MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australians were celebrating Easter Sunday in a relatively unrestricted manner as the country reported no new locally acquired coronavirus cases. Queensland, the epicentre of a recent, small COVID-19 community outbreak, has had only one infection in the past three days. The state has the tightest restrictions on public gatherings. Elsewhere, Australians flocked […]
Jem Jenkins Jones was stuck at home in Wales for much of the past year amid pandemic lockdowns but managed to fulfill a promise to her 10-year-old daughter to see the northern lights from Iceland and South Africa’s game reserves — in virtual reality. “She was amazed,” she said, calling the VR travel experiences “a […]
By Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australians hit by devastating floodwaters began returning to their homes on Thursday as skies cleared and authorities accelerated clean-up efforts, though fresh evacuation orders were issued in some areas where water levels were still rising. Relentless rains for five straight days – the worst downpour in more than half a […]
By Renju Jose and Jonathan Barrett SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian authorities issued fresh flood evacuation orders for parts of the east coast on Wednesday, and warned that water levels would keep rising in some areas, even as Sydney woke up to clear skies for the first time in several days. Wild weather systems have drenched […]
By Jonathan Barrett and Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian authorities issued fresh flood warnings and evacuation orders on Tuesday as torrential rains again pummelled several parts of the country, sweeping away homes, roads and livestock in the worst downpour in more than half a century. The national weather agency has posted severe weather warnings […]
Leaked videos of staff from Australia’s conservative government performing sex acts in parliament, including one man masturbating over a female MP’s desk, left Scott Morrison’s administration facing yet another sex scandal Tuesday. The prime minister — already under pressure for his handling of allegations including that a female government adviser was raped by a colleague […]
Children who are 10 and younger produce more antibodies in response to coronavirus infection than adolescents and adults, a study showed Monday. The authors of the paper, which appeared in JAMA Network Open, said the finding helped illuminate why children are less susceptible to severe Covid-19 than adults — though this is still an area […]
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin praised India’s growing ties with “like-minded partners” as he held talks in New Delhi Saturday dominated by shared alarm about China. India is a vital US partner in the Asia-Pacific region as Washington seeks to take on Beijing, and Austin’s two-day trip is New Delhi’s first face-to-face meeting with President Joe […]
China could invade Taiwan within the next six years, as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander said Tuesday. Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed […]
A powerful magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck Friday in the ocean off New Zealand, prompting thousands of people to evacuate and triggering tsunami warnings across the South Pacific. The quake was the largest in a series of tremors that hit the region over several hours, including two earlier quakes that registered magnitude 7.4 and magnitude 7.3. […]
Australia’s scandal-hit government on Thursday apologized for calling an alleged rape victim a “lying cow,” sparking fresh claims of a “toxic” culture in the country’s corridors of power. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Defense Minister Linda Reynolds “deeply regretted” the slur against her former staffer Brittany Higgins, who last month came forward with claims of […]
When Facebook disabled Australians’ access to news articles on its platform, and blocked sharing of articles from Australian news organizations, the company moved a step closer to killing the World Wide Web – the hyperlink-based system of freely connecting online sites created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Though the social media giant has said […]
By Colin Packham CANBERRA (Reuters) – Facebook Inc is back at the negotiating table, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday after the tech giant this week blocked news on its site in the country. Facebook’s abrupt decision to stop Australians from sharing news on the site and strip the pages of domestic and […]
Facebook said Wednesday it would block news content sharing in Australia, refusing to bend to a regulatory push that would force the social giant to share revenue with media outlets. The dramatic move by Facebook comes with Australia poised to adopt legislation that would force digital platforms to pay for news content. Facebook’s move contrasted […]
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada on Monday launched a 58-nation initiative to stop countries from detaining foreign citizens for diplomatic leverage, a practice that Ottawa and Washington say China and others are using. Foreign ministers signed a non-binding declaration to denounce what Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau called unacceptable behavior. “Taking people from […]
