Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The Delta variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, has been detected in 74 countries and continues to spread rapidly amid fears that it is poised to become the dominant strain worldwide.
With outbreaks of the main Delta strain and several of its sub-lineages confirmed in China, the US, Africa, Scandinavia and the Pacific, concern increasingly is focusing on how it appears to be more transmissible as well as causing more serious illness.
The immigration minister, Alex Hawke, is set to announce on Tuesday that the Murugappan family will be released from detention on Christmas Island and allowed to reunite on the Australian mainland.
Hawke will use his ministerial discretion to allow the family to return but the government is not expected to make any substantive changes to their visa status which is still being argued in the courts.
Scott Morrison was denied a one-on-one meeting with Joe Biden yesterday, at the PM’s first meeting with the US president, because Boris Johnson joined it.
Labor’s Penny Wong said it was disappointing that Morrison could not have a one-on-one meeting with Biden.
[The three-person meeting] was an opportunity that presented because we’re all here and so it was mutual.
It was a great opportunity for my first meeting, of course, with the president. I mean I’ve known Boris for many years.
The Australian army is investigating allegations of bullying and harassment of officer cadets at the University of Sydney regiment. Allegations include searches through women’s underwear drawers and a nearly three-month period in which cadets were forced to work seven days a week with no days off.
PM resists pressure to commit Australia to 2050 climate deadline as he talks up hydrogen, LNG and carbon capture and storage
Scott Morrison has inked deals with Japan and Germany to develop technology to help reach “a net zero emissions future” – but continues to resist international pressure to formally commit Australia to a firm 2050 deadline.
With the climate crisis taking centre stage on the final day of the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, the prime minister stuck to his preferred approach of focusing on technologies such as hydrogen, rather than signing up to more ambitious medium- and long-term emission reduction commitments.
Labor’s Penny Wong says it’s disappointing the Australian prime minister did not secure a private meeting with the US president
Scott Morrison has met with Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit and agreed to work closely on challenges in the increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region including China.
Regional issues dominated the Australian prime minister’s first face-to-face meeting with the US president late on Saturday – but the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, also attended in what became a trilateral engagement.
Students have been able to go to pubs and clubs this year, but not lectures. Now universities are saying next semester will be radically different
Australian universities say campuses will look “radically” different next semester as students return to more in-person learning, although most large lectures will still be delivered online.
As many students yearn for a return to the classroom, universities say they are planning to offer in-person learning for up to 90% of courses next semester.
People evacuated from Traralgon given the all clear to go home but heavy rain continues to impact large parts of the state
Tens of thousands of Victorian residents remained without power or telecommunications as heavy rainfall and flooding continued to impact large parts of the state.
Communities without phone coverage and unable to call triple-zero included: Trentham, King Lake, Dandenong Ranges, South Gippsland, Gembrook, Pyalong, Don Valley, Healesville, Lancefield and Woori Yallock.
It’s avo on toast for everyone thanks to an eye-watering drop in the price of the nation’s favourite brunch fruit
It was the summer of 2018 and Australians were sweating. In their hands: a single avocado pear, barely ripe. The price: $9. Could it possibly be worth it? And how many times had it been squeezed?
Thankfully, though much has gone wrong in the world since that fateful January, one thing has gone right – this winter, Australians can afford to eat all the avo on toast they like, with the savoury green fruit selling for just $1 (55p, or 77c) each.
Edelsten was known for his flashy lifestyle, young wives and a series of brushes with the legal system that included a stint in jail
Geoffrey Edelsten, who made a name for himself as a flashy doctor, helped save AFL team the Sydney Swans from extinction and had a string of young wives, has died aged 78.
Edelsten died on Friday at his home in Melbourne, the ABC and local media reported.
A flood evacuation warning has been re-issued for Traralgon in Victoria’s Gippsland region, reports AAP.
Anyone near the Traralgon Creek was being told early on Friday afternoon to evacuate now.
Andrew Grech, a partner at Gordon Legal, is on the ABC now responding to the federal court judgment on the robodebt class action.
I think for many people, there’s been a lack of accountability, both of the ministers involved and senior public servants involved.
