One of Sony’s most important gaming metrics is down by 4 million users as overall sales earnings slip in Q1’22.
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PlayStation Monthly Active Users (MAUs) are down to their lowest point in the last 11 quarters. Throughout Q1’22, PlayStation MAUs dropped to 102 million to reflect downward trends in subscriptions, game sales, and overall PlayStation segment earnings.
This drop in MAUs will be weighted more heavily as Sony pivots into live service games and free-to-play titles on the PlayStation Network, however the diversification across PC and mobile will cushion any kinds of drops–at least eleven PlayStation live games are established on these platforms.
It’s worth noting that the drop in MAUs reflects consistent trends in Sony’s playerbase over the past two years. Typically, MAUs drop from the Q4 to Q1 periods (corresponding with January-March and April-June months); The drop from Q4’20 to Q1’21 was likewise 4 million MAUs. Q3 periods are typically the highest because of holiday rush spending and engagement.
Sony’s Q1’22 earnings have slid as much as 46% year-over-year on weak yen, lower game sales, and lower engagement/monetization across services and subscriptions.
In the late ’80s it was a phenomenon. Kylie Minogue and Donovan were household names in both countries and would each go on to launch music careers in the UK. their duet especially for you was No.1 in the UK, Ireland, Greece and Belgium.
Even Suddenly, sung by Rose Tattoo’s Angry Anderson and used for the famous wedding scene, peaked at No.3 on the UK Singles Chart. Years later beloved sitcom Gavin & Stacy would use the same tune to pay homage to Scott and Charlene’s special day at Nessa’s wedding to Dave Coaches.
In The Times newspaper this week, another Australian icon, actor and comedian Barry Humphries, penned a love letter to the show, declaring its demise the end of an era.
He wrote that when the show was at its peak he’d attempted to convince English friends it was unscripted and “cobbled together from real footage caught from hidden cameras in typical Australian homes.
“Very few believed me, to their credit, but nevertheless I extolled its authenticity. Take, neighbors feels like Australia, or it did when Jason and Kylie were its stars. It’s so clean, so self-assured, so comfortable. It depicts Camelot down under, a suburban paradise beneath the sun. There are no shadows, even when the plot takes on a darker hue,” Humphries wrote.
Neighbors-mad Gareth Rainey and his wife Karen at their wedding in Belfast where a life-size Paul Robinson welcomed guests. Credit:Gareth Rainey/Twitter
More than 60,000 people had signed a petition this year in a bid to stop the soap being axed, but it was not to be. Britain’s Channel 5 was pulling the pin and neighbors would be no more. Such a moment was it that Guardian live-blogged the final episode.
In Belfast, Gareth Rainey and his wife, Karen, struggled to come to terms with saying goodbye to their favorite TV show this week.
“When we first met her [Karen] told me that I had to watch neighbors with her so that’s how she roped me in,” Gareth said. “Now I’m hooked on it and really don’t want the series to end. Karen has been a super fan since she started watching it as a child with her mum.”
The pair were on holiday in Cornwall in December 2019 when Gareth proposed wearing a Paul Robinson mask.
“I thought there would be a better chance of her saying yes to her face! No matter what that man does on neighbors, she worships the ground he walks on. At our wedding in October 2021 at Orange Tree House in Greyabbey, we also had a life-size Paul Robinson welcoming guests.”
Their personalized number plate includes 22, the fictitious number of Robinson’s house in Ramsay Street.
Minogue, who starred in the show from 1986 to 1988, said in Britain this week that she was initially concerned about returning to the role for the finale.
“I guess because the show kept going and moved on. Also, Charlene was such a presence in people’s memory, I wasn’t sure how it would work,” she told DigitalSpy.
She said a message from Donovan sealed the deal. “Jason and I are connected anyway, but he wrote me a beautiful email, so eloquent and heartfelt about this being a moment for us to acknowledge and say thanks to the fans,” she said.
Stars of Neighbors: Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Margot Robbie, Alan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne.Credit:Network Ten
Stefan Dennis (Paul Robinson) and Melissa Bell (Lucy Robinson) in Melbourne.Credit:Darrian Traynor
Following its prime-time screening on Friday night in Britain (Saturday AEST), a review in broadsheet newspaper The Telegraph gave the final episode five stars for a “seriously tear-jerking end.”
