Foreign

Body Found in Floodwaters, Troops Injured as Storm Ravages Australia

By Web News 86

Australian authorities say a body has been found in floodwaters and 36 military workers injured in a vehicle crash as wild weather from a tropical storm lashes the country’s eastern coast.

Cyclone Alfred was downgraded to a tropical low on Saturday but is due to make landfall near the Queensland capital city of Brisbane in coming hours.

Officials have warned residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant, saying the storm’s threat is “not over”.

Winds have brought down trees and power lines and flooded low-lying roads. More than 300,000 properties are without power in the region.

Police said on Saturday they had discovered a body in the search for a 61-year-old man who went missing on Friday after his car was caught in floodwaters in Dorrigo, northern New South Wales.

Emergency responders witnessed the man escaping his car and climbing onto a tree near the riverbank, but rescuers were not able to reach him before he was swept away.

Police found a body in the area on Saturday and said it “is believed to be that of the missing man”.

In a separate incident on Saturday, 36 military personnel were injured in a convoy crash in Lismore, about 200km south of Brisbane. One truck overturned while driving on a narrow road. A second truck then collided with it.

They had been part of military crews deployed to Lismore, near the Queensland border, to help rescue and response operations.

“Our ADF [Australian Defence Force] heroes were on their way to help Australians in need,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement noting medical treatment was ongoing.

Albanese earlier on Saturday had addressed the nation from the capital Canberra, saying millions of residents were “well-prepared” but “we must remain vigilant.”

Four million people across Queensland and northern New South Wales were bracing for the storm’s landfall with dozens of weather warnings in place across both areas.

Around 287,000 customers are experiencing outages in south east Queensland, according to energy provider Energex, while Essential Energy said more than 42,600 homes and businesses in New South Wales had experienced blackouts.

People in Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, went to bed on Friday bracing for strong winds and heavy rain.

They woke up on Saturday to learn that the cyclone had been downgraded and the city would escape the worst of the weather.

But the danger’s not over in other parts of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Along the Gold Coast, pummelled by bad weather the past few days, conditions have been very strong with driving rain and strong winds.

Hundreds of trees have been blown over in gardens, parks and along the main roads. There has been lots of debris and emergency services had sectioned off areas most at risk.

“This emergency is not over,” said New South Wales state premier Chris Minns, adding that it was “crucially important” the public did not “dismiss” the storm.

“It really doesn’t matter to us whether it’s been downgraded from a tropical cyclone to a weather event,” he said.

The state’s emergency service operations commander, Stuart Fisher, warned people not to be “complacent” and said authorities in the region expect flooding to continue over the next few days.

BBC / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Foreign

Australian Influencer Allegedly Poisons Baby to Elicit Donation

By Web News 275

An Australian influencer has been charged with poisoning her baby girl to elicit donations and boost online followers.

The Queensland woman claimed she was chronicling her child’s battle with a terminal illness on social media, but detectives allege she was drugging the one-year-old and then filming her in “immense distress and pain”.

Doctors had raised the alarm in October when the baby was admitted to hospital suffering a serious medical episode.

After months of investigation, the 34-year-old woman was charged with torture, administering poison, making child exploitation material and fraud.

“[There are] no words for how repulsive offences of this nature are,” Queensland Police Det Insp Paul Dalton told reporters on Thursday.

Between August and October, detectives say that the woman – from the Sunshine Coast region – gave the child several prescription and pharmacy medicines, without approval.

She went to great lengths to obtain the unauthorised medications and cover up her behaviour, they alleged, including using leftover medicine for a different person in their house.

Police began investigating on 15 October, when the baby was brought into hospital experiencing “severe emotional and physical distress and harm”. Tests for unauthorised medicines returned a positive result later in January, they said.

The woman raised A$60,000 (£30,500; $37,300) through GoFundMe donations – which the site is attempting to repay, Det Insp Dalton said.

Police had investigated other people over the alleged abuse, but there was no evidence to charge anyone else, he added.

The woman is due to face Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Australia Sees a Woman Killed Every Four Days this Year

By Web News 296

Rallies have taken place across Australia in response to a wave of recent violence against women.

Demonstrators want gender-based violence to be declared a national emergency and stricter laws put in place to stop it.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the issue was a national crisis.

In Australia, a woman has been killed on average every four days so far this year.

Organiser Martina Ferrara said: “We want alternative reporting options for victim survivors to let them own their stories and own their healing and reporting journey.

“And we want the government to acknowledge this is an emergency action and take immediate action.”

Speaking at a march in the capital Canberra attended by thousands of protesters, Mr Albanese admitted the government at all levels needed to do better.

“We need to change culture, the attitudes, the legal system and the approach by all governments,” he said.

“We need to make sure that this isn’t up to women, it’s up to men to change men’s behaviour as well,” he added.

Responding to calls by protestors for violence against women to be classified as a national emergency, Mr Albanese said the classification was normally used during floods or bushfires to release a temporary injection of cash.

“We don’t need one month or two months – we need to address this in a serious way, week by week, month by month, year by year,” he said.

As some in the crowd criticised him, Mr Albanese suggested that he had been told ahead of time that he would not be allowed to speak at the rally – prompting a tense exchange with organiser Sarah Williams.

“That’s a lie. That’s a full out lie,” Ms Williams can be heard saying in video of the incident, before appearing to burst into tears.

In a statement on Monday, Ms Williams said the prime minister had demanded to speak “because he was being heckled” and accused him of behaving like “a man with power trying to diminish a vulnerable young woman”.

“I was happy to just attend as a participant or happy to speak, either way,” Mr Albanese told Seven News, urging that the controversy should not serve as “a distraction from what is a very serious issue indeed”.

Australia’s federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has rejected holding a royal commission into gender-based violence.

Mr Albanese has repeatedly called gender-based violence an epidemic but it’s not new: in 2021, marches took place across the country over allegations of sexual misconduct within the parliament and society.

In Adelaide, it was estimated around 3,000 people rallied outside the city’s parliament building on Saturday.

Protests have also taken place in Brisbane, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Newcastle over Friday and Saturday, 9News reported.

Recent killings have put the issue back in the spotlight.

Earlier this month, a man stabbed six people to death in a Sydney shopping centre. Five of the victims were women and the police are looking at whether they were the target.

New South Wales Police Force commissioner Karen Webb said “the offender focused on women and avoided the men”.

The rallies also coincided with the charging of a man with the alleged murder of 30-year-old mother-of-four Erica Hay, who was found dead after a house fire in Perth earlier this month.

In all, 27 women have been killed in the first 119 days of 2024, according to data compiled by the campaign group Destroy the Joint.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Five Dead After Knifeman Rampage at Sydney Mall

By Web News 418

At least five people have died from knife stab wounds after a man went on a rampage at a mall in Sydney, Australia.

Police say the knifeman had visited the mall at 15:10 local time before returning minutes later to begin his rampage.

It’s not yet clear why he attacked people in the shopping centre, but police say terrorism has not been ruled out as a motive.

The attack was only ended when a female police officer – who had been on duty nearby – confronted the man and shot him as he raised his knife towards her.

One eyewitness was near in a cafe with his two small children when he saw a man “stabbing people indiscriminately”.

Another unnamed eyewitness said he heard “people yelling and screaming, running” and began following behind the officer.

He added that, “If she (the officer) didn’t shoot him, well he would have kept going, he was on the rampage.”

BBC/Maxwell Oyekunle

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Foreign

Voting Ongoing in Australian Referendum

By Web News 288

Australia has begun early voting in a landmark referendum on enacting an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

If approved, the reform would recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the country’s constitution and establish a permanent body for them to advise the government.

The country has not had a successful referendum in almost 50 years.

Opinion polls had long-shown support for the proposal, but as the vote nears the No side appears to be leading.

While the majority of Australians will vote on 14 October, those who are unable to can vote at select polling centres right across the country from Tuesday.

The Voice to Parliament was recommended by a historic document in 2017 called the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Drafted by more than 250 Indigenous leaders, the statement is considered the best though not unanimous call to action for reforms on issues affecting First Nations Australians. It also lays out a longer process of treaty-making and truth-telling.

But the Voice proposal has become the subject of fierce debate in Australia, and a lightning rod for misinformation and racist abuse.

