TRANSCRIPT
- Adelaide to be the first stop for the Chinese Premier on his groundbreaking Australian visit
- Ukraine labels a peace offering from Russia as “absurd”
- Scotland to host Australia in September for a three part T20 series
The Chinese Premier is preparing to cross the ditch from New Zealand to Australia after the first visit at Premier level for seven years.
Beijing's second-in-command, Li Qiang, will visit Australia from this afternoon to Tuesday.
Mr Li will start his visit in Adelaide where he is expected to announce an extension of the loan of two pandas at the city's zoo, which was due to expire at the year's end.
Later, the Premier will then travel to Canberra for talks with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday before finishing his visit in Perth on Tuesday.
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Ukraine has rejected an offer of peace made by Russia, which is contingent on Kyiv giving up four contested territories.
The offer has come on the eve of a peace summit to be hosted by Switzerland, and reflects Moscow's apparent confidence that it has the upper hand in the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the offer as "absurd", saying that the demand for it to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow is tantamount to surrender.
He has told Italy's SkyTG24 news channel that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not to be trusted.
"He won’t stop and there won’t be any 'frozen' conflict – these messages are the same as those of Hitler, who said, less than a hundred years ago, who said 'Give me a part of Czechoslovakia, and that will put an end to everything.' No, these are historical lies. After that he went after Poland - 'give me a part of Poland,' after that he began an occupation of the entire Europe.”
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The US has confirmed it will provide more than $A477 million in additional humanitarian assistance to support the people of Sudan, who are believed to be facing the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
Some eight million people have fled their homes and an estimated 25 million - half Sudan's population - need aid as the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces drags on.
But US Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power has accused the warring parties of blocking existing aid supplies.
She has called on them to support a surge of humanitarian assistance to prevent the deaths of millions of people.
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Fired-up farmers have told a parliamentary inquiry some Western Australian towns will not survive if the live sheep export trade is banned by 2028 as planned.
WA Farmers spokesperson John Hassell has told the inquiry during a hearing in regional WA that people will leave, schools will close and police stations will disappear under the proposed ban.
The inquiry has also been told there was a long history of animal welfare breaches among exporters.
But veterinarian Dr Holly Ludeman, who has been involved in the live export industry for 20 years, has also had her say, telling the inquiry she has seen firsthand the positive changes being made in the industry.
"I've sailed on a ship to the Middle East and my last voyage in 2021, which is more recent than some of the other evidence you've heard today. And you've heard previously to this and I've been fortunate to work in our importing markets and see regulation in practice in those markets, too, which has been both an important and improvement in animal welfare and a net global improvement in animal welfare."
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Government policies and practices have failed Indigenous children and caused widening disparity between students, Victoria's truth telling inquiry has heard.
In testimony to a hearing of Victoria's Yoorook Justice Commission, Education Minister Ben Carroll has said that schools have played a significant role since colonisation in reinforcing racist perceptions and stereotypes about First Peoples and perpetuating false narratives about colonial history.
He has told the Commission that racist ideas "continue to permeate" schools across the state, and that has led to lower expectations of the educational aspirations and capabilities of First Nations children.
"We're not progressing at the scale or speed, that should end is required. While many firsts people students are thriving, we do need to do much more to ensure that success experienced by summing this by some is success experienced by all engagement, retention and completion of school is so important to achieving positive outcomes in learning and in life."
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Scotland have announced they will host Australia for the first time in over a decade later this year.
A three game T20 series will be played at the Grange in Edinburgh in September.
The games come before Australia's white-ball trip to England and effectively replaces a similar series that had been planned in Ireland only to be cancelled by the hosts for financial reasons.
