Category Archives: Australia news

Coronavirus live news: pandemic is accelerating, says WHO chief

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Brazil passes 1 million infections; Australia struggles with new cases; Greta Thunberg says similar urgency needed for climate change as for Covid-19

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday hailed “hero” doctors who died during the coronavirus epidemic, comparing them to battlefield medics from past wars.

Putin, who spoke ahead of next month’s controversial vote that is expected to extend his hold on power until 2036, also promised awards and more bonuses for health personnel.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Saturday that Turkey had lost some ground in its battle with the coronavirus but a focus on hygiene, masks and social distancing will protect people and help the economy rebound in the second half of the year.

This month, Ankara opened restaurants and cafes and lifted weekend stay-at-home orders and most intercity travel bans. But since 1 June, new Covid-19 cases have doubled to nearly 1,600 per day, raising concerns of a re-emergence.

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Australia’s Covid-19 restrictions and coronavirus lockdown rules explained: how far can I travel, and can I have people over?

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How far can you drive and what are the travel restrictions in NSW, Queensland and Victoria? How many people can you have over at your house in Tasmania, ACT, SA, WA or NT? Untangle Australia’s Covid-19 laws and guidelines with our guide

Australians have been slowly emerging from Covid-19 lockdowns since the federal government announced a three-stage plan in May to ease restrictions across the country.

It is up to each state and territory to decide when and how far they will relax restrictions.

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Can Australia resolve its trade tensions with China? – Australian politics live podcast

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This week Katharine Murphy talks with the Australian trade, tourism and investment minister, Simon Birmingham. They discuss the challenges of economic recovery after the bushfires and coronavirus, and address the escalating trade actions from China. Will Birmingham appease an angered Beijing and reverse China’s tariffs? Or will the relationship see a continued decline in civility?

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Australia coronavirus update: major cyber attack under way as Victoria records 12 new Covid-19 cases – live news

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A sophisticated state-based actor is targeting all levels of government and companies in a range of sectors, PM reveals. Follow live

Also, the Five Eyes finance ministers met. Given what their operatives do, a meeting seems superfluous, but ok.

Today Australia hosted a call with the Finance Ministers of the “Five Eyes” nations – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.

It was the first of what will be regular calls among the countries to discuss the economic issues associated with COVID-19.

I guess when you don’t have the Global Times, you have to be a little more overt in your silent diplomacy.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil surpasses one million cases

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Country hits grisly milestone as WHO says pandemic is entering ‘new and dangerous phase’

In Australia, authorities are watching the rise in coronavirus cases in Victoria closely as the state prepares to further ease restrictions from Monday.

Gyms, cinemas, indoor sports centres and concert venues are scheduled to reopen on Monday while cafes, restaurants and pubs will increase capacity from 20 people to 50.

Brazil has passed a total of more than one million coronavirus cases, and nearly 50,000 deaths, according to its health ministry data, in a new low for the world’s second worst-hit country.

Brazil has recorded 1,032,913 confirmed cases, second only to the United States, with 1,206 new deaths reported on Friday to take the total official fatalities to 48,954, the ministry said.

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Australia is under cyber-attack from ‘state-based actor’, Scott Morrison says

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Australian prime minister says widespread assault on political and private sector organisations has been going on for months but is increasing in frequency and scale

A wide range of political and private sector organisations in Australia have come under cyber-attack carried out by a “sophisticated state-based cyber actor”, the Australian government has revealed.

Scott Morrison disclosed the far-reaching attacks at a media conference in Canberra on Friday, while his defence minister declared that malicious cyber activity was “increasing in frequency, scale, in sophistication and in its impact”.

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Coronavirus Australia update: Northern Territory to reopen borders in July as Victoria records 18 new Covid-19 cases – question time live

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Michael Gunner declared the NT Covid-free and will prepare to allow domestic travel; person who attended Melbourne Black Lives Matter protest among new Vic cases. Follow live

That leads to this exchange:

Tony Smith: The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister needs to withdraw that imputation.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Under this Prime Minister, Australia has entered its first recession in three decades. Australia now has an effective unemployment rate of 11.3%. How many unemployed Australians don’t have a job because the Prime Minister deliberately excluded them from JobKeeper?

