Australia & Pacifics

New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) The foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of India, the US, Australia and Japan on Friday held extensive talks in Melbourne amid escalating tension between Russia and NATO countries over Ukraine, the Afghan crisis and increasing concerns over China's "coercion" in the Indo-Pacific region.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Australia's Marise Payn jointly called on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ahead of their talks.

Canberra, Feb 10 (AP) The United States remains focused long-term on the Indo-Pacific region despite concerns over Russian aggression toward the Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.

Blinken is in the Australian city of Melbourne for a meeting on Friday with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan.

The four nations form the so-called Quad, a bloc of Indo-Pacific democracies that was created to counter China's regional influence.

SYDNEY, Feb 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Police in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), seized 220 kilograms of drug and 1.1 million Australian dollars (about 0.8 million U.S. dollars) in cash, in a drug investigation, unveiled today.

Officers were called to a property in Canterbury, in south-west Sydney, on July 9 last year, after a plumber, who was fixing a leaking toilet pipe found bags of cash and crystal substance in an open cupboard.

The unit was then declared a crime scene and a locked garage under the complex was searched.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The foreign ministers of Australia and Lithuania agreed Wednesday to step up cooperation on strategic challenges, in particular pressures from China.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne met Wednesday at Parliament House.

Australian exporters have lost tens of billions of dollars to official and unofficial Chinese trade barriers covering coal, wine, beef, crayfish and barley that have coincided with deteriorating relations with Beijing.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and key allies are “voting with their feet” by flying to Australia to focus on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, Australia’s foreign minister said Wednesday, as fears rise of a Russian invasion of Ukraine on the other side of the globe.

Blinken landed in the Australian city of Melbourne on Wednesday ahead of a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne as well as their Indian and Japanese counterparts who form the so-called “Quad.”

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Entrepreneur Elon Musk is helping reconnect Tonga to the internet after a volcanic eruption and tsunami cut off the South Pacific nation more than three weeks ago, according to officials, while repairs on an undersea cable are proving more difficult than first thought.

The tsunami severed the sole fiber-optic cable that connects Tonga to the rest of the world and most people remain without reliable connections.

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The COVID-19 cases in three of Australia’s worst-hit states have dropped, easing restrictions today, according to official data.

The state of New South Wales (NSW) recorded 7,437 cases and 14 deaths today, the third consecutive day NSW has reported fewer than 10,000 cases.

Hospitalisations in NSW cases, also plummeted to 2,099, while ICU admissions dropped to 137.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia will open its borders to all vaccinated tourists and business travelers from Feb. 21 in a further relaxation of pandemic restrictions announced Monday.

Australia imposed some of the world’s toughest travel restrictions on its citizens and permanent residents in March 2020 to prevent them from bringing COVID-19 home.

Feb 6 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urged New Zealanders on Sunday to unite in their battle against COVID-19, as the pandemic forced the country to celebrate its national Waitangi Day online.

A growing outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has pushed all commemorations online, prompting Ardern to urge vaccinations.

"We all have a duty to do everything we can to protect our communities with all the tools that science and medicine have given us," Ardern said in a pre-recorded speech.

Feb 5 (Reuters) - Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce apologised on Saturday to Prime Minister Scott Morrison for calling him "a hypocrite and a liar" and said that Morrison had rejected his offer to resign.

Morrison said in a statement that he accepted Joyce's apology.

In a leaked message the deputy prime minister, who heads the junior partner in Morrison's coalition government, said last year that he had never trusted Morrison.