BBC / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Foreign

Live Worm Discovered in Australian Woman’s Brain in World First

By Web News 426

In a world first, scientists say an 8cm (3in) worm has been found alive in the brain of an Australian woman.

The “string-like structure” was pulled from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe during surgery in Canberra last year.

“It was definitely not what we were expecting. Everyone was shocked,” said operating surgeon Dr Hari Priya Bandi.

The woman, 64, had for months suffered symptoms like stomach pain, a cough and night sweats, which evolved into forgetfulness and depression.

She was admitted to hospital in late January 2021, and a scan later revealed “an atypical lesion within the right frontal lobe of the brain”.

But the cause of her condition was only revealed by Dr Bandi’s knife during a biopsy in June 2022.

The red parasite could have been alive in her brain for up to two months, doctors said.

The woman, who lived near a lake area in south-eastern New South Wales state, is recovering well.

Her case is believed to be the first instance of a larvae invasion and development in the human brain, researchers said in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal which reported the case.

‘I pulled it out… and it was happily moving’

The neurosurgeon who found the worm said she had only begun to touch the brain part that had shown up strangely in the scans when she felt it.

“I thought, gosh, that feels funny, you couldn’t see anything more abnormal,” said Dr Bandi.

“And then I was able to really feel something, and I took my tweezers and I pulled it out and I thought, ‘Gosh! What is that? It’s moving!”

“Everyone was shocked. And the worm that we found was happily moving, quite vigorously, outside the brain,” she said.

She then consulted her colleague Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious diseases expert, on what they should do.

“Everyone [in] that operating theatre got the shock of their life when [the surgeon] took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm,” said Dr Senanayake.

“Even if you take away the yuck factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being.”

Researchers warn the case highlights the increased danger of diseases and infections being passed from animals to people.

The Ophidascaris robertsi roundworm is common in carpet pythons – non-venomous snakes found across much of Australia.

Scientists say the woman most likely caught the roundworm after collecting a type of native grass, Warrigal greens, beside a lake near where she lived. The area is also inhabited by carpet pythons.

Writing in the journal, Australian parasitology expert Mehrab Hossain said she suspected the woman became an “accidental host” after using the foraged plants – contaminated by python faeces and parasite eggs – for cooking.

“The invasion of the brain by Ophidascaris larvae had not been reported previously,” writes Dr Hossain.

“The growth of the third-stage larva in the human host is notable, given that previous experimental studies have not demonstrated larval development in domesticated animals, such as sheep, dogs, and cats.”

Dr Senanayake – who is also an associate professor of medicine at the Australian National University (ANU) – told the BBC the case is a warning.

The ANU team reports that 30 new types of infections have appeared in the last 30 years. Three-quarters are zoonotic – infectious diseases that have jumped from animals to humans.

“It just shows as a human population burgeons, we move closer and encroach on animal habitats. This is an issue we see again and again, whether it’s Nipah virus that’s gone from wild bats to domestic pigs and then into people, whether it’s a coronavirus like Sars or Mers that has jumped from bats into possibly a secondary animal and then into humans.”

“Even though Covid is now slowly petering away, it is really important for epidemiologists… and governments to make sure they’ve got good infectious diseases surveillance around.”

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Sport

WWC: Sweden Beat Australia to Clinch Third Place

By Web News 572

Kosovare Asllani’s stunning second-half strike sealed victory for Sweden as they beat Australia to finish third at the Women’s World Cup.

She rifled in a shot from the edge of the area to add to Fridolina Rolfo’s first-half penalty as Sweden won the bronze medal match for the second World Cup in succession.

Despite the defeat, this represents co-hosts Australia’s best ever World Cup finish but the Matildas were unable to end on a high.

Rolfo’s penalty gave Peter Gerhardsson’s side the lead after a video assistant referee (VAR) check confirmed that Claire Hunt had clipped Stina Blackstenius in the box after 26 minutes.

And on the hour mark, Blackstenius played a superb square ball to Asllani, who stroked in a first-time shot to double their lead.

Australia capture the nations’ imagination

The Matildas’ achievement in finishing fourth cannot be understated in a country where football is not the number one sport.

