Morning News Bulletin 29 October 2024

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TRANSCRIPT
Australian mining giant Rio Tinto suspends operations in Guinea after a man’s on-site death.
Fears mount for civilians in northern Gaza.
A former Olympian avoids prison after assaulting his ex-wife in Tasmania.
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A man has died at an Australian-owned mining operation in the African country of Guinea.
Rio Tinto has suspended operations at the Simandou mining project following the man’s death, which is understood to be the result of an incident at the SimFer port in Morebaya.
No further details have been released at this stage.
But the company says it is working with its partners and relevant authorities to conduct a thorough investigation.
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The Australian Financial Complaints Authority has called for a stronger industry response following a sharp increase in complaints by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customers.
AFCA says the number of complaints lodged to Australia’s financial dispute resolution scheme by Indigenous people has surged 25 per cent over the past financial year.
Key issues include unauthorised transactions and delays in insurance claims, while one in 10 related to financial hardship, double the rate of the general population.
Deputy Chief Ombudsman Dr June Smith says firms need to better understand and serve the unique challenges these communities face in accessing basic services – which includes having more Indigenous staff.
“There really is a need for First Nations people to be able to engage with First Nations mob when they ring a financial firm. And particularly for those firms to be able to identify that they are talking to a First Nations person.”
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More Australian animals have been added to an international list of threatened species.
Six species have been added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s so-called Red List, which now contains details of 742 endangered Australian animals and plants.
Craig Hilton-Taylor is the Head of the group’s Red List Unit.
He says it’s extremely urgent to act on these findings.
“Unless we start acting now, we will not stop these declines in time and those species will go extinct. We may even lose these species despite all our efforts. But in most cases we know what to do. This assessment shows us where the actions are needed most.”
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There are renewed fears for thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza, as Israeli tanks thrust deeper into two towns and a historic refugee camp.
The Palestinian emergency service estimates around 100,000 civilians are trapped in the region.
The Israeli military says they are seeking Hamas targets, with its soldiers capturing around 100 suspected militants in a raid into Kamal Adwan hospital in the Jabaliya camp.
This displaced woman, Amna Mustafa, says the military forced them to leave Jabaliya.
“They (the Israeli army) entered at approximately 4:00 early morning. They started hitting us with shells and missiles, and the quadcopter came to us and called on the loudspeaker, ‘Get out and evacuate the place.’ The first to leave were the men. They came out naked and took them, and they took us out and we had nothing with us. They forced us to go to the west of Gaza.”
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NATO says it has confirmation North Korean troops have been sent to Russia.
Secretary-General Mark Rutte says troops have been deployed to the Kursk region.
He has described the “deepening” military cooperation between the North Korean state and Russia as a threat to world security which will stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia.
Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will also pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army – but Mr Rutte says the deployment can be seen as a sign that Vladimir Putin is growing increasingly desperate.
“Over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Putin’s war, and he is unable to sustain his assault on Ukraine without foreign support.”
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To sport,
A three-time Olympic rower who breached a domestic violence order and assaulted his former wife while she was in bed has avoided jail.
A judge has sentenced Simon Burgess to 90 days in prison, with the sentence wholly suspended on the condition he does not commit any jailable offences in the next 18 months.
Mr Burgess had previously pleaded guilty to assault, three counts of breaching an order and damaging property over the incident in southern Tasmania.