TRANSCRIPT
- Ireland heads to the polls in a closely-fought general election
- The parents of girls raped by one of Australia's worst paedophiles accuse childcare centres of negligence
- Lucas Herbert rises to top of the leader board as Cameron Smith crumbles in the Australian Open
Irish voters have headed to the polls in a closely-fought general election with the incumbent coalition neck-and-neck with opposition party Sinn Fein after a campaign marked by disputes over the housing and cost-of-living crises.
Polls will close at 10pm local time (9am AEDT) as voters choose new members of the 174-seat lower chamber of parliament.
Final opinion polling has put the three main parties - centre-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein - each on around 20 per cent.
Political scientist at Trinity College Dublin, Geil McElroy says it's too close to call.
"It's almost a dead heat, well with a margin, they're all around 21, 22% at the moment. Fine Gael had been doing better but had a rapid drop in the polls in the last ten days. So at the moment it's unclear which, if any of them will be the plurality party, although it may be Fianna Fail because they've had a steady, safe campaign."
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At least 40 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip during Israeli military strikes many of them in the Nuseirat refugee camp at the centre of the enclave.
Medics said they recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat one of the enclave's eight refugee camps, and later on Friday an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.
Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.
There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".
Israel's campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 44,300 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once.
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The Healing Foundation is urging the Queensland Government to prioritise urgent support for ageing Stolen Generations survivors.
The plea follows a move from Premier David Crisafulli's new coalition government to repeal the state's treaty legislation, effectively scrapping the First Nations Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry.
The move was another devastating blow for Stolen Generation survivors, many who had given evidence in earlier hearings.
C-E-O of The Healing Foundation, Shannon Dodson, has encouraged the Crisafulli government to meet with survivors and demonstrate a real commitment to respecting the trauma that many First Nations people of his state have experienced.
"I would ask the Queensland government to consider meeting with The Healing Foundation and talk with survivors about the needs for survivors particularly in that state. Queensland is one of the only states that hasn't provided compensation for Stolen Generations survivors or redress."
**
At least 17 people have died and at least 100 more are missing after a landslide triggered by heavy rains buried dozens of homes across several villages in eastern Uganda.
The Uganda Red Cross Society says at least 40 households were completely buried in the landslide on Thursday.
Local council member, Annet Nandutu, says the Ugandan government could have prevented this tragedy and should have honoured a promise to resettle those living in the dangerous areas.
"Our minister came to this same area when there was a similar mudslide. She promised us in two months all those living on the slopes of the mountain would be resettled. She told us to prepare our people. I mobilised them. They have been coming to my office telling me, 'chairwoman, we have prepared our luggage to move, when are you relocating us?' But I have no answers.”
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The parents of girls raped by one of Australia's worst paedophiles are calling for an investigation into how childcare centres betrayed them by not detecting his depravity for almost two decades.
Ashley Paul Griffith has been sentenced to life imprisonment over hundreds of sex offences against almost 70 girls while working in Queensland's childcare industry.
He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape against girls primarily aged three to five at childcare centres in the state between 2007 and 2022.
Brisbane District Court Judge Paul Smith imposed a non-parole period of 27 years yesterday.
Outside court, one mother welcomed the sentence, but felt anger at Griffith and the childcare centres which employed him.
She said she felt a great deal of betrayal at what she called the "level of negligence" by the centres.
**
In golf,
Cameron Smith has called out golf's new golden boy Elvis Smylie after enduring a dramatic second-round collapse at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Smith's teammate Lucas Herbert is threatening to run away with the Stonehaven Cup... after the 2022 British Open champion slumped from one shot behind to eight off the pace in an extraordinary collapse yesterday [[FRI 29 Nov]].
Herbert steadied after a brief wobble to open up a four-stroke break atop the leaderboard.
Meanwhile, Smith imploded down the stretch after officials placed him and his playing partner, newly crowned Australian P-G-A champion Elvis Smylie, on the shot clock for slow going.