No-one in this country is unemployed because of the Government’s responses.

People are unemployed in this country, people have been reduced to zero hours which is the same thing, people have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic!

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Coronavirus live news: New Zealand reports another new case as Brazil nears 1m infections

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Deaths worldwide near 500,000; US health expert says country is ‘still in first wave’; Argentinian president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge. Follow the latest updates

The hospitalisation of Honduras president with Covid-19 and pneumonia Wednesday has drawn attention to another country struggling under the pandemics strain as cases rise sharply in the capital, AP reports.

President Juan Orlando Hernández announced late Tuesday that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. Just hours later he was hospitalised after doctors determined he had pneumonia.

From March to 7 June, Honduras confirmed 6,327 coronavirus infections. In the 10 days since, it added 3,329 more, a surge that has come after the government began a gradual reactivation of the economy.

The full story on Australia’s unemployment rate now:

Australia lost a further 227,000 jobs between April and May, resulting in a total loss of 835,000 jobs in seasonally adjusted terms since March and a 0.7% jump in unemployment to 7.1%.

Related: Australia loses 227,000 more jobs, taking unemployment to 7.1%

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Tashi: 25 years on and more than 1 million copies sold but still an ‘enchanted’ delight

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Author Anna Fienberg tells the stories behind her bestselling children’s books, from her mother’s working-class childhood to the character’s origin story

People roll their eyes when Anna Fienberg starts a story with: “Well, it was like this.” The phrase has become unmistakable to readers of her Tashi series for children – a device preceding the telling of an adventure story – and Fienberg can’t help but use it when she’s asked how she came to write, with her mother Barbara, about a magical boy who flees on a swan from his home country to Australia.

“Well, it was like this,” Fienberg says, as she tells Guardian Australia of how only recently, 25 years after the stories were first published, she learned of Tashi’s true origins.

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Papua New Guinea chiefs call for halt to plan for country’s largest ever mine

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Locals say the Sepik river region must be protected from ‘exploitation and destruction from outsiders’

Chiefs from 28 haus tambarans – “spirit houses” – representing 78,000 people along Papua New Guinea’s remote Sepik river have formally declared they want a proposal for the country’s largest ever mine halted.

PanAust, an Australian-registered miner ultimately owned by the Chinese state-owned Guangdong Rising Assets Management, has proposed building a gold, silver and copper mine on the Frieda river, a tributary to the Sepik.

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Coronavirus live news: New Zealand to trace 320 ‘close contacts’ of virus pair who stopped to meet friends

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Beijing raises alert level and grounds hundreds of flights; India’s official death toll leaps by more than 2,000 to reach 11,903; Brazil suffers record case increase

Around 11,000 mink at a farm in Denmark will have to be culled after they were found to be infected with the coronavirus, the country’s authorities have said.

The outbreak is the first in Denmark, the world’s biggest producer of mink skins, but comes shortly after the virus was found at 13 mink farms in the Netherlands, where about 570,000 mink have been ordered culled.

If you’re planning to meet Vladimir Putin in the next few weeks, be warned: you will have to pass through a special disinfectant tunnel to get to the Russian president.

Putin’s official spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed a report by Russian state television that three airport-style tunnels have been built for the president: one at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, where he has reputedly being doing much of his work during the pandemic, and two at the Kremlin.

В резиденции Путина для защиты от коронавируса установили специальный туннель. Он предназначен для дезинфекцииhttps://t.co/jjwWbuZ2EX pic.twitter.com/h62KWARvsr

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China hits back at Australia’s ‘rubbish’ accusations of spreading disinformation

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Chinese embassy in Canberra accuses Australian media of ‘rumours, lies and malicious slanders against China’ that has been picked up by politicians

China has hit back at “baseless accusations” that are “completely rubbish” after Australia accused Beijing of spreading disinformation during the pandemic.

At a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian accused Australian officials of undermining international efforts to combat the virus.

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UK begins talks with Australia and New Zealand on free trade deal for post-Brexit era

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Australian and New Zealand ministers say they are eager to do deals with the UK as their economies emerge from the coronavirus crisis

Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.

Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.

