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Live breaking news: Bizarre phenomenon to bring  'destructive weather'

A rarely seen weather phenomenon is set to hit this weekend which could lead to a "dangerous" turbocharged tropical cyclone. 

Ally Foster and Benedict Brook
less than 2 min read
April 7, 2021 - 1:48PM
Weather: What to expect from cyclone season

A rarely seen weather phenomenon is set to hit Western Australia this weekend which could lead to a turbocharged tropical cyclone.

 

Tropical Cyclone Seroja is already building up strength off the coast. But it's having  to share space with an intense tropical low. 

When they near, the two systems are set to "dance" around one another, a situation known as the Fujiwhara effect. 

Once they get too close the largest system, Seroja, could swallow the smaller low leading to a powerful and dangerous combined system.

Today's live breaking news blog is now finished. But we'll have the up to the minute news on news.com.au.  You can find yesterday's live blog here.

Updates

Kevin Rudd's unexpected new career - Uber driver

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is passing the time now he's retired from politics by becoming an Uber driver – although not by choice.

Mr Rudd's daughter Jessica shared the story of how the twice PM was mistaken for an Uber driver in Noosa on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

Her famous dad has just dropped her off when the mix up occured.

"I thought I saw some people pile into his car, told myself it wasn’t—must be a similar looking Uber," Ms Rudd wrote on Twitter.

"It wasn’t. It was Dad’s car. The lovely but tipsy crew had been at the restaurant since lunch".

Rather than turfing the revellers out of his car, he drove them to their destination.

"He's here now," she revealed.

It's not known whether Mr Rudd received a tip for his troubles.

Bad news on further travel bubbles

With New Zealand and Australia announcing a travel bubble, you might be hoping more nations will be added to the list.

But the Queensland Premier has dismissed the case for an extension of quarantine-free travel to include other nations with a low rate of coronavirus infections in the Asia Pacific, such as Singapore, Fiji, Vietnam and Thailand.
Annastacia Palaszczuk today said access to other countries remained too risky given the various strains of the virus popping up across the globe.

“Let’s get the vaccine rollout done and then I think that will be the right time to have a look at that,” the Premier told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Dad's murder of teen kids 'preventable'

The New South Wales state coroner has held back tears today as she handed down her findings into the entirely preventable deaths of siblings Jack and Jennifer Edwards.

Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13, were shot and killed by their father John in July 2018 in their West Pennant Hills home, in Sydney’s northwest.

The family had been in hiding after Olga, Jack and Jennifer’s mum, commenced family court proceedings against the evil and abusive dad.

The inquest heard John “carefully and meticulously” planned how he would murder his children, stalking Jennifer as she walked home from school on the afternoon of July 5, 2018.

Jack Edwards, 15, and Jennifer Edwards, 13, were shot dead by their father John Edwards.Source:News Regional Media

John chased her into the family home, shooting her and Jack as they attempted to hide from him under a desk.

John killed himself the same day while the children's mum took her own life five months later.

The inquest heard NSW’s firearms registry had shown a “complete failure to recognise a history of domestic violence going back 24 years”.

“Had they adequately analysed the information readily available, they would’ve had no choice but to refuse his firearm applications,” state coroner Therese O'Sullivan said.

"The evidence before this court plainly reveals that the deaths of Jack and Jennifer Edwards were preventable," she added.

'Dangerous, destructive' weather warning for 1000kms of coast

Residents and visitors along a vast 1100 km stretch of the Western Australian coast are being warned of "dangerous weather" this weekend as a tropical cyclone hones in.

Cyclone Seroja is currently 700kms northwest of Broome in the Indian Ocean.

But there is every expectation it will power up and head south. What makes it extra dangerous is that it’s heading for WA just as a separate and powerful tropical low is in the vicinity.

The two are expected to take part in what's known as the Fujiwhara effect. It’s euphemistically know as a "dance" by meteorologists where the systems circle one another.

Except it’s like two massive bulls dancing in a China shop.

The two systems' forecast location on Saturday as they perform the Fujiwhara effect circling one another. Picture: Windy.

"What eventually happens is the stronger system will absorb the weaker one and the two will become a tropical cyclone," said Sky News Weather senior meteorologist Tom Saunders.

In this case, Seroja will likely swallow the low to become a turbocharged tropical cyclone. The Bureau of Meteorology has said there is the risk of heavy rain, strong winds and dangerous surf this weekend from Onslow, south of Karratha, to Jurian Bay, 200 kms north of Perth.

Exmouth, Carnarvon and Geraldton are all along this stretch of coast. At the moment it's still unclear if and where Seroja will land and what strength it will be. It will be unlikely to affect the entire coast. But if it does land, it will be "destructive" forecasters have warned.

China's Ambassador to Australia defends Beijing's human rights

The Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye has held an extraordinary press conference in Canberra where the Beijing Government denied any persecution of the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.

China's has been called out by many nations, not including Australia, of committing a genocide of its Uyghur minority.

Not so much genocide as in mass killing but an internationally agreed definition of "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Beijing is accused of trying to eradicate the distinct Uyghur culture, intern millions of those who belong to the minority, break up families and sterilise women.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra invited Australian journalists to the meeting on Wednesday to defend Beijing’s human rights record and Uyghurs came to the stage to deny they had been persecuted by the communist nation.

