International

* UK PM Johnson hails ‘new dawn’ in Anglo-Australian relations * Deal cuts all tariffs on UK goods imports into Australia * UK says deal protects British farmers * Agreement likely to yield small boost to UK economy Britain and Australia announced a trade deal on Tuesday that will eliminate tariffs and red tape, hailed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as ‘a new dawn’ in the two countries' relations. The British government sees the deal as an important piece of its post-Brexit trade and diplomatic strategy to shift the country's economic centre away from Europe and seek out new opportunities in higher-growth Indo-Pacific nations. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Johnson overcame sticking points during talks after the Group of Seven meeting in Britain over the weekend, which Morrison attended as a guest. ‘Today marks a new dawn in the UK's relationship with Australia, underpinned by our shared history and common values,’ Johnson said in a statement. Britain is Australia's eighth-largest trading partner and Australia is Britain 20th largest, with two-way trade worth A$26.9 billion ($20.7 billion). Prior to Britain joining the then European common market in 1973, Britain was Australia's most lucrative trading market. Though details have yet to emerge, some official estimates say the agreement could add 500 million pounds ($705.7 million) to British economic output over the long term - a small fraction for an economy worth around 2 trillion pounds. Nevertheless, it was hailed as an important stepping stone as Britain develops its own trade policy for the first time in decades following its departure from the European Union. ‘It is a fundamentally liberalising agreement that removes tariffs on all British goods, opens new opportunities for our services providers and tech firms, and makes it easier for our people to travel and work together,’ British trade minister Liz Truss said. The deal will be scrutinised by British farmers, who fear they could be forced out of business if the deal eliminates tariffs on lamb and beef imports from Australia. The government said British farmers would be protected by a cap on tariff-free imports for 15 years. Australian Minister for Trade David Littleproud declined to reveal details but said Australian farmers would benefit from the deal. ‘Overall, this is going to be a great win for Australian agriculture,’ Littleproud told 4BC Radio Australia's economy is, however, already focused on Asia. ‘This free trade agreement is more about symbolism than immediately tangible material benefits,’ said Ben Wellings, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Monash University.  

After surviving years of crippling drought, farmers in eastern Australia are locked in a months-long battle with hordes of mice that are pouring through fields and devouring hard-earned crops. Farmer Col Tink uses a broom to skittle hundreds of roving mice toward a makeshift industrial trap -- essentially a large tub of water where they drown. It is a brutally simple attempt to slow the plague that has engulfed his farm -- near the rural town of Dubbo -- and thousands of other farms like it across eastern Australia. But Tink's efforts have barely made a dent. Mice continue to chew through grain and hay stocks while anything remotely edible remains under constant attack. Skin-crawling videos of writhing rodent masses have been shared around the world along with reports of bitten hospital patients, destroyed machinery and swarms running across roads en masse. The plague is the latest in a string of disasters to strike farmers in Australia. A years-long drought was followed by months of devastating bushfires from late 2019, before welcome rains became damaging floods in several regions. ‘My dad's still alive; he's 93, and it's the worst three years he'd ever seen in his lifetime, and I think it's probably the worst mouse plague he's seen too,’ said Tink, who mainly farms Brahman cattle. But the prospect of this plague continuing through the southern hemisphere's winter makes him fearful for preparations ahead of the next dry spell -- which is always on the horizon. ‘If we don't get a real cold and fairly wet winter, I'm just a little bit worried what's going to happen in the spring,’ the 65-year-old told AFP. - 'Chronic' infestations – The outlook is not good, according to Steve Henry, a research officer at Australia's national science agency, the CSIRO. ‘When a mouse plague ends, they just disappear overnight,’ said Henry, who has been studying pest animals in Australia for nearly three decades. ‘We're certainly not seeing that at the moment.’ Mice are a feral pest in Australia, arriving alongside the first British colonists. The tiny rodent is almost perfectly adapted to exploit the natural boom and bust of agriculture in the Australian climate, meaning plagues are not uncommon. But numbers this year have been ‘just astronomical’, according to 74-year-old Terry Fishpool, a grain producer from nearby Tottenham. Large numbers of rodents were reported as early as October, their population fuelled by a bumper crop after the worst drought in living memory. Bill Bateman, an associate professor from Curtin University in Western Australia, said giant mouse plagues seemed to occur once a decade, but climate change could make them more regular. ‘If we no longer get those cold winters, such that we are providing resources for mice all year round, then this is going to become a chronic thing rather than an acute thing,’ Bateman said. - 'Napalming mice' – With the rodents scurrying on, the government has announced millions of dollars in support and reached for a more potent poison, which one minister likened to ‘napalming mice’. Yet to be approved, bromadiolone works faster than the widely used zinc phosphide bait but also stays in the system of dead or dying mice longer. Experts worry that it will potentially kill native wildlife who eat the poisoned mice. ‘The use of second-generation rodenticides is an extremely worrying step,’ Bateman, who works in the school of molecular and life sciences, said. ‘It's a very slippery slope.’ Extended use could create ‘a bank of this toxin’ in the environment, killing natural predators and even risk poisoning humans through the food chain, Bateman said. ‘We are really going to be setting up trouble for ourselves in future, not just in terms of destroying our biodiversity but destroying our frontline defences against any future mouse plagues.’ Henry said correct use of double-strength zinc phosphide, baiting while planting and removing alternative food sources could help curb the numbers if they did spike after winter. But the focus on ‘quick fixes’ also needed to shift to long-term solutions including more research into what triggers ‘monumental plagues’, he said. Fishpool said farmers had little choice in the meantime but to plant crops and hope the damage wrought by mice wasn't too severe -- comparing it to one of the nation's favourite pastimes. ‘You could put it on horses and gamble it, but if you plant the crop, you can worry about it all year and gamble it.’  