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Australian politics live: consular officials talk to Karm Gilespie, Australian man facing death penalty in China – latest updates

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Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne says Australian authorities visited the detention centre where the 53-year-old is being held. Follow live

Julian Hill is looking at the government’s spend on consultants (an evergreen sentence, no matter what political party is in government)

New analysis by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found that the big four consultancy firms – Deloitte, Ernest&Young, KPMG and PwC – now collectively reap $800m a year in government contracts.

But only 20% of that figure is spent on actual consultancy contracts, meaning the Morrison government is paying top dollar to large consultancy firms to work as contractors doing the day-to-day work of public servants.

The Australia Institute has begun a new campaign to have truth in advertising part of Australia’s political advertising.

An open letter coordinated by the Australia Institute and signed by 29 prominent Australians calls for parliament to pass truth-in-political advertising laws that are nationally consistent, constitutional and uphold freedom of speech.

Signatories to the open letter include former political party leaders and politicians, Dr John Hewson, Cheryl Kernot and Michael Beahan; former supreme court judges, the Hon Anthony Whealy QC, the Hon Paul Stein AM QC and the Hon David Harper AM QC, as well as barristers, community leaders, business people and other prominent Australians.

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Robodebt’s financial cost to soar as judge suggests government will have to pay interest

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Class action lawyers raise prospect of misfeasance claim against ministers

The robodebt debacle’s financial cost looks set to grow after a judge suggested it was likely the federal government would have to pay interest on unlawful debts issued to hundreds of thousands welfare recipients over nearly five years.

And in an escalation of the class action brought by Gordon Legal, lawyers for the firm raised the prospect of a misfeasance in public office claim that could force ministers to front court over the saga.

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Coronavirus live news: Beijing locks down 10 residential compounds amid new outbreak

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WHO warns UK not to lift lockdown; Iran deaths top 100 for first time in two months; cases worldwide near 7.9m. Follow the latest updates

The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections has passed 25,000 in Afghanistan while a key testing laboratory paused work due to lack of kits.

The health ministry has detected 761 new cases from 1,551 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 25,527.

Norway will halt its Covid-19 track and trace app, and delete all data collected so far, after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority.

The app was introduced by some Norwegian authorities to limit the transmission of the coronavirus.

We don’t agree with the DPA’s evaulation, but feel it is necessary to delete all data and put work on hold as a result of this.

We will as a result weaken an important part of our preparedness against a spread in infection, as we now lose time for development and testing of the app.

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Ruby Princess would have been assessed as medium Covid-19 risk, health official tells inquiry

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Ship was considered low risk as updated status preventing passengers from disembarking was not reflected on assessment form

A New South Wales public health official thinks he would have assessed the Ruby Princess as being a medium Covid-19 risk ahead of the ill-fated cruise ship’s arrival in Sydney, had he considered a guideline change during his assessment.

The ship was instead given a low-risk rating, with passengers allowed to disembark and disperse before testing revealed there had been Covid-19 cases on board.

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Facebook blocks and bans users for sharing Guardian article showing Aboriginal men in chains

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Social media site incorrectly removed historical photo on grounds of nudity, then for three days blocked and even banned users who posted link to article

Facebook has blocked and in some cases banned users who tried to share a Guardian article about the site incorrectly blocking an image of Aboriginal men in chains.

On Saturday, Guardian Australia reported that Facebook had apologised for incorrectly preventing an Australian user from sharing the photo from the 1890s.

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Karm Gilespie: Australian actor sentenced to death in China was set up, say friends

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Friends say the actor turned financial investor, who was sentenced to death for drug smuggling, had been duped into carrying drugs

An Australian actor turned financial investor has been sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling, with friends claiming he has been set up.

Karm Gilespie, 56, was sentenced to death in the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on Saturday and has just 10 days to appeal the verdict.

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Julian Assange indictment fails to mention WikiLeaks video that exposed US ‘war crimes’ in Iraq

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‘Shameful’ Collateral Murder footage shows Apache helicopter mowing down 11 civilians – including two Reuters journalists – in Baghdad

US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is remanded and in ill health in London’s Belmarsh prison while the US tries to extradite him to face 18 charges – 17 under its Espionage Act – for conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified information.

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