International

Australian police raided the offices of the national broadcaster yesterday over allegations it had published classified material, the second raid on a media outlet in two days, prompting complaints of assaults on press freedom.  The Australian Federal Police said its officers carried out a search warrant at the head office of the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) in Sydney. Police raided the home of a News Corp editor a day earlier, although they said the raids were unrelated. The ABC said the raid was over its 2017 reports about alleged misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan, while News Corp said the raid at an editor’s home on Tuesday related to a 2018 report about plans for surveillance of Australians’ e-mails, text messages and bank records. “It is highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way,” ABC Managing Director David Anderson said in a statement.  “This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and defence matters,” he said. News Corp, controlled by media baron Rupert Murdoch, called the raid “outrageous and heavy handed”, and “a dangerous act of intimidation”. Police questioning of journalists is not new, but raids on two influential news organisations sparked warnings that national security was being used to justify curbs on whistleblowing and reporting that might embarrass the government. “There are insufficient safeguards to prevent law enforcement agencies from using these powers to expose journalists’ confidential sources,” said Emily Howie, a Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre. “This is shocking for those who are targeted but this surveillance also has a chilling effect on people coming forward,” she added. The ABC investigations editor, John Lyons, tweeted a photo of the search warrant which showed the targets included two ABC journalists, the organisation’s news director and a former Australian military lawyer, David William McBride, who was charged last year with leaking national secrets. Media reports said he had pleaded not guilty. “It’s a complex case but it’s also a simple case. It comes down to: At what point are you obliged to basically rebel against the government?” online publication  The New Daily quoted McBride as saying yesterday. Reuters was not immediately able to reach McBride to verify his comments.  The raids came barely two weeks after Australia’s conservative government won a May 18 election it was widely expected to lose, and which almost cost Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton his seat. The home affairs minister must authorise raids considered politically sensitive, according to guidelines on the police website. Dutton denied involvement in the police investigations and said his office was notified after the raids were carried out.  “It is entirely appropriate they conduct their investigations independently and, in fact, it is their statutory obligation,” Dutton said in a statement. Police confirmed they had not notified Dutton in advance and said their actions were “independent and impartial at all times”. Both raids “relate to separate allegations of publishing classified material ... which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security”, they added.  ABC staff posted footage and comments as the raid unfolded. “This is a bad, sad and dangerous day for a country where we have for so long valued ... a free press,” Lyons said on Twitter. Peter Greste, director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said the raids were a serious issue for Australians who he said cared deeply about press freedom.  Greste is a former Al Jazeera reporter who was jailed with two colleagues in Egypt from 2013-2015 on national security charges brought by the Egyptian government.  “I’m not suggesting that Australia is about to become Egypt any time soon but what we are seeing seems to me to be on the same spectrum,” he said. Media reports said McBride was due in the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court on June 13.

