Source : the age
China is preparing to test-fire a nuclear-capable long-range missile with a dummy warhead in the South Pacific in the next 24 hours, diplomats in the region have been told.
The news, delivered to regional governments on Monday afternoon, came just hours after Australia and Fiji struck a new defence alliance.
Diplomatic sources confirmed to this masthead that Chinese officials had briefed various regional governments, including Australia, about an upcoming intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific.
China previously test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean in September 2024, the first such test since 1980.
Chinese military vehicles carried weapons including a nuclear-capable missile designed to evade US defences as the Communist Party celebrated its 70th anniversary in power with a parade in Beijing in 2019.
Earlier today, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said he did not expect any resistance from China following the island nation’s new bilateral defence treaty with Australia.
“I do not expect China to have any severe pushback on either government, and I believe that they will welcome the understanding that it is between Australia and Fiji,” he said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in Suva.
“It does not threaten Fiji’s relationship with China, nor Australia’s relationship with China, and as we have made it very clear in the past … your enemies are not necessarily my enemies.”
We will be following this story closely and bring you more updates as it unfolds.
Read the full story here.
Turning our attention to global news, hundreds of firefighters are battling wildfires in Portugal, Greece and Spain, with Spain and Italy sending reinforcements to Portugal to help with a massive blaze burning for more than three days.
Authorities urged residents in parts of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, to remain indoors and shut their windows and doors due to toxic smoke from a burning recycling plant that was engulfed by a wildfire.
Another major wildfire broke out west of the Greek capital, Athens.
In central Portugal’s Vouzela area, a blaze that broke out on Thursday had burned across an area of 30,000 acres by Sunday, the European Union’s Copernicus satellite mapping agency showed.
Police forensic experts have revealed today investigators will take samples from a mother’s fingernails and mouth for evidence of cannibalism after she allegedly claimed to have consumed part of her son.
The boy, aged 4, was found dead in their home on the NSW Central Coast.
A 32-year-old woman arrived at Wyong police station of her own accord on Saturday afternoon, leading officers to quickly form grave concerns about the safety of a child.
The woman allegedly told police she had eaten part of her son.
Police conducted a welfare check at a unit on Byron Street in Wyong. They found the body of her son with significant arm injuries.
Read the full story from our journalists here.
Australia and Fiji’s new defence alliance could be expanded to other nations in a major victory for the Albanese government as it seeks to limit China’s influence in Pacific security affairs.
The Ocean of Peace defence pact goes further than most analysts expected and means Australia has added a fourth formal treaty ally on top of the United States, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
Backed by $1 billion in funding from Australia over the next decade, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed the alliance and a separate Vuvale Union covering the economy, climate, health and migration with Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka during a visit to the capital, Suva, on Monday morning.
The Ocean of Peace alliance between Australia and Fiji, which contains mutual defence obligations, is expected to be open to the three other Pacific nations with militaries: Tonga, PNG and New Zealand.
China is preparing to test-fire a nuclear-capable long-range missile with a dummy warhead in the South Pacific in the next 24 hours, diplomats in the region have been told.
The news, delivered to regional governments on Monday afternoon, came just hours after Australia and Fiji struck a new defence alliance.
Diplomatic sources confirmed to this masthead that Chinese officials had briefed various regional governments, including Australia, about an upcoming intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific.
China previously test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean in September 2024, the first such test since 1980.
NSW’s top court will consider whether to quash decades-old convictions against three men who were jailed over an alleged conspiracy to bomb multiple locations in Sydney and cut the city’s water supply, after an inquiry concluded there was reasonable doubt about their guilt.
Ilija Kokotovic, Joseph Kokotovic and the late Mile Nekic were among a group of six men dubbed the Croatian Six, who were found guilty in 1981 of offences relating to a conspiracy to bomb two travel agencies, a Serbian social club, the Elizabethan Theatre in Newtown, and the Sydney water supply pipeline.
The now-notorious corrupt police officer Roger Rogerson, who died in prison in 2024, headed a raid in Burwood that led to the arrest of the trio in February 1979. An inquiry into the guilt of all six men was ordered by the NSW Supreme Court in 2022.
Acting Supreme Court judge Robert Allan Hulme, who presided over the inquiry, said in a report released on Monday that he had referred the three men’s convictions “to the Court of Criminal Appeal for consideration of the question of whether their convictions should be quashed”.
The third stage of the Tour de France has been closed to the public due to risks posed by a forest fire raging in southwestern France.
The fire has ravaged more than 1600 hectares some 60 kilometres from the finish line in Les Angles and is still spreading.
Images show billowing black smoke, and witnesses are reporting scorching winds, hot ground, difficulty breathing in the vicinity and poor visibility beyond two metres.
The race route will remain unchanged, but the Tour’s publicity caravan will not drive along the last 40 kilometres into France from Spain, where it began on Saturday.
Victoria’s shadow attorney-general has referred allegations that state government officials told builders to cut a deal with the CFMEU to the state’s corruption watchdog.
Last week, The Age revealed state government officials told a Big Build rail consortium that then-transport infrastructure minister Jacinta Allan wanted it to cut a deal with the CFMEU in a move which ultimately allowed the disgraced union to force its preferred labour hire company onto a level crossing removal site.
Police have since alleged that B K Labour, the company that gained access to the Gap Road project in Sunbury, is corrupt.
Allan, now premier, has denied the allegations and dismissed them as baseless.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says he does not expect any resistance from China following the island nation’s bilateral defence treaty with Australia.
“I do not expect China to have any severe pushback on either government, and I believe that they will welcome the understanding that it is between Australia and Fiji,” he said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in Suva.
“It does not threaten Fiji’s relationship with China, nor Australia’s relationship with China, and as we have made it very clear in the past … your enemies are not necessarily my enemies.”
Earlier, Albanese said bilateral treaties signed with Fiji today represented “one of the most significant endeavours Australia has ever undertaken in our history with any country”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government was allocating appropriate levels of funding for new defence treaties after striking a new agreement with Fiji.
Albanese has sealed a major security pact with Fiji today, kicking off a three-day diplomatic blitz aimed at boosting regional ties and countering China’s influence in the Pacific.
“We’ve just had a budget, and that budget had an additional, from memory… $54 billion of additional spending,” Albanese said at a press conference in Fiji.
“We have increased spending, but importantly, we have increased effectiveness.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would come to the aid of Fiji should it be attacked under the Ocean of Peace agreement struck today.
“The alliance provisions are very clear, which is that an attack on Fiji from an outside force would trigger Australia’s full support for Fiji and for its sovereignty,” he said at a press conference in the island nation.
Albanese said the agreement would allow for further discussions about greater defence cooperation.
“We have provided some infrastructure in the past, it’s not about troops in each other’s nations… but it will allow for a clearer area of cooperation and requests to be made over the full suite of challenges that confront national security in 2026,” he said.
“That comes not just from traditional ways… but areas like cybersecurity and other areas as well, and it will mean an upgrade in areas, including increased cooperation in training and exercises.”
