Australia

Cheryl and Liam persisting with Surrey mansion renovations

By Chris White For Mailonline

Published: 13:48 GMT, 19 February 2018 | Updated: 13:55 GMT, 19 Febru..

Published

6 years ago

February 19, 2018

Europe Disk

By Chris White For Mailonline

Published: 13:48 GMT, 19 February 2018 | Updated: 13:55 GMT, 19 February 2018

Cheryl and Liam Payne are determined to carry on with major renovations at their luxury Surrey home despite heavy split rumours.

The pair are said to be only 'weeks away' from breaking up and the former One Direction singer – who is worth a reputed £54 million – has apparently consulted lawyers about the financial implications if they’re to finish.

Yet, despite the rumours, they are persisting in their battle with Woking Borough Council for approval to build a new multi-million pound extension which will double the size of their country mansion.

Persevering: Cheryl and Liam Payne are determined to carry on with major renovations at their luxury Surrey home despite heavy split rumours

The couple have submitted numerous planning applications to the council to modify the house in Woking, Surrey, which Liam bought for £5.1 million in March 2015.

In October, the singing pair were refused permission to construct a new garage area, which would have a passageway to the main house, indoor pool area and new guest house.

The garage would have housed their impressive collection of cars including Liam's £260,000 Lamborghini Aventador – with a top speed of 277mph.

Planners wouldn't give the green light as the couple wanted to increase the building's volume from 93.37m3 to 199m3 – a massive 133 per cent rise.

Case Officer Brooke Bougnague ruled: 'The proposed single storey side and front extensions represent a disproportionate addition over and above the size of the original dwelling and consequently constitutes inappropriate development within the Green Belt.

'Additionally the scale, bulk and siting of the proposal would appear harmful to the openness of the Green Belt. No very special circumstances have been submitted with the application which would outweigh the harm to the Green Belt.

‹Slide me›

Expansion: The works would amount to a total increase of 71.8 percent above the cubic content of the original dwelling

Transformation: The couple have submitted numerous planning applications to the council to modify the house in Woking, Surrey, which Liam bought for £5.1 million in March 2015

The proposed extension by reason of its scale, massing and proportions would result in an extension that does not pay due regard to the scale and proportions of the host dwelling which would be detrimental to the appearance of the building and the character and appearance of the streetscene.’

Now they are appealing that decision and a public notice went up on the council website on February 9. The status of the planning application has changed to ‘appeal pending’.

In May 2015, they had a planning application approved for a single storey extension on the main house, which includes a spectacular indoor pool with it’s own tropical plant area, rockery, flowing stream and jacuzzi.

But they changed these plans three months later to include an adjoining basement area, with a gym and games room, which was approved in October 2015.

No building work had begun on the property, before they successfully applied for planning permission in January 2017 to convert the original garage into a guest house, which included a two-spaced garage on the ground floor and an en-suite bedroom on the first, which was rumoured to be for her mother Joan to help look after baby son, Bear.

Under construction: Now they are appealing that decision and a public notice went up on the council website on February 9. The status of the planning application has changed to ‘appeal pending’

This comes amid claims Liam has sought legal advice as friends claim he could split from Cheryl in weeks.

The couple, who are not married but have a son, 11-month-old Bear, and live together in a Surrey mansion, are said to be considering going their separate ways.

MailOnline broke the news that their relationship was 'under strain', with Liam, 24, spending nights away from home while the 34-year-old singer looks after their child.

Now it has been reported Liam has spoken to lawyers to see what a split would mean for their shared assets and the care of their son, according to the Sun.

Liam has an estimated fortune of £54million while Cheryl is said to be worth around £20million.

A source close to the couple told the newspaper: 'Liam has sought some legal advice but he still wants to make it work.It's just sensible to be prepared for all options.

Moving on? Liam and Cheryl, who raise baby son Bear, are said to be considering going their separate ways

'With a young son and a number of assets between them there is more to breaking up than just parting ways.

'He hopes it doesn't come to it but he's just being careful.'

The latest claims come just hours after a source told the Mail on Sunday that the pair's romance is in trouble.

'It's very sad – they tried very hard to make it work,' they said. 'They're desperate to make a go of it but it's absolutely on the rocks.'

A source close to Liam added: 'It's very difficult for them and extremely sad. Things go from being very calm to being very tough.

'The crux of the problem is that Liam has to be away a lot. Cheryl has always understood he would have to work hard and be absent but the reality is that it's not an easy thing to deal with. This relationship is hanging by a thread. Both of them are devastated.'

Another source close to the couple said: 'Both of them desperately want it to work but it doesn't look like things are going to end as they wished.

Leading separate lives: Cheryl, pictured here at St James' Palace meeting Prince Charles earlier this month, is said to have stayed home to mind the couple's son while Liam has been on tour

'Their main concern is Bear and making sure that he remains the happy little boy he is.'

