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Penny Wong confirmed that ADF troops have been deployed to the Middle East, emphasising that their deployment is part of an operation to evacuate Australians, and not for combat, calling the situation on the ground in Iran “extremely unstable”.
The foreign affairs minister has detailed the challenging logistics involved in evacuating the roughly 2,000 Australians in Iran, largely in part to Iranian airspace remaining closed. Wong said “what that means is … we cannot fly aircraft in or out because of the security situation and because of the possibility of strikes”.
As a workaround, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has sent a response team to Azerbaijan, the closest land crossing. Approximately 1,200 Australians in Israel are also attempting to evacuate amid fears of further escalation in the conflict between both countries.
Top news
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In pictures
13-year-old Tekafa Piliota sits in his small classroom and dreams of becoming a doctor. “I would like to go to Australia to study. There is higher ground in Australia, and it might be safer during natural disasters,” Piliota says. In the years to come, he could see that dream become a reality thanks to a world-first agreement creating a visa in the context of the climate crisis.
What they said …
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“Sydney knows through bitter experience how badly a single track failure can affect services across the network.”
The NSW transport minister, John Graham, has assured residents that Sydney Trains is working as fast as possible to rectify the vandalism of a signal wire that led to train suspensions across the city. Passengers have been told to allow extra travel time and also consider using bus services instead.
In numbers
Effects from the personal collection of dearly departed legendary film-maker David Lynch have gone under the hammer, much to the delight of his devotees. His beloved La Marzocco GS/3 home espresso machine went for $45,500 and his director’s chair fetched $70,000, but it was the unreleased scripts that were the highest earners, with one going for $195,000.
Before bed read
Acclaimed video game director Hideo Kojima visited Australia for a sold-out chat at the Sydney film festival with George Miller, the creator of the Mad Max film franchise. Kojima talks to the Guardian’s Patrick Lum about his relationship with Miller, why his latest game, Death Stranding 2, is set in a heavily fictionalised version of Australia – and about the power of connections, as demonstrated by the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: ANS. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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