Midday News Bulletin 25 April 2025
TRANSCRIPT:
Police interview a man accused of heckling at this morning's Melbourne Dawn Service;
Thousands march through Auschwitz on the 80th anniversary of the camp's liberation;
Australia's Michael Storer holding onto hope in the Tour of the Alps. Victorian Police have interviewed a man over a heckling incident at this morning's Anzac Day Dawn Service in Melbourne. They've released a statement saying they expect to charge the 26 year old man on summons with offensive behaviour. The man was allegedly part of a small group of people who disrupted the dawn service at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, as Bunurong elder Mark Brown delivered the Welcome to Country. "Welcome everybody to my father's country. Beautiful Bunurong country. But before we do that we pay our acknowledgements and our respects." The major party leaders have taken a short break from election campaigning to attend Anzac Day events. The Prime Minister has appeared at the Dawn Service held at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. "We who are gathered here think of those who went out to the battlefields of all wars but did not return. We feel them still near us in spirit. We wish to be worthy of their great sacrifice." The opposition leader Peter Dutton has attended a Brisbane event. "Anzac Day is one of the most significant and most solemn days and sacred days on our national calendars. A day when we honour all Australians who have served suffered and sacrificed in wars and military operations on behalf of our nation. And this Anzac Day we will especially feel the weight of history. 2025 marks 80 years since the end of the second World War. That conflict engulfed almost every continent across every country." Thousands of people have marched through the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp in Poland in a ceremony to remember the 80th anniversary of its liberation. The annual ceremony known as the March of the Living follows a three-kilometre route to the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This year's march has been joined by 80 Holocaust survivors, among them 87 year old Dr Martin Stern, who was arrested at school and sent to Terezin concentration camp in what's now the Czech Republic. He says humanity must learn from the Holocaust. "If we concentrate exclusively on the Holocaust, we're fighting the last war. We have a war now. We have to deal with the situation that exists today. And it is our duty to learn the facts from both sides, to educate people about them and to assert that every human being has the same right to life, Jew or Arab." Thousands of displaced Sudanese continue to arrive in camps in the North Darfur region of Tawila, as the African country's civil war reaches the two-year mark. UNICEF says the war has created the world's largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people trapped by the fighting facing hunger and starvation. UNICEF volunteer Heba Abdullah says the organisation has been providing families and children in the Zamzam and Al-Omda camps with nutrition supplements. 'We are here to provide nutrition support to children between 6 months and 5 years. In some families, 4 or 5 children are suffering from acute malnutrition. We're seeing many cases of both severe and moderate malnutrition. So far, we've helped more than 2,000 children here in the camp, and there are still many more in need of support. We've also spoken with several mothers who told us, our children are not eating at all.' A teenager has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing to death a shop owner who tried to stop him stealing from his supermarket. The eighteen year old was reportedly on bail when the 71 year old Darwin man was killed. The incident has prompted the Northern Territory government to announce it is reviewing the Top End's bail laws. Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro says the chamber will sit on Wednesday next week to consider tougher bail conditions. "What we want for the Northern Territory is to have the toughest bail laws in this country, and we will continue to work tirelessly on coming to government in those first sittings of parliament." An experimental aircraft made by an Australian-based company has crashed at a military base near the coast of Virginia. US Air Force spokesperson Airman Donnell Ramsey says the incident occurred at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis in the city of Hampton. The plane has been identified as an MX-S single-seater, made by the MX Aircraft company in Perth. The National Transportation Safety Board has said on X it was investigating the accident, without providing more details. Australian rider Michael Storer remains in prime position to claim victory in the Tour of the Alps, despite seeing his lead disappear on the penultimate stage in Austria. The Perth rider was leading by 41 seconds overnight.
But he's been forced to chase down an opportunist breakaway by Dutch stage winner Thymen Arensman during the 62.7km fourth 'queen' stage.
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