TRANSCRIPT
- Houthi militants pledge further attacks on Israel after Israeli strikes on Yemen
- The government's travel advice for Australians wanting to visit Bangladesh changes amid violence and unrest
- The Wallabies extend their unbeaten run this season to three wins
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Yemen's Houthi militants pledge to attack "vital targets" in Israel after Israeli airstrikes hit the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah this morning
The Israeli military says their jets struck Houthi military targets in the area of Hodeidah port, a day after a drone launched by the Houthi group hit Israel's city of Tel Aviv.
The military spokesman of the Houthis, Yahya Sarea, says the Israeli attacks targeted a power station, fuel tanks and the port of Hodeidah - all of which, he claims, are civilian targets.
He says the Iran-backed militants are ready for a prolonged war with Israel until they halt their devastating assault on Gaza.
"The Yemeni armed forces, under the guidance of their faithful leadership and alongside all the free and steadfast Yemeni people, will not stop their operations in support of our brothers in Gaza, regardless of the repercussions and results. With the help of Almighty Allah, they are preparing for a prolonged war with this enemy until the aggression is stopped, the siege is lifted, and all its crimes committed against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are stopped."
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Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Australia respects the decision by the United Nations' highest court that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements are illegal.
In a sweeping and damning advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice says Israel's occupation violates international law - and it has Israel to immediately withdraw, and make full reparations for what it says are "internationally wrongful acts".
The decision also found that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal; nor "render aid or assistance" toward maintaining Israel's presence in the occupied territories.
In a statement, Minister Wong says the Australian government will move to deny anyone identified as an extremist settler, a visa to travel to Australia.
She says Israel should take concrete steps to stop the expansion of settlements, and she added, Australia will be taking time to consider the full details of the court's decision.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably rejects the court's decision, declaring it "false" and "absurd".
International law professor Mia Swart told the South African Broadcasting Corporation that, though the judgement is not legally binding, it does carry influence.
"This judgement is also useful in the sense that the ICC (International Criminal Court) prosecutor can rely on it, should he prosecute (Benjamin) Netanyahu and (Yoav) Gallant - and other senior officers, for the genocide occurring in Gaza. So it has that legal weight. It can be used as precedent. Of course the concern is that the situation on the ground will not be effected by the judgement."
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Australians are urged to reconsider any travel plans to Bangladesh amid ongoing student protests.
The Department of Foreign Affairs' SmartTraveller service upgraded the country’s emergency status, calling on Australians to “reconsider your need to travel”.
At least 114 people were killed this week during student-led protests against government job quotas.
For those in Bangladesh, the department is advising Australians to "avoid large gatherings, including protests, demonstrations and rallies" and to "shelter in a safe place and follow the advice of local authorities".
Authorities have imposed a national curfew, after violent clashes throughout Dhaka and other cities.
The protests began earlier this month when students called for an end to a quota system that reserves 30 per cent of public service jobs for specific groups including children of veterans from the 1971 war against Pakistan.
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The Australian government says it is still trying to get to the bottom of the impact of the global tech outage.
The country's cyber spy organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, has warned people to beware of cyber hackers releasing malicious websites and code purporting to help fix the outage.
The global outage affected Windows operating systems - and was triggered by a faulty software update issued by cyber-security company CrowdStrike for its threat detection software, Falcon - which is used by many businesses.
Services in critical sectors like banking, retail and airports were impacted globally from New Zealand, Japan, India - to the US and the United Kingdom.
Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil says the priority is to fully restore services.
She says once that is achieved, attention will turn to a post-event analysis and improving cyber security crisis management.
"There is a conversation here about what needs to be done when we have so many companies around the world reliant on one particular provider of technology. But I would also say that as with my cyber responsibility, as I have often said to Australians. It is not feasible or possible for any government around the world to say we're never going to have IT outages. We're never going to have cyber attacks. One of the things that we need to continue to get better at as a nation is how we respond when things do create problems for us."
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The financial costs of the global tech outage are expected to be tallied by economists over coming days, as they estimate the money lost to businesses.
Cyber security experts say the incident is a wake-up call for businesses and governments because the impacts would have been catastrophic if it had been a cyber attack.
Richard Buckland is a professor of cyber security at the University of New South Wales.
He tells SBS, more needs to be done to develop back up systems and plans.
"We were amongst the first in the world to face it. So we had very little notice of what was going to happen. The concerning thing was that it showed our systems are vulnerable. That we do have many systems that we're not properly setting up backups for, really. We're just trusting that everything is going to work. Looking to the future, this will happen more and more. We will have errors and they will affect systems. And hopefully what we will change is the impact of it happening. We will have plan Bs in place."
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In rugby union, the Wallabies have survived a scare to keep their unbeaten run under Joe Schmidt alive.
The team achieved a hard-earned 40-29 victory over Georgia in Sydney.
The 12th-ranked Georgians threatened a boil-overr after closing to within two points of the hosts early in the second half before the Wallabies kicked away late.
Schmidt made 10 changes to the side that beat Wales 36-28 last Saturday in Melbourne - and some seized the opportunity, while others didn't.
The Wallabies had the tireless back row of Fraser McReight, Rob Valetini and Harry Wilson largely to thank for helping secure three straight wins for the national side for the first time since 2021 when under Dave Rennie.
