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SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Tens of thousands of people sweltering through a brutal heatwave in southern Australia were left without power Friday, as the grid struggled with surging demand. Authorities said about 60,000 customers were experiencing blackouts, after it ordered forced outages to reduce the risk of the entire grid failing. “We have asked for 100 megawatts of involuntary load reduction, we have notified the networks, they’re in process of doing that,” Australian Energy Market […]
ADELAIDE, Australia (AFP) — Temperatures in southern Australia topped 49 degrees on Thursday, shattering previous records as sizzling citizens received free beer and heat-stressed bats fell from trees. The Bureau of Meteorology reported temperatures of 49.5 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) north of Adelaide, while inside the city temperatures reached 47.7 Celsius, breaking a record that had stood since 1939. Adelaide residents are used to sweltering days during the southern hemisphere summer, but even they struggled with […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia could become a test ground for another of Elon Musk’s massive infrastructure projects after the maverick billionaire tweeted a “bargain” price to build a tunnel through a mountain to solve Sydney’s traffic woes. Musk in 2017 made a Twitter pitch — and followed through with the offer — to build what was the world’s biggest battery in an Australian state to solve its severe energy crisis. The entrepreneur behind electric […]
KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea (AFP) — Weeks of heavy rains and flooding have killed at least nine people in Papua New Guinea, with authorities warning more bad weather and devastation could be on the way. Central Province Disaster Division Coordinator Tumai Ipo told AFP Monday they have received reports of at least nine deaths, with many more families left homeless or without access to safe drinking water. Near the capital Port Moresby, there have been […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A woman and a child were bitten by a shark in the popular Whitsunday Islands near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Thursday in the latest of a string of such attacks, reports and officials said. The Queensland state ambulance service said the pair were rushed to hospital with leg and foot wounds from the attack along a beach on Hamilton Island, but the injuries were not life-threatening. Local media said the […]
MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Suspicious packages were sent to more than a dozen foreign embassies and consulates in major Australian cities on Wednesday in a seemingly orchestrated but scattershot campaign. Emergency services raced to a string of diplomatic facilities which had received packages containing suspected hazardous material, all within the space of a few hours. There was no obvious pattern to countries targeted, with consulates of the United States, China, Italy, India, Japan and New […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australia gave its strongest hint yet on Wednesday that an 18-year-old Saudi woman in Bangkok would be granted humanitarian asylum, despite efforts by Riyadh and her family to force her return home. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has documented her bid to flee her allegedly abusive family with minute-by-minute social media updates, intensifying the global spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s rights record. As public pressure heightened, an Australian minister appeared to go beyond Canberra’s […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — One of Papua New Guinea’s most active volcanoes has erupted, authorities said Tuesday, pummelling villages on a remote island with volcanic rock before subsiding. Manam island is a volcanic cone that towers out of the sea north of the Papua New Guinea mainland and has a history of eruptions, with major activity in November 2004 forcing the evacuation of some 9,000 people. The volcano has erupted a number of times […]
MAJURO, Marshall Islands (AFP) — The grounding of a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel in the Marshall Islands is being treated as a “crime scene”, officials in the Pacific Ocean archipelago said Monday. The 308-foot (94-meter) boat, which ran aground last week on a remote northern atoll, was not licensed to be in the country’s waters. “What they were doing in Marshall Islands’ waters is still unanswered,” Chief Secretary Ben Graham said, adding that the government […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — Fiji’s Meteorological Service warned of intense rain and “damaging gale force winds” to outer areas of the island nation Thursday, as the first tropical cyclone of the New Year formed in the South Pacific. Tropical Cyclone Mona was moving in southeast and expected to cross outlying islands. “There’s a risk of flash flooding in low-lying and flood-prone areas. Therefore, all communities living in the flood-prone and landslide areas are requested […]
by Glenda KWEK Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s largest city Sydney will put on its biggest-ever fireworks display to welcome the New Year and kick off a wave of celebrations for billions around the world. A record amount of pyrotechnics, as well as new fireworks effects and colours, will light up the harbor city’s skyline for 12 minutes and dazzle the more than 1.5 million spectators expected to crowd foreshores and parks. […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s vast continent is sizzling through extreme heatwave conditions this week, with temperatures reaching record highs and emergency services on high alert for bush-fires. The mercury is up to 16 degree Celsius (29 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than usual for this time of the year for southern Australia, with numerous towns setting new December records, the Bureau of Meteorology said Friday. “Heatwave conditions are being experienced across large parts of the country,” […]