A senior minister restated Australia’s tough border policy on a visit to Sri Lanka yesterday amid reports that the Australian navy had intercepted and returned several boats carrying asylum seekers from the Indian Ocean island. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton declined to comment on the reports, but reiterated his government’s policy of returning boats carrying asylum  seekers to their origin point. “If you seek to come to Australia by boat you will not be successful,” Dutton told reporters at the Australian High Commissioner’s residence in Colombo. Dutton was set to meet Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe later yesterday to discuss Australia’s policy known as “Operation  Sovereign Borders”. Asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by sea are intercepted and sent for processing to camps in Papua New Guinea and the tiny South Pacific island of Nauru - a policy that has support at home but is criticised internationally. “We have very tough border protection in Australia and that will not change,” Dutton said. Australia’s government said last week the navy had stopped a vessel originating from Sri Lanka that was carrying 20 men and women who were attempting to reach Australia. The passengers were returned to  Sri Lanka. Since then up to six more vessels originating from Sri Lanka have been intercepted, Australian media reported last week. Dutton’s spokeswoman declined to comment on the  reports. “The purpose of the visit is to prosecute ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ interests and to engage Sri Lankan authorities on counter-terrorism matters,” she said in an emailed statement  referring to Dutton’s trip. The UN refugee agency, a fierce critic of Australia’s policy, said on Monday it was seeking clarification from Canberra on the return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. “We were neither notified of the arrival of the asylum-seekers, nor of their subsequent removal,” said Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrived in the Solomon Islands yesterday, the first visit by an Australian leader in more than a decade as Western nations seek to rein in China’s influence in the Pacific. The trip comes as the United States and its regional allies try to ensure that Pacific nations with diplomatic links to Taiwan do not severe those in favour of ties with Beijing. The Solomon Islands is one of six Pacific countries to recognise Taiwan, a policy now in question after recent elections. China views Taiwan as a renegade province with no right to state-to-state ties. Morrison flew into the capital Honiara yesterday on his first overseas trip since winning re-election last month. He did not make any public comments on arrival, but has said the visit will show Australia’s commitment to the region. “The Pacific is front and centre of Australia’s strategic outlook,” he said in a statement last week. Morrison’s trip comes just a few days before a visit to the Solomon Islands by New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who will also travel to Vanuatu this week. Australia has historic ties with the Pacific, but China has raised its influence in the region in recent years. Keen to undercut China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to recreate the old Silk Road to link China with Asia and Europe through big infrastructure projects, Australia has directed ever larger amounts of its foreign aid to the Pacific. Australia has offered Pacific countries up to A$3bn in grants and loans to build infrastructure, as Morrison declared the region was “our patch”. Canberra said last year it would spend $139mn to develop undersea Internet cable links to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, amid national security concerns about Chinese telecoms company Huawei Technologies. Australia became the first country to ban the world’s largest maker of telecom network gear from its nascent broadband network, a step the United States followed this year by effectively banning US firms from doing business with Huawei. President Xi Jinping said last month China has offered to help developing nations and is not seeking a sphere of influence in Pacific Ocean island states. The issue of climate change, which has at times strained Australia’s relationship with its Pacific neighbours, will probably feature prominently during the visit, Australian broadcaster SBS News said yesterday. Peter Kenilorea Jr, a Solomon Islands legislator, said he wanted Australia to show “stronger leadership” on climate change, SBS News journalist Pablo Vi?ales said in a tweet yesterday. Last month, Fiji’s prime minister hit back at remarks by an Australian politician that Fijians should seek higher ground in response to higher seas.

A mural of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is seen on a silo in the suburb of Brunswick in Melbourne, Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison named his new cabinet yesterday, with most positions staying the same, saying the government had “a significant agenda” to deliver and it was time to get back to business. “I have high expectations of my ministry and clear goals for each of their roles,” he said in an e-mailed statement. Incoming Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, who served in the Army Reserves for almost three decades and rose to the rank of brigadier, replaces Christopher Pyne who has retired. Foreign Minister Marise Payne retains her position as does Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Attorney-General Christian Porter. Morrison also created a national agency for Indigenous Australians which would report directly to new Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt, the first Aboriginal cabinet minister. Mr Morrison said he intends to recommend Arthur Sinodinos, a senator from the eastern state of New South Wales, for the plum diplomatic post of ambassador to the United States, replacing Joe Hockey. Communications Minister Mitch Fifield will be Australia’s representative at the United Nations. A priority of the re-elected Liberal National coalition is to deliver tax cuts by July 1, a cornerstone of its election campaign, as the central bank has called for stimulus to aid a slowing economy.  Morrison entered this month’s election at the head of a minority government after a series of defections, unable to pursue its legislative agenda without the support of independent lawmakers and minor parties. A surprise victory, however, secured the coalition an outright majority, removing the legislative uncertainty. Official counting has not yet finished with three seats still in doubt, but the Electoral Commission said Morrison’s coalition leads in an outright majority of 78 seats in parliament which has 151 elected lawmakers. The opposition Labor party is expected to win 67 seats and there are six crossbenchers made up of minor parties and independents. The cabinet will be sworn in on Wednesday, however parliament will not resume until after all counting is finished and the writs are returned which is expected by June 28.

