Australia reopens to international travelers after nearly 2 years
CBSN
International tourists and business travelers began arriving in Australia with few restrictions on Monday for the first time in almost two years after the government lifted some of the most draconian pandemic measures of any democracy in the world.
Vaccinated travelers were greeted at Sydney's airport by jubilant well-wishers waving toy koalas and favorite Australian foods including Tim Tams chocolate cookies and jars of Vegemite spread.
Federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan was on hand to welcome the first arrivals on a Qantas flight from Los Angeles which landed at 6:20 a.m. local time.
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London — A British anti-abortion rights activist whose case caught the attention of the Trump administration was convicted Friday by a U.K court of breaching an order banning protests and intimidating behavior in a designated zone around a reproductive health clinic in the city of Bournemouth, in southern England.
Brussels — Britain and France on Friday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in ceasefire talks aimed at halting his country's invasion of Ukraine. The countries demanded a swift response from Moscow after weeks of U.S. efforts to secure a truce in the three-year war, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it would be clear "very soon" whether Putin was serious about reaching a peace deal.
Bangkok — Thai police summoned a prominent American academic on Friday to face charges of insulting the monarchy, a rare case of a foreign national being charged under the kingdom's strict lese-majeste law. The army filed a complaint against Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University in northern Thailand and a respected authority on the kingdom's politics, over comments he made in an online discussion.
South Korea's Constitutional Court removed impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol from office on Friday, four months after he threw South Korean politics into turmoil by declaring martial law and sending troops to parliament in an ill-fated effort to break through legislative gridlock.
San Jose, Costa Rica — Carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause of death of the teenage son of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, authorities in Costa Rica confirmed Wednesday night.
Vienna archaeologists discover skeletal remains in mass grave of fighters in Roman Empire-era battle
As construction crews churned up dirt to renovate a Vienna soccer field last October, they happened upon an unprecedented find: A heap of intertwined skeletal remains in a mass grave dating to the 1st-century Roman Empire, likely the bodies of warriors in a battle involving Germanic tribes.
German investigators said Wednesday that they had dismantled a major platform for the distribution of child sexual abuse images that had 1.8 million users worldwide, in an international operation coordinated by the pan-European police agency Europol.
Jerusalem — Israel's renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip is "expanding to crush and clean the area" of militants and to seize "large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel," Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a written statement on Wednesday. The Israeli government has long maintained a buffer zone just inside Gaza along its security fence, which has greatly expanded since the war with Hamas was sparked by the groups Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack.
Zhejiang, China — Smartly dressed, 42-year-old businessman Qian Weiguang gets out of his black Mercedes van, eager to check on the status of operations. He's just driven an hour from his showroom and is keen to show our CBS News team his newest factory — one of three he has in a sprawling industrial area outside the city of Yiwu in China's central Zhejiang province.
The renewed investigation of a ranch in western Mexico, where authorities say the Jalisco New Generation Cartel trained recruits, has revealed some details about how one of the country's most powerful drug cartels operates. Human remains and clothing were recently discovered at the ranch.
A volcano began erupting in southwest Iceland on Tuesday, just hours after authorities evacuated a nearby community and the Blue Lagoon spa, one of Iceland's biggest tourist attractions.
Colombian authorities released former Medellin Cartel boss Carlos Lehder on Monday after a judge ruled that a drug trafficking sentence issued in Colombia against the 75-year-old had expired.