BREAKING NEWS:
The Prime Minister has announced that Former Defence chief Peter Cosgrove will be Australia’s next governor-general.
General Cosgrove will be the nation’s 26th governor-general and will replace Quentin Bryce, whose five-year term ends in March.
Announcing the appointment at Parliament House, the Prime Minister praised General Cosgrove’s career
“Throughout his life he has demonstrated a commitment to our country and a commitment to service,” Mr Abbott said.
“I am confident that in this new role he will continue to deliver to a grateful nation leadership beyond politics.
General Cosgrove served as chief of the Defence Force from 2002 until his retirement from active service in 2005.
Mr Abbott also paid tribute to Quentin Bryce, saying she has “discharged her duties for almost five years now with grace and distinction”.
1. Search for Eeva
Update:
News Limited are reporting that a crime scene has been established on a Pottsville beach as police confirm there have been developments in the case of missing Greg Hutchings and his four-year-old daughter Eeva.
Police are guarding a scene on the beach at Pottsville and a press conference is scheduled to begin soon.
Attention had been focused upon a court appearance on Thursday in which her father Greg Hutchings is due to appear.
The four-year old went missing two weeks ago on January 11 when her father failed to hand her over to her mother as agreed at Pottsville on the NSW north coast.
News Limited has reported, “Greg’s mother feels in her gut that her son and granddaughter are dead.”
MORE TO COME.
Anyone with information is urged to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
2. ANU student rape
An investigation is underway after an Australian university student has been raped by a tourist guide during a study excursion in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan internet newspaper Colombo Page reported on Sunday that police in the southern town of Ambalangoda were searching for a man suspected of raping the young woman on a beach.
She had been working as a volunteer at a turtle hatchery since last December.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed they had been told of the incident.
3. Asylum seekers
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young who has just spent four days with asylum seekers on Christmas Island has said that they are more depressed, scared and anxious than those being housed in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan.
Fairfax Media report that the Senator says “Australia faced a ”baby boom” of stateless children with as many as 100 pregnant women in detention.”
4. NZ Shark hero
A New Zealand doctor, James Grant, has achieved hero status after being attacked by a shark: driving it off with his knife, stitching his own wound and going to the pub for a beer (and bleeding all over the floor) before heading to hospital.
The 24-year-old was attacked by what he believed was a sevengill shark.
He didn’t see the shark and had no idea how big it was. He told Radio New Zealand he thought it might have been about 20 centimetres across the jaw. However, he wasn’t scared.
5. Sex-ed should teach boys to respect girls
There are concerns over the sex-education aspect of the Australian national curriculum which comes at the same time as a leading online mum’s site – Mumsnet has petitioned for sex education to be compulsory in UK in order to teach boys to respect girls.
For more read this post here “ Sex Education in Australia. Should it teach boys to respect girls?”
6. Phone-hacking trial
Actor Jude Law has appeared in Britain’s phone-hacking trial.
The high profile witness’s voice cracked when giving testimony in the trial. He was handed a note with the name of a close family member who had sold details to the paper at the time it printed stories about his ex-girlfriend, Sienna Miller, and her affair with James Bond actor Daniel Craig.
Asked when he had first learned that this family member received payment for the information, Law told the packed courtroom: “Today. I wasn’t aware of that.”
7. Childcare report
A productivity commission report has shown that childcare costs have risen at almost double the rate of inflation over the past year, with parents now shelling out about $364 a week.
The biggest increases were in Western Australia, the ACT and the NT, with day care in the ACT the most expensive in the country.
8. Soldier baby
A shocking image of a newborn baby in Lebanon dressed in Hezbollah military fatigues as his first outfit has made headlines.
According to a Hezbollah news report the military fatigues “were the first garment to touch [the boy’s] tender body.”
Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas have long been known to indoctrinate children in violence and hate.
8. Mum taken off life support
In the US, Marlise Munoz, a brain dead pregnant woman has been taken off life-support.
A statement from attorneys for the Munoz family and the hospital both confirmed that the fetus gestating in Munoz’s deceased body was not viable.
Marlise Munoz, 33, was 14 weeks pregnant when she suffered a suspected pulmonary embolism – a blood clot to the lungs.
Her family fought a long legal battle to have her taken off life support which they finally won over the weekend.
9. Nigella Lawson
Scotland Yard have announced that no further action will be taken against TV chef and celebrity Nigella Lawson after she confessed to taking drugs during the fraud trial of her two former assistants.
10. Sochi mayor says town has ‘no gays’
The mayor of Sochi – the Russian city that is set to host the Winter Olympics next month – has claimed there are no gay people in his city.
Anatoly Pakhomov, a member of President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, was asked by the BBC whether gay people had to hide their sexuality in Sochi.
“No, we just say that it is your business, it’s your life. But it’s not accepted here in the Caucasus where we live. We do not have them in our city,” he said.
When pressed about the issue he admitted that he was not certain “I am not sure, but I don’t bloody know them.”
In Brief:
The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un has reportedly ordered that all blood relatives of his executed uncle be put to death including even children.
In Bangkok a protest leader was killed and 12 were injured on Sunday in a clash at an advance voting station ahead of next week’s general election.
What news are you talking about today?
Top Comments
Best teach the girls to respect themselves while they're at it.
As a newbie here in Australia (ok, not that new, but I did not spend the first 37 years of my life here), can someone explain the laws that result in closing comments when there is a potential criminal trial in the future...I just don't get that people can't freely "talk" about current events.
It goes to the purity of the jury system and to the integrity of witnesses. Juries are supposed to only consider the facts presented to them in the trial. Considering things out of that is grounds for a mistrial. Also, in jury selection, it's important to understand if anyone has been closely following the case in the news as they shouldn't serve.
It's actually the prosecution who doesn't like the accused picture being shown because a defence lawyer will raise doubts about a witness as soon as she asks if the witness had seen the accused photo in the media. This can diminish the weight of a line up or pointing to the accused in court.
No Sherro, it's not the prosecution, and it's not to do with photographs.
It's a requirement for the jury to know as little as possible about the accused and their prior convictions, to prevent bias. It's irrelevant if they've seen photos in the media - the witness and jury know the accused has been charged. A lot of the time, the witness will know even more than the lawyers - they might have, y'know, witnessed the accused doing the crime, for example. It's irrelevant if they've seen a photo. What the jury can't know if prejudicial facts; eg he's previously been convicted of rape, has a retraining order against him from his ex, etc. What the witness can't know, is other witnesses prosecution, in case it sways their own ("eg hmm I thought the car was black but actually now that other witness mentions it, maybe it was blue." Memory can be too malleable)
It would actually greatly assist the prosecution if the jury could know the Accused's background. It just wouldn't be in the interest of justice.