Tens of thousands of pupils have skipped school in Australia and New Zealand yesterday to kick off the second wave of global school strikes demanding action on climate change.  Thousands of schoolchildren and adults took over the streets of Melbourne to pressure the government to take strong action, including the declaration of a climate emergency. It was led by the local branch of Extinction Rebellion, a British direct action group. The protest disrupted public transport as demonstrators marched through the city and staged a “die-in” to show the Earth’s sixth mass extinction. In Australia’s capital Canberra about two dozen students and adults protested at Northbourne Avenue in the city for several hours. Zahra Radih, 17, said she skipped school to protest in Canberra because “climate change is as important as education.” “We are learning for the future. But if the government does not make climate action a priority we do not have any future,” the Year 12 student at Narrabundah College told DPA. Eleanor Houghton, 12, who had come with her friends, said her parents supported her skipping school for the climate protest “as long as I don’t miss too many classes.” “We want the government to stop approving coal mines and fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy. We are all very worried about the future,” she said, holding a placard that read “Stop Adani.” The controversial multi-billion-dollar Adani coal mine was one of the most divisive topics during last week’s federal election, which saw climate action-supporting Labor suffer a bruising defeat. “I am of course very disappointed with the election result, but we will continue to protest for climate action,” Radih said. In New Zealand’s capital Wellington, the youngsters led a noisy protest to parliament where they urged politicians to do more to secure their future. There were also protests in more than 20 other towns and cities across the country.  National School Strike for Climate co-ordinator Sophie Handford told the New Zealand Herald that students want the government to declare a climate emergency. The first nationwide school strike for climate action on March 15 was overshadowed by the deadly attacks on two Christchurch mosques on the same day. The worldwide protests in over 1,600 cities and towns in more than 100 countries were inspired by Swedish teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg has staged a weekly protest outside parliament in Stockholm since August 2018 that has spread and inspired students around the world to hold demonstrations calling for climate action under the Fridays For Future slogan. At least 1,623 protests were planned in 119 countries.  “We are one, we are back,” organisers said. A similar protest on March 15 drew hundreds of thousands of protesters in over 130 countries from Australia to Uruguay. Thunberg was set to take part at a rally in the Swedish capital. In a video clip on Instagram, she also urged young Europeans to vote in the European Parliament elections that run from Thursday to Sunday. “If you, like me, are determined to bring attention to the ongoing climate and ecological crisis, and truly care about the future living conditions for all species, then going to vote is one of the most powerful things you can do,” Thunberg said. A month ago, Thunberg met Pope Francis on the sidelines of a Vatican event in St Peter’s Square, where the Catholic leader encouraged her to continue her activism. The 16-year-old has also recently addressed members of parliament in London, world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and those attending the UN climate conference held last year in Katowice, Poland.

A select few Australians will soon be able to briefly book an Uber submarine to the Great Barrier Reef, the ride-sharing giant said yesterday. From next week — in what Uber is pitching as a world first — people in Queensland state will be able to order a ride through the Uber app on a two-person submarine and tour the World Heritage site.  A piloted battery-powered ‘scUber’, costing A$1,500 ($1,030) per person, will take 20 dives between May 27 and June 18 with each trip lasting an hour.  The sub will take two passengers down to 20m below sea level and along designated dive paths around the reef, in partnership with environmental advocacy group Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef. Susan Anderson, general manager for Uber Australia and New Zealand, said the company was committed to encouraging ride-sharing to make “conscious behaviour changes” to travel in more efficient and sustainable ways. A scUber booking includes a helicopter trip to the submarine’s dive location. The Great Barrier Reef is home to more than 1,500 fish species and coral varieties, but has been seriously damaged by pollution and climate change.

* Govt claims miraculous result, but unclear if can form majority * Morrison govt polls strongly in Queensland state * labour leader to step down Australia's Liberal-led conservative government was headed for a remarkable victory at the national election early on Sunday after uncovering a narrow path to victory that twisted through urban fringes and rural townships. The results upended pre-election polls which predicted a labour victory, though it is unclear whether the Scott Morrison-led coalition can govern with an outright majority or will need to negotiate support from independents. The final result may not be known for some time. ‘I have always believed in miracles,’ Morrison told cheering supporters at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel, where the government holds its official election night function. ‘Tonight is not about me or it's not about even the Liberal party. Tonight is about every single Australian who depends on their government to put them first.’ The conservative government has won or is leading in 72 seats in its quest for a 76-seat majority, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. Several seats are still too close to call and the final result is complicated by a large number of early votes that have delayed counting. Morrison's coalition defied expectations by holding onto a string of outer suburban seats in areas where demographics closest resemble America's Rust Belt, blocking labour's path to victory. This included a devastating result in the coal-rich state of Queensland, which backed the Pentecostal church-going prime minister by defying expectations and delivering several marginal seats to his government. Labor leader Bill Shorten said late on Saturday he could not win enough seats to form a government. Speaking to supporters in Melbourne he said he would step down as party leader.

