Australia's international relations dominated headlines today as a leading infectious diseases expert warned against dismissing the threat posed by monkeypox.
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Burnet Institute chief executive Brendan Crabb said the community should take more precautions against the virus.
It comes as NSW begins rolling out the monkeypox vaccine for high-risk groups including gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.
However, Professor Crabb told the Medical Journal of Australia's InSight+ podcast that monkeypox loomed as another large infectious disease issue, coming off the back of COVID-19.
"We should be acting in a precautionary way, not hand-waving it away as a disease of gay men," he said.
Fifty-seven cases of monkeypox have been reported so far in Australia.
The NSW rollout has been limited to high-risk groups due to global monkeypox vaccine shortages.
Meanwhile, a secret review commissioned by the former government found that funding for the National Disability Insurance Agency is "inadequate" to support the scheme's massive growth.
Documents released under freedom of information have revealed the agency's fears that it wouldn't be able to meet new service standards for participants without a funding boost in the coming years.
In a change of pace, country doctors are being targeted for city relocations under Labor's changes to the medical workforce policy.
The federal government has scrapped a long-standing policy that required overseas trained doctors who want to live and work in Australia to spend time caring for rural and remote communities before receiving an unrestricted Medicare provider number.
Now, overseas trained doctors are able to immediately relocate to large regional centres and some outer metropolitan areas.
"My biggest fear is that you'll get a mass exodus of rural and remote doctors to these areas, and that these communities will be left without a GP," Rural Doctors Association of Australia president Dr Megan Belot said.
"As quickly as it was announced, city medical practices started targeting doctors in rural areas to move to cities including Canberra, Hobart, Sunshine Coast and Wollongong."
Further afield, the Latvian foreign minister has called for all nations to brand Russia a terrorist state following a meeting with his Australian counterpart.
Edgars Rinkevics proposed a total ban on Russian citizens entering Europe and the "civilised world" as well as the establishment of a legal framework to brand the Kremlin as a state-sponsor of terrorism.
It comes a week after Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Australia to brand Russia a terrorist state during a video address to students in Canberra.
In lighter news, these surfing dogs have proven they are paws ahead of the rest.
The annual World Dog Surfing Championships was held on the weekend in northern California in America, with mutts and pedigrees lining up to hang 10 with the best of the best.
Dogs were judged on the length of the ride, technique, confidence, and the size or strength of the wave.
Surfing categories were open to small, medium and large dogs; with "dog/dog tandem" and "human/dog tandem" categories putting on a spectacular show.
For the non-surfy type of dog, there was also action on the sand with the Dog Beach Fashion competition and it attracted the finest looking pooches in the US.
The championship has been running since 2016 and it also gives rescue dogs the chance to find a new home.
THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
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- Rural and remote doctors targeted for city relocation
- Premier positive on US role: John Barilaro
- Shorten vows to streamline NDIS processes
- COVID confusion hits Aussies at Games
- Fresh health warning over monkeypox
- Govt pledges to fund aged care pay rise