Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has scrapped his long-awaited first Anzac Day trip to the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey, a journey that would have marked his first attendance at the transnational commemoration since he took office, amid rapidly escalating military tensions across the Middle East following the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. The cancellation was confirmed by Albanese himself during parliamentary question time on Wednesday, in response to a query from Deputy Opposition Leader Andrew Hastie. Though the prime minister had never formally announced the April 25 travel plans publicly, he acknowledged to the chamber that the proposal had been abandoned explicitly due to current travel conditions in Turkey. Albanese framed the decision as a responsible act of priority-setting, noting he is instead focusing on urgent ongoing matters, including active diplomatic engagement with Australia’s regional partners at a time of global instability. Hastie, who has been publicly critical of the Labor government’s response to the unfolding Iran conflict, used the question to also raise concerns over unconfirmed reports that multiple Australian government ministers have scrapped other scheduled April travel and events, and pressed the prime minister on whether the government has received official advice about delayed or canceled fuel cargo shipments bound for Australia. This cancellation breaks a pattern Albanese has maintained since taking office: he has opted to stay in Australia for Anzac Day commemorations in 2023 and 2025, and traveled to Papua New Guinea for the 2024 services, never having attended the Gallipoli Anzac Day events as prime minister before this planned trip. The prime minister’s choice comes at a moment of deep uncertainty over the trajectory of the Middle East conflict. After the joint U.S.-Israeli surprise military strike on Iran launched on February 28, which has killed more than 2,500 people across Iran, Lebanon and other regional territories, the outcome of the conflict remains far from clear. U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly suggested the conflict will wrap up within a matter of weeks, but on the ground, Israeli forces have expanded their ground invasion into Lebanon, and the country has for the first time come under direct attack from the Iran-aligned Houthi movement based in Yemen, further raising the risk of the conflict spreading across the wider Middle East.
作者： admin
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‘My six-year-old has nosebleeds’: Chiang Mai air pollution sparks health fears
Once celebrated for its misty mountain vistas, crisp cool air and lush tropical landscapes, Chiang Mai in northern Thailand has now become a city gripped by a recurring public health crisis. Decades of unaddressed seasonal air pollution have pushed long-time residents to the breaking point, with many families weighing permanent departure to protect their children’s health.
Tirayut Wongsantisuk, a 41-year-old father, never imagined he would leave the city he and his wife chose for its idyllic natural setting when they relocated in the 2010s. Today, that dream has turned into a daily nightmare: two of his young daughters suffer from frequent nosebleeds, and his six-year-old eldest has developed painful skin rashes and swollen, allergy-ridden eyelids. The persistent poor air quality has left Tirayut with no good options. “I’ve been thinking, maybe we really should move during this season… because if something irreversible happens to our child, we’ll feel terrible forever,” he told the BBC in an on-the-ground interview.
Tirayut’s fear is shared by dozens of other Chiang Mai families caught in this year’s particularly severe fire season. Over the past week, smoke from hundreds of raging blazes has choked the entire northern region, pushing Chiang Mai to the top of IQAir’s global ranking of the world’s most polluted major cities. When a BBC reporting team visited the area last week, a thick, acrid blanket of haze erased the iconic mountain views that draw millions of tourists each year, and a constant smell of burning hung in the air.
Official satellite data underscores the scale of the crisis: on April 1 alone, the system detected 4,750 active fire hotspots across Thailand, a new record, with the vast majority concentrated in the forested and agricultural lands of the north. By the following morning, Chiang Mai’s average PM2.5 concentration — the tiny toxic particles that penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream — was rated “very unhealthy” by global public health standards.
The annual crisis runs from November to March, a window that aligns with common agricultural practice: many smallholder farmers burn residual crop stubble to clear fields ahead of planting new season seeds. Dry seasonal conditions also fan the spread of spontaneous wildfires across parched forest and grassland areas. Local media has shared dramatic imagery of mountain slopes entirely engulfed in flames, with some residents comparing the blazing lines of fire to erupting volcanoes.
