China should give access to World Health Organisation (WHO) officials investigating the origins of COVID-19 "without delay", Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the head of the WHO said he was "very disappointed" that China had still not authorised the entry of a team of international coronavirus experts.
"We hope that the necessary permissions for the WHO team's travel to China can be issued without delay," Payne said.
She reiterated the importance of the WHO-convened scientific study and said: "We look forward to the findings from the international field mission to China".
The novel coronavirus is believed to have first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. It has since spread globally, infecting more than 86 million people and killing over 1.8 million, Reuters calculations show.
Australia has been a leading voice in calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and, partly because of this, has seen its relations with China sour.
China, Australia's top trade partner, has since limited beef imports, imposed tariffs on Australian wine and told its millers to stop buying Australian cotton.
GlaxoSmithKline sued Pfizer and BioNTech in Delaware federal court on Thursday, accusing them of infringing GSK patents related to messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in the companies' blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines.
Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Relentless rains, hail and winds of near hurricane intensity battered southern China, forcing the evacuation of an entire town of more than 1,700 people in the province of Guangdong, media said on Thursday.
Marine wildlife experts were frantically trying to rescue some 140 pilot whales stranded on Thursday in the shallow waters of an estuary in the southwest of the state of Western Australia.
A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly participating in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-US President Donald Trump in 2020, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.
Broadcasting every weekday, Georgia Tolley goes beyond the headlines to speak to government ministers, decision makers, analysts and local experts to find out how the news will impact those of us living in the UAE.
John Lyons of Espace Real Estate says there is a slight slowdown in the property market during summer. So we asked him, does this mean prices are negotiable during the summer months?
Lawyer Rebecca Kelly of Clyde & Co. explained why UAE judicial authorities are setting up new offices to deal with financial crime, including money laundering.