United News of Bangladesh

A five-year government report found Australia’s environment continues to deteriorate due to climate change, resource extraction and other causes, prompting leaders on Tuesday to promise new laws and enforcement of them. The State of the Environment report also adds political pressure on the government to set a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target when Parliament resumes next week for the first time since May 21 elections. The previous conservative government received the report in December but decided against making it public before the elections. The center-left Labor Party won on pledges including greater action on climate change. It wants a target to reduce emissions by 43% below 2005 by the end of the decade enshrined in law when Parliament sits on July 26. Read: Most major nations lag in acting on climate-fighting goals Several unaligned lawmakers want a more ambitious target. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the report sent a “very strong message that we need to do better, but she rejected calls for deeper emission cuts. “On the 43% target, we made a promise to the Australian people. We’re going to keep the promise we made to the Australian people,” Plibersek told the National Press Club. She said she would introduce new environmental protection laws to Parliament next year and the government would create an agency to enforce them. The government will also set a target of having 30% of Australia’s land and surrounding sea declared protected areas. It wants to create an east Antarctic marine park. “I am optimistic about the steps that we can take over the next three years. Legislating strong action on climate change is a great start,” Plibersek said. The wide-ranging report found the number of Australian species listed as threatened had increased by 8% since the 2016 report. That number will increase substantially after wildfires in 2019 and 2020 destroyed vast tracts of southeast Australian forests, the report said. Read: Sri Lanka Parliament to choose president to lead past crisis Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, an environmental organization, said land clearing was the major cause of habitat loss. “There’s nothing in this report we don’t know. This is the fourth State of the Environment Report and every time it’s told us that the environment is getting worse and worse and worse because we’re not taking the type of action we need,” O’Shanassy told Australian Broadcasting Corp. She welcomed the government’s commitment to law reform. “That’s what we need to do pretty quickly, otherwise these endangered species will go extinct and they’ll do that in our lifetimes,” O’Shanassy said.

Floodwaters were receding in Sydney and its surrounding area Thursday as heavy rain threatened to inundate towns north of Australia’s largest city. Evacuation orders and official warnings to prepare to abandon homes were given to 60,000 people by Thursday, down from 85,000 on Wednesday, New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said. Read:Sydney floods burden 50,000 around Australia’s largest city But towns including Maitland and Singleton in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, were still threatened by inundation, Perrottet said. Around 50 rescues were made in the past 24 hours, several of which involved people stranded in cars in floodwaters, he said. Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said record-breaking rain that began around Sydney on Friday last week was easing. “It is very pleasing to see that the weather situation is starting to ease after almost a week of relentless rain,” she said. The weather system that had brought heavy rain to a vast swath of New South Wales was moving further from the coast out to sea north of Sydney, Bureau of Meteorology manager Diana Eadie said. Read:After 3 feet of rain, 32,000 in Sydney area may need to flee Bulga, a town about 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Sydney by road, experienced its highest flood level since 1952, she said. Taree, some 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Sydney by road, was drenched by 305 millimeters (12 inches) of rain overnight — almost a third of the town’s annual rainfall average, Eadie said.

