news

Tuesday's news in under 5 minutes.

We’ve rounded up all the latest stories from Australia and around the world – so you don’t have to go searching.

1. Father charged with death of 6-year old daughter.

The girl’s 52-year old father was charged last night with murder.

An international mining magnate has been charged with the murder of his six-year old daughter after the girl’s mother found her body in the bedroom of her Kedron home yesterday morning.

The girl’s 52-year old father was charged last night with murder after detectives brought the man in from a Gold Coast hospital. They had located the man in his blue Mercedes in the Gold Coast Hinterland, 120km from home after he left the family home around 5am.

Police said the cause of the girl’s death was unclear.

He will appear in court today charged with the six-year old girl’s murder and attempted murder of her older sister aged eight.

2. PM likely to change humanitarian refugee cap.

Fairfax Media

Previously the government had indicated that they would not extend the number of refugees allowed in to Australia but the extent of the worldwide humanitarian disaster has seen the government shift its thinking.

The Prime Minister said yesterday “We always want to do the right thing by people in trouble and we are not going to let people in trouble down now — we never have and we never will,” he said.

“I can inform the House that it is the government’s firm intention to take a significant number of people from Syria this year. We will give people refuge; that is the firm intention of this government.”

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen argued yesterday that taking more Syrians without increasing the overall intake would mean people from other countries paid the price.

ADVERTISEMENT

“That is saying we are going to take less refugees from South Sudan, Asia, Africa, anywhere else and these are people who are deserving as well,” Mr Bowen said.

“We don’t have pictures of their plight on our television, but they shouldn’t be the ones who play a price because we are taking more refugees from Syria.”

3. Thousands rally for Syrian refugees.

Around the country last night thousands of Australians have attended candlelit vigils vowing to do more to help the flood of Syrian refugees.

Mohammad Ali Baqiri, a law student at Victoria University addressed the ‘Light The Dark’ rally in Melbourne.

“It’s because in life-and-death situations a parent will do anything they can to provide comfort and protection for their child,’’ Mr Baqiri said.

In Sydney 5000 people heard Gosford Anglican priest Rod Bower speak about Aylan, the little boy whose body was found on a Turkish beach and whose photo went around the world.

Without warning this child has become every refugee. An archetype, every refugee, calling us to the fullness of humanity.

“None but the wilfully deaf, the wilfully blind and the dead of heart can remain unmoved.”

3. UK to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees.

The Prime Minister told MPs that Britain will take in up to 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. Under the plan only refugees from camps in their home regions will be taken in by the UK – not those who have already crossed the Mediterranean into Europe.

ADVERTISEMENT

In Europe a plan by European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker will today call for the two top EU economies to take nearly half of the 120,000 refugees.

The ABC reports that Mr Juncker’s proposal for mandatory quotas for EU states will ask Germany to take 31,443 and France 24,031, to relieve the burden on Greece, Italy and Hungary.

Spain would take 14,931 under the plan.

4. Police hunt for drivers in search for William Tyrell.

60 Mins representation of the two cars.

Police are searching for the drivers of two cars parked unusually on the street in which three-year old William Tyrell went missing.

The cars – a white station wagon and a dark grey sedan, both older models – both had the drivers’ windows down.

They are also looking for information on two other cars.

One vehicle is a green or grey sedan that drove past the Benaroon Drive house about 9am while William and his sister were riding bikes in the driveway.

Detective Inspector Jubelin said that the car drove into the quiet cul-de-sac and there it made a u-turn in the neighbour’s driveway and drove out of the street.

The other car was a 4WD which was spotted driving out of Benaroon Drive about 10.30am- the same time – William vanished – and was later seen speeding down another Kendall street.

“The people driving these cars have not come forward to police,” Det Insp Jubelin said.

“But it’s important in saying that we have received information we are following up about who might be owners of these vehicles.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

5. Major Crime Detectives called in over missing mother.

20-year old Jody Meyers

Police are examining the movements of a missing Adelaide mother who last contacted her family saying she had left her partner and would contact them soon on a different number.

But then disappeared without a trace.

20-year old Jody Meyers was last seen about 7.30pm on Wednesday, August 26.

A day after she went missing her bank account was accessed, but nothing since and she has not been active on social media.

“She loves Facebook,” her sister Tania said yesterday.

“She was always on that and she hasn’t used it since she’s been gone. The police said they accessed it and it hasn’t been used. That’s just not her — it’s weird.”

The Advertiser reports that her two-year old son keeps asking for his mummy.

Ms Meyers is described as caucasian, 154cm tall, with a solid build, green eyes, fair complexion and most recently known to have long blonde hair. The mother-of one wears a hearing aid in her right ear and is deaf in her left.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact the police assistance line on 131 444.

6. Former PM says Australian biased against women leaders.

In her first public lecture as an Adelaide University professor former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called on Australians to examine their “unconscious bias” against female leaders.

ADVERTISEMENT

Her lecture, on education inequality pointed out that men and women are coming out of the same universities, going for the same jobs, but women are being paid 4 per cent less.

She said there was an “unconscious bias against women as leaders.”

She said 121 million children were missing out on an education globally. Of those, 58 million were primary school aged, a majority girls.

7. Melbourne girl stranded in Vietnam after father took her passport.

The Age reports that the girl travelled to Vietnam with both her parents who had separated in April.

The mother of the young girl also had her passport taken but had a new passport issued, but the girl could not do the same without the father’s signature.

In a letter to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade the mother of the girl said she had returned to Melbourne to try and find her ex-husband, but he had been “elusive and unavailable and not at all co-operative in assisting me to have our daughter return to Australia”.

8. The best ages for kids are…..

40% of parents surveyed said their children were at their best at five because they had “started to communicate properly” and had developed a good sense of humour.

But between the ages of 10 and 12 they were the most difficult to spend time with.

Do you agree?

Do you have a story to share with Mamamia? Email us news@mamamia.com.au
[post_snippet id=324408]