Australia’s longest-serving Labor prime minister Bob Hawke died yesterday aged 89.  “Today we lost Bob Hawke, a great Australian – many would say the greatest Australian of the post-war era,” his second wife Blanche d’Alpuget said in a statement. “He died peacefully at home.”  The son of a preacher, Hawke led his country during the 1980s, a period during which he seduced the nation with his everyman appeal while beginning deregulation of the economy, including floating the dollar.  From negotiating with Frank Sinatra to ensure the crooner’s 1974 Sydney concerts went ahead to shedding tears over bloodshed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Hawke was a huge presence on Australia’s political landscape. Never voted out by the public, which forgave him his faults, he won four elections on the run beginning in 1983, and only left office following a party room coup. To many he was a quintessential Australian “larrikin” – a beloved rogue.  His death comes days before Australians go to the polls. The Labor party posted a tribute on Twitter to one of their most fondly-remembered characters. “Vale Bob. We will remember him. In solidarity, forever. May he rest in peace.”  “When you would go out campaigning with Bob you were... absolutely mobbed,” recalled Hawke cabinet member Susan Ryan.  “He was extremely popular with the women voters. They really, really liked to get near him and to touch him and to get him to sign the autographs and so forth. “And the men liked him too because he was a sportsman and he had been a very effective trade union leader. So he was certainly Mr. Popularity.”  When Australia won the America’s Cup yacht race in 1983, a jubilant Hawke sporting a white blazer printed with the words ‘Australia’, memorably said: “Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a #@#.”  Nonetheless, he helped forge a consensus between labour unions and business, and used his appeal to win broad support for economic reforms which sometimes saw critics accuse him of moving the Labor Party to the right.  Robert James Lee Hawke was born on December 9, 1929 in Bordertown in South Australia, the younger of two sons. After his brother Neil died from meningitis in his teens, the family moved to Perth in Western Australia. The grief-stricken parents devoted themselves to their younger son, who went on to become a Rhodes scholar at Oxford.  Recounting a terrible motorcycle accident as a 17-year-old, which resulted in a ruptured spleen and nearly killed him, Hawke said he felt he had been given a second chance at life and drove himself even harder to achieve. On his return from Oxford he married Hazel Masterson, and devoted himself to the Australian Council of Trade Unions.  Hawke’s first attempt to enter parliament in 1963 failed and he did not try again for 17 years. By the time he won the seat of Wills in Melbourne, he was a senior figure in the Australian Labor Party. Because of questions about his reported womanising and drinking – which earned him a world record for drinking a yard-glass of beer, about three pints, in the fastest time – he gave up the booze.  Except, that is, for his tradition in his final years of chugging a beer on camera at sporting events to raucous cheers.  “I knew that if I was going to go into parliament I could never afford to be in a position where I could do something stupid as a result of having too much to drink which would bring disgrace upon me and on my country,” he told broadcaster ABC in 2014. Less than three years after entering parliament he was Labor’s opposition leader and a month later was elected prime minister in the party’s greatest victory in 40 years. He went on to win elections in 1984, 1987 and 1990.  Cultivating a mindset of consensus rather than confrontation, Hawke’s government opened the nation’s economy to global competition and ‘floated’ the Australian dollar. 

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison officially launched his party’s election campaign yesterday, less than a week before the May 18 vote that opinion polls have consistently indicated he will lose.  At the campaign launch in Melbourne, Morrison’s focus was on economic management and said his centre-right Liberal-National coalition would support the “decent, simple and honest aspirations” of Australians. “A stronger economy where people have the confidence to invest more, to employ more, to invent more, to work hard,” Morrison said. The government has been trailing the centre-left Labor Party, led by Bill Shorten, in polls for years, though recent figures indicate the race is tightening. Morrison’s Liberal Party has been rocked by division in recent times, having had three different leaders in four years. Neither of Morrison’s two immediate predecessors as prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, were present at the campaign launch.  Former Prime Minister John Howard, who led Australia from 1996 to 2007, also did not show up. Morrison previously dismissed questions about why the former prime ministers wouldn’t be attending, saying the day was about speaking directly to the Australian people. “It’s not about party festivals and slapping backs and doing all that sort of stuff,” Morrison told reporters on Saturday. Morrison has been the dominant figure for the government in the campaign but members of his front bench attended the launch yesterday, including Environment Minister Melissa Price, who has largely been unseen during the campaign. The coalition has had to focus its attention on many traditionally safe seats this election, which appear to be under threat from candidates running on platforms focused on more action on climate change. The Age newspaper reported the government was facing tight contests in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah in Sydney and the seat of Higgins, in Melbourne’s wealthy inner-east. Labor leader Bill Shorten said there were a lot of disillusioned voters in Higgins, which the Liberal Party has held since the seat was created in 1949. “There is a mood for change,” Shorten told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Morrison also took aim at Shorten and said Labor had a history of poorly managing the economy. “Reckless spending is not a vision ... it’s a burden on current and future generations,” Morrison said.

