☕️ Palestinian recognition, explained

In some breaking news this morning, U.S. TV network ABC has announced ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ will return to its regular late-night broadcast, after the show was suspended following comments made by Kimmel over the political reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death.

In a statement, Disney (the parent company of ABC) said “We made the decision to suspend production on the show... because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and... reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

“So long as we do not give up on the long-term goal of denuclearisation, I believe there are clear benefits to having North Korea stop its nuclear and missile development… The question is whether we persist with fruitless attempts towards the ultimate goal or we set more realistic goals.”
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in an interview with the BBC, confirming he would accept a U.S-led deal for North Korea to temporarily pause its nuclear weapons development.

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The number of measles cases in Cairns reported by the Queensland Government. Measles is a contagious airborne disease. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and a rash. Although the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared measles eliminated in Australia in 2014, people travelling here from overseas can still bring the disease back with them, causing community outbreaks.

Cats, dogs, horses and other mammals analyse particularly interesting or strong scents by curling their lip. The reaction, called the Flehmen Response, allows these animals to process scents through the roof of their mouth.

The Australian communications watchdog has launched an investigation into Optus over an outage last week.

On Friday, the telco revealed a technical failure during a network upgrade had disrupted several Triple Zero calls, leading to at least three deaths.

Optus said it “apologises unreservedly” to the families and friends of those who have died, and is conducting welfare checks on callers.

On Thursday, Optus had a “technical failure” during a network upgrade.

The company said no “red flags” were raised during initial testing of the changes, but later received a direct complaint from a person who had been unable to make a Triple Zero call.

Calls in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory were impacted.

In a statement on Friday, Optus said: “Three of the Triple Zero calls involved households where a person tragically passed away.”

On Sunday, Optus said it believed “established processes were not followed” during the upgrade, and that the cause of the technical failure remains under investigation.

CEO Stephen Rue said the company has taken “full accountability,” and has paused any future changes to its network until it has “a broader understanding of the events that have occurred.”

Optus said it will appoint an independent investigator to lead a full review.

On Monday afternoon, it said it was aware of another seven people who had not been able to call Triple Zero during the outage.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has accused Optus of failing to uphold its “most fundamental responsibility” of ensuring Australians can make emergency calls.

ACMA launched an investigation into whether Optus breached legal obligations over the incident, including ensuring emergency calls can be made, and making welfare check calls to affected customers.

In 2023, Optus was penalised $12 million for similar breaches related to another network outage.

At a press conference over the weekend, Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells said the outage was “completely unacceptable” and “had tragic consequences”.

“It would have been incredibly distressing for people to call Triple Zero in their time of need and not be able to get through… Australians have every right to be livid that Optus cannot get these basics right,” Wells said.

SA Police is investigating the death of an eight-week-old baby, whose grandmother told officers she was initially unable to make a Triple Zero call when the baby stopped breathing.

However, police said the child’s death is “unlikely” to have been caused by the outage, as the grandmother was able to successfully make a call from another phone in the house.

SA Police is also investigating whether the death of a 68-year-old woman was linked to the outage.

Reporting by Achol Arok.

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The Australian Government has recognised the State of Palestine.

Australia, Canada, and the UK all released statements overnight, ahead of the UN General Assembly.

But what does statehood mean, and what changes now that Australia has recognised Palestine?

Here’s what you need to know.

When a country formally recognises another state, it acknowledges that state’s independence and accepts it as a legitimate member of the international community.

This recognition typically leads to establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.

147 of the United Nations’ 193 members recognise Palestine as a state. However, the U.S. and many of its allies support a “two-state solution,” meaning they will only recognise Palestine after it reaches a negotiated agreement with Israel.

In 1922, Palestine was placed under British control following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Under this mandate, the League of Nations (the precursor to the UN) agreed Britain would put into effect its previous commitment to establish “in Palestine... a national home for the Jewish people”.

It also required Britain to commit to avoiding anything “which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Britain had already promised independence to Arab communities who fought with it during WWI.

After WWII and the Holocaust, Britain “relinquished” its control of Palestine in 1947, and brought the “Palestinian Question” to the UN.

Later that year, the UN voted to end British rule and split Palestine into one Jewish state and one Arab state. Israel declared its independence in 1948.

There has been ongoing violence and war in the decades since, causing the mass displacement of Palestinians. Attempts to negotiate a two-state solution have failed.

