New South Wales

SYDNEY, Dec 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Five people have been taken to hospital after a pre-Christmas balloon drop at a Sydney shopping centre caused a dangerous crowd crush.

Police say a number of people were knocked over and injured when the crowd surged as the prize-filled balloons were released during Westfield Parramatta’s “mega balloon drop” at midnight.

SYDNEY, Dec 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two Australian firefighters were killed and three injured when their truck crashed as they battled out-of-control blazes in New South Wales state, officials said.

The accident occurred when the truck crashed into a tree then rolled off the road during an operation late on Thursday at Buxton, about 100km southwest of Sydney, the NSW Rural Fire Service said.

“This is an absolutely devastating event in what has already been an incredibly difficult day and fire season,” the RFS said in a statement.

SYDNEY, Dec 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Fire authorities in Australia are locked in a desperate battle to save a coal mine and a power station today (Tuesday), that have come under threat from a massive bush-fire northwest of Sydney, which local media dubbed the “mega-blaze.”

Already burning through 400,000 hectares of vegetation at Gospers Mountain and the Wollemi National Park, there are now fears the wildfire could spread even further, with temperatures expected to reach 46 degrees Celsius in coming days, as an extreme heatwave bears down on the nation’s east coast.

SYDNEY, Dec 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Several Australian bushfires have combined to form a “mega fire” that is burning out of control across a swathe of land north of Sydney, authorities said Friday, warning they cannot contain the blaze.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner, Rob Rogers said “there are probably more than eight fires in all” that have merged to form what has been dubbed a “mega fire” in an area of national park forest.

17 November 2019; AFP: An Australian man has been accused of deliberately lighting a fire to protect his cannabis crop, sparking an out-of-control bushfire as blazes rage along the country's east coast.

Four people have been killed and more than 300 homes destroyed in devastating bushfires that have razed more than one million hectares (2.5 million acres) along the eastern seaboard in just over a week.

14 November 2019; AFP: The death toll from devastating bushfires in eastern Australia has risen to four after a man's body was discovered in a scorched area of bushland, police said Thursday.

Three others have perished in bushfires in New South Wales, the state worst affected by a series of catastrophic fires that broke out along the eastern seaboard late last week.

Refugees from different cultural backgrounds are staging weekly protests outside David Coleman’s  office in Revesby to demand an end of their sufferings. David Coleman is a Member of Parliament (MP) for Bank and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs.

An Indian has been fined for driving scooter with an adult passenger without helmet and an extra child squeezed between the adults.

NSW Police was notified of a scooter rider who was carrying two passengers. Police stopped the driver on Thursday in Wentworth Street, The Ponds, and 67 year old male rider, his 6 year old grandson and his 59 year old wife were questioned by Police.

SYDNEY, Australia, Aug 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Police in the Australian state of Queensland have seized a record 766 kg of the drug MDMA, with an estimated street value of over 60 million U.S. dollars, authorities revealed on Wednesday (today).

As well as being the third largest seizure of MDMA ever in Australia, and the largest in the state of Queensland, the drugs were also of the highest purity ever recorded in the state.

SYDNEY, Australia, Aug 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) – More than 20,000 hospital workers in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) walked off the job today (Thursday), calling for better security measures, following a series of violent assaults on staff.

Health Services Union (HSU) NSW Secretary, Gerard Hayes, claimed that, around 40 hospital workers are assaulted every month, some severely.