A daily 5-minute news wrap for English learners.
This is SBS News in Easy English, I'm Biwa Kwan.
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Anthony Albanese outlines his policy priorities after being sworn in as Australia's 31st prime minister.
He says the Labor party's caucus will meet on Tuesday, and first meeting of the new ministry is set for next Wednesday [[1 June]].
This week, Mr Albanese will also attend the Quad alliance summit in Tokyo where he meet with US President Joe Biden, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He says he is not wasting any time in implementing the Labor Party's policies.
"Our national reconstruction fund, our powering Australian plan to deal with the opportunities that come with acting on climate change, full implementation of the Respect at Work report recommendations. Affordable childcare, fixing aged care crisis, strengthening Medicare. I said on Saturday that the how was just as important as the what and indeed it is. I want to bring people together; and I want to change the way politics is conducted in this country."
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The former prime minister of Tuvalu has welcomed the incoming Anthony Albanese government, saying he hopes it signals a willingness to implement more stronger climate change policies.
Enele Sopoaga says the impacts of sea level rise shows the need to act even more urgently to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or below.
He says he hopes the Albanese government acts to put in place policies to help Pacific Island nations respond to climate change.
"Countries like Tuvalu that is completely flat. It is already bad. The situation is dire. We believe in the goodwill in mankind and human being, especially for our partners in the Pacific to do the right thing. I certainly do hope the incoming government of Australia will hear better the voice of Pacific Island countries."
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A new Oxfam report has revealed the extent of inequality around the world.
Oxfam says a new billionaire was created every 30 hours during the pandemic, while a million people potentially fell into extreme poverty at the same rate.
They say billionaires’ wealth rose more in the first two years of COVID-19 than in the past 23 years combined, with the total wealth of the world’s billionaires now equivalent to almost 14 percent of global gross domestic product [[up from 4.4% in 2000]].
Oxfam's Chief Executive Lyn Morgain says the extremely rich and powerful are profiting from low-income workers’ pain and suffering.
"The pandemic causes poverty. Gross terrible inequality. So, we have this unfortunate situation where we are seeing more people descend into abject poverty at the same time and we're seeing this growth in billionaires. The key of course is we need to find a way - and the obvious way is taxation - to try and ensure that this windfall benefits come back into the community that made them."
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The World Health Organisation has called an emergency meeting to discuss the recent outbreak of monkeypox.
The virus has now spread to several countries across Europe, as well as the U-S, Canada, and Australia.
Symptoms include fever, headaches and skin rashes.
Over 100 cases were confirmed or suspected in Europe last week, in what Germany has called the largest outbreak of the virus ever in Europe.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Theresa Tam, says more work needs to be done to understand how the virus is spreading.
“It’s unusual for the world to see this many cases reported in different countries outside of Africa. I think at the beginning of any outbreak we should cast the net wide to try to understand the transmission routes – we don’t understand it enough. There’s probably been some hidden chains of transmission that could have occurred for quite a number of weeks, given the global situation that we’re seeing right now.”
There is no specific vaccine for monkeypox, but the WHO says the vaccines for smallpox are up to 85 per cent effective against monkeypox.
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In sport, Max Verstappen has won the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix.
It is Verstappen's fourth victory in six races this year.
The result also gives him the championship lead for the first time in 2022 and he heads to Monaco next weekend with a six-point advantage over Charles Leclerc.
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This is SBS News in Easy English, I'm Biwa Kwan.
