China should give access to World Health Organisation (WHO) officials investigating the origins of COVID-19 "without delay", Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the head of the WHO said he was "very disappointed" that China had still not authorised the entry of a team of international coronavirus experts.
"We hope that the necessary permissions for the WHO team's travel to China can be issued without delay," Payne said.
She reiterated the importance of the WHO-convened scientific study and said: "We look forward to the findings from the international field mission to China".
The novel coronavirus is believed to have first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. It has since spread globally, infecting more than 86 million people and killing over 1.8 million, Reuters calculations show.
Australia has been a leading voice in calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and, partly because of this, has seen its relations with China sour.
China, Australia's top trade partner, has since limited beef imports, imposed tariffs on Australian wine and told its millers to stop buying Australian cotton.
At least 24 people were killed and 93 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
Russian air attacks on Ukraine kept the eastern half of the country under air raid alert for more than five hours, Ukraine's military said early on Sunday, with Moscow launching several waves of strikes targeting Kyiv and other cities.
Massive consecutive strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs from late Saturday into Sunday, sending booms across the city and sparking flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometres away.
Over 80 police personnel have been injured in clashes with supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan taking part in a march near Islamabad, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Saturday.
Ukraine will present its "victory plan" at a regular meeting of its allies at Ramstein in Germany on October 12, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram on Saturday.