TRANSCRIPT
- A woman was arrested after a deadly accident outside a Melbourne school.
- Israel targets the new leader of the Hezbollah militant group.
- The Tour de France race to be run entirely within its home country for 2025.
—
A woman has been arrested after the death of an 11 year old boy in a car accident outside a primary school in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.
He died in hospital after being taken there with critical injuries.
The 40 year old woman has been released pending further inquiries.
Police say Major Collision Investigation Unit detectives are probing the crash, which Detective Inspector Craig McEvoy has described as a tragic accident.
"A 40-year-old female has driven to the school to collect a child. After collecting the child, she's performed a U-turn and collided into the fence of the school crashing through the fence, where unfortunately she has struck a table where there were five children seated within the school grounds."
—
An Australian Centre for Disease Control is to be established following a damning report into the nation's COVID pandemic response.
The centre is a key recommendation of the 670-page report, which has found the disease exhausted the nation's healthcare systems, public service and economy, and eroded public trust.
The federal government says it will spend $251 million over four years to establish the centre, with a commitment of funding into the future despite the looming election.
Health Minister Mark Butler says the centre might help to avoid past mistakes in future situations.
"Our response to the pandemic was not as effective as it could have been. And as a result of the lack of plans, leaders in particular were placed in an invidious position - to use the words of the report - to build the plane while it was flying."
—
The deputy head of Hezbollah has been announced as the militant group's new overall leader, following the death of Hassan Nasrallah in a strike last month.
Naim Qassem was one of the founding members of the group in the early 1980s.
Israel has responded quickly to the announcement, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warning in a post on X that Mr Qassem's appointment would not be "for long".
In a separate social media post in Hebrew, Mr Gallant has written that the "countdown has begun".
—
More than 120 people are dead after a new wave of mass killings by paramilitary forces through central Sudan.
The Sudanese Doctors' Union says at least 124 people have been killed and 200 others wounded in the town of Sariha, in central Sudan.
The United Nations says RSF fighters also went on a rampage in villages and towns on the eastern and northern sides of the province of Gezira between October the 20th and the 25th, shooting at civilians and sexually attacking women and girls.
Sudanese Australasian Medical Professionals Association spokesman Dr Ahmed Maglad has told SBS News this kind of conduct is part of a pattern.
"This is a trend that happens every two to three months that we see. They get upset about something and then they take a very dramatic revenge. They hijack a small town or a village. After they arrive, they rob, they kill men. Whoever resist them, they rape women, they clean the houses of every valuable thing. The last thing they do is that they burn, they burn villages, they burn crops. They make sure they don't leave anything of value back to anyone behind them and then they leave."
—
To sport,
The 2025 Tour de France will take place exclusively in its home country for the first time since the 2020 Covid edition.
The announcement has been made in Paris during the official unveiling of next year's men's and women's routes, which will include eight stages in the North and West of the country, and end with eight laps along the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Jean-Etienne Amaury is the President of the Amaury Sport Organisation.
He says the race's return to France is iconic.
"The Tour de France was born in 1903 and went on to become a monument of international sport. Innovations over decades have since increased. It's a monument on the move. A vibrant travelling event that brings us all together every summer. The 2024 Tour De France was one for the ages. It was the 111th edition, three times number one, summing up the numerous firsts that came to define it."
