Elon Musk’s Tesla will build what the maverick entrepreneur claims is the world’s largest lithium ion battery within 100 days, making good on a Twitter promise to ease South Australia’s energy woes. The region was hit with a total blackout when an “unprecedented” storm wrecked power transmission towers in 2016, and billionaire Musk in March … Read more
South Africa great Barry Richards believes the rise of Kagiso Rabada has “lessened the pain” of Dale Steyn’s absence ahead of a Test series in England. Steyn, perhaps the best fast bowler of his generation, has been ruled out of the four-Test campaign with a longstanding shoulder problem that has sidelined him since the end … Read more
The name Maralinga brings blank stares from most people, the melodic word hardly indicative of what happened in that isolated stretch of Australia — secret nuclear tests by Britain. A leading violinist, Lara St. John, is trying to bring the episode further into the public eye with the piece “Maralinga,” whose orchestral version will have … Read more
A giant, flying turkey as tall as a kangaroo once roamed Australia, palaeontologists said Wednesday, after an analysis of fossils and bones from around the country revealed five extinct bird species. A team from Flinders University in South Australia said they were all chunky relatives of today´s malleefowl and brush-turkeys. The megapode birds lived during … Read more
Researchers on Monday urged tougher laws to protect victims of “revenge porn” in Australia after a survey revealed abuses, including shooting and sharing intimate images without permission, on a “mass scale”. One in five Australians have fallen prey to abusive behaviour, including having intimate photographs taken without consent and then confronting threats to share them … Read more
One in five Australians has suffered image-based abuse, according to the nation’s most comprehensive study on “revenge porn”. The national survey of more than 4,200 people found that men and women were equally likely to be targeted. A fifth had had nude or sexual images taken without their permission, while 11% said images of them … Read more
Australia will enforce export restrictions on major gas producers, the prime minister said Thursday, to shore up domestic supply as a growing energy crisis sees power prices rise and blackouts more common. The country is expected to surpass Qatar as the world’s largest liquid natural gas producer by 2020 — with Japan, China and South … Read more
Billions of dollars will be pumped into a massive hydro-electric project in Australia, the prime minister said Thursday, as the country faces a growing power crisis after a huge blackout and heatwave strained supplies. The expansion of the Snowy Mountains Scheme in New South Wales state could provide electricity to 500,000 homes, which Prime Minister … Read more
Leading Australian brewery Coopers apologised Wednesday after pubs vowed a boycott over its links to a Christian organisation that featured its beer in a same-sex marriage debate. The Bible Society last week released a “Keeping it light” video that showed two conservative MPs — one supportive of gay marriage and another against — toasting with … Read more
Australia’s prime minister held talks with Elon Musk on Sunday after the US innovator offered to solve the energy crisis plaguing a southern region in a hundred days — or install the technology free. Musk, the entrepreneur behind electric carmaker Tesla, made the pledge in response to power woes in South Australia, which was last … Read more
Elon Musk, boss of electric car firm Tesla, says he can help solve South Australia’s power crisis within 100 days – and if not he’ll do it for free. The offer follows a series of blackouts in the state. On Thursday, Tesla executive Lyndon Rive had said the company could install 100-300 megawatt hours of … Read more
Australia endured a summer of record-breaking extremes, scientists said on Wednesday, with climate change tipped to increase the frequency and severity of such phenomena. Intense heatwaves, bushfires and flooding plagued the December-February summer season with more than 200 records broken over 90 days, the independent Climate Council said in a report. “Climate change — driven … Read more
An Australian man who has between extradited to the state of Queensland on Friday, has been accused by police of fraud leading to the theft of 3.2 million Australian dollars from his victims. Tomas Anthony Novak, 51, has been granted bail on Friday, after his extradition to Queensland’s Gold Coast from South Australia. Novak allegedly … Read more
Australia has given approval for the sale of the country’s largest private landholding, the Kidman estate. It will go to Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, and her business partner, Chinese developer Shanghai CRED. The largest Kidman station, Anna Creek, will be sold to a local farming family. The sale of the estate, encompassing about 1.3% … Read more