TRANSCRIPT
- Members of the Iranian-Australian community vote in Iran's presidential election
- Health warning issued in Western Australia after two deaths from a mosquito-borne virus
- Aboriginal AFL star Travis Varcoe set to be inducted into the club's Hall of Fame
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Iranians are voting in a snap election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month.
The vote comes as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East.
A number of those protests have followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody in 2022.
This voter says the economic situation needs to get better.
"My hope is to improve the economic situation, lower the inflation rate, and control exchange rate fluctuations. If this aspect can be improved, I think we can achieve development, especially for the younger generation of Iranians."
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Members of the Iranian-Australian community have cast their vote at polling booths around Australia.
Voters have cast their ballots in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne [[28 June]].
Protesters outside the Iranian embassy in Canberra were critical of the process of selecting candidates, all of whom must be approved by an influential committee of clerics before they can stand.
Rana Dadpour - from the Australian United Solidarity of Iran, tells SBS Persian there is dissatisfaction with how tightly controlled the election process is in Iran.
"Elections can be democratic, but this election no it is not. The candidates are handpicked by the supreme leader himself, supported by IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). There are no (oppositon) political parties in Iran that could propose other narratives in the country. All dissents, all people who dare speak out against the regime - they are in prison."
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Health authorities are urging residents and tourists in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to take extra precautions after the deaths of two people from a mosquito-borne illness.
There are no vaccine or specific treatments for Murray Valley Encephalitis or M-V-E, with WA Health saying the only effective protection is to avoid mosquito bites.
Those with the symptoms of the virus are urged to seek medical advice.
Initial symptoms after the mosquito bite include: fever, drowsiness, headache, stiff neck, nausea, and dizziness.
WA Health says it recommends these actions to prevent mosquito bites, including: avoid being outdoors at dawn and early evening when mosquitoes are most active; wear long, loose fitting, light-coloured clothing; and keep grass and other vegetation short to help prevent mosquitoes around your home.
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Scammers are most likely to send text messages targeting Australians in the early hours of the morning between 1 and 4 am and on weekends.
Two years of data collected by Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra, shows scammers are also using generative AI to draft the text message to make it sounded more Australian, using slang phrases like "true blue", "time to get crackin'" and "Oi mate".
The company says it blocks about 11 million scam texts every month.
Tyler McGee is the head of computer security software company McAfee's Asia Pacific region.
He says there are a number of reasons why scammers prefer to use text messages to embed their scams.
"And it is easy because everyone uses a mobile. It also gives them scale and gives them mass. It enables them to change their approach quite quickly. So today it could be a loyalty program, tomorrow it could be a bank. You only have to catch a small number of people to actually make money out of this scam. And our research has showed that people are losing money as simple as $50, $100 - but unfortunately some people sizeable more amounts of money."
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Heavy rainfall and winds brought down a roof at the main airport in New Delhi, killing one person and injuring six others.
New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport says all flight departures from Terminal 1 were temporarily suspended as rescuers cleared the debris to rescue anyone trapped.
The Minister of Civil Aviation, Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, says authorities have the situation well in hand.
"Everyone (rescue teams) was available at the site, and they have done a thorough inspection so that no other casualties are there or no other injured are there which are stuck in the collapse. Right now, the situation is under control. The rest of the terminal building has been closed off and everything is being thoroughly inspected so that any other untoward incident does not happen here."
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In sports, Ngarrindjeri man and AFL star Travis Varcoe says he is humbled by the honour of being inducted into the club's Hall of Fame.
Varcoe spent eight seasons with Geelong from 2007 to 2014, becoming a two time premiership player during his 138 game career in the Hoops.
Throughout his career, Varcoe and the Cats had an incredible 83 per cent win rate.
He tells NITV he puts his success down to discovering the joy of the sport at the early age, before he turned professional - and the additional pressures that brings.
"It was a blessing in disguise. It sort of took the pressure off without even knowing it. Given I was an Aboriginal boy from the northern suburbs of Adelaide. Statistics say I wasn't even meant to make it out of my postcode. By the time you get to an AFL list, I feel like these days, kids probably put a lot of emphasis on getting bigger, stronger, faster - as opposed to actually enjoying the pure essence of the game. And that is really just have fun. And the rest sort of takes care of itself."