Liam has been away on tour frequently over the past year, promoting his new album while Cheryl is said to have stayed at home looking after baby Bear at their Surrey home.

Recently he has been touring the US and spent time in New York promoting his new single For You, a duet with Rita Ora.

According to reports he has been flying between the US and the UK by private jet in a bid to spend more time with Cheryl, but the pair have not been seen together in public since October.

The new parents are struggling to find quality time together as they juggle their busy careers and care for their 11-month-old son, Bear, the source told MailOnline.

A source has told MailOnline that Cheryl is spending a lot of time at home on her own with Bear because she would rather stay in watching soaps on TV than go out to showbiz parties.

Concerned fans have pointed out that the couple have not been pictured together for some time and were not photographed together on Valentine's Day.

MailOnline has contacted Cheryl and Liam's representatives for comment.

Public show of affection? Liam posted an Instagram picture of Bear on Wednesday with the caption: 'Happy Valentine's Day @cherylofficial and everyone. Looks like I've got the big guy to compete with now'

Original Article

Daily Mail

Australia

Ben Roberts-Smith: Top soldier won’t apologise for alleged war crimes

Published

3 months ago

June 22, 2023

Europe Disk

Ben Roberts-Smith is proud of his actions in Afghanistan, the former Australian soldier said in his first comments since a judge ruled claims he committed war crimes were true.

A landmark defamation case this month found Mr Roberts-Smith was responsible for the murders of four Afghans.

The Victoria Cross recipient says he is innocent and will consider an appeal.

“I’m devastated… It’s a terrible outcome and it’s the incorrect outcome,” he said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters from Nine as he returned to Australia for the first time since the judgement was delivered, Mr Roberts-Smith also said he would not apologise to those affected by his alleged crimes.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, so we won’t be making any apologies,” he said.

Mr Roberts-Smith sued three Australian newspapers over a series of articles alleging he had carried out unlawful killings and bullied fellow soldiers while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009-2012.

But Federal Court Judge Anthony Besanko threw out the former special forces corporal’s case against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times, ruling it was “substantially true” that Mr Roberts-Smith had murdered unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians, and bullied peers.

The 44-year-old, who remains Australia’s most-decorated living soldier, was not present for the civil court ruling, having spent the days leading up to it on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Mr Roberts-Smith, who left the defence force in 2013, has not been charged over any of the claims in a criminal court, where there is a higher burden of proof.

None of the evidence presented in the civil defamation case against Mr Roberts-Smith can be used in any criminal proceedings, meaning investigators must gather their own independently.

This week it was confirmed that the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) – which is responsible for addressing criminal matters related to the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan – would work alongside Australian Federal Police (AFP) to examine three alleged murders local media say involve the former soldier.

The killings allegedly took place at a compound codenamed Whiskey 108 and in the southern Afghan village of Darwan.

The OSI was set up following a landmark inquiry in 2020, known as the Brereton Inquiry, which found “credible evidence” that Australia’s special forces unlawfully killed 39 people in Afghanistan.

There are currently 40 matters that are being jointly investigated by the OSI and the AFP.

Earlier this year former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz became the first Australian defence force member to ever be charged by police with the war crime of murder.

Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-65911638

Australia

Why Australia decided to quit its vaping habit

Published

4 months ago

May 28, 2023

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He’s talking about students in his class, teenagers, who can’t stop vaping.

He sees the effect of the candy-flavoured, nicotine-packed e-cigarettes on young minds every day, with children even vaping in class.

“The ones who are deepest into it will just get up out of their seat, or they’ll be fidgeting or nervous. The worst offenders will just walk out because they’re literally in withdrawal.”

Those who are most addicted need nicotine patches or rehabilitation, he says, talking about 13 and 14-year-olds.

is enough and introduced a range of new restrictions. Despite vapes already being illegal for many, under new legislation they will become available by prescription only.

The number of vaping teenagers in Australia has soared in recent years and authorities say it is the “number one behavioural issue” in schools across the country.

And they blame disposable vapes – which some experts say could be more addictive than heroin and cocaine – but for now are available in Australia in every convenience store, next to the chocolate bars at the counter.

For concerned teachers like Chris, their hands have been tied.

“If we suspect they have a vape, all we can really do is tell them to go to the principal’s office.

“At my old school, my head teacher told me he wanted to install vape detector alarms in the toilet, but apparently we weren’t allowed to because that would be an invasion of privacy.”

E-cigarettes have been sold as a safer alternative to tobacco, as they do not produce tar – the primary cause of lung cancer.

Some countries continue to promote them with public health initiatives to help cigarette smokers switch to a less deadly habit.

Last month, the UK government announced plans to hand out free vaping starter kits to one million smokers in England to get smoking rates below 5% by 2030.

