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.

Australian users will be in position to choose what part of their personal data would be shared by companies like Google with advertisers or other interested parties in the latest attempt to adjust country’s legislation linked to big internet firms, Reuters reported.

The hi-tech giant Google said it intended to block its search engine in Australia if the country’s government continues accepting new amendments to legislation that may force it, together with Facebook, to pay to media for the right to use its contents, Reuters reported.