Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan has been sentenced to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam in the country's largest financial fraud case ever, state media Vietnam Net said.

The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was formally charged with fraud amounting to $19.1 billion – nearly three per cent of the country's 2022 GDP.

Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2500 loans that resulted in losses of $41 billion to the bank, reported state media VnExpress.

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The court asked her to compensate the bank $41 million.

Despite mitigating circumstances – this was a first-time offence and Lan participated in charity activities – the court attributed its harsh sentence to the seriousness of the case, saying Lan was at the helm of an orchestrated and sophisticated criminal enterprise that had serious consequences with no possibility of the money being recovered, VnExpress said.

Her actions "not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organisations but also push SCB (Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank) into a state of special control; eroding people's trust in the leadership of the Party and State," VnExpress quoted the judgement as saying.

Her niece, Truong Hue Van, the chief executive of Van Thinh Phat, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for aiding her aunt.

Lan and her family established the Van Thing Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favour of a more market-oriented approach that was open to foreigners.

She had started out helping her mother, a Chinese businesswoman, to sell cosmetics in Ho Chi Minh City's oldest market, according to state media Tien Phong.

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Van Thinh Phat would grow to become one of Vietnam's richest real estate firms, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centres.

This made her a key player in the country's financial industry.

She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB bank with two other lenders in coordination with Vietnam's central bank.

The court found that she used this approach to tap SCB for cash.

She indirectly owned more than 90 per cent of the bank – a charge she denied – and approved thousands of loans to "ghost companies", according to government documents.

These loans then found their way back to her, state media VNExpress reported, citing the court's findings.

She then bribed officials to cover her tracks, it added.

Former central bank official Do Thi Nhan was also sentenced to life in prison for accepting nearly $8 million in bribes.

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Lan's arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022.

The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.

Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after being implicated in the campaign.

But Lan's trial shocked the nation.

Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam's economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

The real estate sector in Vietnam has been hit particularly hard.

An estimated 1300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023, developers have been offering discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite rents for mixed-use properties known in Southeast Asia as shophouses falling by a third in Ho Chi Minh City, many in the city centre are still empty, according to state media.

In November, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's top politician, said that the anti-corruption fight would "continue for the long term".

Defence Minister Richard Marles will travel to Ukraine, aiming to dispel claims of faltering support for the under-siege nation in its war against Russia.

His trip, set for the near future, is still being planned and has not been publicly announced, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

News of Marle's planned visit comes amid frustration in Australia about the level of support for Ukraine, despite the government contributing a further $50 million to an international support fund.

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Australia once boasted about being the largest non-NATO donor to the Ukrainian military, but it is now among the lowest of all per capita donor nations as a proportion of gross domestic product.

The Albanese government ruled out sending armoured vehicles and some of the Defence Force's retired Taipan helicopters. It is also yet to decide on a request by Ukraine for more Australian coal shipments.

Labor MPs also remain disappointed by the government's refusal to reopen the Australian embassy in Kyiv since it was evacuated in the lead-up to Russia's invasion in February, 2022.

Marles is expected to use the trip to announce a new military contribution in the form of drone supplies to help Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a massive missile and drone attack destroyed one of Ukraine's largest power plants and damaged others, officials said on Thursday, part of a renewed Russian campaign targeting energy infrastructure.

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The Trypilska plant, which was the biggest energy supplier for the Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, was struck numerous times, destroying the transformer, turbines and generators and leaving the plant ablaze.

The plant supplied electricity to three million customers — but none lost power because the grid was able to compensate since demands are low at this time of year. Still, the consequences of the strikes could be felt in the coming months, as air conditioning use ramps up in the northern hemisphere summer.

At least 10 other strikes overnight damaged energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 200,000 people in the region, which has been struck repeatedly, were without power.

Ukraine's leaders have pleaded for more air defence systems to ward off such attacks, but those supplies have been slow in coming.

– With Associated Press

Protests are planned in multiple major Australian cities and around the world on Monday, with pro-Palestine activists aiming to disrupt the economy.

Groups behind the international group "A15 Action" have called for people to join the day's planned protests on their website.

"Join participating cities in blocking the arteries of capitalism and jamming the wheels of production," the site reads.

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"The proposal states that in each city, we will identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation with the aim of causing the most economic impact, as did the port shutdowns in recent months in Oakland, California and Melbourne, Australia, as just a few examples."

In a list of global participating cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, "Adelaine" (sic), Hobart, Darwin, and Canberra were all listed, alongside other centres such as Geelong, Alice Springs, and Castlemaine.

