Australia on Wednesday announced it would revoke a state government's deal to join China's Belt and Road Initiative, saying it was inconsistent with the nation's foreign policy, AFP reported.

The hard-hit United States has passed a hopeful milestone as half its adults have had at least one Covid vaccine dose and from Monday all its over 18s will be eligible to get their shot, AFP reported. The positive news from the world's hardest-hit country comes amid easing restrictions for several European nations and the launch of a quarantine-free travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand.

Australia wants to partner up with other countries to pressure the European Union into delivering planned doses of coronavirus vaccines, news wires reported.

Italy told the European Commission it was blocking the export of over 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Australia, the first EU member to make such a move, and the EC accepted the proposal, ANSA reported on Thursday. The shots were due to go to Australia. Italy's proposal was made in line with the new European mechanism on export controls.

Australia’s law forcing Google and Facebook to pay for news is ready to take effect, after the parliament in Canberra on Thursday passed the final amendments to the so-called News Media Bargaining Code agreed between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, AP reported.

Facebook announced onTuesday it will lift a contentious ban on Australian news pages, after the government agreed to amend a world-first law requiring tech giants to pay media companies, AFP reported.

German publishers called for tougher regulation of Facebook on Wednesday after the social media giant’s move to block all media content in Australia, Reuters reported.

Facebook announced on Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism, AP reported.

The disposable masks you see every day have to go somewhere, right? Now many, if not most, end up in a landfill, but researchers have now developed a new material that turns all those masks into... roads. The new road-making material is a mix of shredded used face masks and processed building rubble and was developed at RMIT University, formerly the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne Technical College.

The tech giant Google announced it would set a new platform in a bid to offset Australia’s claims related to payments for news contents from local sources, Reuters reported. The new Google platform will offer news it had paid for, promoting its own content deals with publishers and thus demonstrating that legal amendments proposed by Canberra to introduce payments is unnecessary.