Daily News Roundup

June 10, 2020

 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10

The mother of 14-year-old William Callaghan has thanked his rescuers, after he was found alive and well following two nights lost in freezing temperatures at Mount Disappointment, north of Melbourne.

William, who has non-verbal autism and went missing on Monday afternoon, was found around 11:55am.

In a tweet, Victoria Police said he was found by a volunteer and had been reunited with his family.

The boy’s mother, Penny Callaghan said Will was “quite calm” considering what he had been through.

She said Will had indicated he was confused and was pressing his body which Ms Callaghan said meant “his body feels weird”.

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The Royal family has released a photo of Prince Philip with the Queen to commemorate the Duke of Edinburgh’s 99th birthday.

The photo was taken on Monday in the quadrangle at Windsor Castle, west of London, where the pair have been isolating since the coronavirus pandemic sent the UK into lockdown in March, reports the ABC and Reuters.

Philip married Elizabeth in 1947 and is the longest-serving consort in British history, but has rarely been seen since a health scare that saw him hospitalised just before Christmas last year.

He released a rare public statement in April to thank those fighting on the frontline against COVID-19.

The duke will spend his birthday on Wednesday at Windsor Castle with the 94-year-old monarch.

Due to the Royal couple’s self-imposed isolation, the rest of their family will have to send their best wishes to Prince Philip by video calls.

“I haven’t seen my father for a long time. He’s going to be 99 next week,” heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles said last week.

“Facetime is all very well … You really want to give people a hug.”

The Royals make little fuss about their birthdays in public, but this year celebrations have been even more muted.

Traditionally, the duke’s birthday would be celebrated with gun salutes in London, but with social gatherings banned, the Queen felt it would be inappropriate for such royal ceremonies to go ahead and cancelled such tributes for her own birthday in April for the first time in her 68-year reign.

The duke retired from public life in August 2017, but he still occasionally appears at major royal engagements.

He was involved in a car accident in 2019 just outside the Royal family’s Sandringham Estate. The crash left him uninjured, but two women in another vehicle suffered minor injuries.

The Land Rover that Prince Philip was driving rolled onto its side in the incident.

The duke later gave up his driving licence after police gave him a warning for not wearing a seatbelt.

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Australia’s elite universities have dismissed claims campuses are “risky” for Chinese students, saying the higher education sector has become the latest “pawn” in a diplomatic row between Australia and China.

A statement from China’s Ministry of Education warned students to reconsider studying in Australia, alleging “racist incidents” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson dismissed Beijing’s claims Australia was not safe for international students.

“When we have statements such as this, which are from our perspective very disappointing and unjustified, it raises some level of concern,” Ms Thomson said.

Just days after China urged its citizens not to travel to Australia, the Ministry of Education advised students on Tuesday to reconsider their options.

“During the period of pandemic, there are numerous discrimination cases against Asians in Australia,” the statement said.

“Please be cautious of choosing or going to study in Australia.”

There have been reports of people being racially abused in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic, but the Federal Government has rejected Beijing’s suggestion that Australia is unsafe.

Ms Thompson said the Chinese embassy in Australia could not outline the incidents the Ministry of Education was referring to.

“We have asked the Chinese embassy are there incidents that they are aware of that we need to know about because if there are we need to be working together to resolve them,” she said.

“They have been unable to provide us with that advice because they advise us there are no cases.

“So it is concerning that, yet again, international education, and particularly with China, is yet again the pawn in a political game that is not of our making.”

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Emergency crews and volunteers will head into thicker bushland today as the search continues for a teenager who went missing on Mount Disappointment, Victoria, two days ago.

An air and ground search was launched for William Callaghan, known as Will, who was separated from his parents on the south side of the summit about 2:20pm on Monday.

The 14-year-old has autism, is non-verbal, is not dressed for cold weather and has no food or water with him.

Acting Inspector Christine Lalor said it was “certainly” possible Will could have survived two nights in the near-freezing conditions.

“We’re still looking at locating Will and him being okay. So he can certainly survive and that’s our hope,” she told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“The weather is a bit kinder [by] a couple of degrees, which certainly makes a difference.”

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