Sydney’s iconic New Year’s Eve fireworks display could be cancelled this year owing to the ongoing industrial action by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) seeking pay rises and improvements to working conditions. New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb said she had “grave concerns” about the safety of revellers who would gather in large numbers to witness the yearly spectacle. If the fireworks are cancelled, it could cost the economy $98 million, according to a report in the Guardian.

“Leaving the city is based on access to transport, including trains, and, if trains aren’t available, and people can’t leave the city, I have very large concerns of the risk that will create to the public, because families won’t be able to get home and they’ll be trapped in the city [with] no way out,” Ms Webb told reporters.

She added that NSW police secured the event every year on the basis that 250,000 people who come into the city are able to leave it safely.

“So I haven’t ruled out that I will recommend to government that we cancel the fireworks. It’s that serious,” said Ms Webb.

RTBU state secretary Toby Warnes did not agree with Ms Webb’s alleged threat to cancel the fireworks and called it a ‘tactic’.

“Instead of attempting to resolve the dispute the government is resorting to hysteria and scaring the public of NSW,” he said.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen called on the rail workers to call off the action as it would not be “tolerable” over New Year’s Eve as millions plan to visit the Sydney foreshore for the fireworks.

“It’s been a tough year for businesses and for families, and they deserve the opportunity to come together and to celebrate,” she said.

“That’s why I’m saying to the unions right now, withdraw your industrial action, because no level of disturbance, of disruption on our rail network is tolerable.”

Also read | Australia To Force Meta And Google To Pay For News Shared On Platforms

‘Ample notice periods’

In a fresh statement released on Saturday (Dec 21), RTBU said the government had been “provided with ample notice periods for all industrial action to allow for them to make alternative arrangements”. However, it was clear by the “delays and cancellations that those arrangements have not been made”.

The union said 25 partial work bans are now in place, as well as a walkout on part of the signalling system, and a limit has been imposed on the number of kilometres the remaining workers will travel.

The rail workers are seeking a 32 per cent pay rise over a four-year period and a 35-hour working week.

Sydney:

Hundreds of mysterious black tar-like balls have washed up on two popular Sydney beaches, prompting lifeguards to close the strands to swimmers.

“Mysterious, black, ball-shaped debris” began appearing on Coogee Beach on Tuesday afternoon the local mayor said, leaving flummoxed Australian authorities scrambling to find out what they might be, and where they may have come from.

Black, ball-shaped debris washes ashore on Sydney’s Coogee Beach prompting closure and investigation by Randwick City Council pic.twitter.com/ktrGzxzK7v

— 南洋辉叔 Uncle Hui (@alexcmhwee) October 16, 2024

Hundreds of golf-to-cricket-ball-sized spheres could be seen littering the coast, which is usually thronged with Sydneysiders and tourists.

Instead, a few seagulls wandered among the spheres, pecking and examining.

The balls were also spotted at nearby Gordon’s Bay, an aquatic reserve popular for snorkelling and fishing, which was also closed.

“At this stage, it is unknown what the material is,” Mayor Dylan Parker said in a social media post.

“However, they may be ‘tar balls’ which are formed when oil comes in to contact with debris and water, typically the result of oil spills or seepage.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Nuku’alofa, Tonga:

An unguarded exchange between Australia’s prime minister and a veteran US diplomat about a sensitive Pacific policing plan was caught on camera, causing blushes at a regional summit Thursday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell were heard celebrating a deal at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga that is seen as a way of stymying similar Chinese-led efforts.

“We had a cracker,” Albanese told Campbell, celebrating a deal to establish a police training facility and a crisis reaction force of about 200 personnel. 

“It will make such a difference,” he said, with a coffee cup in hand.

Campbell hailed the agreement as “fantastic” and said Washington had considered doing something similar, before allowing Australia to take the lead.

“We’ve given you the whole lane, so take the lane,” Campbell urged Albanese, in an exchange filmed by a reporter.

Albanese seized the moment to jokingly ask if Washington would like to help bankroll the project: “You can go us halfsies on the cost if you like”.

“It would only cost you a bit.”

Australia has set aside US$271 million for the initial phase of the project.

The exchange will fuel often-repeated Chinese allegations that Australia is doing America’s bidding in the region, and that both countries are preoccupied with countering Beijing’s growing influence.

Sydney has tried to paint the police initiative as coming from the Pacific Islands — despite Australia bankrolling the project and hosting the training facility in Brisbane.

Asked later Thursday about whether the pair had been guilty of saying “the quiet part out loud”, Albanese bristled.

“This has come from the Pacific. And I’m aware of the video of a private conversation. Kurt Campbell’s a mate of mine, it’s us having a chat,” he claimed.