But Australia’s government says that evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit is insufficient for now. Instead, research shows it may push young vapers into taking up smoking later in life.

‘Generation Vape’

Vapes, or e-cigarettes, are lithium battery-powered devices that have cartridges filled with liquids containing nicotine, artificial flavourings, and other chemicals.

The liquid is heated and turned into a vapour and inhaled into the user’s lungs.

Vaping took off from the mid-2000s and there were some 81 million vapers worldwide in 2021, according to the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction group.

Fuelling the rise is the mushrooming popularity of flavoured vapes designed to appeal to the young.

These products can contain far higher volumes of nicotine than regular cigarettes, while some devices sold as ‘nicotine-free’ can actually hold large amounts.

The chemical cocktail also contains formaldehyde, and acetaldehyde – which have been linked to lung disease, heart disease, and cancer.

There’s also a suggestion of an increased risk of stroke, respiratory infection, and impaired lung function.

Experts warn not enough is known about the long-term health effects. But some alarming data has already been drawn out.

In 2020, US health authorities identified more than 2,800 cases of e-cigarette or vaping-related lung injury. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 68 deaths attributed to that injury.

In Australia, a major study by leading charity The Cancer Council found more than half of all children who had ever vaped had used an e-cigarette they knew contained nicotine and thought that vaping was a socially acceptable behaviour.

School-age children were being supplied with e-cigarettes through friends or “dealers” inside and outside school, or from convenience stores and tobacconists, the report said.

Teens also reported purchasing vapes through social media, websites and at pop-up vape stores, the Generation Vape project found.

“Whichever way teenagers obtain e-cigarettes, they are all illegal, yet it’s happening under the noses of federal and state authorities”, report author and Cancer Council chair Anita Dessaix said.

“All Australian governments say they’re committed to ensuring e-cigarettes are only accessed by smokers with a prescription trying to quit – yet a crisis in youth e-cigarette use is unfolding in plain view.”

In addition to the government’s move to ban the import of all non-pharmaceutical vaping products – meaning they can now only be bought with a prescription – all single-use disposable vapes will be made illegal.

The volume and concentration of nicotine in e-cigarettes will also be restricted, and both flavours and packaging must be plain and carrying warning labels.

But these new measures are not actually all that drastic, says public health physician Professor Emily Banks from the Australian National University.

“Australia is not an outlier. It is unique to have a prescription-only model, but other places actually ban them completely, and that includes almost all of Latin America, India, Thailand and Japan.”

‘We have been duped’

Health Minister Mark Butler said the new vaping regulations will close the “biggest loophole in Australian healthcare history”.

“Just like they did with smoking… ‘Big Tobacco’ has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added sweet flavours to create a new generation of nicotine addicts.”

“We have been duped”, he said.

Medical experts agree. Prof Banks argues that the promotion of e-cigarettes as a “healthier” alternative was a classic “sleight-of-hand” from the tobacco industry.

As such vaping has become “normalised” in Australia, and in the UK too.

“There’s over 17,000 flavours, and the majority of use is not for smoking cessation”, she tells the BBC.

“They’re being heavily marketed towards children and adolescents. People who are smoking and using e-cigarettes – that’s the most common pattern of use, dual use.”

Professor Banks says authorities need to “de-normalise” vaping among teenagers and make vapes much harder to get hold of.

“Kids are interpreting the fact that they can very easily get hold of [vapes] as evidence [they’re safe], and they’re actually saying, ‘well, if they were that unsafe, I wouldn’t be able to buy one at the coffee shop’.

But could stricter controls make it harder for people who do turn to vapes hoping to quit or cut down on tobacco?

“It is important to bear in mind that for some people, e-cigarettes have really helped. But we shouldn’t say ‘this is great for smokers to quit’, says Prof Banks.

“We know from

Australia, from the US, from Europe, that two-thirds to three-quarters of people who quit smoking successfully, do so unaided.”

“You’re trying to bring these [vapes] in saying they’re a great way to quit smoking, but actually we’ve got bubble gum flavoured vapes being used by 13-year-olds in the school toilets. That is not what the community signed up for.”

Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-65522841

Australia

Australia: Scott Morrison saga casts scrutiny on Queen’s representative

Published

1 year ago

August 27, 2022

Europe Disk

In the past fortnight, Australia has been gripped by revelations that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison secretly appointed himself to several additional ministries.

The move has been labelled a “power grab” by his successor as prime minister, and Mr Morrison has been scolded by many – even his own colleagues.

But the scandal has also dragged Australia’s governor-general into the fray – sparking one of the biggest controversies involving the Queen’s representative in Australia in 50 years.

So does Governor-General David Hurley have questions to answer, or is he just collateral damage?

‘Just paperwork’

Governors-general have fulfilled the practical duties as Australia’s head of state since the country’s 1901 federation.