Their 3-1 semi-final defeat by England was the most watched TV event in Australian history with 11.15 million viewers tuning in.

But they seemed deflated on Saturday and put in a tired performance, with even their talisman Sam Kerr struggling to make an impact on the game – in fact, she had the fewest touches of any player on the pitch in the first half.

Their best chances fell to Hayley Raso and Clare Polkinhorne, but they were both denied by Sweden goalkeeper Zecira Musovic.

Australia, who had only ever reached the quarter-finals once previously, in 2015, were the first hosts to reach the semi-finals since United States in 2003.

Their efforts in this tournament have certainly captured the hearts of the fans in green and gold and the hope will be that that leaves a lasting legacy.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Police Charge Man with Sex Crimes against 91 Young Girls

By Web News 461

Police says an Australian childcare worker has sexually abused 91 young girls over 15 years, accusing him of documenting his “unfathomable” alleged crimes in thousands of photos and videos.

Seasoned detectives have described it as one of Australia’s “most horrific” child sex abuse cases, calling it “beyond the realms of anyone’s imagination”.

“I know this news will seem unfathomable, and I know there will be many questions,” said assistant federal police commissioner Justine Gough.

“There is not much solace I can give to the parents and children who have been identified,” she added.

Included within the 1,623 charges are 136 counts of rape, 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child younger than 10 a charge used instead of rape in some Australian jurisdictions and 613 counts of making child pornography.

Investigators had been hunting for the 45-year-old man since discovering a cache of child pornography shared on the dark web in 2014.

But their efforts had been mostly fruitless until they made an unexpected breakthrough in August last year matching visual clues in the background of the images to a childcare centre in the city of Brisbane.

While the man was initially charged with just three offences, Gough said the gravity of his “heinous” alleged crimes emerged as police sifted further through his computer, phone and hard drive.

“This is chilling and shocking news for parents,” she said.

Police believe the man filmed or took pictures of “all” his alleged crimes  and eventually catalogued more than 4,000 photos and videos of abuse.

New South Wales assistant police commissioner, Michael Fitzgerald said it was one of the most horrific cases he had ever seen.

“It’s beyond the realms of anyone’s imagination what this person did to these children,” he said.

“I can only say, you try not to be shocked after a long period of time in the police, but this is a horrific case.”

Police said the abuse happened at 10 different childcare centres between 2007 and 2022 and exclusively targeted “prepubescent girls” — some as young as one year old.

Investigators painstakingly combed through the images to identify 87 of the 91 victims, who were from the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales.

The remaining four unidentified children were abused while the man worked overseas for a brief spell between 2013 and 2014.

Police said they were now working with international crime agencies to find those children, without revealing which country they were targeting.

“We have been working tirelessly since August last year to identify the children in the alleged child abuse material,” Gough said.

The man had worked at other childcare centres in Australia, but police said they were “highly confident” he had not abused children in those facilities.

Police said the man had passed the stringent series of background checks needed to work at childcare centres in the states of Queensland and New South Wales.

Culled / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Foreign

Major Player in Australia’s Organised Crime Shot Dead

By Web News 390

A “major player” in Australia’s organised crime network was shot in a busy Sydney shopping area, police say.

The 48-year-old, who was targeted in a car park at 08.30 local time on Tuesday, died at the scene.

“The shooting bears the hallmarks of an organised crime murder. It’s being treated as that,” Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said.

He added that the man had links to one of the nation’s largest outlawed motorcycle gangs.

In Australia, motorcycle gang members are known as “bikies”.

The man has not been identified by authorities, but Australian media reported the victim as the convicted drug kingpin Alen Moradian – a figure in the illegal cocaine trade.

“He’s a major player in the organised crime network and so he has high-level links to the Comancheros [bikie gang]. He obviously had a big target on his back,” Mr Doherty told a news conference.

“We’re talking about a safe community in Bondi Junction with shots fired in an underground carpark, emergency services responded very quickly – that’s why they attempted CPR on the victim”, he added.

Local police and homicide squad detectives are investigating.

Three crime scenes have been created, and two cars including a Porsche have been linked to the shooting.

