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By David Brunnstrom, Reuters Attendees take part in the 19th East Asia Summit during the 44th and 45th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Vientiane on 11 October, 2024. Photo: NHAC NGUYEN / AFP Russia and China blocked a proposed consensus statement for the East Asia Summit drafted by Southeast Asian countries, mainly over objections to language on the contested South China Sea, a US official told Reuters on Saturday. A draft statement arrived at by consensus by the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations was put to the 18-nation East Asia Summit meeting in Laos on Thursday evening, the official said. "ASEAN presented this final draft and said that, essentially, this was a take-it-or-leave-it draft," the official said on condition of anonymity. The Uni...

By Papua New Guinea correspondent Marian Faa for the ABC The Panguna mine in Bougainville. Photo: A large-scale study of social and environmental impacts from Rio Tinto's abandoned Panguna mine in Bougainville has found a plethora of actual and potential human rights violations, including risks to life. It is the first comprehensive assessment of issues stemming from the massive gold and copper mine at the centre of a devastating civil war that claimed up to 15,000 lives between 1988 and 1998. Despite being closed for more than three decades, masses of mine waste and decaying infrastructure continue to impact thousands of people in the area, the study found. At some sites, it revealed violations of indigenous people's rights to water, education and culture. Potential impacts to thei...

West Australian writer Tim Winton braves a barbaric and blistering future in his epic new novel 'Juice'. Photo: Supplied Global warming isn't futuristic, says Tim Winton - it's here already. The "terrifying feeling" of being under the sun at 50 degrees Celsius is something the Australian writer and climate activist knows from personal experience. "We're not built to live like that and we won't. I'm afraid most of us won't live like that." In his epic new novel Juice, the 64-year-old drops his readers into a dystopian desert culture where chaos reigns and life is cheap. "Let's just hold our noses and go into this world for a while and see how it feels and see if there's anything we might learn from it," he tells RNZ's Saturday Morning. For Winton, writing Juice was a way of synthesising...

Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Photo: AFP Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has died at 69, according to statements from Scotland's main political parties and UK media reports. Salmond was taken ill while in North Macedonia, collapsing after delivering a speech on Saturday, according to British media reports. "I will never be able to thank Alex for all his lessons, advice, guidance, mentorship, love and friendship and for everything he did for Scotland. For many years he was the father of the nation and for several years he has been a father-like figure to me. "All of our thoughts are with all of the family and everyone across Scotland who are in mourning," the general secretary of Alex Salmond's Alba Party Chris McEleny said on Saturday. British Prime Minister K...