TRANSCRIPT
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to raise trade and security matters at the ASEAN summit
- Three scientists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on proteins
- The Socceroos face China in a crucial World Cup qualifying match
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his visit to the ASEAN summit in Laos will be an opportunity to improve Australia's trading relationship with China, and ASEAN as a bloc.
He says he is particularly keen to build on progress on the strategy launched a year ago based on the report by former Macquarie Bank chief executive Nicholas Moore to boost two-way trade between Australia and Southeast Asia.
Improvements to visas to facilitate mobility were a key recommendation from Mr Moore's report, and the government responded with changes to business visas.
Speaking from the capital in Laos, Vientiane, Mr Albanese says he will raise security and trade matters during his discussions with leaders.
"My message will be a consistent one, which is that we'll cooperate where we can, we'll disagree where we must, and we'll have some direct discussions about some of the disagreements that are there, but also that it is in our interest to communicate with China, which is our largest trading partner. Thank you."
Leaders at the annual forum of Southeast Asian nations are expected to discuss the prolonged civil war in Myanmar and territorial tensions in the South China Sea.
Laotian Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone says he is looking forward to productive discussions.
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Federal Education Minister Jason Clare says there is no time to waste to get the federal government's bill on international student caps passed by the Parliament.
If passed, it is set to come into effect from January 1 next year.
It proposes to cap the number of international students who can come to Australia to 270,000.
It is part of a bid by the federal government to reduce migration to pre-pandemic levels.
A newly released Senate report on the government's proposed law recommends the bill be passed, with changes.
Some of the recommended changes include: the removal of the ability for the minister to set course-level limits; and the inclusion of exemptions for specific classes of students.
There remains only two sitting weeks for the government to pass the legislation for it to come into effect next year.
Mr Clare says the government will carefully consider the Senate committee's recommendations.
"International education is really important. It makes us money as a country. It makes us friends as a country because when people study here and they go home, they take their love for Australia back home with them. But it is also important that we return migration to pre-pandemic levels. And this is one part of doing that."
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Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to predict and even design novel proteins - the building blocks of life - have won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The work of Americans David Baker and John Jumper, along with UK scientist Demis Hassabis, has used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, to examine the proteins.
The work holds the potential to transform how new drugs are made.
Meanwhile John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton have been awarded the Nobel in physics for discoveries that formed the building blocks of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Geoffrey Hinton says he believes AI will bring tremendous benefits, but he also remains cautious of the risks.
"Most of the top researchers I know believe that I will become more intelligent than people. They vary on the time scales. Quite a few good researchers believe that sometime in the next 20 years, AI will become more intelligent than us. And we need to think hard about what happens then."
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Cost-of-living pressures are preventing many Australians from seeking mental health support, with one in three of those suffering not pursuing treatment.
Released to coincide with World Mental Health Day today, the data has been collected by mental health service, WayAhead.
The survey of 1000 people found almost half of all respondents identified the cost-of-living crisis as the biggest barrier to accessing professional mental health support.
Seven out of 10 people with a lived experience said they could not afford services from a psychiatrist, psychologist or counsellor.
Meanwhile, the founder of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, has used an interview on World Mental Health day to highlight the importance of mental wellbeing.
Speaking as part of the LiveLoveLaugh lecture series, she says after experiencing burnout herself, it was really valuable to learn strategies to better deal with stress.
"It goes back to the industrial revolution. We started revering machines and machine software. The goal of machines and machine software is to minimise down time. But a human operating system is different. Down time is a feature, not a bug. So we have to learn that in fact to be most productive, we need to down time, recovery time."
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To sport, and in football news, the Socceroos are preparing to meet China in a vital World Cup qualifier in Adelaide this evening.
The match will mark Tony Popovic's debut as the Socceroos' head coach.
He has been in Adelaide since last Friday, but some Socceroos players didn't arrive in the South Australian capital until Tuesday night.
The new coach says he still expects to be happy with the squad in the game this evening.
"We feel we have enough time to show the players how we like to play. And I'm sure the players have seen it; they're comfortable with it, and they'll show some good signs of that."
