Australia’s NSW Announces Snap Lockdown
Voice of America
The Australian state of New South Wales announced a snap lockdown Saturday due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the seven-day, statewide lockdown to begin Saturday evening. Schools will close for at least a week.
“This is literally a war,” Gladys Berejiklian, the state’s premier, said. “The delta strain is diabolical.” Saturday was the state’s worst day of the pandemic, with 466 new cases and four deaths. Berejiklian said New South Wales is facing a “dire” situation.Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 President, center, arrives to a news conference next to Yalchin Rafiyev, left, Azerbaijan's COP29 lead negotiator, during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 18, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Simon Stiell, United Nations climate chief, speaks ahead of a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 18, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. People adjust a banner outside the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 18, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. FILE - Activist Teresa Anderson leads a demonstration calling for climate finance during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 14, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
'Seed guardians' (not pictured) display corns and potatoes as well as seeds of tomatoes, little yellow pears and artichoke, as they meet to exchange forgotten vegetables varieties, in Rancagua, Chile, Oct. 11, 2024. Mapuche native cook and farmer Ana Yanez Antillanca, known as a 'Seed guardian', shows 'egg pumpkin' seeds as she meets with comrades to exchange forgotten vegetables varieties, in Rancagua, Chile, Oct. 11, 2024.
A Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials researcher controls a wheelchair with stiffness-variable "morphing" wheels in Daejeon, South Korea, Nov. 5, 2024. The "morphing" wheel can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius. Inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, it goes from solid to fluid when it encounters impediments.
FILE - Part of the temples of Baalbek, a UNESCO world heritage site in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, illuminated in blue light, Oct. 24, 2015. FILE - This picture shows closed shops on an empty street in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Oct. 19, 2024. FILE - People walk near the Roman ruins of Baalbek, Lebanon, Jan. 5, 2024. FILE - A man sits amidst the rubble at a site damaged in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the town of Al-Ain in the Baalbek region, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Lebanon, Nov. 6, 2024.
Dr. Jaafar al Jotheri, shown here Nov. 10, 2024, holds satellite images and explores the site of the Battle of al-Qadisiyah, which was fought in Mesopotamia -- present-day Iraq -- in the 630s AD. A desert area with scattered plots of agricultural land with features that closely matched the description of the al-Qadisiyah battle site described in historic texts, Nov. 10, 2024.