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Sudan's paramilitary forces have killed hundreds of people at a hospital, including patients, after they seized the provincial capital of North Darfur over the weekend, according to the UN, displaced residents and aid workers, who described harrowing details of the atrocities.

The 460 patients and their companions were reportedly killed on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) at Saudi Hospital by fighters from the Rapid Support Forces in the city of el-Fasher, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation.

As part of their assault on el-Fasher, RSF fighters also went from house to house, beating and shooting at people, including women and children, witnesses told The Associated Press. 

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Many died of gunshot wounds in the streets, some while trying to flee to safety, witnesses said.

Two years of fighting for control of Sudan has killed more than 40,000 people — a figure rights groups consider a significant undercount — and has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis with more than 14 million displaced. 

The capture of el-Fasher by the powerful Arab-led force raises fears that Africa's third-largest nation may split again, nearly 15 years after oil-rich South Sudan gained independence following years of civil war.

Sudanese residents and aid workers revealed harrowing details of atrocities by the RSF after it seized the army's last stronghold in Darfur following more than 500 days of siege.

Fighters from the RSF "cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside the Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards," according to the Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group tracking the war.

"The Janjaweed showed no mercy for anyone," said Umm Amena, a mother of four children who fled the city on Monday after two days, using a Sudanese term for the RSF.

RSF commander General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is sanctioned by the US, acknowledged what he called "abuses" by his forces. 

In his first comments since the fall of el-Fasher, posted Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app, he said an investigation was opened. He did not elaborate.

The Associated Press has not been able to independently confirm the hospital attack and death toll.

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'It was like a killing field'

Mini Minawi, the governor of Darfur, shared a video online that purported to show RSF fighters inside the Saudi Hospital. 

The minute-long footage shows bodies lying on the floor in pools of blood. A fighter fires a single shot from a Kalashnikov-style rifle into a lone man sitting up, who then slumps to the floor. Other bodies could be seen outside. 

The AP could not independently verify the date, location or condition under which the video was recorded.

Amena was among three dozen people, mostly women and children, who were detained for a day by RSF fighters in an abandoned house close to the Saudi Hospital in el-Fasher.

The AP spoke with Amena and four others who managed to flee el-Fasher and arrived exhausted and dehydrated early on Tuesday in the nearby town of Tawila, about 60 kilometres west of el-Fasher, which already hosts more than 650,000 displaced.

The UN migration agency said more than 36,000 people have fled el-Fasher, mostly to rural areas around it, since Sunday.

UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said the new arrivals told of widespread killings motivated by ethnic and political differences, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee, and others shot as they tried to escape.

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"It was like a killing field," Tajal-Rahman, a man in his late 50s, said over the phone from the outskirts of Tawila. 

"Bodies everywhere and people bleeding and no one to help them."

Both Amena and Tajal-Rahman said RSF fighters tortured and beat the detainees and shot at least four people on Monday who later died of wounds. They also sexually assaulted women and girls, they said.

In Tawila, a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders received many patients since October 18 suffering from injuries related to bombings or gunshots, according to Giulia Chiopris, a pediatrician at the hospital.

She said the hospital also received a high number of malnourished and severely dehydrated children, many of them unaccompanied or orphaned, who had fled el-Fasher.

"We are seeing a lot a lot of cases of trauma related to the last bombing and a huge number of orphans," she said.

She recalled receiving three young siblings, ranging in age from 40 days old to four years, whose family was killed in the city. They were brought to the hospital on Monday night by strangers, she said.

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Satellite imagery suggests mass killings

In a report late on Tuesday, the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab said that RSF fighters continued to carry out mass killings since they took over el-Fasher.

The report, which relied on satellite imagery from Airbus, said it corroborated alleged executions and mass killing by the RSF around the Saudi Hospital, and at a detention centre at the former Children's Hospital in the eastern part of the city. 

The AP accessed and analysed the same imagery, seeing objects and red stains on the ground at the sites that the lab identified as blood and bodies.

The lab also said that "systematic killings" took place in the vicinity of the eastern wall, which the RSF built outside the city earlier this year.

Sheldon Yett, the UNICEF representative to Sudan, said in an interview that the situation in el-Fasher was "an absolute catastrophe", with thousands of children already suffering from disease and famine before the takeover of the city by the RSF.

"Now it's hell on Earth with lots of guns," Yett said.

