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Australia Bans Vietnam Traveler as Pig Germ Looms in Luggage BloombergView full coverage on Google NewsA search is under way to find a boa constrictor snake believed to be "at large" in a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
The skin of the 2.5m-long (8.2ft) snake was found at a building site in the town of Silverdale in New South Wales.
A professional snake handler was called on 4 October to inspect the skin, found hanging from wooden planks.
The snake, an invasive species originating from South America, could be dangerous to children and pets.
It is illegal to keep boa constrictors, non-venomous snakes which use their hooked teeth to trap and suffocate prey, outside of zoos in Australia.
The local government in New South Wales has warned residents of an "adult boa constrictor at large" in the Cascades area of Silverdale.
In a letter, the government said it was "in the process of trying to locate and capture the animal and is requesting that residents be on the lookout for it and to report any sightings".
Sean Cade, of Australian Snake Catchers, said he was called to the building site by a concerned homeowner, but was unable to locate the reptile.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Cade, 48, said the snake - which can devour prey "four times the size of its stomach" - poses a potential threat to children and pets in the area.
"This thing would take a full-sized kangaroo mate, no problem," Mr Cade said. "The fear is that a young kid will be playing in the back yard, and this snake will mosey on up."
One theory, Mr Cade said, was that the snake had escaped from its enclosure, which may have been left open.
"It's definitely dangerous to animals, particularly dogs or cats," Mr Cade said.
"What happens with these snakes is that they are fed rabbits and guinea pigs. So if people have rabbits and guinea pigs as pets in their backyards, the snake is going to be looking for that."
Mr Cade said the snake had "more than likely been bred in Australia" and kept as an illegal pet.
Boa constrictors are considered to be one of the world's largest snakes, with an average length of around 3m and weight of 10-15kg (22-33lb).
The species originates from Central and South America, including northern Mexico and north-western Argentina.
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A search is under way to find a boa constrictor snake believed to be "at large" in a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
The skin of the 2.5m-long (8.2ft) snake was found at a building site in the town of Silverdale in New South Wales.
A professional snake handler was called on 4 October to inspect the skin, found hanging from wooden planks.
The snake, an invasive species originating from South America, could be dangerous to children and pets.
It is illegal to keep boa constrictors, non-venomous snakes which use their hooked teeth to trap and suffocate prey, outside of zoos in Australia.
The local government in New South Wales has warned residents of an "adult boa constrictor at large" in the Cascades area of Silverdale.
In a letter, the government said it was "in the process of trying to locate and capture the animal and is requesting that residents be on the lookout for it and to report any sightings".
Sean Cade, of Australian Snake Catchers, said he was called to the building site by a concerned homeowner, but was unable to locate the reptile.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Cade, 48, said the snake - which can devour prey "four times the size of its stomach" - poses a potential threat to children and pets in the area.
"This thing would take a full-sized kangaroo mate, no problem," Mr Cade said. "The fear is that a young kid will be playing in the back yard, and this snake will mosey on up."
One theory, Mr Cade said, was that the snake had escaped from its enclosure, which may have been left open.
"It's definitely dangerous to animals, particularly dogs or cats," Mr Cade said.
"What happens with these snakes is that they are fed rabbits and guinea pigs. So if people have rabbits and guinea pigs as pets in their backyards, the snake is going to be looking for that."
Mr Cade said the snake had "more than likely been bred in Australia" and kept as an illegal pet.
Boa constrictors are considered to be one of the world's largest snakes, with an average length of around 3m and weight of 10-15kg (22-33lb).
The species originates from Central and South America, including northern Mexico and north-western Argentina.
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A man who was wrongfully jailed for 19 years over the murder of a senior Australian policeman has received A$7m (£3.7m; $4.8m) in compensation.
David Eastman received a life term in 1995 for the killing six years earlier of Colin Winchester, an Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner.
He was later freed after a court ruled he had had an unfair trial. He was acquitted in a second trial last year.