“Like most people of a certain age, I watched neighbors avidly at school (the ultimate achievement was to watch both the lunchtime and teatime editions while pulling a sickie) then gave it up on entering the world of work,” wrote arts editor Anita Singh. “But this finale was all about nostalgia, made for people who watched it in the early years.”
Praising Guy Pearce’s performance as Mike, she wrote: “I couldn’t think of a better ending, unless they’d somehow managed to bring Bouncer back from the dead.”
In The Timesdeputy TV editor Ben Dowell said the program was “middle-aged Britain’s fondly remembered teenage crush”.
“The internet didn’t instantly transport us to far-flung places back then and there were only four channels in Britain,” he wrote. This portal into a lovely fresh world of gentle, sweet, sunny suburbia made us smile.”
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Channel 5 has teased that announcements will be made in the coming weeks about additional surprises to send off the iconic soap in style.
The stars will potentially embark on a farewell tour of the UK, visiting London, Manchester, Birmingham, Brighton, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff in March.
But for now, the show is being remembered by The Mirror’s TV critic, Ian Hyland, as one “which changed the face of British TV forever”.
“At least this good thing came to a good end,” he wrote.
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LEICESTER, England — Erling Haaland will have better days in a Manchester City shirt, you can be certain of that, but his first taste of English football saw him resoundingly upstaged by Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez and City teammate Julian Alvarez as the FA Cup holders claimed a 3-1 Community Shield victory over last season’s Premier League champions at the King Power Stadium.
Few players in world football create quite as much noise as Haaland, the 22-year-old forward who moved to City from Borussia Dortmund in a €60 million transfer earlier this summer. The Norway international had his pick of every major club in Europe before agreeing to move to the Etihad and few expect him to do anything but score a truckload of goals on the way to winning trophies galore with Pep Guardiola’s team.
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But Haaland had a debut to forget against Liverpool. Not only did he fail to score, he barely touched the ball, missed an easy chance in stoppage time when hitting the crossbar from six yards and saw Nunez — Liverpool’s €75 million signing from Benfica — leave him firmly in the shade with a dazzling substitute performance which delivered a goal, an assist and an exciting showcase of the qualities he will bring to Jurgen Klopp’s team this season.
And then there was Alvarez, the 22-year-old signed from River Plate for €16 million, who gave an eye-catching City debut by scoring the equaliser, canceling out Trent Alexander-Arnold’s first-half opener, after replacing Riyad Mahrez early in the second-half. While Nunez was explosive, determined and clinical, Alvarez showed the ability to hold the ball, lay it off and take advantage of tight spaces before displaying a striker’s awareness when scoring from close range after goalkeeper Adrian had pushed away Phil Foden’s shot in 70 minutes.
Haaland will undoubtedly score goals for City. His record of him so far for Dortmund, FC Salzburg and Molde, has been so consistently good that he would be foolish to suggest he will do anything but continue his scoring ratio at the Etihad. But this was a day when he was up against one of the strongest teams in Europe, with defenders Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk one of the best partnerships anywhere in the game, so it was a tough baptism for Haaland. The space to run at defenders which he often enjoyed in the Bundesliga was denied him by Matip and Van Dijk, and any other red shirt that came within close distance. And when he can’t run into the final third with the goal facing him, Haaland is not quite the same threat.
Nunez looked much sharper, and much more able to receive the ball with his back to goal and move defenders around, but Haaland and City are clearly still learning how to work with each other. Mahrez failed to spot a clever Haaland run in the first-half, when the forward had peeled off his marker, while Kevin De Bruyne waved his arms in frustration at his new teammate when he strayed offside and made himself unavailable for a pass in the second half.
And while Nunez was prepared to run across the face of the 18-yard box, Haaland stayed within the tight confines of the central area of the pitch and it made him easier to stifle and perhaps explained why he only managed 14 touches in 90 minutes. On this evidence — admittedly, just 90 minutes — Haaland will offer less to City when he doesn’t have the ball than Nunez will give to Liverpool. Nunez simply looks a more rounded player, but it doesn’t mean he will score more goals and Guardiola insisted that Haaland will deliver in the months ahead.
“He didn’t score,” Guardiola said. “Another day he will score. He has an incredible quality on that and he will do it.
