Australia & Pacifics

CANBERRA, Sept 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Vapour from flavoured e-cigarettes can cause lung cells to die, an Australian study has found.

The study, published by the University of Adelaide and the Royal Adelaide Hospital recently, examined the toxicity of three different brands of liquid for e-cigarettes.

It found that even brands that do not contain nicotine can cause otherwise healthy airway epithelial cells to die. The vapour can also prevent the immune system from burying dead cells.

An Indian has been fined for driving scooter with an adult passenger without helmet and an extra child squeezed between the adults.

NSW Police was notified of a scooter rider who was carrying two passengers. Police stopped the driver on Thursday in Wentworth Street, The Ponds, and 67 year old male rider, his 6 year old grandson and his 59 year old wife were questioned by Police.

SYDNEY/BANGKOK (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of students were taking to the streets across Asia and Europe on Friday for a global strike demanding world leaders gathering at a U.N. climate summit adopt urgent measures to avert an environmental catastrophe.

The protests kicked off in the Pacific islands - some of the nations most threatened by rising sea levels - and Australia, where social media posts showed huge demonstrations around the country, from the big coastal cities of Melbourne and Sydney to outback towns such as Alice Springs.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Thousands of protesters gathered Friday at rallies around Australia as a day of worldwide demonstrations calling for action to guard against climate change began ahead a U.N. summit in New York.

Some of the first rallies in what is being billed as a “global climate strike” kicked off in Australia’s largest city, Sydney, and the national capital, Canberra. Australian demonstrators called for their nation, which is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquid natural gas, to take more drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

SYDNEY, Sept 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) – A Jetstar passenger plane, travelling between Australia and Indonesia, was forced to turn back halfway on Wednesday, after the pilot noticed a crack in the cockpit windshield.

The plane was supposed to travel from Sydney to Denpasar Airport in Bali, but was diverted to Melbourne, where the airline’s engineering hub is located.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A British-Australian woman jailed in Iran has been identified as Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a specialist in Middle East politics at the University of Melbourne.

The academic’s family issued a statement through the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade saying they were in close contact with the Australian government, and thanking both the government and Moore-Gilbert’s university for their support.

“We believe that the best chance of securing Kylie’s safe return is through diplomatic channels,” the family said in the statement.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Six months after a gunman killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques, New Zealand’s government is planning further restrictions to gun ownership.

A bill introduced to Parliament on Friday would create a register to track all the guns in the country and require gun owners to renew their gun licenses every five years instead of every 10. It would also place new responsibilities on doctors to notify police if they believe a gun owner shouldn’t have a license due to concerns over the owner’s mental health.

MELBOURNE/LONDON (Reuters) - Three Australian citizens have been detained in Iran, the Australian government said on Wednesday, adding that it was helping the families of the three but gave no further details.

The brief statement from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade came after the British newspaper the Times reported that two British-Australian women and the Australian boyfriend of one of them had been jailed in Iran.

CANBERRA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has blocked access to eight websites hosting violent content from the Christchurch terror attacks.

According to the News Corp Australia on Monday, the latest action came after a unilateral move by Australian internet providers to ban 45 websites hosting the footage and the alleged killer's manifesto after the attack in March.

WELLINGTON, Sept 4 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Chinese embassy in New Zealand confirmed today (Wednesday), that six Chinese tourists died, in a serious bus crash near New Zealand’s Rotorua.

An official from the Chinese embassy in New Zealand told Xinhua that, the passengers on the bus belonged to a tour group from China’s Sichuan province.

The Chinese embassy announced that, it launched an emergency response mechanism. Wu Xi, Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, leading the embassy working group, is heading to the scene.