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COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV) will undertake a pilot scheme of a robot that captures both audio and video at one of its hotel in coming weeks as part of a wide-ranging review of the state’s troubled hotel quarantine system. Security company Monjon, who first offered a similar solution to Victorian officials in September, will provide the technology that was successfully used in the hotel quarantine program for the US Open. There have been multiple leakages out of hotel quarantine despite Premier Daniel Andrews boasting Victoria has the strictest regime in place. The state was plunged into its third lockdown about...

Facebook will restore Australian news pages this week after reaching a deal with the government over its world-first law regulating big tech. The social media platform was condemned by politicians around the world after it blocked 25 million Australians from viewing and sharing news articles on Thursday. The 'arrogant and disgraceful' move - which also banned charity, health authority and emergency service pages - came after Australia's ground-breaking news media bargaining code passed the lower house of Parliament on Wednesday night. But following talks with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, the government has made some last-minute changes to the law which...

Watch video from source. This is what real news reporting looks like outside of the US. VIDEO AT LINK................. It is clear US President Joe Biden is not up to the task he has been “sworn in to do”, according to Sky News host Cory Bernardi. “Never before has the leader of the free world been so cognitively compromised,” Mr Bernardi said “It’s clear to me at the least that US President Joe Biden is struggling with dementia and is clearly not up to the task he’s been sworn in to do.” Mr Bernardi said it is something which was...

After blocking links to all news content in Australia, Facebook has reportedly “friended” the country again by coming back to the negotiating table, at least according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. That doesn’t mean that Mark Zuckerberg has dropped his objections to Austrailia’s pending legislation that would force the social media giant to pay for links to Australian news content, however. Neither side seems to be backing down at this point.Australia may not be in this battle alone, though. We’re learning this weekend that Canada is drafting a similar measure and basically daring Facebook to impose a blackout on them...

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Facebook has “friended us again” and talks have resumed after the social media giant accidentally shut public information accounts. Morrison says he’s glad Facebook is “back at the table” for discussions over the Australian government’s media bargaining code, jesting the U.S. tech giant has “tentatively friended us again.” However, the company shows no sign of backing down after banning access to news and information pages across Australia in response to the code. Senior Facebook Asia-Pacific executive Simon Milner was on Friday forced to apologise after the company accidentally also banned access to accounts run...

Facebook's decision to block people from sharing news in Australia has been rebuked by lawmakers around the world, raising the specter of a much wider showdown between the world's biggest social media platform and the governments and news organizations fighting to check its power. Elected officials and media publishers in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States slammed Facebook's actions on Thursday, suggesting they were anti-competitive and underscored the need for a regulatory crackdown. "It is one of the most idiotic but also deeply disturbing corporate moves of our lifetimes," Julian Knight, the lawmaker who chairs the Digital,...

It is clear US President Joe Biden is not up to the task he has been “sworn in to do”, according to Sky News host Cory Bernardi. “Never before has the leader of the free world been so cognitively compromised,” Mr Bernardi said “It’s clear to me at the least that US President Joe Biden is struggling with dementia and is clearly not up to the task he’s been sworn in to do.” Mr Bernardi said it is something which was “evident” during the election campaign, but the “partisan and poisonous” mainstream media chose not to highlight anything which could...

Facebook "unfriends" Australia, news, content of comments, etc, "blacked out". https://www.oann.com/facebook-unfriends-australia-global-uproar-as-news-pages-go-dark/

Beijing’s Belt and Road deal with the Australian state government of Victoria looks set to be torn up in weeks as the deadline for the states’ to inform the federal government of all foreign agreements draws nearer. Speaking to the Herald Sun, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he saw no benefit to Victoria’s deal with Beijing and signalled that the agreement would be unlikely to stand under the bill. “If there are benefits, what are they and what was paid for them? I don’t have the answers to those questions at this point, but the assessment of those arrangements will...

Facebook has blocked Australians from accessing and sharing news in protest at a new law which would have forced the site to pay for the content it hosts. Furious Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the move shows tech companies 'think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them' while others branded it 'an assault on a sovereign nation' and an 'abuse of power'. The backlash quickly went international, with one Democrat politician in the US saying it shows 'Facebook is not compatible with democracy' while the hashtag 'Delete Facebook' quickly began trending on rival...

Millions of Australians have been banned from viewing any news content on Facebook, after the tech giant decided to ban articles from its platform. The move is in response to the proposed Media Bargaining law, which would force tech companies like Facebook and Google to negotiate with news providers to feature their content. Facebook's decision means the nine million Australians who log into Facebook every day can no longer view any news whatsoever about their nation or anywhere else in the world - but can still read conspiracy theories, news from dictators and other extremist unsubstantiated views.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has apologised to a former political adviser who has alleged she was raped by a senior colleague in a minister's office in parliament. Brittany Higgins said she had feared losing her job after the 2019 incident, and had little support from her bosses. Ms Higgins, 26, spoke out in a TV interview on Monday that has prompted shock and outrage over her treatment. Mr Morrison apologised for the government's handling of her complaint. The allegations are now under a renewed police investigation. Mr Morrison said he was "shattered" by her claims, and had called for...

Australia, Japan, and America are conducting trilateral military exercises in Guam as the allies look to strengthen joint response times in the face of the growing threat of China and Russia in the Indo-Pacific region. The Cope North 21 exercises will see over 2,000 military personnel convene at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam with approximately 95 aircraft from America, Australia, and Japan. Group Captain Nathan Christie, Australian Commander for Exercise Cope North 21, said the allies will conduct combat-readiness exercises, procedures for humanitarian aid, and disaster relief operations. Led this year by the Koku-Jieita (Japan Air Self-Defence Force), the United...

👀👀https://t.co/d0TT0iU6N1 — CIA-Simulation Warlord 🇺🇸🦈🇺🇸 (@zerosum24) February 10, 2021 Powerful undersea quake hits north of New Zealand WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A powerful undersea earthquake struck north of New Zealand on Wednesday evening, prompting tsunami warnings in parts of the region. The U.S. Geological Agency said the magnitude 7.7 quake was centered at a depth of six miles southeast of the Loyalty Islands. The shaking was not expected to cause significant damage or fatalities on land. The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center issued warnings of possible tsunami waves ranging from 0.3 to 1 meters (1 to 3.3 feet) for Vanuatu and...

Few Scotland players chose to kneel to Black Lives Matter ahead of a historic victory over England in the Six Nations rugby tournament, triggering a woke backlash. The Scots won the Calcutta Cup from England on their much larger neighbour’s home soil for the first time since 1983 — in a stadium which was largely empty, thanks to the anti-coronavirus lockdown — but the win has been somewhat marred by a furore over what the BBC has dubbed “kneegate”. “#AsOne is the message from Scottish Rugby. But the players don’t seem to be ‘as one’ in their stance against racism,”...

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded Australia mining behemoth Lynas $30.4 million on Monday to finance the construction of a rare earth metal processing plant in Hondo. The funding comes as the nation attempts to solidify its domestic supply of rare earth metals-, which are vital for making wind turbines, consumer technology, batteries and missiles. Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, the largest rare earth element mining and processing company outside of China, was awarded a Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III technology investment agreement to establish domestic processing capabilities for light rare earth elements (LREE).

(AFP) - New Zealand unveiled a blueprint Sunday to phase out petrol-powered cars while its dairy industry, a key pillar of the economy, must slash cow numbers under the ambitious plan to be carbon neutral by 2050. The changes are among a raft of recommendations presented to the government by the Climate Change Commission on steps New Zealand must take to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the document, which will now go out for public consultation, showed the impact of the reforms would not be an economic burden. "The cost of...

Brazil's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been ranked the world's worst, while New Zealand topped the class, according to research published by a leading Australian think tank on Thursday. Sydney's Lowy Institute assessed almost 100 countries on six criteria, including confirmed cases, Covid-19 deaths and testing metrics. "Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic," according to the report by the independent body. Aside from New Zealand – which has largely kept the virus at bay with border closures and "go early, go hard" lockdowns and testing regimes – Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus,...

The Chinese regime’s trade war on Australia appears to be backfiring after strong demand for Australian exports have resulted in the nation recording its fourth-highest trade surplus. Preliminary international trade figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday show Australia recorded a $9 billion goods trade surplus in December, up from $7.4 billion in November. While imports from China fell by $641 million or 7 percent, exports to China increased by $2.3 billion or 21 percent in December, driven primarily by iron ore and wheat. This comes amid China’s economic trade sanctions, which has seen trade disruptions...

To artists and romantics, the twinkling of stars is visual poetry; a dance of distant light as it twists and bends through a turbulent ocean of air above our heads. Not everybody is so enamoured with our atmosphere's distortions. To many scientists and engineers, a great deal of research and ground-to-satellite communication would be a whole lot easier if the air simply wasn't there. Losing our planet's protective bubble of gases isn't exactly a popular option. But Australian and French researchers have teamed up to design the next best thing – a system that guides light through the tempestuous currents...