Sydney

Thousands of anti-lockdown protesters gathered in Australia's two largest cities on July 24, with several arrested in Sydney after violent clashes with police.

A group charged mounted officers while throwing pot plants and bottles, as opponents of Sydney's month-long stay-at-home orders took to the streets.

A few years ago, a Sydney scientist noticed a sulfur-crested cockatoo opening his trash bin. Not every resident would be thrilled, but ornithologist Richard Major was impressed by the ingenuity.

It's quite a feat for a bird to grasp a bin lid with its beak, pry it open, then shuffle far enough along the bin's edge that the lid falls backward, revealing edible trash treasures inside.

Chairman of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee (COSR) Mihai Covaliu tells AGERPRES in an interview that he is convinced Romanian athletes will stop in Tokyo the decline in the tally of Olympic medals that started in Sydney 2000. He says that in order to bring joy to Romanians, COSR needs the support of the government and its partners.

According to the BBC, all this caused great anger among the population.
The state of South Australia, where 1.7 million people live, joined the states of Victoria and New South Wales on Tuesday regarding the introduction of restrictive measures.
Residents of South Australia will have to stay in their homes for seven days, after five people became infected.

Australia's two largest states reported sharp increases in new COVID-19 cases on July 21, a blow to hopes that lockdown restrictions would be lifted with more than half the country's population under stay-at-home orders.   

Australian authorities ordered more businesses to close on July 17 along with a slew of new restrictions in the country's largest city as a weeks-long lockdown failed to quash an outbreak of Covid-19.

Sydney's five million residents will be in virus lockdown for at least another two weeks, state premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on July 14, rejecting calls to tighten restrictions further.

Australia's largest city is already in its third week of a partial lockdown and struggling to bring a fast-spreading outbreak of the coronavirus Delta variant under control.

Australia reported another spike in new coronavirus cases on July 12, as a lockdown in the country's largest city Sydney failed to halt a rapidly growing cluster of cases.

Health authorities reported 112 cases in Sydney in the last 24 hours, a record for this wave of infections, despite a citywide lockdown that is in its third week.

More than four million people have now died from COVID-19, the WHO said on July 7, as many rich nations prepare to loosen restrictions even as countries in Asia battle surging infections.

Millions are facing new lockdowns across Asia and Indonesia has emerged as a global hotspot with death rates rising tenfold in a month to a record 1,040 on Wednesday.

Sydney's two-week lockdown has been extended for another week due to the vulnerability of an Australian population largely unvaccinated against COVID-19, officials said on July 7.

"The situation we're in now is largely because we haven't been able to get the vaccine that we need," New South Wales state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.