Melbourne, Australia is set to host the Southern Hemisphere's largest esports venue in early 2020. Fortress Melbourne, which will be operated by Fortress Esports Pty Ltd, will cover 2,700+ square metres, house over 160 PCs, as well as function rooms, tabletop play areas, a restaurant, two bars and a 200 seat arena.
In addition to all that, Fortress Melbourne will also feature console gaming suites and "dedicated streamer pods". Fortress Esports has partnered with Allied Esports on the project, which operates the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas.
The site will be situated in the Emporium Melbourne, in the basement and lower ground space of the building.
The news follows the announcement earlier this month of Gfinity Esports Australia's closure. According to a statement issued, the local esports market "has not developed to the level forecast when the company was launched in 2017". Hopefully Fortress Esports doesn't encounter any similar issues in Australia.
Here are some more (mocked up) images of the venue:
MELBOURNE, Australia — A 22-year-old female apprentice jockey who was recently married has died after falling from her horse during track work in the Australian state of Victoria.
Racing Victoria said Friday that the early-morning accident happened at the Cranbourne track, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Melbourne.
It said track work was canceled after the death of the jockey, Mikaela Claridge.
“Mikaela was dislodged from her horse while riding on the sand trails on the southern side of the Training Centre at approximately 4:35 a.m. She was attended to by the on-course paramedic but was tragically unable to be saved,” Racing Victoria said in a statement.
After injury interrupted her career, Claridge returned to riding in 2018 and won her first race in September. She had since won 28 more races, the most recent on July 11.
Mikaela ClaridgeGetty Images
Racing Victoria said a planned eight-race card at nearby Pakenham would not be held on Friday.
“The meeting has been abandoned in the interests of participant welfare and out of respect for the rider and her family,” Racing Victoria said.
Australian horse industry figures show 20 jockeys have been killed in the country since 2000, 17 of them during races and three during track work. In February, a Victoria state trainer died, also after falling from a horse during a training run.
Australian activists have managed to halt the midnight deportation of a Tamil asylum-seeker family as they were being flown out of the country.
An injunction, granted mid-air, paused the removal of Nadesalingam, Priya, and their two daughters to Sri Lanka.
The family's case has provoked national outcry since March last year, when authorities forcibly removed them from their home in Queensland.
Australia defended their expulsion on Friday, saying they were not refugees.
"They're not owed protection by our country," Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told local media outlets.
He said the family's asylum claim had been comprehensively assessed and rejected by immigration authorities. Successive legal appeals in recent times for the parents and eldest child have also failed.
The parents of the family, Nadesalingam and Priya, met and married in Australia after fleeing Sri Lanka's civil war. Two-year-old Tharunicaa and her four-year-old sister, Kopika, were both born in Australia.
Supporters say they risk persecution if they are returned to Sri Lanka due to their past political links.
The family worked and lived in the small country town of Biloela for three years, before they were forcibly removed to detention centres last March. The dawn raid, carried out by a dozen officers, prompted a huge response from the community. A petition for their return has attracted more than 120,000 signatures.
In a dramatic development on Friday, a federal court extended an injunction that stops the government from deporting the youngest child before next Wednesday.
It is unclear whether the government will allow that reprieve to include the rest of the family, who have only been publicly identified by their first names.
"Given the circumstances, it would be a pretty inhumane thing to do to separate the family at this point," lawyer Carina Ford told reporters.
How was their deportation stopped mid-air?
Protesters rushed to Melbourne Airport on Thursday night, upon learning the family would be deported within hours.
Their plane took off at about 23:00 local time (12:00 GMT), but lawyers succeeded, during the flight, in securing a last-minute order preventing Dharuniga's deportation.
That injunction, ordered over the phone by a judge, forced the plane to land over 3,000 km (1,850 miles) away in Darwin, Australia's northernmost major city, at about 03:00 local time on Friday. Footage posted online shows the family being escorted from the plane by guards.
I urge the Prime Minister to intervene to offer compassion and grace to the Tamil family. He can save them from being deported. The two children must be so scared. It does no harm to allow them stay so they can get on with school and being young healthy kids. #hometobilo
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The government agency that manages Australia's Great Barrier Reef has downgraded its outlook for the corals' condition from "poor" to "very poor" due to warming oceans.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's condition report, which is updated every five years, is the latest bad news for the 133,360 square miles of colorful coral network off the northeast Australian coast as climate change and coral bleaching take their toll.
The report issued Friday finds the greatest threat to the reef remains climate change. The other threats are associated with coastal development, land-based water runoff and human activity such as illegal fishing.
"Significant global action to address climate change is critical to slowing the deterioration of the reef's ecosystem and heritage values and supporting recovery," the report said. "Such actions will complement and greatly increase the effectiveness of local management actions in the Reef and its catchment."
The report is the agency's third and tracks continuing deterioration since the first in 2009. The deterioration in the reef's outlook mostly reflects the expanding area of coral killed or damaged by coral bleaching.
The report said the threats — which include the star-of-thorns starfish that prey on coral polyps — are "multiple, cumulative and increasing."
"The accumulation of impacts, through time and over an increasing area, is reducing its ability to recover from disturbances, with implications for reef-dependent communities and industries," the authority's chairman Ian Poiner said.
"The overall outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is very poor," he added.
A study of coral bleaching on the reef, published in the journal Nature in 2017, found 91% of the coral reef had been bleached at least once during three bleaching events of the past two decades, the most serious event occurring in 2016.
A fourth major bleaching struck later in 2017 after the Nature study was published.
The United Nations' World Heritage Committee expressed concern about bleaching in 2017 and the report Thursday could lead to the World Heritage-listed natural wonder being reclassified by UNESCO next year as "in danger."
