Concern is mounting for thousands of sheep and cattle stranded off the coast of Australia after authorities ordered the Israeli-owned ship transporting the live cargo to turn around over fears it could be targeted by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
The Indonesian Agriculture and Quarantine Agency notified Australian authorities lumpy skin disease was detected in 13 Australian cattle exported to Indonesia.
Aussie tourists holidaying in Bali risk bringing home a highly contagious virus which would totally devastate Australia's multi-billion-dollar livestock industry.
After 25 days docked at Fremantle Port, the coronavirus-stricken Al Kuwait is headed for the Middle East with 35,000 sheep on board, despite last-minute challenges from animal rights activists.
The federal government has refused an exemption to its live export ban that would have allowed 56,000 sheep to be transported to the Middle East, and they will now be slaughtered in Western Australia.
A federal Labor minister's decision to ban farmers from exporting live cattle to Indonesia for six months in 2011 was unreasonable and invalid, a court has ruled.
A replacement crew could be sent to Western Australia to sail the Al Kuwait back to the Middle East, with sending its 56,000 sheep to local abattoirs considered a last resort.
Fremantle port workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 when they boarded the live export ship that had apparently been cleared to dock, despite knowing some of the crew were ill.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has been given a rock star reception by sheep farmers in WA, telling a big crowd that opponents to live export were 'zealots'.
WA's agriculture minister wants a summer ban on live exports after a video showed hundreds of sheep dying in heat aboard vessels bound for the Middle East.