Australia & Pacifics

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The first U.S. flight into Antarctica following months of winter darkness arrived Monday with crews taking extra precautions to keep out the coronavirus.

Antarctica is the only continent without the virus, and there is a global effort to make sure incoming scientists and workers don’t bring it with them.

The U.S. Air Force flight left Monday from the gateway city of Christchurch carrying 106 passengers and crew, said Tony German, the U.S. Antarctic program’s representative in New Zealand.

CANBERRA, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has said there is "genuine cause for hope and optimism" that a coronavirus vaccine will be available in the first half of 2021.

Hunt said on Sunday that he was "quietly becoming more hopeful and more optimistic" about the potential for a vaccine.

His comments came after pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced that stage three trials of a candidate vaccine developed by the University of Oxford have resumed.

SYDNEY (AP) — A senior Australian government minister on Sunday warned foreign journalists working in the country they might come under the scrutiny of federal agencies if they provide a “slanted view” of Australian affairs.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton made the comments during a television interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp., referring to journalists reporting to “a particular community.”

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Large crowds of people rallied in Auckland on Saturday against the government’s social distancing restrictions imposed on the country’s largest city after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus last month.

Local television footage showed tightly packed crowds, with many people not wearing masks, with estimates of the attendance varying in reports between a thousand and a few thousand people.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIAL.SI) said on Thursday it would cut 4,300 positions, or around 20% of its staff, due to the debilitating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on demand in the largest job losses in its history.

The airline said after taking into account a recruitment freeze, natural attrition and voluntary departure schemes, the potential number of staff affected would be reduced to around 2,400 in Singapore and overseas.

(Reuters) - New Zealand’s general election campaign began on Sunday, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern seeks to ride popularity for the nation’s COVID-19 response and compassionate handling of a massacre at two mosques to a revived mandate.

Parliament was dissolved in a brief ceremony, the official start of campaigning for the Oct. 17 election. In August, Ardern delayed the poll by a month as Auckland, with nearly a third of New Zealand’s 5 million people, was in lockdown due to a coronavirus resurgence.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia’s coronavirus hot spot state of Victoria on Sunday extended a hard lockdown in its capital Melbourne until Sept. 28, as the infection rate has declined more slowly than hoped.

“We cannot open up at this time. If we were to we would lose control very quickly,” State Premier Daniel Andrews told a televised media conference on Sunday.

The hard lockdown was ordered on Aug. 2 in response to a second wave of infections, that erupted in Melbourne.

Canberra; 03 Sep 2020 (UMMN):  A week after India's CAA figured in a NSW assembly motion, another Senator spoke about India's human rights record in the Federal Parliament on 3 September 2020.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters gave a speech on 3 Sep 2020 in the Australian parliament about global human rights abuses in which she raised human rights abuses in India, and harsh and discriminatory measures in Kashmir. Her speech can be read via the link below;

WELLINGTON, Sept 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — New Zealand recorded its first coronavirus death in more than three months on Friday when a man in his 50s died due to the virus.

Health officials said the man was part of a second-wave cluster of infections that emerged in Auckland last month, ending a spell of 102 days free of community transmission in the South Pacific nation.

The death at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital on Friday afternoon takes New Zealand’s death count from the virus to 23, with the most recent previous fatality on May 24.

WELLINGTON, Sept 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) – New Zealand confirmed two new cases of COVID-19 today, including one in the community and one imported case in managed isolation.

The community case has been epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster, according to the Ministry of Health.

The case in managed isolation is a woman in her 30’s, who arrived from the Philippines via Hong Kong on Aug 29. She has been in managed isolation at the Distinction Hotel in Christchurch and tested positive around day 3 of her stay, said a ministry statement.