Australia rushes to open roads, evacuate people amid respite from bushfires

Current Affairs
Australian officials used a respite on Monday from fierce wildfires that have killed 24 people across the country's southeast to race to reopen blocked roads and evacuate people who have been trapped for days.
A second day of light rain and cool winds brought some relief from heatwave-fuelled blazes that ripped through two states over the weekend, but officials warned the hazardous weather conditions were expected to return later in the week.
"There is no room for complacency," New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Monday morning. Two people remained missing as around 130 fires continued to burn in the state, though not at a high-alert level.Authorities redoubled their efforts on Monday to provide supplies and repatriate thousands of people who have been trapped by fire lines in coastal towns for several days.
"This morning it is all about recovery, making sure people who have been displaced have somewhere safe (to go) and it is making sure we have resources to build up the presence on the ground to clean up the roads, clean up where the rubble exists," Berejiklian said.Dean Linton, a resident of Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains, used the break from an immediate threat to his town to visit his wife and four children who had evacuated to Sydney. He also used the 870 kilometre round trip to pick up a fire-fighting pump and generator to help him protect the family home.

"There's a lot of fuel in that national park; it would only take one lightning strike," Linton told Reuters.The bushfire season started earlier than normal this year following a three-year drought that has left much of the country's bushland tinder-dry and vulnerable to fires. More than 5 million hectares (12 million acres) of land have been destroyed....Read More

Adani urges Australian govt to give 'a fair go' for coal mine project

Company News
Indian energy giant Adani has urged the Australian government to give its controversial coal mine project "a fair go" and indicated that the opposition party would not derail the proposed billion dollar project if it comes to power.

Gautam Adani-led Adani Group entered Australia in 2010 with the purchase of the greenfield Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, and the Abbot Point port near Bowen in the north.

The massive coal mine in Queensland state has been a controversial topic, with the project expected to produce 2.3 billion tonnes of low-quality coal.

''All we're every asking for a fair go and to be treated like everyone else. I think at certain points, that has not been the case. We're certainly not whining about it. We just want to get on with it now. We want a fair go," Adani Mining chief executive officer Lucas Dow, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

He said the sort of scrutiny that the project was facing on the management plans was unprecedented.
The Adani project which still requires to clear few more approvals from the Queensland Government, including groundwater modelling, recently received the clearance from the federal government for development.

Commenting if the mine project could run any risk if the Labor Party comes to power, Dow said "I think (Federal Labor) has been crystal clear that if they are to form a government they won't be in the habit of creating sovereign risk by ripping up the existing approvals."


 He said that he was satisfied by recent assurances given by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen.