Two Australians found in Nepal

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Good morning, welcome to AM It's Friday 4 September.

I'm Rachel Mealy coming to you from the lands of the Turbul and Jaguar people in Brisbane.

Two Australians who were in Nepal when the flood hit and had been uncontactable have now confirmed they are safe and well.

That means the number of Australians missing there has been revised down to 36 from 38 which was reported yesterday.

This comes more than a week after the catastrophic disaster which killed more than 1,200 people and left many villagers completely isolated.

The ABC has flown over and visited some of the worst affected areas to see what's left.

Correspondent Megna Barley reports from Nepal's Rasua District.

From Gautmundo it takes less than an hour to reach some of the worst-hit flood areas.

The further north we fly towards the border with Tibet, the more the road below us disappears.

From up here the geography of this disaster becomes clearer.

Green Himalayan slopes give way to kilometres of grey mud and debris.

We fly over Timurye then follow the river towards Sjabrubesi.

It's quite confronting to see this disaster from this height and so close up.

It's one thing to try and understand it from a laptop but flying over it like this, it's absolutely devastating.

How little trace of life is left in these areas anymore.

This stretch matters deeply to families back in Australia.

Himalayan Glacier Adventures says 10 of its missing Australian clients were travelling between this area.

And the border crossing into Tibet when the flood hit.

Their families have been urging authorities to put more resources into searching the region.

And Australia is now stepping up its involvement by sending in drone specialists to help map and search terrain that's difficult to reach on foot.

Their deployment was in response to Australia's ongoing offers of assistance to Nepal.

Sjabrubesi helicopters are still bringing in food, medicine and rescue crews because there's no functioning roads for vehicles.

Rikseng Lama was here when the flood came.

He tells me in his village 30 to 32 people died.

He says he can't even keep track of the number.

And he says the little relief supplies flying in are being shared amongst survivors.

He says he's got nowhere to go.

Even if he did have the money, there were no shops to buy things from.

He says there in too much pain.

Nearby, a rescue operation involving the Indian Army is trying to reach people trapped inside damaged hydropower facilities.

Manish says five of his colleagues are still inside.

And he won't return to Kathmandu until he knows what happened to them.

Not going back.

Till there is a resolution about the trapped persons.

So far, no one has been found alive.

The rescue team are trying to extract them.

They are trying their best. They are regularly trying so we believe they can be survived there.

In recent days, three bodies have been recovered from the site.

They've been flown by helicopter to nearby Threshuli, where they can be identified and eventually returned to their families.

Manish is still waiting, so two are the families of missing Australians.

But more than a week after the flood, the scale of the challenge is devastatingly clear.

This is Megna Bali reporting for AM.

The data center boom fuelled by the AI race is drawing fierce backlash in the United States ahead of the US midterm elections.

Voters across the political spectrum are voicing their opposition as the energy-guzzling centers disturb local communities.

North American correspondent Kamen Gok reports from Memphis.

Tell me about your neighbor.

Loud, just rough, rich, and I can't do anything about it.

And is this noise constant?

24-7.

Retired Army veteran, Loretta Thornton moved to Memphis, Tennessee to enjoy the quiet life.

That is until a data center moved next door.

It's called Colossus 2 and was developed by Elon Musk's space XAI.

So being Elon just neighbors, he knows and I'm looking at him.

And wondering why did you build that here? Why would you take peace away?

It's the largest in America housing computer infrastructure used to keep digital services running.

No public consultation or council vote were required to build it.

How does that make you feel?

Stummy.

Fold up.

It's up and fine.

Because I had no.

I had never thought I'd made my fist move in in my life.

The 66 year old says it's not just the noise, but the dust and fumes whipped up from dozens of gas turbines needed to power the site.

Oh my god.

Down.

I have to go into the house because it started burning my eyes and my throat.

The data center boom is powered by an AI arms race.

Advocates say they bring millions of dollars in property taxes to cities like Memphis, which has had years of disinvestment.

And the industry has the most powerful backer in the country, Donald Trump.

If I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community.

And many of them are designed in a very beautiful way. It's really very positive.

But despite the president's enthusiasm, the topic has become political poison ahead of the midterm elections in November.

More than 200 American jurisdictions have already imposed temporary bans.

Memphis City Council is currently debating a 12 month moratorium on new facilities.

Sarah Houston leads local water advocacy group Protect Our Aquifer and says the community is angry.

We want to see real guardrails put in place for water impacts, for job creation, for pollution mitigation, and without a moratorium to push pause.

And figure this out for the future. We're just going to keep playing whack them all.

The local business chamber is opposed to a moratorium and says data centers are good for the economy.

Elon Musk's space XAI is developing or operating at least four of them along the Mississippi Tennessee border, where there is little to no regulation around building the facilities.

And he wants to build more.

Kashorn Pearson from Memphis Community Against Pollution says the Trillionaire is taking advantage of outdated council zoning laws.

XAI and Elon Musk aren't the first perpetrators there are the newest ones.

