Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The opposition leader’s comments follow Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation from the frontbench in a dispute about climate policy
The federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has declined to say whether Labor will articulate a medium-term emissions reduction target before the next federal election.
Albanese’s sidestep followed Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation from the Labor frontbench on Tuesday after a lengthy internal dispute about climate policy that culminated in a blow-up at shadow cabinet on Monday night.
Former PM says Murdoch media has become ‘pure propaganda’ and is doing enormous damage to the world’s ability to respond to climate change
Malcolm Turnbull says News Corp has become an organisation for “pure propaganda” that has done enormous damage through its promotion of climate change denial.
In a heated exchange on Monday night’s Q&A, the former prime minister and the Australian’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, clashed over the media organisation’s treatment of climate science.
Federal parliament returns; Asio chief warns of ‘real threat’ from foreign spies; incoming Biden administration vows to sign back up to Paris agreement. Follow all the updates
The motion was voted up 28 to 25 with Labor, Centre Alliance, Rex Patrick, Jacqui Lambie and One Nation combining to warn the Coalition over the draft bill’s inadequacies.
Greens senator Larissa Waters motion stated:
Senate just passed a motion 28:25 for a strong corruption watchdog, listing all of the features the Gov’s weak model leaves out. A defacto vote on the Gov’s bill - the Senate can see through the fig leaf of the Gov’s belated and pathetic model that wouldn’t stop a thing! #auspol
Richard Marles says Labor is not pursing a royal commission into the Murdoch media empire and will “let Kevin speak for himself”.
Andrew Leigh officially tabled the Kevin Rudd-led petition, which had more than 500,000 signatures, in the parliament today.
We have talked about our position in relation to the media over a long period of time. Now, this is not something we have been considering. This is something Kevin Rudd has been pursuing in his capacity as a private citizen. I mean, I obviously note it is a significant petition in terms of those who have signed up to it and it has been presented to the parliament appropriately. That is where the matter is that in terms of the opposition.
New Zealand and the Cook Islands are set to open a ‘travel bubble’ between the two countries, with NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirming officials from her government would visit the South Pacific archipelago later this week.
“While I don’t wish to put any time-frames on a potential travel bubble, it is my aim and hope that this can resume as soon as is safely possible, and this on-the-ground visit by officials to the Cook Islands is the next step in that process.
US President-elect Joe Biden’s healthcare advisers have held talks with drugmaker executives on the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program to accelerate development of a possible Covid-19 treatment, a Biden spokesman said on Sunday.
Reuters reports that under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the disease amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
The US Covid-19 death toll stands at over 237,000, with more than 9.9 million cases now reported in the country since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally.
“As we previously said in September, because President-Elect Joe Biden is absolutely committed to helping develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible, campaign medical advisers have received briefings from companies working to produce vaccines in order to be informed about the process,” Biden’s spokesman Andrew Bates said in an emailed statement.
Biden’s advisers met with companies that have Covid-19 vaccines or therapies in late-stage clinical trials in September and October, Bloomberg News had reported earlier. The report added that the meeting was aimed at gathering information about the development, manufacturing and distribution of shots to ward off the novel coronavirus and therapies to treat the sick.
Biden has vowed to “listen to the science”, with his coronavirus plan calling for scaling up testing and contact tracing and promising to appoint a “supply commander” to oversee supply lines of critical equipment.
Lovely reporting from my colleague Lorenzo Tondo in Roccafiorita in Sicily:
When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.
When the phone rang, it was like lightning on a sunny day. With this second wave on its way, for a second I thought that we might actually be wiped off the map.
As Joe Biden announced he would name his own coronavirus taskforce on Monday, the US recorded its fourth consecutive record daily total of new Covid cases, close to 130,000.
“That plan will be built on a bedrock of science,” Biden said, promising to “spare no effort or commitment to turn this pandemic around.”
We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.
Scott Morrison has signalled he would invite Joe Biden to visit Australia for the 70th anniversary of the Anzus treaty in 2021 as he congratulated the Democrat for winning the US presidential election.
Morrison told reporters that Canberra would continue to deal with the Trump administration during the transition period but looked forward to working with Biden from January.
The election of Joe Biden to the White House is likely to see Australia increasingly isolated as the world heads to net zero emissions, with quite fundamental implications for our economy.
Let’s have a look at what has happened in the last two months.
Defence chief Angus Campbell will consider the findings and decide how much detail will be released publicly
The inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan has delivered its final report to the chief of the defence force, who is now considering how many of the “uncomfortable” findings to make public.
Defence chief Angus Campbell confirmed on Friday evening he had received the Afghanistan inquiry report from the inspector general of the Australian defence force, who has been examining the conduct of elite Australian forces in more than 55 incidents of alleged unlawful killings between 2005 and 2016.
