The former soldier’s previous defamation trial presents the rare situation of there being hours of evidence of his alleged crimes already on the public record
For almost every day of his marathon defamation trial, Ben Roberts-Smith VC, sat in the same spot in the federal court. A chair by the window, bathed in sunshine, from where he could glare at witnesses giving evidence.
He sits now in a very different position.
Continue reading...Union rejected 4.9% pay rise for resident doctors, who are on six-day strike, but offered its own staff 2.75%
The British Medical Association has been accused of the “height of hypocrisy” for offering its own staff below-inflation pay rises while demanding a 26% increase for resident doctors.
Tens of thousands of medics walked out of the NHS in England on Tuesday, the 15th time they have staged industrial action since March 2023 in their campaign for “full pay restoration”.
Continue reading...Madrid and Basque government leaders call each other ‘provincial’ in dispute over the artwork
A row has broken out between the Madrid and Basque regional governments in Spain over the latter’s request for Guernica, probably Picasso’s most celebrated work, to be housed temporarily in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to mark the 90th anniversary of the bombing of the Basque town.
The work has hung in the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid since 1992 and repeated requests for it to be moved to the Basque Country have been refused.
Continue reading...Nasa astronauts begin journey home having collected eagerly awaited images of impact craters and ridges
Nasa’s Artemis II astronauts have described the powerful emotion felt when soaring over the moon as they photographed impact craters, cracks and ridges and began their long journey home.
Among the eagerly awaited images captured by the crew, who worked in pairs at the Orion capsule windows, are those of the Earth rising from behind the moon, a solar eclipse and parts of the 590-mile (950km) wide Orientale impact basin that have never been observed with the naked eye.
Continue reading...Attacks on Iran increase and Israel tells Iranians to avoid train travel as deadline to reopen strait of Hormuz looms
Donald Trump warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not accept his demands, amid a wave of bombing as Israel told Iranians their lives would be at risk if they used the country’s railways.
A rail bridge in the central Iranian city of Kashan was one of the first reported bombed on Tuesday by Iranian state media, with two people reportedly killed as Israel’s military said it had launched “a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting dozens of infrastructure sites”.
Continue reading...Rosedale residents considering car licence plate-scanning Flock system in bid to tackle property crime
A row has broken out in one of Canada’s wealthiest neighbourhoods over plans to use an AI-powered surveillance system to create the country’s first “virtual gated community” to combat surging property crime.
Crime rates in Toronto as a whole are dropping but residents of Rosedale have been left on edge by a sustained rise in home invasions, with robbers targeting the tree-lined neighbourhood at a rate more than double the city average. Break-ins and thefts remain the third highest per capita in Toronto.
Continue reading...Analysis shows developing economies more likely to experience higher interest rates and currency shocks
Emerging economies are at greater risk of higher interest rates and currency shocks resulting from the Iran war because of increased reliance on market investors such as hedge funds, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
The IMF’s analysis shows that a cumulative $4tn flowed into emerging markets last year from outside the formal banking sector – including from hedge funds and investment funds.
Continue reading...Astronauts had a call with the US president from space after setting record for the farthest-traveled humans from Earth
The crew of Artemis II phoned home from above the moon on Monday night after their record-breaking day, to find Donald Trump musing about how he had saved the US space agency, Nasa, from closing down and telling the astronauts how much they deserved the honor of the president seeking their autographs.
The intermittently uncomfortable 12-minute Earth-to-space call, facilitated by the Nasa administrator and Trump acolyte, Jared Isaacman, featured a lengthy period of silence, several references by the president about his friendship with the retired Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and how “America is the hottest country in the world right now”.
Continue reading...UN assists in emergency vaccination drive as country battles worst surge in cases in years amid fall in vaccination rates
Bangladesh is battling its worse measles outbreak in years, with more than 100 children dead amid a rise in unvaccinated infants.
The government, in partnership with the United Nations, has begun conducting an emergency measles-rubella vaccination drive for children across the country, after more than 900 cases were confirmed since March.
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