To curb the spread of blazes, Thai authorities have already implemented emergency measures: all high-fire-risk national parks have been closed to the public, and officials have announced that anyone caught intentionally starting fires in restricted zones will be arrested on site. Under current Thai law, those convicted of illegal forest burning face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and fines of up to 2 million baht, equivalent to roughly $61,100. Even so, the strict penalties have failed to deter the annual burning that drives the haze crisis.
Public health experts warn that long-term exposure to PM2.5 haze causes a cascade of health complications, ranging from mild issues like itchy eyes and frequent nosebleeds to life-threatening conditions such as respiratory failure and heart attacks. For Benjamas Jaiparkan, a 35-year-old public school teacher in Chiang Mai, the risk is too great to ignore. She has already sent her two children to stay with relatives in neighboring Phayao province, where air quality remains far better than in Chiang Mai, and is now planning a permanent move. Her four-year-old son began experiencing regular nosebleeds last year, and she fears permanent damage to his developing lungs. “I feel so sorry for him because I don’t know how much more his lungs can take,” she said.
Frustration with government inaction has been building for years among Chiang Mai residents. Activists and affected communities have repeatedly filed legal action to force systemic change. In July 2023, more than 1,700 Chiang Mai residents brought a lawsuit against former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and two leading state agencies, arguing that the government’s failure to curb northern air pollution had cut an average of five years off each resident’s life expectancy. In January 2024, a Chiang Mai court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the national government to draft a binding emergency action plan to improve air quality within 90 days.
The crisis is not isolated to Thailand: hazardous seasonal haze has become a regional public health emergency across Southeast Asia. This year, Malaysia and Indonesia have both recorded their highest number of fire hotspots in seven years, spreading poor air quality across borders and affecting millions of people across the region.
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Food assistance slashed for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees trapped in Bangladesh camps
More than seven years after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya ethnic minorities fled genocidal violence at the hands of Myanmar’s military, the vulnerable refugee community trapped in overcrowded Bangladeshi camps faces a new crisis: reduced food assistance that aid leaders and residents warn will deepen hunger and push desperate people toward deadly risks.
Starting Wednesday, the United Nations World Food Program rolled out a new tiered assistance model for the 1.2 million Rohingya residing in the squalid Cox’s Bazar refugee settlements. Under the revised framework, monthly food aid allocations will be adjusted based on assessed household vulnerability. While one-third of the population classified as “extremely food insecure” — including child-headed households — will retain the current $12 per person monthly allocation, roughly 17% of refugees will see their aid cut to just $7 per month, with the remaining population receiving reductions between these two amounts, meaning two-thirds of the entire community will face smaller food assistance stipends.
For decades, the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority group in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, faced systemic discrimination. A 2017 widescale military crackdown that the United States has formally recognized as genocide pushed more than 700,000 additional Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh, where they are legally barred from holding formal employment. With no path to safe repatriation following the 2021 military coup that kept the same leadership responsible for the 2017 violence in power, the entire community remains almost entirely dependent on international humanitarian aid to meet basic needs. Even before the cuts, refugees repeatedly warned the existing $12 monthly stipend was barely enough to avoid hunger.
“It is very difficult to understand how we will survive now with only $7. Our children will suffer the most,” said Mohammed Rahim, a camp resident and father of three who was already struggling to feed his family before the reduction. “I am deeply concerned that people may face severe hunger and some may even die due to lack of food.”
The WFP has publicly linked the risk of aid reductions to sweeping 2024 funding cuts from the U.S. and other major donor nations that stripped the agency of one-third of its core budget. However, WFP spokesperson Kun Li rejected characterizing the new policy as a general “ration cut,” arguing the term only applies when assistance falls below the 2,100 daily calories per person that is the global emergency food aid minimum. The agency claims even refugees receiving the $7 monthly stipend will still meet this calorie threshold, framing the tiered model as a step to improve fairness, transparency, and equity by targeting more support to the most vulnerable.
That framing is rejected by Bangladeshi officials overseeing the refugee response. “But a ration cut is precisely what the change means for the Rohingya,” said Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner. Rahman warned the cuts will push already desperate refugees to flee the camps in search of food and work, threatening to unravel law and order in the surrounding region. This is not an idle concern: past aid cuts have already driven a surge in harmful coping strategies, including child marriage, child labor, and kidnapping, as desperate families struggle to get by.
