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Saturday's news in 2 minutes.

The Arctic Sunrise. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)
The Arctic Sunrise. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

 

 

 

1. Two Australians are among 28 Greenpeace activists detained in Russia after their campaign ship was boarded by armed Russian military personnel. The incident occurred when their ship, ‘Arctic Sunrise’, was in international waters. The group had been protesting against oil exploration in the Arctic.

2. There are concerns today for asylum seeker welfare after revelations that there is no current method of tracking deaths in immigration custody. According to Monash University’s Border Crossing Observatory, by failing to report deaths in immigration detention as a part of the Australian Institute of Criminology’s national deaths-in-custody statistics, systemic problems with the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in detention are more easily overlooked.

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3. A man has been charged following the death of a 7-year-old boy in South-Western Sydney. 29-year-old Kodi James Maybir has been charged with 25 child abuse offences following allegations that he repeatedly struck the boy, and withheld food and water while making the boy sit out in the sun. The boy died in suspicious circumstances, after falling off a pogo stick and never regaining consciousness.

4. Syria has handed over details of its chemical weapons program to The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog. Syria had until today to provide details of the chemical weapons in its possession, under the US-Russian plan that aims to have confiscated the weapons by mid next year.

5. Pope Francis has criticised The Catholic Church’s fixation on homosexuality, contraception and

Pope Francis.

abortion, saying that The Church has “locked itself up” on “small-minded rules.” In a 12,000 word interview with a fellow Jesuit, Pope Francis said that if The Church failed to strike a balance between tradition and demonstrating mercy, it is “likely to fall like a house of cards.”

6. A ‘Super Typhoon’ is headed for Hong Kong. Typhoon Usagi travelled off the coast of The Phillippines and Taiwan at speeds of up to 296km/h, making it the most powerful typhoon of the year.

7. Two Qantas pilots are being praised after narrowly avoiding an in-air collision. The two planes were flying over Adelaide when given air-traffic control directions that put them on a collision path. Both pilots ignored the instructions, taking control of the planes themselves to miss each other by just 300m.