Hundreds of homes have been inundated in and around Australia’s largest city in a flood emergency that was causing trouble for 50,000 people, officials said Tuesday. Emergency response teams made 100 rescues overnight of people trapped in cars on flooded roads or in inundated homes in the Sydney area, State Emergency Service manager Ashley Sullivan said. Days of torrential rain have caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks, bringing a fourth flood emergency in 16 months to parts of the city of 5 million people. Evacuation orders and warnings to prepare to abandon homes were given to 50,000 people, up from 32,000 on Monday, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said. Read: Sylhet flood situation improves as rivers recede “This event is far from over. Please don’t be complacent, wherever you are. Please be careful when you’re driving on our roads. There is still substantial risk for flash flooding across our state,” Perrottet said. The New South Wales state government declared a disaster across 23 local government areas overnight, activating federal government financial assistance for flood victims. Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke credited the skill and commitment of rescue crews for preventing any death or serious injury by the fourth day of the flooding emergency. Parts of southern Sydney had been lashed by more than 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) of rain in 24 hours, more than 17% of the city’s annual average, Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jonathan How said. Severe weather warnings of heavy rain remained in place across Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Tuesday. The warnings also extended north of Sydney along the coast and into the Hunter Valley. The worst flooding was along the Hawkesbury-Nepean river system along Sydney’s northern and western fringes. “The good news is that by tomorrow afternoon, it is looking to be mostly dry but, of course, we are reminding people that these floodwaters will remain very high well after the rain has stopped,” How said. “There was plenty of rain fall overnight and that is actually seeing some rivers peak for a second time. So you’ve got to take many days, if not a week, to start to see these floodwaters start to recede,” How added. Read: After 3 feet of rain, 32,000 in Sydney area may need to flee Residents of Lansvale, in southwest Sydney, were surprised by the speed at which their area became inundated and the growing frequency of such flooding. “Well, it happened in 1986 and ’88, then it didn’t happen for 28 years and, so, 2016 and 2020 and now it’s happened four times this year,” a Lansvale local identified only as Terry told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television of his home being flooded. The wild weather and mountainous seas along the New South Wales coast thwarted plans to tow a stricken cargo ship with 21 crew members to the safety of open sea. The ship lost power after leaving port in Wollongong, south of Sydney, on Monday morning and risked being grounded by 8-meter (26-foot) swells and winds blowing at 30 knots (34 mph) against cliffs. An attempt to tow the ship with tugboats into open ocean ended when a towline snapped in an 11-meter (36-foot) swell late Monday, Port Authority chief executive Philip Holliday said. The ship was maintaining its position Tuesday farther from the coast than it had been on Monday with two anchors and the help of two tugboats. The original plan had been for the ship’s crew to repair their engine at sea. The new plan was to tow the ship to Sydney when weather and sea conditions calmed as early as Wednesday, Holliday said. “We’re in a better position than we were yesterday,” Holliday said. “We’re in relative safety.” Perrottet described the tugboat crews’ response on Monday to save the ship as “heroic.” “I want to thank those men and women who were on those crews last night for the heroic work they did in incredibly treacherous conditions. To have an 11-meter (36-foot) swell, to be undergoing and carrying out that work is incredibly impressive,” Perrottet said.

More than 30,000 residents of Sydney and its surrounds have been told to evacuate or prepare to abandon their homes on Monday as Australia’s largest city braces for what could be its worst flooding in 18 months. Parts of the city of 5 million people are facing a fourth flooding emergency in a year and a half after torrential rain since Friday caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks. “The latest information we have is that there’s a very good chance that the flooding will be worse than any of the other three floods that those areas had in the last 18 months,” Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Read: 500,000 people on flood alert as rain lashes Sydney The current flooding might affect areas that managed to stay dry during the previous floods, Watt added. New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said 32,000 people were impacted by evacuation orders and warnings. “You’d probably expect to see that number increase over the course of the week,” Perrottet said. Emergency services had made 116 flood rescues in recent days, 83 of them since 9 p.m. Sunday, he said. Hundreds more requests for help were made by Monday morning. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology manager Jane Golding said some areas between Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of Sydney had received more than a meter (39 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours. Some has received more than 1.5 meters (59 inches). “The system that has been generating this weather does show signs that it will ease tomorrow, but throughout today, expect more rain,” Golding said. Rain was forecast across New South Wales's coast, including Sydney, all week, she said. The flooding danger was highest along the Hawkesbury River, in northwest Sydney, and the Nepean River in Sydney’s west. “The water is flowing really quickly,” Golding said. “It’s dangerous out on the rivers and we do have some more rain to fall which means the flash-flood risk is not over yet.” State Emergency Services Commissioner Carlene York said strong winds had toppled trees, damaging rooves and blocking roads. She advised against unnecessary travel. Theresa Fedeli, mayor of the Camden municipality on the Nepean River southwest of Sydney, said the repeated flooding was taking a toll on members of her community. “It's just devastating. They just keep on saying ‘devastating, not again,'” Fedeli said. “I just keep on saying ... ‘We've got to be strong, we will get through this.” But you know deep down it's really hitting home hard to a lot of people," she added. Read:Australia commits to reducing greenhouse emissions by 43% Perrottet said government and communities needed to adapt to major flooding becoming more common across Australia’s most populous state. “We’re seeing these flood events more regularly, there’s no doubt about that,” Perrottet said. "To see what we’re seeing right across Sydney, there’s no doubt these events are becoming more common. And governments need to adjust and make sure that we respond to the changing environment that we find ourselves in,” he added.

