We’ve rounded up all the latest news from Australia and around the world – so you don’t have to go searching.
1. Abyan does want an abortion, just not in Australia.
Pregnant Somali refugee Abyan has said that she does want a termination of her pregnancy — just not in Australia.
The Australian interviewed Abyan who spoke to them in a “cramped room” on the island, where she was asked if she wanted to go ahead with a termination.
“Yes, I still want an abortion,” she said.
“But I don’t want Australia, I want to go to another country.”
According to the report, Abyan says she was seen by a nurse when she came to Australia but that “she also felt that she was being rushed.”
I was physically and mentally sick,” she said, “and I wanted to make sure I could make my health good first. I did not say ‘no’.”
For more, read this post here.
2. Government spent $130,000 on RAAF jet to fly Abyan back to Nauru.
The Senate has heard that the cost to secretly smuggle pregnant Somali refugee Abyan back to Nauru was around $130,000 after an RAAF jet was used.
Abyan, who was forcibly returned to Nauru late on Friday, is 15 weeks pregnant as a result of an alleged rape on Nauru. Yesterday a letter from Abyan surfaced where she said she never refused the termination.
In a signed statement, she said: “I was raped on Nauru … I have been very sick. I have never said that I did not want a termination.”
The Guardian reports that the jet used to transport her back to Nauru was brought from Brisbane to Sydney to collect Abyan. It then flew to Honiara in the Solomon Islands, and on to Nauru. It returned to Brisbane on Saturday.
Neil Skill, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s first assistant secretary for detention services, said that a jet similar to the one used to transport Abyan has been used 68 times last financial year for onshore transfers, and 11 times offshore.
So far this financial year, the planes have been used 10 times onshore, and 11 times to move people between Australia and Nauru or PNG.
3. NSW man arrested after mother found dead.
The teenager was arrested after police were called to the sight of a single-vehicle car crash.
Police attended the scene and found a 19-year-old man to be the alleged driver.
Acting on information received at the scene of the crash, police from New England Local Area Command attended a home on Froude Street, Inverell, where they discovered the body of a 51-year-old woman.
The man was arrested and will appear in court today.
4. Doctor paid mother “hush money.”
The Herald Sun reports that Bacchus Marsh obstetrician Surinder Parhar was blamed for the horror labor that claimed the life of Melinda Buchanan’s baby daughter.
He was found to be a part of a series of “catastrophic” clinical and governance failures may have contributed to the deaths of seven babies at a Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital in 2013 and 2014.
An independent review of 10 stillbirths and newborn deaths at Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital in 2013 and 2014 found that seven may have been avoidable.
Surinder Pahar, had conditions placed on his registration in June, following a 28-month investigation by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
He was reported to AHPRA by another doctor in 2013 and has since retired.
Ms Buchanan received $10,500 in a hush money payment from the doctor’s insurers after her daughter Maddisyn was starved of oxygen when the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck in the 1994 labor, and died three days later.
Ms Buchanan then contracted septicaemia after part of her placenta had been left inside her.
He was barbaric,’’ Ms Buchanan claimed.
“His mannerisms … it was like dealing with an employee at a supermarket who can’t be bothered doing their job.”
Ms Buchanan sued Dr Parhar for personal injury in 1995.
She has now called for him to be brought back to Australia from India and face authorities.
5. Afghan asylum seeker feared dead after he self-immolated during a video call.
The Guardian reports the 30-year-old Hazara Afghan made a video call to advocates Sarah Ross and Michelle Bui at the Refugee Rights Action Network and told them he feared he would be returned to detention because police and immigration department staff wanted to interview him.
Khodayar Amini then threatened to take his own life before self-immolating on camera.
The Guardian reports that he had been living out of his car and hiding in bushland.
One of the advocates Sarah Ross said that the phone call with Amini cut out.
She and a colleague later received a call from police, who told them a body that seemed to match Amini’s description had been found in Victorian bushland in Dandenong.
6. Further cases of suspected child abuse never reported.
A total of 344 cases of suspected child abuse in QLD dating back to 2013 have been uncovered that were never reported to police — after an error in the program that was designed to pass on suspected cases of child abuse from Queensland principals to police.
An independent audit of the OneSchool Student Protection Reporting system was commissioned after a coding error blocked more than 600 reports from principals from reaching police last year, but it has now ben found a further 344 cases that were also blocked.
Education Minister Kate Jones told the ABC police and child safety were still working through the reports.
“The Deloitte report found that there were serious flaws in the risk assessment undertaken prior to the implementation of the update in January 2013,” she said.
“There were serious resourcing and government failures dating back to the initial implementation of the OneSchool student protection module.
“We now know that a further 344 reports we cannot reconcile dating back to 2013. All 344 additional reports have been referred to Child Safety and Police.
“We intend to implement all 21 recommendations.”
7. Tony Abbott to pay for smashed table.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott will pay for a marble table that was smashed after a “wild party” he hosted on the night he was ousted by Malcolm Turnbull.
The Italian marble coffee table that was located in the prime ministerial suite was smashed by someone dancing on it Senate Estimates heard yesterday.
The table could cost upwards of $1000 to repair.
Mr Abbott said last night “On the night of the leadership change I hosted drinks in the cabinet ante-room for staff and colleagues.
“During the event a coffee table was damaged.