Nine newspapers reported law enforcement and activist sources said protest locations could include ports, train stations, major roads and business offices.

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In Victoria, The Age reported, police will activate the State Police Operations Centre, last in use during the anti-lockdown protests in 2021.

Officers, including mounted police and the public order response team, will be out in force on the day, while police in suburban stations will be re-deployed to central Melbourne.

Protests, including those targeting Israel-linked shipping, have periodically erupted in Australia since Israel's invasion of Gaza following the October 7 attacks last year.

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Hamas militants killed about 1200 people and kidnapped hundreds of hostages during the bloody surprise attacks.

Israel's reprisal, with the stated goal of eliminating Hamas, has so far killed over 33,000 Palestinians, according to to Gaza's health authorities, with unrelenting missile attacks as well as ground deployment.

The UN and the international community have repeatedly urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties, and warned that Gaza stands on the edge of famine.

"We've rallied, there's been petitions, social-media campaigns, we've written letters – but it's been six months and the situation is worse than ever," one Australia-based activist, Nathalie, told The Age.

"Because the government is not listening, they need to get the message where it hurts, which is in their pockets. There needs to be disruption to the economy."

But Anti Defamation Commission chair Dr Dvir Abramovich condemned the protesters, who he claimed would turn cities into "battlefields".

"The monster of antisemitism and anti-Israel has been unleashed, and this is the terrifying new world of hatred and targeting of Jews that we now live in," he said.

"We are now facing a tsunami of harassment, physical violence and targeting that is a real threat to our life as Jews here."

He called for any offenders to be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

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There have been a myriad of reactions to the news of OJ Simpson's death, which was announced overnight.

Simpson lost his battle with cancer on Wednesday night in Las Vegas, his family announced on social media. He was 76.

The decorated US football superstar and Hollywood actor was acquitted of charges he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman but later found liable in a separate civil trial.

READ MORE: OJ Simpson, fallen football hero acquitted of murder in 'trial of the century', dies at 76

Goldman's dad, Fred Goldman, told NBC News the NFL star's death was "no great loss to the world".

"The only thing I have to say is it's just further reminder of Ron being gone all these years," he said.

"It's no great loss to the world. It's a further reminder of Ron's being gone."

A criminal court jury found Simpson not guilty of the murders in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $US33.5 million to family members of Brown and Goldman.

David Cook, a San Francisco attorney for the Goldman family who has been seeking to collect the civil judgment since 2008, said Simpson "died without penance".

"We don't know what he has, where it is or who is in control. We will pick up where we are and keep going with it," he said in a statement.

Caitlyn Jenner echoed a similar sentiment on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, simply writing: "Good Riddance #OJSimpson".

Jenner was previously married to Kris Jenner, who in turn had been married to Robert Kardashian who was part of Simpson's defence team.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson's legal "dream team" told NBC News Simpson had been "very sick".

"I knew he was very sick, so I'm upset that he died," he said.

https://twitter.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1778448234119082427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

"I got to know him fairly well during the trial. It was one of the most divisive trials in American history along racial lines. He'll always be remembered for the Bronco chase, for the glove, and for the moment of acquittal."

Basketball star Magic Johnson shared a post on social media offering his condolences to Simpson's family.

"Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson's children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time," he wrote on X.

https://twitter.com/MagicJohnson/status/1778471634929922166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://www.instagram.com/p/C5oNo5dpOG_/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp

While Simpson's Naked Gun director David Zucker got cheeky in his social media tribute.

"R.I.P. Nordberg. 'His acting was a lot like his murdering: He got away with it, but no one believed him'," he captioned a photo on Instagram.

Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of Brown and Goldman in Los Angeles.

A doctor who waited more than three hours to call an ambulance for his dying wife has claimed he could not have contacted emergency services while resuscitating her.

Respiratory and sleep physician Peter Spencer is appealing the Medical Board of Australia's suspension of his medical registration after a coroner recommended him for negligent homicide charges over his wife's death.

He represented himself at a virtual Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing today, where he appeared visibly irritated and had to be muted due to his constant interruptions.

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Mayumi Spencer, 29, died in their Melbourne apartment from cocaine toxicity after a night out with Dr Spencer in January 2015, a coroner found.

Dr Spencer tried to resuscitate her about 4am after she started vomiting and had a fit, and then attempted to perform a cricothyroidotomy using a kitchen knife and pen.

A cricothyroidotomy involves making an incision to unblock a person's airways, but the procedure was unsuccessful.