Bondi Junction is located roughly 2km (1.2 miles) from the popular tourist suburb of Bondi Beach.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Wedding Bus Crash Leaves Ten Dead in Australia

By Web News 1217

At least 10 people have died and 25 others are in hospital after a wedding bus, crashed in an Australian wine region.

The passengers were returning from a wedding at a winery on Sunday night in Hunter Valley, a popular spot for wine tourists when their coach overturned.

Reports say, Police have charged the 58-year-old bus driver with 10 counts of dangerous driving which resulted in death, saying, they were still in the process of identifying the dead.

The newlyweds, however, weren’t reported to be on the bus.

Police commissioner Karen Webb said the site of the crash is “still an active crime scene”. “We’ve got forensics officers processing the crime scene, we’ve got crash investigation unit officers, we’ve got rescue officers [on the scene],” she added.

The accident occurred about 23:30 local time when, according to police, there had been heavy fog in the area. The bus had rolled over while making a turn at a roundabout off a highway. Authorities say the vehicle has now been pulled upright.

NSW Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Tracy Chapman said the guests were traveling to Singleton “presumably for their accommodation”. Two of the survivors were airlifted from the crash, she added. Local media report that at least one of them is still in critical condition.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it is “so cruel, so sad and so unfair” for a “joyous day in a beautiful place like that to end with such terrible loss of life”.

“People hire a bus for weddings in order to keep their guests safe, and that just adds to the unimaginable nature of this tragedy,” he said at a press conference in Canberra.

Mr. Albanese said some of the injured passengers are at John Hunter Hospital, but many have been flown to Sydney.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the loss of so many lives was “nothing short of heartbreaking”, adding: “For this horrific crash to have occurred on a day that should have been filled with love and happiness only adds to the heartbreak.”

“For a day of joy to end in such devastating loss is cruel indeed. Our thoughts are also with those who have been injured,” he said.

BBC/Taiwo Akinola

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News

Man Escapes Crocodile’s Attack in Australia Resort

By Web News 1379

An Australian man has escaped from becoming a prey for a saltwater crocodile while snorkelling at an exclusive Queensland resort.

According to report, Marcus McGowan, 51, has explained how he managed to prise the predator’s jaws off his head, suffering lacerations, as he was airlifted to a nearby island hospital, and later flown to Cairns for further treatment.

Crocodile attacks are uncommon in Australia, but there have been several in recent months.

Mr McGowan said he was in the water with a group of people about 28km (17.3 miles) off Haggerstone Island near Cape York when he was bitten from behind.

“I thought it was a shark but when I reached up, I realised it was a crocodile. I was able to lever its jaws open just far enough to get my head out,” he said in a statement.

The crocodile – suspected to be a juvenile – came back for another go, he said, but he was able to push it away, suffering a bite to his hand.

Queensland’s environment department says it will investigate the incident, but “crocodiles in the open ocean can be difficult to locate as the animals often travel tens of kilometres per day”.

Haggerstone Island Resort describes itself as a “family-owned, exclusive luxury resort”. The entire island, some 600km north of Cairns, is available for hire at $7,600 a night.

Crocodiles are common in Australia’s tropical north, which has seen a series of attacks recently.

In February, rangers shot a 4.2m, crocodile that attacked a man and ate his dog at a remote boat ramp north of Cairns.

And earlier this month, the remains of 65-year-old fisherman Kevin Darmody were found inside a 4.1m crocodile on the nearby Kennedy River – the 13th fatal attack in Queensland since record-keeping began in 1985.

Under Queensland’s management programme, “problem crocodiles” are removed from areas where they threaten public safety and, in rare instances, euthanised.

Since crocodile hunting was banned in 1974, the state’s crocodile population has rebounded from a low of some 5,000 animals to around 30,000 today.

BBC/Taiwo Akinola

Foreign

Missing Radioactive Capsule Found in Australia

By Web News 434

Authorities in Western Australia say they have found a tiny radioactive capsule which went missing last month.

Emergency services had “literally found the needle in the haystack”, they said.

A huge search was triggered when the object was lost while being transported along a 1,400km/870 mile, route across the state.

