Tim Cahill's inclusion in Australia's squad against Norway and Colombia was a nod to his historical importance but it would not guarantee him a World Cup spot.
Reported by Brisbane Times 11 minutes ago.
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Cahill is no World Cup certainty: van Marwijk
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BlackBerry to Announce Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2018 Results on March 28, 2018
WATERLOO, Ontario, March 14, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) (TSX:BB) will report results for the fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2018 at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday, March 28, 2018. The conference can be accessed by dialing 888-394-8218 or live streamed on the company’s website at http://ca.blackberry.com/company/investors/events.html.A replay of the conference call will be available at approximately 11 a.m. ET on March 28 by dialing 888-203-1112 and entering Conference ID #5199837. It will also be available at the link above.
*About BlackBerry
*BlackBerry is a cybersecurity software and services company dedicated to securing the enterprise of things. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company was founded in 1984 and operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa. The Company trades under the ticker symbols “BB” on the Toronto Stock Exchange and “BB” on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.
*Investor Contact:*
BlackBerry Investor Relations
519-888-7465
investor_relations@BlackBerry.com
*Media Contact:*
BlackBerry Media Relations
519-597-7273
mediarelations@BlackBerry.com
Reported by GlobeNewswire 8 minutes ago.
*About BlackBerry
*BlackBerry is a cybersecurity software and services company dedicated to securing the enterprise of things. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company was founded in 1984 and operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa. The Company trades under the ticker symbols “BB” on the Toronto Stock Exchange and “BB” on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.
*Investor Contact:*
BlackBerry Investor Relations
519-888-7465
investor_relations@BlackBerry.com
*Media Contact:*
BlackBerry Media Relations
519-597-7273
mediarelations@BlackBerry.com
Reported by GlobeNewswire 8 minutes ago.
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Perth baker made plenty of dough smuggling two tonnes of tobacco
Iraqi born Perth bakery owner imported more than two tonnes of tobacco illegally into Australia, defrauding the Commonwealth to the tune of almost $2 million.
Reported by Brisbane Times 15 minutes ago.
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World’s First Portable Fingerprint Drug Test Now Available in Australia and New Zealand
LONDON & MELBOURNE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The world's first portable fingerprint-based drug test is now available in Australia and New Zealand following a new distribution agreement.
Reported by Business Wire 22 minutes ago.
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Australia considers visas for white South African farmers
A diplomatic spat erupts after Australia says white farmers need "help from a civilised country".
Reported by BBC News 1 day ago.
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The best SIM-only plans in Australia (Updated March 2018)
Reported by TechRadar 22 hours ago.
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Bath Rugby have signed Wales and Lions centre Jamie Roberts from Harlequins
The 31-year-old has toured South Africa and Australia with the Lions
Reported by Blackmore Vale 22 hours ago.
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Motor racing: Ocon focuses on future after the fireworks
LONDON (Reuters) - Esteban Ocon says Force India need have no concerns about any repeat of last year's clashes between him and Mexican team mate Sergio Perez when the Formula One season starts in Australia next week.
Reported by Reuters 19 hours ago.
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Motor racing: F1 rookie Leclerc steps up to the big time
LONDON (Reuters) - Charles Leclerc will have two men in mind, their memories living on as a source of strength and support, when he makes his Formula One race debut for Sauber in Australia next week.
Reported by Reuters 19 hours ago.
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It’s time to take back control of migration – and auction visas
Crunch time is approaching.As the UK edges closer to leaving the European Union with a commitment to end freedom of movement, home secretary Amber Rudd must set out Britain’s post-Brexit immigration policy.
We need a grown-up debate on immigration but too often, instinct instead of evidence has guided the discussion.
*Read more*: More Cabinet infighting over delayed Immigration Bill
Pundits claim that immigrants depress wages and steal jobs, yet multiple studies find that immigrants have had little impact on jobs and pay.
There is some evidence that immigrants lower wages for the lowest paid, but this impact is small at most. King’s College London’s Jonathan Portes points out that the best estimate of the impact of EU migration since 2004 amounts to a reduction in annual pay rises of about a penny an hour for the lowest paid workers.
Others worry that migrants will be a drain on the public purse, but they pay in significantly more than they take out. The NHS may be under strain, but research from Oxford University finds no evidence that migrants lengthen average wait times.
