Source : the age
Hello and welcome to our national news live coverage for Wednesday, October 7. Here’s what is making headlines:
- Vigils across Australian capital cities will mark the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel when 1200 people were killed and 250 taken sparking a devastating war in Gaza that brought on a humanitarian crisis. A vigil will be held at Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed in a terror attack targeting the Jewish community in December, while pro-Palestine vigils are also expected to occur.
- A rally over the cost of housing has turned violent on Spanish streets after masked demonstrators turned on police and set fire to cars and rubbish bins, one day after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a snap election amid widening unrest. Protesters confronted police and lit fires in Barcelona after 20,000 people gathered for a largely peaceful demonstration over the cost of housing, seen as a dominant issue for the November 29 parliamentary election.
- Alex de Minaur’s bid to win a maiden Beijing title has ended suddenly – and in heartbreak – retiring one game into the second set of the final against Novak Djokovic with a groin injury. De Minaur began the second set with strapping on his left leg, and was visibly struggling before crossing the net to end the contest while trailing 7-6 (7-3), 0-1. It was a shattering end to de Minaur’s week after a welcome return to form amid an up-and-down season.
Fiji: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has offered Turkish Climate Minister Murat Kurum, a “particular shout out” at the start of talks on climate finance at the pre-COP in Fiji.
He said the fact that two countries as far apart in distance, history and culture were working so closely together on climate was symbolic of global efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
He urged donors, the private sector and world governments to support a Pacific finance mechanism to ensure that those nations that had done the least to cause climate change but were suffering some of the worst impacts were properly supported.
Albanese returns to Australia this morning, leaving Climate Minister Chris Bowen to continue the talks, which conclude tomorrow.
A vigil marking the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel was held at Bondi Beach this morning. See the pictures from photographer Audrey Richardson below.
US President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, on the recommendation of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on X.
The US military has not carried out the death penalty since 1961. The army secretary will decide a time and place for the execution, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote in a post on X.
Hasan, an army psychiatrist, walked into a medical building where soldiers were getting medical check-ups, shouted “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is great!” – and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.
Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 injured. Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims and made almost no effort to defend himself at trial.
Paramount Skydance has closed its $US110 billion ($158 billion) acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, completing one of the biggest media mergers of all time after engaging in a bruising battle for control with Netflix and fending off antitrust lawsuits.
The new company, which will be called Skydance, combines two of the five largest Hollywood film studios, uniting major franchises such as Harry Potter and Mission Impossible. It will now be home to dozens of TV networks, from CBS to TNT, and two major subscription streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max.
David Ellison, who only completed the merger of his Skydance Media film production company with Paramount in August 2025, has continued to consolidate power in the media industry and has become one of Hollywood’s biggest moguls.
Still, he brought in Ynon Kreiz from Mattel to share oversight of Skydance as co-chief executive officer. Kreiz will manage day-to-day operations while Ellison maintains the creative, big-picture vision and handles relationships with talent.
“Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry,” Ellison said in a statement.
After pulling off two mega-mergers of century-old Hollywood companies in just over a year, Ellison now faces the significant challenge of making it all work. That means eliminating overlapping businesses and jobs without fanning the ire of Hollywood, which is already suffering through a downturn and has opposed the consolidation from the start.
Skydance also will need to manage nearly $US80 billion in debt while adhering to a strict calendar of theatrical releases as stipulated by the lawsuit settlement.
Bloomberg
The opposition has again refused to say whether it will release the full costings of its new migration policy, as leader Angus Taylor argues the measures will be “good for the budget” and the economy.
“We have released the figures and we’ve said it’s budget neutral and we’ve laid that out, and I’ll tell you why. If you bring in a skilled visa holder, temporary skilled visa holder, they’ll pay something like $30,000 in tax. The current guest workers we have in the economy are paying less than $10,000 in tax. So if you switch, which is what we’re doing, getting more skilled workers coming to the country, it’s good for the budget, it’s good for the economy,” Taylor told Nine’s Today show.
Asked again whether the full costings, prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Office, would be released, Taylor said: “We’ve released the outcomes of that budget analysis that we’ve been doing”.
Coalition sources, who also declined to release the workings, said the cuts to temporary graduates created a hit of about $3.5 billion to the budget. However, this was offset by the growth in skilled workers, a cohort Taylor argues pays three times more tax on average.
However, Taylor’s economic claims were heavily contested by Labor. The government is expected to argue the opposition plan would cost the budget $34 billion over four years.
Liberal leader Angus Taylor has dismissed criticism from the Business Council of Australia of the Coalition’s new migration policy, which the peak body said was a “a big bucket of cold water over businesses across Australia”.
“There is not just a cut to the numbers here, but an improvement in the standards and the skills of the people we are bringing to the country, the skills we need at this time, and the combination of those two things will ensure that it’s good for the budget and good for the economy,” Taylor told Nine’s Today this morning.
