TRANSCRIPT
- LawConnect finishes first in Sydney to Hobart race despite the deaths of two sailors.
- South Korea's parliament votes to impeach its acting president.
- And in cricket, Australia stays on top on day two of the Test at the MCG.
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Roy Quaden and Nick Smith have been confirmed as the two sailors who lost their lives in the 2024 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
Mr Quaden, 55, from Western Australia, was a crew member of Flying Fish Arctos.
Mr Smith, 65, from South Australia, was part of the Bowline.
Both were struck by the yacht's booms amid wild weather conditions.
David Jacobs the - vice-commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia explains why the race will continue despite the loss of life.
“We have a quite a complex structure around the race to help with safety. And if we cancel the race, that structure falls away. And our view is that the crews are safer with that structure over them, than for it to fall way. There are different weather patterns. It may not be safe for boats to try to get back to the coast, they may be going across very difficult sea, they may be going very bad weather."
Meanwhile, LawConnect has delayed celebrations after claiming back-to-back line honour wins in the race.
The Christian Beck-skippered supermaxi was first across the River Derwent finish line at 2.35am today in a time of one day, 13 hours, 35 minutes and 13 seconds.
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A cool change has given fire crews a chance to create more fire breaks and assess damage as they continue to battle a massive bushfire in a Victorian national park.
The out-of-control blaze has scorched more than 74,000 hectares of bushland, about the size of Singapore.
State Control Centre spokesman Luke Hegarty says this means there's a lot of work for crews to do both in terms of controlling the fire and assessing the impacts on local communities and infrastructure.
It is unclear whether homes have been lost to the fire so far, but there have been losses to livestock, sheds and farming infrastructure.
Difficult terrain in the Grampians National Park, coupled with dry conditions, is expected to result in the bushfire burning well into the New Year.
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The South Korean parliament has voted to impeach its acting president Han Duck-Soo, two weeks after the impeachment of president Yoon Suk-yeol.
Mr Han had attracted criticism for rejecting the impeachment process of Mr Yoon, who declared martial law in early December.
Although Mr Yoon was stripped of his duties by parliament on December 14, the process is yet to be completed until a constitutional court also upholds the decision.
Lee Jae-Myung, South Korea's Opposition Democratic Party leader, and his party raised the motion to impeach Mr Han.
"The 'acting president' has transformed into an ‘acting authority of treason.' The People Power Party, which produced the leader of treason, has abandoned its responsibility to uphold the constitution and has instead positioned itself as a loyal guard for the leader of rebellion.”
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India has announced seven days of mourning and a state funeral for the death of Manmohan Singh, the country's former Prime Minister.
Dr Singh, who's known for his economic reforms in India, died aged 92.
He was India's Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, succeeded by Narendra Modi.
Manu Singh, the Ambassador of India-Australia cricket relations, told SBS Punjabi that Dr Singh had a huge impact on him.
“Nobody can do that, nobody can match his intellectual, nobody can matches the level he set with the integrity. So it's a great honour that he was born in India, and he served for the nation. And at the end of the day, we all have to leave this earth, but he was the rarest, and I would like to congratulate to India that Dr Manmohan Singh was born in India, we are very lucky.”
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Now in cricket...
Australia can take another step towards grabbing a 2-1 lead in the Border-Gavaskar series by skittling India's lengthy lower order.
Cruising at 2-153 just 30 minutes before stumps on day two, India lost 3-7 after a mix-up between Virat Kohli and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
The tourists will begin on Saturday at 5-164, still trailing Australia by 310 runs.
India opted to drop No.3 Shubman Gill for the Boxing Day Test, bringing in spin-bowling allrounder Washington Sundar.
Sundar is more than handy with the bat, but having three allrounders batting from six-to-eight is a major gamble when only Jaiswal and Rahul from India's top order have been in form.