So what should Britain do?
Rolling EU migration into the current non-EU system is a non-starter. It might allow the Prime Minister meet her much maligned “tens of thousands” net migration target, but it would come at significant economic cost, creating acute labour shortages for employers and pushing up prices for consumers.
The home secretary has the unenviable task of filtering through a range of unconventional proposals, from “barista visas” as proposed by Migration Watch UK, to Policy Exchange’s suggestion that migrants working anti-social hours be given special preference.
It is easy to mock either suggestion, but they highlight a real problem. Whitehall is ill-equipped to determine the sectors and jobs where workers are most needed.
The Prime Minister has already ruled out the Australian-style points based system advocated by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in the EU Referendum.
Theresa May’s objection is that points systems facilitate rather than restrict migration. But there are other problems. It would rely on the government, rather than employers, assessing the UK’s employment needs. In fact, Australia and Canada are moving away from pure points-based systems due to their tendency to attract workers who look great “on paper” but in practice are poor fits.
Rather than doling out visas to those industries that lobby the hardest, we should sell work permits to the employers that bid the most. If immigration numbers are to be restricted, we should use the best tool we have for allocating scarce resources to their highest value uses: the price mechanism.
Under our proposal, businesses would bid for a limited supply of work visas. Once an employer is in possession of a permit, she would be free to hire any foreign worker, conditional upon security checks. Permits would be tradeable between employers and workers would be free to move across employers with valid permits.
The Migration Advisory Committee would advise, or ideally set, the number of visas auctioned, and there would be separate auctions for high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants. The proposal would only apply to economic migrants – there would still be other paths to the UK for students, refugees, and family reunification.
The key advantage of relying on market-determined prices rather bureaucrat-decided points is that they ensure that visas go to the employers that value foreign talent the most. And by allowing firms to buy and sell visas post-auction, employers can flexibly adapt to changing economic conditions.
Changes in permit prices would act as a signal to increase or reduce the numbers of permits available in auctions in future years.
Auctions would also raise revenue that could be used to directly address voters’ concerns about immigrants placing additional strain on public services, or to top up the wages of low-paid workers through tax credits.
Some argue that this is unfair. Yet almost any restriction on economic migration could be construed as unfair. This proposal at least ensures that the migrants who can make the greatest economic contribution to the UK are prioritised.
Others may object that this proposal is morally repugnant. When the Migration Advisory Committee suggested auctioning investment visas, one lawyer complained that it would create “an EBay culture”.
Yet money already changes hands. Employers pay an Immigration Skills Charge and workers can pay upwards of £1,000 in visa application fees. Thousands more goes to immigration lawyers.
An auction system would allow the government to streamline the process, make it more responsive to the needs of businesses, and capture funds currently spent on legal costs.
We have a unique opportunity to create an immigration system that boosts the economy and restores trust. We should seize it.
*Read more*: Immigration is still a headache for ministers Reported by City A.M. 18 hours ago.
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Same-sex adoption is now legal everywhere in Australia
Congratulations!
Reported by PinkNews 12 hours ago.
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Chris Rogers: Ex-Australia opener joins Gloucestershire coaching staff
BBC Local News: Gloucestershire -- Ex-Australia Test opener Chris Rogers joins Gloucestershire's coaching staff for the first two months of the season.
Reported by BBC Local News 12 hours ago.
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Australia considers visa offer for white South African farmers
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to power last month, has vowed to 'escalate the pace' of redistributing land from wealthy whites to poorer blacks.
Reported by MailOnline 9 hours ago.
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Australia considers visas for white South African farmers, claiming they need help from 'civilised country'
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton says group face 'horrific circumstances'. But South Africa's foreign ministry insists 'threat does not exist'
Reported by Independent 8 hours ago.
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Geordie Shore cast 2018: Who are new stars Dee Nguyen, Alex MacPherson, Nick Murdoch and Grant Molloy?
Geordie Shore cast 2018: The MTV show is set to return to screens later this year [WENN] The show is set to return later this year for season 17, which is currently being filmed in Australia. Geordie Shore fans have been left devastated as many of the original cast members, including Charlotte Crosby, Holly Hagan and Gaz Beadle have quit the show in the past few years. But luckily for viewers, four new cast members will be joining the likes of Chloe Ferry and Sophie Kasaei on the ...