Israel has since taken control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which is known under international law as the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Today, the Palestinian Authority (PA) governs some of the West Bank, while Hamas runs Gaza. Israeli forces have killed many Hamas leaders during the ongoing war.

Earlier this year, France, the UK, Canada, and Australia announced they would recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

Netanyahu said the possibility of Australia recognising Palestine was “disappointing” and “shameful”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in New York to meet with world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Monday (local time).

Ahead of this, he announced Australia’s formal recognition of the State of Palestine.

In a statement on Sunday, Albanese said the recognition (which took immediate effect) came with “clear requirements” for the PA.

For example, he said, “the terrorist organisation Hamas must have no role” in the state.

Albanese said he had received assurances from the Authority that it would hold democratic elections and enact reforms.

Australia will begin diplomatic discussions and consider opening an embassy “as the Palestinian Authority makes progress on its commitments to reform.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has previously had an office in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Albanese‘s statement was accompanied by similar releases from Canada, the UK, and Portugal. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it “categorically rejects” the countries’ announcements.

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network said the decision “remains well short of [Australia’s] international moral and legal obligations to stop Israel’s genocide”.

A UN commission of inquiry found last week that Israel has carried out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry criticised the announcement as “vague” and said it failed to make clear what would happen if the PA doesn’t make the required changes, “or if Hamas continues to control Palestinian territory.”

Several world leaders are in New York for the UN General Assembly (GA) — a gathering where countries discuss global issues.

Israel has been a voting UN member since 1949. Palestine is an ‘observer state’, meaning its representatives can attend and speak at meetings, but not vote.

A GA summit on the two-state solution is scheduled for Monday afternoon (local time). This is when France will announce its recognition of the State of Palestine. Australia and several other countries are then expected to follow suit.

Did you know your food scraps have superpowers?

Most Victorians now have a lime green food organics and garden organics (FOGO) bin – and they’re already proving to be pretty great at using it.

Here’s the deal: food scraps and garden clippings go in the FOGO bin. From there, they’re transformed into compost that helps local farms and gardens thrive – not sent to landfill.

The only catch? Rubbish doesn’t belong – the FOGO bin is just for food scraps and garden clippings. No plastics, containers or even sneaky fruit stickers. If they slip in, the whole load could end up in landfill, where they release methane.

The fix is simple: correctly sort your scraps into the FOGO bin, and you’ll make a real difference every bin night.

🍊 The athletics world championships wrapped up on Sunday. Read more here.
🍊 Aussie wins silver at cycling world champs. Check out what he said.
🍊 Piastri still leading F1 drivers championship despite crash. More details here.
🗞️ Also in today’s Sport Newsletter: cricket, rugby, and more…

The intranasal spray will be available for free in Qld, NSW, and SA ahead of next year’s flu season. The spray, called FluMist, will be free for children between two and five years old, but it’s expected to become available privately for other age groups, pending regulatory approval. The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGPs) welcomed the “lifesaving,” initiative, and said "needles act as a major barrier to childhood vaccinations”. The SA Government said FluMist “provides the same protection as the currently available vaccine”. Officials in all three states said it's hoped the spray will boost vaccination rates.

Want more good news? Sign up to our weekly Good Newsletter here - we promise it’ll make your week better!

Reporting by Emma Gillespie.

Did you know Russia has its own version of Eurovision?

Over the weekend, 23 countries competed in ‘Intervision’.

Intervision was created during the Cold War as an alternative to Eurovision. This year marked its first competition since 1980.

Russian President Vladimir Putin re-introduced the competition this year after Russia was excluded from Eurovision following its illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Vietnam’s representative Duc Phuc won the competition and Kyrgyzstan’s ‘The NOMAD Trio’ came second place.

Greek-Australian singer VASSY, who was representing the U.S, pulled out of the competition at the last minute. Intervision posted on X: “Due to political pressure from the Australian government, U.S-AU citizen VASSY won’t perform”.

The next competition will take place in Saudi Arabia next year.

Reporting by Annabel Whitehouse.

Early on Monday morning, Australian PM Anthony Albanese announced the Government had recognised the State of Palestine.

Albanese joined the heads of Canada and the UK in making the announcement, ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York City this week. Then, early this morning, countries met at the UN to discuss the future of the two-state solution.

In today’s podcast, we’ll explain what it means to recognise the state of Palestine, and how it relates to the two-state approach.