Australia news as it happened: Albanese urges nations to join social media ban at UN, pours beers at Hugh Jackman’s pub; Typhoon Ragasa heads for Vietnam

Thanks for reading our national news live blog. This is where we’ll end it for today.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more live coverage, here’s a look at today’s biggest stories:

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered his debut address to the United Nations this morning. He used the opportunity to address Iran’s involvement in two antisemitic attacks on Australia, and pointed to the principles of the UN as a reason to recognise a Palestinian state, an action Australia took this week alongside Canada and the United Kingdom.
• China has promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the first time. At a climate summit during the UN General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the world’s largest carbon-polluting country would aim to cut emissions by 7 to 10 per cent by 2035. China currently produces more than 31 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
• Liberal hopeful Gisele Kapterian has conceded defeat in Bradfield more than four months after the federal election, abandoning a court challenge over the validity of 151 ballot papers.
• Former Liberal minister Arthur Sinodinos has told the party to unite behind a centrist message after frontbencher Andrew Hastie and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price repeatedly claimed the spotlight with statements on immigration playing to conservative voters.
• Ongoing investigations into sacked Smiggle chief executive John Cheston have uncovered allegations of gambling, drinking during office hours, sexual harassment and bribery, says Premier Investment chairman and billionaire rag trader Solomon Lew.
• Typhoon Ragasa has made landfall in China, where nearly 2 million people were evacuated in preparation for its arrival. Authorities have reported at least 17 people have died and more are missing in Taiwan and 11 were killed in the Philippines.
• Communications Minister Anika Wells has asked to speak with executives of Singtel – Optus’ parent company – when they visit Australia next week, to discuss the Optus Triple Zero outage that resulted in three deaths. An independent review into the fatal Optus outage will examine Optus’ management of Triple Zero calls and actions in response to the incident in adherence to policies, procedures and legal requirements.

Independent MP Allegra Spender has raised alarm over Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s social media statement that immigration was making Australians feel like “strangers in our own country”, drawing comparisons to an expression used by a white supremacist.

“Enoch Powell, who was a white supremacist in Britain, in his famous [1968] Rivers of Blood speech used the expression ... people were made strangers in their own country. This language from Andrew Hastie certainly reflects either intentionally or unintentionally some of the language of that very famous speech,” she told the ABC.

“Maybe this is an unintentional evocation of that speech but be thoughtful, this is something we should do really carefully and thoughtfully.”

Spender said she thought it was important to have discussions on migration “but I think you’ve got to do it carefully”.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer apologised for unknowingly quoting from Powell’s speech when he said the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers” during an address about immigration in May.

Greens Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young says the environment minister waited far too long to be briefed on the algal bloom devastating coastal SA.

In a Senate inquiry yesterday, it was revealed that Environment Minister Murray Watt was first formally briefed on the algal bloom in July, despite it starting in March, which shocked the Greens senator.

“In March is when we saw the real impact of it, surfers were reporting they were getting sick after being in the water, dead fish were already washing up, fishermen were saying their catches had dropped significantly,” Hanson-Young told the ABC.

“If this had been a bushfire or a flood, it would have been declared a national disaster, then of course [there’s] a lot of things that come in behind that – resources, communication protocols – which is why I called on the prime minister to declare this a national emergency some months ago.”

A drone launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has wounded 22 people in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, medics say, in a rare breach of Israel’s sophisticated missile defence system, which has greatly limited casualties from such attacks.

Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, at least 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday, according to local hospitals.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have regularly fired drones and missiles at Israel — and attacked international shipping — in what they say is support for the Palestinians. The vast majority of the drones and missiles fired at Israel have been shot down or fallen in open areas without wounding anyone.

The Houthis said in a statement that they had fired two drones at Israel on Wednesday, and the Israeli military said it had tried to intercept the drone that struck Eilat.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said the wounded were taken to a hospital, two of them with “severe shrapnel injuries to their limbs”.

Israel has carried out retaliatory airstrikes on Yemen after past attacks, and Defence Minister Israel Katz, in a post on X, warned the Houthis that “anyone who harms Israel will be harmed sevenfold”.

AP