TRANSCRIPT
- The final report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide to be handed down
- US and UK spy chiefs praise Ukraine's offensive in Kursk
- In Tennis, Australians Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell celebrate winning the US Open men's doubles final
After three years and almost 6,000 submissions, the final report by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is due to be handed down.
Speaking ahead of the report's release, chair Nick Kaldas says it was difficult to judge whether defence leadership had turned a corner in confronting problems within the organisation.
The final report will be delivered to the Governor-General tomorrow.
It is then up to the federal government to table and consider the final report.
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The heads of the British and American foreign intelligence agencies says Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia is a significant achievement that could change the narrative of the grinding 2 1/2-year war.
The head of MI6, Richard Moore, says Ukraine's surprise move in August to seize territory in Russia’s Kursk region had "brought the war home to ordinary Russians".
"And I think they have, to a degree, changed the narrative around this, as we were saying, with Putin pushing forward, grinding forward, village by village. He has gone into this war two and a half years ago, not only is he seeing things like NATO get two more members, he's now lost a part of his own territory. So I think, you know, we'll have to see how it develops. But I think it's bold."]]
Speaking alongside Mr Moore at a rare public event in London, CIA Director William Burns says he praises Ukraine for its offensive in Kursk.
"The Kursk offensive is a significant tactical achievement. It's not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale, it has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin's Russia and of his military."
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Officials from US space agency NASA say they made the right decision as Boeing's capsule returned to Earth, without astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has landed uncrewed in a New Mexico desert, ending a three-month test mission hobbled by technical issues.
Those problems had forced the astronauts it had flown to the International Space Station to remain there until February 2025.
The program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Steve Stich, says it was a difficult decision to leave the crew behind, but the astronauts have also trained for the possibility of a long duration stay.
"It's always hard to have that retrospective look. You know, we made the decision to have an uncrewed flight based on what we knew at the time and based on our knowledge of the thrusters and based on the modeling that we had. And we, you know, if we'd have had a model that would have predicted what we saw tonight perfectly. Yeah, it looks like an easy decision to go say we could have had a crewed flight, but we didn't have that. We didn't have a way to take that White Sands testing and anchor it in a model."
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An environmental nonprofit claims to have found the solution to cleaning up the largest accumulation of plastic waste in the ocean.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - located between Hawaii and California - is a collection of floating plastic debris that has grown larger due to the impact of circulating currents in the Pacific.
The estimated surface area of the floating debris is 1.6 million square kilometres, which is equivalent to three times the size of France.
Based in the Netherlands, the nonprofit environmental engineering group, The Ocean Cleanup says it has developed and tested technology over six years to eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, Boyan Slat, says the use of technology at today's level of performance could get rid of the garbage patch in 10 years - at a cost of 11.25 billion Australian dollars.
"And what we found was that this area spans an area twice the size of Texas. And that it contains more than 200 million pounds of plastic. Of course, to clean the ocean, to rid the oceans of plastic, we need to prevent more plastic from going into the ocean in the first place. And this is something that we're also working on. But if that is the only thing that we do, the ocean will be polluted forever. That is why we have to take it out. That is really the only way in which we can get back to clean oceans."
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In Tennis, Australians Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell have won the US Doubles Open final.
Thompson and Max outclassed Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz 6-4 7-6 (7-4) to become the first all-Australian pairing to win the title in New York - since Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge in 1996.
The straight-sets victory goes some way towards atoning for a crushing finals loss at Wimbledon, where Thompson and Purcell failed to convert any of three match points.
Thompson says it feels incredible to win the doubles title.
"Grand Slam champion - that has a great ring to it, especially after the heartbreak at Wimbledon. It got a little bit tense there at the end with match points. I thought I can't do it again. But we stuck with it - and we got there."
