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SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who will be allowed to enter the country Friday, as it struggles to contain coronavirus clusters that plunged major cities into lockdown. With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by around 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks. Under the current “zero Covid” strategy, just 6,000 […]
by Holly ROBERTSON / with Tristan Lavalette in Perth Agence France Presse More than 10 million Australians have been ordered into lockdown as coronavirus cases spread across the country, and Brisbane on Tuesday became the fourth major city to issue stay-at-home orders. The three-day snap lockdown for Brisbane, starting on Tuesday evening, comes on top of similar measures imposed in Sydney, Perth and Darwin in recent days. “These are tough decisions,” Queensland state Premier […]
by Holly ROBERTSON BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Brisbane on Tuesday became the fourth major Australian city ordered into lockdown, as officials told residents to stay at home for three days over concerns about the rapid spread of Covid-19. About 10 million Australians will be in lockdown once the latest order comes into force from Tuesday evening. “These are tough decisions,” Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. “We are having lockdowns in major cities because the […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Ben Simmons withdrew from Australia’s Olympic basketball squad Tuesday, with officials saying he was having a “rough time” in the NBA and wanted to focus on improving his skills. The 24-year-old guard was heavily criticised for his wayward shooting when the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers were bundled out of the NBA playoffs by the unfancied Atlanta Hawks earlier this month. National coach Brian Goorjian said he and the rest of the squad […]
by Holly ROBERTSON BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — New coronavirus cases popped up in cities across Australia on Monday, prompting local authorities to impose restrictions in areas not used to living under strict Covid-19 rules. Australia has been broadly successful in containing virus clusters, but is now battling flare-ups in at least four cities across the vast continent nation. Brisbane, Darwin, Perth and Sydney have all reported new cases of the highly contagious Delta variant, which […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A skydiving instructor and their customer died Sunday after falling from a plane before a tandem jump in Australia. Police said two people died in the accident at Goulburn, about two hours’ drive southwest of Sydney, after the aircraft began experiencing “difficulty”. “Two parachutists fell from the aircraft and landed near the runway of the airport. They were located unresponsive and unable to be revived,” police said in a statement. Scott […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Sydney streets were nearly deserted on Saturday at the start of a beefed-up two-week lockdown to contain the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant sweeping Australia’s largest city. More than 80 Covid-19 cases have been reported so far in an infection surge linked to an international flight crew transported to a quarantine hotel from the airport. The flare-up was a shock for a city that had returned to relative normality after […]
by Andrew LEESON Agence France Presse Dubbo, Australia (AFP) — After surviving years of crippling drought, farmers in eastern Australia are locked in a months-long battle with hordes of mice that are pouring through fields and devouring hard-earned crops. Farmer Col Tink uses a broom to skittle hundreds of roving mice toward a makeshift industrial trap — essentially a large tub of water where they drown. It is a brutally simple attempt to slow […]
The pandemic and climate change is testing as never before the delicate balance of human co-habitation with the natural world. As an Australian prison is evacuated after it was overrun by the plague of mice ravaging the east of the country, we look at some of the most spectacular recent examples. – Australia mice plague – Battling a massive plague of mice after the end of a three-year drought, eastern Australia is seeing crops […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Sydneysiders were largely banned from leaving the city Wednesday as Australian authorities rushed to stop a growing outbreak of the highly contagious Delta Covid-19 variant from spreading to other regions. More than 30 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the cluster emerged in the city’s Bondi Beach area last week, the latest in a string of flare-ups that highlight Australia’s difficulty in extinguishing outbreaks. New South Wales state Premier Gladys […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A mouse plague ravaging Australia’s farmlands forced the evacuation of hundreds of inmates from a rural jail on Tuesday, as the rodents broke in and chewed through essential infrastructure. Scores of mice have gnawed through ceiling panels and wiring at a New South Wales prison, prompting authorities to scale back operations for repairs. “The health, safety and wellbeing of staff and inmates is our number one priority, so it’s important for […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia recommended that AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 jab should not be given to people under 60 on Thursday, a fresh blow to the country’s glacial vaccine rollout. Health Minister Greg Hunt said concerns over possible links to blood clots meant Pfizer was now “the preferred vaccine” for everyone under 60 years old. Australian authorities had already restricted the AstraZeneca shot to those over 50 in April, after several cases of severe blood clots […]