* Queensland cases pose low community risk * NSW, Queensland lists virus hotspots * Victoria logs 4 cases, easing of restrictions to proceed Two Australian states are on Covid-19 alert after an infected woman and her husband travelled from Victoria, the epicentre of country's latest outbreak, through the states of New South Wales and into Queensland, visiting dozens of sites enroute. Authorities in New South Wales and Queensland are rushing to trace close contacts and locate virus hotspots. The couple may face criminal charges for breaching Covid-19 border restrictions. The 44-year-old woman tested positive for Covid-19 once in Queensland, authorities said late on Wednesday, and her husband has since tested positive. Queensland state Health Minister Yvette D'Ath told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday that the couple's tests suggested they were likely at the end of their infectious period. ‘This means the risk is lower than we were expecting yesterday, which is really positive news,’ D'Ath said. No other cases were reported from the state. Australia has largely contained all prior outbreaks through snap lockdowns, regional border controls and swift contact tracing, with just over 30,200 cases and 910 deaths since the pandemic began. It has reported zero cases most days this year. Queensland authorities said they were investigating if the couple, who drove from Melbourne, had a travel exemption to enter the state, despite their home state of Victoria being under a hard lockdown. Queensland has issued alerts for parts of Sunshine Coast, a popular tourist spot, and two regional areas. NSW authorities said the pair traveled mostly through regional towns over five days last week. ‘The message broadly to our regional communities is be on high alert, this is a real and present danger to us, having people who are positive, travelling through our state stopping at multiple venues puts our state at risk,’ NSW state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said. NSW, the country's most populous state, has not reported any locally acquired cases of Covid-19 in more than a month, while Queensland last reported cases in late March. MELBOURNE LOCKDOWN On Thursday, Victoria reported four new locally acquired cases, versus one case a day earlier, taking the total infections in the latest outbreak to 90. The new cases, all from the same household, come as Melbourne prepares to come out of a two-week lockdown on Thursday night, although some curbs on travel and gatherings remain. Melbourne's five million residents must stay within 25 kms (15 miles) of their homes, a move that could inflict more pain on businesses in rural areas as officials seek to limit community transmission during an upcoming long weekend. Though Thursday's cases are not linked to any other clusters in the latest outbreak, the lifting of lockdown in Melbourne will proceed due to low-risk levels, Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino said during a televised media conference. Separately, New Zealand authorities have moved three Melbourne residents into managed isolation after they boarded their flight from Sydney to beat a travel ban imposed in response to the Victoria outbreak, New Zealand media reported. New Zealand began quarantine-free travel for Australian travellers in April, a pandemic milestone, but paused the so-called ‘travel bubble’ with Victoria late last month.    

Australia’s second largest city Melbourne will exit a Covid lockdown as planned today, Victoria state authorities said, although some restrictions on travel and gatherings would likely remain for another week. After two weeks in a strict lockdown that forced people to remain home except for essential business, Melbourne’s 5mn residents will get more freedom to step outside from 11:59pm local time (1359 GMT) today. However, people must stay within 25kms of their homes, officials said, in an effort to stop transmission during an upcoming long weekend. There will also be a total ban on house gatherings and masks will be mandatory indoors. “This is a good day,” Victoria state acting premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne yesterday. “But we know this isn’t over yet and until we have widespread vaccination across Victoria and the country, the virus will still be with us.” Merlino said further easing of restrictions for Melbourne could happen within a week barring any spike in cases. Australia has effectively reined in Covid-19, recording just over 30,200 cases and 910 deaths, due to speedy tracing systems, snap lockdowns and strict social distancing rules. A 44-year-old woman tested positive in Queensland state, authorities said yesterday, after driving from Victoria, through New South Wales, earlier this month. Authorities said there was no immediate evidence of community transmission and no new restrictions on residents have been issued. Queensland’s state capital of Brisbane last went into a snap lockdown in late March to contain an outbreak that was quickly suppressed.

The World Trade Organization must have a binding dispute settlement system to address the growing use of economic coercion, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison will say on Wednesday, as Canberra moves to win the support of G7 nations in its dispute with China. Relations with China, already rocky after Australia banned Huawei from its nascent 5G broadband networking in 2018, cooled further after Canberra called this year for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, first reported in central China last year. China responded by imposing tariffs on Australian commodities, including wine and barley and limited imports of Australian beef, coal and grapes, moves described by the United States as ‘economic coercion’. Australia has said it will not bow to Chinese pressure and has launched an appeal to the WTO over China's imposition of tariffs totalling more than 80% that has effectively stopped a billion-dollar trade in its tracks. But with the appeal likely to take years, Morrison will call on G7 countries to endorse reform of the WTO ahead its ministerial conference in November. ‘The most practical way to address economic coercion is the restoration of the global trading body's binding dispute settlement system,’ Morrison is expected to say on Wednesday, according to speech extracts seen by Reuters. ‘Where there are no consequences for coercive behaviour, there is little incentive for restraint.’ Morrison will say many world leaders have expressed support for Australia's stance, but like-minded countries must now strengthen cooperation. ‘Liberal democracies will always be most persuasive based on the power of their example, not their pitch or their preaching.’  

