Australia & Pacifics

CANBERRA, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Australia's third most populous state said on Saturday it may order a snap lockdown after a cluster of COVID-19 cases, as the country posted a record one-day rise in daily infections.

Queensland state, home to more than 5 million people, said it had detected five new infections in the past 24 hours after a family tested positive. The next few days would be critical to see if a lockdown was warranted, authorities said.

WELLINGTON, Sept 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Retail card spending in New Zealand fell 19.8 percent in Aug, as the country went into lockdown in the second half of the month, the statistics department Stats NZ said today.

This latest drop in monthly seasonally adjusted card spending was less than half the drop seen in Apr, 2020, (down 47.3 percent), when the country was in lockdown for almost the entire month, Stats NZ said.

SYDNEY, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), the epicenter of the country's current outbreak, unveiled on Thursday a "roadmap to freedom" out of the prolonged lockdown that has been imposed on much of the state as it has battled to contain an escalating outbreak of COVID-19.

Speaking at her daily press conference in the state capital city of Sydney on Thursday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the newfound freedoms would be contingent on 70 percent of people aged 16 and older receiving their two doses of vaccine.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s government confirmed Thursday that it refused to allow climate change goals to be written into a proposed free trade deal with Britain, as pressure mounts on it to make more ambitious commitments to cut carbon emissions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the trade deal under negotiation with Britain was not the document to include U.N. goals to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The southern winter that just ended in New Zealand was the warmest ever recorded, and scientists say that climate change is driving temperatures ever higher.

For the three months through August, the average temperature was 9.8 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit), according to New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

That’s 1.3C above the long-term average and 0.2C higher than the previous record posted last year. Scientists have been keeping records since 1909, but most of the warmest winters have been recent.

Sept 5 (Reuters) - Australia's government should increase its efforts to phase out coal or else climate change will dramatically damage the country's economy, Selwin Hart, the United Nations special adviser on climate change, said on Sunday.

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 fossil fuel industries, saying tougher action on emissions would cost jobs.

WELLINGTON/COLOMBO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - New Zealand had tried for years to deport the knife-wielding militant who wounded seven people at a mall in Auckland last week, the government said after it released more details on the attacker following the lifting of a court suppression order.

Court documents made public on Sunday identified the attacker as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, 32, an ethnic Tamil Muslim from Sri Lanka. He had arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago on a student visa seeking refugee status, which was granted in 2013.

CANBERRA, Sept 4 (NNN-XINHUA) – Thousands of individuals have signed a petition asking the Australian government to introduce or import COVID-19 vaccines made in China.

The petition, launched last week on the website of the Parliament of Australia, garnered nearly 8,000 signatures, as of this morning.

The campaign was initiated due to “the serious COVID-19 pandemic situation in Australia,” as well as, the shortage of vaccines in the country, the petition read.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand authorities imprisoned a man inspired by the Islamic State group for three years after catching him with a hunting knife and extremist videos — but at a certain point, despite grave fears he would attack others, they say they could do nothing more to keep him behind bars.

SYDNEY, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Australia will receive an additional 4 million doses of Pfizer's (PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine this month after agreeing a swap deal with Britain, to help accelerate its vaccination programme amid a record surge in infections.

The deal, announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday, will double the availability of Pfizer vaccines this month, with the first shipment of vaccines from Britain expected to arrive over the weekend.