“I have asked my office to have the Department of Parliamentary Services invoice me for the value of the table.”
8. Labor senator Nova Peris has been refused entry into Christmas Island’s detention centre.
The ABC reports that Labor senator Nova Peris has been refused entry into Christmas Island’s detention centre, which is in her electorate.
Australian Border Force officials have been unable to explain why.
The Senator was refused access to the facility on 8 October after a small riot Senate Estimates heard yesterday.
The commissioner of the Australian Border Force, Roman Quaedvlieg, told Senate Estimates official visits needed more time to process because they posed greater risks.
“Visitors with a higher profile bring a greater security risk in terms of managing that person through a centre,” he said.
“We need to ensure they don’t create a public disorder event, or in fact aren’t vulnerable to any kind of assault themselves. So it does require a higher level of assessment.”
Senator Peris dismissed the idea her request was made complicated by security considerations.
“I was aware that the Immigration Minister Mr Dutton was on the island and visiting the centre at the same time, surely this would have made facilitating a visit even easier,” Senator Peris said.
“I was shocked to learn in today’s estimates that no border officials were made aware of my request, despite immigration officials admitting that I am within my rights to visit.”
The Guardian reports that Peris stayed on the island for four days, speaking to locals and government officials, before leaving on 12 October.
9. Oscar Pistorius already at home.
Oscar Pistorius has already left Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria, according to South African Newspaper The Citizen.
“Yes it is true… he is at home already” Pistorius’ lawyer Brian Webber told the paper. Pistorius left the prison at 10pm last night, a day earlier than was reported, to begin a four-year period of house arrest at his uncle’s palatial villa.
For the past 12 months, he has spent up to 13 hours a day in a single cell in the prison’s hospital wing.
The former Paralympian is expected to undertake extended community service as well as further psychiatric treatment to come to terms with the shooting in the early hours of St Valentine’s Day 2013.
He has indicted he would like to meet with Reeva Steenkamp’s parents.
10. “What happens on end of season trips should stay on end of season trips”.
“Substantial numbers” of men in the AFL code are unsure, reluctant, or uncomfortable” to tell their mates when their behaviour towards women is out of line.
A study by La Trobe University has found a code of silence in the AFL stops players from speaking out about violence against women.
The Herald Sun reports that half of the 366 AFL players surveyed agreed “what happens on end of season trips should stay on end of season trips”.
And one in five said they’d feel uncomfortable about telling a group of men to stop talking disrespectfully about women.
Two-thirds of players did agree they would tell mates who were behaving offensively towards women to stop.
La Trobe Associate Professor Sue Dyson said there was an “aura of entitlement that leads some men in AFL clubs to think women are asking for it,” she said.
“A heady mix of success and alcohol can lead to people getting carried away”.
11. Covering your baby’s pram could be more dangerous than sun exposure.
Experts have warned that covering an infant’s pram with a muslin cloth could put them at risk of heat stroke or sudden infant death syndrome.
A Swedish study has examined the safety of placing a muslin cloth or a blanket over a pram finding they reduced air circulation and created an intense heat.
Researchers found a covered pram that was left in the sun became 15 degrees hotter than a pram left uncovered.
Svante Norgren, paediatrician at the Astrid Lindgren children’s hospital in Stockholm, reported that in Sweden during the summer, temperatures can easily reach 30C, and in these conditions, with a thin cover or towel over the hood of a pram:
“It gets extremely hot down in the pram, something like a thermos. There is also bad circulation of the air and it is hard to see the baby with a cover over the pram.”
Dr Norgren warned that this method of providing shade could even raise the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) as the incidence of it is dramatically increased when a young baby is exposed to intense heat reports The Local.
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Top Comments
4. Although I am not trying to minimise the harm and errors this doctor has made (they are all unacceptable), I wish that 'cord around the neck' was not used as a scapegoat quite so much in adverse birth events. In the years that I have worked as a midwife, I would guess that about half of the babies I have caught have had the cord around the neck, with many of those babies having it around 2 or 3 times, and often looped around a limb of the torso as well. It has become second nature to untangle the babe before handing him/her to Mum, so much that I don't even think of it. Midwifery students are also now taught not to check for the presence of a cord once the head is birthed, as fiddling with the cord can cause vasoconstriction, which may temporarily disrupt baby's oxygen supply and can increase the risk of perineal trauma. The only time where it has been an issue, was one baby where the cord was wrapped 8 times around the neck, with very little length to allow for descent had that mother gone into labour. People need to understand that although the cord around the neck is often blamed when a baby experiences birth asphyxia, it would more commonly be a coincidence than the actual cause. Cord around the neck is rarely catastrophioc.
Well said. It is such a non-issue.
8. “I was aware that the Immigration Minister Mr Dutton was on the island and visiting the centre at the same time, surely this would have made facilitating a visit even easier,” Senator Peris said.". What on earth would make Senator Peris think Mr Dutton would want her crashing his pre-organised visit?, she was aware he was there, but didn't bother to call and ask if she could tag along or did she just assume the center would call in extra staff to cater for her security when she showed up unannounced at the gate?, no doubt two high-profile groups would have gone completely unnoticed through the recently unsettled center!.
her point was that as Dutton was visiting the centre, this would mean duplicate sets of security *wouldn't* be required.
How could the security moving with Dutton also be protecting her "at the same time" if she was elsewhere in the center?