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Fourteen passengers have been detained in Melbourne after they arrived from New Zealand under the trans-Tasman bubble arrangements. Loved ones reunite after the first flights from New Zealand arrive in Sydney. Photo: AFP The ABC understands the passengers flew to Sydney and got a connecting to flight to Melbourne. Melbourne is currently not accepting international travellers. Australian Border Force (ABF) has been contacted for comment. Three flights from New Zealand touched down at Sydney Airport earlier today carrying international passengers who, for the first time in seven months, will not need to quarantine upon arrival. At Sydney Airport there were tears and hugs as loved ones reunited, with many passengers flying one-way. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard described it as a "great day", but pointed out New Zealanders arriving today would need to prove they are symptom-free and satisfy other health requirements. There will be a total of 16 flights between the two countries each week, with Jetstar and Qantas joining Air New Zealand and Qatar Airways in advertising the trans-Tasman flights. - ABC

Japan's government has decided to release radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, with a formal announcement expected to be made within this month, Kyodo news agency and other media reported. The Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen from Futaba Town, Fukushima prefecture on March 11, 2020. Photo: STR / JIJI PRESS / AFP Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc has collected more than one million tonnes of contaminated water since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Japanese Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said no decision had been made yet, but the government aimed to make one quickly. "Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi plant is a major premise for a restoration in Fukushima from the nuclear disaster. To prevent any delays in the decommissioning process, we need to make a decision quickly," he told a news conference. He did not give any further details, including a time-frame. The build-up of contaminated water at Fukushima has been a sticking point in the clean-up, which is likely to last decades, especially as the Olympic Games are due to be held in Tokyo next summer with some events less than 60km from the wrecked plant. A possible release is expected to antagonise Japanese fishermen and raise concerns in neighbouring countries. Last week, Japanese fish industry representatives urged the government not to allow the release of tonnes of contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the sea, saying it would undo years of work to restore their reputation. South Korea has retained a ban on imports of seafood from the Fukushima region that was imposed after the nuclear disaster and summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last year to explain how the Fukushima water would be dealt with. Early this year, a panel of experts advising Japan's government on the disposal of radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima plant, recommended releasing it into the ocean. Japan's industry ministry has been hearing views from various parties since April, including fishery representatives. A few fishery representatives also visited Kajiyama on Thursday, opposing a release of the contaminated water into sea. -Reuters

Twitter has experienced a major outage, with users across the world affected. Photo: 123rf The social media giant said the issue was caused by an "inadvertent change" it made to its internal systems. Users in countries including New Zealand, the US and UK were unable to use the platform for more than an hour, with many receiving error messages. The service was later largely restored, and the California-based company said the site should soon be working for all of its users. According to DownDetector.com, reports of problems with Twitter began to spike at about 10.30am in New Zealand time. It said users from around the world - including Japan, Australia, Argentina and France - had reported being unable to use the platform. In the US, there were tens of thousands of reports of problems. Users were sent error messages including "something went wrong" and "Tweet failed: There's something wrong. Please try again later." Twitter said there was no evidence of a security breach or hack. Internet monitoring group NetBlocks confirmed the incident was "not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering". In July, hackers accessed Twitter's internal systems to hijack accounts owned by some of the platform's most prominent users. The breach saw the accounts of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and Bill Gates among other celebrities used to tweet a Bitcoin scam. - BBC