Authorities released a close-up picture of the pea-sized capsule – which could cause serious harm if handled – on the ground among tiny pebbles.

A serial number enabled them to verify they had found the capsule they were searching for.

Mining giant Rio Tinto apologized for losing the device, which is 6mm, 0.24 inches, in diameter and 8mm long.

It contains a small quantity of Caesium-137, which could cause skin damage, burns or radiation sickness.

Emergency services used specialized equipment including radiation detectors during their hunt.

Announcing their find on Wednesday, the state emergency services paid tribute to “inter-agency teamwork in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds”.

Officials said, the capsule was found when a vehicle equipped with specialist equipment, which was travelling at 70 km/h, 43 mph, detected radiation.

Portable detection equipment was then used to locate the capsule, which was found about 2m, 7ft, from the side of the road, they added.

A 20m “hot zone” has been established around the capsule and it will be placed into a lead container.

It will be stored at a secure location in Newman overnight before being transported to a secure facility in the city of Perth on Thursday.

The device is part of a density gauge, which was being used at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia. The company had earlier promised to launch an investigation into what had happened.

Australian authorities have promised a review of existing laws on the matter.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a news conference in Perth that the current fine for failing to safely handle radioactive substances is “ridiculously low”. It currently stands at A$1,000, $700, £575, and A$50 , $35, £30, for every day that the offence continues.

Exposure to trace quantities of the metal is like “receiving 10 X-rays in an hour, just to put it in context, and… the amount of natural radiation we would receive in a year, just by walking around,” said Western Australia’s chief health officer Andrew Robertson earlier this week.

It was thought that the capsule may have gone missing up to two weeks ago.

The search area for the lost capsule was huge. It is roughly equivalent to the distance by road from John O’Groats in Caithness to Land’s End in Cornwall, or from Washington DC to Orlando, Florida.

The state’s desert is remote and one of the least populated places in the country. Only one in five of Western Australia’s population lives outside of Perth, the state’s capital.

BBC/Taiwo Akinola

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Foreign

Mid-air Collision Leaves Four Dead in Australia

By Web News 673

Four people have died after a mid-air collision between two helicopters near Seaworld on Australia’s Gold Coast.

According to Queensland Police, initial investigations suggest the crash happened as one aircraft was taking off and the other was landing.

Those who died were travelling in the same helicopter. Three other passengers are in critical condition.

Fix of the six people on the other aircraft, which made an emergency landing, suffered minor injuries.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the collision, which happened at about 14:00 local time.

The two aircraft came down near a tourist strip known as Main Beach, about 75km (47 miles) south of Brisbane.

Gary Worrell of the Queensland Police Service told reporters the four deaths and three serious injuries had all occurred in the same aircraft.

“It’s a difficult scene,” he said. “Due to the area it’s located, on the sand bank, it was difficult to gain access, to get our emergency services to the scene to manage it appropriately.”

Images from the crash site show debris strewn around the area and a mangled helicopter apparently lying upside down opposite the Seaworld resort.

The other helicopter has the popular marine park’s logo on its fuselage and appears to have made an emergency landing after the collision.

Seaworld Drive, the main access road to the marine park, has been closed to traffic by local police.

They urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid the area as first responders inspect the scene.

Investigators from the ATSB’s offices in Brisbane and Canberra are being deployed to the scene to gather evidence, examine the wreckage and interview witnesses.

ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell has also asked eyewitnesses who saw the collision or the helicopters in flight to contact investigators.

A preliminary report will be made public in the next six to eight weeks, with a final report to follow once the investigation is complete, he added.

The Gold Coast region is currently in its peak tourist season, with children on their summer breaks.

BBC/Taiwo Akinola

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Foreign

Australian Man Killed by Pet Kangaroo

By Web News 572

An Australian man has died after being attacked by a kangaroo he had been keeping as a pet, police say.

A relative found the 77-year-old man with serious injuries on Monday at his home in Redmond, about 400km (250 miles) south of Perth.

When paramedics arrived at the rural property, the kangaroo prevented them from treating the man.

Police were forced to shoot the marsupial dead. The man died at the scene.

A police spokesperson told media they believed the man had been attacked by the kangaroo – a wild animal – earlier in the day.

