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By Michel Rose, Reuters New French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou speaks to media in Paris on 14 December, 2024. Photo: AFP/ Stephane de Sakutin Francois Bayrou, 73, named prime minister of France, to replace Michel Barnier A veteran centrist, he is a consensus seeker Analysts expect little progress on reducing deficit Analysis - When veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, France's new prime minister, was education minister in the 1990s, his plan to increase subsidies for private schools led to nationwide protests. He quickly caved in and would stay in the post for four more years. Three decades later he will face a different force in the shape of a fractured and fractious parliament where one of his earliest tasks - as President Emmanuel Macron's fourth prime minister of the year - ...

By Fiji reporter Lice Movono, ABC Two of the seven who fell ill have been transferred from Sigatoka Hospital, to Lautoka Hospital (shown), due to the seriousness of their conditions. (File photo). Photo: Supplied/Fiji MOH Local health officials say guests staying at Warwick Resort on Fiji's Coral Coast fell ill after consuming a cocktail prepared at the resort on Saturday night. It is understood four of the seven affected tourists are Australian. What's next?: Fijian police and health inspectors are investigating the incident. A number of Australian tourists are in critical condition in hospital in Fiji after what authorities say is a suspected case of alcohol poisoning. Local health officials say seven guests staying at the Warwick Resort on Fiji's Coral Coast fell ill after consu...

By Jake Evans for the ABC A collage of pictures from 2006 showing the Australian 'Bali Nine' (from top, L to R): Myuran Sukumaran, Scott Rush, Tach Duc Thanh Nguyen, Renae Lawrence. (Lower row, L to R): Si Yi Chen, Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephen and Andrew Chan, on Bali island during their trials. Photo: AFP/ Jewel Samad The remaining five members of the Bali Nine have returned to Australia after spending two decades in an Indonesian prison for their roles in a botched drug smuggling operation. Australians Scott Rush, Matthew Norman, Si-Yi Chen, Martin Stephens and Michael Czugaj were serving life sentences in Indonesia for their roles in the 2005 smuggling plot. The two ringleaders of the plot, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed in 2015; Renae Lawrence's...

Downtown San Francisco. Photo: 123rf For the first time in recorded history, downtown San Francisco was issued a tornado warning as severe storms swept through the city, just one week after a tsunami warning triggered widespread panic in the region. The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management confirmed the tornado threat ended around 3.14am NZT after the storm moved northeast of downtown. "Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile, home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from debris," SFDEM urged residents in an earlier tweet. The National Weather Service (NWS) also issued a flood advisory and high wind warning, with sustained winds of up to 64km/h exp...

Asma al-Assad with her husband Bashar, the former president of Syria. Photo: AFP PHOTO / HO / SANA A now-infamous 2011 Vogue profile of Asma al-Assad, the wife of toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, reads like, well, a Vogue profile. Her neck is described as "long." Her grace is "energetic." Her shoes show a "flash of red soles," a trademark of luxury shoemaker Christian Louboutin. The article has since been removed from Vogue's website after it was widely criticised for trivialising the regime and Asma's role in it. Its headline "Rose in the Desert" hints at the hope Syria's critics had that Asma would somehow tame her husband, who followed in the footsteps of his father's brutal rule. Now, the al-Assad family have fled to Russia after rebel forces stormed the Syrian capital of Da...

Jon Collins-Black Photo: Supplied What would you do if you became a billionaire? Well when, Jon Collins-Black has found himself in that position, and decided to recapture the imagination of his youth and set up a treasure hunt across America. His new book There's Treasure Inside contains all of the necessary clues to find the five treasure chests. Collins-Black told Sunday Morning the idea was inspired by his hunt for art dealer Forrest Fenn's treasure years ago. "I think [the treasure hunter] spirit was always with me and I was like 'wow, what would it be like to go out and hunt for treasure?' I did a lot of research and that's when I came across Forrest Fenn's treasure and I got really into it for a while." Collins-Black hid five treasure chests across America, each with their own th...

By Sarah Gerathy, ABC Those caught up in the Lindt Cafe siege reflect on the decade since the attack. Photo: ABC News On 15 December 2014, images from the heart of Sydney were being beamed live around the world into millions of homes. And they were terrifying. The tear-streaked faces of men and women being held hostage at gunpoint inside the Lindt Cafe, their hands pressed to the windows. Petrified hostages ran for their lives down Martin Place, into the arms of heavily armed tactical police. And finally in the early hours of 16 December, police stormed to the cafe in a hail of gunfire and brought the siege to its ultimate bloody end. It was 10 years today since lone-wolf gunman Man Haron Monis walked into the Lindt Cafe and took 18 people hostage, demanding politicians declare Austr...

Photo: 123RF US President-elect Donald Trump has praised the polio vaccine as the "greatest thing," but a lawyer affiliated with Trump's pick to lead the country's top health agency has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of the vaccine used in the United States. The lawyer, Aaron Siri, filed the petition in 2022 on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a nonprofit that challenges the safety of vaccines and vaccine mandates. Siri has been working closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - a vaccine skeptic and Trump's pick to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services - to choose officials to serve in the incoming administration. He was also Kennedy's personal lawyer during his own presidential campaign. "The FDA is continuing to review ...