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Tag: Australia

  • Tokyo Olympics: Australia tame Nigeria’s D’Tigers in first group game

    Tokyo Olympics: Australia tame Nigeria’s D’Tigers in first group game

    Nigeria’s D’Tigers suffered a 67-84 defeat to the Boomers of Australia in their first Group B preliminary game of the Tokyo Olympics at the Saitama Arena on Sunday.

    According to reports that D’Tigers came into the game in high spirits after earning historic victories over Team U.S and Argentina recently in exhibition games.

    Nigeria had however lost to Australia in their final exhibition game by a huge margin of 39 points (108-69) several days ago, for a reality check for the team coming into the Olympics.

    This time, the game started with the D’Tigers looking the sharper of the two teams as they raced to a 4-0 lead in a blink of an eye.

    The resilient Australians, however came back at 4-4 for a ding-dong affair from then on.

    The Nigerians, led by Miami Heat point-guard Gabe Vincent, were impressive, matching the Boomers for strength as they tied the game 23-23 at the end of the quarter.

    The D’Tigers were off to a quick start yet again in the second quarter with a three-pointer to make it 26-23 and could have stretched their lead a little further.

    But the young and unexperienced Nigerian team were guilty of not taking advantage of their too many turnovers, including poor transition and staying poor at the free-throw line.

    The Aussies who are rated number four in the FIBA World ranking took advantage of the shortcomings of the Nigerian team.

    They led by three points going into half time 43-40, after winning the second quarter 20-17.

    The Nigerians kept the margin minimal at the end of the third quarter with a six-point deficit at 58-52 in favour of the Bommers.

    But D’Tigers collapsed in the fourth quarter, as the Aussies, inspired by San Antonio Spurs point-guard Patty Mills.

    He led a late surge for 25 points, from five of eight three-pointers, with six assists, four rebounds and four steals.

    While the Nigerians though showed a lot of improvement from their exhibition game defeat to the Aussies, but they again found it difficult curtailing their opponents in the final quarter of the game.

    Obi Emegano scored nine of his team-high 12 points in the first half.

    NBA winner Jordan Nwora had 10 points from the bench, while Josh Okogie contributed nine points.

    NAN reports that D’Tigers will now face Germany in their second group game on Wednesday as they look to qualify as one of the top two teams from their group.

    There is a fact of Olympic Games history that no African side has ever made it past the group stage of the competition, with Egypt the closest in 1952 after finishing ninth.

    But Nigeria is the first from the continent to have qualified for both the men’s and women’s basketball competitions at the same Games.

    However, based on the evidence from Nigeria’s exhibition games, both squads should have stronger aspirations than simply progressing from their groups at Tokyo 2020.

  • Tokyo Olympics: Japan beat Australia in opening softball game

    The Tokyo Olympics started in earnest on Wednesday, even if unofficially or unceremoniously, after a one-year postponement due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    The Games started with Japan’s 8-1 win over Australia in the opening round of the women’s softball tournament.

    The match kicked off at 9 a.m (0000 GMT) in Fukushima, the city hit hard by the tsunami-caused meltdown at the nuclear power station in 2011.

    Three softball and six women’s football matches are scheduled in total for Wednesday, two days before Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.

    Also in action is the U.S women’s football team, with the world champions seeking revenge against Sweden after they lost to the Swedes in the 2016 quarter-finals.

    Japan won the last Olympic softball tournament in 2008.

    The sport was dropped at the 2012 and 2016 Games and will also not feature in 2024.

  • Australia tame rampaging D’Tigers in exhibition game

    Australia tame rampaging D’Tigers in exhibition game

    Nigeria’s D’Tigers were brought down to earth in Las Vegas on Tuesday night as they fell 69-108 to Australia, their group B rivals at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics Men’s Basketball Event.

    In this exhibition game, the Nigerian senior male basketball side which on Saturday beat world leaders U.S. 90-87 failed to make it three wins in a row.

    After beating the U.S., the Nigerian side had also beaten another top-ranked side, Argentina, 94-71.

    The loss is the first for the Nigerian side since Mike Brown took charge in 2020.

    The Australian side were efficient in a display of grit and technical prowess as they won the first quarter 26-13.

    In the second quarter, they won 49-29 to take the scoreline to 75-42.

    The Australians went on to win by 39 points ending the game 108-69.

    They thus made it three wins in a row with Chris Gouding scoring 21 points, three rebounds and four steals, with a 100 per cent accuracy from the three-point line.

    Josh Okogie and Obi Emegano led the scorers’ chart for D’Tigers with 10 points each, while Jahlil Okafor had seven points and five rebounds, and Ike Iroegbu seven points.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that both Nigeria and Australia are billed to meet again on July 25, this time in their opening Group B game at the Tokyo Olympics.

  • Australian PM announces disaster payments for workers affected by COVID-19 lockdown

    Australian PM announces disaster payments for workers affected by COVID-19 lockdown

    The Australian government on Thursday announced a new disaster payment for people affected by Coronavirus lockdown.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud said at a news conference.

    They said that people aged 17 and over who lost their jobs as a result of lockdown will receive the temporary COVID disaster payment made on a weekly basis.