Funding shortfalls have plagued Rohingya support programs for years. In 2025, core Rohingya assistance programs were only half funded, and so far in 2026, just 19% of required funding has been secured. The WFP was already forced to slash rations to $8 per month in 2023 due to donation shortfalls. By November that year, the agency confirmed 90% of camp residents could not afford a nutritionally adequate diet, and 15% of children suffered from acute malnutrition — the highest rate ever recorded in the settlements. Rations were only restored to $12 per month in 2024.
Already, the cuts have sparked widespread outcry among the refugee community. Dozens of Rohingya held peaceful protests across the camps on Tuesday, demanding the reversal of the new policy and restoration of full rations. Many carried signs reading “Food is a right, not a choice” and warning that widespread starvation will follow the cuts.
For Rahim, the new $7 allocation brings impossible risks. The 40-year-old father lives with a chronic illness, and he cannot safely send his children outside the camps to work due to soaring rates of kidnapping, violence, and human trafficking. He said dozens of refugees he knows are already weighing deadly options that they would have otherwise rejected: returning to Myanmar to face persecution and violence, or undertaking dangerous, irregular sea journeys to Malaysia in overcrowded, unseaworthy fishing vessels. Hundreds of Rohingya die or disappear on these risky voyages every year.
“Ration cuts are pushing people toward life-threatening risks, leaving them with no safe choices,” Rahim said. “I am very worried about the future of our children.”
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Russian military plane crash kills 29 in Crimea
A fatal aviation disaster has claimed the lives of all 29 passengers and crew on board a Russian military An-26 transport plane that crashed in Crimea, Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed to state-run media outlets.
Contact was lost with the aircraft while it was conducting a standard operational flight, triggering an urgent search-and-rescue mission that eventually located the plane’s wreckage. According to initial statements from the ministry, the crash was likely triggered by on-board technical issues that led the aircraft to impact a cliff. All six crew members and 23 passengers aboard died in the incident, with no survivors reported.
Crimea, a peninsula whose 2014 annexation by Russia remains unrecognized by most of the international community, has been the site of consistent military engagement between Russian and Ukrainian forces since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Crucially, the Defence Ministry confirmed there was no external damage to the aircraft, ruling out attacks by missiles or drones, as well as bird strikes as potential causes of the crash.
Timeline details released by Russian state news agency Tass indicate that communication with the An-26 was cut off at approximately 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday, with wreckage recovered hours later after search teams swept the area.
The An-26, a twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft dating back to the Soviet era, was originally designed and built by Ukraine’s Antonov aerospace manufacturer. Entering widespread service in the late 1960s, the model was primarily engineered for short-to-medium range military operations, capable of carrying heavy cargo alongside small groups of personnel. Despite its long operational history, the aircraft platform has a well-documented record of fatal incidents in recent years.
Notable previous deadly crashes involving the model include a 2020 incident in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region that killed 26 people, most of whom were military cadets; a 2021 crash in Russia’s Far East that left 28 people dead; and a 2022 crash in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that resulted in one fatality.
In recent months, Crimea has become a frequent target of Ukrainian long-range strikes, with Ukrainian forces regularly targeting Russian military infrastructure across the peninsula, which shares a border with the partially Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly made full Russian withdrawal from Crimea a non-negotiable condition for any permanent ceasefire agreement, though a November peace proposal backed by the United States suggested Kyiv could defer claims to Crimea in the near term to advance negotiations.