“We will develop our policy and announce our policy based on the national interest, not based on vested interest.”
The questions come after the Business Council of Australia released a critical statement yesterday, calling the Coalition’s policy a “flat tyre”.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says the Coalition’s newly released immigration policy is about giving the country “breathing space”, as he claims he does not know what One Nation’s migration policy is.
“The only source of growth in our country [under Labor] is population growth, and that’s failure. That’s failure. We can do better than that. We need an economy that’s strong because it’s productive, because it has the right people, the right skills,” Taylor told Seven’s Sunrise this morning.
“We need to regain control, get some breathing space, catch up on housing construction and infrastructure and services, and then we can start to bring the numbers back up again. But we need that breathing space, and we need an economy that that works for Australians by being strong and competitive and productive, not just because of immigration,” Taylor said.
The Coalition yesterday vowed to cut net overseas migration to 100,000 per year for the first two years after the next election, before steadily increasing to 160,000. One Nation is pushing for negative net overseas migration for three years before settling the rate at 130,000, while Labor is looking to meet pre-announced targets of 225,000.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has released a statement to mark the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, when 1200 people were killed and 250 hostages taken. Read the full statement:
Today, we pause to remember the devastation that Hamas unleashed in the terrorist attack in Israel on the 7th of October, 2023.
On this dark anniversary, we remember the 1200 who were taken from the world, the largest loss of Jewish life on any single day since the Holocaust.
We think of everyone who was dragged into captivity, everyone who never returned home to their families, and everyone forever scarred by what they endured.
We think of all who lost loved ones, everyone who suffered, and those who entered that most agonising of vigils, struggling to bear the weight of hope as they waited for news of their loved ones held hostage.
We mourn Australian Galit Carbone. Our hearts are with her family, who live each day with her absence.
We solemnly vow to never forget what the terrorists perpetrated in all their cruelty.
That they chose to target young people at a music festival promoting friends, love and infinite freedom sent a clear message to the world that Hamas stands in opposition to humanity.
Time marches on with an ease denied to the human heart. For so many, no day since has been easy, but anniversaries fall with their own terrible weight. And for many others, what compounds the pain is the approach of the first anniversary of the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach.
These few years have been hard beyond measure, but Australia stands with the Jewish community here and across the world.
We stand against antisemitism and racism in all its forms because it goes against who we are.
We stand against Hamas, which must disarm and play no role in Palestine’s future.
Australia continues to push for the implementation of the Gaza peace plan to end the conflict after such terrible suffering and loss of civilian life.
The Australian Government encourages and welcomes all genuine moves towards a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, underpinned by the State of Israel and the State of Palestine living side by side, within internationally recognised borders in peace and security.
Such a future would be the greatest victory of humanity over hatred. That is the future we must strive for together.
Bangkok: Laos has a new prime minister after the communist country’s National Assembly elected veteran diplomat Saleumxay Kommasith to the post, state-run media reported.
Saleumxay, 57, was elected in a unanimous vote of 158 lawmakers who were present, the state news agency KPL said.
Saleumxay studied at Russia’s Moscow State Institute of International Relations and Australia’s Monash University before serving in a series of Foreign Ministry posts overseeing relations with Australia, the US, the Americas, and Europe. He also served in the Lao Mission to the United Nations in New York and can speak English, Russian, and French.
According to Monash, he completed a master’s of arts in international studies and development in 1997 and was the first student from Laos to graduate from the institution.
He is a member of the Politburo of the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and had previously served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
His Western-oriented career is unusual for Laos, a small land-locked and impoverished country whose leaders generally have virtually no international profile aside from links with fraternal neighbouring communist governments in Vietnam and China.
In a speech to the assembly after his election, Saleumxay said his government would give immediate attention to food production, infrastructure recovery, mineral management, major investment projects, tourism, revenue collection, and monetary stability, KPL reported.
Saleumxay succeeded Sonexay Siphandone, who in turn was elected the National Assembly president.
AP
British police arrested a 22-year-old British man in London overnight as part of an investigation into a suspected plot that US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said involved a potential Iranian drone attack on a key air base.
Counter Terrorism Policing said the man was arrested in Westminster on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. He remains in custody.
Six men in their 20s, arrested previously in connection with the investigation, including a dual British-Iranian national arrested on October 1, have been released on bail.
The US officials told Reuters the US decided to remove its B-1 bomber aircraft from the base, RAF Fairford, over concerns about a suspected Iranian plot to carry out a complex drone attack on the facility.
While B-1 bombers are not permanently stationed there, RAF Fairford is the preferred European base for US bombers and has been used in strikes on Iran during the ongoing war, launched at the end of February.
Iran has denied any involvement in any alleged plot.
Reuters