Mr Winchester's murder remains unsolved.
His killing rocked the legal and political establishment and sparked one of the nation's largest-ever criminal investigations.
Mr Eastman, 74, had earlier rejected A$3.8m compensation offer from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government.
In earlier hearings, the ACT Supreme Court heard that Mr Eastman had lost the opportunity to have a family and a career because of his imprisonment. His mother and two younger siblings had also died during that time.
"He has lost a significant chunk of his life," his lawyer, Sam Tierney, said outside the ACT Supreme Court on Monday.
Mr Winchester was shot twice in the head outside his family home in Canberra, the nation's capital. He remains the most senior police officer to have been murdered in Australia.
Mr Eastman, then a public servant, was identified early on as a suspect because he had allegedly sent threats to police over the handling of an earlier criminal matter.
After being imprisoned, Mr Eastman spent 19 years fighting his conviction - launching appeals in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2008, all of which failed.
But he successfully argued to be released in 2014 after a judicial inquiry ruled that he had suffered a "substantial miscarriage of justice" due to flaws in police evidence that was used at his trial.
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A second trial held last year, involving more than 100 witnesses, led to Mr Eastman being acquitted.
He launched his compensation claim shortly afterwards.
SYDNEY — Australian tax authorities know where to find their man — living in a gilded quasi-exile in Hong Kong.
They also know what they want. That would be back taxes of 140 million Australian dollars, or about $100 million.
Yet there’s more than just a mega-tax bill at the center of the case into Huang Xiangmo, a Chinese-born tycoon with a penchant for living large and spending big in political circles — including once dropping off a political donation worth about $70,000 in a supermarket shopping bag.
The investigation is widely seen as a potential deep dive into pro-Beijing networks and influence-peddling in Australia, which is struggling to balance its trade dependency with China and its older military and intelligence-sharing ties with the United States.
It also illustrates an awkward consequence of the explosion of Chinese capital around the world. Western countries have embraced the wealthy foreign investors from China but are discovering that many remain loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and its political agenda.
Beijing’s influence is becoming a particularly acute concern in Australia, which has a large Chinese population and whose mineral and natural gas companies have major export markets in China.
For the past two years, the suspected influence by Beijing has been an almost constant source of political and media debate — including intimidation tactics by pro-Beijing students from China on campuses, and politicians from all sides who may have been links to Chinese investment interests.
[Trump sought help with Mueller probe. He saw a friend in Australia’s Morrison.]
“Trying to collect 140 million [Australian dollars] is an exercise that’s well and good,” said David Chaikin, a former head of law enforcement and security in the international division of Australia’s attorney general’s department. “But the national security is worth more than 140 million.”
A court has frozen Huang’s remaining Australian assets, and his Australian visa has been canceled. Huang, also known as Changran Huang, now appears to live in Hong Kong, where he owns a $66 million apartment, according to court documents.
Having made a fortune in property development in the Chaoshan area of southern China, Huang moved to Australia in 2013 and invested in shopping malls, apartment buildings and offices.
He bought a beautiful house in one of Sydney’s most affluent suburbs, became a benefactor to prominent charities and educational institutions, and was appointed leader of several groups close to China’s United Front Work Department, a group with close ties to Beijing’s leaders that seeks to muzzle any opposition to the one-party state and its policies, said Alex Joske, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Huang’s wealth and generous political donations made him a popular guest at fundraisers with senior politicians, including Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister from 2015 to 2018, Julie Bishop, the foreign minister from 2013 to 2018, and Bill Shorten, the former leader of the opposition Labor Party. Shorten attended Huang’s daughter’s wedding in Sydney three years ago.
Huang’s high profile and access to powerful people attracted the interest of the intelligence services, too.
In 2016, a Labor Party politician, Sam Dastyari, warned Huang that his phone was likely being monitored by government agencies, a warning that ended Dastyari’s political career when the call was revealed by the Sydney Morning Herald a year later.