“He fought a lot, made the movements. It’s good for him to see the reality of new country, new league, but he was there. He is going to help us a lot — he had the chances, he was there.”
Opponents that aren’t as accomplished are likely to be blown away by Haaland if he is given the space to hurt them, but ultimately, he has been signed to make the difference in the tight games, against the likes of Liverpool and in the Champions League, so he has still to show he can make that vital step up. It is difficult to envisage Haaland failing to take his game to that level, but he and City have work to do to make it come together.
Liverpool appear to have less to do to make Nunez fill the gap created by Sadio Mane’s summer move to Bayern Munich. His header from him, from Mohamed Salah’s cross on 80 minutes, led to the Ruben Dias handball which, after a VAR review, resulted in a penalty from which Salah made it 2-1 to Liverpool. And Nunez than scored his goal with a diving header, four minutes into stoppage time, after Andy Robertson had teed him up in the six yard box.
“We all know they are a special species, strikers,” Klopp said. “They all need goals and goal involvements.” [Nunez] would have been fine without his goal because he created the penalty with his header and had a chance when the goalkeeper reacted brilliantly. “His goal for him was the icing on the cake, brilliant for him and it’s a really good sign after the time he has been with us.”
So in the battle of the new signings, Nunez won his first encounter with Haaland and helped Liverpool to their first Community Shield success since 2006. But this is a game that means little in the long term. How Nunez and Haaland do in the Premier League and Champions League is what will truly define the success of their big moves.
Some Liberals told The Age they objected to the framing of questions being asked in the poll, which assume the state campaigns will find candidates of similar quality to Ryan and Daniel.
Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay at the National Press Club this month.Credit:Olive + Meave
Yaron Gottlieb, who worked with independent candidate Daniel in her seat of Goldstein, said that while no candidates had been endorsed, there were locals interested in standing as candidates in Sandringham and Brighton.
He said there was currently “zero groundswell” for a campaign in Caulfield, expected to be a close contest between Labor and Liberal deputy leader David Southwick.
Voters in the seats of Brighton, Caulfield and Sandringham were asked who they would support if given a choice of a “candidate like Zoe Daniel” or another party. Local Liberal MPs were named. In Hawthorn and Kew, the same question was asked about Ryan and local Liberal candidates were named.
Environment and climate change spokesman James Newbury.Credit:Joe Armao
The polling found:
In Brighton (750 respondents), 39 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a drop of six per cent from the 2018 election result), 23 per cent said they would vote Labor, 23 per cent said they would vote for an independent and seven per cent said they would vote Greens. Redbridge calculated these results would lead to a 51-49 two-party preferred win to an independent.
In Sandringham (744 respondents), 31 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a drop of 11 per cent), 27 per cent said they would vote for Labor, 25 per cent said they would vote for an independent and seven per cent said they would vote Green. Redbridge believes this would lead to a 54-46 win to an independent.
In Caulfield (837 respondents), 37 per cent of people said they would vote Liberal (10 per cent drop), 23 per cent said they would vote Labor, 19 per cent said they would vote for an independent and 14 per cent said they would vote Greens. Redbridge said this would result in a 56-44 win to an independent.
In Hawthorn (979 respondents), 37 per cent said they would vote Liberal (an eight per cent drop), 22 per cent said they would vote Labor, 22 per cent said they would vote for an independent and 12 per cent said they would vote Green. Redbridge said this would result in a 55-45 independent win.
In Kew (918 respondents), 37 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a 12 per cent drop), 24 per cent said they would back an independent, 23 per cent said they would vote Labor and seven per cent said they would vote Green . Redbridge said this would result in a 55-45 independent win.
All the polled seats are held by the Liberal Party except Hawthorn, which is held by Labor. The poll indicates support for Labor has also dropped since 2018. Both major parties believe there has been a tightening in recent months between the Coalition and Labor.
A Liberal source connected to the Hawthorn campaign said the level of support for an independent represented about half of the primary vote for Ryan in May, and was a sign of moderate Liberal candidate John Pesutto’s suitability. However, teal candidates such as Ryan and Daniel were polling in the teens three months before the federal election.
The Coalition is desperate to retain inner-city seats and win back Hawthorn to claw back the 18 seats required to form government in the 88-seat parliament. The Coalition’s recently announced suite of climate change policies was designed to secure support in inner-urban electorates.
