Traditional owners on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula are preparing to challenge the decision to build a nuclear waste dump on their land. 

Last week, the Federal Government determined the national radioactive waste storage facility would be built at Napandee, a property near Kimba. 

Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation's (BDAC) primary argument against the decision is that traditional owners were not included in discussions with local landholders and townspeople, who were asked to vote on whether they supported the choice of site. 

France is sending additional security forces to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Protesters in Guadeloupe and neighboring Martinique have erected barricades and blocked roads this month as anger mounted over an order also in place in mainland France requiring health workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Numerous arrests have been reported in Guadeloupe and Martinique since the protests began including attacks on police and other security officers. 

New Zealand has announced that it plans to outlaw the purchase of tobacco by 2025.

The Smokefree 2025 Action Plan will increase the legal smoking age every year, with the goal of ensuring that young New Zealanders would not take up the habit. 

The plan includes other measures to make smoking unaffordable and inaccessible, including reducing the legal amount of nicotine in tobacco products, cutting down the locations where cigarettes can be legally sold, and increase funding to addiction services all with the goal of making the nation entirely smoke-free by 2025.

QLD’s new Chief Health Officer will officially take up the role next Monday as the state records a double donut day with zero cases of COVID-19.

Dr. John Gerrard will take over from Acting Chief Health Officer Peter Aitken, who has been in the role since Jeannette Young’s appointment as QLD’s Governor. 

He begins his tenure as the state prepares to open up to fully vaccinated interstate travelers on Monday next week.

Ipswich City Council is set to auction off a collection of sporting memorabilia, fine wines, and historical curiosities today that have been alleged to have been collected during the former council’s tenure likely using public funds.

The former council was disbanded over corruption, fraud and misconduct in 2018 with former mayor Paul Pissale found guilty of extortion and sentenced to two years in prison in 2019.

After three weeks, the towns of Katherine, Binjari and Rockhole have seen it’s COVID restrictions lifted today, as the Territory recorded two cases yesterday. 

A mask mandate will remain in place for the next seven days as the total number of COVID cases from the region stands at 63. 

The outbreak has tragically claimed the life of an aboriginal elder from the remote community of Binjari.

Fire crews in Western Australia have been battling a blaze through the night near Margaret River in the state’s south west. 

At least 1050 hectares have so far been burnt by fire as the Department of Fire and Emergency Services have said the blaze was moving in a north-westerly direction and had neither been controlled or contained.

100 firefighters are attempting to both fight the fire as well as strengthen containment lines to limit it’s spread.

United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has ordered a review into the United States military bombings in Syria during March 2019. 

Earlier this month, the US military acknowledged that civilians “may have been killed in the bombings in Baghouz, near the Iraqi border in 2019” after the New York Times citied anonymous sources and classified documents accusing the US military of concealing the bombings. 

The newspaper reported that the bombing struck a “crowd of women and children”, killing 64 people.