Australia & Pacifics

WELLINGTON, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The top priority for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders is "achieving widespread access for vaccines globally and working collaboratively to provide them to everyone as soon as possible," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Saturday.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among Pacific Rim leaders gathering virtually to discuss strategies to help economies rebound from a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will chair the special leaders’ meeting Friday of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

SYDNEY, July 14 (Reuters) - Australian authorities extended a lockdown in Sydney on Wednesday by at least 14 days, after three weeks of initial restrictions failed to stamp out the biggest outbreak of COVID-19 this year in the country's largest city.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said restrictions would remain in place until at least July 30 after reporting 97 new locally transmitted cases, a slight increase from a day earlier.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian government officials on Tuesday announced added financial support for businesses and households as Sydney appeared increasingly likely to enter a fourth week of lockdown due to coronavirus clusters.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would announce on Wednesday whether Sydney’s 5 million residents would remain locked down beyond the three-week mark on Friday.

She had said the 24-hour record of 122 new cases recorded on Sunday made lifting the lockdown on Friday “almost impossible.”

CANBERRA, Jul 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Australia’s travel bubble with Singapore has been delayed until the end of 2021.

Dan Tehan, the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, confirmed that the travel bubble, which will allow quarantine-free travel between the two countries for the first time since Mar, 2020, will not open until the end of the year.

The scheme was set to open in Jul or Aug, but has been postponed as a result of Australia’s interrupted vaccine rollout, and the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney.

MELBOURNE, July 11 (Reuters) - Australia reported its first locally contracted COVID-19 death of the year on Sunday and a 2021 record 77 new cases of the virus in the state of New South Wales, which is battling an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.

State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the numbers in and around the country's biggest city Sydney, already under a hard lockdown, are expected to rise.

"I'll be shocked if it's less than 100 this time tomorrow, of additional new cases," Berejiklian told a televised briefing.

MELBOURNE, July 10 (Reuters) - Australia's New South Wales state reported its biggest daily rise in locally acquired coronavirus infections this year on Saturday, with authorities warning that worse may yet to come for Sydney, which is in a three-week hard lockdown.

There were 50 new cases of community transmission in the country's most populous state, up from 44 a day earlier, the previous 2021 record high. This brings the outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant to 489 cases.

Melbourne; 06 July 2021 (UMMN):  An Indian couple in Melbourne face a maximum of 25 years in jail for keeping a slave at their home for eight years when sentencing takes place in the Supreme Court on 21 July 2021.

The couple Kumuthini Kannan, 53, and her husband, Kandasamy Kannan, 57, were found guilty in a recent pre-sentencing hearing, for two counts of possessing a slave and exercising power over a slave.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Sydney’s two-week lockdown has been extended for another week due to the vulnerability of an Australia population largely unvaccinated against COVID-19, officials said on Wednesday.

“The situation we’re in now is largely because we haven’t been able to get the vaccine that we need,” New South Wales state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

The decision to extend the lockdown through July 16 was made on health advice, state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

CANBERRA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Australians under the age of 40 could become eligible for Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccines around September or October, the head of the rollout has revealed.

Lt. Gen. John Frewen, who heads the federal government's COVID-19 vaccination task force, on Tuesday met with federal and state health authorities to "war game" problems with the vaccine program, the early stages of which were plagued by supply issues.