New Zealand and the European Union have concluded negotiations on a major free trade agreement (FTA), which covers market access into 27 European countries and removes duties on the majority of products New Zealand exports. "Our EU-NZ FTA is expected to increase the value of New Zealand's exports to the EU by up to 1.8 billion NZ dollars (1.12 billion U.S. dollars) per year from 2035," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday after the FTA signing in Brussels. "It's a strategically important and economically beneficial deal that comes at a crucial time in our export-led COVID-19 recovery," Ardern said in a statement. The deal delivers tangible gains for exporters into a restrictive agricultural market. It cuts costs and red tape for exporters and opens up new high-value market opportunities, she said. Also Read: Dhaka, Tokyo to explore possibility of FTA This is the fifth FTA New Zealand has concluded in the past five years and sits alongside upgrades to the existing agreements with China and Singapore, she said, adding that the increase in market access means 73.5 percent of New Zealand's global exports are now covered by an FTA, up from around 50 percent five years ago. The deal provides duty-free access on 97 percent of the New Zealand's existing goods trade to the EU within seven years, 91 percent from day one, said New Zealand Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O'Connor. However, the meat and dairy industries, two of New Zealand's major export sectors, were disappointed as their gains in the trade deal were very limited. The EU is New Zealand's fourth-largest trading partner with two-way goods and services trade worth 17.5 billion NZ dollars (10.9 billion U.S. dollars).

Australia’s new government on Thursday formally committed to a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target of 43% by the end of the decade in fulfillment of a key election pledge. The previous conservative government was dumped by voters at the May 21 election after it stuck to a seven-year-old pledge to reduce Australia’s emissions by only 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had written to U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa Cantellano to inform her of Australia’s new 2030 target. Albanese said legislation to enshrine the new target in law would be introduced to the new Parliament which will sit for the first time on July 26. However the target did not depend on Parliament’s approval. Investment in Australia’s energy sector had been held up during the previous government’s nine years in power due to the administration’s failure to agree on a climate policy, Albanese said. “What businesses have been crying out for is investment certainty,” Albanese said. “The certainty that they need to invest over a longer time frame than the political cycle of three years.” Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquified natural gas which makes reducing dependence on fossil fuels a politically vexed issue. The previous government was widely considered a laggard among wealthy countries in combating climate change. Read: Climate change wipes out $525 bn over last 2 decades: Report The United States has committed to reductions of between 50% and 52% below 2005 levels by 2030. Britain has pledged to cut emissions by 68% below 1990 levels. Albanese’s government could face pressure in a new, greener Parliament to adopt an even more ambitious target. Several seats have yet to be declared as counting continues following the election. The center-left Labor Party administration will likely hold a narrow majority of 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives where a majority of lawmakers is needed to form government. Read: Climate change threatens access to water, sanitation A record 16 lawmakers in the House will not be aligned with either the government or opposition. The minor Greens party is on track to secure four seats, up from a single lawmaker in the last Parliament. The Greens want a 2030 reduction target of 75%. Newly elected independent lawmakers have called for a 60% target or at least 50%. Greens senators could hold a balance of power in the upper chamber where major parties rarely hold a majority and need support from outside government to pass laws. The 2030 commitment comes as much of Australia’s population faces soaring electricity and gas prices due in part to the Russia-Ukraine war. Large parts of southeast Australia face the threat of blackouts for a range of reasons including an unusually cold start to the Southern Hemisphere winter and unscheduled outages of aging coal-fired generations that will be shut down within years and are not being adequately maintained.

