrister and Federal Court judge sicne 2007, will replace him.
Justice Gordon will bring the number of women on the seven-member High Court bench to three.
Attorney-General George Brandis said Justice Gordon, who once worked in the same law firm as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, will bring ‘great strength’ to the High Court.
THE man convicted of throwing his beautiful young fiancée from the balcony of their luxury Sydney apartment is pushing ahead with plans to appeal.
Simon Gittany, 41, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty of tossing Lisa Harnum over a glass balustrade and onto a busy Sydney street.
The court found that he was enraged by Lisa’s decision to leave the controlling relationship and head home to her Mum in Canada.
Gittany signalled his intention to appeal immediately but now says he needs more time to get his case ready.
THE son of one of Australia’s most recognizable businessmen has been charged with assaulting his model girlfriend.
Dane Bouris, son of Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris, appeared in Waverley Court yesterday, charged with assaulting model Alexandra Dankwa.
Dane, a former Cleo Bachelor of the Year finalist who runs a Sydney pub company, is occasionally seen on his father’s Celebrity Apprentice show.
CELEBRITY scientist Dr Karl is said to know the answer to pretty much everything but can he explain why he’s appearing in ads for the Abbott government?
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Dr Karl (full name: Dr Karl Kruszelnicki) agreed to appear in the ads on TV and social media for the Intergenerational Report.
He doesn’t say how much in taxpayer dollars he was paid but now says that the report if flawed, and told the Herald: “The only reason I agreed to do it [promote the report] is because I was told that it would be independent, bipartisan and non-political.” That said, he hadn’t read it before signing on to spruik it.
IN news sure to strike fear into the hearts of late-blooming entrepreneurs everywhere, a woman in the UK has won the right to seek a financial settlement from her ex-husband, who became a multi-millionaire 30 years after their marriage broke up.
The Guardian reports that Kathleen Wyatt has lodged a claim against Dale Vince, who founded and runs the green energy company Ecotricity, after raising their son pretty much alone for 20 years. She wants £1.9 million, or about $3 million from Vince, whose business – wind farms – is said to be worth around $100 million.
The couple met in 1981, when she was 21 and he was 19, and lived on state benefits. They had a son, but broke up after just two years. Now the Supreme Court says Kathleen may have a claim on Vince’s fortune, because no settlement was reached at the time of their divorce and there is no statute of limitations.
OF COURSE when you shot your mother-in-law, you really meant to shoot an armadillo.
That is Larry McElroy’s story and he’s not only sticking to it, he’s got cops believing it.
Larry told police in the US state of Georgia that he shot an armadillo out of the kitchen window but the bullet ricocheted off the critter’s shell, and into the back of Carol Johnson, who is his 74-year-old mother-in-law. She wasn’t badly hurt.
Investigator Bill Smith is quoted as saying: “I really think if they’re going to shoot at varmints and whatnot, maybe use a shotgun” – not because that’s more likely to take your mother-in-law out, but because a shot gun has ‘a spread pattern with a lot less range.’
