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TRANSCRIPT
- Israel and Lebanon agree to a 10-day ceasefire and will hold further talks.
- Court rules laws restricting protests in New South Wales, unconstitutional.
- Queensland stands by plan to use crocodile habitat for rowing events at the 2032 Olympics.
US President Donald Trump says Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, following what he described as “excellent conversations” with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the truce would begin at 7am this morning, with U-S officials tasked to help turn it into a lasting peace.
He spoke with reporters before boarding a flight to Las Vegas.
"So, we just made a deal with Lebanon. As of two hours from now, we have a ceasefire with Israel and Lebanon, and that'll be great. And they'll be meeting probably coming to the White House over the next four or five days. And that would be the first time they've met in 44 years, which is pretty unneighbourly, considering they're neighbours. But there's a really good chance that that will work out with Lebanon and Israel."
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will maintain troops inside southern Lebanon, despite agreeing to a temporary 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon.
He says troops will remain in an expanded security zone stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the Syrian border, aimed at preventing attacks from Hezbollah, adding that he agreed to the pause in fighting to help move negotiations forward.
"This balance has changed in such a way that we have begun to receive calls from Lebanon in the past month to hold direct peace talks between us and them, something that had not happened for more than 40 years. I agreed to this call, and I agreed for a pause, or more precisely a temporary ceasefire for 10 days, in order to try to advance the agreement that we began to discuss with the ambassadors meeting in Washington.”
Mr Netanyahu adds the ceasefire is part of a wider push towards a potential peace deal.
Meantime, Hezbollah says any ceasefire must apply across all Lebanese territory and not allow Israeli freedom of movement, a stance that could complicate efforts to turn the pause into a lasting agreement.
Clean-up efforts have begun after a major fuel refinery blaze in Geelong, southwest of Melbourne earlier this week.
Investigations are ongoing at the Viva Energy refinery, which supplies more than half of Victoria's fuel and about 10 per cent nationwide.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to tour the site after flying home early from a trade mission to Malaysia, and has described the scenes of the blaze as "very distressing".
EPA monitoring showed the impact on local air and water quality was minimal, but precautionary warnings were posted for nearby waterways and testing continues.
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Energy Minister Chris Bowen says petrol production at the Geelong refinery will be impacted following Wednesday's fire.
But the plant's owner says he is confident of replacing the difference with imports.
He says aviation gasoline production will also be impacted but there's a reserve that will last more than 100 days.
Mr Bowen says production of diesel and jet fuel has been reduced temporarily as a safety precaution, adding he doesn't expect petrol production at the site to stop completely.
"Viva, once the safe orders have been given that it's safe to investigate and to enter all the relevant sites will make further assessments about what the impacts on petrol production will be, there will be some but it won't come to an end in Geelong and Viva is confident they will be able to replace the impacted petrol production with imports."
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Australia has signed a deal to secure thousands of tonnes of nitrogen-rich fertiliser known as urea from Indonesia.
The federal government helped broker the deal between Incitec Pivot Fertilisers and P-T Pupuk Indonesia, amid a major trade tour in the region headed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Sixty per cent of Australia's supply of urea travels through the Strait of Hormuz, which has remained closed since US-Israeli strikes launched on Iran in February.
Incitec Pivot President Scott Bowman says while there is more work to do to ensure farmers requirements can be fully met for the upcoming season, the additional volume will go a long way to shoring up supplies.
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The New South Wales Supreme Court has ruled that protest restrictions introduced after the Bondi terror attack were unconstitutional.
The laws gave the police commissioner power to block public assemblies in declared areas of Sydney for up to three months.
The case was brought by three people, including members of the Blak Caucus and the Palestine Action Group.
Palestine Action Group founder Josh Lees welcomed the ruling.
"These laws were terrible. They were so wide ranging, and that is what the court has found today, is that they were totally unconstitutional on multiple grounds, in the fact that they unfairly and disproportionately burdened our right to political communication in this state. These were laws, of course, which deemed that the police could be given, effectively, the powers to ban all street demonstrations and many other protests about whatever cause for up to three months at a time."
The restrictions were used in parts of Sydney’s CBD during a February rally against Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit, which later became the subject of an independent inquiry into alleged police misconduct.
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In sport ...
The Queensland Government is standing by a plan to use a known crocodile habitat for rowing events at the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.
Olympic Minister Tim Mander insists the rowing will be held on central Queensland's Fitzroy River.
An official site inspection by the sport's world body is due in the coming weeks with the investigation expected to be finalised by June.
The river is also known for its strong currents and triple Olympic gold medallist Drew Ginn is among those to suggest competitors could be disadvantaged by their lane placement.
The river has hosted major regattas before, including the 2009 Australian Masters.
