Australian News seen Internationally

[Super Nova]

A thread to share the news in the international press.

[Super Nova]

WTF

Australian authorities expose nation's worst case of 'intergenerational incest'


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ncest.html

The case came to light after locals spotted malnourished children in a valley who were not attending school

Authorities in Australia have not revealed the name of the family or the location of the camp, though it is understood to be south-west of Sydney.

Twelve children have been removed from a camp in a remote bushland area in Australia after authorities exposed a horrific case of incest involving several generations of the same family.

Labelled the worst instance of incest in the nation's history, the case was exposed after locals spotted malnourished children in a valley who were not attending school. It involved 40 adults and children from four generations who lived in squalid caravans, tents and sheds about 20 miles from the nearest town.

Twelve children ranging in age from five to 16 years old were found in the camp, eleven of whom came from related parents. One child said he and his siblings were told never to tell anyone that their father was their grandfather.

The incest dated back decades and the children belonged to five different mothers, including three sisters aged 47, 46 and 33 who slept with their brother. Some of the children could not speak intelligibly, were shy and developmentally delayed, had poor hearing and sight, and were incapable of using a toothbrush, toilet paper or washing themselves. Some reportedly had physical deformities caused by having parents with identical gene patterns.

The other two mothers included a daughter of one of the sisters and were both found to be born from related parents. One of these mothers had a child who died of Zellweger syndrome, a rare genetic disease.

Genetic testing showed the incest may have been repeated over generations and involved children as young as five. There was no suggestion the families were part of a religious cult.

Authorities in Australia have not revealed the name of the family or the location of the camp, though it is understood to be south-west of Sydney near a town of 2000 people.

The sets of families apparently derived from a couple who married in New Zealand in 1966 and moved to Australia in the 1970s. As the group grew larger, it moved around Australia to avoid detection.

Since being taken into care, children as young as eight have revealed they have been sexually abused by underage siblings and cousins.

The children were discovered last year after police raided the camp, which had no electricity or running water. Locals had alerted authorities after observing several children who were not attending school. After the raid, one police officer told colleagues she would never recover from what she observed.

Locals said the families lived on an isolated farm but the men worked in the district and family members would shop in the town.

"Apart from the noise of the chainsaws, they didn't really worry us," a neighbour told The Sydney Morning Herald. "I knew there were children living up there, but I never heard any noise of laughing or playing."

The Children's Court in the state of New South Wales said there was evidence of "intergenerational incest" and ordered that the children be removed from the camp. They have since been placed with foster parents.

Authorities in the state of Victoria have also removed children from a related family which was not living in the camp.

The parents have been ordered to stay away from the children and one of the mothers has been charged after attempting to remove her child from care.

The children have come forward with harrowing reports of abuse. A 13-year-old girl reported sexual contact with her uncle, aged 9, while her aunt, aged 8, watched on. Two sisters aged 7 and 9 reported sexual contact with their brothers, aged 12, 14 and 15.

Four of the mothers have disputed the genetic evidence and insisted the children were from unrelated fathers. The men named as fathers were reportedly all dead or could not be located.

[IQS.RLOW]

I see someone found Wayne Swans extended family.

[Super Nova]

Now I am going to have some fun with the Kiwi's here in the UK.

Ii really pisses them off when I tell them they are just really another state of Australia...... an extension of Australia.

Now their sacred bird is an Aussie........ what fun.....

How the Kiwi could be Australian and not from New Zealand

Research suggests New Zealand's flightless bird and unofficial national symbol, the kiwi, "flew over" from the nation's arch rival, Australia

New Zealand's kiwi, the flightless bird which has become synonymous with its soldiers, the All Blacks rugby team and its entire citizenry, may have descended from an ancestor which flew over from the country's arch rival, Australia.



In a finding that is likely to confirm the long-held New Zealand belief that Australia lays claim to all its famous creatures – from the racehorse Phar Lap to actor Russell Crowe – new research suggests the kiwi shared an ancestor with Australia's giant flightless bird, the emu.

Trevor Worthy, a New Zealand-born palaeontologist at Australia's Flinders University, said fossilised remains found on New Zealand's south island suggest the kiwi did not derive from a larger ancestor, the extinct giant moa, as has long been thought. Instead, the fossilised bird and the emu are both believed to have evolved from a common ancestor which originated in Australia but spread to New Zealand.

"If, as the DNA suggests, the kiwi is related to the emu, then both shared a common ancestor that could fly," he said.

"It means they were little and volant (able to fly) and that they flew to New Zealand."

But a New Zealand bird expert, Hugh Robertson, said evidence showing the kiwi was closely related to the emu did not mean its ancestor flew over from Australia.

"The kiwi could have been in New Zealand since the land split from Gondwanaland about 60 million years ago," he told Fairfax New Zealand.

Dr Worthy said birds were known to "jump" from Australia to New Zealand, citing the Mallard duck, the little banded dotterel and the cattle egret as three species which regularly fly back and forth.

He said the research, published by the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, was not conclusive.

"We need to find wing bones to put the theory beyond all doubt," he said

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... aland.html