Daily News Roundup

Friday, October 4

A police employee has suddenly turned on colleagues at the Paris headquarters building, killing four of his co-workers.

He was eventually shot dead.

 It is believed the attack began in the police building and then continued in a compound across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral

The attacker worked in the police building and had not posed problems before

The area surrounding the police station was put in lockdown

The man has been identified as a 45-year-old IT assistant.

Officials are yet to confirm the motive of the attack and say they are not treating it as terrorism at this stage.

Three men and a woman were killed, according to Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz. Another person was wounded and is undergoing surgery.

Mr Heitz said police were searching the attacker’s home. His wife had been brought into police custody but not charged, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Speaking outside the 19th century police headquarters near Notre Dame cathedral, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the attacker had worked in the IT department of the city’s police force since 2003.

“There were no warning signs,” Mr Castaner said.

“He had never presented any behavioural issues, he had never presented the slightest cause for alarm before going on his deadly rampage today.”

A police official and member of the collective “Police Up In Anger”, which lobbies for better conditions for officers, was quoted by franceinfo radio as saying the assailant had experienced issues with his supervisor.

“I know there were tensions between him and his direct supervisor,” Christophe Crepin said. “I do not think this is a terrorist act.”

Jean-Marc Bailleul, a police union leader, described the incident as criminal rather than an act of terror.

“It was a moment of madness,” Mr Bailleul told BFM TV.

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The ABC has announced it has struck a landmark deal to become the free-to-air broadcast partner of the A-League, W-League, Socceroos and Matildas.

The two-year deal will see one A-League and one W-League match per round broadcast live on ABC TV and iview around the country throughout the entirety of the 2019/20 season.

Every match of the W-League finals will also be available live, and a selection of A-League finals on delay, including the grand final.

It will also mean the Socceroos’ next two rounds of World Cup qualifiers will be broadcast live and free across the ABC and SBS, as well as all of the Matildas’ upcoming international friendlies and Olympic qualifiers.

“We are thrilled to welcome Australian football into the ABC family,” Judith Whelan, the ABC’s Director of Regional and Local, said.

“The ABC has unrivalled reach into every corner of Australia and we will be using that reach to help build the profile of football. We plan to use all our platforms to drive audiences to our coverage on ABC TV.”

The deal means A-League games will be broadcast by ABC TV for the first time, and marks a return for the W-League, which had a home with the ABC from 2008 until 2017.

“We have always been a big supporter of women’s sport in this country and will use every means possible to build the biggest audience we can for the W-League,” Ms Whelan said.

Socceroos coach Graham Arnold said it was exciting to have ABC on board for football coverage.

“It is fantastic news that live, free-to-air coverage of a variety of elite Australian football will feature on the ABC,” Arnold said.

“I remember when I was playing in the National Soccer League that the ABC showed the match of the day, and provided great exposure of the competition.

“The ABC provides a truly national platform across many mediums — TV, radio, and online — so having the ABC involved to provide coverage of the Socceroos, Matildas, A-League, and W-League is a big win for the game.

“The Socceroos will be the first team to be shown live by the ABC as part of this agreement next Thursday night when we play Nepal in Canberra.

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Donald Trump has stunned opponents and friends alike by now telling reporters China should also investigate former vice-president Joe Biden.

The US President is at the centre of an impeachment inquiry for allegedly pressuring Ukraine to investigate Mr Biden.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens,” Mr Trump said in remarks to reporters outside the White House on Thursday (local time).

Mr Trump said he had not directly asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to investigate Mr Biden and his son Hunter but said it was “certainly something we could start thinking about”.

By publicly egging China on to investigate a Democratic political rival, Mr Trump appeared to confirm making the same request to Ukraine’s President — a conversation which has led to the impeachment investigation by the House of Representatives.

Mr Trump has defended his contact with the Ukrainian President as “perfect” and now is giving a broad airing to a similar appeal to China, a nation that has much at stake in its relationship with the US in an ongoing trade war.

Mr Trump’s comments evoked his public call in 2016 for Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s emails if they had obtained them by hacking — which US intelligence agencies later determined to be the case.

In the case of both Ukraine and China, Mr Trump has made his allegations against Mr Biden without evidence of wrongdoing.

The President and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani also have tried to raise suspicions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, leaning heavily on the writings of conservative author Peter Schweizer.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, labelled the allegation that a Chinese government business gave Mr Biden’s son $US1.5 billion ($2.23 billion) “totally groundless”.

Mr Trump’s alleged pressuring of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens, as well as Mr Giuliani’s conduct, are at the centre of an intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint that sparked the House Democratic impeachment inquiry last week.