Australia has reported its highest number of influenza infections in May on record. According to the latest data from the national disease surveillance system, 65,770 flu cases were recorded across Australia in May. It marks an increase of more than 100 percent from the previous May record set in 2019. As of June 5, 87,989 total influenza cases have been logged in Australia in 2022, according to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). Of those, 47,860, or 54 percent, were reported in the two weeks leading up to June 5 as winter set in. "From mid-April 2022, the weekly number of notifications of laboratory-confirmed influenza reported in Australia has exceeded the five year average," the NNDSS update said. There have been 27 influenza-associated deaths in Australia in 2022 and 733 cases have been treated in hospital, 6 percent of whom were admitted directly to intensive care. By comparison, there were fewer than 1,000 influenza cases in Australia in 2021 and more than 21,000 in 2020 as a result of restrictions introduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19. READ: Federal officials confirm bird flu detected in New York Experts have warned that, with restrictions now lifted, Australia is facing an influenza resurgence over winter which, paired with a spike in COVID cases, could put significant pressure on the health system. Jonathan Anderson, head of Medical Affairs at pharmaceutical company Seqirus, told an industry forum that the rest of the world will be watching how Australia copes with the spike. "Australia is in a unique position in that we are one of the first countries to face COVID and a simultaneous flu season that is similar to pre-COVID levels," he was quoted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying on Saturday. "It's clear that the rest of the world will be watching our flu season closely and learning from our successes or failures."

Australia’s new government sworn in Wednesday includes a record 13 women, including the first female Muslim to serve in the role and the second Indigenous person named Indigenous Affairs minister. The ceremony conducted by Governor-General David Hurley in the capital, Canberra, came 11 days after new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led the center-left Labor Party to an election victory over the incumbent conservatives. “Proud to lead an inclusive government that is as diverse as Australia itself,” Albanese wrote on Twitter. “Welcome to all these new Labor members.” Youth Minister Anne Aly is Australia’s first female Muslim minister, while Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic is the first Muslim to serve in Cabinet. Linda Burney became the first woman, and only the second Indigenous person, to serve as Indigenous Affairs minister. Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong were sworn in early last week so they could fly to Tokyo for a summit with President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Read: Lights of Vivid to return to Australia in COVID-19 revival Of the 30 ministers appointed to the new government, nearly half are women. Women also hold a record 10 spots out of 23 in core Cabinet roles. With some votes still to be counted from last month’s election, the Labor Party has secured enough seats to hold an outright majority in the 150-seat House. Albanese’s Cabinet includes some new faces as well as some lawmakers who served in the previous Labor government that last held power nine years ago. “We have an overflow of talent on our side of the parliament,” Albanese said, adding that “it’s the most experienced incoming Labor government in our history since federation.” Read: New Australian leader Albanese makes whirlwind world debut Albanese has been getting support from an unusual source: British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. Bragg wrote on Twitter that he’d awoken to find that “the new prime minister of Australia had quoted my lyrics in his first press conference.” Bragg went on to say he wasn’t surprised as he’s been friends with Albanese for more than 20 years after they met at a theater in Sydney and bonded over a shared love of music and compassionate politics. “The challenges he faces are daunting and I don’t envy him his success,” Bragg wrote. “Some of us just sing about making the world a better place — he now has the responsibility of delivering on that promise.

