TRANSCRIPT
- Leaders from across the region are descending on Tonga for The Pacific Island Forum Leader's Meeting which begins today
- Laws giving workers the right to disconnect after hours come into force
- Novak Djokovic says he's not thinking about retirement anytime soon
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The Pacific Island Forum Leader's Meeting is set to begin today.
Leaders from across the region are in Tonga for the annual talks.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is already there, while Anthony Albanese is to join in later in the week, along with other leaders from the region.
Among the key issues the leaders will be discussing are the unrest in New Caledonia, climate change, China's position in the Pacific and growing geopolitical rivalries in the blue continent.
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Hezbollah and Israel have traded heavy fire in one of the biggest cross-border clashes since October.
Israel says it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets in a pre-emptive strike to thwart a larger attack; Hezbollah then launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel.
Hezbollah says it was planning a reprisal attack following Israel's assassination of a Hezbollah commander, but that it delayed its response to give time for a ceasefire deal.
The intense cross-border exchanges are prompting strong warnings against further escalation as fears of a full-scale war in the region persist.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari says Israel will strike anywhere in Lebanon that may be a threat.
"Hezbollah is launching rockets and UAVs toward Israeli territory. Our aerial defence systems, the Israeli navy’s ships and air force planes are taking part in the mission of defending Israel’s skies, identifying and intercepting threats, and striking any place in Lebanon that is required in order to remove threats and hit Hezbollah. When we said we would do whatever it takes to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, this is what we meant."
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Laws giving workers the right to disconnect after hours have come into force.
The new law gives workers the right to refuse to respond to communication from their employers outside of working hours.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to overturn the legislation if he gets elected - but Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt says the right to disconnect will help establish proper boundaries at work.
He says workers in Australia should be entitled to their free time.
"I don't think anyone expects or thinks it's reasonable for workers to be working lots of hours as effectively unpaid overtime, thinking like they've constantly check their phones, check their emails, for what their boss might be sending them after-hours. Everyone understands that an employer, from time-to-time is going to need to contact a worker about something urgent, something that can't wait till the next day. But these days we don't need to be constantly on the hook for work, when many things can actually wait till the next day."
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Australia's LGBTIQ+ communities say they will be 'rendered invisible' in the next snapshot of the population.
The federal government has decided to exclude questions about gender, sexual orientation, and variations in sex characteristics from the 2026 Census, which has been met with widespread criticism from LGBTIQ+ advocates.
The announcement has been labelled a betrayal by Equality Australia, which had been pushing for inclusions to ensure the community is properly counted for the first time.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics had considered including topics on gender, sexual orientation and variations of sex characteristics in the 2026 census after a complaint was made to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
According to the complaint, the LGBTIQ+ community felt excluded when completing the 2021 census.
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In tennis, Serbian multi-Grand Slam winner and recent Olympic gold-medallist Novak Djokovic says he is not thinking about retiring from the sport any time soon.
The U-S Open is set to begin and the 37 year-old says he is still anticipating each moment he steps on the court as if it's his first time.
"US Open is a slam that holds the biggest tennis court in the world, tennis stadium, you know, night sessions at US Open are very famous, most famous in our sport, and I'm going to play my first match here Monday night, So, I can't wait to be under the lights. The noise, the energy of the stadium is just different from anything else, so, you know, I look forward to it.”
The tennis icon also referred to the recent doping allegations against Italian Jannick Sinner, saying he understood the frustrations expressed by other players.
