Far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins is to be deported from Australia after she boasted on social media that she planned to breach the nation’s COVID-19 quarantine rules, an official said yesterday.
Hopkins traveled to Australia to appear in a reality TV program and was in a 14-day mandatory hotel quarantine in Sydney before filming was due to start.
Her flight to Australia created outrage after the government last week halved the number of Australian citizens and permanent residents allowed to return home each week to 3,000.
Photo: AP
More than 34,000 Australians who want to return home remain stranded overseas.
Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, are under lockdown to contain a COVID-19 outbreak caused by the more contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Australian Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews said that Hopkins would be deported after boasting on Instagram her intention to flout quarantine rules.
“It’s appalling that this individual behaved the way that she did and she will be leaving,” Andrews told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We will be getting her out of the country as soon as we can arrange that.”
Hopkins, who has also gained notoriety for her anti-Muslim comments, described pandemic lockdowns as the “greatest hoax in human history.”
In a since-deleted Instagram video from her hotel room, she said that she planned to frighten staff who brought meals to her door by confronting them naked and without a mask.
People in quarantine are not allowed to open their doors until 30 seconds after their meals have been delivered and must wear masks while their doors are open.
Andrews described Hopkins’ comments as shameful.
“The fact that she was out there boasting about breaching quarantine was just appalling,” Andrews said. “It was a slap in the face for all those Australians who are currently in lockdown and it’s just unacceptable behavior.”
Seven Network and Endemol Shine Australia, the production company behind the program Big Brother VIP in which Hopkins was to appear, said that her contract had been canceled.
“Seven and Endemol Shine strongly condemn her irresponsible and reckless comments in hotel quarantine,” they said in a statement.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS