Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
An evacuation order has been issued for Traralgon due to wild weather which has caused widespread flooding in Gippsland, damaged homes, left almost 200,000 homes without power and prompted almost 4,000 calls to the State Emergency service overnight.
About 220 low-lying properties in Traralgon, 160km east of Melbourne, are under direct threat of inundation from Traralgon Creek, and an evacuation centre has been set up in the basketball stadium, with residents urged to leave now.
International lawyer Geoffrey Robertson to argue Australia failed to protect Dungay’s right to life and denied family justice for his 2015 death in Long Bay jail
International human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson will take the case of the death in custody of David Dungay to the United Nations, arguing that Australia violated his human rights and those of his family by denying them justice and accountability for his 2015 death in prison custody.
Robertson’s London-based Doughty Street Chambers will lodge the complaint on behalf of the Dungay family at the UN human rights committee in Geneva. In it they will say that Australia has failed to protect his right to life and failed to undertake investigations into anyone or any organisation responsible for his death.
Australian scientists develop a microscope that works with 35% more clarity, raising hope for improvements in medical imaging
Australian researchers have developed a microscope that can image tiny biological structures that were previously not visible in what has been described as a significant step for quantum technology.
It is believed to be the first time that quantum technology has improved on existing light microscopes, which in future may lead to improvements in medical imaging and navigation systems.
Travel to regional Victoria likely to be barred when lockdown ends Thursday midnight and federal wages support package to be cut off. Follow updates live
Khorshid is asked about the Victorian government’s response to the pandemic, and in particular the current lockdown.
He says:
The AMA has been supportive of the actions of the Victorian government. I think the public expects to be kept safe and this is what is necessary to be kept safe when we’re in an evolving situation. As information comes in, things become clearer, decisions become easier to make. I think the best thing for us all to do is support the advice that’s been given by the chief health officers around the country.
My colleague Paul Karp asked Omar Khorshid about the AMA’s concerns about the recent proposed changes to Medicare rebates.
He asked if the AMA’s concerns have been addressed and what he made of Labor’s warnings of a government assault on Medicare. Are we likely to see another “Mediscare campaign”?
I certainly hope we’re not going see a Mediscare campaign. The sad reality of Medicare is successive governments over the entire life of Medicare have failed to index it properly, and have therefore effectively cut Medicare for 30 years. This review that the AMA has supported was designed to modernise the MBS, and it has taken five years to do, we have a few quibbles and issues with how it was done, but at the end of the day the AMA is supportive of the review process and of most of the outcomes.
Comprising more than 200 colour photographs, Porch Diaries is a series by Melbourne-based photographer Alana Holmberg featuring portraits of neighbours, strangers, workers and loved ones who passed by her Brunswick home during the 2020 pandemic lockdown months in Melbourne. With the recent spike in cases, Melbourne was back in lockdown and Holmberg was back on the porch
30 March 2020
Some days I feel like a creep. My spot up here on the porch, partially obscured behind the lemon tree, kept vertical by a stake, and the row of spindly roses. Twice this morning my presence went undetected. A metre or so above the path, I sit on a worn-out couch with a worn-out laptop, my eyes flicking from screen to street and down to screen again. Who else will pass by today? Mara, my housemate’s dog, takes her usual position to my right, propped up on my thigh. We watch and we wait.
The last decent rain on Banaba was more than a year ago.
Without rain, people on the isolated central Pacific island, which is part of the country of Kiribati, have been forced to rely on a desalination plant for all their water for drinking, bathing and growing crops.
Prime minister to say it should be up to sovereign nations to chart their own course and Australia does not support ‘setting false deadlines’
Scott Morrison is resisting international pressure to lock in more ambitious climate commitments, declaring Australia opposes setting targets for certain parts of the economy or “false deadlines for phasing out specific energy sources”.
Before he sets off for the G7 summit in the UK later this week, the prime minister will use a foreign policy speech to say that “ambition alone won’t solve the problem of actually reducing emissions”.
European and Australian police join forces with FBI to seize weapons, drugs and $148m in cash
A global sting in which organised crime gangs were sold encrypted phones that law enforcement officials could monitor has led to more than 800 arrests in 18 countries.
The operation by the FBI and Australian and European police, ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the narcotics trade.
It’s been a bit of a heavy morning so far, so here is some dinosaur news from the Guardian’s amazing new science reporter Donna Lu:
A new species of dinosaur discovered in south-west Queensland has been officially recognised as the largest ever found in Australia and among the biggest in the world.
The Australotitan cooperensis, a plant-eating dinosaur of the family known as titanosaurs, likely lived between 92m and 96m years ago, during the Cretaceous period.
Less than 3% of Australians over 16 have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus but health chiefs are tipping numbers will soar in coming weeks.