The Kremlin has said it is early to judge how effective Russia’s coronavirus restrictions are without lockdowns, as the country reported a record daily number of new Covid-19 infections.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the increase in coronavirus cases to a daily high of 20,582 was alarming and that authorities would take action depending on how the situation developed.
New coronavirus restrictions came into force in Italy on Friday but from pavements dotted with coffee drinkers to lines of striking taxi drivers, the picture on the streets was different from the ghostly scenes of the first lockdown, Reuters reports.
The restrictions, which divide the country into three zones according to the severity of the latest outbreak, are less severe than the blanket measures imposed when the pandemic first took hold in March.
One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals, Australia’s greater glider is actually three separate species, according to new research
One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals, Australia’s once-common and unique greater glider, actually comprises three separate species, according to new genetic research.
Researchers said the findings should prompt urgent work to better understand the three species which are under pressure from rising temperatures, bushfires and land-clearing.
That’s it for tonight, thanks for reading. To recap today’s developments:
The chief of the defence force, Angus Campbell,has released a statement about the inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
Campbell said he received the Afghanistan inquiry report today, which examined the conduct of elite Australian forces in more than 55 incidents of alleged unlawful killings between 2005 and 2016.
Today I have received the Afghanistan Inquiry report from the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF).
The independent inquiry was commissioned by Defence in 2016 after rumours and allegations emerged relating to possible breaches of the Law of Armed Conflict by members of the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan over the period 2005 to 2016.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump still have paths to victory in the US election but the contest is narrowing substantially. In this episode of Full Story, Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor and Simon Jackman from the US Studies Centre discuss what’s unfolding and what a Biden presidency would mean for Australia
High profile figure Sunny Duong the first person to be charged under 2018 laws as relations between China and Australia deteriorate
A Chinese-Australian community figure who was pictured with federal minister Alan Tudge donating $30,000 in Covid-19 relief to a Melbourne hospital in June has become the first person charged with a foreign interference offence.
Di Sanh Duong, known as Sunny, appeared before the Melbourne magistrates court on Thursday charged with preparing for a foreign interference offence.
The head of France’s public health service has said the coronavirus crisis in the country is getting worse and every day in the fight to slow the spread of infections counts.
“We’re facing a very high wave (of infections),” Jérôme Salomon told a news conference. “The epidemic is progressing. We must all slow the spread together.”
Salomon: "The situation is deteriorating. Every day counts. We have to break the chain of this epidemic. Each of us must act to put a brake on the virus." He is outlining the health safety measures. "The slightest doubt, take a test."
Greece has reported 2,917 new coronavirus cases, hitting a new daily peak hours after authorities announced a second nationwide lockdown is going into effect this Saturday, 7 November.
Thursday’s cases follow on the 2,646 cases reported on Wednesday, which was a new record. Authorities said infections have risen 20% in recent days.
News Hub reports New Zealand’s US ambassador has commented on the election. As government employees, ambassadors are prevented from indicating political views (despite being political appointments) but it looks like Scott Brown, for one, is feeling confident enough in the result to be a little honest.
Twitter has permanently suspended the account of the conspiracy theorist David Icke. A spokesman for the social media platform said Icke had violated its rules regarding coronavirus misinformation, PA Media reports.
The move follows the decision by YouTube and Facebook to terminate Icke’s accounts in early May for the same reason.
According to a CNN nationwide exit poll, about a third of voters said the economy was most important to them, around one in five said racial inequality and about one in six said the coronavirus pandemic.
We'll be updating this summary of what we know – and don't know – throughout the night:https://t.co/LZqwjQNhbl
‘We need to keep moving forward as we live with Covid-19,’ Gladys Berejiklian says. We’ll also be bringing you Australian reaction to that election, as it happens
In the UK Liverpool (otherwise known as the World’s Best City) is set to become the first to have mass test-and-trace operation. My colleagues Sarah Boseley and Jess Elgot write:
Up to half a million people in Liverpool will be tested for Covid-19 under the UK government’s first attempt to embark on city-wide mass testing.
Indonesia has reported 2,973 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 418,375, according to data from the country’s health ministry.
The country has also reported an additional 102 deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 14,146.
The St George Illawarra NRL player has pleaded not guilty to aggravated sexual assault at his Wollongong trial
NRL star Jack de Belin raped a teenager after ignoring her protests to stop undressing her and later asked why she was being “so emotional”, a jury has been told.
The St George Illawarra player, 29, and his friend Callan Sinclair, 23, have pleaded not guilty to the aggravated sexual assault of the woman, then 19, after meeting her in a Wollongong bar in December 2018.