Category Archives: Sydney

NSW and Queensland fires updates: worst of bushfires season ‘still ahead’, says fire chief – live

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Catastrophic fire conditions in New South Wales ease, but dozens of Australian bushfires remain burning. In Queensland, 60 fires are burning, with strong winds and temperatures in mid-30s forecast to make for hazardous conditions on Australia’s east coast

• Factcheck: are greens really stopping bushfire hazard reduction?

• Open thread: tell us how you’re affected by the fires
• Sydney suburb in the pink after surviving bushfire emergency
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland

Residents of Pechey (near Hampton) have been told to leave now, and head towards the New England highway.

“There is a bushfire in Pechey and Hampton and conditions are getting worse,” QFES says. “A fast moving fire is travelling from Grapetree Road towards Deeth Road, Sewell Road, Parker Road, Bush Road and Misty Mountain Road. It is currently impacting Parker Road and Sewell Road. The fire could have on the significant impact on the community.”

LEAVE NOW: Pechey (near Hampton) bushfire as at 1pm Wed 13 Nov: https://t.co/ZLMRe45vEu

Images of Walkers Point, which is also at “leave now”.

Residents at Walkers Point, south of Bundaberg, are being told to evacuate to Woodgate with firefighters battling a large bushfire @abcnews pic.twitter.com/pffLy1elsV

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NSW and Qld fires: 300 new fires across NSW today and a dozen homes damaged – live

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Rural Fire Service says a firefighter has been injured in Sydney as New South Wales faces catastrophic fire conditions across greater Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra/Shoalhaven with strong winds and high temperatures. Dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Queensland and Australia’s east coast

• Catastrophic fire danger: what does it mean?
• Open thread: tell us how you’re affected by the fires
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland

I take that back, the latest update has moved it back up to nine emergency alert level fires:

In the latest update from the RFS, they’ve downgraded six of the fires, meaning there are now four emergency alert level fires.

Those are:

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More than 60 fires threaten NSW and 45 burn in Queensland – as it happened

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More than 575 NSW schools to close as conditions forecast to worsen on Tuesday, while dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Australia’s east coast. This blog is now closed

This is where we’ll leave our rolling coverage today. Guardian Australia will be covering all the developments tomorrow. Here’s what’s happened so far:

ABC Weather has published an explanation of why Tuesday is looking so bad: it’s a cold front.

“Tomorrow with the winds you’ll be seeing a more south-easterly direction,” Grace Legge, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told the ABC.

Why a cold front signals disaster for fire danger https://t.co/NOr4mZ54B3 via @ABCNews pic.twitter.com/3ZrwsfqZeg

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NSW and Queensland fires: Sydney to face catastrophic fire danger for first time

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More than 130 bushfires continue to burn, with three people dead and 150 properties destroyed, and conditions set to worsen

The greater Sydney region will face catastrophic fire danger on Tuesday for the first time since the rating was introduced and fire authorities say conditions in other parts of New South Wales could also be set to worsen.

The warning was issued as more than 80 fires continued to burn in the north of the state late on Sunday.

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CCTV footage key to inquest of Bernard Gore who died trapped in Westfield stairwell

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Tasmanian man’s body was found in a fire stairwell at Bondi Junction shopping centre three weeks after he disappeared

As Bernard Gore’s wife of 50 years waited to meet him in a Sydney shopping centre, she had no idea her husband was trapped nearby in a fire stairwell where he would later die.

Angela Gore, surrounded by her children, cried silently as an inquest heard how her husband’s body was found kneeling forward – as if he’d fallen off a nearby chair – in the stairwell at Westfield Bondi Junction in early 2017.

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Hundreds of koalas feared burned alive in out-of-control bushfire near Port Macquarie

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Blaze around Lake Innes and Lake Cathie in northern NSW has destroyed more than 2,000 hectares and spread smoke haze to Sydney

Hundreds of koalas are feared to have died in an out-of-control bushfire in northern New South Wales which has raged unchecked for days in the heartland of their prime habitat.

