60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown and her film crew were detained by Lebanese authorities early today.
The team was in Lebanon to follow an attempt by an Australian mother to recover her children, kidnapped by their Lebanese father, Ali Elamine. Ms Brown’s team had filmed the moment a specialist recovery team had seized the children, before being intercepted by Lebanese police.
The children had been taken from Brisbane to Beirut on what their father promised would be a short holiday, but he failed to return them at the agreed time. They were reported by Beirut media to have been in their grandmother’s care this week when the recovery team snatched them off the street to return them to their mother, Sally Faulkner. Ms Faulkner and the children are believed to be secure in a “safe house” somewhere in Beirut.
The management of the Nine Network is understood to be negotiating with Lebanese police to resolve the situation.
NSW teen trapped under car
A 16-year-old girl was found trapped under a car by police, who were called to break up a drunken brawl in Blackbutt, near Wollongong, overnight. Police have said as many as 10 teens were involved in the brawl, which may have followed a road incident in which the girl was trapped. The circumstances remain unclear and police are investigating. The girl was admitted to St. George Hospital in a serious condition. A man believed to have been the driver of the vehicle was arrested after delivering a positive breath test. He was being questioned at Illawarra Police station.
Row erupts over treatment of singer Gurrumul Yunupingu
The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, has called for a report into a dispute that has erupted over the medical treatment of Aboriginal musician, Gurrumul Yunupingu. The singer’s management, Skinnyfish Music, had complained early this week that Mr Yunupingu, who has had hepatitis B since he was a child, received inadequate treatment for internal bleeding at Royal Darwin Hospital because the hospital assumed he was an alcoholic. The Northern Territory Health Minister, John Elferink, then accused Skinnyfish of playing a race card to promote the singer’s new album.
Mr Yunupingu’s doctor, Paul Lawton, has publicly dismissed Mr Elferink’s claims, saying the allegation of racial profiling by the hospital was reasonable. “We know that racial profiling happens at RDH (Royal Darwin Hospital) because of nationally published data,” Dr Lawton told 105.7 ABC Darwin. Mr Scullion this morning told Sky News it was essential to ensure that Mr Yunupingu had received adequate and equal treatment.
Riot Police clash at Sydney University
Police have been accused of using force to disperse about 30 students, who staged a protest against the Federal Government plans to deregulate university fees. The students had gathered inside the Fisher Library where Education Minister Simon Birmingham was due to help judge the university Liberal Club’s John Howard Debating Cup. SRC welfare officer April Holcombe told the student newspaper Honi Soit that police “violently pushed everyone out of the building, viciously assaulting an Aboriginal woman in the process”. – Compiled from web sources by Jameel Khan
Electronic gate of Fisher Library has been snapped as riot police push protesters out of the building #birmoprotest pic.twitter.com/y2oBh1yyG8
— Naaman Zhou (@naamanzhou) April 6, 2016
Photo of 60 Minutes Reporter Tara Brown from The Nine Network.
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