While not included in the polling, The Age has spoken to three sources who all confirmed independent candidates would also stand in the seat of South-West Coast and Benambra.
Once represented by former Victorian premier, Denis Napthine, South-West Coast is currently held by Liberal MP Roma Roma Britnell by a margin of 3.3 per cent and is within the boundaries of the federal seat of Wannon, where former trade minister Dan Tehan suffered a six per cent swing after a strong campaign from independent candidate Alex Dyson.
The seat of Benambra, in the northeast, is held by Bill Tilley but sits entirely within the federal electorate of Indi, which has been held by an independent for almost a decade.
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MORRISVILLE, NC (WNCN) — New details have come out about the hours leading up to a plane’s emergency landing in North Carolina and the co-pilot’s mysterious mid-flight exit and fatal fall.
At around 3:20 pm Friday, a medium cargo plane made an emergency landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. The twin-engine CASA CN-212 Aviocar, made in Spain and registered to Colorado-based Spore LTD, landed on a runway and veered into the grass.
The plane initially had two people on board. First responders told Nexstar’s WNCN that one person onboard the plane was taken to Duke Hospital with minor injuries.
Shortly after the plane landed, local emergency units began searching for a co-pilot who either fell or jumped from the plane without a parachute while it was in the air.
Authorities were later flagged down by someone who heard a noise in their yard. The co-pilot, 23-year-old Charles Hew Crooks, was then found dead in the Sonoma Springs Neighborhood, roughly 30 miles south of the airport.
Flight tracking software shows the plane initially took off from Raeford, North Carolina, at 1:10 pm Friday. The plane circled around Raeford before heading toward Raleigh, a roughly 80-mile trip.
Before arriving in Raeford, flight tracking software shows the aircraft took off from the Rocky Mount/Wilson Airport, about 50 miles west of Raleigh, at 11:52 am and landed at Raeford West Airport at 12:34 pm
(Photo by Simon Palmore)
(Photo by Simon Palmore)
According to a newly-obtained recording, the co-pilots called air traffic control to inform them that the main right wheel of the landing gear had failed off. One of the co-pilots said they attempted to land at Raeford and they “made a hard landing, decided to go around, and at that point, we lost the wheel.”
While in-flight, one of the co-pilots called Fayetteville Air Traffic Control for help rerouting to Raleigh-Durham International. You can hear one of them say “We’ve lost our right wheel – we’d like to proceed to Raleigh and make a landing.”
During the conversation, one of the men from the plane said they had enough fuel to fly in the air for another four hours before having to land. Someone eventually responded, “Quick question, how do you intend to land at Raleigh-Durham?” The response from one of the men was, “Get as low as we can and I guess we’re going to put it on the belly.”
In a later radio call with officials, the pilot of the plane said his co-pilot, Charles Hew Crooks, had jumped from the plane without a parachute.
Multiple first responders headed to the airport after the plane landed on the runway. The pilot was taken to the hospital, where officials said he was okay.
It’s still unclear why Hew Crooks fell from the plane. Local and state officials are now working with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, both of which are now leading the investigation.
A climate scientist at Tohoku University in Japan has run the numbers and does not think today’s mass extinction event will equal that of the previous five. At least not for many more centuries to come.
On more than one occasion over the past 540 million years, Earth has lost most of its species in a relatively short geologic time span.
These are known as mass extinction events, and they often follow closely on the heels of climate change, whether it be from extreme warming or extreme cooling, triggered by asteroids or volcanic activity.
When Kunio Kaiho tried to quantify the stability of Earth’s average surface temperature and the planet’s biodiversity, he found a largely linear effect. The greater the temperature change, the greater the extent of extinction.
For global cooling events, the greatest mass extinctions occurred when temperatures fell by about 7°C. But for global warming events, Kaiho found the greatest mass extinctions occurred at roughly 9°C warming.
That’s much higher than previous estimates, which suggest a temperature of 5.2°C would result in a major marine mass extinction, on par with the previous ‘big five’.
To put that in perspective, by the end of the century, modern global warming is on track to increase surface temperatures by as much as 4.4°C.
“The 9°C global warming will not appear in the Anthropocene at least till 2500 under the worst scenario,” Kaiho predicts.
Kaiho is not denying that many extinctions on land and in the sea are already occurring because of climate change; he just does not expect the same proportion of losses as before.
