Australia news live: Second case of H5 bird flu suspected in South Australia

According to The Guardian, Australia's defence minister Richard Marles says the government remains deeply concerned after China carried out what he described as a long-range missile test — one China itself has acknowledged is nuclear-capable. Marles cast it as China demonstrating a much greater range for deploying a nuclear weapon, calling that deeply destabilising. He downplayed suggestions the test, conducted yesterday, was timed as a response to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese travelling through the Pacific to sign a new defence alliance with Fiji. His broader worry, he said, is a dramatic Chinese military buildup with little strategic reassurance offered to the region's neighbours, and no clear explanation for why those capabilities are being expanded.

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