After being cancelled two years in a row due to the pandemic, one of Sydney's most iconic events, Vivid Sydney, is set to once again light up the city's most famous landmarks. From May 27 to June 18, each night as the sun goes down Sydney will be lit up with illuminations, installations and interactive events, bringing together light artists, music makers and a variety of creatives to celebrate the soul of Sydney. New South Wales (NSW) Minister for Tourism Stuart Ayres, who kicked off the 23-day event on Friday evening, said after two years of darkness Vivid 2022 would be "bigger, brighter and bolder" than ever. "This is the moment that we have all been waiting for... it's time to put a smile back on everyone's faces, and that's exactly what Vivid's going to do," said Ayres moments before the lights were turned on for the first time. And for the first time in its 12-year history, the event was kicked off with a "First Light" smoking ceremony and Indigenous performance, in acknowledgement and celebration of Australia's Indigenous peoples and culture. READ: New Australian leader Albanese makes whirlwind world debut And, although the crowds are expected to be lower than before the pandemic, Ayres urged visitors to plan ahead as "massive crowds" were expected. "The weekends are going to be huge... I'm quite confident Sydneysiders and people right around the country really want to get out and about and see Vivid," he said. The event will see 11 sections across downtown Sydney lit up, including the iconic Darling Harbour, the sails of Sydney Opera House, Taronga Zoo and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Over the 23 nights a total of 200 hours of unique moving images would be projected onto the Opera House, the centerpiece of the festival. The event will also host a Vivid Ideas Exchange, at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) with talks, seminars and film screenings, designed to spark debate between the nation's top minds. 

Hours after being sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese found himself fresh off a jet and thrown into the glare of a global spotlight Tuesday. He was rewarded with a warm welcome, as well as a bit of a gentle ribbing, from U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders at an international summit in Japan. “You were sworn in and got on a plane, and if you fall asleep while you’re here, it’s OK,” Biden joked as the leaders met at the Quad, an Indo-Pacific security and economic coalition meant as a counterweight to China’s growing influence in the region. Biden marveled at Albanese’s stamina. “I don’t know how you’re doing it. But it is really quite extraordinary, just getting off the campaign trail as well.” The weekend election win for Albanese, from the center-left Labor Party, was a vivid change in Australian politics, ending nine years of conservative rule, the last several under former leader Scott Morrison. Albanese has described himself as Australia’s first-ever political candidate with a “non-Anglo Celtic name.” He and Malaysian-born Penny Wong, Australia’s first foreign minister who was born overseas, were sworn into office Monday just before they flew to Tokyo for the meeting with Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Albanese’s election came after a hard-fought campaign during which he caught COVID-19. Because his predecessor set the election date a week later than expected, Albanese had little time to prepare for the Tokyo summit. For his efforts, however, he received friendly greetings from other leaders. Also Read: Albanese sworn in as PM in Australia ahead of Tokyo summit Kishida, in his opening remarks, took note of Albanese’s tight schedule, offering his “heartfelt appreciation for coming all the way to Japan right after the elections.” Modi said Albanese’s presence in Tokyo within 24 hours of his swearing-in “demonstrates the strength of our friendship within the Quad and your commitment to it.” At the summit, Albanese stressed Australia’s unwavering commitment to the regional forum and stressed his country’s efforts to deal with climate change and look for greater engagement with Southeast Asian countries. He did not mention aggressive security moves by China, which many countries in Asia view with worry. During the summit, Chinese and Russian strategic bombers conducted joint flights near Japan, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said, calling it an “increased level of provocation” and a threat to the Quad. Chinese H-6 bombers joined Russian TU-95s over the Sea of Japan and flew to areas over the East China Sea, but did not violate Japanese airspace, Kishi said. Separately, a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane was spotted flying off the northern Japanese coast. Kishi said Japan conveyed “serious concern” to both Beijing and Moscow. China’s Ministry of Defense said the Chinese and Russian militaries carried out joint strategic air patrols above the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the western Pacific. In a meeting later Tuesday, Albanese and Kishida shared concern about China’s new security pact with the Solomon Islands, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. They also agreed to further cooperation in defense, a new U.S-led regional economic framework, clean energy and supply chain resilience, it said.