Still, it’s not just the degree of climate change that puts species at risk. The speed at which it occurs is vitally important.
The largest mass extinction event on Earth killed off 95 percent of known species at the time and occurred over 60,000 years about 250 million years ago. But today’s warming is occurring on a much shorter timescale thanks to human emissions of fossil fuels.
Perhaps more species will die off in Earth’s sixth extinction event not because the magnitude of warming is so great, but because the changes happened so quickly that many species could not adapt.
“Prediction of the future anthropogenic extinction magnitude using only surface temperature is difficult because the causes of the anthropogenic extinction differ from causes of mass extinctions in geological time,” Kaihu admits.
Whichever way scientists slice up the data, it’s clear that many species are doomed unless we can halt climate change.
The exact percentage of losses and the timing of those losses remains up for debate.
How a single WhatsApp message from a socialite interior designer for the rich and famous to a junior worker led to the unraveling of a fake payments scam fleecing her wealthy customers
Socialite interior designer asked junior worker to photoshop payment receipts
Adriana Benhamou Weiss took on DEC Services as one of her clients in 2016
Company paid her $325,000 upfront before Weiss allegedly kept the money
By Aidan Wondracz For Daily Mail Australia
Published: | Updated:
A socialite interior designer charged with falsifying financial records allegedly sent Whatsapp messages to her junior worker telling her to photoshop payment receipts.
Adriana Benhamou Weiss decorated the mansions of Australian multi-millionaires and designed hotels and apartment developments in Paris, Moscow, the French Riviera as well as luxury properties in Israel and the Middle East.
Her life of luxury came crashing down when she was charged with directing an employee to falsify books relating to payments to six different design services in four currencies equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Weiss had hired a junior worker in 2015 when she sent her Whatsapp messages in 2016 allegedly asking her to use Photoshop to make payment confirmations.
Adriana Benhamou Weiss decorated the mansions of Australian multi-millionaires, designed hotels and apartment developments in Paris, Moscow, and the French Riviera and luxury properties in Israel and the Middle East
Weiss had hired a junior worker in 2015 when she sent her Whatsapp messages in 2016 allegedly asking her to use Photoshop to make payment confirmations (stock image)
Weiss had taken on DEC Services as a client and been hired to design and build their offices at Bond Street in Sydney.
Weiss allegedly promised she could provide a cheaper service than her competitors because she owned a furniture manufacturer and distribution company in Dubai.
She allegedly asked for the payments to be made urgently when DEC Services paid $325,000 upfront – before Weiss allegedly kept the money for herself.
Weiss had allegedly asked her junior worker to make payment confirmations in Photoshop before meeting up with DEC Services again, The Australian reported.
The alleged confirmation payments had made it seem like the money given by DEC Services to Weiss had been sent to suppliers and contractors.
Some of the payment confirmations allegedly contained incorrect addresses and company names and spelling mistakes such as ‘transfer’ and ‘buisness’.
Weiss entered guilty pleas to three charges to be dealt with under the Corporations Act and to a further three charges to be dealt with under the Crimes Act in June.
Ms Weiss’s Benhamou designs had been enlisted to decorate the trophy oceanfront home Deauville (above) of multi-millionaire Neville Crichton and his wife Nadi but furniture never arrived
Weiss’s life of luxury came crashing down when she was charged with directing an employee to falsify books relating to payments to six different design services in four currencies equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars
The charges brought against Weiss follow the liquidation of her and her mother’s company Benhamou Designs, wound up by Ferrier Hodgson and owing $8.11m.
Ms Weiss’s mother has since rebranded herself as Helene in Paris and traveled to Europe where she has released YouTube videos singing French romance classics such as ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’.
The falsifications alleged by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) all took place in late 2016, prior to the liquidation of Benhamou Designs.
The liquidation report says Weiss blamed the failure of her company to ‘poor business management’ and ‘significant disputes with customers and suppliers’.
One dispute was with multi-millionaire yachtsman and luxury car importer Neville Crichton over supply of furniture for the $45m waterfront Point Piper mansion he bought in late 2017.