The man tipped to become Australia’s next prime minister pilloried the country’s right-wing media after an attack about his late mother that has turbocharged an already heated debate about press partisanship.   Decrying a “new low” in Australia’s bare-knuckle politics, the usually phlegmatic Labor leader Bill Shorten became emotional as he lashed out at “##$$% lazy” journalism and “&%$*** “ ahead of the closely fought May 18 election.   Like Britain and the United States — Australia’s stridently right-wing media plays a prominent role in political life. But some experts, like Tony Walker, a communications professor at La Trobe University, have accused titles owned by mogul Rupert Murdoch of taking a “battering-ram approach” during this febrile campaign season.   They “have stepped up the war against the Labor Party since the election was called”, he wrote in a recent commentary.   The group’s front pages and TV commentaries have echoed and amplified ruling Liberal party campaign messaging that targets Shorten — a former union leader whose party is a few percentage points ahead in the polls.   The confrontation reached a peak when Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph accused Shorten of misleading voters about his deceased mother’s life, in a front-page splash that carried the block-caps headline “MOTHER OF INVENTION”.  Shorten had told the story of how his mother had been forced to defer her dreams of being a lawyer to help her family, which the Daily Telegraph suggested was misleading because she did eventually attend the bar in her 50s.  “Who do some people in News Corp — and it’s not all the journalists I make that very clear — who do some of these lazy people think they are?” Shorten railed after being asked about the piece, his voice cracking with emotion. “They play %%&&#$ about your life story, and more importantly my mum’s.”  The tabloid is a News Corp Australia publication, a branch of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire which also includes America’s influential “Fox News” and Britain’s The Sun.  Daily Telegraph writer Anna Caldwell defended the story, telling Murdoch’s Sky News it “in no way, shape, or form was an attack on Bill Shorten’s mother”.  It is not the first spat between Australia’s left-leaning leaders and Murdoch’s notoriously combative press, but it may prove to be one of the most consequential.   The mogul has occasionally backed leaders from the centre-left — most notably Tony Blair — but only when the political writing was on the wall for conservative contenders.  Even his highbrow titles have become more overtly political over the years, according to Margot Saville, a journalist who joined The Australian as a cadet in 1987. “It was still very much the paper of record,” she said, noting a shift toward more opinion. “It changed a lot.”   Similarly, Australia’s leftist leaders have usually held their tongue about Murdoch until long after the end of their political life.   Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd sought and received his support when running for office, but last year described him as “the greatest cancer on the Australian democracy”. “Murdoch is not just a news organisation.  Murdoch operates as a political party, acting in pursuit of clearly defined commercial interests, in addition to his far-right ideological world view,” Rudd claimed.   Few would doubt that Shorten’s tears were real, but there is also little doubt he seized a political moment.   His response is symbolic of a growing sense among some on Australia’s left that Murdoch’s once-feared machine has lost touch with mainstream voters and is vulnerable — even as President Donald Trump and Brexit backers reap the rewards of his support.   Shorten is the first leader in decades not to seek Murdoch’s endorsement.  Throughout his career, the 51-year-old has often been accused of being bland and uninspiring, but not after his furious attack on News Corp.  “This is certainly not the first time a Labor leader has had a bash at the Murdoch media in a recent campaign,” said Michelle Grattan of the University of Canberra. “But it was probably one of the more effective.”

