AAP Rolling News Bulletin for May 22 at 0930
Mideast Aust (CANBERRA)
Australian activists detained in Israel after trying to deliver aid to Gaza have been deported to Turkey following a "shameful" video of an Israeli minister taunting detainees.
The 428 Global Sumud Flotilla participants - including 11 Australians - were released overnight after being intercepted by Israeli forces at gunpoint in international waters on Tuesday.
A statement from the flotilla's Australian contingent said members were being forensically examined in hospital in Istanbul and will meet with lawyers to document their experience.
They will then return to Australia in coming days.
Federal minister Tanya Plibersek confirmed Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials were providing assistance to Australians on the ground in Turkey who were part of the flotilla.
"(DFAT is providing) the usual consular assistance, and my hope is that they'lll be on their way home safely," she told ABC Radio on Friday.
Climate Copenhagen (COPENHAGEN)
Australia and Turkey have flagged they will put vehicle electrification in the fast lane at the 2026 United Nations climate summit, as the world grapples with the fallout from fuel shortages stemming from conflict in the Middle East.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and his Turkish counterpart, Murat Kurum, co-hosted a ministerial meeting of 40 countries in Copenhagen on Wednesday and Thursday that will help shape the agenda of the COP31 conference in Antalya.
The annual Copenhagen talks are a pit stop on the way to the main summit and a chance to road test fresh ideas in an informal setting.
Mr Bowen and Mr Kurum nominated electrification as their big-ticket priority.
The transport sector accounts for 15 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions, the UN says.
Mideast (PARIS)
Israel has begun deporting hundreds of activists from an aid flotilla that was intercepted en route to the Gaza Strip, the Adalah rights organisation says as criticism mounted over the treatment of the participants detained in Israel.
Adalah said all participants in the international Gaza Sumud Flotilla have been released from prison in Israel and were on their way to be deported, most of them from Ramon Airport in the south of the country.
The activists - including 11 Australians - were all deported from Israel on Thursday, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
The Israeli news portal ynet reported, citing Adalah, that four activists have already been flown out via Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country was conducting special flights to bring Turkish citizens as well as third country participants to Turkey.
Iran (DUBAI)
The United States and Iran have stuck to directly opposing stances over the Middle Eastern country's uranium stockpile and controls on the Strait of Hormuz, providing little fodder for hope in Pakistani-led efforts to end the conflict.
President Donald Trump said the US will eventually recover Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium - which it believes is destined for a nuclear weapon although Iran says is intended purely for peaceful purposes.
"We will get it. We don't need it, we don't want it. We'll probably destroy it after we get it but we're not going to let them have it," Trump told reporters at the White House.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has, however, issued a directive that the uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters before Trump's comments.
BudgetTas (HOBART)
The world's biggest credit ratings agency doubts Tasmania will pull off its "ambitious" budget cuts, warning the island state it faces a fresh downgrade if it doesn't.
S&P Global Ratings has sounded the alarm on the minority Liberal government's budget, delivered on Thursday by Treasurer Eric Abetz.
Tasmania has slid into debt quicksand this decade with a series of huge deficits, and 2026-27 will be no different, with a $597 million deficit forecast.
However, Mr Abetz has conjured a surplus in 2027-28 - a year earlier than previously forecast - with $1.47 billion in cuts over the next four years.
S&P is dubious, issuing a statement that the "dramatic turnaround" job faces "high execution risk," noting previous failed efforts to rein in debt.
Ebola (KINSHASA)
A case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's South Kivu province - hundreds of kilometres from the outbreak's epicentre - the rebel alliance that controls the area says.
The case, in a rural area near the provincial capital Bukavu, signals the spread of an outbreak that experts believe circulated undetected for around two months in Ituri province, several hundred kilometres to the north, before being identified last week.
The outbreak has been linked to 139 deaths, with 600 suspected cases reported in Ituri and North Kivu provinces as of Wednesday, according to the World Health Organisation.
Two cases have also been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.
The Alliance Fleuve Congo, which includes the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who seized swathes of eastern DR Congo last year, said that the 28-year-old patient had died and been buried safely.
Ukraine (KYIV)
Ukrainian drones have smashed into another Russian refinery, starting a fire that produced huge clouds of black smoke, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says, in what appears to be the latest long-range attack on Moscow's vital oil industry.
The drones targeted the Syzran oil refinery, more than 800km inside Russia, Zelenskiy said on social media, where he posted a video of the aftermath.
The governor of Russia's Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said two people were killed by Ukrainian drones in Syzran but he did not mention the refinery.
Russia's Astra news outlet said Ukrainian drones struck the Syzran refinery owned by oil and gas giant Rosneft.
Ukraine has expanded its mid- and long-range strike capabilities, deploying eye-catching drone and missile technology that it has developed domestically as it battles to defeat Russia's four-year-old invasion.
