标签： Oceania

Deep in Russia’s historic Volga region city of Nizhny Novgorod, two Japanese ballet artists have built their entire lives around the rigorous, demanding craft they traveled halfway across the world to master – even as geopolitical upheaval and the ongoing war in Ukraine have created unexpected disruptions to their daily routines.

Thirty-two-year-old Jotaro Kanazasi first made the decision to move to Russia 14 years ago, drawn to the country’s unrivaled legacy in classical ballet, home to world-renowned institutions like Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. Speaking in measured Russian, Kanazasi explains his choice was rooted in a desire to grow and reach his full potential as a professional dancer. Today, he holds the position of principal dancer at the Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theatre, located roughly 400 kilometers east of Moscow, where he seamlessly transitions from iconic role to iconic role: the scheming sorcerer Rothbart in Swan Lake, the tragic noble Albrecht in Giselle, and more. When many foreign artists made the choice to leave Russia immediately following the start of the 2022 full-scale military campaign in Ukraine, Kanazasi made the deliberate decision to stay.

For 20-year-old Haruka Takemi, who has now lived in Russia for six years, the draw of Russian ballet was similarly life-altering. “I love Russian ballet and I have always dreamed of being a professional dancer, but Japan does not have a national-level ballet school that offers the training I needed,” she explains. “That is why I chose to move here.”

Both dancers say they prioritize their craft above all else, and only follow breaking news about the war in Ukraine very loosely. Takemi notes that it is her family back in Japan that monitors current events closely, constantly sharing news articles and updates to make sure she stays informed. That dynamic reflects the broader geopolitical context of their lives: Japan has stood firmly with Ukraine since the start of the Russian offensive, joining Western nations in imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Moscow, while Russia has introduced strict new censorship laws over the course of its military campaign, unmatched since the Soviet era.

“I am either at the theatre rehearsing or performing, or at home resting – it is a constant cycle. I work all the time, and I only focus on ballet,” Takemi says, adding that her family back home is the one who carries the worry for her safety.

Nizhny Novgorod, despite sitting more than 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, has not escaped the ripple effects of the conflict. In recent weeks, a major Lukoil oil refinery located in the nearby city of Kstovo was hit in a Ukrainian cross-border strike, part of Kyiv’s regular targeting of Russian military and energy infrastructure designed to weaken Moscow’s ability to sustain its offensive. The digital space has also seen significant changes: Russia has imposed sweeping new digital restrictions over recent months, particularly limiting open access to mobile internet, and many popular foreign apps are now blocked.

“There are difficulties with internet access, so we have to use a VPN to connect,” Takemi says. “But it is important for me to stay in touch with my family, so they know I am safe.”

Valeri Konkov, director of the Nizhny Novgorod ballet company, notes that Japanese dancers are far from an anomaly in Russia’s professional ballet scene. Many are graduates of the country’s most elite ballet academies, including the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, St. Petersburg’s legendary Vaganova Academy, and the Perm State Ballet School. For Japanese artists, building a sustainable career in classical ballet in their home country remains incredibly challenging, even now. Despite all the disruptions and uncertainties that have come with the conflict, Kanazasi says his resolve to stay has never wavered.

“As long as I am still able to dance, I will stay here,” he says.

A 16-year-old boy has lost his life after a stolen vehicle, at the center of a damaging multi-vehicle crime spree through a Northern Territory town, crashed and rolled on one of Australia’s major intercity highways. The sequence of dangerous events unfolded on Monday night in Katherine, a regional community located roughly 320 kilometers southeast of Darwin, according to Northern Territory Police.

Authorities allege the trouble began just after 10:30 p.m. Monday, when offenders broke into a residential property on Zimin Drive and stole a parked car. The group of young people driving the stolen vehicle traveled to the local Charles Darwin University campus, where they abandoned the first stolen car before stealing two additional vehicles from the area.

Over the following hours, the young drivers engaged in reckless, threatening behavior through Katherine’s central business district, police confirmed. The occupants of the stolen vehicles taunted responding officers and hurled objects, including a hammer, at police patrol cars while driving erratically through the town center. Acting Commander Mark Grieve of NT Police clarified that officers made the decision not to initiate a pursuit, a choice driven by the extremely dangerous driving that already put innocent bystanders at risk. In a separate pre-crash incident, Grieve added, a stolen vehicle drove past a parked police car whose officers were responding to an unrelated call, and threw objects at the unoccupied patrol vehicle.