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said she was not surprised by the downgrade in the reef's condition given the damage done by recent cyclones and latest bleaching events in successive years.
She said her government was "building resilience in this important global reef" and was keeping its Paris commitment to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
"I want to make the point that it's the best-managed reef in the world," she said.
Australian activists have managed to halt the midnight deportation of a Tamil asylum-seeker family as they were being flown out of the country.
An injunction, granted mid-air, paused the removal of Nadesalingam, Priya, and their two daughters to Sri Lanka.
The family's case has provoked national outcry since March last year, when authorities forcibly removed them from their home in Queensland.
Australia defended their expulsion on Friday, saying they were not refugees.
"They're not owed protection by our country," Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told local media outlets.
He said the family's asylum claim had been comprehensively assessed and rejected by immigration authorities. Successive legal appeals in recent times for the parents and eldest child have also failed.
The parents of the family, Nadesalingam and Priya, met and married in Australia after fleeing Sri Lanka's civil war. Two-year-old Tharunicaa and her four-year-old sister, Kopika, were both born in Australia.
Supporters say they risk persecution if they are returned to Sri Lanka due to their past political links.
The family worked and lived in the small country town of Biloela for three years, before they were forcibly removed to detention centres last March. The dawn raid, carried out by a dozen officers, prompted a huge response from the community. A petition for their return has attracted more than 120,000 signatures.
In a dramatic development on Friday, a federal court extended an injunction that stops the government from deporting the youngest child before next Wednesday.
It is unclear whether the government will allow that reprieve to include the rest of the family, who have only been publicly identified by their first names.
"Given the circumstances, it would be a pretty inhumane thing to do to separate the family at this point," lawyer Carina Ford told reporters.
How was their deportation stopped mid-air?
Protesters rushed to Melbourne Airport on Thursday night, upon learning the family would be deported within hours.
Their plane took off at about 23:00 local time (12:00 GMT), but lawyers succeeded, during the flight, in securing a last-minute order preventing Dharuniga's deportation.
That injunction, ordered over the phone by a judge, forced the plane to land over 3,000 km (1,850 miles) away in Darwin, Australia's northernmost major city, at about 03:00 local time on Friday. Footage posted online shows the family being escorted from the plane by guards.
I urge the Prime Minister to intervene to offer compassion and grace to the Tamil family. He can save them from being deported. The two children must be so scared. It does no harm to allow them stay so they can get on with school and being young healthy kids. #hometobilo
Australia has completed the laying of undersea cables for its high-speed internet project in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, a snub to China's Huawei which had previously competed for the deal.
Australia agreed to pay for the majority of the $92.5 million project in 2018 after China's Huawei expressed interest in the arrangement.
According to WA Today, the project spans 4,700 kilometers (2,920 miles) and is linked to Sydney's Tamarama Beach using cables which feature optic fibers thinner than human hair.
Concerns have been raised in the past that Huawei technology could be used by China to spy on the West, an allegation that the company has repeatedly denied.
Australia has completed the laying of undersea cables for its high-speed internet project in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, a snub to Chinese tech giant Huawei, which had previously competed for the deal.
Australia on Wednesday laid the final piece of cable as part of its $A137 million ($92.5 million) infrastructure effort, known as the Coral Sea Cable, which links Sydney to its island neighbors.
Australia agreed to front most of the cost of the construction project in 2018, shutting out a competing offer by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. According to WA Today, the project spans 4,700 kilometers (2,920 miles) and is linked to Sydney's Tamarama Beach using cables which feature optic fibers thinner than human hair.
The paper added that less than 11% of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands residents have internet access, making the project important to their future social and economic development.
Walter Diamana, Acting High Commissioner for Solomon Islands, said the project would "secure hope and bring a predictable future for our people," WA Today reported.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne told reporters Wednesday that the project was key to fortifying Australia's connection to the Pacific as China has begun expanding its efforts in the region. She said the goal was to have the cables in operation by December.
Several countries have voiced concern that Huawei technology could be used by China for spying
A man holding his phone walks past a Huawei shop in Beijing, China December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee
The US has long voiced concerns that Huawei's technology — along with that of its fellow Chinese telecom company ZTE — could pose a security risk, fearing that the company's technology could act as a backdoor for the Chinese government to spy on the West.
The US banned federal agencies and their contractors from using equipment or services provided by Huawei, which prompted harsh blowback from the Chinese tech giant.
In recent months, Australia has banned Huawei and ZTE from supplying tech for their networks, citing major security risks.
New Zealand has also turned down a proposal for one of its major telecom carriers to use Huawei gear in its planned 5G mobile network, but the country has not ruled out using the tech giant in future internet network upgrades if security risks are addressed.
Huawei's CEO pushed back on concerns about its 5G network in March, saying: "Cyber security and user privacy protection are at the absolute top of our agenda. We are confident that the companies that choose to work with Huawei will be the most competitive in the 5G era."
"The easiest way to bring down a fortress is to attack it from within. And the easiest way to reinforce it is from outside."
Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 21 August 2019, this image features a huge raft of pumice rock drifting in the Pacific Ocean. The pumice is believed to have come from an underwater volcano near Tonga, which erupted on 7 August.
The volcanic debris is full of holes and gas that make the rock light enough to float up to the sea surface. Covering a total area of around 150 sq km, this massive gathering of floating rocks has turned the ocean surface from its usual twinkling blue to a dull grey that almost looks like land.
The raft is drifting towards Australia, and while it may be causing some problems for sailors, it could bring benefits to the Great Barrier Reef. There are millions of pieces of rock and each is a potential vehicle that offers a ride to small marine organisms such as algae, snails, barnacles and corals. If the raft eventually reaches Australia, the hope is that these hitch-hiking organisms could help replenish the Great Barrier Reef, which has been damaged by rising seawater temperatures.
