SYDNEY — The toughening of Covid-19 restrictions in the Australian southeastern city, Greater Sydney, will cause massive financial loss for businesses and individuals in spite of state and federal support, industry groups said. Their comments come in the wake of a major tightening of the Greater Sydney lockdown, as the state, New South Wales, recorded 111 locally acquired cases on July 17, 29 of them in the community while infectious. Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that as of 11.59 PM, non-essential retail would close and all construction would pause until July 30. Workers and businesses in Sydney’s southwest are even more heavily…
Author: zenger.news
CANBERRA, Australia — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged world leaders to produce mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer’s at a historic Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting to discuss recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on July 16 hosted the online Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ retreat, which also involved US President Joe Biden, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is the first time in the regional forum’s history that a special meeting has been held at the leaders’ level and comes at a time when 12 million Australians are in lockdown due to spiraling outbreaks of the Delta…
CANBERRA, Australia — In the southeastern Australian state, New South Wales, Lockdown restrictions have been tightened again for the third time in as many weeks as the Victorian government boasts its “go hard and go early” strategy has been vindicated. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant were repeatedly questioned on July 17 about their handling of the lockdown, dodging suggestions they should have gone harder, sooner. The state reported 111 new community cases of the virus along with the death of a man in his 80s. Some 29 of the new cases were active in the community for all…
HOBART, Australia — Indigenous leaders in Australia’s island state Tasmania are urging the state government to rule out reopening four-wheel drive tracks on culturally significant land in the state’s rugged northwest. A cultural assessment report found a proposal to allow off-road vehicles on three tracks in the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area does not minimize risk to Aboriginal heritage sites. The tracks, which contain middens — thousands of years old stone artifacts — were closed in 2012. The Liberal government pledged to reopen them during the 2014 election campaign and had a legal challenge against the closure dismissed in the Federal Court two…
CANBERRA, Australia — The deputy prime minister of Australia, Barnaby Joyce, has likened agreeing to a policy of net zero emissions by 2050 to going into a restaurant and ordering a meal without knowing what you are getting and how much it will cost. The coalition government has yet to formally agree to a 2050 target but talks about being on a path to one. But Joyce, who recently returned to the leadership of the Nationals party and the role of deputy prime minister, has yet to be convinced. Joyce was asked whether he supports a 2050 emissions target. “Generally how…
CANBERRA, Australia — Increasing violence in Afghanistan has prompted the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial to briefly resume hearings, despite southeastern Australian city Sydney’s citywide lockdown. The Federal Court will sit in person next week to take evidence from four Afghan villagers about their encounters with Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment. Roberts-Smith, a highly decorated former Special Air Service soldier, is suing three newspapers over reports alleging he was involved in war crimes, murders, and bullying during the war in Afghanistan. The villagers are due to give evidence from Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, the court was told on July 19. But fighting between the national government and the Taliban in regional areas…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australians are still in the dark over what rates of vaccinations will be needed for the country to reopen. Some 12 million Australians are under Covid-19 lockdowns and the rest are living with some form of travel restriction. A month ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a four-step plan based on scientific advice and that work remains unfinished. “The work continues to chart that way out and the vaccination rates we will need to achieve over the course of the rest of this year and next year,” Morrison said after the national cabinet met on July 16. The…
MELBOURNE, Australia — In the southeastern Australian state, Victoria’s latest Covid outbreak has spread from the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the heart of the coastal capital of the state, Melbourne, to the furthest parts of the state, even to Mildura, more than 500 kilometers (310.7 miles) away. In his 30s from Mildura, a man tested positive on the weekend after going to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch an Australian Football League game, becoming the southeastern state, New South Wales, border town’s first recorded case of Covid since March 2020. Close contact with him has also tested positive. “There are now 250 exposure sites that…
DOUALA, Cameroon — The vast amounts of plastic waste clogging up Cameroon’s rivers and polluting its pristine sandy beaches had long bothered Ismael Essome, 30, a young graduate from the Institute of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Douala. Essome, who hails from a fishing family in Cameroon’s town of Yabassi in the Littoral Region, decided to take matters into his own hands in 2011. He decided to collect plastic bottles manually, stitched them into boats, and donated them to fishers in the area. “I collected plastic bottles during cleanup exercises in fields, beaches of Kribi, rivers in Douala and Yaoundé,” he told…
KILIFI, Kenya — Banda Charo Mwagezi, a 77-year-old father of six from the Baricho village in Magarini, Kilifi County, on Kenya’s coast, has escaped death twice at the hands of his family members. In 2018 his house was set on fire in the middle of the night as he slept. “I managed to get out of the house on time but failed to escape the hands of my family members baying for my blood,” he told Zenger News. His attackers accused him of practicing witchcraft; an allegation, authorities say, is being leveled at the elderly of the Mijikenda community by their children…