The blaze, reportedly caused by a lightning strike near Port Macquarie, has burned more than 2,000 hectares, including an important koala breeding ground.

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Mystery of the doctored documents: Angus Taylor and the climate attack on Sydney’s lord mayor

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Exclusive: story published in Daily Telegraph was based on false figures for travel expenditure purporting to be from council’s annual report

Angus Taylor baselessly accused Sydney’s lord mayor of driving up carbon emissions by spending $15m on travel, a claim that was later backed up with a doctored council document provided to the Daily Telegraph, which reported the figure.

On 30 September, the Telegraph reported on page three that the “City of Sydney Council’s outlay on flights outstrips that of Australia’s foreign ministers”.

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British bishop rebukes Sydney Anglican leader’s call for gay marriage supporters to leave church

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Bishop of Liverpool says he regrets that Archbishop Glenn Davies ‘seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them’

A senior Church of England bishop has expressed regret at comments by the Archbishop of Sydney that supporters of marriage equality should leave the Anglican church.

Reflecting sharp divisions within the global Anglican communion over LGBT+ issues, the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, said: “I regret that the archbishop [of Sydney] seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them within the wider Anglican family.”

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Swooping magpie shot by Sydney council after ‘particularly aggressive’ attacks

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Hills Shire council said it had received 40 complaints over three years about the magpie, and several people had been injured

A local council in Sydney’s north west has said a decision to shoot dead a “particularly aggressive magpie” that had allegedly swooped and injured people for years was “not taken lightly”.

The Hills Shire council had received 40 complaints over the past three years, with confirmed injuries, including people sent to hospital as a result of being swooped by the magpie on Old Windsor Road in Bella Vista.

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Crown Resorts: inquiry to examine whether James Packer’s casino group fit to hold licence

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Former judge also asked to report on whether NSW gambling laws need to be overhauled

A public inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing at casinos run by Crown Resorts will decide whether the James Packer-dominated group is fit to hold a licence in New South Wales and whether the state’s gambling laws need to be overhauled.

Terms of reference, released by the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority on Thursday, show the inquiry, to be headed by former judge Patricia Bergin, will also investigate whether Packer’s decision to sell almost 20% of Crown to Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho breached the gambling group’s licence to build a high-roller casino at Barangaroo in Sydney.

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Sydney lord mayor calls snap Pyrmont planning review an ‘astounding betrayal of trust’

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Clover Moore warns NSW planning rules at stake after Berejiklian says suburb is ‘open for business and ready to be taken to the next level’

The lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has warned that “the entire credibility of the planning system” in New South Wales is at stake after the premier intervened to order a speedy review of planning controls in Pyrmont, where her own planning department has blocked the development of a 62-storey tower on top of Star casino.

The rejection of the Star proposal for the 237 metre tower, in the historic area zoned for eight storeys to the west of the CBD, has bitterly divided the state government and led to a ferocious campaign by Star, aided by the Daily Telegraph and radio talkback host Alan Jones.

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Michaela Dunn identified as victim who died in Sydney stabbing attack

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The family of the 24-year-old woman, whose body was found in a Clarence Street unit after Tuesday’s rampage, asked for privacy

The woman murdered in a vicious knife attack in Sydney has been named as Michaela Dunn.

The 24-year-old was allegedly killed at an apartment on Clarence Street in city’s CBD on Tuesday by Mert Ney, a 20-year-old who police say had a history of mental health issues.

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Sydney stabbing: one woman killed and one injured in ‘terrifying carnage’ in CBD

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Police say 21-year-old suspect from western Sydney was carrying information on extremist ideologies when arrested

A man who allegedly stabbed a woman to death in Sydney’s central business district before attacking others on a busy city street with a butcher’s knife was arrested carrying information about terrorist attacks and extremist ideologies on a USB drive.