Aid groups said a death toll has been difficult to determine since RSF overran el-Fasher, given a near communication blackout.

The report from Yale said satellite imagery can't show the true scale of the mass killings, and that an estimated death toll is likely an undercount.

Before the latest bout of violence, some 1850 civilians were killed in North Darfur, including 1350 in el-Fasher, between January 1 and October 20 this year, according to UN spokesperson Farhan Aziz Haq.

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Global outrage

Footage of the attacks triggered a wave of outrage around the world. France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union all condemned the atrocities.

Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher with Human Rights Watch, said that footage coming out of el-Fasher "reveals a horrifying truth: the Rapid Support Forces feel free to carry out mass atrocities with little fear of consequences".

"The world needs to act to protect civilians from more heinous crimes," he said.

Massad Boulos, the US senior adviser on Arab and African affairs, condemned the attacks.

"The deliberate targeting of vulnerable populations through acts of violence and retribution is both abhorrent and unacceptable," wrote Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman who is the father-in-law of President Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany.

"We acknowledge RSF leadership's recent statements on civilian protection, humanitarian access and accountability, but words alone will not save lives. These commitments must urgently be turned into concrete actions on the ground to alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese people."

Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday denounced the RSF attacks on the city, and called for it to be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation. 

"The RSF has waged terror and committed unspeakable atrocities, genocide among them, against the Sudanese people," he wrote.

Australian authorities, meanwhile, have urged citizens to not travel to the country and to leave as soon as possible – if it's safe.

"Do not travel to Sudan due to the high threat of armed conflict, civil unrest, terrorism and kidnapping," a Smartraveller statement said. 

"If you're in Sudan, you should depart immediately if it's safe to do so. There may be commercial departure options from Port Sudan and Port Suakin. Khartoum International Airport is closed. 

"If you remain in Sudan, be prepared to shelter in place for an extended period."

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A young girl is fighting for her life after being hit by a ute outside a primary school in north-western Sydney.

Shortly before 4pm today, police were called to Clower Avenue in Rouse Hill, where they were told a five-year-old girl had been riding a scooter on a footpath when she was struck by a ute.

Ambulance paramedics treated her at the scene before taking her to Westmead Children's Hospital.

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According to police, the girl's condition is critical.

Clower Avenue is around 40km north-west of the Sydney CBD, and is home to Rouse Hill Public School.

The driver of the ute, a 43-year-old man, has been taken to Westmead Hospital for mandatory testing.

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Children under 16 will be blocked from major platforms in Australia from December 10.

US President Donald Trump has described his face-to-face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today as a roaring success, saying he would cut tariffs on China, while Beijing had agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans.

The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US would lower tariffs implemented earlier this year as punishment on China for its selling of chemicals used to make fentanyl from 20 per cent to 10 per cent.

That brings the total combined tariff rate on China down from 57 per cent to 47 per cent.

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"I guess on the scale from 0 to 10, with ten being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12," Trump said. 

"I think it was a 12."

Trump said that he would go to China in April and Xi would come to the US "sometime after that".

The president said they also discussed the export of more advanced computer chips to China, saying that Nvidia would be in talks with Chinese officials.

Trump said he could sign a trade deal with China "pretty soon."

"We have not too many major stumbling blocks," Trump said.

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Sources of tension remain

Despite Trump's optimism after a 100-minute meeting with Xi in South Korea, there continues to be the potential for major tensions between the world's two largest economies.

Both nations are seeking dominant places in manufacturing, developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and shaping world affairs like Russia's war in Ukraine.

Trump's aggressive use of tariffs since returning to the White House for a second term, combined with China's retaliatory limits on exports of rare earth elements, gave the meeting newfound urgency.

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There is a mutual recognition that neither side wants to risk blowing up the world economy in ways that could jeopardise their own country's fortunes.

When the two were seated at the start of the meeting, Xi read prepared remarks that stressed a willingness to work together despite differences.

"Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other," he said through a translator.

"It is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then."

There was a slight difference in translation as China's Xinhua News Agency reported Xi as telling Trump that having some differences is inevitable.

China did not provide immediate comment on the meeting or any outcomes.

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Finding ways to lower the temperature

The leaders met in Busan, South Korea, a port city about 76 kilometres south of Gyeongju, the main venue for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

In the days leading up to the meeting, US officials signalled that Trump did not intend to make good on a recent threat to impose an additional 100 per cent import tax on Chinese goods, and China showed signs it was willing to relax its export controls on rare earths and also buy soybeans from America.