“People try and read something into it, you must be pretty bored, frankly,” he said.

“It is Pacific-led, this has been led by police ministers who have been meeting about this for a year,” he said.

China’s Pacific allies — most notably Vanuatu and Solomon Islands — had voiced concern that the policing plan represented a “geo-strategic denial security doctrine”, designed to box out Beijing. 

China tried and failed to ink a region-wide security pact in 2022, but has since been plying some under-resourced Pacific police forces with martial arts training and fleets of Chinese-made vehicles.

While all members of the forum have endorsed the deal in principle, national leaders will have to decide how much they participate, if at all. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Sydney:

Australian children with potentially deadly peanut allergies will be offered life-saving treatment in a nationwide programme touted as a world first.

Eligible babies will receive daily doses of peanut powder for two years to build up their tolerance, said officials announcing the initiative on Wednesday.

Over time, the infants will be given increasing doses in the hope of reducing their sensitivity to peanuts, under the supervision of doctors at 10 paediatric hospitals around the country.

It is the first national peanut allergy treatment programme offered in hospitals outside of a clinical trial setting, said Kirsten Perrett, head of oral immunotherapy at the National Allergy Centre of Excellence.

At the end of the two years, a food allergy test will determine if the treatment has led to a remission.

“Ultimately we want to change the trajectory of allergic disease in Australia so that more children can go to school without the risk of a life-threatening peanut reaction,” Perrett said.

Previously, families have been told to ensure their children strictly avoid foods with peanuts.

Australian children have some of the highest rates of food allergies in the world.

Peanut allergies affect three percent of Australian children by the time they are 12 months old, government data shows.

Of those, only 20 percent will outgrow their allergy by the time they are teenagers.

Nine-month-old Hunter Chatwin, who is among those in the free treatment programme, started developing hives after eating peanut butter.

“We are taking part in the programme to try and improve his chance of being able to safely eat peanut in the future,” Hunter’s mother Kirsten said.

“Many families are desperate to protect their children from allergic reactions and anaphylaxis,” she said.

“To have this programme available and free at public hospitals is a game-changer.”

If successful, the programme will be rolled out more broadly, including in regional and remote areas.

Deaths from peanut allergies are rare in Australia, but almost 20 percent of the population has an allergic disease, data from Australia’s leading allergy institute found.

This figure is estimated to grow by 70 percent by 2050, impacting 7.7 million Australians.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Sydney:

Australia’s government has announced new legislation making it a criminal offence to share deepfake pornographic images of people without their consent.

The law, to be introduced to parliament in the coming week, would bring in jail sentences of up to six years for sharing non-consensual deepfake pornography.

The penalty rises to seven years if the offender also created the material.

“Digitally created and altered sexually explicit material that is shared without consent is a damaging and deeply distressing form of abuse”, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement late Saturday.

“We know it overwhelmingly affects women and girls who are the target of this kind of deeply offensive and harmful behaviour. It can inflict deep, long-lasting harm on victims.”

The new criminal offence would only apply to adults since children are already protected under separate child abuse legislation.

Countries around the world are grappling with the spread of deepfake pornography — digitally created sexually explicit material, usually generated with artificial intelligence.

In April, Britain said it would criminalise the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images without consent, with plans for unlimited fines and even jail if the image is widely shared.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Fifty people were injured on board a Boeing 787-9 flight from Sydney to Auckland after the plane suddenly “dropped” mid-air, according to Forbes. The flight was operated by Chilean airline Latam and the plane experienced a technical issue, which caused “strong movement” on board the flight, the outlet further said. Some passengers and crew members were “thrown into the roof” on the plane as it suddenly lost altitude. Ten of the injured – seven passengers and three crew members – were hospitalised in a serious condition.

According to FlightAware, the affected LA800 flight landed successfully in Auckland at 4:26 pm local time.

“Flight LA800, operating the Sydney-Auckland route today, had a technical event during the flight which caused a strong movement,” Latam said in a statement posted by CNN.

However, the airline did not elaborate on what the technical event was.

Jacinto, a passenger on board the flight, told CNN affiliate RNZ that there was a “mid-air drop.”

“People flew through the cabin. People got pretty injured,” he added.

The man also said that many passengers were not wearing their seatbelts at the time of the sudden drop.

Another passenger named Valentina, said that the plane “just stopped,” and that “people were flying around.”

“Blood was on the ceiling, people flew and broke the ceiling of the plane,” she said.

Latam Airlines is Chile’s flagship carrier and stops regularly in Auckland en route to Santiago.

Boeing has been at the centre of the storm after malfunction on its planes, including the blowing out of a Boeing 737-9 door at 16,000 feet.