* Over 800 suspects arrested around the world * Police took over encrypted messaging app * Raids yield $148 million in cash, tons of drugs Global law enforcement agencies hacked into an app used by criminals and read millions of encrypted messages, leading to hundreds of arrests of organised crime figures in 18 countries, officials said on Tuesday. The operation by Australian and European police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the global narcotics trade, the officials said. _______________________________ Read also How an informant and a messaging app led to huge global crime sting _______________________________ Over 800 suspected members of organised crime gangs were arrested and $148 million in cash seized in raids around the world. Tons of drugs were also seized, the officials said. Named Operation Trojan Shield by the FBI, it was one of the biggest infiltrations and takeovers of a specialised encrypted network. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the operation "struck a heavy blow against organised crime - not just in this country, but one that will echo ... around the world". "This is a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history," Morrison told reporters in Sydney. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said police there had arrested 224 people, including members of outlawed motorcycle gangs, while New Zealand said it had detained 35 people. In Europe, officials said 75 Swedish suspects were arrested and over 60 detained in Germany. Forty nine were arrested in Holland. The operation was conceived by Australian police and the FBI in 2018, under which officials in the United States took control of the An0m messaging app used by organised crime networks. When an Australian underworld figure began distributing customised phones containing the app to his associates as a secure means to communicate, police could monitor their messages. The gangs believed the system was secure because the phones did not have any other capabilities - no voice or camera functions were loaded - and the app was encrypted. Criminal groups in more than 100 countries were given the phones, an FBI official said. "We have been in the back pockets of organised crime," Kershaw said at the media briefing. "All they talk about is drugs, violence, hits on each other, innocent people who are going to be murdered." The messages were brazen and there was no attempt to hide behind any kind of code, he said. "It was there to be seen, including 'we’ll have a speedboat meet you at this point', 'this is who will do this' and so on." Kershaw said the Australian underworld figure, who had absconded from the country, had "essentially set up his own colleagues" by distributing the phones and was a marked man. "The sooner he hands himself in, the better for him and his family," he said. One murder plot that authorities got to know of involved plans to attack a cafe with a machine gun, while a family of five was also targeted. Authorities said they were able to prevent these attacks. Executing Australia's largest number of search warrants in one day, police on Monday seized 104 firearms, including a military-grade sniper rifle, as well as almost A$45 million ($34.9 million) in cash. Around A$7 million was found in one safe buried beneath a garden shed in a Sydney suburb. A total of 525 charges have been laid but authorities expect more in the coming weeks.

A defamation trial opened Monday pitting one of Australia's most decorated soldiers against three major newspapers that accused him of war crimes in Afghanistan. Ben Roberts-Smith, a former member of Australia's elite Special Air Services regiment, is suing the newspapers as well as individual journalists from all three over articles from 2018 that alleged he committed murder and other atrocities while serving in Afghanistan. The defendants, including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, and Melbourne's The Age, will argue the reports were truthful, according to court documents. Australia's military and police are both investigating numerous war crimes alleged to have been committed by members of elite SAS soldiers in Afghanistan. Among the witnesses for the defence are at least four Afghan villagers who are set to appear via video-link from Kabul, court documents show. Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Medal for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan, among Australia's top military honours. He is now an executive for Channel Seven television in Queensland state. The Federal Court trial will last for eight to ten weeks, with around 60 witnesses expected to take the stand, a court official said. Parts of the trial will likely be closed to the public, including the media, when national security matters emerge. Australia deployed 39,000 troops over two decades as part of US and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and militant groups in Afghanistan. The country will pull out its small contingent of remaining support personnel by September, in line with the planned US withdrawal. Last year, an internal investigation into military misconduct found special forces personnel ‘unlawfully killed’ 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners. The report was a watershed moment for Australia's government, which had previously attempted to suppress whistleblower reports of the alleged wrongdoing, with police even investigating reporters involved in bringing those accounts to light.  

* APEC trade ministers agree to expediting Covid-19 vaccines * NZ pushing for tariff-free vaccine supplies * APEC to push for WTO consensus on patent waivers Ministers from Asia-Pacific trade group APEC on Saturday agreed to expedite the transit of Covid-19 vaccines and related goods, but stopped short of agreeing to remove tariffs on them. Prior to the start of the meeting, host New Zealand wanted APEC's 21 members to agree on "best practices guidelines" on the movement of vaccines and related medical products across borders, a person familiar with the talks told Reuters. New Zealand believes an agreement is needed to show that APEC is responsive and relevant to the crisis facing the world. In a statement after the meeting, APEC ministers said they would "expedite the flow and transit of all Covid-19 vaccines and related goods through their air, sea and land ports." "We will consider voluntary actions to reduce the cost of these products for our people, particularly by encouraging each economy to review its own charges levied at the border on Covid-19 vaccines and related goods," the statement said. APEC gatherings in recent years have struggled to reach agreements due to then-US President Donald Trump's trade war with China. The new Biden administration has promised a more multilateral approach. "The successful distribution of vaccines across our region will be critical to our recovery," New Zealand's trade minister Damien O'Connor had told reporters ahead of the meeting. Average APEC tariffs on vaccines are low at around 0.8% but other goods important in the vaccine supply chain face higher tariffs. Alcohol solutions, freezing equipment, packaging and storage materials, vials and rubber stoppers face average tariff rates above 5%, and import tariffs can be as high as 30% in some APEC economies. "What I've heard from these few days of interaction with my fellow ministers from the APEC region is broadly an agreement that we need to increase access to vaccines, increase supply of vaccines," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai told reporters before the meeting. APEC ministers had also been expected to discuss support for the waiving of intellectual property (IP) rights for Covid-19 vaccines, an issue which is currently under negotiation at the World Trade Organization. India and South Africa are leading the push for waivers. O'Connor said there are a range of challenges around production and distribution of vaccines that can be addressed to improve supply around the world, but gaining patent waivers could still be an obstacle. "Having looked at all those challenges, if it is IP that is holding us back, I think that there will be consensus reached at the WTO. And I think as APEC economies, we certainly are going to ask for that to be considered seriously," he said.

