Daily News Roundup

THURSDAY, November 15

A kayaker has been sent flying after a four-metre tiger shark rammed and then sank its teeth into his tiny crafton Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

The man, aged in his 30s, was fishing from his kayak off Moffat Beach on Thursday morning when he was flung into the water, surfacing to find the shark with its jaws still clamped around one end, said an Australian Associated Press report carried by news.com.au.

The man managed to right his craft, which was upside down, allowing him to climb back on but he was in a perilous situation, with the kayak taking on water and the shark circling nearby.

Rescuers believe he only lived to tell his tale because he had a radio with him and was able to contact the Coast Guard for help.

“He was having a paddle out to sea, and fishing, and yeah unfortunately out of the blue a shark has just attacked his kayak and latched onto it, throwing him out,” one of the rescuers, Jacob Thomson from Surf Life Saving Queensland, told AAP.

“The shark still had its jaw on his kayak, which was upside down. But he’s managed to flip it and at some point the shark has let go.

“But it was starting to sink, there was only small pocket of air holding it afloat. The shark continued to circle him for some time until we got there.”

Two jet skiers brought the shocked paddler back to shore, about 45 minutes after he called for help.

Mr Thomson was the one who spotted the paddler, using a pair of binoculars to scour the glary sea from his vantage point on Moffat headland. But for a while, he feared he wouldn’t.

“He was a long way out. The sun was beaming on the water and I was really struggling to find him. But I managed to spot him, a little speck floating up and down. It wasn’t easy.”

Mr Thomson said the paddler was checked by paramedics after he returned to shore, and was fine, other than feeling a little rattled.

“It’s lucky he had that radio with him, otherwise I think we’d be talking about something different this morning.”

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President Emmanuel Macron has told Donald Trump that France is America’s ally and not a vassal state after the US President attacked him in a series of tweets that showed how much their relationship had soured.

In five posts on Tuesday after a visit to Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Mr Trump reminded France of its near-defeat by Germany in two wars, took a swipe at its wine industry, and mentioned Mr Macron’s falling approval ratings.

A Reuter report carried by the ABC said Mr Trump had earlier criticised Mr Macron’s suggestion that a European army was needed, in part, to reduce reliance on the US military.

Asked in an interview on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier whether he was offended by Mr Trump’s tweets, Mr Macron talked at length about the long military alliance between the two countries, from America’s War of Independence onwards.

“At every moment of our history, we were allies, so between allies, respect is due,” Mr Macron told TF1 television.

“I don’t think the French expect me to respond to tweets but to continue this important history.”

When pressed, Mr Macron dismissed Mr Trump’s comments as an attempt to play to a domestic audience, in the wake of his losses in mid-terms elections.

“I think he’s playing politics, and I let him play American politics,” he said.

“To be honest, I don’t do diplomacy or politics through tweets.”

But asked whether there was a deeper misunderstanding between the two countries after Mr Macron’s comments about a European army infuriated Mr Trump, the French President said being a US ally did not mean being subservient.

“The United States are our historic ally and will continue to be,” Mr Macron said.

“It’s the ally with which we take all the risks, with which we carry out the most complicated operations.

“But being an ally doesn’t mean being a vassal state.”

The public dispute was in sharp contrast with the friendly tone that had been a hallmark of the relationship between the ex-banker and the former real estate developer since Mr Macron was elected in 2017.

After being invited to Paris to attend the Bastille Day military parade in July last year and receiving Mr Macron and his wife for a state visit in Washington in January, Mr Trump had praised Mr Macron as a “great guy” and “a friend of mine”.

But things have since turned sour and the two have disagreed on many international issues, including the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and Mr Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European metals exports.

Although Mr Macron’s response was restrained on Wednesday, his spokesman showed Mr Trump’s criticism had struck a chord.

When asked earlier about Mr Trump’s tweets, French Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said they were posted on the day France was mourning the anniversary of militant attacks in Paris.

“Yesterday was November 13, we were marking the murder of 130 of our people,” Mr Griveaux said.

“So I’ll reply in English: ‘common decency’ would have been appropriate.”

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Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the first tangible remains of the lost city of Tenea, an ancient Greek city thought to have been founded by captives from the Trojan War after the sacking of Troy.

A ministry statement said excavations from September to early October in the southern Greek region of the Peleponnese turned up “proof of the existence of the ancient city” of Tenea, until now known mostly from ancient texts.

Finds included walls and clay, marble or stone floors of buildings, as well as household pottery, a bone gaming die and more than 200 coins dating from the 4th century BC to late Roman times.

A pottery jar containing the remains of two human foetuses was also found amid the foundations of one building. That was unusual, as the ancient Greeks typically buried their dead in organised cemeteries outside the city walls.

Lead archaeologist Elena Korka, who has been excavating in the area since 2013, said her team had only been digging in the rich cemeteries surrounding Tenea, and this year had commenced excavations on part of the city itself.

In one cemetery, antiquities smugglers dug up two remarkable 6th century BC marble statues of young men in 2010 and tried to sell them for 10 million euros.

“This year we excavated part of the city itself,” Dr Korka said.

Excavation work continues on the cemeteries, located near the modern village of Chiliomodi about 100km southwest of Athens.

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Formerly conjoined twins Nima and Dawa do not like to be far from one another and “bum shuffle” back together when separated, nurses at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital have revealed.

The 15-month-old Bhutanese girls — who shared a liver — were successfully separated on Friday by a team of about 18 medical staff in a six-hour operation.

Surgeon Joe Crameri told a press conference this morning the girls were doing well.

“From my point of view, the good news is there’s actually no news — which I’m sure to reporters is not ideal — but in reality, the girls have followed largely the path that we set out for them,” Dr Crameri said.

“Like any surgical pathway, there have been a few bumps in the road and there are a few bumps we’re still smoothing out … [but] we’re making good progress at the current time.”

Nurse Kellie Smith, who works on Nima and Dawa’s ward, said the twins still longed to be physically close to one another after the separation surgery.

“We try and have them a little bit apart but they manage to sort of bum shuffle back together and have their legs intertwined always,” Ms Smith said.

“We did initially try and have them in two beds, but they didn’t like that at all, so they’re in the one bed together and just happy playing with one another, and it’s actually beautiful to see.

“They like their mother close too. They’re always look for mum and she’s never far away.”

 

This daily news roundup has been curated with stories from ABC News.