Court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia allege Ms Weiss ‘engaged in conduct that resulted in the falsification of’ receipts, international transfers and a purchase order in US dollars, Euro, Australian dollars and United Arab Emirates dirham
Mr Crichton sought to buy the furniture after the then 71-year-old, nicknamed ‘Croaky’, married 38-year-old Nadi Hasandedic, a former Christian Dior boutique manager earlier in the same year.
The furniture order never arrived at trophy home Deauville, which is next door to former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s house, and Ms Weiss reportedly blamed ‘supplier issues’.
Three cyclists have been taken to hospital and spectators have been injured following a horrific crash during a heat of the men’s scratch race at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Key points:
England’s Matt Walls was one of three cyclists taken to hospital
Walls was catapulted over the barriers and into the velodrome crowd
Spectators also received medical treatment at the velodrome
England’s Matt Walls and Isle of Man’s Matt Bostock were involved in the crash along with several other riders.
Walls was catapulted over the barriers and into the crowd at the Lee Valley VeloPark. The 24-year-old received treatment for more than 40 minutes before leaving the velodrome in an ambulance.
Spectators were also hurt after Walls and his bike came over the top of the barriers on the high banking at a corner of the track.
Walls was trying to avoid riders who had failed in a crash lower down the banking, but he clipped another wheel and went over the top.
“Three cyclists and two spectators have been treated by the onsite medical team,” a Birmingham 2022 statement read.
“The three cyclists have been taken to hospital. The two spectators did not require hospital treatment.”
England team officials said Walls was to undergo “precautionary checks” in hospital.
The remainder of the morning Commonwealth Games cycling session was canceled and spectators were asked to leave the velodrome.
Walls won Olympic gold for Great Britain in Tokyo last year in the men’s omnium.
The crash came a day after Australia’s Matt Glaetzer collided with England’s Joe Truman on the banked corner during the second round of the men’s keirin.
Both riders hit the ground at more than 70 kilometers per hour, with the Englishman losing consciousness on impact.
Glaetzer was able to pick himself up and limp away, with his thin race suit in tatters.
Truman slid to a stop on his front and lay motionless for several, worrying minutes amid a concerned hush at the usually raucous velodrome.
Glaetzer returned to the velodrome on Sunday to compete in the qualifying stage of the men’s sprint.
He adds, “Of course, if they do succeed on truth, it will operate as a quasi-investigation into war crimes as well, which is also significant in and of itself.”
Few would wish themselves in the shoes of Besanko, who now has to sift through a mountain of evidence, elicited from more than 40 witnesses delivered over 110 days, to decide whether Roberts-Smith will forever be branded a man who murdered Afghan prisoners, bullied former comrades and struck his former lover.
Journalists Chris Masters and Nick McKenzie. Credit:Nine
nine’s newspapers, theSydney Morning Herald and TheAge, have taken the calculated risk of mounting a truth defence. That means their legal team, headed by Nicholas Owens, SC, had to convince the judge that the war crimes and other wrongdoing alleged by star investigative reporters Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters were, on the balance of probabilities, true.
But Roberts-Smith’s legal team, headed by Arthur Moses, SC, and Matthew Richardson, SC, have urged the judge to be rigorous in applying what is known as the Briginshaw standard.
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This is an evidentiary principle derived from a 1938 divorce suit, which holds that even in a civil suit like this – with a lower standard of proof than in a criminal case – the court must take particular care in weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence if there are serious consequences for those involved.
Moses ran hard on this in his summing up, saying the criminal allegations being made by the media outlets fell “at the very highest end of objective seriousness… [and] strike at the very heart of Mr Roberts-Smith’s morality and humanity”.
Underscoring this point, Moses added that “murderer” was “ordinarily a label…reserved for convicted criminals flowing from a criminal proceeding”.
He also pointed out that if the judge accepted all the evidence from the media outlets as to the five unlawful killings of unarmed prisoners that Nine alleges, this would implicate other soldiers –particularly the SAS witnesses known as Person 4 and Person 11.
Person 4 is said to have shot a prisoner at Roberts-Smith’s command at a village compound known as Whiskey 108 in April 2009, while Person 11 is alleged to have conspired with the Victoria Cross recipient to execute an unarmed man, Ali Jan, at the village of Darwin in late 2012.
Moses told the judge that in addition to branding Roberts-Smith a murderer, “Your Honor is [effectively] being asked to make a finding that Person 4 is a murderer. Your Honor is being asked to make a finding that Person 11 is a murderer.” (Person 11 has denied the alleged execution, while Person 4 declined to give evidence on the grounds of self-incrimination.)
