to sexual health services. polls close in parts of australia as two political veterans battle it out for the country s top job. and could this be the first of record breaking heatwaves across europe? hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. to australia, where polls have closed in the country s first election since 2019. it sees prime minister scott morrison go up against one of the country s longest serving politicians, labor leader anthony albanese. more than 17 million people were enrolled to vote which is compulsory for over 18s. either party will need to win at least 76 of the 151 seats in the house of representatives where the prime minister sits to form a majority government. let s take a closer look at the two main candidates. scott morrison has been the prime minister since 2018. he has been taking credit for adopting a tough closed borders approach to covid 19, which helped australia achieve one of the lowest death rates globally. an
independent candidates in general may actually hold the balance of power here. it s the second day ofjoe biden s trip to asia and following a meeting with his south korean counterpart, yoon suk yeol, in seoul, the two leaders have held a joint news conference. they agreed to expand cooperation on a range of issues from regional security to supply chains. on north korea, they said they would step up measures to deter its nuclear capabilities. they remained open to dialogue with pyongyang, however, and mr biden even said he might be willing to meet the north korean leader. here s more of what president biden had to say. today, president yoon and i committed to strenthening our close engagement to work together to take on challenges of regional security, including addressing the threat posed by the democratic people s republic of korea by further strengthening our deterrence posture and working towards a complete denuclearisation of
the korean peninsula. our seoul correspondent jean mackenzie was at that news conference. a huge part ofjoe biden s coming to asia was really to see both his allies here in asia and also to china that he was very much committed, the us is very much committed to playing a role here. when biden came to office, he made clear asia was going to be the cornerstone of his foreign policy and, of course, the war in ukraine has pulled his attention away and this is an attempt to say that his focus is back here on this continent. part of the us strategy now is to try and counter what it sees as a growing chinese dominance here in asia. that means working with its partners like south korea and japan on economic projects, on technological projects. yesterday we had biden go to the enormous samsung semiconductor plant where he committed to investing in the semiconductor industry, this is a key industry here in south korea where china