Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Black-veined whites, thought to have died out in 1920s, have seemingly returned due to warmer climate When they last roamed England in 1925, they counted Winston Churchill as a fan. Now, black-veined whites – an extremely rare species of British butterfly – have been spotted fluttering once again. Small numbers of the black and white insects have been spotted in fields and hedgerows in south-east London, nearly a century after the species was thought to have become extinct in the UK. Continue reading...

Follow the day’s news live Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Business groups argue ‘same job, same pay’ laws would disadvantage workers I mentioned a little earlier that business groups have glommed together to launch a campaign against the federal government’s proposed “same job, same pay” industrial relations laws. The so-called ‘Same Job, Same Pay’ proposals does not mean equal pay for men and women. It does not speak of fairness and justice, as its name falsely represents. It means by law, employers will have to pay workers with little knowledge or experience exactly the same as workers with decades of knowledge and experience. Without a real threat of losing passengers to other airlines, the Qantas and Virgin Australia airline groups have had less incentive to offer attractive airfares, develop more direct routes, operate more reliable services, and invest in systems to provide high levels of customer service. Continue reading...

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were killed in a region where 23 Indigenous groups live – and we all face the same danger Among my people, the Marubo, knowledge is transmitted through oral history, passed down by elders throughout the centuries. For many generations these stories described the approach of people we call nawas – outsiders who always brought misfortune, usually in search of natural resources from the forests we inhabit. My ancestors spoke of Catholic missionaries from Spain and Portugal, of Peruvian rubber barons and logging companies. The stories my generation tells are of fundamentalist evangelical missionaries, illegal miners and fishing gangs bankrolled by drug trafficking networks. Continue reading...

Deteriorating conditions and other whales in area south of Sydney hampered attempts, say rescuers A humpback whale trapped in waters south of Sydney has finally been freed after a gruelling eight-hour rescue mission. Rescue efforts began on Saturday morning after reports of a whale in distress off Five Islands near Port Kembla. Volunteer crews from Marine Rescue NSW and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service were called to assist at about 8.30am. Continue reading...