Officials from both countries met earlier this week in Kuala Lumpur to lay the groundwork for their leaders. Afterwards, China's top trade negotiator Li Chenggang said they had reached a "preliminary consensus," a statement affirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said there was " a very successful framework".

Shortly before the meeting today, Trump posted on Truth Social that the meeting would be the "G2", a recognition of America and China's status as the world's biggest economies.

The Group of Seven and Group of 20 are other forums of industrialised nations.

But while those summits often happen at luxury spaces, this meeting took place in humbler surroundings: Trump and Xi met in a small grey building with a blue roof on a military base adjacent to Busan's international airport.

The anticipated detente has given investors and businesses caught between the two nations a sense of relief.

The US stock market has climbed on the hopes of a trade framework coming out of the meeting.

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Pressure points remain for both US and China

Trump has outward confidence that the grounds for a deal are in place, but previous negotiations with China this year in Geneva, Switzerland and London had a start-stop quality to them.

The initial promise of progress has repeatedly given way to both countries seeking a better position against the other.

"The proposed deal on the table fits the pattern we've seen all year: short-term stabilisation dressed up as strategic progress," Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said.

"Both sides are managing volatility, calibrating just enough cooperation to avert crisis while the deeper rivalry endures."

The US and China have each shown they believe they have levers to pressure the other, and the past year has demonstrated that tentative steps forward can be short-lived.

For Trump, that pressure comes from tariffs.

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China had faced new tariffs this year totalling 30 per cent, of which 20 per cent were tied to its role in fentanyl production.

But the tariff rates have been volatile.

In April, he announced plans to jack the rate on Chinese goods to 145 per cent, only to abandon those plans as markets recoiled.

Then, on October 10, Trump threatened a 100 per cent import tax because of China's rare earth restrictions.

That figure, including past tariffs, would now be 47 per cent "effective immediately," Trump told reporters this afternoon.

Xi has his own chokehold on the world economy because China is the top producer and processor of the rare earth minerals needed to make fighter jets, robots, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.

China had tightened export restrictions on October 9, repeating a cycle in which each nation jockeys for an edge only to back down after more trade talks.

What might also matter is what happens directly after their talks. Trump plans to return to Washington, while Xi plans to stay on in South Korea to meet with regional leaders during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which officially begins on Friday.

"Xi sees an opportunity to position China as a reliable partner and bolster bilateral and multilateral relations with countries frustrated by the US administration's tariff policy," Jay Truesdale, a former State Department official who is CEO of TD International, a risk and intelligence advisory firm, said.

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The 6am Waimate crash killed local motorist Alan George Weir, who was on his way to work.

Emergency services were called to the scene about 6.45pm.

Eight fire trucks are at the scene of the blaze on Ferguson St.

Police have launched an investigation into the suspicious death of a baby in a Western Australian town.

Officers and paramedics were called to a home in Baldivis, about 40km south of Perth, this morning, where they found a dead eight-month-old.

"Detectives have been deployed to the scene, and inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the child's death are being undertaken. The death is being treated as suspicious," a WA Police spokesperson said.

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"One woman is assisting police with their inquiries.

"There is no risk to the community."

Police have urged anyone with information about the baby's death to contact authorities.

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Potentially dangerous asbestos has been uncovered during the $2 million redevelopment of a park in Melbourne's west.

Non-friable asbestos was "unexpectedly" found while crews were undertaking excavation works of the picnic and play equipment McCormack Park in Laverton.

A spokesperson for Hobson Bay Council confirmed to 9news.com.au that fragments of "potential asbestos containing material" were found within a fenced-off construction area.

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The exact date the asbestos was found is unknown, but it was raised at a council meeting on Tuesday.

According to minutes from the meeting, contamination was found in two zones.

Further excavation uncovered "significant asbestos" in other areas.

The contaminated zones remain off-limits to the public.

"Council officers continue to work with the contractor to clear the site in accordance with relevant EPA guidelines. The remaining reserve that is not impacted by construction is safe for residents," a council spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

"The works at McCormack Park remain on schedule for completion in early 2026."

According to WorkSafe Victoria, non-friable asbestos is when it has been mixed with cement or other hard bonding materials.

The park upgrade is estimated to cost $2,053,272.55.

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