Exhibit in Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case, showing the village of Darwan. The “X” marked with “B” and an arrow is said to be the cliff from which a villager was allegedly kicked by Roberts-Smith. He denies the allegation.
Nine’s legal team, however, believes the war crimes case it has painstakingly built over the past year is strong enough to withstand the Briginshaw test. “Nothing left on the table,” is how one participant summed up the mood on the media outlets’ side this week.
University of Sydney professor David Rolph, a defamation law expert, said the law has “long recognized that in order to be satisfied that a fact is proven on the balance of probabilities you need to take into account the seriousness of the allegation”.
“Because the allegations are serious and hotly contested, it may be difficult for the publishers to establish truth – but not impossible.”
Moses has accused McKenzie and Masters of jumping like “salmon [onto] a hook” as soldiers within the SAS, jealous of Roberts-Smith’s military honors, peddled supposed lies and gossip to the two reporters.
But Owens, utterly rejecting this, emphasized that many of Nine’s critical witnesses had never had any contact with the journalists.
Indeed, some of the key witnesses summoned by Nine – particularly SAS troopers who were identified as Persons 24, 40, 41, 42 and 43 – were called by the mastheads’ lawyers only after they’d won access to a critical Defense department document known as a Potentially Affected Persons (PAP) notice.
The PAP had been confidentially issued to Roberts-Smith by the Inspector-General of the Defense Force in connection with a separate war crimes probe being conducted by the military.
Ben Roberts-Smith’s legal representation Arthur Moses, SC, and Nicholas Owens, SC, representing Nine. Credit:Peter Rae/Edwina Pickles
The gaining of access to the PAP – even in its highly redacted form – was a major turning point for the newspapers in the case.
The hearings have taken a heavy toll on some of the soldiers who gave evidence, as demonstrated by the occasionally distressed state of some in the witness box. Moses branded two of Nine’s witnesses as liars and perjurers, and says others are mistaken because of mental health conditions which distorted their memory.
But Owens says the media outlets’ witnesses are honest and reliable, and by contrast, has accused Roberts-Smith’s witnesses of collusion and cover-up.
Unpicking what occurred at Whiskey 108 is particularly complex because of the large number of SAS or former SAS witnesses who were involved in the operation that day. But essentially the media outlets’ case rests on one core proposition: that two Afghan men came out of a hidden tunnel there. Nine says the two men, who were taken prisoner, were soon afterwards executed unlawfully, one by Roberts-Smith and the second at his instigation of him with a story concocted to cover the deaths.
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Roberts-Smith and his allies denied any men came out of a tunnel at all – Moses branding the Nine case a “mishmash”.
But Owens said while there may have been “differences of detail” among some of his SAS witnesses, there was “no plausible suggestion about how they might all have, as it were, come to have a collective hallucination in broadly the same terms about people. coming out of the tunnel”.
Another evidentiary tussle turned on whether the media outlets should have summoned an Afghan soldier known as Person 12 to give evidence. Person 12 was a senior Afghan officer who is said to have ordered the execution of another unarmed detainee at Chenartu, in Afghanistan, in late 2012, under pressure from Roberts-Smith.
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Citing a precedent in a case known as Jones v Dunkel, Moses said Besanko should draw an adverse inference against Nine because of its failure to call Person 12. But Owens said the officer could equally have been called by Roberts-Smith’s side.
Nine is confident it has closed its case in a strong position, thanks to the additional evidence turned up by months of patient sleuthing.
Should it fail, Bosland says a record payout could flow if the judge grants aggravated damages – imposed where a court finds “improper or unjustifiable” conduct by the respondent.
The domestic violence allegation has a separate defamatory “sting”, Roberts-Smith’s lawyers say. They’ve argued that the conduct of his ex-lover, Person 17, was overall inconsistent with his having struck her. But Nine says she is truthful, and emphasized the power imbalance between the pair.
While the Defamation Act was recently reformed across much of the country, the Roberts-Smith litigation is being fought under older laws that imposed fewer restrictions on the size of damage payouts. Under those provisions, a cap on general damages for non-economic loss – currently fixed at $443,000 – ceased to apply if aggravated damages were also awarded.