A man pried a crocodile’s jaws from his head to survive an attack in northern Australia on Thursday, afterwards insisting he will soon return to the swimming spot, according to paramedics. Local officials said the 44-year-old was swimming at Lake Placid, near the tourist hotspot of Cairns, when he was bitten by the reptile. “He […]
Out upon the briny deep where the wild and wet winds blow, There sailed a cruel and evil man, the pirate Dirty Joe. He sailed upon the scummiest craft that ever left the docks He roamed the world and seven seas in search of dirty socks He wore a scratchy, scraggly beard, he had but […]
A French court will on Monday hear a case against more than a dozen multinationals, accused by a French-Vietnamese woman of causing grievous harm to her and others by selling the Agent Orange defoliant to the US government which used it to devastating effect in the Vietnam War. Tran To Nga, born in 1942 in […]
Archaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest known cave painting: a life-sized picture of a wild pig that was made at least 45,500 years ago in Indonesia. The finding described in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday provides the earliest evidence of human settlement of the region. Co-author Maxime Aubert of Australia’s Griffith University told AFP […]
Sydney was like a ghost town as the clock ticked over from 2020 to 2021. The fireworks were smaller than previous years, limited to the Sydney Harbour Bridge for just seven minutes and aimed at a global TV audience. Wire fences blocked entry to the foreshore and police stopped anybody from heading towards vantage points […]
In 2020, the FRANCE 24 Observers team verified hundreds of false or misleading images that were sent to us by social media users or found by our staff. Here is a look back at some of the videos and photos – misleading, taken out of context or downright fake – that we debunked in the […]
There was a lower-than-average number of wildfires in 2020 despite hotspots such as California and Australia being hit by blazes of unprecedented intensity, the European Union’s satellite monitoring service said Monday. A year of data collected by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) showed that carbon emissions from fires were set to be lower than […]
The threat of far-right terrorism has loomed large in Australia this week. An 18-year-old from NSW has been arrested on charges of advocating terrorism and inciting others to violence. According to police, he had not only been sharing white supremacist and neo-Nazi views online, but had expressed support for being involved in a “mass casualty” […]
The leader of the free world owns a winery outside of Charlottesville, Virginia — even though he does not drink. Whatever motivates his appreciation for vino, however, it is apparently on his mind during the final days of his administration. While the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis have largely been ignored as Trump pushes his […]
Australia demanded an apology after a senior Chinese official posted a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a knife with blood on it to the throat of an Afghan child, calling it “truly repugnant” and demanding it be taken down. Prime Minister Scott Morrison called a media briefing to condemn the posting of the […]
Sydney recorded its hottest November night as Australia’s largest city suffered through a weekend heatwave that saw daytime temperatures peak above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). The overnight temperature did not drop below 25.3 degrees Celsius Saturday into Sunday in central Sydney, according to the meteorology bureau, making it the hottest November night since […]
Temperatures topped 40 degrees in parts of Australia on Saturday as a heatwave hit the country’s east.In the late morning, temperatures reached 42 degrees through the inland in the states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria as well as in South Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).In New South Wales, parts of […]
A man has died after being bitten by a shark at a beach popular with tourists on Australia’s northwest coast. The man’s death marks the eighth fatal shark attack in Australian waters this year. On Sunday, police were called to a Cable Beach in the morning after reports of the attack — when the man […]
US President-elect Joe Biden rang round allies in Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo Thursday, vowing to repair frayed partnerships and reaffirming mutual-defence pacts thrown in doubt by the current White House. A day after Biden’s series of “America is back” calls with European leaders, the former vice president spoke to Australia’s Scott Morrison, South Korea’s Moon […]
A petition demanding an inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’s dominance of Australian news media has garnered a record 420,000 signatures, overtaking a previous appeal focused on climate change. The online petition was launched on October 12 by former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd, a frequent target of newspapers controlled by Murdoch’s News Corp. By Friday, the […]