One man freed from a mine collapse in Victoria - but another remains trapped underground; Vladimir Putin blamed for an attack on an Alexei Navalny aide, and in tennis, Alex de Minaur eliminated from Indian Wells in the United States.
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TRANSCRIPT
- One man freed from a mine collapse in Victoria - but another remains trapped underground
- Vladimir Putin blamed for an attack on an Alexei Navalny aide
- Alex de Minaur eliminated from Indian Wells in the United States.
One man has been freed and another remains trapped after a mine collapse on the outskirts of Ballarat in Victoria's Goldfields.
The pair were pinned by fallen rocks at the Mount Clear mine on Wednesday afternoon [[March 13]].
The incident is believed to have occurred about 3 kilometres underground from the entrance to the mine.
Around 25 workers have been brought safely to the surface.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of orchestrating an attack on a close associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Lithuania.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has said the attack on Navalny aide Leonid Volkov was "clearly pre-planned" and tied in with other provocations against Lithuania, which is a member of NATO and the European Union.
Mr Volkov was attacked with tear gas and a hammer as he arrived home in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius, where he lives in exile.
But he says he will keep up his work.
"They wanted to make me into a schnitzel, with a meat hammer, right outside my house, in the yard. The attacker hit me 15 times in my leg, suprisingly, the leg is still in one piece. It is difficult to walk but apparently the leg is not broken. My arm has been broken instead. The most important thing is, we will continue working and we will not surrender. It was another obvious, typical, classic gangster hello from Putin from the gangster Petersburg. Continue working against Putin, that's what needs to be done, Let's go on."
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In Gaza, five Palestinians have reportedly been killed in an Israeli strike on an UNWRA aid distribution centre in Rafah.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees says at least one employee was among the five people killed, while 22 others have been injured.
The Israeli military says it is investigating what happened in relation to the aid centre.
UNRWA employee Sami Abu Salim has expressed shock Israel would target what he called an international institution.
"We are in an internationally protected headquarters. How can the occupation planes target a place like this? We are defenseless people. We are here to deliver aid to the displaced. There are people from the north who came here. This is the United Nations headquarters. There must be protection for it, and we are meant to be working here under the protection of the United Nations."
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The United States House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban TikTok nationwide if the platform's owner doesn't sell within six months of the legislation being enacted.
The measure is the latest in a series of US government decisions to respond to national security concerns about China, from connected vehicles to advanced artificial intelligence chips to cranes at US ports.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says the aim of the bill is to end Chinese ownership, not ban TikTok.
Congressman Robert Garcia says banning the platform would be a mistake, given it has 170 million users in the U-S and an estimated 5 million small businesses who rely on the app for revenue.
“Any ban on TikTok is not just banning the freedom of expression. You are literally causing huge harm to our national economy. We have small business owners that are here and small business owners from across the country that use Tiktok to move our economy forward. All of our social media platforms need to be treated equally and need to be treated the same way. And to single out TikTok in this way, we believe it's dangerous."
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The Queensland government is facing criticism over the high number of arrests of children and young people in the past year.
Both Premier Steven Miles and Police Minister Mark Ryan have recently praised the youth crime crackdown.
But concerns have been repeatedly raised about the alarming proportion of Indigenous young people being incarcerated in Queensland, which has the highest rates of youth incarceration of any state in Australia.
Queensland Green Michael Berkman says the focus should be on prevention, not prison.
"Now if the government was really interested in addressing this problem, they'd be spending more money on free meals at school. They'd be spending more on housing security, more on drug and alcohol supports for young people. Instead, they're spending all this money on two new youth prisons."
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To tennis, Alexander Zverev has exacted revenge against Alex de Minaur to eliminate Australia's world No.10 from the Indian Wells Masters.
The sixth-seeded German wore down de Minaur 5-7 6-2 6-3 in a two-hour, 47-minute fourth-round battle to book a quarter-final date with Spanish world No.2 Carlos Alcaraz.
De Minaur's defeat is his first in eight matches after successfully defending his title in Acapulco earlier this month.
