Australian government vetoes Victoria-China agreements

Two deals between the state of Victoria and China’s National Development and Reform Commission have been vetoed by Australia’s Foreign Minister. The Chinese embassy criticised the move by Minister Marise Payne as “provocative”, further damaging relations with Australia.

Facebook ban hits Australian news in response to a proposed law

On Thursday (18 February) Facebook started preventing Australian news outlets from sharing their posts, while users (both Australian and international) couldn’t view or share any content from the news sites. However, this didn’t affect news sites alone. Australian government pages were affected too. While the ban only meant to affect Australian news publishers, it also affected many pages run by unions, politicians and community pages.