Daily News Round-up

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7 

Jakara Anthony has created history by winning Australia’s first gold medal in the women’s moguls at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

It is Australia’s first gold in Beijing, breaking a 12-year drought since an Australian last topped the podium at the Games.

Anthony is Australia’s sixth Winter Olympic champion.

Her victory also delivered Australia two medals on the same day at a Winter Olympics for the first time, following Tess Coady’s bronze in the women’s slope-style earlier on Sunday.

“It’s really incredible to know that all the hard work that I have been putting into my whole skiing career is really paying off,” Anthony told the Seven Network.

Anthony has dominated the women’s moguls competition since it began on Thursday.

She had the highest score in the opening qualification phase, leaving her with a target on her back ahead of Sunday’s first final.

But the 23-year-old showed cool nerves to again top the standings in the first final, with an outstanding score of 81.91.

She repeated the dose in the second final with the top score of 81.29, meaning she would be the last skier to head down the course in the super final.

However, her task was not made easy when American Jaelin Kauf — the second last skier in the super final — produced a score of 80.28.

Anthony was not overwhelmed by the occasion, however, and she clinched gold with 83.09.

She said she refused to be distracted by the performances of her rivals throughout the three finals.

“I really just tried to stay focused on what I needed to do,” Anthony said.

“That was all I could control in the moment.”

Anthony paid tribute to the support her family had given her on her journey to the Olympics.

“There is so much support. I have a massive support team around me,” she said.

“Obviously, my family, they have been key to that my whole life. The opportunity they have given me and the sacrifices they have made. I really, really can’t thank them enough.

“It has been pretty tough on them at times. The opportunities that they have given me in life, as a person and athlete. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

“I am so thankful and grateful for everything that they have done for me.”

Kauf claimed the silver medal behind Anthony, with Anastasiia Smirnova of the Russian Olympic Committee finishing with the bronze.

Anthony’s fellow Australians Britt Cox and Sophie Ash placed 14th and 16th respectively on the final standings.

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Neighbours fans have launched a desperate bid to save the long-running soap following news production is likely to cease within months, reports news.com.

Thousands of devastated British viewers have now signed a petition begging UK network Channel 5 to “find a way to keep Neighbours on air” following news it was withdrawing its broadcast partnership with Australian production company, Fremantle Media and won’t be renewing the contract.

The cancelled deal has put the series’ future in jeopardy, as Channel 5 foots the majority of the production bill.

The change.org petition stated that Neighbours has “been a staple on UK screens for over 35 years – and has been watched by generations”.

“Neighbours is more than just a TV show – it is a source of comfort and entertainment for generations of fans who have watched it for decades.”

The creator went on to describe it as “one of the most-loved TV shows in the UK”, adding that “even Adele is a fan”.

Another fan wrote, “Don’t you flipping dare. It’s the only soap worth watching.”

As of Monday morning, the petition had attracted more than 12,000 signatures.

Neighbours draws around 1.5 million UK viewers daily, and up to 170,000 metro viewers in Australia.

Production on the iconic show has been paused for Monday, with TV Tonight reporting that the cast and crew will attend a meeting today to discuss the situation.

However, it’s understood the show will continue to film new episodes at its Nunawading studio in Melbourne until early June, but its future beyond that is now under a cloud unless Fremantle Media can reach a new broadcast deal.

The wedding of Scott and Charlene (played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue) is one of the most iconic moments in Aussie TV history.

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Fires have torn through Western Australia’s agricultural heartland overnight with farmland scorched and at least one home destroyed.

Twin fires hit the Wheatbelt, about 250km east of Perth, yesterday afternoon as catastrophic fire conditions throughout the region brought gusty winds and temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius. 

The bushfires came after two other major fires destroyed homes in southern WA on Saturday in Denmark and Bridgetown in a horrific weekend for firefighters.

On Sunday afternoon, four emergency bushfires were burning at once across the south of the state.

The largest bushfire in the Wheatbelt is burning in the Shires of Quairading, Bruce Rock, Corrigin, Kondinin, and Kulin with 140 fire fighters battling the blaze at its peak, many local farmers.

The fire tore through farmland fuelled by gusty westerly winds brought by a cold front. 

Shire of Corrigin president Des Hickey said the bushfire was ferocious with flames more than 15 metres high. 

“We thought the two fires might link up and head towards the town, but the wind shift gave us a reprieve,” he said.

“We’ve lost a lot of farmland and one house we know of, other sheds, and bits and pieces in the district.”

“It’s an horrendous situation when you’re getting 70km-plus winds and a fire front probably in excess of 4km long.

“Farms have been razed from one side to the other.”

A second bushfire started in the Shire of Narrogin and threatened lives and homes, with the town site of Wickepin under threat.

More than 100 fire fighters battled the bushfire as resources were stretched across the region. 

An evacuation centre has been set-up in Pingelly Recreation Centre.

Several schools have been closed in the Wheatbelt for Monday.

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An eerie silence fell on a Moroccan village on Sunday after the death of a five-year-old boy who had been trapped in a well for four days, reports the ABC via AP/Reuters.

For days — and nights — the community of Ighran, a village in a mountainous area in northern Morocco, had gathered along the edges of the well, cheering on the rescue workers and volunteers digging deep into difficult terrain to reach the hole where the boy, Rayan, was trapped.

They offered support to Rayan’s parents.

Millions watched the rescue operation on state TV.

The boy was pulled out Saturday night by rescuers after a lengthy operation that captured global attention.

Convinced that Rayan was alive, the crowd was cheering as the child was rushed to an ambulance where his parents had been waiting.

Just minutes after the ambulance pulled away, a statement from the royal palace said the boy had died. Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents.

The palace said the king had been closely following the frantic rescue efforts by local authorities, “instructing officials to use all means necessary to dig the boy out of the well and return him alive to his parents”.

He hailed the rescuers for their relentless work and the community for lending support to Rayan’s family.

The boy’s parents spoke to state Al Oula TV after their son’s body was recovered.

“This is God’s will. I thank all for their efforts to help,” Rayan’s mother Ouassima Kharchich said, her voice strained with grief and barely audible.

“We thank so much the people and authorities … who helped us,” the father, Khalid Awram, said.

Messages of support, concern and grief for the boy and his family poured in from around the world as the news of Rayan’s death spread overnight Saturday.

Pope Francis described as “beautiful” how people had rallied around efforts to save Rayan’s life.

The Pope expressed thanks to the Moroccan people as he greeted the public in St Peter’s Square.

He praised people for “putting their all” into trying to save the child.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he felt the pain of Rayan’s family and of Moroccans.

Soccer clubs including Liverpool FC, Manchester United, FC Barcelona and FC Sevilla also expressed condolences on their Arabic Twitter accounts.

AC Milan’s Algerian midfielder Ismael Bennacer posted a tribute on Twitter with a picture of a young boy holding a balloon being lifted from a well and into the sky. 

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Pope Francis has condemned female genital mutilation and trafficking of women for prostitution, saying both are humiliating affronts to their dignity.

He urged officials to do everything possible to put an end to them.

“This practice, which is unfortunately common in various parts of the world, humiliates the dignity of a woman and gravely attacks her physical integrity,” Pope Francis said, speaking on the UN International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

According to the UN, FGM is concentrated in about 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East but is also practised by immigrant populations elsewhere. 

More than four million girls around the world are at risk of undergoing FGM this year, the UN says.

Pope Francis, speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square for his weekly blessing and address, noted that the practice was often carried out in conditions that endangered a girl’s health.

In a related appeal, Francis called for more efforts to stop human trafficking, particularly of women and girls for prostitution.

“This is a deep wound inflicted by the shameful search for gain without any respect for the human person,” the Pope said ahead of the Catholic Church’s International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking this Tuesday.

“There are so many girls that we see on the streets who are not free.

“They are slaves of traffickers who send them to work and beat them if they don’t return with money.

“This happens today, in our cities.”

Trafficking of women from Africa or Eastern Europe for prostitution is a particular problem in Rome.

Officials say criminal gangs lure the women to Italy with the promise of jobs and then force them into prostitution, threatening to harm their families back home if they go to the police.

Calling FGM and human trafficking “wounds of humanity”, Pope Francis urged leaders “to act decisively to stop both the exploitation as well as humiliating practices that afflict, above all, women and girls”.

Catholic nuns in Rome are at the forefront of fighting trafficking of women. In 2016, Francis visited a Rome safe house where a charity protects women freed from pimps.

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More than half a million state school students headed back to Queensland classrooms today after a COVID-delayed start to the new school year.

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer John Gerrard expects daily case numbers to rise despite measures imposed in schools to limit the spread of Omicron.

But he doesn’t expect large numbers of children to be hospitalised — instead, officials are more concerned about the risk to grandparents.

“The bigger risk in terms of hospitalisations is more the child bringing the virus home to the parents and grandparents, particularly if the grandparents aren’t boosted,” he said.

As of February 6, only 39 per cent of Queenslanders aged 16 and over had received their third dose, according to the ABC’s vaccine tracker.

Dr Gerrard said 268 Queenslanders have died since the state’s borders opened on December 13.

“Most of the deaths are we are seeing in Queensland are in the unboosted older age group, so unboosted older Queenslanders are at the highest risk of death,” he said.

*Victoria has recorded another seven COVID-19 deaths.

The number of people in hospital after contracting the virus sits at 638, down from 652 a day earlier.

Of those patients, 72 are in intensive care units, with 26 people on ventilators.

The state reported 8,275 new infections  2,308 from PCR results and 5,967 from rapid antigen tests. 

It takes the number of officially reported active infections to 59,801, down from 60,917 on Sunday.

About 45 per cent of the state’s adult population has now had a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

*NSW has recorded a significant drop in the number of people being treated for COVID-19 in the state’s hospitals.

There are 2,099 people with the virus in hospital, down from 2,321 patients in the previous reporting period.

Also dropping is the number of people being treated in intensive care with 137 patients currently in ICU, which is 10 less than the previous day.

The state also recorded 14 more COVID deaths.

There were 7,437 new cases recorded in the reporting period, of which 3,917 came from positive rapid antigen tests (RATs) and 3,520 were from PCR swabs.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant on Sunday said data suggested a decline in the virus’ circulation in the community.

“Overall, it is pleasing when we look at a variety of different sources of information,” she said.

“It gives us a sense that we are slowing the spread and we are seeing a decline in transmission in the community.”

ENDS