Reported by OK! 6 hours ago.
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First World War letters to be reunited with family - in Australia
The family were delighted to hear about the letters after a Tamworth Herald appeal
Reported by Tamworth Herald 7 hours ago.
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Tinder feed shows recent activity of your potential dates
Originally launched as a trial in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, the dating service quietly rolled feed out to all users worldwide today.
Reported by MailOnline 3 hours ago.
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No country for rugby men? How tiki-taka put Spain on the cusp of World Cup
Former flanker turned Hollywood star Javier Bardem once described playing rugby in Spain as “like being a bullfighter in Japan”.Despite its proximity to the relative European rugby powerhouses of France and Italy, the sight of a cauliflower-eared back rower in the land of Real Madrid and Barcelona would be as incongruous as a traditionally-clothed Matador in the land of the rising sun, so argued the actor who played for his country at junior level.
Yet this weekend could see Spain firmly established as a country for rugby after all. The national team travel to Brussels on Sunday to play Belgium in the Rugby Europe Championship — effectively a second-tier Six Nations — where a win will see them qualify for the Rugby World Cup for the first time since 1999 and only the second time ever.
Last weekend, 16,000 fans including King Felipe VI lined the grassy banks of Spain’s quaint national rugby stadium in Madrid to revel in their national side’s 84-10 hammering of Germany.
Los Leones’ 12-try rout followed last month’s crucial 22-10 victory over Romania, just their third over the East Europeans in 33 meetings. Now Spain travel to Belgium knowing a win would see them leapfrog Romania at the top of World Rugby’s qualifying standings and become Japan’s opposition in the opening game of next year’s World Cup.
*Read more:* Why the European Champions Cup is going to Bilbao
The King’s presence, the team’s success and a potential place at rugby’s flagship tournament has all led to an unprecedented level of attention on the sport. “The Lion King” was the front page headline of Monday’s edition of Spain’s most widely-read daily newspaper Marca, which afforded the rugby team top billing for the first time in its history.
Head coach Santiago Santos believes this is a rubicon moment for rugby’s popularity in Spain.Spain have recorded impressive victories over Germany and Romania this year (Source: Getty)
“It’s incredible for us to have the King and more than 15,000 people at the stadium,” he told City A.M.
“To put that in context, the last time the King of Spain came to watch our national rugby team was the grandfather of our current King in 1929. That is a good measure of how big rugby is becoming in Spain. When the King goes to watch rugby, it means rugby is becoming important in Spanish society.”
It’s not just the national team that has earned Spanish rugby royal attention. A tipping point arrived in 2016 when Spain beat Samoa to qualify for the Olympic Sevens tournament in Rio. Earlier that year Barcelona became the setting for the largest crowd for a domestic rugby match when 90,000 filled the Camp Nou to watch Racing 92 beat Toulon in the French Top 14 final, while a record crowd of 26,500 fans turned out for that year’s Copa del Rey de Rugby final in the relative rugby hotbed of Valladolid.
*Read more:* Premiership clubs can boost bank accounts in USA but international rugby's sleeping giant needs multi-billionaire backer for real growth
Another sell-out crowd is expected at the 53,000 capacity San Mames Stadium in Bilbao for this year’s European Champions Cup final, yet the growth is not limited to spectators. The number of registered players and clubs has soared since the World Cup appearance in 1999. There are now 34,232 players and 299 clubs across all 16 regions of Spain.
“The key issue now is not just to achieve qualification for the World Cup, but also to put ourselves in a position to do the same in 2023 so it doesn’t just become something that happens every 20 years,” general secretary of the Spanish Rugby Federation Eliseo Patron-Costas told City A.M.
Part of that growth strategy has been to introduce rugby as an inclusive sport, free from some of the class associations that come with the sport in countries like England, Australia or Argentina.
*Read more:* Rugby stadiums of the future - Suites with dressing room views, ghost replays and birds-eye view seats
“University rugby is still a strong movement but the challenge for us was to spread and increase the number of clubs,” says Patron-Costas. “A lot of former international rugby players only started to play rugby in university. Now, a lot of the players are starting to play at ages like six to eight like in other countries.