An elderly Australian woman has been charged with torturing animals after she allegedly abducted a pelican from a river, police said Monday.  The 73-year-old was seen feeding fish to a pelican in Tuncurry, about 300 kilometres north of Sydney, last month.  "The woman then grabbed the pelican and put it in her car boot, with the wing observed to be protruding from the closed boot," police said in a statement. Police stopped her car and made her release the injured bird.  Further investigation led officers on Friday to search her home, where they allegedly seized "items relating to the cruelty of animals." "Police also located a caged magpie with its beak removed. The bird was taken to a vet where it was euthanized due to the injuries," police said. "Mobile phones seized from the house depicted images and videos of animals, including a dog and rabbit, that had allegedly been mutilated in a public location." The woman will appear in court on May 22 where police will allege she goes to public places and gains the trust of animals by feeding them, before taking them home and torturing them over an extended period of time. Police allege she then takes them to a veterinarian, claiming they were found injured and require euthanizing.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced Wednesday to 50 weeks in jail for breaching a British court order seven years ago, when he took refuge in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. The Australian whistleblower, who was arrested on April 11 after Ecuador gave him up, will serve the nearly one-year sentence while fighting a separate attempt to transfer him to the United States. The 47-year-old, his shaggy beard neatly trimmed, raised his fist to supporters in the public gallery at London's Southwark Crown Court as he was taken down to the cells. They responded by raising theirs and shouting ‘Shame on you!’ towards the court. Assange fled to Ecuador's embassy in 2012 after a British judge ordered his extradition to face Swedish allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he strongly denied. He claimed the allegations were a pretext to transfer him to the United States, where he feared prosecution over the release by WikiLeaks of millions of classified documents. At the sentencing hearing, his lawyer Mark Summers said Assange had been ‘gripped’ by ‘reasonable fears’ that he would face rendition to the US. ‘As threats rained down on him from America, they overshadowed everything as far as he was concerned,’ the lawyer said. In a letter read out on his behalf, Assange expressed regret, saying: ‘I did what I thought at the time was the best or perhaps the only thing that I could have done.’ There is no longer an active investigation in Sweden and the extradition request has lapsed. However, Assange is facing a US extradition request, which was only revealed following his dramatic arrest, when he was dragged shouting from the embassy by police. - US hacking conspiracy charge - Assange appeared in court within hours of his arrest, and a judge found him guilty of breaching his bail conditions. The biggest concern for his lawyers is the US extradition request. An initial hearing in the case has been scheduled for this Thursday. The US indictment charges him with ‘conspiracy’ for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password stored on Department of Defence computers in March 2010. Manning passed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing US military wrongdoing in the Iraq war and diplomatic secrets about scores of countries around the world. Assange could face up to five years in jail if found guilty, although his team is fighting his extradition and the process could take years. The charge has raised serious concerns among organisations advocating free speech, including politicians such as British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. WikiLeaks is also back in the news in the United States, over its alleged role in the leak of Hillary Clinton's emails in 2016 US presidential election. The Swedish claims against Assange date back to 2010, when he was at the centre of a global storm over WikiLeaks' exposures. The sexual assault claim expired in 2015, but while the rape claim was dropped in 2017, the alleged victim wants the case reopened. If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, Britain must decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States. A group of British lawmakers have urged the Swedish case to take precedence, saying the rights of the alleged victims must not be lost in the political row.

Australian researchers believe they have found an antidote to a sting from the world's most venomous creature, the much-feared box jellyfish. Researchers at the University of Sydney had been investigating how the venom is so deadly that one box jellyfish can kill 60 people. The team noticed the venom needs cholesterol to kill human cells and decided to test whether existing drugs could stop it. ‘Since there are lots of drugs available that target cholesterol’ the team tried one out, said lead author Raymond Lau. ‘It worked,’ he said. ‘It's a molecular antidote.’ Running tests using human cells and mice, the team found it could stop tissue scarring and pain associated with the sting as long as the medicine was injected within 15 minutes. Stings from box jellyfish -- which can be smaller than a fingernail or up to three metres long depending on the species -- can cause acute muscular pain, violent vomiting, feelings of ‘impending doom’, hair that stands on end, strokes, heart failure and death within minutes. So far they have only tested the sting from the larger, more deadly species. ‘We know the drug will stop the necrosis, skin scarring and the pain completely when applied to the skin,’ said Associate Professor Neely. ‘We don't know yet if it will stop a heart attack. That will need more research, and we are applying for funding to continue this work.’ The team hopes that eventually a topical cream or spray can be developed to prevent stings that are thought to kill dozens of people each year and hospitalise thousands more.