But police say the man did not have any known links to terror groups, and that he acted alone. The attacks are not being treated as a terrorist attack, the New South Wales police commissioner, Mick Fuller, said on Tuesday night.

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Sydney’s desalination plant set to expand as drought continues

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NSW government wants to be ready to increase water supply if the drought worsens

The New South Wales government has begun preliminary planning to boost output at Sydney’s desalination plant, in a bid to secure the city’s water supply as dam levels continue to drop.

The Kurnell plant, which can currently supply drinking water for up to 1.5 million people in Sydney, returned to operation in January for the second time since 2012.

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Weather warning: cold snap continues across south-eastern Australia

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Strong and gusty winds to bite parts of New South Wales as frosty temperatures sweep Victoria

Wild weather conditions are predicted to lash parts of New South Wales on Sunday afternoon, with conditions in Victoria expected to remain icy as the state is swept by another cold front.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecast weather conditions in NSW would ease on Sunday morning before picking up again with strong and gusty winds in many areas of the state for the rest of the day.

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Sydney councillor’s verbal abuse over rainbow flag was vilification, court finds

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Julie Passas fined $2,500 after calling Ashfield neighbour’s flag celebrating same-sex marriage Yes vote ‘offensive’

A Sydney local councillor’s behaviour has been found to amount to homosexual vilification after she verbally abused a neighbour for displaying a rainbow flag on the day of the same-sex marriage postal survey result.

Julie Passas, who was the deputy mayor of Inner West council at the time, told neighbour Daniel Comensoli the flag he erected to celebrate the 61% Yes vote was “offensive to my culture and religion” and that he should not be allowed to marry “until you could breastfeed and have children”.

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Australia giving ‘serious consideration’ to US request to help it confront Iran

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Mike Pompeo hails ‘unbreakable’ relationship between Washington and Canberra as he urges Australia to join coalition to protect shipping in the Gulf

Australia’s defence minister Linda Reynolds says the Morrison government is giving “very serious consideration” to a formal request from the Trump administration to join a US-led coalition to protect shipping in the Gulf from Iranian military forces.

Reynolds told journalists on Sunday after annual security talks between the Australian and American foreign affairs and defence ministers that the Morrison government was deeply concerned by the heightened tensions in the region, and strongly condemned the attacks on shipping in the Gulf.

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Jihadist who planned attack on police and carved slogan into cellmate’s head jailed for 34 years

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Bourhan Hraichie planned attack on Bankstown police station and threatened to kill NSW prisons boss

A New South Wales man who carved a terrorist slogan into a cellmate’s forehead and planned an Islamic State-inspired police shooting will spent at least 29 years in jail.

Bourhan Hraichie, 22, pleaded guilty in the NSW supreme court to four offences over his long-running plan to organise a terrorist attack on Bankstown police station, and causing grievous bodily harm to Michael O’Keefe with intent to murder.

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Sydney restaurateur accused of faking murder attempt and starting fire that killed own dog

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Court hears Angelo Ziotas, who has been refused bail, claimed he was stabbed twice and awoke to find property ablaze

A jail term appears “nigh on inevitable” for a restaurant owner accused of stabbing himself in the back, lighting a fire that killed his dog and leading police on a wild goose chase, a Sydney magistrate says.

Police began investigating the alleged attempted murder of Angelo Ziotas after the 37-year-old was rescued from his burning Essenza Italian restaurant in Surry Hills about 11am on 4 July. His 18-month-old kelpie, Lexie, suffocated in the blaze.

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Lunar eclipse 2019: from Australia to the UK, stargazers enjoy bright side of the moon

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Photographers from Sydney to Brasilia capture July’s stunning partial lunar eclipse

Stargazers around the world have enjoyed a view of a global lunar eclipse, delighting people from Dehli to Dublin.

The partial eclipse was visible in nearly every part of the world except for North America and the polar climes of Greenland and northern Russia.

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