Journalists were shown a propaganda video – entitled “Xinjiang is a Wonderful Land” – depicting the region as one of economic development and “well-maintained” social stability.

– Additional reporting by NCA NewsWire.

Three charged after wild Sydney wedding

A wild wedding celebration in western Sydney got so out of control that police were forced to break up the festivities and charge three guests with a string of offences.

The wedding caught the attention of police at about 11.40am on Friday, after an entire street in Auburn filled with smoke.

Footage obtained by 7News shows plumes of white smoke rising over the suburb as wedding guests completed a series of burn out on a suburban street as part of the celebrations.

Police said the smoke caused "significant visibility issues" for other road users and "put the lives of the wedding guests at risk".

A white Holden Commodore, a white Ford falcon, and a red Nissan Silvia reportedly fled the scene when the cops arrived.

On Sunday, two of the drivers, one man aged 22 and another aged 24, were caught and charged with “significant burnout offences”.

They had their licences suspended and were issued court attendance notices.

A third man was caught, who is believed to be the owner of one of the cars but was not believed to be the driver.

He was charged with "failing to disclose the details of the driver of his vehicle".

Investigations are underway to find the third driver.

'Woke' council slammed for $200k splurge

A Melbourne council has been accused of "virtue-signalling" over a plan to spend $200,000 of ratepayers' money to get “accredited” as being LGBTQI+ friendly.

Port Phillip Council, which is known to be a LGBTQI+ supportive council, is set to vote on whether it will go ahead with the accreditation.

However, not everyone is impressed with the plan, with Dr Bella d’Abrera from the Institute of Public Affairs blasting the "woke" council over the suggestion.

"The council is already renowned for being pretty LGBTQIA+ friendly. They host the annual pride march, they have a rainbow road, they light up the town hall, they fly the flag," she told 3AW.

"Surely common sense tells you the council should be doing something about the loss of livelihood and the complete wasteland that St Kilda has become, rather than virtue-signalling."

Ms d’Abrera said the accreditation is "literally just a tick" and won't serve any benefit to ratepayers.

"It’s a complete waste of money. It’s two years of employing people so that Sr Kilda can put ticks on the windows of their shops," she said.

It comes after the council lost $20 million in revenue due to the COVID-19 crisis, with many businesses and jobs in the area being hit hard as well.

Should you be worried about COVID jab blood clot risk?

Yet another warning about the risk of blood clotting in recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19 has cast doubt on its safety.

Overnight, a senior official at the European Medicines Agency confirmed a link between the jab and rare blood clots, and said a more definitive statement would be made this week.

Dozens of cases of clotting have been reported worldwide since the vaccine was rolled out. Seven people have died from blood clot complications in the UK, as well as two in Norway and one in Denmark.

Oxford University has now halted its trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine on children and teenagers while the regulator in the UK urgently investigates the blood clot risk.

While Oxford insisted the pause was a precaution and there were no significant risks to the 300 participants, it has also suspended recruiting new trial subjects until further notice.

The AstraZeneca shot is Australia’s main vaccine, comprising almost all of the doses purchased by the Federal Government – 50 million of which will be produced locally by CSL.

After its official’s remarks overnight about the “casual link” to very rare clotting, the EMA released a statement insisting its review into AstraZeneca was ongoing.
Last week, it said it was yet to identify a link, nor any specific risk factors, such as gender, age or pre-existing medical conditions.

Among the few dozen cases reported so far, most occurred in young and middle-aged women. That doesn’t necessarily indicate the cohort is more at risk, though.

Hazzard takes a dig at the PM

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has also taken a dig at the Morrison government, after Premier Gladys Berejiklian's not-so-subtle dig at the PM and the state of the rollout.

"As the Premier has said, we are quite prepared to kick in and help with our Commonwealth colleagues to roll out the vaccines that they thought they were going to be doing, but of course the message is still GPs are first and foremost who people should be reaching out to," he said.

"Of course all that we do here in New South Wales is entirely dependent on the vaccine supplies that the Commonwealth Government is trying to make available.

"So we are all in the hands to some degree of the Commonwealth Government and the suppliers of the vaccine and the community do have to understand that we need be keeping our ears to the ground and just listening about the availability of that vaccine as it proceeds."

Mass vaccination hub to be set up in NSW

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state is "stepping up" to help fix delays in the vaccine rollout by setting up a mass vaccination hub in Sydney.

The hub will be in addition to the 100 vaccination sites that are already running across the state and will be located at Homebush.

"So the New South Wales Government, even after we've done the 300,000 (doses) we were asked to do, we'll continue to have 100 sites up and running across the state in addition to a mass vaccination hub at Homebush," she said.

"We anticipate that post-the 300,000 that we are responsible for we will be able to do around 60,000 vaccinations a week, half will be done at Homebush and the other half across the other 100 sites across the state."

Picture: Bianca De Marchi/NCA NewsWire

Ms Berejiklian also took a subtle swipe at the PM during the announcement, saying NSW's ability to vaccinate people depended on a steady supply of vaccines from the Federal government.

"New South Wales doesn't want to see further delays and that's why we are stepping up to support the Commonwealth," she said.

"Can I also make this really critical point, our ability to do 60,000 vaccinations a week depends on us getting the supply of the vaccine from the Commonwealth.

"At the end of the day the Commonwealth is responsible for getting the vaccine to the states. They're responsible for making sure we have those doses to be able to give out."

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