Chinese stocks fallen more than 30%

Financial analysts have observed a loss in Chinese stocks of more than 30% during 2018.

This $600 billion loss is blamed on the slowing of the economy, the increase in national debts as well as the impact of the ongoing trade war with the US.  

The trade war is seen by JPMorgan as having a 1% shrinking effect on the economy, alongside numerous Chinese companies seen as using their shares in the form of loan collateral.  These trends are predicted to continue going into 2019.

Labour plans to ensure protection of Opera House

The federal Australian Labor Party has provided plans to ensure the protection of heritage sites, including stopping the Sydney Opera House being used as a billboard.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act ensures that the Commonwealth has a responsibility and interest in cultural heritage.

Labour spokespeople have ensured the plan won’t just be a ‘nice idea’.

Gun Industry Lobby plan to 'intervene' in elections

Corporate members of gun industry lobby group Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (SIFA) set the intention to intervene in state and federal elections.

 

This plan would lobby for governments to be accountable for the decisions they make, with a proposed law to allow sports shooters access to high-powered guns, doubling the firearm licence period to 10 years, as well as allowing certain shooters to access silencers.  

 

Queensland MPs may face recrimination after abortion vote

Three Queensland Liberals - Tim Nicholls, Steve Minnikin and Jann Stuckey used a conscience vote in support of Premier Palazcuk’s abortion   decriminalisation bill.

The LNP council is expected next month to ban the three from seeking reelection.  

Moderates in the party are vocal in the view that recrimination about the three would “light the fuse” for a demerger push.

Indians protest after train accident kills dozens

A protest has been staged in Northern India after a train ran into crowds celebrating a Hindu festival, killing around 60 people.

The train hit the victims who had gathered on the railway tracks on the outskirts of Amritsar city in Punjab state on Friday to watch a firework display.

The disaster has led to new demands for safety reforms to India's accident-plagued railway system, which records thousands of deaths each year.

 

Sweden charges woman who tried to block Afghan man’s deportation on flight

Swedish prosecutors have indicted 21-year-old Elin Ersson, who in July staged a standoff to prevent the deportation of a rejected asylum-seeker to Afghanistan.

Elin is a volunteer with an organisation that fights the forced return of Afghan asylum-seekers whose applications have been rejected. She filmed herself in a standoff in July with the cabin crew of a Turkish Airlines flight at Landvetter Airport in Gothenburg.

Australia's world-first vaccine surveillance system

Australia has developed a world-first surveillance program that tracks adverse reactions to vaccinations.

SmartVax - a program that has monitored over one million vaccinations since 2010 -  will soon monitor every vaccine administered to Australians.

SmartVax was created in response to the 2010 Fluvax disaster, when a spike in convulsions and fever prompted Australia’s chief medical officer to suspend the flu vaccine program for children under five.

 

four-metre-long scrub python launches onto the child's arm

A North Queensland family has saved a toddler from a four-metre-long scrub python after it latched onto the child's arm.

The 22 month-old boy was playing at the family home in Julatten, north of Cairns, with his three-year-old sister when the python struck.

The children's mother and grandparents came to the rescue, stabbing the snake four or five times until it released the boy from its grasp.