Solomon Islands and Australian PMs criticise China's missile test; TikTok's hate speech guidelines examined at Royal Commission; All three host nations out of World Cup after US loses to Belgium.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Solomon Islands and Australian PMs criticise China's missile test.
- TikTok's hate speech guidelines examined at Royal Commission.
- All three host nations out of World Cup after US loses to Belgium.
The Prime Minster of Australia and the Solomon Islands have criticised China for yesterday's ballistic missile test.
Australian PM, Anthony Albanese is in the country today for discussions on a security deal he hopes to finalise within months.
Both he and Solomon Islands PM, Matthew Wale, say they've raised their concerns about the missile test with Beijing.
Mr Wale says the region should not be used for testing.
"China is a good friend of Solomon Islands, but this is not something a friend does, this is not good in our region. And as chair of the pacific islands forum I registered my strong protest yesterday with the ambassador, Solomon Islands also lodged a protest note, but we don't want to see ... we don't want anybody testing the ICBMs in the Pacific Islands region."
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has become the first foreign leader to deliver a speech as part of Independence Day celebrations in the Solomon Islands.
The Pacific nation is marking 48 years since it declared independence from Great Britain.
He announced a $56 million education package for the country, including for rural training centres.
Mr Albanese says the ties between Australia and the Solomon Islands run deep.
"And as we celebrate the past, we look forward to the future. A future with a stronger, peaceful and more prosperous Solomon Islands. As you continue your journey we also look to our own shared future, negotiating a new comprehensive treaty that will bring our great countries even closer together."
A day earlier, Mr Albanese signed two agreements with Fiji - a defence deal called the Ocean of Peace Alliance, and the Vuvale Union, a pact to elevate the partnership to treaty status.
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TikTok's hate speech and hateful behaviour guidelines have been examined at the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion.
Social media companies have appeared for a second day of hearings, looking at the spread of hateful speech online.
TikTok's global head of policy Zachary Hecht says he has travelled from New York to Sydney to give evidence to the commission.
He says AI and human moderators are used to enforce the guidelines.
"We're increasingly leveraging large language models as those technologies become increasingly capable to moderate content. And so what we would do is try and understand the imagery and a piece of content - the text, the audio - and form a complete understanding a complete picture of that content is trying to do. And then those systems are honed to review it against our policy guidelines; and the way we tag policy previously."
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The artist alleged to be behind the Pam the Bird graffiti in Melbourne has been arrested after scaling a 140-metre pillar on a major city bridge, triggering a nine-hour standoff with police.
The 22-year-old Yarraville man peacefully surrendered just before midday on Tuesday.
Police had been negotiating with the man since they were called to the bridge at 2am over reports someone had scaled one of the 140-metre-high pillars.
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And in the World Cup,
Belgium are through to the quarterfinals, after beating the USA 4-1.
The match result means all three tournament co-hosts have been eliminated from the competition.
Substitute Romelu Lukaku scored the fourth goal for Belgium, in added time.
"That falls to Lukaku and he will find the net. He so often has his say. He helps the Belgians make their way to the quarterfinals of the World Cup finals. (cheering) A goal scored by Belgium, but in a sense created by the United States of America."
Belgium will now face Spain on Friday.
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A sports law expert says a decision to suspend a one-match ban on US-striker Folarin Balogun breaks FIFA's own practice.
Balogun had been sent off in the previous round against Bosnia and Herzegovina and was due to serve an automatic one-match suspension.
FIFA suspended the ban under Article 27 of its disciplinary code - a provision that has never previously been used to defer a World Cup red-card suspension.
Professor Antoine Duval says the article has been used differently in previous instances.
"Article 27 allows a FIFA judicial body, to fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure. It's meant to be applied also in general to suspensions that are issued in particular in ethics cases, in match fixing cases, doping cases, in cases that are, probably of a different nature."