An Australian court on Wednesday found a man guilty of plotting to blow up a an Etihad Airways flight out of Sydney at the behest of the Islamic State militant group, by hiding a bomb in the luggage of his brother. Police had accused the man, Khaled Khayat, and another brother, Mahmoud Khayat, of planning two terrorist attacks that also included a chemical gas attack on the flight to Abu Dhabi in July 2017, police said. The third brother was unaware that he was carrying a bomb, disguised as a meat mincer, in his luggage, as he tried to check in at the airport, police said. But the device was taken out of his luggage when it was deemed too heavy and the bomb never made it past airport security. Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat were arrested weeks later after a series of raids in Sydney. ‘The jury this afternoon returned a guilty verdict for Khaled and is still deliberating in respect of Mahmoud,’ a spokeswoman for the New South Wales Supreme Court said. Police had alleged that high-grade military explosives used to make the bomb were sent by air cargo from Turkey as part of a plot ‘inspired and directed’ by Islamic state. Khaled's sentence hearing has been set for July 26. The charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in November the likelihood of a terror attack in Australia remained at the ‘probable’ level, after a fatal stabbing in Melbourne that police said was inspired by Islamic State. Australia has a five-level terror threat ranking system and ‘probable’ is its midpoint. The threat likelihood has been set at probable since the system was introduced in 2015. In December 2014, two hostages were killed during a 17-hour siege by a ‘lone wolf’ gunman, inspired by Islamic State militants, in a cafe in Sydney.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, trailing in opinion polls ahead of a May 18 election, on Sunday campaigned on the hot-button issue of immigration, promising to cut annual migrant numbers and freeze the country's refugee intake. The pace of migration and the over crowding of Australia's major cities is a sensitive issue amongst voters in a nation where 29 per cent of the 25.3 million people were born overseas and where migration levels now outstrip the birthrate. ‘Managing our population growth is very important to the quality of life that we have in our cities,’ Morrison said from a Liberal party rally in Sydney on Sunday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says net overseas migration in the year to September 2018 was 240,100. The prime minister said if his government was re-elected it would cap annual migrant numbers at 160,000 people per year for the next four years. The restriction does not include more than 350,000 foreign students granted visas each year, the majority of whom end up staying and who pump millions of dollars through the nation's universities, according to Department of Home Affairs figures. Voters in the largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne where most migrants settle have growing concerns over congestion, inadequate infrastructure and the rising cost of living. Morrison also said the annual refugee intake would be frozen at 18,750 people. The labour opposition intends to increase the refugee intake to 27,000 by 2025. Labor's campaign has focused on increased spending for education, health and welfare and on Sunday its leader, Bill Shorten, promised A$4 billion ($2.82 billion) worth of childcare to a million low-income families, including 15 hours a week of free pre-school, if elected. ‘It's time that we rewarded mums for participating in the economy instead of penalising families,’ he said from a rally in Melbourne. He also promised free dental care for the aged. Morrison's government entered the campaign well behind labour in opinion polls but has closed the gap with the latest poll showing his Liberal-National party coalition up two points on the primary vote to be level with labour at 37 percent. But the poll, conducted by YouGov/Galaxy for News Corp media and published on Saturday, showed the coalition still trailed labour 48-52 on a more important two-party preferred basis.

Australia on Sunday ordered a urgent review into the management of dingoes on a popular tourist island after a spate of attacks by the wild dogs this year. The Queensland state government announced the review three days after a father rescued his toddler from a dingo's jaws. The boy had been dragged from a parked campervan in a remote part of Fraser Island off the Queensland coast. The 14-month-old's skull was fractured and he suffered multiple puncture wounds to his neck and head, his parents told national broadcaster ABC. Queensland's Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said she was bringing forward a review into dingo management on the island. ‘The management of dingoes on K'gari (Fraser Island) is complex, and the government is committed to supporting a sustainable and healthy dingo population, while minimising the risks to human safety and dingo welfare,’ she said in a statement. The number of rangers patrolling the island would be boosted, while more efforts would be made to educate visitors about the dangers of dingoes, Enoch added. The attack on the toddler is the third this year on World Heritage-listed Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island and a popular tourist destination that attracts up to 400,000 visitors each year. Two dingoes were put down in March after a French mother and son were mauled on the island. In January, a six-year-old boy was attacked as he ran up a dune on the island. Authorities have warned visitors in the past that dingoes are wild animals and need to be treated with caution. Native to Australia, dingoes came under the spotlight with the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in 1980 for which her mother Lindy was convicted of murder and her father, Michael, of being an accessory. The convictions were overturned in 1988 after the chance discovery of a piece of Azaria's clothing near a dingo lair. A court ruling in 2012 found that a dingo snatched their baby from a tent.