Huang’s involvement with pro-Beijing organizations and contact with senior politicians has fed speculation that he was pushing policies favored by the Chinese government.
Even Turnbull, when he was prime minister, suggested that Huang’s donations had led Dastyari to side with China in its international disputes over the South China Sea, where China’s claims of full sovereignty are strongly opposed by the United States and its allies.
Huang could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, wife and son did not respond to email requests seeking comment.
[How a conservative Australian town rallied for family facing deportation]
In 2015, Huang personally delivered 100,000 Australian dollars — worth about $70,000 and held together with rubber bands — to the Labor Party head office in the state of New South Wales.
Political contributions by property developers are banned in the state. When a legal inquiry in Sydney last month revealed the donation, the party’s top administrative official was forced to resign.
Huang refused to give evidence in the inquiry, and a donation-disclosure filing asserted that the money came from 10 employees at a Sydney Chinese restaurant where he had dined with Shorten and other Labor politicians.
When investigators ordered one of Huang’s executives, Leo Liao, to answer questions in person about the money, he committed suicide. In a note to his wife and daughter, Liao said the summons triggered memories of his father being interrogated in China.
“Eventually he ended in jail,” he wrote. “It was petrifying.”
Australian officials are apparently collecting information about Huang’s wider network in Australia.
Ross Babbage, a former head of strategic analysis at the Office of National Assessments, an Australian intelligence agency, said that “there may be an interest in official circles in using such a prosecution to uncloak some of the realities” of the Chinese Communist Party reach in Australia.
Reports submitted by tax officials to the court said that Huang had declared less than $35,000 in assets outside Australia and claimed earnings of about $1 million from 2012 to 2015. The tax office claims he generated about $120 million in income over the same period.
Huang’s lawyer has denied in court that his client owes the money.
The government canceled Huang’s visa the day after he left for China in December 2018. Huang’s wife, Jiefang, left Australia on Sept. 11, the day she and her husband were hit with the tax bill, according to government records.
Five days later a federal court froze the Huangs’ assets in Australia up to the value of $100 million, even though the judge, Anna Katzmann, said that it was unclear whether there was that much money left and that the debt couldn’t be enforced in Hong Kong.
“The amount of the tax liability is considerable and there is a real danger that, without the freezing orders, assets will be removed from Australia or otherwise dissipated,” Katzmann wrote in the judgment.
Huang has severed ties with his Australian business, Yuhu Group, which has extensive real estate assets and is run by his son, Jimmy. Yuhu officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more
China’s influence on campus chills free speech in Australia, New Zealand
Threat from China recalls that of Nazi Germany, Australian lawmaker says
China accuses Australian writer Yang Hengjun of espionage
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
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A British-Australian woman and her Australian boyfriend have been released from an Iranian jail, Australia's government has said.
Jolie King and Mark Firkin were detained in Tehran earlier this year for reportedly flying a drone without a permit while on a trip across Asia.
A second British-Australian, university lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert, is still in prison.
Australia's foreign minister said talks to secure her release were ongoing.
Marise Payne told reporters that it was "with some enormous relief" that she could announce Jolie King and Mark Firkin "have been released and returned".
The pair were detained after entering Iran as part of a major trip across Asia to the UK - they were blogging about it for thousands of followers on social media.
Meanwhile, Australia released an Iranian student, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, back to Tehran, according to the country's semi-official news agency Fars.
He had been arrested in September 2018 for allegedly sending American-made military equipment to Iran.
Australia's Attorney General Christian Porter said extradition decisions were made on a "case by case" basis.
In what he said was a longstanding policy, Mr Porter declined to give further details about the decision, saying it could "diminish our government's capacity to deal with future matters of this type in Australia's best interests".
According to Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne, Ms Moore-Gilbert remains in prison in Tehran, where she has been for almost a year having reportedly been given a 10-year sentence.
