Australia news LIVE: AUKUS reaffirmed, critical minerals deal signed in Albanese-Trump meeting; $11.7 million cocaine shipment seized by AFP, Chilean police

3 hours ago 2

7.23am

Ley welcomes critical minerals deal with US but presses for more detail

By Emily Kaine

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has welcomed the critical minerals deal struck between Australia and the US at this morning’s bilateral meeting between Albanese and Trump, but warned that the deal was merely “a first step”.

“The rare earths agreement, the critical minerals we welcome. But this is just a first step, and we see approvals and investments grinding to a halt in this country because of this government’s approach to environmental approvals. We see a critical pipeline of investment drying up. We will need that investment to come to the fore to make this a success,” Ley told Sky News this morning.

“I welcome the assurances about… the beginning of the critical minerals deal, but there are obviously a lot more details to unpack there.”

The rare earths deal signed today aims to ensure a steady supply of the critical minerals at a time when China is trying to tighten control over global supply.

Under the deal, Albanese said Australia and the US would each contribute $1 billion over the next six months for projects that are immediately available, and the deal would unlock an $8.5 billion pipeline of projects.

7.10am

$11.7 million cocaine shipment hidden in mining gear busted by AFP, Chilean police

By Angus Dalton

Australian and Chilean police have busted an attempt to smuggle a shipment of cocaine hidden within mining equipment into Australia. Five men have been arrested, including two from western Sydney.

Earlier this month, investigators in Chile discovered 36 kilograms of cocaine worth $11.7 million packed within two pieces of mining gear bound for Sydney.

Chilean police removed the cocaine and alerted the Australian Federal Police before allowing the shipment to continue to Australia, where AFP officers allegedly saw a 26-year-old Sydney man pick up the equipment and take it to a house in St Mary’s.

Officers heard drilling and grinding coming from the home as the man allegedly attempted to cut into the equipment and extract the cocaine.

International organised crime operation ended with five arrested in two countries and 36kg of cocaine seized in Chile.

An international organised crime operation has seen five arrested and 36kg of cocaine seized in Chile after an attempt to smuggle a shipment of cocaine hidden within mining equipment into Australia.

The AFP arrested the man and another 37-year-old at the home and allegedly found sledgehammers, cutting discs and angle grinders meant for cutting into the equipment.

Both men were charged with attempting to possess and import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug. The maximum penalty is life in prison.

In Chile, the AFP provided evidence that helped lead to the arrest of three men in the Coquimbo Region for their role in the alleged scheme.

AFP Commander Katy Ferry said the international sting was a warning to “anyone lured in by the false promises of riches from drug importations”.

“These offences carry the potential of life in jail both in Australia and offshore,” Ferry said.

“Through these partnerships in Australia and around the world, we are making significant strides in disrupting serious organised crime networks and their illicit drug routes.”

6.58am

Rare earths deal a win for Australia, says Rishworth

By Emily Kaine

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth has lauded today’s meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump, calling the rare earths deal struck between the two nations as “a win for Australia”.

Speaking on Nine’s Today show this morning, Rishworth said, “Around the critical minerals and rare earths framework, this is a win-win. It’s win for the US, but it’s a win for Australia. I mean, this allows for more investment and more jobs in Australia.”

The rare earths agreement signed by the two leaders is aimed at ensuring a steady supply of the critical minerals at a time when China is trying to tighten control over global supply.

Under the rare earths pact announced at the meeting, Albanese said Australia and the US would each contribute $1 billion over the next six months for projects that are immediately available, and the deal would unlock an $8.5 billion pipeline of projects.

6.47am

Websites brought back online after global cloud services outage

By David Swan and Daniel Lo Surdo

Websites have been brought back online this morning after a major cloud services outage impacted the likes of Canva, Roblox, Snapchat, Amazon and others globally, including in Australia, affecting potentially millions of users.

The issue is related to Amazon Web Services – tech giant Amazon’s cloud services arm – and the AWS status checker showed that multiple services were “impacted” by operational issues.

An AWS outage has affected websites globally.

Outage website DownDetector showed issues plaguing dozens of sites including Hinge, Fortnite and Nine, publisher of this masthead.

Amazon said its engineers were working urgently on remediation. “We have identified a potential root cause for error rates for the DynamoDB APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region,” the tech giant said in a statement at 8.01pm AEDT. “Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1.”

Amazon said at 9.35pm that the “underlying” issue had been “fully mitigated”, one hour after initial recovery signs were recorded. It warned that a backlog of requests may result in some services taking additional time to come online, and cause some users to still encounter web issues.

6.46am

Trump vows to uphold AUKUS, signs rare earths deal with Albanese

By Michael Koziol

Donald Trump says he intends to expedite the AUKUS defence pact to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as Anthony Albanese received a warm welcome to the White House.

The US president and the prime minister also signed a rare earths agreement aimed at ensuring a steady supply of the critical minerals at a time when China is trying to tighten control over global supply.

When asked whether he was across the details of the Biden-era trilateral security deal, and if he would honour it, Trump said he would.

Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump shake hands after signing an $8.5 billion minerals agreement.

“It was made a while go and nobody did anything about it,” Trump said. “It was going too slowly. We do actually have a lot of submarines, we have the best submarines anywhere in the world.”

Read North America correspondent Michael Koziol’s coverage of the Albanese-Trump meeting.

6.46am

What’s making news this morning

By Emily Kaine

Good morning and welcome to our national news live blog for Tuesday, October 21. My name is Emily Kaine, and I’ll be helming our coverage this morning. Here’s what is making headlines today.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to uphold the AUKUS pact and has signed a rare earths deal with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the leader’s first bilateral meeting with Trump. The rare earths agreement is aimed at ensuring a steady supply of critical minerals at a time when China is trying to tighten control over global supply.
Websites are slowly being brought back online this morning after a major cloud services outage impacted the likes of Canva, Roblox, Snapchat, Amazon and others globally, including in Australia, affecting potentially millions of users. The issue is related to Amazon Web Services – tech giant Amazon’s cloud services arm – and the AWS status checker showed that multiple services were “impacted” by operational issues.
Australian and Chilean police have busted an attempt to smuggle a shipment of cocaine hidden within mining equipment into Australia. Five men including two from western Sydney, have been arrested. Earlier this month, investigators in Chile discovered 36 kilograms of cocaine worth $11.7 million packed within two pieces of mining gear bound for Sydney. Chilean police removed the cocaine and alerted the Australian Federal Police before allowing the shipment to continue to Australia, where AFP officers allegedly saw a 26-year-old Sydney man pick up the equipment and take it to a house in St Mary’s.
Westpac Rescue service has announced an investigation into allegations of a toxic and unsafe workplace as this masthead has revealed that it splashes more on fundraising and events than other agencies. On Sunday, a joint investigation by the Herald and 60 Minutes uncovered disturbing allegations of a toxic workplace culture at the service, which covers an area from Newcastle to the Queensland border.
Pauline Hanson has pounced on the opportunity to poach National Party members and bring them to One Nation, following Barnaby Joyce’s decision to step away from the Nationals last week, as well as increasing fractiousness plaguing the Coalition. She told Sky News yesterday that she was forming “the A-team”. As many as eight Nationals from Tamworth branches in NSW have sensationally quit the party in recent weeks to join One Nation.