Key Points
- At least 82 dead in Hong Kong apartment tower inferno
- Two charged with assaulting police in Melbourne protests
- Aston Villa beats Young Boys in Europa League
TRANSCRIPT
Firefighters have nearly contained a blaze, burning for more than 24 hours across seven apartment towers, in the Hong Kong district of Tai Po.
At least 94 people have died and more than 200 are still unaccounted for, after the fire broke out at the Wang Fuk housing complex on Wednesday night.
Hong Kong's anti-corruption agency has launched a probe into construction work being carried out on the buildings.
Two directors and an engineering consultant of Prestige Construction have been arrested under suspicion of manslaughter for using unsafe materials, after it emerged the housing estate was wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh.
Deputy Director of Fire Services Derek Armstrong Chan says firefighters faced incredibly difficult conditions.
“And for the firefighting operation, we encounter particular difficulties in several areas like the fire was spreading exceptionally fast, exceptionally rapid. So, as you can see, the fire spread quickly to all the settling blocks of the estates. And secondly, it well, we receive a lot of assistance calls so we have to deploy our crews to handle the assistance calls at the same time.”
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A New South Wales Police officer has been found guilty of dangerous driving occasioning death, in the case of a crash that killed an indigenous teenager.
Sixteen-year-old Jai Kalani Wright died in hospital with serious injuries after a motorbike he was riding collided with an unmarked police car in Sydney.
Police alleged the bike and a car were both stolen and that they had been sighted by police nearby, before the collision.
Police officer Benedict Bryant had pleaded not guilty over the crash in Alexandria, Sydney in February 2022.
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More details have emerged over a fatal shark attack at Kylie's Beach on the New South Wales mid north coast yesterday.
Two Swiss tourists were attacked at the unpatrolled beach in Crowdy Bay National Park.
By the time paramedics reached the scene, the woman in her 20s had died and the man was badly injured.
Emergency services say passers-by who stemmed the man's bleeding with a makeshift tourniquet may have saved his life.
He was airlifted to hospital in Newcastle where he remains in a critical condition.
Professor Culum Brown from Macquarie School of Natural Sciences says the number of shark attack fatalities has risen to about three a year, in recent years.
"It does seem like over the last 15 years or so there has been a bit of an uptake or an uptick in the number of fatalities, and it's certainly not due to an increase in shark numbers, but it probably is a combination of change in the behavior of distribution because of climate change, but it's also, you know, let's remember that this is about shark human interactions, right? So there's the human equation as well. Now I suggest that there are just more people in the water more often."
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Victoria Police have arrested two people in relation to competing protests on the streets of Melbourne last month.
Riot police were deployed to separate two groups after anti-immigration March for Australia protesters were confronted by anti-racism protesters on the 19th of October.
Police investigating the demonstration allege that the counter protest group hurled rocks, glass bottles and rotten fruit at police.
A 21-year-old man from Port Melbourne has been charged with two counts of assaulting police and two counts of hindering police, while 56-year-old man has also been charged with assault and hinder police.
They've received bail to appear in court in May next year.
Police have also released images of six more people they are hoping to identify.
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Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the nation's environment protection laws are undergoing urgent reform, after the Greens secured a Senate deal.
She is arguing the overhauled laws will prevent unchecked land clearing and forest destruction.
The Senator acknowledges the negotiations were tough and points out that the Greens could not secure stronger climate protections.
"Today's a good day for nature, a good day for our forests and our bushlands and our wildlife and a bad day for the fossil fuel industry. We have kept coal and gas in the slow line where they should be."
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And in football, Aston Villa has secured a 2 -to-1 victory over Young Boys in the Europa League, despite disruption from travelling fans
Donyell Malen scored two goals in the first half, prompting Young Boys supporters to throw objects at Villa players on their home ground.
The game was stopped for five minutes as fans clashed with police until Young Boys captain Loris Benito managed to calm them down.
Police officers in riot gear prevented any further trouble after the break.
It's Villa's fourth win from five in the Europa League.