And they are a movement and a velocity we have never seen as it pertains to pollution and environmental degradation.

Space XAI did not respond to ABC questions.

As a national political debate over data centers dominates election races, Memphis has become a front line in the fight.

As residents take on the richest man in the world, this has came in goch in Memphis reporting for AM.

The coalitions plan to smash the illegal tobacco trade has pushed Australia's vaping laws back into the spotlight.

Vapes can only be legally sold at pharmacies, but with government data estimating more than 95% of vapes sold are illicit,

the opposition and some public health experts argue it's time for a new approach.

Matt Banford reports.

For years Australian authorities have tried to land a knockout blow on illicit tobacco and vapes.

But the lucrative black market now thought to be worth up to $6 billion continues to boom in more ways than one.

David Allen runs a hotel on the new South Wales South Coast and has seen the impact first hand.

It's just been a litany of the five bombings, the criminality and lawlessness that we're seeing.

He sells legal tobacco in the bottle shop at his pub and claims he's also losing thousands of dollars to criminals.

He supports the coalitions latest tobacco policy, which includes creating a regulated market for adults to buy the tobacco.

Also known as e-cigarettes, replacing Labor's pharmacy only model.

We've got to get control back of this market.

We can't outsource it to the criminals.

We're seeing legal businesses basically shut their doors because they're being undercut by the underworld.

It's not fair on them. Consumers, people who choose to smoke or rape, God knows what they are smoking or vaping because there's no quality control of the stuff coming in.

Government data shows more than nothing but the fact that they're not able to do it.

The government data shows more than nothing but the fact that they're not able to do it.

Government data shows more than 95% of all e-cigarette products sold in Australia are illicit.

Sydney University Public Health expert, Egg Jager Soathe, says it makes Labor's current policy of restricting vape sales to pharmacies redundant.

The reason we have restrictions on vapes is so that we can control the products that are out there.

We know that vaping is not as harmless smoking in general, but it's not harmless.

It's evictive and there are ingredients in there that might have adverse health effects.

But the products available for the black market are unregulated completely.

We don't know where the concentration of nicotine is, we don't know what adulterance is in there.

We have no control over who the products are sold to.

Dr. Jager Soathe welcomes the coalition's approach and points to countries like the UK and New Zealand where vapes are used to help smokers quit cigarettes.

Look, what the size of the listed market tells us is that the policies that as they are now are not working for the people who are actually dead.

And that's something that's been missing from the discussion and missing from the decision making year all of this is designing policy that actually works for the people who are actually affected by these policies and listening to those voices.

But health groups are divided.

The Australian Medical Association, Cancer Council Australia and the Australian Council on Smoking and Health or ACOSH all reject the proposal.

ACOSH CEO Laura Hunter.

This is a disappointing and dangerous policy approach being taken by the coalition.

It will not protect Australians, but it will cause more harm, more addiction and more deaths within our community.

The settings that we have in Australia have delivered some of the lowest smoking rates in the world and we're now seeing daily vaping use amongst young people coming down.

That's what good public health policy does. Fewer people becoming addicted in the first place.

She argues the lessons from overseas models are not clear cut.

New Zealand's figures show daily vaping among 15 to 17 year olds rising from 2.6% 5 years ago to 13.6% after that introduction of the retail model.

Imagine as a parent saying your kid addicted to these things, accessing them from a model that's been pushed for by a political party.

And if kids pick up a vape, they're five times more likely to go on to cigarettes.

They're also looking to open up a market for pouches.

It's an absolute joke. These are not public health success stories that we should be importing from other countries.

ACOSH CEO Laura Hunter, Matt Bamford reporting and the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care and Rustin says the coalition's policy proposal of reducing the tobacco excise by 80% will smash the black market.

But she can't point to modelling suggesting it would reduce smoking rates.

We are hoping that the combined package of what we're proposing here, not just the dropping of the excise, but the regulation of the market and making it certainly more difficult for children to access these products in the enforcement surge and the anti smoking and anti vaping campaigns.

We are hoping to put downward pressure on smoking rates.

Four years on from child care deserts being laid bare, stressed regional families continue struggling to get care for their children.

It's one of the concerns raised with the ABC for your say, our project to hear directly from the community.

The federal government acknowledges the shortages and says it's helping to provide about 12,000 additional child care spots through a building fund for new centres and it gets reports.

Mound Isis Street Festival was an adventure for Carly Butcher and her young baby.

It's a special time for the new mum, but as she looks to the near future, she's worried about finding child care.

But I'm currently on maternity leave and with a possible chance of not going back because the lack of daycare.

So when had you hoped to go back to work?

In the New Year, but yeah, at this day, even part time, it's hard to get spots.

Carly Butcher says it's not unusual to wait 18 months.

There's not a lot of child care workers out here and I sent her to close down not long ago, but luckily it's reopened.

It's been refurbished and reopened, but still to get a spot in there, you're on waiting lists.

