Jack Fisher

1 week ago | rnz.co.nz | Annika Burgess |Jack Fisher

By Annika Burgess and Jack Fisher, ABCMick Wicks watched on from the porch as more and more of his belongings were dragged to the rubbish pile. The 89-year-old's life heaped in front of him, covered in mud. "It's all the memories," he said, becoming emotional. "I never would have imagined this."Along Mr Wicks's street in Taree, nearly half the houses were under water in last week's catastrophic NSW floods. Now they were being gutted, their contents strewn across front lawns.

Oct 30, 2024 | abc.net.au | Annika Burgess |Katia Shatoba |Mark Doman |Jack Fisher

First, the air-raid sirens blare. The "iron boom" comes next – the familiar sound of Israel's air defence system in action as interceptor missiles take out rockets in mid-air. For Niva, who lives in a town in Israel's Haifa District, the boom signals safety. "In general, there is trust in the Iron Dome's ability to protect us," she said. Imagine an invisible shield that covers an entire mid-sized city, about double the size of Hobart, Tasmania's capital.