Australia & Pacifics

WELLINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's first batch of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is set to arrive in New Zealand next week subject to transportation plans and quality temperature control, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday.

"We have been working behind the scenes to secure the timely arrival of vaccines for our border workers and their families and it's great they will arrive well within our scheduled timeframes," Ardern told a press conference.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, will begin its third lockdown on Friday due to a rapidly spreading COVID-19 cluster centered on hotel quarantine.

The five-day lockdown will be enforced across Victoria state to prevent the virus spreading from the state capital, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said.

The Australian Open tennis tournament will be allowed to continue but without spectators, he said.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to attempting to broker weapons and commodities deals with North Korea, contravening United Nations sanctions.

Chan Han Choi, 62, was in 2017 charged with seven offences including allegations he sought to help provide North Korea with weapon sales.

Choi had previously denied all charges. But on Wednesday he pleaded guilty to two charges including brokering a service for the sale of arms and related materiel from Pyongyang and attempting to export coal from North Korea to Indonesia.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court on Wednesday upheld a law that can keep extremists in prison after they have served their sentences.

Five of the seven High Court judges dismissed a constitutional challenge by convicted terrorist Abdul Benbrika who remains in a Victoria state prison despite his 15-year sentence expiring in November last year.

The 60-year-old Muslim cleric is the first to be incarcerated by a so-called continuing detention order based on an anti-terror law created in 2017.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian journalist who has been detained for nearly six months in China where she worked for a state-television channel has been formally arrested on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas, the two countries said on Monday.

The announcement came as the family of Cheng Lei, 49, pleaded with authorities to grant the former high-profile news anchor access to her two school-age children.

SYDNEY, February 5. /TASS/: The effectiveness of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus looks very promising, and modifying the medication if the virus mutates should not be complicated. This opinion was voiced to a TASS correspondent by Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine, Australian virologist Peter Charles Doherty.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian prime minister said he had a “constructive” meeting on Thursday with the head of Google after the tech giant threatened to remove its search engine from Australia over plans to make digital platforms pay for news.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also welcomed the support of Google rival Microsoft, which has touted Australia’s proposed laws that would make Google and Facebook pay as an example for the rest of the world.

Wellington, Feb 3 (AP-PTI) New Zealand's medical regulator has approved its first coronavirus vaccine, and officials hope to begin giving shots to border workers by the end of March.

New Zealand has no community transmission of the virus, and border workers are considered the most vulnerable to catching and spreading the disease because they deal with arriving travellers, some of whom are infected.

SYDNEY, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The bushfire at east of Perth, capital of the state of Western Australia (WA), destroyed more than 70 homes but there was no evidence of any life loss so far, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Although an approaching cyclone might bring heavy rain to Perth, the relief was believed to be still days away and the adverse conditions were expected to worsen before that and might threaten more homes and lives.

PERTH, Australia (AP) — An out-of-control wildfire burning northeast of the Australian west coast city of Perth has destroyed an estimated 30 homes and was threatening more Tuesday, with many locals across the region told it is too late to leave.

The 7,000-hectare (17,000-acre) blaze, which has a 75-kilometer (47-mile) perimeter, began on Monday and raged through the night near the town of Wooroloo, with the shires of Mundaring, Chittering, Northam, and the city of Swan impacted.

Swan Mayor Kevin Bailey said more than 30 homes are believed to have been destroyed.