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South Wales Guardian
23-05-2025
- Climate
- South Wales Guardian
Record floodwaters in eastern Australia leave four dead and one missing
Some 50,000 people have been isolated by flooding along the coast of New South Wales state, north of Sydney, after days of heavy rain. The low-pressure weather system that brought the deluge had moved further south to Sydney and its surroundings on Friday. Four bodies have been retrieved from floodwaters in New South Wales since Wednesday. Three of the victims had driven into floodwaters, while a man's body had been found on the verandah of his flooded home. The latest victim was a man in his 70s whose body was found in a car in floodwater on Friday near Coffs Harbour, a police statement said. The car had run off the road. A 49-year-old man remains missing after walking near a flooded road at Nymboida on Wednesday night. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales premier Christopher Minns on Friday were inspecting devastated communities, some of which had been inundated by the highest floodwaters on record. Bellingen Shire Council mayor Steve Allan said landslides and damaged roads and bridges were complicating the process of reaching isolated communities in his rural local government region southwest of Coffs Harbour. 'We've woken up to blue skies, which is a great thing,' Mr Allan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Our rivers are slowly receding and I think we're probably transitioning from the response phase into the recovery phase this morning.'
Leader Live
23-05-2025
- Climate
- Leader Live
Record floodwaters in eastern Australia leave four dead and one missing
Some 50,000 people have been isolated by flooding along the coast of New South Wales state, north of Sydney, after days of heavy rain. The low-pressure weather system that brought the deluge had moved further south to Sydney and its surroundings on Friday. Four bodies have been retrieved from floodwaters in New South Wales since Wednesday. Three of the victims had driven into floodwaters, while a man's body had been found on the verandah of his flooded home. The latest victim was a man in his 70s whose body was found in a car in floodwater on Friday near Coffs Harbour, a police statement said. The car had run off the road. A 49-year-old man remains missing after walking near a flooded road at Nymboida on Wednesday night. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales premier Christopher Minns on Friday were inspecting devastated communities, some of which had been inundated by the highest floodwaters on record. Bellingen Shire Council mayor Steve Allan said landslides and damaged roads and bridges were complicating the process of reaching isolated communities in his rural local government region southwest of Coffs Harbour. 'We've woken up to blue skies, which is a great thing,' Mr Allan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Our rivers are slowly receding and I think we're probably transitioning from the response phase into the recovery phase this morning.'
Powys County Times
23-05-2025
- Climate
- Powys County Times
Record floodwaters in eastern Australia leave four dead and one missing
Record floodwaters on Australia's east coast have left four people dead and one missing, officials said on Friday as rain eased over the disaster area. Some 50,000 people have been isolated by flooding along the coast of New South Wales state, north of Sydney, after days of heavy rain. The low-pressure weather system that brought the deluge had moved further south to Sydney and its surroundings on Friday. Four bodies have been retrieved from floodwaters in New South Wales since Wednesday. Three of the victims had driven into floodwaters, while a man's body had been found on the verandah of his flooded home. The latest victim was a man in his 70s whose body was found in a car in floodwater on Friday near Coffs Harbour, a police statement said. The car had run off the road. A 49-year-old man remains missing after walking near a flooded road at Nymboida on Wednesday night. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales premier Christopher Minns on Friday were inspecting devastated communities, some of which had been inundated by the highest floodwaters on record. Bellingen Shire Council mayor Steve Allan said landslides and damaged roads and bridges were complicating the process of reaching isolated communities in his rural local government region southwest of Coffs Harbour. 'We've woken up to blue skies, which is a great thing,' Mr Allan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Our rivers are slowly receding and I think we're probably transitioning from the response phase into the recovery phase this morning.'