* Victoria outbreak climbs to 69 active cases * Highly infections Delta variant cases climb to 9 * State officials say outbreak manageable so far Australia's second-most populous state Victoria on Saturday reported a small increase in locally acquired Covid-19 cases as authorities hunted for the source of a highly infectious variant that has been detected in a new cluster. Five new local cases were reported, taking Victoria's total to 70 in the latest outbreak, including one recovered case, as the state capital Melbourne entered its second weekend of a hard lockdown, due to end on June 10. Curbs were eased for the rest of the state on Friday. Saturday's count was up from four new locally acquired cases on Friday. Authorities on Friday were alarmed after detecting the highly infectious Delta Covid-19 virus variant for the first time in Australia, sparking concerns cases could spike. The new Delta variant cluster has grown to nine active cases, up by two from Friday including a case transmitted at a workplace. ‘The next few days will be critical, bcause we'll see where this one goes,’ state testing commander Jeroen Weimar told reporters. The Delta variant, which has been classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as among the four Covid-19 variants of concern due to evidence that it spreads more easily, is one of the virus variants first detected in India. Victoria's chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said the Melbourne lockdown could be lifted later next week as long as all cases have been tracked down, even if the source of the Delta variant had still not been found. ‘It is a challenge -- the transmissibility, the secondary attack rate being 50% greater than the Alpha variant does mean you can get a large number of people within a home testing positive and you can get those tranmissions in other settings more readily. But we can still manage all of that,’ he said. Infectious diseases expert Sharon Lewin, director of the Doherty Institute which is handling genomic testing of the virus, said her strong hypothesis was that the Delta variant had come into the community through hotel quarantine, but no match had been found yet. Snap lockdowns, regional border restrictions and strict social distancing rules have helped Australia rein in prior outbreaks and keep its Covid-19 numbers relatively low at just 30,150 cases and 910 deaths. Victoria's outbreak, which began on May 24, has spurred people to join long queues for vaccinations following a slow rollout since February. So far, 20% of the adult population has had a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.  

* Delta variant unlinked to other cases in outbreak * Four new cases in Victoria vs three on Thursday * Melbourne begins extended lockdown for another week Australia's Victoria state authorities said on Friday they had detected the highly infectious Delta Covid-19 virus variant for the first time in the latest outbreak in Melbourne, stoking concerns of a major spike in cases. The Delta variant, which has been classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as among the four Covid-19 variants of concern due to evidence that they spread more easily, likely caused the latest devastating outbreak in India. ‘It is a variant of significant concern,’ Victoria state Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told reporters in Melbourne. ‘The fact that it is a variant different to other cases it means it is not related, in terms of transmission, with these cases.’ Sutton said the new variant had not been linked to any sequenced Covid-19 infections across Australia from hotel quarantine or elsewhere. ‘It is a concern that it is not linked to other cases but we are chasing down all those primary case contacts ... and looking into where it might have been acquired,’ Sutton said. The Delta variant was detected in two members in a family who travelled to neighbouring New South Wales (NSW) two weeks ago while likely infectious and visited several popular tourist locations in the state's south. Sutton said it was ‘within the bounds of possibility’ that the cases could have contracted the Delta variant in NSW but that more tests would be needed. NSW, Australia's most populous state, has not reported any locally acquired cases in a month. Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state, is battling to contain its latest outbreak - 64 cases since May 24 - after more than three months of no cases, placing tough restrictions on movement of people and shutting down large parts of its economy. The government has linked all the cases to a single traveller released from quarantine after testing negative. Melbourne is into a second week of hard lockdown after it was extended for another week until June 10, but some curbs elsewhere were eased in the state from Thursday night. Authorities blamed the extension of tough curbs in Melbourne on the Kappa variant, first detected in India, which they described as a contagious strain, although new cases have remained in single digits for eight days in a row. For an EXPLAINER on Covid-19 variants first detected in India, please click. Four new locally acquired cases were reported on Friday, versus three a day earlier. Snap lockdowns, regional border restrictions and strict social distancing rules have largely helped Australia rein in prior outbreaks and keep its Covid-19 numbers relatively low at just over 30,100 cases and 910 deaths. About 20% of Australia's adult population have had their first vaccine dose, with nearly 4.8 million total shots administered so far.    

Australia’s Victoria state reported just three new Covid-19 cases yesterday, its lowest single-day rise in more than a week, a day after a snap lockdown in the state capital of Melbourne was extended for another week. Australia’s second most populous state has endured four lockdowns since the pandemic begun, the longest running for more than 100 days late last year. Under mounting pressure and with an election likely within a year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced a plan to pay up to A$500 ($387) a week to people in lockdown. Morrison said the payments would be given to people over the age of 17 who cannot work from home and who have less than A$10,000 in liquid assets. Australia introduced a wage subsidy scheme at the beginning of the pandemic but it ended in March and the government resisted calls for a temporary reintroduction of the measure. Snap lockdowns, international and regional border curbs and tough social distancing rules have largely helped Australia keep its Covid figures relatively low, at 30,130 cases and 910 deaths. But Morrison is being criticised for a slow vaccine rollout and his refusal to help state governments build Covid quarantine centres, instead of relying on hotel quarantine where some lax security has let the virus spread. Melbourne’s latest outbreak has been traced to a traveller, returned from overseas, who left hotel quarantine in the state of south Australia after testing negative but later tested positive in Melbourne. Melbourne is now seven days into a hard lockdown, scheduled to run until June 10, with authorities saying the highly contagious variant of the virus, first detected in India, could spread out of control.

