Good morning, it's Friday, December 10. Here's what you need to get going today.
One thing to know right now: Australia's dumped another entire military fleet — this time, it's choppers
Here's the lowdown:
- The Australian Defence Force will ditch its entire fleet of troubled European-designed Taipan helicopters a decade earlier than it was supposed to
- Instead, it's going with Black Hawks and Seahawks imported from the United States — that'll be announced by Defence Minister Peter Dutton later today
- We don't have exact dollar figures, but the move is expected to cost billions
- The Taipans, which were assembled in Australia using a European design, have been plagued with poor availability and fleet-wide groundings
- Last year Defence also admitted the door on its multi-role Taipans was too narrow to allow its gun to fire while troops are descending from the aircraft
One thing you’ll be hearing about today: There's going to be another National Cabinet meeting
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The Prime Minister will meet with state and territory leaders today, when they'll be discussing international borders and the Omicron variant
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A fortnight ago the federal government pushed back the reopening of the border to skilled migrants and international students to December 15 after the emergence of the variant
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Senior federal government figures say they don't expect the reopening to be delayed again, so we're expecting confirmation about borders reopening after today's meeting
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We still don't know exactly how bad the Omicron variant is, but early data from South African hospitals shows less than a third of patients admitted with the strain are suffering severe illness — that compares to two-thirds of admissions in previous waves
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But Pfizer says a fourth vaccine dose could be needed within a year of people receiving their booster shot to quash the new strain
News while you snoozed
Let's get you up to speed.
- Last night the federal government confirmed the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to children aged between five and 11 will begin on January 10. Initially, it'll only be the Pfizer vaccine, but Moderna is also seeking approval to join the rollout
- A "people's tribunal" set up by a prominent British barrister Geoffrey Nice has found that China has committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur people. The tribunal found there was reasonable basis to believe China engaged in forced sterilisation, sexual enslavement and torture, but China's ambassador to the UK said the tribunal was staged by anti-China elements for their own "self-entertainment".
- South-east Queensland copped another drenching overnight with Samford, north of Brisbane, receiving 61 millimetres of rainfall within an hour. Meanwhile, more rain is on the way for NSW after flash flooding hit parts of Sydney's west yesterday. The Bureau of Meteorology says up to 100mm of rain could fall on parts of the state's south coast.
The news Australia is searching for
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And Just Like That: The first two episodes of the Sex and the City reboot were released overnight, with the series addressing The Samantha Issue in the first few minutes thanks to Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte's cringey post-COVID exchange with the extremely understated Bitsy von Muffling. I'm not going to go ahead and wreck your day with spoilers, but expect an emotional gut punch, the return of Carrie's cashmere connection and to have a few opinions...
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Prince Harry and Meghan and Oprah: Oh my! It turns out THAT interview was the most-Googled interview in Google Trends history. That was back in March, by the way.
People really, really wanted to know what royal bombshells the couple dropped while talking with Oprah. (Harpo Productions via Reuters) - Boris Johnson: The British PM and his wife Carrie Johnson have announced the birth of their baby girl. She's the couple's second child together, after their son Wilfred was born last year, and the PM's seventh child
One more thing: All that rain we're getting is probably going to mean more pests
Scientists are concerned about an explosion in the European carp population in the nation's east.
The species boomed after major flooding in the Murray-Darling Basin during the 1970s and CISRO biosecurity research director Andy Sheppard says it could happen again.
"With the flooding, they will be moving into wetlands that have not had water for five or six years and colonising those areas," he says.
He says numbers will "massively increase" in the next year.
And that's not all — experts say the rains will wash weeds downstream, increasing their spread along riverbanks.
That's enough of that now
We'll be back later on with more of the good stuff.
ABC/wires
