United States President Joe Biden personally raised China’s wave of trade strikes against Australia with Xi Jinping, as a top American official warned that Beijing wanted to drive Canberra “to its knees” and “break” it through economic coercion. Kurt Campbell, President Biden’s top adviser on Asia, also said there was a “shared ambition” to deliver Australia a fleet of nuclear submarines …

A damning report into federal parliamentary workplaces has found 40 per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment at work, with Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner recommending sweeping changes to how alcohol, complaints and behaviour issues are dealt with in politics. Nearly two-thirds of female politicians have been harassed. Women working in politics recounted stories that included being kissed against their …

The World Health Organisation is pushing for an international accord to help prevent and fight future pandemics after the emergence of the worrying new Omicron COVID-19 variant. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says many uncertainties remain about just how transmissible and severe infection by the highly mutated Omicron might be. Dr Tedros joined leaders like outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel …

NSW’s latest Omicron COVID-19 case visited several shopping centres, supermarkets and fast food outlets in Sydney and the Central Coast while infectious for two days in the community. The case is a woman in her 30s who arrived in Sydney on Thursday, before new travel restrictions were in place. She had travelled to at least two southern African countries prior to …

Australian states and territories are reimposing border rules in response to the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, which has now been detected in a growing number of countries across the world. On Saturday, Australia tightened its international border to travellers from nine African countries where the new variant of concern has been found. People arriving from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, …

Urgent genomic testing is underway to determine if COVID-positive passengers who have arrived in Sydney from southern Africa are carrying the Omicron variant. Australian states and territories yesterday reinstated border rules in response to the new Omicron strain, which was first identified in southern Africa and has since been detected in several countries around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) …

Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been awarded $35,000 in a defamation action against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi over a tweet that accused him of being “a rape apologist”. The now-deleted tweet was accompanied by a link to a story published in The Guardian in 2019, containing comments Mr Dutton made about women on Nauru when he was Home Affairs Minister. Mr Bazzi had denied defaming Mr Dutton, …

Victoria has recorded 1173 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases and nine more people have died a day after protesters celebrated being “superspreaders”. The health department confirmed on Sunday the state is now managing 16,413 active cases. There are 568 Victorians in hospital, of whom 96 are in intensive care including 63 on ventilators. The numbers are slightly down from Saturday. …

Tens of thousands of climate activists have marched through the Scottish city hosting the UN climate summit, physically close to the global negotiators inside but separated by a vast gulf in expectations, with frustrated marchers increasingly dismissive of the climate talks and demanding immediate action instead to slow global warming. The mood at the protest in Glasgow on Saturday was …

4.11.2021 NSW: There are 308 new local cases of COVID-19 in NSW and four deaths, ending a week of daily infection numbers below 300. The new cases were recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday from 94,661 tests. The figures mark a jump of 118 infections — a day after Premier Dominic Perrottet warned to expect daily cases …