We think that it’s important that, through the proper parliamentary processes and, if necessary, through a royal commission, that those questions be answered for people, so that they can actually have far more closure on all those issues.
The major blood vessel of the penis splits into two main branches which each supply two of the four penile heads
The penis of an echidna has four heads but only two become erect at any one time. Now, Australian researchers have uncovered why.
Scientists discovered the marsupial has unusual reproductive anatomy that causes male echidnas to ejaculate from only two of their four penile heads at one time.
The NSW deputy premier dismissed concerns that a grant to a cooperative linked to Angus Taylor’s family may have been improper
NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has brushed off the concerns of an unidentified public servant that a $50,000 grant to an agricultural cooperative associated with federal MP Angus Taylor’s family may be improper.
In question time on Thursday, Labor MP Yasmin Catley asked Barilaro: “Dead set, deputy premier, is this a grant or a bribe?” referring to what the concerned public servant had written in a note to file.
Defence minister says increased presence good for both countries and it’s time for a discussion about ‘threats we face’
The Australian defence minister, Peter Dutton, has backed increasing the number of American military personnel rotating through the Northern Territory and having US navy vessels operate from a base near Perth.
Dutton said on Thursday it would be in the interests of both Australia and the US to strengthen their defence relationship – but indicated the details would be a matter for further talks.
A 52-year-old woman from NSW who died after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine is “likely” Australia’s second death from a rare and severe blood clotting syndrome linked to the Covid vaccine, Australia’s drugs regulator says.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration said on Thursday the woman had a severe form of the syndrome “with a blood clot in the brain known as a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis”.
An evacuation order has been issued for Traralgon due to wild weather which has caused widespread flooding in Gippsland, damaged homes, left almost 200,000 homes without power and prompted almost 4,000 calls to the State Emergency service overnight.
About 220 low-lying properties in Traralgon, 160km east of Melbourne, are under direct threat of inundation from Traralgon Creek, and an evacuation centre has been set up in the basketball stadium, with residents urged to leave now.
International lawyer Geoffrey Robertson to argue Australia failed to protect Dungay’s right to life and denied family justice for his 2015 death in Long Bay jail
International human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson will take the case of the death in custody of David Dungay to the United Nations, arguing that Australia violated his human rights and those of his family by denying them justice and accountability for his 2015 death in prison custody.
Robertson’s London-based Doughty Street Chambers will lodge the complaint on behalf of the Dungay family at the UN human rights committee in Geneva. In it they will say that Australia has failed to protect his right to life and failed to undertake investigations into anyone or any organisation responsible for his death.
Australian scientists develop a microscope that works with 35% more clarity, raising hope for improvements in medical imaging
Australian researchers have developed a microscope that can image tiny biological structures that were previously not visible in what has been described as a significant step for quantum technology.
It is believed to be the first time that quantum technology has improved on existing light microscopes, which in future may lead to improvements in medical imaging and navigation systems.
Travel to regional Victoria likely to be barred when lockdown ends Thursday midnight and federal wages support package to be cut off. Follow updates live
Khorshid is asked about the Victorian government’s response to the pandemic, and in particular the current lockdown.
He says:
The AMA has been supportive of the actions of the Victorian government. I think the public expects to be kept safe and this is what is necessary to be kept safe when we’re in an evolving situation. As information comes in, things become clearer, decisions become easier to make. I think the best thing for us all to do is support the advice that’s been given by the chief health officers around the country.
My colleague Paul Karp asked Omar Khorshid about the AMA’s concerns about the recent proposed changes to Medicare rebates.
He asked if the AMA’s concerns have been addressed and what he made of Labor’s warnings of a government assault on Medicare. Are we likely to see another “Mediscare campaign”?
I certainly hope we’re not going see a Mediscare campaign. The sad reality of Medicare is successive governments over the entire life of Medicare have failed to index it properly, and have therefore effectively cut Medicare for 30 years. This review that the AMA has supported was designed to modernise the MBS, and it has taken five years to do, we have a few quibbles and issues with how it was done, but at the end of the day the AMA is supportive of the review process and of most of the outcomes.