In June 2023, Victorian coroner John Cain found Dr Spencer had waited three-and-a-half hours to call for an ambulance, despite his wife's inability to breathe.

Paramedics arrived to find Spencer lying on the floor of their lounge room, as Dr Spencer performed CPR using "pretty gentle" compressions, the coroner was told.

Judge Cain referred Dr Spencer to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a charge of negligent manslaughter, due to his delay in seeking medical assistance and his duty of care to her.

He has not yet been charged, but VCAT was told Victoria Police were communicating with prosecutors about the charge in late 2023.

The Medical Board suspended Dr Spencer's practitioner registration in light of the finding, as they said it was in the public interest to do so.

"The applicant poses a serious risk to persons and it is necessary to take immediate action to protect public health or safety," the board's barrister Sarah Keating said today.

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"The correct and preferable decision is to confirm the immediate action decision to protect the public confidence in the reputation of the medical profession and the system of regulation."

She detailed the coroner's findings about a history of family violence between Dr Spencer and his wife, and allegations he concealed information from police and was using cocaine.

Keating said, on the evidence before the coroner, there were two-and-a-half hours where Dr Spencer was not performing CPR on his wife and could have called an ambulance.

But Dr Spencer claimed he could not have called an ambulance as it would have resulted in "prolonged downtime without CPR".

"If I had stopped doing resus and went to find the phones, and called an ambulance, and they took 11 minutes to get there, we're looking at 30 minutes at the earliest point," he said.

"That is not consistent with survival … there is no case to answer for here."

He denied any allegations of drug use or family violence, claiming his wife had apologised to him by reading out a birthday card from her.

Dr Spencer said the DPP had already reviewed his case before the coroner's findings last year and decided not to charge him.

He labelled the coronial findings and board's decision to suspend him as "corrupt" and accused police of lying.

"I doubt very much the police will want to take this to trial because they will endanger themselves to imprisonment on charges of perjury," he told the tribunal.

VCAT board members reserved their decision to a later date.

Detectives have charged a second man over the fatal shooting of underworld figure Gavin "Capable" Preston in Melbourne last year.

A 24-year-old Yagoona man will be extradited to Melbourne tomorrow after appearing before Bathurst Local Court this afternoon.

He was initially arrested for unrelated matters in Sydney's CBD on October 10.

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The 24-year-old was charged with one count of murder this morning.

Preston was at a cafe in Keilor with Abbas "AJ" Maghnie, the son of late crime boss Nabil Maghnie, when two men dressed in black fired multiple shots at the pair about 10.20am on September 9.

Preston died at the scene while Maghnie was hit in the stomach and taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Nobody else was wounded, though other patrons were in the area at the time.

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A 23-year-old Bradbury man has also been charged with one count of murder, following his arrest in NSW on October 25.

He was extradited to Victoria and remanded in custody.

Police had a report about 6.28pm about people needing help in the water.

Restrictions are likely as the Auckland Harbour Bridge gets battered by wind.

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A heroic neighbour has told how he protected a young boy after a family home in Melbourne's north-east was allegedly stormed by three people claiming to be police.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had just arrived home from work when he heard screams for help inside his apartment complex on Red Hill Terrace in Doncaster East about 7.50pm.

"I heard a little kid crying and I (went outside) there was blood everywhere, it was on the carpet, on the walls, on my door," he said.

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Police believe three men had falsely claimed to be police to gain access to the complex before the trio pushed their way into a property.

"Whilst inside the property the trio demanded that the occupants of the home sit down on a couch and not move," police said.

"The offenders then ransacked the home, searching through cupboards and drawers and stealing various items belonging to the victims.

"A scuffle broke out resulting in one victim being assaulted and one offender being injured."

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The neighbour said he rushed outside the property to find a young boy attempting to call police, while his relatives fought off one of the offenders.

"I saw a woman and man in a scuffle with a big bloke, who had no top on and was bleeding from his arm and leg," he said.

"I had to protect (the child). I have a little kid myself and no kid should see that. It was very violent and graphic for a little kid.

"He was shaking.

"I grabbed him and gave him to (another) neighbour while I was on the phone to emergency services."

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9News has seen images of the outside of the property, which show large amounts of blood covering white walls. 

Emergency services were called to the scene before police arrested the injured offender.

The 37-year-old Coolaroo man was taken to hospital and is currently under police guard.

One victim received minor injuries during the incident.

Police said the two remaining offenders fled the scene and investigations remain ongoing to identify them.

Anyone who may have witnessed the incident or has dashcam/CCTV footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.