TRANSCRIPT
- Australia's Defence Force says its peacekeepers in the Middle East are safe and accounted for
- The Nobel economics prize awarded to three professors
- The Socceroos hoping to break new ground in the game against Japan
The Australian Defence Force has confirmed all the country's personnel - including peacekeepers - are safe and accounted for in the Middle East, amid calls for their withdrawal.
Liberal senator Dave Sharma, a former ambassador to Israel, has told Sky News that peacekeeping troops ought to be removed from the conflict zone.
But the ADF says it continually revises force protection measures in the region.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson says the Australian government has made it clear to Israel that any targeting or intimidation of UN personnel and facilities in Lebanon is unacceptable and must cease.
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Israel's military says it will investigate a Hezbollah drone attack that hit its military base in central Israel, killing four soldiers and injuring over 60 people.
The drone strike is the deadliest Hezbollah attack since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon around two weeks ago.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the drone attack, saying it's a retaliation for Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari says his army will still investigate the incident thoroughly.
"We will learn and we will investigate the incident about how an unmanned air vehicle infiltrated (Israeli airspace) without warning and hit a base here. The UAV threat is a threat that we have faced since the beginning of the war. We are required to provide better protection. We will investigate this incident. We will learn and improve our role to better protect our soldiers and the citizens of the state Israel."
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Tasmania's minority Liberal government will need to find a new deputy premier and treasurer after the state's second-in-charge resigned.
Michael Ferguson quit cabinet on Monday afternoon after being confronted with the prospect of losing a no-confidence vote in parliament today.
He had been under increasing political pressure over delays and cost blowouts to the delivery of new $900 million Spirit of Tasmania ships.
Labor planned to move a no-confidence motion in Mr Ferguson, with the support of crossbench independents and the Greens, which the Liberals didn't have the numbers to defeat.
Mr Ferguson says he will stay in Parliament as an elected member for Bass.
"It's the brutal mathematics of politics that would very clearly indicate that we don't have enough votes on the floor of the parliament to sustain a no-confidence motion. In those circumstances, with nobody asking me to, I've offered my resignation to the Premier and to the Governor from the cabinet. "
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One of the three winners of the Nobel economics prize says it has been surreal since he got the news.
James Robinson was awarded the prize Monday along with two other economists who have studied why some countries are rich and others poor and have documented that freer, open societies are more likely to prosper.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says the work by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity.
Mr Robinson says it has been a pleasure working with the co-winners of the prize for the last 30 years.
"None of us had any idea how to conduct an empirical study, in fact. So then I remember we were we were talking on the telephone, and I was like, talking about how we were going to analyse the data and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know, how are we going to do I know how I know how we're going to do it. So we were able to kind of use a lot of techniques from labor economics and kind of other parts of economics and kind of import them into studying these issues of comparative development, you know, which turned out to be very powerful."
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In football, Socceroos coach Tony Popovic is confident the team is capable of snatching a groundbreaking away win over Japan - and kickstarting their World Cup qualifying campaign.
The Socceroos face Japan's Samurai Blue, the world's No.16-ranked team, at Saitama Stadium tonight.
They have never beaten Japan on home soil, and last beat them in 2009.
Forward Mitch Duke says he is determined to snap his goal-scoring drought.
"It has been a good international career to date, but I am not satisfied with what I have done yet. I feel like I still have got a lot more I want to achieve. And being a striker, you always want to score goals - and it being an important part to helping us to win games. For me, I haven't been happy, I haven't scored enough goals as of late. And I want to rectify that - and change that."