The Star
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Aussie visit amid global turmoil
Refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and Africa stage a protest at the Australian Embassy after previously demonstrating at the UNHCR representative office in Jakarta on May 14, 2025, calling for immediate resettlement in Australia hours before the arrival of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Indonesia. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP) Australia's newly reelected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a visit aiming to strengthen his country's economic and defence ties with its closest major neighbour. Albanese arrived in the capital, Jakarta, on Wednesday evening, a day after his new government was sworn in, to promote the importance of building stronger ties with South-East Asia's largest economy. 'That is ... a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will be in the fastest-growing region of the world in human history,' Albanese said in an interview last week with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. He described Subianto as a 'good friend of mine' and hailed the two countries' close relations. Albanese's centre-left Labor Party won a second three-year term in an emphatic election victory on May 3. He was welcomed by Subianto in a ceremony at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, where he was escorted by dozens of motorised troops and cavalry while about 3,200 schoolchildren waved the flags of both countries along the streets, according to Indonesia's presidential office. The two leaders' talks are expected to 'produce several concrete agreements that could bring direct benefits to the people of both countries', the office said. Albanese's two-day visit is an indication of the countries' strategic closeness. Their discussions will also include food security, energy, trade and other bilateral priorities, Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement. Newly elected Australian prime ministers typically make their first bilateral visit to Asia, usually Indonesia. In his first visit to Indonesia after his inauguration in 2022, Albanese also visited Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province with close ties to Indigenous Australians. Albanese's second visit to Jakarta comes amid global economic upheaval sparked by US President Donald Trump's 'reciprocal tariff' trade policy. Australia was hit during its election campaign with a global minimum 10% tariff on exports to the United States despite trading with its bilateral free trade partner at a deficit for decades, while Indonesia is subject to 32%. The two countries have for the past month negotiated with Washington for a better trade deal. Media reports said last month that Russia told Jakarta it wants to base long-range warplanes in Papua, the most eastern Indonesian province, a plan that was raised as a security issue during the Australian election campaign. Indonesia has told Australia that no such Russian base would be allowed. Given their geographical proximity, Indonesia and Australia have traditionally maintained close ties with each other, including in matters of security and defence, although each country has chosen to respond differently to the rivalry between the United States and China in the region. The two neighbours last year signed a historic Defence Cooperation Agreement that will allow more complex joint activities and exercises. Canberra hailed the agreement as the 'deepest and most significant' defence deal in the two countries' bilateral ties. Albanese will head on to Rome on Friday morning to attend the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on Sunday. — AP
NBC News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Australian locality removing often-vandalized monument to British explorer James Cook
MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian local government has decided against repairing an often-vandalized monument to renowned British explorer James Cook because it would be destroyed again. But the mayor on Wednesday rejected accusations that the vandals have won. Statues and monuments to the 18th-century naval officer are common in Australia and are often defaced by opponents of Britain's settlement of the country without a treaty with its Indigenous people. In 1770, then Lt. Cook charted the Australian east coast where Sydney would become the first British colony on the continent. The granite and bronze monument to the master navigator and cartographer in an inner-city Melbourne park was vandalized days after the anniversary of the first British settlers' arrival at Sydney Cove was commemorated on Jan. 26. Opponents of Australia Day celebrations denounce the public holiday as 'Invasion Day.' There are growing calls for the country to find a less divisive national day. The monument in Melbourne's Edinburgh Gardens was snapped at its base and spray painted with the words 'cook the colony.' Mayor Stephen Jolly, head of the Yarra City Council, which is a municipality near the heart of Melbourne, said his fellow councilors had voted unanimously on Tuesday night against spending 15,000 Australian dollars ($9,700) on repairing the monument, which remains in storage. Jolly said the decision to permanently remove the monument, which included an image of Cook's face cast in bronze, was about economics rather than taking a position in Australia's culture wars. 'It's about being economically rational. It's AU$15,000 a pop every time we have to repair it and it's persistently getting either demolished or vandalized or tagged,' Jolly told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'It's just a waste of ratepayers' money. We can't afford to do that,' Jolly added. But Victoria state's Melbourne-based conservative opposition leader, Brad Battin, condemned removing such memorials as surrendering to vandals. 'We need to stand strong and remember the fact that this is part of our history,' Battin told reporters. 'If you start to remove the history of our state and our country because of activists, then you're actually giving in to those that are campaigning against it,' Battin added. Jolly disagreed that his council had given the vandals what they wanted. 'No, I think they would've loved for us to put it back up and then they could've just tagged it again or destroyed it again and just had this ongoing sort of little war going on in Edinburgh Gardens,' Jolly said. 'I think they're probably the most disappointed people that it's not going to be there anymore,' Jolly added. The base of the monument remained at the entrance to the park on Wednesday with a traffic cone attached to warn cyclists, joggers and pedestrians of the trip hazard it presents. Someone has scrawled a smiling face and a torso on the cone in an apparent reference to the memorial that had once stood in its place. Jolly said a local branch of the Captain Cook Society, an international group that celebrates the explorer, has offered to preserve the bronze plaques. Melbourne-based society member Bill Lang said discussions were underway to find a short-term home for the monument, such as a museum. Lang said the council's decision not to repair the monument was disheartening. 'It's very disappointing for every open-minded Australian that believes that there are lots of things that we can learn about and learn from our history that we should celebrate,' Lang said.
