TRANSCRIPT
- US President Joe Biden withdraws from the presidential race...
- Australians warned recovery from tech outage may take two weeks...
- A dominant performance by the Australian team earns them triple gold ahead of the Olympics.
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U-S President Joe Biden has announced his withdrawal from the 2024 Presidential election while endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.
Shortly after the news broke, Republican candidate Donald Trump told CNN he thinks Kamala will be even easier to beat than Joe Biden.
The 81-year-old president made the announcement on social media platform X, saying he will remain in his current role until his term ends in January 2025.
Following a rocky performance in the first debate against Donald Trump, Mr Biden has faced mounting pressure to withdraw from the race over concerns about his age and health.
His endorsement of Kamala Harris, however, does not secure her nomination and it remains unclear if any other senior Democrats will challenge her for the nomination.
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Australians are being warned it could take up to two weeks to fully resolve the disruption to computer systems affected by the global tech outage.
Microsoft says up to 8.5 million devices using its operating system were impacted by the outage that was triggered by a faulty software update from CrowdStrike.
The American cybersecurity firm says it is working on an automatic fix, but for now its manual fix requires physical access to each device.
Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil says Australians should be prepared for the full recovery for all impacted sectors to take up to two weeks.
Andrew McKellar, the CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce, and Industry, says it will take businesses some time to calculate the extent of the financial losses from the outage.
He says if there is a mechanism for financial compensation, that should be made available.
"I think for many businesses it is going to be very difficult to secure direct compensation. Obviously, that is something that should be looked at. And I think if there are ways to consider how that might be evaluated; then obviously that is something that should be on the table."
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According to Newspoll, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are struggling to attract a majority of voters to back them as the preferred leader of the respective parties.
The latest survey for The Australian showed only 28 per cent of voters nominated Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton as their preferred leaders of their respective Labor and coalition parties, ahead of five other chosen candidates.
For Labor, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek was backed by 13 per cent of voters while former leader Bill Shorten was the third pick among voters with 10 per cent support averaged across all demographics.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers enjoyed only eight per cent support.
For the coalition, opposition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was the next most favoured behind Mr Dutton on 14 per cent followed by deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley at six per cent.
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Bangladesh's Supreme Court has scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs that sparked deadly student-led protests.
Since the start of the month, students have been demanding an end to a quota that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971.
The protests turned deadly earlier this week, with at least 114 people killed.
Ruling on an appeal, the Supreme Court directed that 93 per cent of government jobs should be open to candidates on merit.
Lawyer Shah Monjurul Hoque represents the students seeking to end the quota system.
He says it is a major victory.
"The Supreme Court's Appellate Division, according to article 104, gave a final solution to this quota system. That is 93 per cent quota for general people, five per cent quota for freedom fighters and their kin, one per cent for ethnic minority community, and one per cent for third gender and physically disabled."
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In athletics, days before the Paris Olympics, three Australians have shown their capability to be true contenders at the Games, after winning titles at the London Diamond League.
Australia achieved a tally of three gold medals - and set a new Oceania record time of 42.48 seconds in 4x100m women's relay.
Javelin thrower Mackenzie Little achieved a personal best of 66.27 metres on her first attempt, winning gold.
World champion Nina Kennedy won the women’s pole vault.
And middle-distance runner Oliver Hoare ran a season’s best time of 3 minutes and 49.03 seconds.
In a dramatic start to the race, three athletes fall with no restart.
Speaking to athletics media outlet, Trackstaa, Hoare says it is a wonderful boost ahead of the Paris Olympics.
"A lot of those boys don't deserve to fall. You know you want to win the race and win it with the best guys up there fighting for it - and that kind of sucked . I was fortunate enough to stay clear of it. I was able to hang on. I felt good. I thought: I'm going to go now because the group behind us was going to come through and I had that last 50 metres really try and hold on and push and see if I could win the race. And I came away with the win - and I am very grateful for that. But also it has given me confidence going into Paris."
