Midday News Bulletin 9 March 2024

SBS NEWS OK AUDIO 16X9 DAY.png

Source: SBS News

In this bulletin, an arrest made more than a decade after the death of a baby girl south of Brisbane; authorities confirm a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in the Blue Mountains; and in sport, relatives of Hamas hostages take to the streets in the Jerusalem Marathon.


Listen to Australian and world news, and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.

TRANSCRIPT

  • An arrest made more than a decade after the death of a baby girl south of Brisbane
  • Authorities confirm a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in the Blue Mountains
  • Relatives of Hamas hostages take to the streets in the Jerusalem Marathon

**

A woman has been arrested over the death of a baby in Queensland more than 12 years ago.

Police say the woman was arrested after additional information about the case of the three month old baby girl was provided to investigators.

The 30-year-old will appear in Brisbane Magistrate's Court today charged with domestic violence related murder.

The baby girl died in September 2011, four days after being taken to hospital by officers who had attended a home in Redland Bay, 35 kilometres southeast of Brisbane.

**

Authorities have confirmed a minor earthquake has rattled residents of the Blue Mountains, and parts of western Sydney.

Geosciences Australia says the earthquake was a 3.6 magnitude tremor.

New South Wales Police say they have received dozens of calls from concerned locals in western Sydney and the lower Mountains who heard a loud bang on Friday night, but no damage or injuries have been reported so far.

This local has told Channel 9 the earthquake was a huge surprise.

"Last night, was just sitting down having a nice relaxing - watching a bit of telly, and then there was this awful tremor, and I thought someone's run into the wall of the house. And then I got a phone call saying we'd just had a tremor. It was unusual. It was a big - it was a thud."

**

Experts say there is no easy solution to Australia's rental affordability crisis, which is now at its worst level on record.

The latest PropTrack Affordability report has found households on the median income of $110,000 per year can only afford 39 per cent of properties available to lease - the lowest figure since the report started tracking rental affordability 17 years ago.

PropTrack senior economist Angus Moore says the deterioration has been driven by a significant increase in rents since the pandemic, which wages have not kept up with.

Michael Fotheringham from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has previously told SBS News that no single proposal can untangle the mess overnight - but action is urgently required.

"The best time to have addressed this was 20 years ago, the next best time is today. It's absolutely time, we can't keep pushing this down the road because it just continues to get more serious. We have significant issues around homelessness and housing unaffordability in this country, and we need to take them very very seriously."

**

Two people have been arrested over a plot to attack a member of Israel's delegation to APEC, due to be held in Peru later this year.

Peruvian police say they are not naming the Israeli for security reasons.

Chief of police, Oscar Arriola, says the arrests were made after a coordinated investigation with international intelligence agencies.

He says the suspects in the alleged attack plot are Iranian and Peruvian.

**

The US government says it still has no evidence that UFOs are real.

A Pentagon report on unidentified flying objects has concluded that most sightings have been ordinary objects and phenomena which were misidentified.

The report has talked of a "persistent narrative" in popular culture that the government, or a secretive organisation within it, had recovered several "off-world spacecraft and extraterrestrial biological remains" and operates programs to "reverse engineer" the recovered technology.

But Pentagon Spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder says there have been numerous inquiries since the end of the Second World War - and they've all come to the same conclusion.

"To date, AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government or private companies have access to or have been reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology. AARO has found no evidence that any U.S. government investigation, academic sponsored research or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology."

**

To sport, relatives of hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza have taken to the streets for the annual Jerusalem Marathon.

They've joined tens of thousands of runners for the event, which they hope will symbolise the need to get over the finish line of ceasefire negotiations when they resume in Egypt on Sunday.

Matt Kreiger was part of a group called Team Hersh, who ran in support of one of the remaining hostages, Hersh Goldberg Polin.

He says everyone wants a ceasefire deal to be made, which would include the release of the captives.

"I think it's extremely important, President Biden mentioned last night in his State of the Union that his priority is to bring home the hostages. We're counting on him to do that. We're counting on the world to do that. The 40,000 people who are running today are spreading that awareness and spreading that message, and we're all here for that."

Share

Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world