    In order to be eligible, people must prove that they have lost income because of a lockdown, have used all of their pandemic sick leave and that they have less than 10,000 Australian dollars (7,742.6 U.S. dollars) in liquid assets.

    Eligible recipients who work more than 20 hours per week will receive 500 Australian dollars (387.1 U.S. dollars) or 325 Australian dollars (251.6 U.S. dollars) if they work less.

    “We are talking about somebody getting through the next week.

    “Someone who would normally be in an economic situation where every dollar counts.

    “What matters is that businesses get the support they need and households get the support they need,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra

    The gesture comes after the Victorian government called for federal financial aid after extending the restrictions for the Melbourne area by a further seven days.

    Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, has been the hardest-hit state by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

    “But I tell you, as a Victorian, it has been devastating for our state,’’ Frydenberg said on Wednesday in another news conference.

    According to him, Victorians have been subject to 140 days of lockdown, whereas the average across the other states is six days, which is an incredible contrast.

  • Australia in talks with airlines on vaccination passports

    Australia in talks with airlines on vaccination passports

    The Australian Government has opened talks with international airlines on digital vaccine passports for people who had been inoculated against COVID-19.

    The Australian Border Force (ABF) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that represented about 290 airlines have been in discussions about vaccinated Australians using the IATA Travel Pass, the Guardian Australia reported on Thursday.

    It came one day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged the idea of a digital vaccination passport.

    On Thursday he said holders of vaccination passports could be allowed to be exempt from domestic travel restrictions.

    “That is likely to see more strains, more variants, come through, so we have to be exceptionally cautious.

    “That’s why the borders remain closed, and that’s why we look to further liberalise things that are safe,’’ Morrison told radio station 3AW.

    Vinoop Goel, IATA’s Asia-Pacific director for airports, told the Guardian that its digital pass was secured and simple.

    “Our goal is to try and make sure that borders reopen, and without quarantine because you know if you’re looking at a 14-day or 21-day quarantine, it does not work for business travel, neither does it work for leisure travel,’’ he said.

  • Australian central bank keeps monetary policy unchanged

    Australian central bank keeps monetary policy unchanged

    Australia’s central bank maintained its interest rate as well as bond purchase programme on Tuesday, as widely expected, as these measures continued to help the economy by keeping financing costs very low.

    The policy board of the Reserve Bank of Australia headed by Governor Philip Lowe decided to leave its cash rate unchanged at a record low of 0.10 per cent.

    The central bank retained the target yield on the 3-year Australian government bond at around 0.1 per cent and also maintained the parameters of the Term Funding Facility and the government bond purchase programme.

    The bank said the initial 100 billion Australian dollar (76 billion dollar) government bond purchase programme was almost complete and the second 100 billion Australian dollar programme would commence next week.

    Beyond this, the bank was prepared to undertake further bond purchases if doing so would assist with progress towards the goals of full employment and inflation, the bank said.

    The RBA signaled that the interest rate would not be raised until 2024.

    “The Board will not increase the cash rate until actual inflation is sustainably within the two to three per cent target range.

    “For this to occur, wages growth will have to be materially higher than it is currently.

    “This will require significant gains in employment and a return to a tight labour market. The board does not expect these conditions to be met until 2024 at the earliest,’’ RBA said.

    Regarding housing market, the bank said it would be monitoring trends in housing borrowing carefully and it is important that lending standards are maintained amid rising housing prices and low interest rates.

  • More flooding danger for eastern Australia as weather starts to ease

    More flooding danger for eastern Australia as weather starts to ease

    Meteorologists warned residents of Australia’s eastern coast as weather conditions started to ease in parts of New South Wales (NSW), while the threat of flooding persists in many areas after days of torrential rain.

    Australia’s Bueau of Meteorology (BoM) said “blue skies and sunshine’’ were expected across Sydney and the Mid North Coast on Tuesday afternoon but flooding dangers remained very present.

    With some 18,000 people in NSW already evacuated, another 15,000 residents were on high alert on Tuesday as two catastrophic weather fronts roll across large swathes of the state, state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in a morning press conference.

    In remarks to the state parliament Berejiklian spoke of a weather incident beyond anything we could have comprehended, according to Australian news wire AAP.

    Communities north-west of Sydney were ordered to evacuate amid the unrelenting rain as a massive amount of water flowed into catchments, causing rivers to break their banks.

    Major flooding was occurring along the Colo River in the Hawkesbury River region. The NSW State Emergency Service ordered about 500 people in 200 homes in the area to start evacuating on Tuesday morning.

    A flood peak similar was expected along the Colo River in the course of Tuesday, the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) said, and an evacuation warning applied to residents along the river.

    In an afternoon press conference, BoM hydrologist Victoria Dodds said that there were flood warnings and flood watches in force from the northern border with Queensland all the way down the east coast to Victoria with a developing flood situation in inland New South Wales.

    Dodds said that colleagues in Sydney who have been forecasting for over 20 years have never seen anything like it.

    “She added that there was still a very real risk of continued flooding and other dangers associated with damaging winds, hazardous surf conditions and coastal erosion.