Australia is home to about 50 million kangaroos, which can weigh up to 90kg and grow to 2m tall.

But fatal attacks are rare – this is the first one reported in Australia since 1936.

Kangaroos have “a lot of weapons” such as sharp teeth, claws and powerful legs, kangaroo behaviour expert Graeme Coulson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Certainly if they’re cornered or in some sort of distress, that can be quite dangerous,” Associate Professor Coulson said.

“The problem with kangaroos and people is we’re both upright animals, we stand on our two feet, and an upright stance like that is a challenge to the male kangaroo.”

In July, a kangaroo left a 67-year-old woman with cuts and a broken leg after it attacked her on a walk in Queensland.

And a three-year-old girl suffered serious head injuries in an attack in New South Wales in March.

Urban development across Australia is increasingly encroaching on wild kangaroo habitats.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Three killed on remote Australian property

By Web News 5531

A manhunt is underway in northern Australia after three people were killed and another critically injured in a shooting on a remote property.

The shooting happened on Thursday morning local time on a cattle farm at Bogie in Queensland, authorities said.

Queensland Police have locked down an area surrounding the property as they search for the “killer or killers”.

The critically injured person – a man – had travelled “many, many kilometres” to raise the alarm, officers said.

The man suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen and was flown to a hospital in the city of Mackay to undergo emergency surgery.

Superintendent of police, Tom Armitt told the media that the police are at very early stages of this investigation.

 “We do not know who is responsible,” he said.

Armitt explained that the victims have not been identified but are believed to be relatives of the injured man.

“Originally when the male person spoke to us, he was obviously in a distressed state,” he said.

Australia has some of the toughest gun laws in the world, introduced after a lone gunman murdered 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996.

Since then, there have been only three mass shootings – defined in Australia as those resulting in at least four deaths, excluding the perpetrator.

Supt Armitt described Thursday’s shooting as an “extremely rare event”.

BBC/ Oluwayemisi Owonikoko

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Sport

2022 World Cup: Eight Groups in Qatar

By Web News 940

The 2022 World Cup will feature 32 teams in eight groups of four.

Four matches will be played each day during the group stage, which will run over a 12-day period and see winners and runners-up progress to the round of 16.

Matches will only be assigned to particular venues after the finals draw, so organisers can choose optimal kick-off times to suit television audiences in different countries, as well as supporters out in Qatar.

Unlike at Euro 2020, there will be a third-place play-off game on December 17.

Group stage: November 21 – December 2
Round of 16: December 3-6
Quarter-finals: December 9/10
Semi-finals: December 13/14
Final: December 18

Oluwakayode Banjo/Olaolu Fawole

Health

COVID-19: Australia Approves Second Vaccine For Children

By Web News 774

Australia’s medical regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, TGA, said on Thursday that it has provisionally approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for use in individuals aged six years and older.

According to the report, the decision follows the provisional approvals granted by the TGA to Moderna for the use of the vaccine, SPIKEVAX, in individuals aged 12 years and older in September 2021.

The TGA said in a statement, “As for other age groups, the use of this vaccine in children aged six to 11 years should be administered as two doses at least 28 days apart.

It said a lower dose of 0.25 mL 50 micrograms will be given to children six to 11 years, compared to the 0.5 ml, 100 micrograms, dose used for those 12 years and older.

SPIKEVAX has now been added to Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine as the recommended vaccine for Australian children.

BBC/Taiwo Akinola

Foreign

Australia Agrees To Delay Djokovic Detention, Deportation

By Web News 601

Australia says it will delay efforts to deport Novak Djokovic until his renewed legal challenge concludes, a government lawyer.

According to the report, at an emergency hearing, Stephen Lloyd told a judge that the government would not detain Djokovic before an interview with immigration officials on Saturday morning and he would not be deported before his case is heard.

Details later…

Punch/Taiwo Akinola

Sport

Australia Hosts Olympics Again, With Brisbane Confirmed For 2032

By Web News 714

The Olympics will return to Australia for a third time with Brisbane formally awarded hosting rights for the 2032 Games after a vote of International Olympic Committee, IOC member nations in Tokyo.

