Australia & Pacifics

WELLINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The largest shipment of Pfizer vaccines yet has arrived two days ahead of schedule thanks to a joint effort by the Ministry of Health, Pfizer and logistics company DHL, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Monday.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand has recorded its warmest June since recordkeeping began, as ski fields struggle to open and experts predict shorter southern winters in the future.

A range of factors led to the record, including more winds coming from the milder north rather than the Antarctic south, and unusually warm ocean temperatures, said Gregor Macara, a climate scientist at the government-owned National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

MELBOURNE, July 3 (Reuters) - Australia's New South Wales state recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 infections this year, even as residents in several major cities across the country were released from snap lockdowns on Saturday.

Sydney, the New South Wales state capital and home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million population, has been hit hardest in a flurry of outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant around the country over the past two weeks.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia plans to halve commercial passenger arrivals due to virus risks as parts of the country emerged from lockdowns Friday.

Australia will reduce its cap on arrivals from 6,000 passengers a week to 3,000 by July 14 to reduce pressure on hotel quarantine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said after a meeting with state and territory leaders.

WELLINGTON, Jul 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) – New Zealand launched a new Ministry for Ethnic Communities today, elevating the position of the previous Office of Ethnic Communities, in a move to strengthen ethnic affairs, following the Mar 15 terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques in 2019.

SYDNEY (AP) — China’s government and its supporters have monitored, harassed and intimidated pro-democracy Chinese students living in Australia, and Australian universities have failed to protect the students’ academic freedoms, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia is offering AstraZeneca to all adults in a bid to rapidly ramp up sluggish vaccination rates as more of the country on Tuesday locked down against the spread of COVID-19.

The government late Monday agreed to indemnify doctors who administer the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been blamed for at least two fatalities from a rare blood clot complication in Australia since April.

That exceeds the single death from COVID-19 in Australia this year, and vaccine hesitancy has increased with only 5% of the population fully inoculated.

SUVA, Fiji (AP) — A growing coronavirus outbreak in Fiji is stretching the health system and devastating the economy. It has even prompted the government to offer jobless people tools and cash to become farmers.

The Pacific nation got through the first year of the pandemic without any significant outbreaks and just two virus deaths.

But an outbreak of the highly contagious delta variant two months ago has grown to the point where Fiji is adding about 250 new cases each day.

Sydney, Jun 28 (AP-PTI) Police have fined two men who had to be rescued from an Australian forest after they were startled by a deer while nude sunbathing on a beach and became lost.

The men called for help about 6 pm Sunday after they became lost in the Royal National Park south of Sydney, a police statement said.

Unbelievably, we saw two men sunbaking naked on a beach on the South Coast, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told reporters. They were startled by a deer, ran into the national ... park and got lost."

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.