A drive-by shooting outside a nightclub in the Australian city of Melbourne inflicted "horrific injuries" that killed a security guard and wounded three men, police said on Sunday, but there was no suggestion yet that the attack was terror-related. Australia has some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, adopted after its worst mass murder, when a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur in the island state of Tasmania in 1996. Sunday's shooting took place around 3.20 am. in the lively entertainment district of Melbourne's southeastern suburb of Prahran, police said. Three security guards and a man queueing to enter were taken to hospital with gunshot injuries, police said in a televised news conference in Melbourne. "It would appear that shots have been discharged from a car in this area into a crowd standing outside the nightclub," homicide inspector Andrew Stamper said. The victims suffered "horrific injuries" from a weapon fired in close proximity, he added. One guard died in hospital, another man was in critical condition and two escaped life-threatening injuries. One guard was shot in the face, the Age newspaper said. However, there was no suggestion yet that the attack was terror-related, a police spokeswoman said by telephone. Bloodstained clothing and bullet casings littered the street outside the entrance to the second-storey Love Machine nightclub early on Sunday. Police urged witnesses who saw any vehicle moving at speed around 3 a.m. to come forward, and mentioned a black Porsche SUV that was later found burnt-out in the north Melbourne suburb of Wollert. No arrests have yet been made, and investigation continues. A murder-suicide last year in Western Australia that killed seven members of a family was the country's worst mass shooting since the Port Arthur case. Neighbouring New Zealand has adopted legislation to ban semi-automatic firearms and assault rifles after its worst peacetime shooting in March, which killed 50 worshippers in two mosques in the city of Christchurch.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's father on Sunday called on Australia to bring his son home, saying he was shocked to see his son's condition after his arrest in London last week. John Shipton -- who was secretary of the Wikileaks Party when his son tried to run for a senate seat in 2013 national elections -- reportedly visited Assange every Christmas at the Ecuadore embassy in London after he sought refuge there in 2012. "DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs) and the prime minister should in a nuanced way do something," Shipton told Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun. "It can be resolved simply to the satisfaction of all. There has been some talk in a meeting between a senator and a senior DFAT official to extradite Julian to Australia." Shipton said he was shocked to see the state of his son when he was arrested at the embassy on Thursday on allegations of skipping bail, and on a US extradition warrant related to a huge leak of official documents. "I saw him, the way they dragged him down the steps, the coppers (police), he didn't look good. I'm 74 and I look better than him and he's 47. It's such a shock," he said. "For months and months he has been living like a high-security prisoner, he can't even go to the toilet. There have been cameras watching his every move." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that Assange would receive "no special treatment" from Canberra. The 47-year-old Australian had sought refuge in the embassy while on bail awaiting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault and rape, which he always denied. British lawmakers on Saturday urged their government to prioritise any extradition bid Sweden might make for him over the allegations. Swedish prosecutors dropped a preliminary investigation into the rape allegation in 2017.

A former French spy hailed as a genius for an engineering feat that made building the Sydney Opera House possible has died aged 97, officials said Monday. Joe Bertony -- one of the original engineers of Australia's most recognisable building -- handwrote 30,000 separate equations to create the "erection arch" or truss which held the concrete sails in place during construction. "Bertony was a remarkable man who will be remembered as the inventor of the Sydney Opera House's mobile erection arch," Sydney Opera House chief executive Louise Herron said in a statement. The Opera House, which opened in 1973, is billed as Australia's number-one tourist destination. "Those calculations were checked by the only computer in Australia at the time with a large enough capacity to do so. Not a single error was found," she said. "Bertony was a genius. Without him, the spectacular sails might never have become a reality." He died at his home in Sydney on Sunday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, Bertony joined the French navy to study naval engineering and was recruited as a spy, according to author Helen Pitt, who has written a book about the Opera House. He was twice captured by the Germans during World War II and sent to concentration camps, but escaped both times and was later awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for his wartime actions, Pitt added. The Opera House, which opened in 1973, is billed as Australia's number-one tourist destination and is the country's busiest performing arts centre.