MELBOURNE, Australia — Karen Nettleton has spent the past five years in search of her grandchildren, who were taken by their parents in 2014 from Sydney, Australia, to join the Islamic State in Syria. Finally, in late March, she made it to the sprawling al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria’s Kurdish northeast.
There, she found a teenager she believed to be her granddaughter. As she lifted a niqab to reveal the face of the girl she was holding in her arms, Ms. Nettleton wailed.
She clung to her granddaughter, Hoda Sharrouf, 16, who sobbed and told her she was certain she was dreaming. Ms. Nettleton promised her she was not. “You’re not going to wake up,” she said in footage broadcast on Monday by the Australian show “Four Corners,” whose crew had accompanied Ms. Nettleton to the camp.
More than 200 Australian citizens have left the country to join the Islamic State, 70 of them minors, according to a 2018 report from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. While many were killed during the war, dozens are thought to remain in Syria’s refugee camps.
Paris burns
Yellow vest protesters are setting fires on the streets of Paris, angry that Notre Dame’s $1bn rebuild is being given priority over them.
Bill Shorten has tried to flip the script on the cost of his climate change policies, describing them as investments instead.
Mr Shorten has also committed a future Labor government to legislating the National Energy Guarantee, even if it opposed by the coalition.
His pledge has dragged Malcolm Turnbull back into the political fray for the first time this election campaign.
As the campaign rolls its second week, the opposition leader continues to face questions about the price tag attached to his carbon targets.
The coalition claims Labor's plan to reduce emissions will cost the economy at least $35 billion and rely on buying carbon credits from overseas.
Mr Shorten flatly dismisses this estimate, but has steadfastly refused to name a price of his own.
He insists the emission reductions won't cost taxpayers a cent, and argues the cost to businesses will be comparable to the coalition's policy settings.
Facing a fresh round of interrogation in St Kilda on Saturday, the Labor leader tried to pivot to the big picture, questioning what value people placed on saving the planet.
"The problem this government has is what they call cost, I call investing," he told reporters at Luna Park.
Mr Shorten accused the coalition and some in the media of harbouring an unhealthy obsession with his policies.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison clearly enjoyed his opponent's amusement park tangle.
"He's stuck on a costings merry-go-round which he doesn't seem to be able to get off," Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney.
Repeatedly pressed to place a price of his policies, Mr Shorten said there was no "mythical figure".
"We believe if you invest in making climate change changes now and lowering carbon pollution this will benefit the economy," he said.
The prime minister is now trying to turn the ambiguity around Labor's climate policies into an electoral asset.
"I understand Bill Shorten's policy better than he does - it's not even my policy - I don't support it," Mr Morrison said.
"I don't support it because I understand it. If you don't understand it, I wouldn't suggest you vote for it either."
The Labor leader has committed to pursuing the National Energy Guarantee - with a higher emissions reduction target - even if the framework does not receive bipartisan support.
"We will use some of the Turnbull, Morrison, Frydenberg architecture and we will work with that structure," he told reporters.
Malcolm Turnbull, who dropped the policy in the dying days of his leadership, said abandoning it altogether would lead to higher emissions and electricity prices.
He pointed out Mr Morrison was "especially" fond of the policy, which had the support of the business community and energy sector.
"However a right wing minority in the party room refused to accept the majority position and threatened to cross the floor and defeat their own government," Mr Turnbull tweeted.
"That is the only reason it has been abandoned by the government. The consequence is no integration of energy and climate policy, uncertainty continues to discourage investment with the consequence, as I have often warned, of both higher emissions and higher electricity prices."
A Melbourne man accused of a raping a woman and sexually assaulting others has been remanded in custody.
Kataha Siwee, 21 of Richmond, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday night and did not apply for bail.
Police charged Siwee after a man handed himself in on Saturday morning, prompted on Friday by a public appeal for information.
According to charge sheets released by the court, on April 14 allegedly Siwee raped a woman at Abbotsford and is also charged with sexually touching, applying force, assault and robbery.
On the same date but in Richmond he was charged with sexually touching, stalking and assaulting a woman at Richmond.
He also faces charges of sexually touching and assaulting a woman in Richmond on April 5.
He was remanded in custody to reappear in court via video link on Friday, April 26, for a filing hearing on the 12 charges against him.
A 71-year-old man has died in regional NSW after his car left the road, rolled and slammed into a tree.
The man - who was the car's sole occupant - died on the Gwydir Highway at Inverell before midday on Saturday.
The fatality came a day after a passenger died when the car he was travelling in collided with another vehicle in Sydney's northwest.
The 92-year-old victim was seated in the rear of the car when the crash occurred at Beecroft on Friday afternoon, NSW police said in a statement on Saturday.
He died at the scene.
There have been two deaths on the state's roads over the Easter long weekend so far.