Roberts-Smith is also claiming special damages, to cover the career opportunities he said evaporated as a result of the case. (Actor Geoffrey Rush holds the current record for the highest defamation payout to a single plaintiff in Australia at $2.9 million).
The long-overdue changes to defamation law will provide investigative journalists with a new public interest defense in the future, if publishers can establish they “reasonably believed” publication of material was in the public interest. The defense remains untested.
But in facing off against the onetime war hero under the older law, Nine is having to jump a high bar.
The next few months will be a long and agonizing wait, for both sides.
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This story is part of the Behind the Desk series, where CNBC Make It gets personal with successful business executives to find out everything from how they got to where they are to what makes them get out of bed in the morning to their daily routines.
Ann Mukherjee thinks about a simple question every day: If you had a chance to change the world, what would you do?
Mukherjee, 56, is the North American CEO and chairman of Pernod Ricard, the world’s second-largest seller of wine and spirits — meaning she’s in charge of famous top-shelf liquor brands like Absolut, Jameson and Malibu. And she understands first-hand how alcohol can change someone’s life, because it almost ruined hers — twice.
She says her earliest memory as a child is of an assault she suffered at the hands of two drunk teenagers. And when she was 14, her mother was killed by a drunk driver. Her job de ella today, she says, helps turn her pain into “positive, meaningful change.”
“We should never just accept that bad things happen,” Mukherjee tells CNBC Make It. “As a leader, I feel a strong sense to stand up for those who have gone through similar experiences as I have, and do everything I can to make sure others never have to go through it.”
Mukherjee’s first act as CEO in 2019, for example: launching an Absolut Vodka ad campaign about sexual consent. Under its tongue-in-cheek slogan “Drink responsibly,” the ads promoted a new hashtag: “#SexResponsibly.”
“Our products are meant to unlock magic, not to be used for harm,” Mukherjee, who sits on the national board for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), says. “If you’re going to use these products as a weapon, then don’t buy them.”
Here, Mukherjee talks about how trauma affected her ability to lead, the person who permanently altered the trajectory of her career and a lesson she’s learned as a woman CEO in a male-dominated industry:
On the moment that made Mukherjee a leader: ‘I couldn’t deal with her death being senseless’
I was five years old when my parents immigrated from Kolkata, India, to Chicago. I was an only child, and my mother was my best friend. My father was always more distant, so she ingrained in me the importance of being independent, and how to deal with difficulties in life.
When she died, I went from being a smart-aleck kid to a capable adult within minutes. After the doctor pronounced her dead, I saw her body of her. I hugged her. Then I sat very still in the hospital hallway and immediately started thinking about how I was going to organize the funeral and prepare her body for her burial.
I couldn’t deal with her death being senseless. I had to give it meaning, and keep moving. My life has always been that way: When tragedy or a challenge hits me, I immediately think, “What am I going to do about it?”
Life isn’t about what happens to you. It’s about how you respond when things get hard. I learned that lesson very early.
On how falling in love pushed her to take a leap of faith: ‘I walked into the fire’
[My husband] Dipu and I met in an online chat room in 1995. The winners for [1994] Miss Universe and Miss World were both from India were announced just months earlier and he was like, “Shouldn’t we be proud?”
I called him a moron. I said, “We’re supposed to be proud because there’s two beautiful women recognized? Did they find the cure for cancer?” and he asked me on a date.
He’s a master mixologist. When we moved in together, his boxes of barware took over half the house. He’s the one who re-introduced me to alcohol, and showed me that if it’s done right, it can be fun. When I was asked to interview at Pernod Ricard, it was Dipu who said, “Don’t screw this up!”
I was unsure if I could work for a wine and spirits brand, after everything I’d gone through. He said, “Don’t you get it? The universe is talking to you, and telling you that this is your opportunity to right wrongs. How could you say no?”
Part of being a great leader is having people around you that tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear. Dipu has shown me that if you can be a lifelong learner, vulnerable enough to listen, it could lead to really great things.
I realized that you can either walk away from fire, or you can walk into it. I walked into the fire. If I’m in this role for five or seven years, am I going to solve everything before I leave? No. What I hope to leave is a legacy of people who are inspired and believe that they can make a difference.
On the importance of workplace adaptation: ‘People won’t change who they are to accept you’