“But that more elitist club structure like in Argentina, we don’t have it here. We don’t look at which neighbourhood players come from or who their parents are.”
As head coach, Santos has been similarly keen to establish a distinctly Spanish flavour for his side. Unlike fellow second-tier Europeans Georgia and Romania, traditionally associated with a strong scrum and attritional rugby, Spain have adopted the “tiki-taka” possession philosophy of their all-conquering cousins in football.
“We want to play a very quick game,” says Santos.
“We don’t want to kick. We want to keep the ball alive, to play with the ball in hand, with fast rucks, a lot of offloads.
“I think it’s inspired by the football way of playing in Spain. To keep the ball, to keep playing, the tiki-taka of the Spanish football team. We are inspired by the same principles of play; if you are able to keep the ball and move fast, it is difficult for the defence to adjust.
“Being in Spain, you learn a lot as a coach from people like [Pep] Guardiola and the Spanish style of football. We take a lot of ideas from that and bring them to rugby.”
While the Spanish football team are expected to win the World Cup, the rugby team will be heroes just for qualifying. Beat Belgium on Sunday, and few will expect much more against Scotland, Ireland and Japan in Pool A next year.
After all, establishing bullfighting in Japan is some achievement in itself. Reported by City A.M. 3 hours ago.
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Two LNG Giants Race For The Same Gas
Two of the biggest LNG projects in the world are due to start production this year, both offshore Australia: Japanese Inpex’s US$34-billion Ichthys development, and Shell’s US$14-billion Prelude FLNG project. The projects are adjacent to each other, and according to Wood Mackenzie analysts, the Ichthys and Prelude may actually draw gas from the very same reservoir—turning the two into rivals in what is now a race to see who can get to the LNG first. According to one analyst, this winner of this race could have huge implications…
Reported by OilPrice.com 2 hours ago.
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Ollie Phillips: Haskell is who you need when chips are down
Like a phoenix from the ashes, flanker James Haskell keeps returning to the England team after people have written him off.He’s back starting at openside on Saturday for Ireland’s visit to Twickenham and this is just the type of moment and game where he tends to show his talent – cometh the hour, cometh the man.
England need a win to prevent Ireland from claiming a Grand Slam on their own turf, avoid a third consecutive loss and ensure they don’t finish the Six Nations in fifth place.
Ireland, meanwhile, come to Twickenham with the expectation and pressure upon them to deliver and that is a totally different scenario to anything they’ve been typically used to.
A wounded England is a dangerous prospect for any team. Some of the criticism that has come their way has been a little bit too harsh and they’ll have been hurt by that.
What happened in Dublin a year ago, when Ireland denied England a Grand Slam of their own, will live long in the memory and Eddie Jones’s men will want their revenge.
Haskell can lead that and spearhead their charge from the front and, by ruining Ireland’s day, the Wasps man can stake a claim for a permanent return to the England back row.
*Read more*: Haskell holds onto England recall dream
Since the 2016 tour of Australia, when England whitewashed the Wallabies and Haskell was the main man, he’s never had a consistent run in the side after sustaining a very nasty toe injury which would have finished most players.
But Haskell is the one person and the one player who you can never underestimate. The 32-year-old is the most professional player I’ve ever played with and he works so hard at his game. Hask is a colourful character and he sometimes gets a bad reputation because of that. He’s one of those personalities that rugby loves and loathes.
*Read more*: Lewis Moody interview - No need to panic, England's slump in form is actually a positive
But after two losses you don’t want the atmosphere to be all doom and gloom, with the pressure getting on top of you.
It’s not just joking around for the sake of it with Haskell. There’s a purpose to it. It helps to break that veil of pressure, but underneath it all is a seriously driven, professional and hard-working individual.
What Haskell does phenomenally well is he leaves nothing to chance and throws it all out on the field. This game is made for him to do exactly that; to be the disruptive force he can be.
He is still one of England’s best back-row forwards and this weekend is an opportunity for him to lay a marker in the sand and say: This is what you’ve been missing and this is why I need to feature in the World Cup.
Ollie Phillips is a former England Sevens captain and now a director at PwC, focusing on organisational, cultural and technological change.
Reported by City A.M. 57 minutes ago.
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