Hantavirus cruise passengers arrive in Australia; Neo-Nazis declared a prohibited hate group in Australia; Aussie Jensen Plowright just off the podium in the Giro d’Italia.
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Transcript
- Hantavirus cruise passengers arrive in Australia.
- Neo-Nazis declared a prohibited hate group in Australia.
- Aussie Jensen Plowright just off the podium in the Giro d’Italia.
Six people who were on board a cruise ship struck by a deadly outbreak of hantavirus have touched down in Australia.
Four Australian citizens, one permanent resident and one New Zealander landed near Perth at the Pearce RAAF Base earlier this afternoon, and are now in quarantine at a specially-designed facility next to the base for three weeks.
Health Minister Mark Butler says all passengers are in good health and showing no symptoms.
But he says the government has a responsibility to the group - and the community - to take stringent quarantine measures.
"Many countries that are already repatriating passengers from this cruise ship - the US, the UK and others - are only subjecting their repatriated passengers to a managed quarantine arrangement at a hospital or at a centre like Bullsbrook, usually for two or three days, and then allowing those passengers to move into a home-based quarantine arrangement. We have decided on a precautionary basis to take a stronger approach to that."
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Neo-Nazis are now a prohibited hate group in Australia.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says the listing is a serious step that can only be initiated by ASIO, who must be convinced the organisation has engaged in behaviour that would increase the risk of violence.
The neo-Nazi organisation in Australia is known by different names, including the European Australian movement, the National Socialist Network, and White Australia, which is an intended political party.
But the Minister says no matter what they may be called, they have continued their activities under different names despite announcing plans to disband last year.
"None of this will stop bigoted people from having horrific ideologies. But it does prevent this group from organising, from meeting, and prevents some of the sorts of horrific, bigoted rallies that we've seen around our country. It sends a clear message to people who believe in racial supremacy that their views have no place in modern Australia."
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Police in Queensland say it's too early to speculate on the cause of a tourist bus crash in which a woman died.
Superintendent Dean Cavanagh says the charter bus left the Bruce Highway and rolled onto its side during the crash.
19 people were taken to hospital and at least one has sustained life-threatening injuries.
Superintendent Cavanagh says an investigation is now underway.
"The forensic crash investigation is at its early stages the work that they do is methodical, it's also protracted and very detailed and so we won't rush that and we will not speculate on cause, I understand there will be a lot of questions about cause, at this early stage there won't be any speculation, we'll let the evidence guide us to that conclusion, what we'll do now is we place our trust in the forensic crash unit, we'll give them the time and the resources necessary and they will continue that investigation for as long as it takes."
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Business owners in Beirut's southern suburbs say they'll struggle to rebuild due to rising costs.
Dozens of buildings have been destroyed in Israeli strikes and a truce has reduced but not completely halted fighting.
The economic impacts of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is adding to other issues in Lebanon, including largely unregulated markets that are vulnerable to price gouging.
1.2 million residents have been displaced in the latest round of fighting.
Professor of Finance at the American University of Beirut, Mohamad Faour, says Lebanon has been grappling with multiple crises.
“Lebanon has been grappling with multiple rounds of crises, starting from a deep financial meltdown in 2019, followed by a port explosion, followed by an Israeli war on Lebanon in 2024, and now the second wave of Israeli war on Lebanon. It’s important to emphasize on the context in which Lebanon is operating, which is a context of already extreme fragility. So this round of war only made an already fragile situation more fragile.”
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Australia’s Jensen Plowright has finished fourth in stage six of the Giro d’Italia, after avoiding a late crash in Naples.
The 25-year-old called it his own "Steven Bradbury moment", after several sprint contenders went down on slippery cobblestones near the finish line.
Italian rider Davide Ballerini won the stage.
Portugal’s Afonso Eulalio remains in the leader’s pink jersey.
