Australia & Pacifics

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia was battling to contain several COVID-19 clusters around the country on Monday in what some experts have described as the nation’s most dangerous stage of the pandemic since the earliest days.

Sydney in the east and Darwin in the north were locked down on Monday. Perth in the west made masks compulsory for three days and warned a lockdown could follow after a resident tested positive after visiting Sydney more than a week ago.

MELBOURNE, June 27 (Reuters) - Australia urged Samoa's political parties on Saturday to work together to form a government after a top court in the Pacific nation dealt a blow to a prime minister who has refused to accept an election defeat by saying there was no legal reason to delay convening parliament.

The islands' politics descended into chaos after Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Samoa's China-friendly prime minister, refused to give way after losing a parliamentary election in April that would have ended his 22 years in power.

CANBERRA, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Chief Minister of Australia's Northern Territory (NT) Michael Gunner said on Sunday that NT "is now facing its biggest threat" since the COVID-19 crisis began, adding that its capital city Darwin would enter a lockdown for 48 hours.

The full lockdown was effective from local time 1:00 p.m. on Sunday at Darwin, Palmerston and Darwin rural areas, following confirmation of four new COVID-19 positive cases linked to a mine, according to the NT government's statement.

Wellington, Jun 25 (AP-PTI) Parts of Sydney will go into lockdown late Friday as a coronavirus outbreak in Australia's largest city continued to grow.

Health authorities reported an additional 22 locally transmitted cases and imposed a weeklong lockdown in four areas, saying people could leave their homes only for essential purposes.

The outbreak of the highly contagious delta variant was first detected last week, and 65 people have been infected.

CANBERRA, June 21 (Reuters) - A climate change sceptic will be Australia's new deputy prime minister after a leadership revolt in the coalition government's minor party, making it harder for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to achieve a commitment of zero net emissions by 2050.

Australia’s reliance on coal-fired power makes it one of the world’s largest carbon emitters per capita, but its conservative government has steadfastly backed the country's fossil fuel industries, arguing tougher action on emissions would cost jobs.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s suppression of information seen as pivotal to a free and open media is at the center of accusations that the country has become one of the world’s most secretive democracies.

Last week, a former Australian spy was convicted over his unconfirmed role as a whistleblower who revealed an espionage operation against the government of East Timor.

MELBOURNE, June 19 (Reuters) - A Sydney man who posted extremist rhetoric and possessed recipes for explosives has been arrested for allegedly being a member of the Islamic State group, Australian police said on Saturday.

"The man has been charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, namely Islamic State," after a seven-month investigation, the Australian Federal Police and the New South Wales police said in a joint statement.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A former Australian spy was released from court on Friday with a three-month suspended prison sentence over his attempt to help East Timor prove that Australia spied on the fledgling nation during multibillion-dollar oil and gas negotiations.

The former spy, publicly known as Witness K, and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, had been charged in 2018 with conspiring to reveal secret information to the East Timorese government.

Canberra (Australia), Jun 17 (AP-PTI) Australia has raised the age for which the AstraZeneca vaccine is recommended to 60 from 50 after the shot was blamed for a 52-year-old woman's death last week from blood clots in the brain.

Health Minister Greg Hunt described the decision on Thursday as conservative and reflecting the relatively low risk of catching the virus in Australia.

Australians aged between 50 and 59 are now recommended to use the only other vaccine approved in Australia, Pfizer.

SYDNEY, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Locally acquired COVID-19 cases increased in Australia's largest city of Sydney after a man tested positive on Wednesday.

The state of New South Wales, with Sydney as the capital city, recorded two local cases in the 24 hours to 8:00 p.m. local time Wednesday night and one case in returned travellers from 23,145 tests conducted.