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Australia News
Australia
India as a Quad-led biomanufacturing hub
In March 2021, the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) set up a Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group to facilitate cooperation, monitor trends, and scout for opportunities related to developments in critical and emerging technologies, that included biotechnology. However, the potential for Quad cooperation in biotechnology remains insufficiently tapped. The establishment of a Quad-led biomanufacturing hub in India will give the necessary fillip to enhance this cooperation. (The writers have examined this proposal with researchers at the Australian National University.) Biomanufacturing uses living systems, particularly microorganisms and cell cultures, to produce molecules and materials on a commercial scale. It has the potential to transform the global industrial system, with up to 60% of physical inputs to the global economy expected to be producible using this technology. Many countries, including the United States and China, recognise the need to optimise this ecosystem and have designed specific policies to shape their bio-economies.
Australia
Quad leaders to meet tomorrow in Hiroshima, White House confirms
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the third in-person Quad meeting with US President Joe Biden, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and Japan's Fumio Kishida on Saturday in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, which is also hosting the G7 summit. On Wednesday, Hindustan Times had reported about the Quad summit taking place in Hiroshima after Biden had postponed his visit to Australia.
Australia
HT Exclusive: Quad to take place in Hiroshima, focus on capacity building, Indo-Pacific
Despite change on travel plans of US President Joseph Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the G-7 and Quad summit in Hiroshima and then proceed to attend the Indo-Pacific Forum meeting in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and round up his travel with a bilateral summit in Australia. According to officials, Quad is not a gang up of democratic powers against China but all about mutual economic, technological and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. That the belligerence of the Xi Jinping regime in the Indo-Pacific is one of the foundation pillars of Quad, there is no doubt. While US President Biden is also expected to meet PM Modi on the side-lines of the G-7 summit, the two countries along with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates will announce an MoU very soon on regional integration of the Middle East with road and rail infrastructure as an alternative to China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Decision to this effect was taken in a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Ruler of UAE Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on May 7.
Australia
Australia cancels Quad meeting in Sydney after Biden postponement
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday a Quad summit would not go ahead in Sydney next week without US President Joe Biden, who postponed his trip to Australia due to debt ceiling negotiations in Washington. Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the United States, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend, after Biden cancelled a trip to Sydney on the second leg of his upcoming Asia trip, which was also to have included a visit to Papua New Guinea.
Australia
Woman lost in Australia’s forest for 5 days survives on a bottle of wine and lollipops
A woman’s incredible survival story who was stranded in Australia’s forest for five days is going viral on the Internet. The 48-year-old woman, Lillian, survived on a bottle of wine and lollipops. Victoria Police reported that Lillian’s vehicle was stuck in mud after she took a wrong turn and reached a dead-end road. Since there was no mobile coverage in the area, Lillian could not request assistance. After Lillian failed to make her daily call to her loved ones, they became concerned and alerted the authorities. This lead to extensive police searches that eventually led to her location.