Candidates for the role were initially chosen by the monarch but are now recommended by the Australian government.

The job is largely ceremonial – a governor-general in almost every circumstance must act on the advice of the government of the day. But conventions allow them the right to “encourage” and “warn” politicians.

Key duties include signing bills into law, issuing writs for elections, and swearing in ministers.

Mr Hurley has run into trouble on the latter. At Mr Morrison’s request, he swore the prime minister in as joint minister for health in March 2020, in case the existing minister became incapacitated by Covid.

Over the next 14 months, he also signed off Mr Morrison as an additional minister in the finance, treasury, home affairs and resources portfolios.

Mr Morrison already had ministerial powers, so Mr Hurley was basically just giving him authority over extra departments.

It’s a request the governor-general “would not have any kind of power to override or reject”, constitutional law professor Anne Twomey tells the BBC.

“This wasn’t even a meeting between the prime minister and the governor-general, it was just paperwork.”

But Mr Morrison’s appointments were not publicly announced, disclosed to the parliament, or even communicated to most of the ministers he was job-sharing with.

Australia’s solicitor-general found Mr Morrison’s actions were not illegal but had “fundamentally undermined” responsible government.

But the governor-general had done the right thing, the solicitor-general said in his advice this week.

It would have been “a clear breach” for him to refuse the prime minister, regardless of whether he knew the appointments would be kept secret, Stephen Donaghue said.

Critics push for investigation

Ultimately, Mr Hurley had to sign off on Mr Morrison’s requests, but critics say he could have counselled him against it and he could have publicised it himself.

But representatives for the governor-general say these types of appointments – giving ministers the right to administer other departments – are not unusual.

And it falls to the government of the day to decide if they should be announced to the public. They often opt not to.

Mr Hurley himself announcing the appointments would be unprecedented. He had “no reason to believe that appointments would not be communicated”, his spokesperson said.

Emeritus professor Jenny Hocking finds the suggestion Mr Hurley didn’t know the ministries had been kept secret “ridiculous”.

“The last of these bizarre, duplicated ministry appointments… were made more than a year after the first, so clearly by then the governor-general did know that they weren’t being made public,” she says.

“I don’t agree for a moment that the governor-general has a lot of things on his plate and might not have noticed.”

The historian says it’s one of the biggest controversies surrounding a governor-general since John Kerr caused a constitutional crisis by sacking Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975.

Prof Hocking famously fought for transparency around that matter – waging a lengthy and costly legal battle that culminated in the release of Mr Kerr’s correspondence with the Queen.

And she says the same transparency is needed here.

The Australian public need to know whether Mr Hurley counselled the prime minister against the moves, and why he didn’t disclose them

The government has already announced an inquiry into Mr Morrison’s actions, but she wants it to look at the governor-general and his office too.

“If the inquiry is to find out what happened in order to fix what happened, it would be extremely problematic to leave out a key part of that equation.”

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – Mr Morrison’s predecessor – has also voiced support for an inquiry.

“Something has gone seriously wrong at Government House,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“It is the passive compliance along the chain… that did undermine our constitution and our democracy… that troubles me the most. This is how tyranny gets under way.”

PM defends governor-general

Prof Twomey says the criticism of Mr Hurley is unfair – there’s was no “conspiracy” on his part to keep things secret.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable for anyone to expect that he could have guessed that the prime minister was keeping things secret from his own ministers, for example.

“Nobody really thought that was a possibility until about two weeks ago.”

Even if he had taken the unprecedented step to publicise the appointments or to reject Mr Morrison’s request, he’d have been criticised, she says.

“There’d be even more people saying ‘how outrageous!'” she says. “The role of governor-general is awkward because people are going to attack you either way.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also defended Mr Hurley, saying he was just doing his job.

“I have no intention of undertaking any criticism of [him].”

A role fit for purpose?

Prof Hocking says it’s a timely moment to look at the role of the governor-general more broadly.

She points out it’s possible the Queen may have been informed about Mr Morrison’s extra ministries when Australia’s parliament and people were not.

“It does raise questions about whether this is fit for purpose, as we have for decades been a fully independent nation, but we still have… ‘the relics of colonialism’ alive and well.”

Momentum for a fresh referendum on an Australian republic has been growing and advocates have seized on the controversy.

“The idea that the Queen and her representative can be relied upon to uphold our system of government has been debunked once and for all,” the Australian Republic Movement’s Sandy Biar says.

“It’s time we had an Australian head of state, chosen by Australians and accountable to them to safeguard and uphold Australia’s constitution.”

But Prof Twomey says republicans are “clutching at straws” – under their proposals, the head of state would also have been bound to follow the prime minister’s advice.

“It wouldn’t result in any changes that would have made one iota of difference.”

Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62683210