    The highest rainfall total recorded for the current flood event 1,083 millimetres was at Mount Seaview, just west of Port Macquarie on the NSW coast north of Sydney, the BoM’s Agata Imielska said in the press conference.

    The flooding seen in the state in recent days is the worst in decades.

    Communities on the Mid-North Coast were facing the worst flooding since 1929, while Newcastle, some 140 kilometres north of Sydney, and the Nepean Valley west of the city are experiencing the worst flooding in some 50 years.

  • Facebook, Google to start paying for news content

    Facebook, Google to start paying for news content

    Australia is on course to become the first country to require social media giant Facebook and search giant Google to pay for news content.

    Member of the Australian Parliament, Josh Frydenberg, who is the federal treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, made this known in an emailed statement on Friday.

    He said Australia will introduce landmark legislation to force Alphabet’s Google and Facebook to pay publishers and broadcasters for content next week.

    “The bill will now be considered by the parliament from the week commencing 15 February 2021,” Frydenberg stated.

    The US search and social media giants have pressed Australia to soften the legislation.

    Google had specifically said the bill is “unworkable” and that it will force it to pull out of the country altogether.

    Senior executives from both companies have held talks with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Frydenberg.

    But, a senate committee examining the proposals had remained adamant and had recommended no amendments.

  • Australia slips into first recession in 29 years

    Australia slips into first recession in 29 years

    Australia has officially fallen into its first recession in 29 years with the biggest fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on record.

    According to national accounts data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday GDP contracted by 7 per cent in the June quarter – more than three times more than the previous biggest fall of 2 per cent in 1974.

    “This is, by a wide margin, the largest fall in quarterly GDP since records began in 1959,” said Michael Smedes, Head of National Accounts at the ABS.

    It marks the second consecutive quarter of economic decline, meaning that Australia is in a recession for the first time since 1991.

    “Today’s national accounts confirm the devastating impact on the Australian economy from COVID-19.

    “Our record run of 28 consecutive years of economic growth has now officially come to an end.

    “Behind these numbers are heartbreaking stories of hardship, being filled by everyday Australians as they go about their daily lives,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Wednesday.

    The ABS found that due to increased number of recipients and additional support payments, social assistance benefits in cash rose to a record 41.6 per cent.

    Meanwhile, Australians’ spending on services fell 17.6 per cent in the June quarter while hours worked fell a record 9.8 per cent and the household saving to income ratio rose from 6 percent to 19.8 per cent.

    Household expenditure declined by 12.1 per cent.

    However, Frydenberg said that the government has the “financial firepower” to stimulate the economy in the wake of the pandemic.

    “The road ahead will be long, the road ahead will be hard, the road ahead will be bumpy.

    “We didn’t go down the path of countries like Sweden which put few restrictions in place.

    “At the same time we didn’t go down the path of countries like France which accepted and adopted extreme lockdowns, totally shutting down large parts of their economy.

    “Instead we chose our own path, and put in place 314 billion Australian dollars (230.7 billion dollars) of support for Australians to build a bridge to the other side of this crisis,” he said.

    In spite of offering long-term optimism Frydenberg also warned of a grim short-term outlook, with the September quarter expected to be weighed down significantly by strict stage four coronavirus restrictions introduced in Victoria in August.

    Earlier on Wednesday Mathias Cormann, the Minister for Finance, said that the government stood by restrictions placed on the economy to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

    “We were hit by an unexpected crisis which came out of nowhere and clearly the first priority was to protect people’s health and save people’s lives by suppressing the spread of the virus and that was absolutely necessary,” he said.

  • NAFDAC warns Nigerians against apple, blackcurrant from Australia

    NAFDAC warns Nigerians against apple, blackcurrant from Australia

    The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has cautioned Nigerians to stop the consumption of an organic apple and black currant originating from Australia.

    Prof. Moji Adeyeye, NAFDAC Director-General, who disclosed, said the products had been certified harmful for human consumption.

    “The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has warned against the consumption of Pure Tassie Organic Apple and Blackcurrant Juice originating from Australia.

    “This was due to unacceptable level of patulin (a mycotoxin) which had exceeded the maximum limit in fruit juice,” she said.

    Adeyeye pointed out that the level of patulin content in the affected fruit juice can induce liver, spleen and kidney damage.

    She added that the toxic level would affect immune system and causes nausea, gastrointestinal disturbance and vomiting.

    She said that the name of the is Pure Tassie, an organic apple and blackcurrant juice from Australia.

    The D-G implored importers, distributors, retailers and consumers to immediately stop the importation, distribution, sale and consumption of the affected fruit juice.

    She urged members of the public in possession of the affected fruit juice to submit stock to the nearest NAFDAC office.

    She also called on healthcare professionals and consumers to report adverse events or side effects related to the use of this product to the nearest NAFDAC office through NAFDAC PRASCOR (20543 TOLL FREE from all networks).

    Adeyeye said the agency should be reached through pharmacovigilance@nafdac.gov.ng or via the NAFDAC ADR e-Reporting platform available at www.nafdac.gov.ng.