"Very long-term negotiations" were taking place to secure the release of the Cambridge-educated academic, Ms Payne added.
Ms Moore-Gilbert was most recently a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University.
Earlier, Fars reported that the Islamic Republic's judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Esmayeeli confirmed Ms Moore-Gilbert, Ms King and Mr Firkin had all been detained for spying.
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The two British-Australian women were believed to be the first British passport holders without dual Iranian nationality to be held in the country in recent years.
Their detention echoes that of British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been imprisoned since 2016 after being convicted of spying, which she denies.
On Friday it was announced that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe would allow her daughter Gabriella, five, to return to the UK to begin schooling.
The mother and daughter were said by family to have travelled together to Iran to visit relatives before she was detained.
As well as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a number of other dual UK-Iranian citizens are being detained in Iran.
Iran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the numbers of dual nationals in custody.
But they do include businessman and wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz, who also has US citizenship and was arrested in a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018, and Kameel Ahmady, a social anthropologist, who has been in custody since August.
Anousheh Ashouri, a British-Iranian dual national, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Tehran after being convicted of spying for Israel.
Aras Amiri, 33, a UK resident who works for the British Council in London, was held in March 2018 on a visit to her unwell grandmother. This year Ms Amiri lost an appeal against a jail term for spying, and her British fiancé, James Tyson, told the BBC she was being used as a "bargaining chip" by Iran's government.
A British-Australian woman and her Australian boyfriend have been released from an Iranian jail, Australia's government has said.
Jolie King and Mark Firkin were detained in Tehran earlier this year for reportedly flying a drone without a permit while on a trip across Asia.
A second British-Australian, university lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert, is still in prison.
Australia's foreign minister said talks to secure her release were ongoing.
Marise Payne told reporters that it was "with some enormous relief" that she could announce Jolie King and Mark Firkin "have been released and returned".
The pair were detained after entering Iran as part of a major trip across Asia to the UK - they were blogging about it for thousands of followers on social media.
Meanwhile, Australia released an Iranian student, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, back to Tehran, according to the country's semi-official news agency Fars.
He had been arrested in September 2018 for allegedly sending American-made military equipment to Iran.
Australia's Attorney General Christian Porter said extradition decisions were made on a "case by case" basis.
In what he said was a longstanding policy, Mr Porter declined to give further details about the decision, saying it could "diminish our government's capacity to deal with future matters of this type in Australia's best interests".
According to Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne, Ms Moore-Gilbert remains in prison in Tehran, where she has been for almost a year having reportedly been given a 10-year sentence.
"Very long-term negotiations" were taking place to secure the release of the Cambridge-educated academic, Ms Payne added.
Ms Moore-Gilbert was most recently a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University.
Earlier, Fars reported that the Islamic Republic's judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Esmayeeli confirmed Ms Moore-Gilbert, Ms King and Mr Firkin had all been detained for spying.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
The two British-Australian women were believed to be the first British passport holders without dual Iranian nationality to be held in the country in recent years.
Their detention echoes that of British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been imprisoned since 2016 after being convicted of spying, which she denies.
On Friday it was announced that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe would allow her daughter Gabriella, five, to return to the UK to begin schooling.
The mother and daughter were said by family to have travelled together to Iran to visit relatives before she was detained.
As well as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a number of other dual UK-Iranian citizens are being detained in Iran.
Iran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the numbers of dual nationals in custody.
But they do include businessman and wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz, who also has US citizenship and was arrested in a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018, and Kameel Ahmady, a social anthropologist, who has been in custody since August.
Anousheh Ashouri, a British-Iranian dual national, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Tehran after being convicted of spying for Israel.
Aras Amiri, 33, a UK resident who works for the British Council in London, was held in March 2018 on a visit to her unwell grandmother. This year Ms Amiri lost an appeal against a jail term for spying, and her British fiancé, James Tyson, told the BBC she was being used as a "bargaining chip" by Iran's government.
