Australia & Pacifics

CANBERRA, Sept 19 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Australian government, today, extended funding for coronavirus testing and protocols in high-risk settings.

Health and Aged Care Minister, Mark Butler, said, the federal government would spend an additional 1.4 billion Australian dollars (941 million U.S. dollars) over the next three months, on preventing the spread of COVID-19 in aged and disability care and hospitals.

Federal funding for coronavirus testing and protocols was due to end on Sept 30, but Butler said, the extension would ensure vulnerable Australians remain protected.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister on Monday defended an obscure and longstanding protocol that bars the nation’s parliament from sitting for 15 days following a British monarch’s death.

Lawmakers will reconvene on Sept. 23 to debate a condolence motion for Queen Elizabeth II, the earliest date that the protocol allows, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that her government will not pursue any moves to change the country into a republic following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Ardern said she thought New Zealand will eventually become a republic, and it would probably happen within her lifetime, but that there were more pressing issues for her government.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand removed most of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions Monday as the government signaled a return to normalcy for the first time since the pandemic began.

People will no longer be required to wear masks in supermarkets, stores, busses or planes. The last remaining vaccine mandates — on health care workers — will end. And tourists will no longer need to be vaccinated in order to visit the country.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — At least three people are dead after a powerful earthquake hit a remote part of Papua New Guinea Sunday morning, authorities say. Others were injured and infrastructure damaged in the magnitude 7.6 jolt that was felt across the Pacific country.

The three people died in a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau, said Morobe Provincial Disaster Director Charley Masange. Other people had been injured from falling structures or debris, and there was damage to some health centers, homes, rural roads and highways, Masange told The Associated Press.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Five people died Saturday in New Zealand after the small charter boat they were aboard capsized, authorities say, in what may have been a collision with a whale. Another six people aboard the boat were rescued.

Police said the 8.5-meter (28-foot) boat overturned near the South Island town of Kaikōura. Police said they were continuing to investigate the cause of the accident.

Kaikōura Police Sergeant Matt Boyce described it as a devastating and unprecedented event.

CANBERRA, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- The United States' geopolitics-first approach to the Indo-Pacific ignores the region's complexities and development needs, a scholar has said.

Zenel Garcia, associate professor of national security and strategy at the United States Army War College, made the remarks in an article titled "Why America's Indo-Pacific strategy is flawed," which was published recently on Policy Forum.

SYDNEY, Aug 30 (NNN-AAP) – All three people, on board a light plane, that crashed yesterday, in Australia’s north-eastern state of Queensland, were killed, according to the state police.

The light plane crashed in the bushland near Fernvale, west of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, police authorities said.

“Preliminary information indicates the aircraft departed Dalby at 10.00 a.m. local time (GMT 0000), and was due to land at Archerfield at 2.00 p.m. (GMT 0400). Authorities began searching for the aircraft when it failed to arrive,” the police said in a statement.

SYDNEY, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The Solomon Islands has suspended entry into its waters for foreign navy ships pending adoption of a new process for approval of port visits, the prime minister's office said on Tuesday, in a bid to better police its exclusive economic zones.

The suspension of entry followed incidents last week when a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, the Oliver Henry, and a Royal Navy vessel, HMS Spey, were unable to make port calls because the government did not respond to requests to refuel and provision.

Aug 29 (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck South of Kermadec Islands on Tuesday, German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said.

The quake was at a depth of 84 km, GFZ said.