Wednesday’s decision was a foregone conclusion given Brisbane was the only bid city still in the running and it was firmly endorsed by the IOC.

Celebratory fireworks lit up Brisbane’s night sky as the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and the Australian delegation – who had travelled to Tokyo to make their case in person – signed contracts and took photos in Japan.

There were celebrations in Brisbane after it was formally announced the city would host the 2032 Olympics. It will be the third time the Games are held in Australia. Photograph: Jason O’Brien/AAP

The Australian Olympic Committee president and IOC vice-president John Coates said, “This is a very proud day for Australia, make no mistake”.

“I thank the IOC members for their confidence. Brisbane 2032 is genuinely committed to serving the ideals of the Olympic movement. The Olympic Games in Brisbane will be in the most diligent, grateful and enthusiastic hands. I make this commitment to the athletes of the world – we will provide you with an unforgettable experience.”

Members of the Brisbane 2032 delegation celebrated in Tokyo, including, from left, the Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates, the Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner, and the federal sports minister Richard Colbeck. Photograph: Toru Hanai/AP

The bid team, led by Palaszczuk, the federal sports minister, Richard Colbeck, and the Brisbane lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, made presentations to the IOC before committee members questioned them on the sustainability of the Games.

The 2032 Olympics, the third to be hosted in Australia after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000, is estimated to cost $5bn.

The majority of this is expected to be recouped through ticket revenue, domestic sponsorship and broadcast rights.

Brisbane will also host the Paralympics, the second time Australia has done so – the first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960. Culled from The Guardian

Foreign

Man Escapes Crocodile, Prizing its Jaws off with Bare Hands

By Web News 1014

A “remarkably lucky” Australian man who forced a crocodile off his head by prizing open its jaws with his bare hands has managed to escape with minor injuries, paramedics said.

The 44-year-old Queensland man fought off the creature while swimming at Lake Placid, near Cairns, on Thursday.

He had puncture wounds on each side of his face but was “very, very calm” when healthcare workers arrived to treat him.

“A crocodile had bitten his head, and in his effort to remove the jaws of the crocodile he put his hands in to try and prize the jaws apart,” paramedic Paul Sweeney told reporters in Cairns. “In the process of trying to remove his hands, the jaws snapped shut on his forefinger. He’s a remarkably lucky gentleman.”

“Just a few centimeters lower and we have major blood vessels … had one of those been punctured then it would have been a very different story,” Sweeney said.

He added that the unnamed man estimated the saltwater crocodile was between a meter and a half and two meters (4.92 feet to 6.56 feet) in length.

Sweeney said the man had been swimming in that area three times a week for about eight years.

 “Certainly not a place I’d choose to swim,” Sweeney said, describing him as a “very fit individual”and saying “his vital signs were remarkably calm when you consider the ordeal he’d been through.”

“I would not be surprised if he ventured into those waters again for further exercise,” Sweeney added.

The Queensland Environment Department sent a team to the site and said a “search for the crocodile responsible for the attack is now underway.”

“Once rangers are at the site, any crocodile found to be present will be targeted for removal,” they said.

Crocodile attacks in Australia are rare, but Queensland officials run a public safety campaign to alert residents to the risks of swimming or relaxing near croc-infested waters.

In 2019, a Queensland fisherman narrowly escaped an attack by poking a crocodile in the eye. And last year, a massive 14-foot crocodile was captured at a tourist spot in neighboring Northern Territory.

CNN

Sport

Tokyo 2020: Canada, Australia Pull Out Over Athletes’ Safety Concerns

By Web News 895

Canada and Australia have pulled out of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games over concerns for athletes’ safety with the outbreak of Coronavirus across the globe.

The International Olympic Committee, IOC, has been in consultation with Japan about possibly postponing the Games, which is scheduled to start in July.

However, host nation Japan is adamant the Games will go on as scheduled much to the consternation of many countries and athletes, who have criticized the Asian country.

Canada followed up the announcement of withdrawing from the games with a tweet on Sunday:

Meanwhile, the Australian Olympic Committee said it was clear the Games would not be held in July, as Japan has recorded 1046 cases with 41 confirmed deaths.

Olaolu Fawole