The Australian state of Victoria yesterday extended a snap coronavirus lockdown in its capital of Melbourne for a second week, as it scrambles to rein in a highly contagious variant first detected in India, but will ease some curbs elsewhere. Last Thursday’s lockdown in Australia’s second most populous state was to have run until today, following the detection of the first locally acquired cases in three months, but infections rose and the number of close contacts reached several thousand. “If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,” the state’s acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne. “This variant of concern will become uncontrollable and people will die.” “No one...wants to repeat last winter,” he added, referring to one of the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns that the southeastern state imposed in 2020 to leash a second wave of infections. More than 800 people died in that outbreak, accounting for about 90% of Australia’s total deaths since the pandemic began. Snap lockdowns, regional border curbs and tough social distancing rules have largely helped Australia suppress prior outbreaks and keep its Covid-19 figures relatively low, at just over 30,100 cases and 910 deaths. Though Victoria’s daily cases have been in the single digits since the lockdown was imposed, officials fear even minimal contact could help spread the variant involved in the latest outbreak. Six new locally acquired cases were reported yesterday, versus nine a day earlier, taking to 60 the tally of infections in the latest outbreak. Health authorities have said the variant could take just one day to pass from person to person, versus the five or six days of contact required for transmission of earlier variants. For now, Melbourne’s 5mn residents face a second week of being allowed to leave home only for essential work, healthcare, grocery shopping, exercise or a vaccination. But this restriction is likely to be relaxed for people elsewhere in the state, depending on any local transmission in the next 24 hours, while other measures, such as mandatory masks, will stay. The latest outbreak has been traced back to a traveller who returned from overseas, authorities have said. The individual left hotel quarantine in the state of South Australia after testing negative, but subsequently tested positive in Melbourne.

Australian broadcaster and publisher Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd said it signed multi-year content-supply deals with Google and Facebook Inc, harnessing tough new licencing laws to bolster profit. The step means that all of Australia's three largest media firms now have deals with US tech giants that had until this year fiercely opposed laws making them negotiate over the fees they pay for the links driving clicks to their platforms. The owner of the Australian Financial Review and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers and the Nine free-to-air channel said it would provide articles and clips for Google's News Showcase platform for five years, and to a similar Facebook product for three. ‘These deals will contribute to supporting the world-class journalism on which our business thrives,’ Nine Chief Executive Mike Sneesby told staff in an email, reviewed by Reuters, adding they would also help the firm pursue growth to underpin its strength in the long term. A Google spokesman declined to comment, while Facebook was not immediately available for comment. Rivals Seven West Media Ltd and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which dominate Australia's traditional media market, along with Nine, have signed similar deals in recent months. Like the others, Nine did not disclose financial details of the deals. But it said it expected them to help grow pre-tax profit at its publishing unit by up to A$40 million ($31 million) in the year to June 2022, making it the first company to put a dollar value on the new arrangements. The unit's pre-tax profit was A$68.1 million in the six months to end-December. In a client note, Morningstar analyst Brian Han called Nine's deals ‘juicy high-margin arrangements which finally shift the image of the much-maligned and structurally-challenged division to one that can now much better monetise its (albeit still dwindling) journalistic resources’. Nine shares rose as much as 5% to stand up 1% in late afternoon trade, in a flat overall market. Since a bitter dispute with the government over the laws that briefly led Facebook to block all third-party content on its platform in Australia, the so-called ‘Big Tech’ firms have signed up to pay for content from dozens of smaller regional and specialist providers. Last month the managing director of Australian Broadcasting Corp told a parliamentary hearing the state broadcaster was among the media companies to have signed letters of intent for deals with Facebook and Google, but has yet to finalise the arrangements.  

* Vic state reports 11 new cases on day 4 of lockdown * Fears of Covid-19 outbreak in aged care facility in Melbourne * Next few days remain ‘critical’: Vic Acting Premier Australia's second-most populous state of Victoria, the epicentre of the country's latest coronavirus hotspot, reported 11 new cases of community transmission on Monday and authorities warned the situation could worsen in coming days. The state officially reported five new cases in the 24 hours to midnight. At a press conference on Monday, authorities announced a further six cases were recorded after the late night cut-off which will reflect in Tuesday's data, taking the current cluster to 51. Victoria went into a strict seven-day lockdown on Friday after new Covid-19 infections in the state capital Melbourne ended its three-month run of zero community cases. Authorities identified several Melbourne schools, supermarkets, department stores and gyms among hundreds of exposure sites. The swelling numbers have raised questions over whether the lockdown will be extended beyond the seven days announced initially. ‘The challenge ahead of us is a very, very significant one,’ Victorian acting Premier James Merlino told reporters. ‘We are seeing a small number of cases infecting a large number of contacts.’ The situation was ‘incredibly serious’ and the next few days will be critical, Merlino added. ‘I want to be really clear with everyone that this outbreak may well get worse before it gets better.’ Medical officials have said the latest Covid-19 variant, first detected in India, was likely to be more virulent than the original strains, taking just one day to infect another person compared with earlier strains which can take about five or six. AGED CARE RISKS Authorities are concerned about the virus taking hold in aged care homes after two workers and one resident at the Arcare facility in Melbourne tested positive, the home operator said in a statement. Another resident is being re-tested for Covid-19. Victoria endured one of the world's strictest and longest lockdowns last year to suppress a second wave of Covid-19 that killed more than 800 people in the state, accounting for 90% of Australia's total deaths since the pandemic began. Hundreds of elderly Victorians in residential aged care facilities were among the fatalities. Overall, Australia has been among the most successful globally in curbing the pandemic thanks to swift contact tracing, snap lockdowns and strict social distancing rules, with 22,275 local cases and 910 deaths. However, the government has come under pressure for its slow vaccine rollout due to supply constraints as well as hesitancy among its citizens to take the AstraZeneca jab after Australia put age restrictions following some cases of blood clots. The latest outbreak in Victoria has spurred people to get inoculated with the federal health minister saying a record 630,547 doses were delivered last week, twice the number seen four weeks ago. Nationally, 4.24 million Covid-19 doses have been delivered.    

Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected for a fourth term as president of war-ravaged Syria, official results showed on Thursday, despite Western accusations the polls were ‘neither free nor fair’. The controversial vote extending Assad's stranglehold on power was the second since the start of a decade-long civil conflict that has killed more than 388,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure. The parliamentary speaker announced Thursday that Assad garnered 95.1 percent of the votes cast, trouncing two virtually unknown challengers. Standing against him were former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called ‘tolerated opposition’, long dismissed by exiled opposition leaders as an extension of the regime. On the eve of the election, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy said the poll was ‘neither free nor fair’, and Syria's fragmented opposition has called it a ‘farce’. But few doubted that the 55-year-old Assad, an ophthalmologist by training, would be re-elected. In the last multi-candidate poll in 2014, Assad won 88 percent of the vote. Huge election posters glorifying Assad had mushroomed across the two-thirds of the country under his control in the lead-up to Wednesday's poll. Before the election results were announced, tens of thousands of Syrians gathered Thursday in various cities to celebrate, waving Syrian flags and carrying pictures of Assad, state media reported. The festivities broke out after the election committee, quoted by local TV, said ‘the ballot counting process has been completed in the majority of Syrian provinces’. ‘Tens of thousands of people in Tartus province gathered at the city's seafront to celebrate’ Assad's expected win, according to state news agency SANA. Some danced and beat drums, footage broadcast by Syrian television showed. Thousands of other Syrians rallied in the coastal city of Latakia and in Umayyad Square in the capital Damascus, which along with Tartus and Latakia are bastions of the regime. Celebrations were also underway in Aleppo and in Sweida, in Syria's south, where a crowd gathered in front of city hall, state media said. Houwayda al-Nidal, a 52-year-old doctor, told AFP that Assad's victory ‘carries two messages’. The first is that of a leader who has won the war and will lead the reconstruction, he said, and ‘the second is intended for foreigners to show who will lead the political talks after the end of the fighting on the ground.’ - Economy in free fall – The election was held Wednesday in government-held areas, and state media showed long queues forming outside polling stations, which remained open five hours past the planned closing time. The vote took place amid the lowest levels of violence since the war erupted in 2011 -- but with the economy in free fall. More than 80 percent of the population live in poverty, and the Syrian pound has plunged in value against the dollar, causing skyrocketing inflation. Assad's campaign slogan, ‘Hope through work’, evoked the colossal reconstruction needed to rebuild the country, requiring billions of dollars in funding. He was first elected by referendum in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for 30 years. The UN's Syria envoy, Geir Pedersen, noted the polls were not held under the political transition called for by Security Council Resolution 2254 which provides for free and fair elections. ‘What is required is a Syrian-led and -owned political solution, facilitated by the United Nations and backed by constructive international diplomacy,’ he said. In rebel-held northwestern Syria, home to three million people, hundreds took to the streets to protest on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent said. They carried posters saying: ‘No legitimacy for Assad and his elections.’  

Japan said on Friday it would consider sharing its Covid-19 vaccines with other countries as a ruling party committee urged it to provide a portion of its AstraZeneca Plc vaccine stock to Taiwan. Taiwan is battling a spike in domestic infections and has vaccinated only about 1% of its population, while Japan has secured more than 400 million doses, double what it needs for its adult population. ‘We think it's important to ensure fair access to safe and effective vaccines in every country and region towards achieving universal health coverage,’ Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a news conference. ‘We will swiftly consider and look into a concrete course of policy with regard to how we provide other countries and regions with vaccines that exceed the amount for those needed at home.’ Masahisa Sato, the head of a Japanese ruling party committee on Taiwan relations, said earlier on Friday the government should provide Taiwan with vaccines as soon as possible, adding ‘when Japan was in need Taiwan sent us 2 million masks.’ Kato declined to comment whether Tokyo had received supply requests from specific countries. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the government was working hard to obtain vaccines either via manufacturers or the COVAX global sharing scheme. Taipei was also seeking ‘like-minded countries to help obtain vaccines, and efforts have not ceased’, it added. Japan approved AstraZeneca's vaccine last week and has contracted to buy 120 million doses. But there are no immediate plans to use the shots in the country, amid lingering concerns raised internationally over blood clots. AstraZeneca's local partner Daiichi Sankyo Co started bottling the vaccine in March and the stockpile is currently estimated at around 30 million doses which will expire by September if not used. The amount is set to increase as AstraZeneca added Nipro Corp this week as its third local partner to conduct filling and packaging of the vaccine. Japan started its inoculation drive in mid-February, later than most major economies and using imported doses of the shot developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE. A vaccine developed by Moderna also went into use this week with the opening of mass vaccination centres. Japan has administered 10.6 million doses through Wednesday, about a sixth of the vaccine it's imported so far, based on government data and schedules. By September, the projected supply will reach 414 million doses, double what the country needs for its adult population. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will host a summit on June 2 about ensuring vaccine supply to needy nations through the World Health Organisation's COVAX programme. So far, Japan has pledged money to the effort but no vaccines. Japan will likely keep some of AstraZeneca's adenovirus-type shots for people with allergies to mRNA-type vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna, and give away the rest, said Haruka Sakamoto, a physician and researcher at Keio University in Tokyo. ‘Japan will probably announce that they will donate the AZ vaccine that they already have a contract with and supply COVAX with the AZ vaccine they will produce in Japan,’ she said. An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said it was up to the Japanese government how the doses were used.  