The CEO of Nationwide Advocacy Group, the parenthood, Georgie Dent, says it's part of a long-running, unsolved problem.

Since 2022, we have known that about one in four families in Australia have been living in a child care desert.

The impact is extreme.

And what is a child care desert?

A child care desert is described as whether a three or more children for every available place within a 20-minute drive.

The federal government says it is getting centres built where they're most needed through funding for not-for-profit organisations or direct government ownership.

The Minister for Early Childhood Education is Jess Walsh.

And it's a common story around regional areas.

There can be more young families than there are child care places.

And that's why we have this billion dollar fund.

And we're working together with state and territory governments around the nation.

And with communities to build the quality early learning services that they need.

The money started rolling out about a year ago.

And Jess Walsh says the goal is to create an extra 12,000 new early learning places across roughly 160 new or expanded centres.

They're all operated by quality not-for-profit providers.

And in many cases, we're co-locating services with primary schools.

The government's also considering establishing an early education and care commission.

A key 2024 recommendation of the Productivity Commission.

Georgie Dent says it could ensure child care centres are built in the right places.

We believe it is imperative that a national early childhood commission is established and that planning and provision is absolutely part of that remit.

And she wants other big changes too.

Move towards direct funding of services.

How does it help to give the money directly to services rather than via the childcare subsidy to parents?

We need services to be there, no matter the exact population of three or four or five year olds.

Georgie Dent says a community's size shouldn't determine child care availability.

Things like in-venue care where you might be running a service that's in the town hall, for example, is an option.

A coalition-led Senate inquiry is underway into childcare in regional and remote areas.

An education minister's from the Federal, State and Territory Governments will meet next month to advance talks about a potential childcare commissioner.

And he guessed.

For the past decade, a group of conservationists has been working to reintroduce locally extinct native species like bilbi's and quals back into a protected area in northwestern New South Wales.

Now the team at Wild Deserts is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

And despite having plenty of success already, they have some lofty goals for the future. Bill or Monde reports from Cameron Corner.

Welcome to the Wild Train.

Hopping into the night, a bilbi takes his first steps into the Wild at Sturt National Park.

Freedom!

It's joining 400 other bilbis in the area as part of the Wild Deserts project.

The goal is to rejuvenate a desert ecosystem, Professor Richard Kingsford says, has been devastated by introduced feral predators.

We've got the worst extinction record of any country in the world.

The combination of cats, foxes and too many rabbits basically obliterated many of these species from this landscape.

The team has spent the last decade fencing off an eradicating feral pests from two 4x5 kilometer areas which are designed to keep predators out.

They've successfully reintroduced and bred six species inside the fenced off areas, including burrowing bettongs, crest-held molgaras, western quals and bandicoots.

And outside those areas, they've re-released some of those animals into a 100 square kilometer area they've called a wild training zone.

That area has some feral cats, but their numbers are kept under control.

Not only have we done all of those things related to the species, but I think we've built this incredible network of people who are engaged and involved in the project in so many different ways.

And that has built a strength that I didn't even expect to achieve in 10 years.

Dr. Rebecca West is the project's principal ecologist. She says recent heavy rainfall has illustrated the impact of these reintroduced species.

We're getting fantastic plant responses because every tiny digging pit that that bandicoot or bilbi or betong has made has collected seeds, it's collected water.

It hasn't gone unnoticed for National Parks Area Manager Jamie Norris, who says working alongside the Wild Deserts team is a career highlight.

Undoubtedly, there's been changes in the environment. So you find a lot of plant species that are rarer to come across in other parts of the park that are actually far more common within the enclosed areas.

A lot of those changes are very subtle and it's very difficult to detect those changes, but literally at a landscape scale you can start to see the differences.

It's one of the reasons the New South Wales Environment Minister Penny Sharp recently signed off on another decade of funding.

Just seeing these animals being released and now breeding and being part of the landscape again is just probably one of the highlights of bytimes the minister.

Rebecca West says they're looking at their next challenge, which could be their greatest using the formula they're developing here and applying it to other projects, not just in National Parks, but possibly neighbouring pastoral properties too.

I hope that we are leaving something that in future generations they'll be able to look back on and be like, wow, those guys did a really epic job and thank God someone did something about it so that we're not just reading in history books about all the animals that once went extinct and are no longer here.

If we can work out some of the recipes for how to do this in different places, we might be able to really change the future of conservation for a lot of these species.

Dr Rebecca West from Wild Deserts ending that report from Bill or Mond and that's AM. Thanks for your company. I'm Rachel Mealy.

Hi, it's Sam Hawley here, host of the ABC News Daily Podcast. According to Donald Trump, heat Higgseth is doing a fantastic job overseeing the US military.

But, well, that's not what the US Army Secretary thinks. He quit this week after months of tension with Higgseth.

Today's staff writer at the Atlantic, Missy Ryan, on where the Trump will really stick with the former Fox News host, or in the end, Sack M2.

Look for the ABC News Daily Podcast on ABC Listen.