GUNG ho Aussie politicians have deployed the army and helicopters to order people to go home in what is one of the world’s strictest Covid lockdowns.
One man caught a chopper shouting out stay-at-home orders from a loudspeaker and shared it online.
One man watched on in disbelief as a police chopper told him to evacuate the park he was strolling throughCredit: Twitter/@OzraeliAviA picture of the helicopter ordering people to go homeCredit: Twitter/@OzraeliAviSydney is under lockdown following a worrying surge of cases of the Delta variantCredit: AFP
In footage, a blue and white helicopter circles the Aussie who blurts out “What the F**K!” as he’s warned that local police would find him and issue a fine.
Australia is enforcing one of the most severe lockdowns in the world and recently called in the military to help enforce its “Zero Covid” strategy.
Under the Government’s policy, rule-breakers caught ignoring the latest regulations will be slugged with a £265 ($500) fine.
Borders remain shut until the percentage of the population to receive both jabs jumps from the current measly number of 17 per cent to 80 per cent.
On Saturday, up to 1,300 police swarned Sydney and set up roadblocks in a massive show of force to stop a repeat of last week’s violent anti-lockdown protest.
Some 300 unarmed army personnel will also help police go door-to-door to ensure people who have tested positive are self-isolating.
Meanwhile, 250 fines were issued and Aussie authorities have made testing and mask-wearing outdoor mandatory.
New South Wales police commissioner Mick Fuller told a news conference: “The sheer volume of increase over the last week, the level of compliance has gone from hundreds into thousands.”
Australia has been praised for its handling of the pandemic, with the Pacific nation reporting just over 34,000 cases and fewer than 1,000 deaths.
However, politicians have copped flack from the public over the sclerotic roll-out of vaccines.
COVID CARNAGE
Tens of thousands of maskless protestors took to the streets in Melbourne and Sydney last weekend to oppose the government’s latest round lockdown restrictions amid a surge of cases of the Delta variant.
More than half the country’s 25million people have been ordered to stay at home over an outbreak which began in Sydney.
Frenzied crowds shouted “freedom” and anti-vaccine conspiracy slogans swarmed Haymarket city centre from midday on Saturday, just moments after local health chief Jeremy McAnulty declared the area a virus hotspot.
Police have set up blockades to stop a repeat of last week’s violent anti-lockdown protestsCredit: Getty
Officers confirmed more than 60 arrests had been made after objects were thrown, including one who allegedly launched a bollard at a policeman, while others were seen punching horses.
Police have now warned that the huge crowds gathered for the protests could see Victoria’s lockdown extended.
The state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton also hit out at protesters, saying the demonstrations would not free Australians from Covid, and warned the pandemic was far from over.
Lytton is a village of about 250 residents in southern British Columbia, Canada on the east side of the Fraser River and primarily the south side of the Thompson River where it flows southwesterly into the Fraser. The community includes the Village of Lytton and the surrounding community of the Lytton First Nation, whose name for the place is Camchin, also spelled Kumsheen (“river meeting”).
During summer heat waves, Lytton is often the hottest spot in Canada, despite being north of 50°N in latitude. In three consecutive days of June 2021, Lytton broke the record for highest temperature ever recorded in Canada, culminating with Canada’s all-time record high of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) on 29 June 2021; this is the world’s highest temperature ever recorded north of 45°N and is hotter than the all-time record highs for all of Europe and South America. The next day, 30 June 2021, a wildfire swept through the valley in which Lytton is located, destroying much of the village.Lytton’s welcome sign
The Lytton area has been inhabited by the Nlaka’pamux people for over 10,000 years.[2][3] It was one of the earliest locations occupied by non-Indigenous settlers in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. The town was founded during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858–59, when it was known as “The Forks”.
On 30 June 2021, the day after Lytton set a Canadian all-time-high temperature record of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F), a wildfire swept through the community, destroying most structures.[6] The entire village was given an evacuation order. Following the fire, local MP Brad Vis stated that 90% of the village had burned down.[7] Two people were killed in the wildfire. [8]
Novelist Bulwer-Lytton was a friend and contemporary of Charles Dickens and was one of the pioneers of the historical novel, exemplified by his most popular work, The Last Days of Pompeii. He is best remembered today for the opening line to the novel Paul Clifford, which begins “It was a dark and stormy night…” and is considered by some to be the worst opening sentence in the English language.[9] However, Bulwer-Lytton is also responsible for well-known sayings such as “The pen is mightier than the sword” from his play Richelieu. Despite being a very popular author with 19th-century readers, few people today are even aware of his prodigious body of literature spanning many genres. In the 21st century he is known best as the namesake for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC), sponsored annually by the English Department at San Jose State University, which challenges entrants “to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels”.
In 1858 Governor James Douglas named the town after Bulwer-Lytton “as a merited compliment and mark of respect”. Bulwer-Lytton served as Colonial Secretary. As governor of the then colony, Douglas would have reported to him.[10]:158
On 30 August 2008, the Village of Lytton invited Henry Lytton-Cobbold, the great-great-great grandson of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, to defend the great man’s honour by debating Professor Scott Rice, the sponsor of the BLFC, on the literary and political legacies of his great ancestor.[11] The debate received wide media coverage including The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Guardian, CBC’s As It Happens and many local and regional newspapers and radio and TV stations. The debate was moderated by Mike McArdell of Global TV. Lytton-Cobbold provided a spirited and crowd-inspiring defence of his ancestor, and despite a factual and well-researched presentation by Rice, Lytton-Cobbold emerged as the crowd favourite by a wide margin. In the end, Rice begrudgingly admitted to an admiration of Bulwer-Lytton. This event was held as part of the Village of Lytton’s BC150 celebrations, as it was the 150th anniversary of the community receiving its name, in addition to the province-wide celebration of the establishment of the original Colony of British Columbia on August 2, 1858.
