By: Maram Susli What we’ve just witnessed in Afghanistan is a historical repeat of the ‘Saigon moment’. But the final hours of the US occupation have been accompanied by a cacophony aend the war. They cite women’s rights, regional stability and anti-terrorism as reasons the US should have remained in Afghanistan. But those were the very reasons cited for starting ...

By: Daniel Hurst Australia’s first evacuation mission to Afghanistan rescued just 26 people amid growing fears about dangerous conditions outside Kabul’s airport, but the prime minister says he hopes those numbers will ramp up with further flights in coming days. Scott Morrison confirmed the low initial figure – believed to be mostly Australian passport holders – as he said Australian ...

NSW recorded 681 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8:00pm on Thursday. It is the highest number of new cases the state has ever recorded in a day. There was also one COVID-19 death, bringing the state’s total fatalities in this Delta outbreak to 61. The man was in his 80s and had underlying health conditions. ...

By: Jade Macmillan The Prime Minister criticised what he described as “crazy, rubbish” conspiracy theories about COVID-19 a day after the views of one of his backbenchers were formally condemned by Parliament. The House of Representatives took the unusual step of condemning comments made by Queensland MP George Christensen on Tuesday, after he used a speech to argue masks and ...

By: Joseph Dunstan and Bridget Rollason Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed Melburnians will spend another week in lockdown, warning if restrictions were eased now the state could rapidly find itself battling a similar outbreak to New South Wales. “This is very challenging for every single Victorian who would like to be going about their business, they would like to be ...

Three more Sydney areas have been hit with tighter lockdown restrictions after NSW recorded 345 new COVID cases and two more deaths. One of the deaths was a man in his 90s who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The Sydney local government areas (LGAs) of Bayside, Burwood and Strathfield have been deemed “areas of concern”, and will ...

By: Charis Chang A landmark new report has confirmed Australia has already warmed 1.4C with impacts already seen in many regions, particularly in the southern parts of the country. Scientists have observed changes to the Earth’s climate in every region in the world and across the whole climate system, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, ...

By: Elias Visontay and AAP About 2,500 Qantas and Jetstar employees will be stood down for two months because of domestic coronavirus border closures, in a move unions have criticised for being taken one day after the announcement of a government wage support package. Domestic pilots, cabin crew and airport workers will be stood down, mostly in New South Wales, ...

By: Jamie McKinnell The number of COVID-19 exposure sites in NSW grew so large earlier this week, health authorities abandoned listing some of them in email and social media updates. During the state’s Delta outbreak, NSW Health has been sending regular media releases detailing new venues of concern, and posting a list of close and casual contact sites on Twitter. ...

A second Victorian school has closed all of its campuses after the state health department on Wednesday confirmed a teacher at Al-Taqwa College in Melbourne’s west had tested positive to COVID-19. Ilim College said it had not had any positive cases from this outbreak, but was closing two campuses in Dallas and others in Glenroy and Doveton as a precaution. ...