Daily News Roundup

June 17, 2021

 

THURSDAY Wednesday,  JUNE  17

Tasmania has become the first to close its borders to anyone who visited a “high-risk” site in NSW as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk advised against travelling to Greater Sydney.Premier Annastacia 

This came after NSW recorded one new positive COVID-19 infection and a second possible case, which Premier Gladys Berejiklian says could be a “false positive”.

The Premier said a woman aged in her 70s tested positive after visiting a café in Vaucluse in Sydney’s eastern suburbs

It comes after a man, a limousine driver, aged in his 60s and his wife both tested positive yesterday.

The couple had attended several locations in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, prompting health alerts to be issued across the eastern suburbs.

Ms Palaszczuk’s statement  after the state’s chief health officer last night announced that anyone in Queensland who has visited a New South Wales exposure site was now required to immediately quarantine.

The direction was made as a widespread contact tracing effort continues in the southern state to trace the source of infection in a man from Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Speaking in Brisbane, Ms Palaszczuk announced all travellers to the state will now need to fill out a new Queensland Travel Declaration.

“From 1:00am Saturday, June 19, travellers arriving in Queensland will have to complete this online declaration that will make the job of contact tracing so much easier,” she said.

“Those living in border communities are exempt.”

Ms Palaszczuk has also extended restrictions on travel from Greater Melbourne for another seven days.

“New cases appearing in the community in New South Wales and Victoria show why we can never let our guard down when it comes to the pandemic,” she said.

“Queensland enjoys more freedom than most places in the world but the price of this freedom is eternal vigilance.”

Queensland recorded six new cases of COVID overnight, which were all acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine.

A record 14,054 vaccine were administered in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Victoria has recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 as the state prepares for a further easing of lockdown restrictions.

There were 25,635 test results received yesterday, and 15,610 doses of vaccine were administered at state-run sites.

Health authorities are trying to contain a cluster of cases that emerged at an apartment complex in Southbank, which had grown to eight cases by Wednesday.

Restrictions will ease at 11:59pm Thursday night, with the 25-kilometre travel bubble to end, and gyms and theatres to reopen in Melbourne.

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US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to begin cybersecurity and arms control negotiations following a “constructive” summit that laid bare their deep discord on human rights and Ukraine.

Mr Putin said there was “no hostility” during the first talks between the leaders since Mr Biden took office in January, though they did wrap up more quickly than expected.

The two sides had said they expected to meet for four to five hours but spent less than three hours together, including an opening meeting with just the two presidents and each leader’s top foreign aide.

When it was over, Mr Putin had first crack at describing the results at a solo news conference, with Mr Biden to follow with his own session with reporters.

Mr Putin acknowledged that Mr Biden raised human rights issues with him, including the fate of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Mr Putin defended Navalny’s prison sentence and deflected repeated questions about mistreatment of Russian opposition leaders by highlighting US domestic turmoil, including the Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

In his post-meeting press conference, Mr Biden said he had made it clear that consequences for Russia would be “devastating” if the jailed Kremlin critic died.

He did not specify the actions he would take, but said the US would “continue to raise issues of fundamental human rights”.

Mr Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence for parole violations on an embezzlement conviction that he says was politically motivated.

Concerns have been rasied about the health and treatment of Mr Putin’s political rival, who last year survived an attack with a Novichok nerve agent.

In April, he appeared in court a shocking 20 kilograms lighter after going on a hunger strike to protest being denied access to medical care in prison.

Mr Putin held forth for nearly an hour before international reporters, showing defiance at queries about Mr Biden pressing him on human rights.

At the same time, he also expressed a significant measure of respect for Mr Biden as an experienced political leader.

He doubted the US-Russia relationship could soon return to a measure of equilibrium of years past, but Mr Putin suggested Mr Biden was someone he could work with.

“The meeting was actually very efficient,” Mr Putin said.

“It was substantive, it was specific. It was aimed at achieving results, and one of them was pushing back the frontiers of trust.”

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Emma McKeon has won the 100m freestyle final at the Australian Olympic Swimming Trials in a race that showcased the depth of Australia’s female sprinters.

McKeon’s time of 52:35 edged out former world record holder Cate Campbell, who swam 52:59 to qualify for her fourth Olympic Games.

McKeon has been better known as 200m freestyler but recently she’s been in the form of her life over 100m, setting the fastest time in the world this year and winning the Australian Championship.

“I never really thought that the 100 would be one of my specialities I guess, but I think that’s because of my 200 work — it gives me a good back end and allows me to hold on,” McKeon said.

In a race worthy of an Olympic final, the top six women all swam a qualifying time, which is based on the 8th-best place at the last World Championships.

The result will make Australia the hot favourite to defend the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay gold medal it won at the Rio Olympic Games.

“We just had four girls break 53 seconds, I mean what is going on?” asked Campbell, who anchored the Rio swim.

“The depth of talent in this event is just incredible.

“We’ve just shown that four girls can swim under 53 seconds with a gun start so who knows what we can do with a flying start.”

The veteran has described the trials as “the most nerve-wracking week of my life,” as she watched world-class times swum by Kaylee McKeown, Ariarne Titmus and McKeon before finally swimming for the first time on day five.

“When we’ve looked at the results, it’s such an exciting team to be a part of and to be going to a fourth Olympics is now something I’m incredibly proud to say that I have achieved,” Campbell said.

“I’m relieved. I’m excited. I’m ecstatic.”

Campbell said she’d been inspired by the young stars making their mark in the sport.

“Young people always inspire me,” she said.

“They inspire me with their energy, their passion, their love for the sport, which, as you get older, you get a bit jaded, so it kind of reminds me why I do it.

“There’s been so many magical moments this meet and I’m glad I got to have mine.”

McKeon had already qualified for Tokyo by winning the 100m butterfly and coming second in the 200m, although she’s yet to decide if she’ll compete in the latter event at the Games.

“I’m actually not sure, we’ll just look at it after this meet,” said McKeon, who will also swim the 50m freestyle on Thursday.

Mitch Larkin won the Men’s 200m Individual Medley in a time of 1:56:19 — more than a second faster than the qualifying time.

The Rio 200m backstroke silver-medallist decided last week that he would concentrate on the medley for the Tokyo Games because the schedule of the two strokes clashed.

“It was really difficult deciding between the two and we sat down and looked at potentially what would make a final, then what would medal and what would gold medal as well,” Larkin said.

“You look at the medley, there’s a lot of people on 1:56 but not many capable of going into that 1:55, 1:54 area, I’m one of them that has.”

His time is the second-fastest of the year behind Scottish swimmer Duncan Scott.

Larkin qualified earlier in the week in the 100m backstroke.

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