The population of the village municipality as of the 2016 census was 249,[12] with another 1,700 in the immediate area living in rural areas and on reserves of the neighbouring six Nlaka’pamux communities.[which?]
802 members out of 1,970 registered members of the Lytton First Nation live on reserves immediately adjacent to the municipality.[13]
Lytton has set Canadian records for highest temperature and experiences either a dry-summer warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dsb bordering Dsa), or a warm-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csb bordering Csa). During summer heat waves, Lytton is often the hottest spot in Canada, despite being north of 50°N in latitude. Due to the dry summer air and a relatively low elevation of 230 m (750 ft), summer afternoon shade temperatures frequently reach 35 °C (95 °F) and occasionally top 40 °C (104 °F). Lytton holds the record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada with a record high of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) on 29 June 2021, which was set during the 2021 Western North America heat wave, and is only .1 of a degree lower than what was recorded at Bourke in Australia back in 1903 which has a hot semi arid climate (BSh).[14][15] This occurred after having already broken records multiple times during the previous days of that heat wave. This is the world’s highest temperature ever recorded north of 45°N, the highest temperature ever in the U.S. or Canada recorded outside four US states of the Desert Southwest, and higher than the record high temperatures ever recorded for Europe or South America.[16][17]
Before the 2021 heat wave occurred, Lytton, along with the nearby community of Lillooet, shared the second-highest temperature ever recorded in Canada.[18] On July 16 and 17, 1941, the temperature reached a then-record 44.4 °C (111.9 °F) on both days in both communities.[19] The coldest temperature ever recorded in Lytton was −31.7 °C (−25.1 °F) on 18 January 1950.[20] While reporting on the new records in 2021, Global News noted that the official Environment Canada weather station is located in the shade and is about a degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than the rest of the village.[21] Hot summer temperatures are made more tolerable by low humidity. However, the heat can be intense with usually clear blue skies and blazing sunlight – heat also radiates from the valley’s slopes, and forest fires are not uncommon during the summer.
Lytton’s climate is also characterised by relatively short and mild winters (although December and January average monthly temperatures are just below freezing), with Pacific maritime influence during the winter ensuring thick cloud cover much of the time. Cold snaps originating from arctic outflow occur from time-to-time, but tend to be short-lived, and mountains to the north block extreme cold from penetrating the Fraser Canyon.
Lytton receives 430.6 mm (16.95 in)[22] of annual precipitation on average, making Lytton much drier than communities to the south, but certainly wetter than some of the driest spots in the BC interior such as Ashcroft, Kamloops, Spences Bridge, and Osoyoos. However, Lytton has the driest summers in the interior of British Columbia, and indeed, one of the driest summers of all places in Canada. Maximum precipitation occurs in the cooler months, with the late autumn and early winter constituting the wettest time of the year.
hideClimate data for Lytton, 1981–2010 normals, extremes 1921–present
Lytton lies on the Trans-Canada Highway as well as both the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways. The Canadian National Railway Crosses both the Fraser and Thompson Rivers on two large steel bridges at Lytton. Via the Trans-Canada, Lytton is approximately 265 km (165 mi) from the city of Vancouver, 111 km (69 mi) north of Hope, and 84 km (52 mi) south of Cache Creek and Ashcroft.
Highway 12 runs north from Lytton 62 km (39 mi) to Lillooet, connecting there to Highway 99, which leads southwest to Pemberton and Whistler and beyond to Vancouver, and northeast to its terminus at Lower Hat Creek (Carquile) at a junction with Highway 97 just north of Cache Creek.
The Lytton Ferry, a free reaction ferry, crosses the Fraser River at Lytton. On the river’s west side are Indian reserve communities of the Lytton First Nation and the Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park via trails from the confluence of the Stein River with the Fraser. From the ferry, a route known as the West Side Road leads through the Nesikep and Texas Creek areas to Lillooet and BC Highway 99; the route south from the ferry is much more difficult but leads to North Bend–Boston Bar. When the ferry is out of service due to ice or low water levels on the Fraser River, pedestrian access is available via a walkway on the Canadian National Railway bridge crossing the river.
The mayor of Lytton is Jan Polderman, who was first elected in the 2018 municipal election.
Lytton is a corporate entity created under the Community Charter. Elections for Village Council are held every three years. The current Council includes:
Originally part of the Lillooet provincial riding, then part of Yale-Lillooet, Lytton is now in the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola, represented by Jackie Tegart of the BC Liberals, who first won in the 2013 election.
The single main employer in the village produced forestry products, and was forced to close due to market uncertainties in 2007.
Lytton is the self-proclaimed “River Rafting Capital of Canada”. Kumsheen Rafting Resort is the largest Lytton rafting company, while Hyak follows closely, and Fraser River and Reo Rafting have a more boutique configuration. A provincial campsite, Skihist Provincial Park, adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway six kilometres north of the village, has space for tenting as well as RVs, and enjoys one of the few views available of Skihist Mountain, the highest summit of the Lillooet Ranges, across the Fraser to the west of Lytton. The privately run Jade Springs Restaurant, also east of the village on the Trans-Canada, also offers a full service campground.
LyttonLocation of Lytton in 
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