By roughly 6 a.m. the next day, Tuesday, one of the stolen vehicles carrying a group of teenagers rolled over on the Stuart Highway just north of Katherine. First responders arrived quickly at the crash site, transporting three 14-year-olds to a local hospital for treatment of injuries. The 16-year-old driver suffered critical trauma and could not be saved, dying at the scene of the crash.

In the aftermath of the incident, police located two additional girls near the crash site, and investigators are working to confirm how many people total were in the vehicle when it rolled. The Stuart Highway was temporarily closed to all traffic to allow for forensic crash investigation, reopening once evidence collection was completed.

Grieve described the incident as both tragic and deeply complex, noting that the series of dangerous criminal acts put the entire local community at grave risk. “We are investigating a significant series of offences, as well as the death of a 16-year-old male following extremely dangerous driving behaviour that placed the lives of the community at risk,” Grieve told reporters. “Our investigators will work to establish the full circumstances surrounding these events, and we continue to appeal to anyone with information to come forward.”

The acting commander also highlighted a growing, nationwide concern: rising dangerous criminal activity among young people, a trend that has impacted the Northern Territory in particular. “It’s a trend and one we’re probably starting to see more of, we’ve been seeing it for quite a bit of time, unfortunately youth engage in this type of behaviour and see it as a bit of a game,” he said. “The youth space we’re dealing with is quite complex in nature, in the NT we’re trying to grapple with an increase in youth behaviours in the criminal space. It’s not only NT but Australia-wide and it’s not just a policing problem, it needs to be a whole community approach whether education, health or parental responsibility, it’s a big question to answer.”

NT Police are continuing to urge any member of the public with details about the sequence of events leading to the crash to contact their investigators to assist with the ongoing inquiry.

Australia has hit a landmark demographic milestone this week, with its total population officially crossing the 28 million threshold early Tuesday, according to real-time data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The ABS’s population clock, which generates continuous live estimates by tracking births, deaths and net international migration, ticked past the 28 million mark in the early hours of Tuesday. Current demographic trends show the nation adds one new resident to its population every 75 seconds on average.

Digging into state-level growth data, Western Australia (WA) stands out as the primary engine of this national population expansion. ABS demography chief Phil Browning confirmed that WA recorded a 12-month growth rate of 2.2% between September 2024 and September 2025, outpacing every other state and territory across the country. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Tasmania recorded the nation’s slowest annual growth, with its population expanding by just 0.3% over the same period. These divergent state growth trends aligned exactly with forecasts published in last year’s annual population statement from Australia’s Centre for Population.

While the nation celebrates the 28 million milestone, official projections paint a slowing growth picture for the coming year. The Centre for Population’s latest outlook forecasts that national population growth will cool to 1.3% for the 2025-2026 period, driven by two key factors: a projected decline in net overseas migration and a continued drop in national birth rates that is set to hit a historic new low.

The report projects Australia’s national fertility rate will fall to a record low of 1.42 children per woman in 2025-2026 – far below the 2.1 children per woman rate required to sustain stable long-term natural population growth without migration. Net overseas migration, which surged to unprecedented highs in the post-pandemic 2022-2023 period, is also expected to continue normalizing to pre-pandemic levels, with the centre projecting net migration of 260,000 for 2025-2026. This pullback is largely attributed to a drop in temporary arrivals, particularly students and international visitors holding travel and study visas.

Terrifying dashcam footage has documented a near-catastrophic wrong-way collision outside Adelaide, Australia, that left two vehicles totaled, but all people involved surprisingly walked away with no life-threatening harm. The incident unfolded at 6:44 p.m. local time on a Sunday, as 27-year-old Abissantun Priyambodo traveled along Whites Road in Paralowie, a northern suburban area of the state capital. As Priyambodo stayed in his designated travel lane, a Honda station wagon driven by a 56-year-old Paralowie resident suddenly veered across the center line directly into the oncoming path of Priyambodo’s Mitsubishi Lancer. Seconds later, the two vehicles slammed into one another in a violent head-on impact.

