Australia

SYDNEY, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from multiple Pacific island countries are calling upon the Japanese government to immediately stop its plans for dumping nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean, a news agency of the International Press Syndicate Group has reported.

Papua New Guinea's Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources Jelta Wong said that there is little doubt that the nuclear wastewater will find its way into ecosystems and food chains to contaminate people and harm Pacific fisheries industries, according to a report published by InDepthNews on Monday.

CANBERRA, Mar 3 (NNN-AAP) – Australia’s Agriculture Minister, has flagged an end to the country’s live sheep exports by sea.

Murray Watt, today appointed an independent panel to lead a six-month consultation process, on the steps to the shutdown.

“Phasing out live sheep exports by sea is a complex issue that will impact farmers, businesses, our trading partners, and the communities that participate in the trade,” he said.

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Australian police in the northeast city of Cairns charged Indian national Rajwinder Singh with murder Thursday, two years after Australia first applied for his extradition from India.

Singh, 38, has denied killing Toyah Cordingley, 24, as she walked her dog along Wangetti Beach north of Cairns in October 2018.

CANBERRA, Feb 27 (NNN-AAP) – The Australian government has announced an overhaul of its cyber security strategy, following a string of major data breaches.

Clare O’Neil, the Minister for Home Affairs, revealed the renewed strategy today, saying, the 2022 Optus and Medibank hacks exposed flaws in cyber laws.

A new national coordinator for cyber security will be appointed by the government, within the Department of Home Affairs, to lead the implementation of the strategy, with the government given more powers to intervene, following breaches.

SYDNEY, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Sydney Airport on Tuesday released a monthly report on its traffic performance, saying that a total of 3,120,000 passengers passed through the airport in January, which marked a 78.8 percent recovery compared to the pre-COVID-19 level.

According to the report, domestic passenger traffic totaled 1,887,000, representing an 82.4 percent recovery compared to January 2019, while 1,233,000 international travelers passed through the airport, registering a 73.9 percent recovery.

SYDNEY, Feb 19 (NNN-AAP) – Severe thunderstorms rolled into Australia’s most populated city, Sydney, yesterday afternoon, bringing about damaging lightning and gusts that disrupted the daily life of local residents.

From 11:00 a.m. local time, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) began updating severe thunderstorm warnings, roughly every 20 minutes, alerting people to the fast-moving storm cells, that could cause damaging winds, large hail and heavy rainfall.

SYDNEY (AP) — Quentin Delapierre steered the French team to three straight wins in gusty, shifting winds Saturday to take a six-point lead over Jimmy Spithill’s U.S. team before the weather conditions deteriorated on Day 1 of the Australia Sail Grand Prix.

CANBERRA, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- An emergency warning has been issued and a school was evacuated over a bushfire burning in South Australia (SA) on Thursday, local official said.

The Country Fire Service (CFS) on Thursday afternoon declared a grass fire near the city of Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula poses a threat to lives and homes.

People in the area have been urged to take shelter immediately in a solid building and a primary school has been evacuated.

"It is too late to leave as the roads will not be safe," the emergency message said.

CANBERRA, Feb 13 (NNN-AAP) – Australian immigration minister, Andrew Giles, announced today that, the government is delivering on its election commitment, to providing a permanent visa pathway, for some temporary visa holders.

Giles fulfilled the Labour government’s election pledge, inviting about 19,000 refugees on two kinds of temporary visas, who arrived in Australia by boat before 2013, to apply for permanent residency.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Fifteen years after the Australian Parliament’s historic apology to its Indigenous people for past wrongs, the government on Monday announced 424 million Australian dollars ($293 million) in new funding to improve the lives of Australia’s original inhabitants.

In 2008, a newly elected center-left Labor Party government apologized to the Indigenous population for “laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.”