Five million weary Melbourne residents were put back under lockdown on Friday, straining local resolve and testing Australia's ‘zero-Covid’ strategy of smothering outbreaks however small. As authorities said a cluster of positive cases had grown to 39, streets in Australia's second city emptied out for the fourth time since the pandemic began. ‘It's just very difficult,’ resident Gavin Catt told AFP. ‘This lockdown is affecting us. Many families and friends can't work.’ Melbournians have been ordered to stay at home for seven days to stall transmission and buy the authorities time to investigate how the virus again jumped from hotel quarantine into the community. The outbreak is believed to have begun when a traveller infected with the Indian variant returned to Australia, but Victoria's acting state Premier James Merlino called for military help with the investigation. Around 15,000 close contacts have been identified and the list of venues visited by confirmed cases had grown to 130. Merlino on Thursday blamed sluggish vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine failures for the latest outbreak. ‘If we had an alternative to hotel quarantine for this particular variant of concern, we would not be here today,’ he said. It is believed to be the 17th time in six months that the virus has leaked out of makeshift hotel quarantine facilities, which are now facing tough scrutiny. Fingers are also being pointed at Australia's conservative federal government for the slow rate of vaccinations, which threatens to reverse the country's early virus success. Australia has recorded 30,000 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began -- with a large portion in hotel quarantine -- in a country of 25 million people. But only two percent of Australians have so far been fully vaccinated. ‘I'm from New York originally so I feel like we've had a really good go of it here in Australia in terms of how many people have gotten sick,’ said David Gonzalez. ‘So I guess I'm willing to accept a bit of a slow rollout but if these things happen more often, they just have to get more vaccines in the country.’ Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended his government's handling of the crisis saying hotel quarantine facilities were ‘99.99 percent effective.’ But critics countered that a single infection leaking from a quarantine system that has processed thousands of travellers was sufficient to shut down an entire state, and the country's second-biggest city. In recent months, Australians had largely been enjoying few restrictions after the country successfully contained the spread of coronavirus. But outbreaks in Taiwan and Japan have underscored how initial success containing the virus can quickly be eroded without widespread vaccination. Australia is currently vaccinating around 75,000 people each day. In a note to clients on Friday, the National Australian Bank warned that it is ‘clear that virus outbreaks from hotel quarantine remain a significant risk for Australia until a high degree of vaccine penetration is reached’. ‘On the current pace, Australia will not reach a level of vaccination approaching herd immunity (estimates suggest that is around 70% or higher) by the end of the year.’    

* Lockdown for a week starting Thursday night * 12 new cases reported in Victoria * More than 10,000 contacts identified Australia's second most populous state of Victoria will enter a one-week Covid-19 lockdown forcing its near seven million residents to remain home except for essential business as authorities struggle to contain a highly-infectious outbreak. ‘We're dealing with a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded,’ Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne. ‘Unless something drastic happens, this will become increasingly uncontrollable.’ Merlino said contact tracers have identified more than 10,000 primary and secondary contacts who would need to quarantine, test and self isolate, adding ‘that number will continue to grow and change’. The fresh cluster of infections in Melbourne detected early this week swelled to 26 on Thursday after 12 new cases overnight, while the number of virus-exposed sites rose above 150. Victoria state Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he ‘absolutely expects’ more positive cases to emerge in the coming days as the variant, first detected in India, was likely to be more virulent than the original strains. The current strain can take one day to infect another person compared with earlier strains which can take about five or six days, Merlino said. Under the lockdown, from 11:59 pm local time (1359 GMT) on Thursday until June 3, people will only be allowed to leave their homes for essential work, healthcare, grocery shopping, exercise or to get a coronavirus vaccination. Several infected contacts have visited crowded hot spots that included sports stadiums and one of the largest shopping centres in the country, raising concerns of a significant outbreak days ahead of the winter season. New Zealand on Thursday extended a pause in its quarantine-free travel arrangement with Victoria until June 4 citing the high-risk over the new cases, while Australian states and territories responded to the lockdown by placing tougher border rules for travellers from Victoria. New Zealand Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said everyone who had visited Melbourne since May 20 would be required to isolate at their homes until they get a negative Covid-19 result. The states of Western Australia and Tasmania on Thursday closed their borders to Victorian residents following South Australia's move a day earlier. The Northern Territory and Queensland state will ask travellers to undergo a mandatory two-week hotel quarantine. New South Wales, Australia's most populous state and which shares a border with Victoria, urged residents to defer non-urgent travel to Melbourne. The lockdown comes just days after authorities reinstated coronavirus curbs for state capital Melbourne, limiting gathering sizes and making masks mandatory in restaurants, hotels and other indoor locations until June 4. Officials have traced the latest cluster, the first in the state in more than three months, back to an overseas traveller infected with a variant first found in India, although the virus transmission path is still unclear. The unnamed Victoria man tested negative after finishing his quarantine in neighbouring South Australia and flew to Melbourne this month but tested positive six days after he arrived. Victoria endured one of the world's strictest and longest lockdowns last year to suppress a second wave of Covid-19 that killed more than 800 people in the state, amounting for 90% of Australia's total deaths since the pandemic began. Swift contact tracing, snap lockdowns and strict social distancing rules have helped Australia keep its Covid-19 numbers relatively low, with just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths.    