UK Andrew (LONDON)
Documents show Queen Elizabeth II was "very keen" that the former Prince Andrew be given the job of UK trade envoy.
The UK government on Thursday released the confidential papers related to Andrew's appointment, just months after MPs accused the King's brother of putting his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein ahead of the nation.
"The Queen is very keen that the Duke of York should take on a prominent role in the promotion of national interests," the head of Britain's trade body wrote in a letter.
Another document, a government memo sent to UK trade staff around the world, said "HRH's high public profile" would require "careful and sometimes strict media management", in a reference to Andrew.
The involvement of the late queen will confirm previously held beliefs that the monarch held a soft spot for her son - an empathy that might have influenced her lack of decisiveness in dealing with allegations of Andrew's connection to Epstein.
In finance ...
Economy (CANBERRA)
The likelihood of a rate hike in June has shrunk after a surprise jump in the unemployment rate showed the Iran war is having a material impact on Australia's economy.
While bad news for workers, the rise in the jobless rate from 4.3 per cent to 4.5 per cent in April will be greeted with a sigh of relief by the Reserve Bank.
About 18,600 jobs dropped out of the economy in the month, defying economists' expectations for a rise of 15,000 jobs and a steady unemployment rate in official data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said the figures were the sort of decisive marker, taken together with falling consumer and business confidence and housing prices, that the economy was entering a downturn.
Gas (CANBERRA)
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has slammed calls for more regulations for the gas industry while labelling a campaign to impose a tax on exports as damaging.
Senator Hanson used a speech at the Australian Energy Producers Conference in Adelaide to outline plans to discount oil and gas exploration in a bid to increase Australia's sovereign wealth.
The policy, similar to that used in Norway, would include a 30 per cent rebate on oil and gas exploration in Australia.
In exchange, the Commonwealth would take a financial stake of up to 30 per cent in oil and gas projects, with profits directed into a sovereign wealth fund.
The government's share of the gas and oil extracted would be directed into fertiliser, fuel refining and energy production.
In entertainment ...
Ivors (LONDON)
Singers Jacob Alon and CMAT have featured among the winners at the Ivors, Britain's annual awards for songwriters and screen composers, with the late George Michael and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke honoured with lifetime recognition.
Spanish star Rosalia was named international songwriter of the year following her chart-topping album LUX, on which she sings in multiple languages. British rocker Sam Fender took songwriter of the year while DJ and record producer Calvin Harris won the music icon award.
Best contemporary song was awarded to Kae Tempest's I Stand on the Line while Don't Fall Asleep by Jacob Alon was named best song musically and lyrically. Alon also picked up the rising star award.
Best album went to Irish singer CMAT's Euro-Country while Lola Young's hit Messy triumphed in the most performed work category.
Willis (LONDON)
Rumer Willis says her father Bruce Willis has developed a "sweetness" amid his battle with dementia.
The Die Hard actor was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2023 following an earlier aphasia diagnosis in 2022.
And his eldest daughter with ex-wife Demi Moore has seen her father go from the "macho" man seen in Hollywood to a much gentler person.
Speaking on The Inside Edit podcast, she said: "I'm so grateful I get to go see him.
"Even though it's different now, I'm so grateful."
Rumer said: "There's a sweetness. He's always been this kind of macho dude and there's like a - fragile is not the right word but - just a tenderness that maybe being Bruce Willis might not have allowed him in a certain way."
In sport ...
Spo Enhanced (ADELAIDE)
James Magnussen knows he's a puppet in a trillion-dollar play.
And he's fine with that, given he could earn more money swimming for less than two minutes in Las Vegas than he did in eight years as a clean athlete.
Magnussen, on performance enhancing drugs, will race at the inaugural Enhanced Games in the so-called Sin City on Sunday night (Monday AEST).
The financial lure is substantial for the Australian, a two-time Olympian and dual 100m freestyle world champion who retired from swimming in 2018, until the arrival of Enhanced Games.
Magnussen will swim the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle in Vegas with $US250,000 ($A358,000) prizemoney for race winners; and a $US1 million ($A1.4 million) bonus for breaking the 100m freestyle world record.
AFL Magpies (MELBOURNE)
Craig McRae is determined to ensure the "energy" buzzing around Collingwood in the build-up to Scott Pendlebury's record-breaking appearance is put to good use.
The Magpies will celebrate Pendlebury breaking retired North Melbourne legend Brent Harvey's all-time AFL/VFL games record in front of a massive crowd at the MCG on Saturday.
But there is also business to attend to for the Pies (4-5-1), who are winless since Anzac Day and enter round 11 sitting outside the 'wildcard' spots.
"The best way that we can celebrate and honour Pendles is by playing well, so we're dialling really deep into that," Collingwood coach McRae said.
"We're making sure that we're in tune with what we need to manage against West Coast and their strengths.
Ends Bulletin
Rolling News Desk inquiries : 02 9322 8611