Priyambodo, who captured the entire incident on his vehicle’s dashcam, described the aftermath of the crash in comments to local media. The force of the collision crumpled the front end of his Mitsubishi, leaving the vehicle too damaged to drive and requiring it to be towed from the crash site. Photographs from the scene confirm the extensive wreckage: both vehicles suffered severe structural damage, with the front ends of the cars compressed by the force of the impact.

In a striking stroke of luck, Priyambodo, his wife, and the 56-year-old Honda driver all escaped serious injury in the crash. While the pair did not suffer life-altering harm, they developed minor body aches after the collision and sought a medical check-up with their general practitioner the next day as a safety precaution. “We are grateful that both of us were able to walk away safely from what could have been a much more serious incident,” Priyambodo said of the near-tragedy.

Following the collision, South Australia Police officers arrived at the scene and administered a breath and blood alcohol test to the Honda driver. Officials confirmed the driver recorded a blood alcohol content of 0.130, well above the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle in South Australia. In response to the violation, police issued the driver an immediate six-month license suspension, an immediate penalty for high-range drink-driving offenses in the state. The crash has renewed public calls for stricter enforcement of drink-driving laws to prevent preventable, dangerous incidents on suburban roads.

A Melbourne man already imprisoned for the 2024 killing of his girlfriend’s 115-day-old infant has entered a guilty plea for a savage, previously unreported assault on the mother of the child that took place less than two weeks before the baby’s death.

Thirty-one-year-old Benjamin Joseph Swann, a former carpenter, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in November 2024 after being convicted of the homicide of 3-month-old Elijah, the infant son of his partner whom he began dating while she was pregnant. The fatal attack unfolded in the early hours of January 19, 2024, when Swann stayed overnight to help care for the newborn.

On Tuesday, Swann appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court via video link to answer for the assault that occurred at his Manor Lakes home 13 days prior, on January 6, 2024. Court documents detail that the attack erupted after an argument when the woman told Swann she intended to leave him. Swann proceeded to punch her repeatedly in the head and torso, before grabbing her by the neck, pinning her to a bed and choking her. Prosecutors told the court he then pressed a pillow over the woman’s face, leaving her terrified she would lose consciousness. The woman managed to push Swann off and begged him to stop, convinced he intended to kill her. Swann pleaded guilty to a single charge of recklessly causing injury.

Swann’s defense told the court that in the week leading up to the January 6 assault, their client had reached out to his general practitioner seeking treatment for persistent anger issues. Medical records show Swann told his doctor his anger had recently worsened and was damaging his relationship with his partner. The defense added that Swann came from a supportive, upstanding family and maintained consistent full-time employment before he was taken into custody following Elijah’s death. The court also heard that Swann has spent the majority of his 2.5 years of incarceration to date in protective custody, and he was supported by family members during the virtual hearing, waving to his mother as the proceeding concluded.

In handing down the new sentence, Magistrate Kieran Gilligan ruled that a prison term was the only fitting penalty for the offense, calling out family violence as a growing threat to Australian communities. “Family violence is a scourge on society,” Gilligan told the court. “I’m afraid it’s my experience in this court it continues to grow exponentially.”

Gilligan sentenced Swann to 12 months behind bars for the assault, to be served concurrently with his existing 13-year sentence for the infant homicide, meaning no additional custodial time will be added to Swann’s term. Under the sentence handed down for Elijah’s killing by the Victorian Supreme Court last year, Swann will become eligible for parole after serving 9.5 years of his sentence.

The fatal circumstances surrounding Elijah’s death were previously laid out during Swann’s homicide sentencing. Last year, Justice James Gorton noted that Swann had initially expected to step into a father figure role for the newborn. In the early hours of January 19, the baby’s mother asked Swann to feed Elijah while she rested, before she heard a loud bang coming from the infant’s room. When Swann returned to the bedroom, he handed the unconscious baby back to his mother, telling her “Take this f**king baby.” The mother noticed Elijah was struggling to breathe and immediately called emergency services, while Swann performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The infant was diagnosed with severe, unsurvivable traumatic brain injury and major cranial trauma, and was taken off life support the following day. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Swann initially denied harming Elijah and falsely attempted to direct blame to the boy’s mother, according to court records. Justice Gorton described the killing as an unpremeditated outburst of frustration common to tired caregivers, but noted that the infant was completely defenseless and could not recover from the harm inflicted.