Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Tian Xuejun rejects Australia’s ‘groundless accusations’ that China influenced the finding to score political points
The Chinese host of a United Nations world heritage committee has defended a proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”, and rejected Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons.
It came as the Morrison government sought to use a new report by Australia’s marine science agency to argue there had been widespread coral recovery on the reef.
Plans to allow only emergency and health staff to leave three south-western Sydney areas at the centre of the city’s Covid-19 outbreak for work were shelved on Sunday, despite another day of more than 100 new cases.
Seven terminates contract and British far-right figure expected to leave country after joking about plans to breach quarantine rules
British far-right figure Katie Hopkins has been dumped as a cast member of Seven’s Big Brother VIP and will leave the country after breaching her contract, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Hopkins, 46, broadcast a live video from what she claimed was a Sydney hotel room on Saturday morning, describing Covid-19 lockdowns as “the greatest hoax in human history” while joking about elaborate plans to breach quarantine rules.
Residents of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool local government areas barred from leaving for work as NSW tries to control spread of Delta variant. Follow the latest developments live
The NSW branches of the Transport Workers’ Union and the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation are welcoming an exemption for their workers in the three local government areas where only health and emergency workers are allowed to leave.
The groups say updated advice now includes a list of “authorised workers” permitted to go to work, “which includes freight, logistics, courier and delivery workers, bus drivers, waste workers and airport workers”.
The exemption will come as a relief to the more than 20,000 transport workers in south-west Sydney who yesterday believed they would not be able to go to work. We commend the NSW government for responding quickly to our calls for an exemption, however the advice to workers and operators is still far too sluggish.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is asked about far-right media figure Katie Hopkins flying into Australia and going into hotel quarantine (maybe to appear on the local reality TV show Big Brother, as is the speculation).
I’m the one who wanted to send home Johnny Depp’s dog, so I have no problem sending home someone who wants to flout our laws. If you want to do that, pack your bongo and get out of country!
Dominic Spooner’s startup Vaulta is working on a reusable battery casing to create less waste and a lighter product
As some of the world’s largest companies invest billions to advance battery technology, Dominic Spooner has been working at solving the next problem: the impact of unwieldy – and environmentally unfriendly – battery casings.
Spooner runs his lightweight battery casing technology firm Vaulta from a shared garage in Brisbane’s north. “Batteries will change our lives in ways that we’re maybe not even totally aware of, but … we can create our own new group of problems if we’re not careful,” he says.
Victoria has entered day two of its latest Covid-19 lockdown to news of a further 19 locally acquired cases.
The state’s health department said all were linked to the current outbreak, which now numbers 43 community cases in total. All but one were active in the community while potentially infectious, as the state identified some 10,000 “primary close contacts”.
Pros at dealing with long-term Covid restrictions, Melbourne residents share their advice for those in Sydney
We may have escaped the ravages of Covid that have maimed nations elsewhere, but Australians have still endured its consequences through lengthy, disruptive lockdowns.
Nowhere is this as intimately understood than in Melbourne, which is now in its fifth lockdown. And as our fellows in Sydney stare down a potentially long road stuck at home, we thought it useful this week to invite Melburnians to offer tips on how best to cope.
Gifted as a cub by a Maharajah to a young British boy, Singh lived at a house in Surrey before outgrowing his home and being driven in a black cab to the zoo. Now his story has been made into a book
“He was,” London Zoo said, “one of the zoo’s politest pets.”
Singh the Lion arrived in a black cab and padded in through the front door, on a lead.
Once a bastion of Covid success, now two of the country’s largest cities are under tight restrictions amid mishandled vaccine program and growing Delta outbreak
At a press conference on Thursday morning, one day after a lockdown was extended by two weeks in Sydney and a few hours before a fifth lockdown would be declared in Melbourne, the premier of New South Wales grew flustered. “One question at a time. I will get to all of them,” Gladys Berejiklian said. “It is not nice being shouted at.”
Australians have a lot of questions. After managing the pandemic better than almost any country in the world, they are now watching the world open up while their own borders remain strictly closed.Meanwhile,just 10% of adults have been fully vaccinated and an outbreak of the Delta variant is slowly spreading.
The Western NSW Local Health District has posted on its Facebook page that it has been notified of cases that travelled to Molong, near Orange in the state’s central west, on 16 July.
No venues of concern are currently identified and contacts of the cases are being tested while in isolation. Urgent investigations are underway and contact tracing is continuing.
As a precautionary measure, a drive-through (testing) clinic will be established in Molong and capacity in Orange and Bathurst will be increased.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has released a statement following today’s national cabinet meeting:
National Cabinet discussed the outbreak in Greater Sydney and the additional measures introduced by the New South Wales Government to stop the spread of the virus. National Cabinet has agreed to a suppression strategy for COVID-19 with the goal of no community transmission.
