SBS News in Easy English 15 January 2025
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The Foreign Minister says all options remain on the table as a response against Russia if they verify reports that an Australian prisoner of war has been executed.
Senator Penny Wong says Russia is expected to comply with international humanitarian law.
Russia’s ambassador has been called into DFAT as the department seeks more information on the fate of Melbourne teacher Oscar Jenkins, who was captured while fighting for Ukraine.
The Prime Minister has held urgent talks with the Australian Federal Police and two state premiers over a spate of antisemitic attacks.
Anthony Albanese met with the leaders of Victoria and New South Wales along with A-F-P Commissioner Reece Kershaw.
Australia’s envoy to combat antisemitism Jillian Segal has called for harsher measures like mandatory jail sentences for those convicted of attacking synagogues.
Anthony Albanese says he supports moves towards accountability.
“What I want is to ensure that any act of antisemitism, that it stops. That it stops. I want people who are responsible for these acts to be prosecuted fully because they’re a crime and people should be held to account with the full force of the law.”
Disability groups say a new national autism strategy will need to be implemented carefully, if real change is to be achieved.
The strategy outlines 22 commitments and a budget of just over $42 million.
People with Disability Australia says the plan is rolling out at the same time as thousands of autistic people have been forced out of the government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Co-chair of the Australian Autism Alliance Jenny Karavolos says while the strategy is fantastic, there must be systems in place to ensure states and territories provide support.
“In order to have a completely interconnected whole of government ecosystem address we need all government levels to be actually committed to it. And the third most fundamental thing that needs to happen is that that governance framework needs to expressly identify measures that are meaningful to autistic people, and that the appropriate accountability and consequences for not implementing the strategy are put in place.”
One of Australia’s largest oil and gas companies has pleaded guilty to causing an oil spill off the coast of Western Australia.
Santos has been fined just $10,000 dollars for the disaster, which saw approximately 25,000 litres of oil released into the Indian Ocean from the company’s Varanus Island Gas Plant.
The court was told the spill off the Pilbara coastline had devastating impacts on the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people.
A US special prosecutor has concluded Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election.
Jack Smith’s report says the evidence would have been enough to convict Trump at trial over his part in the January 6 riots.
But it says his imminent return to the presidency, set for January 20, made that impossible.
Trump’s lawyers have called the report a “politically-motivated attack”.
At least nine people have been charged for looting properties in Los Angeles as the city continues to grapple with the fire emergency.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman says they have also seen incidents of price gouging, where hotels and medical suppliers have charged far more than the ten percent addition they are legally permitted to do.
He says authorities are disgusted by anyone who sees the crisis as a chance to make money or take is not theirs.
“So the criminals have decided that this is an opportunity and I’m here to tell you that this is not an opportunity. You will be arrested, you will be prosecuted and you will be punished to the full extent of the law.”
A major global study has identified hundreds of previously unknown genetic hints that could one day provide earlier and more tailored treatments for depression.
The genetic markers were uncovered through DNA analysis of millions of people with or without depression, including data from tens of thousands of Australians.
An estimated one in five Australians have depression, anxiety or other serious mental illness.