The sluggish national rollout of jabs continues to spark concern with Melbourne in the grips of another lockdown-inducing outbreak, reports Matt Coughlan from AAP.
There are multiple strains and we will continue to see Covid adapt and mutate – that’s what these viruses do.
We’re likely to see other strains emerging. The sooner we can get the world vaccinated, the less likely it is that it can mutate.
Cocos (Keeling) Islands suffix is one of the most commonly used top-level domains for hosting child abuse material, researchers say
The .cc internet domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands should be claimed by the Australian government to stop it being abused by scammers and people hosting child abuse websites, Australian National University researchers have said.
Under the system that governs domain names on the internet, the .cc suffix was set up in the 1990s for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands territory, far off the coast of Western Australia.
Australian-born Tharnicaa Murugappan in Perth hospital with suspected blood infection after Tamil family’s 18-month detention on island
The youngest daughter of the Tamil family from Biloela who have been detained for more than 18 months on Christmas Island has been evacuated to Perth for emergency medical care, advocates have said.
Tharnicaa Murugappan has been evacuated along with her mother, Priya, after being hospitalised with a suspected blood infection.
Purchase of Langidoon and Metford sheep stations is the second-biggest national parks land procurement in NSW in the last decade
The New South Wales government has purchased more than 60,000 hectares of farmland near Broken Hill for an outback nature reserve, home to at least 14 threatened species.
In an effort to expand conservation efforts in the traditionally underrepresented far west of the state, on Monday NSW environment minister Matt Kean announced the government had finalised the purchase of the neighbouring Langidoon and Metford sheep stations.
A senior public health official says her “strong hypothesis” is that the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus that caused a second outbreak in Melbourne was caused by a hotel quarantine leak.
Victoria reported two new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday from 29,816 tests on day 10 of Melbourne’s fourth lockdown.
Traditional owners are standing together to protect the Fitzroy – a ‘beautiful, living water system’. Just watch out for the bird-sized spiders …
A Nyikina man, Mark Coles Smith, and his fellow travellers began their 400km journey down the mighty Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) on a flood plain covered in giant spiders.
“Bird-sized” spiders were clinging to the canopy, jostling for space on branches protruding above flood water that stretched for kilometres in every direction.
The long-serving staffer faces 18 charges, including seven counts of aggravated indecent assault, related to allegations made by four women
Frank Zumbo, the long-serving staffer of federal MP Craig Kelly, has been charged with 18 offences including seven counts of aggravated indecent assault relating to allegations made by four women.
Police in New South Wales said Zumbo, 53, was arrested at the Sutherland police station on Friday afternoon, following an investigation into historical sexual assault offences.
Dodson criticises ‘poor judgment’ but Ben Wyatt says move will pressure other companies to appoint Aboriginal people to boards
Labor senator Pat Dodson has launched a scathing attack on the former West Australian Aboriginal affairs minister, Ben Wyatt, for joining the board of mining giant Rio Tinto, saying it showed “poor judgment” and would “do nothing” to restore Rio’s reputation after the Juukan Gorge disaster.
Wyatt, a Yamatji man, was the Aboriginal affairs minister and treasurer in WA from 2017 to March this year when he retired from parliament.
Here are some of the key developments over the past few hours:
A quarter of elderly black people in the UK have not been vaccinated, recent figures show, despite signs that hesitancy is improving generally.
Nearly six months after the government kicked off the country’s most ambitious vaccination campaign, almost one in four black people over the age of 70 were not vaccinated as of 26 May, compared with 97% of white people of the same age.
Paramount Pictures pauses filming after a routine test confirms positive Covid case on set
Paramount Pictures has temporarily shut down production on the British set of Tom Cruise’s seventh Mission: Impossible film after someone tested positive for coronavirus.
“We have temporarily halted production on Mission: Impossible 7 until June 14th, due to positive coronavirus test results during routine testing,” a Paramount spokesperson said on Thursday. “We are following all safety protocols and will continue to monitor the situation.”
Victoria’s supreme court fines the Age $450,000 and News Corp more than $400,000 for contempt of court over coverage of cardinal’s initial conviction
A dozen of Australia’s largest media organisations have been fined more than $1m for contempt of court over their coverage of Cardinal George Pell’s sexual abuse conviction.
On Friday the Victorian supreme court justice John Dixon ruled the 12 organisations had “usurped” the role of the court by breaching a suppression order on Pell’s now-quashed conviction for child sexual abuse.
Breaking Boundaries: the Science of our Planet is a new Netflix documentary from Sir David Attenborough that visits scientists working on melting ice, the degradation of the Amazon, and the loss of biodiversity, and looks at the 2019-2020 'summer from hell' black summer bushfires that destroyed large swathes of Kangaroo Island