All leaders expressed their full support for NSW to get on top of the current outbreak. National Cabinet noted the Commonwealth’s extension of the COVID-19 Disaster Payment support for Greater Sydney and Victoria, based on Commonwealth hotspot declarations.
National Cabinet received an update from the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on the four step plan to reopening and the progress of the Covid-19 Risk Analysis and Response Taskforce report and the Doherty modelling for the National Plan to transition Australia’s National Covid Response.
All leaders reiterated the importance of Australians, especially those in vulnerable groups, to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
The preprint endorsing ivermectin as a coronavirus therapy has been widely cited, but independent researchers find glaring discrepancies in the data
The efficacy of a drug being promoted by rightwing figures worldwide for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.
The preprint study on the efficacy and safety of ivermectin – a drug used against parasites such as worms and headlice – in treating Covid-19, led by Dr Ahmed Elgazzar from Benha University in Egypt, was published on the Research Square website in November.
Victoria is entering a five-day lockdown in an effort to contain two growing Covid clusters connected to the larger Sydney outbreak.
Victoria’s fifth lockdown starting on Friday will cover the entire state until 11.59pm on Tuesday 20 July. It was announced by the premier, Daniel Andrews, after four people who were in the MCG members’ stand at a Geelong-Carlton AFL game on the weekend at the same time as a positive case tested positive.
Sydney’s hospitals are being stretched to “the brink” as healthcare professionals continue to be sidelined by exposure to Covid, with two major hospitals reporting cases, including a fully vaccinated nurse.
NSW Health confirmed the nurse, who tested positive on Tuesday, works at Westmead hospital and the source of the infection was being urgently investigated.
Cameras have been allowed in a Sydney hospital's Covid-19 intensive care unit, showing the struggle of one patient on a ventilator. The 53-year-old Covid patient from NSW is only able to take shallow breaths of air through the ventilator. His medical teams, dressed in full PPE, adjusts his ventilator tubes and monitor his oxygen levels. The patient has given his consent for his images to be published
Hmmmm, Morrison also seems to be arguing that Australia really isn’t as far behind when it comes to vaccinations as everyone think.
He was asked if the Syndey situation could have been avoided if the vaccine rollout was on track.
But very few countries are talking single digits when we’re talking single digits when we’re talking personals. We’re at 9%.
No, no, we’re above 10%... We’re at about 11%. A third of Australians have already received their first dose.
Well over 70% of over 70s. And well over half of those over 50 and we’re scaling-up now to almost a million doses a week.
Prime minister Scott Morrison has also been out and about this morning, seemingly mostly to slam the Victorian government a little more.
Here is what he had to say on the Today show when asked if the Victorian government’s criticism were fair:
No, it wasn’t because during the Victorian lockdown without request the federal government was providing a billion dollars every week.
In the recent lockdown, which thankfully only went for two weeks, Victoria got exactly the same as what NSW got for those two weeks. NSW is going into week four of a lockdown and that means the challenges are escalating.
A man in his 70s from Sydney’s east has died of coronavirus; Queensland keeps border open for now; support package for NSW to include increased payments for people who have lost work. Follow the latest updates live
It’s a little late today, but pleased to keep up Matilda Boseley’s tradition of highlighting the bizarre graphic design choices of the Queensland premier’s social media team.
Today’s special announces 100 new Tafe scholarships. Someone has spent time etching the bloke’s arm in front of the graphic, for some reason.
100 TAFE scholarships valued at up to $5,000 are up for grabs.
The skills TAFE offers can change lives and set people up for stable and rewarding careers. pic.twitter.com/9TOHAsIbuz
Looks like we’re learning about that Covid relief package at 3.30pm.
Just enough time to take a breath, grab a coffee, watch a couple of episodes of he Office and settle in for the announcement.
An international consortium wants to build what would be the world’s biggest renewable energy hub in Australia’s south-west to convert wind and solar power into green fuels like hydrogen.
The group of energy companies announced the proposal over a 15,000 sq km area that could have a 50 gigawatt capacity and cost $100bn.
Residents in Bondi Junction under police guard after eight cases in block, while residents in Maribyrnong building ordered to isolate after an infected removalist worked there
Concerns about the spread of the Delta variant in apartment buildings has prompted a hard lockdown of two residential complexes in Sydney and Melbourne.
An apartment building in Bondi Junction in Sydney’s east remains under police guard after eight cases of Covid-19 were detected across five of the 29 apartments, while residents of an apartment building in Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs, have been ordered to isolate after a removalist with Covid worked there last week.
A new Australian government Covid awareness advertisement featuring a young woman gasping for air in a hospital bed has been criticised for leaning into scare tactics and for urging vaccination among a group who are still not eligible for the recommended vaccine.
The federal government released two ads at the weekend, one featuring the young woman, which also carries a message for people to stay at home and get tested, and the other showing a parade of arms bearing Band-Aids after vaccination with the tagline: “Arm yourself against Covid-19.”