Australia’s second largest city Melbourne reinstated Covid-19 restrictions yesterday as authorities scrambled to find the missing link in a fresh outbreak, prompting New Zealand to pause a “travel bubble” with the state of Victoria. Amid worries the cluster, which has grown to nine cases in two days, could spark a major outbreak, Victoria imposed social restrictions and made face masks mandatory in hotels, restaurants, and other indoor venues from 6pm (0800GMT) yesterday until June 4. The latest outbreak ends Victoria’s run of zero cases for nearly three months and saw New Zealand suspend quarantine-free travel with the state and the neighbouring state of South Australia impose travel restrictions. Australia has avoided the high Covid-19 numbers seen in many developed countries by closing its international borders in the early stages of the pandemic and with lockdowns. It has reported just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths. Thousands of people in Melbourne have been ordered to self isolate and undergo Covid-19 tests with health alerts issued for several sites, including one of the largest shopping centres in the country. One of the cases had a high viral load while he visited some venues prompting authorities to warn Melbourne’s 5mn residents to brace for more positive cases in the next few days. Authorities urged Victorians to get vaccinated. “There are right now millions of Victorians that are eligible to be vaccinated. They shouldn’t wait for tomorrow, they shouldn’t wait for next week. They should move now and get vaccinated,” James Merlino, Victoria state’s acting premier, told reporters in Melbourne. Victoria was the hardest-hit state during a second wave late last year, accounting for about 70% of total cases and 90% of deaths in Australia. The state, the country’s second most populous, only controlled the outbreak after one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns. Five new locally acquired cases were reported in Victoria yesterday, a day after four infections were recorded in Melbourne. All cases belong to one extended family across different households and could be traced back to the variant found in an overseas traveller who returned to Melbourne early this month after completing quarantine in the city of Adelaide. Authorities, however, said they could not yet find how the latest cases contracted the virus from the overseas traveller. New Zealand’s Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the ‘travel bubble’ with Victoria has been suspended for three days from yesterday evening. “New Zealand officials have assessed that the most cautious option is to pause the travel bubble with Victoria as there are still several unknowns with the outbreak,” Hipkins said. “The government understands the disruption this will temporarily cause affected passengers,” he said. “It was a close call but the correct one given the current unknowns.” As it stands, the suspension will be lifted in time for the Otago Highlanders-Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby match in Queenstown, which will be attended by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison. Morrison will be in New Zealand for bilateral diplomatic talks. It is the fourth disruption since the two countries opened their quarantine-free travel bubble on April 18, almost 400 days after both closed their international borders due to the pandemic. Flights to Western Australia have been suspended twice previously and services to New South Wales were affected earlier this month. Melbourne’s fresh outbreak comes as Australian authorities try to ramp up a sluggish national vaccination drive with health experts worried many people were delaying getting inoculated because of the country’s success in effectively eliminating the virus.

Thousands of Australian students skipped school on Friday and gathered with climate activists to call on the government to stop funding the gas industry, taking aim at Prime Minister Scott Morrison's plans to fund a new gas plant. During the event dubbed ‘School Strike 4 Climate’ (SS4C), tens of thousands of students congregated across some 50 Australian cities and towns, organisers said. ‘Today, together with tens of thousands of my fellow let-down Australians, I am striking from school to tell the Morrison government that they must stop throwing Aussie cash at gas,’ 16-year old organiser Natasha Abhayawickrama said in a statement. Many local businesses also closed for the day to join the rallies, which are demanding that the government halts funding for gas and coal projects and invests and creates job in renewable energy instead, the organisers said. Australia's conservative government has promoted gas to help fuel the economy's recovery from a COVID-induced recession, despite calls from climate experts, green groups and the International Energy Agency to stop new fossil fuel investments. Gas is also seen by the government as key to Australia's energy transition, as it is cleaner than coal and can fuel flexible power plants to back up wind and solar generation. This week, Australia committed A$600 million ($468 million) towards a new gas-fired power plant. Photos posted on social media at noon from Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, showed youths and activists holding placards reading ‘#FundOurFutureNotGas’, and ‘Clean energy solutions not coal and gas pollution’. ‘A bit of rain won't stop us,’ Sydney mayor Clover Moore tweeted, adding ‘we won't stop until the Federal Government gets serious about climate action.’ One of the world's largest carbon emitters on a per capita basis, Australia has resisted global calls to commit to a target of net zero emissions by 2050, citing the risk of damage to the economy. Instead, Australia is investing in technology to meet its Paris Accord commitment to cut carbon emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2030, including $418 million to develop carbon capture and hydrogen projects. State government officials in New South Wales, the country's largest state, had urged students to stay in school, to little effect. ‘We shouldn't have to be here, we should be in school,’ said Nabilah Chowdhury, another event organiser in Sydney. ‘But the government just won't listen. They refuse to take action so it's up to us to fight in order to protect our future.’