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Boris Ristic: Man charged over alleged failed carjacking in Kew seeks bail
A botched attempted carjacking targeting a father waiting to pick up his daughter from school in one of Melbourne’s most affluent suburbs has been laid out in detail at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, with investigators revealing how the two accused offenders spent hours hiding in suburban shrubbery before their eventual arrest. The court proceedings on Wednesday centered on 40-year-old Boris Ristic’s bail application, one of the two men charged over the February 24 incident. According to Detective Acting Sergeant Terry Harvey, the victim had parked his luxury Mercedes-Benz on Wellington Street in Kew just after 4:30 p.m. when a white Mitsubishi Triton pulled up alongside his vehicle. Two men exited the truck, which then drove off from the scene, and brandished a knife to threaten the victim into surrendering his car keys, Harvey told the court. Prosecutors allege Ristic was the man who tried to drive off with the stolen Mercedes, but he was unable to shift the vehicle into gear. For roughly one minute, witnesses and the victim reported hearing the car engine rev repeatedly before the two frustrated suspects gave up and ran away down Wellington Street. Initial searches by police failed to locate the pair, but a breakthrough came just before 9 p.m. when a local resident on nearby Scott Street contacted emergency services. After checking her home security system, the resident spotted two unidentified figures entering the front yard of the property across from her home and hiding in dense front-yard bushes. The two men did not leave their hiding spot until approximately 8:50 p.m., the court was told. Police immediately cordoned off the neighborhood and quickly arrested 33-year-old Maker Jal in the backyard of a Scott Street property. Investigators say they found the victim’s Mercedes-Benz key in Jal’s possession, alongside a small quantity of methamphetamine. Ristic was captured only after a short manhunt, during which he allegedly jumped over multiple residential fences and hid on rooftop areas before being detained by the Critical Incident Response Team. Near Ristic’s arrest location, officers discovered a black Tommy Hilfiger holding $1665 in cash, three Valium tablets, a small bottle of Fireball cinnamon whiskey, and a replica firearm, Harvey confirmed. Lucien Richter, Ristic’s defense lawyer, has challenged the prosecution’s case, pointing out key inconsistencies in witness testimony. The victim described both suspects as Black men, while Ristic is Caucasian, Richter noted. He also argued that no evidence directly linking his client to the attempted carjacking was found on him at the time of arrest, adding that the CCTV footage of the incident is heavily obscured, making positive identification unreliable. Ristic, a professional painter with no prior criminal record, has the full support of his family, with his mother offering to put up a $20,000 surety to secure his bail. Richter told the court his client already has confirmed work waiting for him and is rooted in a stable, responsible family environment that would ensure he complies with any bail conditions. Magistrate Phillip Goldberg adjourned the bail application part-heard, with the next court hearing scheduled for April 15. Jal faces three charges: carjacking, theft, and possession of a controlled drug, and he is scheduled to make his next court appearance on Thursday.
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As US gasoline passes $4, Hegseth says ground war still an option
WASHINGTON — Five weeks into active hostilities between the United States and Iran, the Biden administration (correction: current Trump administration) has moved to frame skyrocketing national gasoline prices as a temporary side effect of the conflict, while top defense officials have refused to take any military option — including a full ground deployment of U.S. troops — off the table.
In his first public briefing at the Pentagon since mid-March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Tuesday that the timeline for concluding combat operations and achieving U.S. war aims rests solely with President Donald Trump, warning that the coming days will prove decisive for the conflict. He also confirmed that diplomatic negotiations between the two nations remain active, and suggested the talks have gained momentum in recent days.
The prolonged conflict has already sent shockwaves through both global and domestic U.S. economies, with new data from automotive group AAA showing the national average price for regular gasoline in the U.S. has crossed the $4 per gallon threshold for the first time in four years. Photographic documentation from a Providence, Rhode Island gas station taken March 31, 2026 shows regular fuel priced at $3.89 per gallon, just shy of the national benchmark.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against growing public frustration over fuel costs in an official statement, arguing that once the administration’s Operation Epic Fury concludes, gas prices will fall sharply back to the multi-year lows U.S. drivers saw before the current market disruption. She added that President Trump remains dedicated to expanding American energy production to achieve long-term energy dominance, cut household costs, and put more disposable income back into the budgets of working American families.
Within hours of the White House’s statement, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf seized on the price surge to criticize U.S. policy, sharing a link to a U.S. news report on soaring gas prices to the social platform X with the caption: “Sad, but this is what happens when your leaders put others ahead of hard-working and ordinary Americans.”
The primary driver of the global energy price spike is Iran’s ongoing blockade of commercial and military vessels from the U.S. and its allies at the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that carries a large share of the world’s petroleum and liquefied natural gas exports. As of 12:45 p.m. Eastern Time Tuesday, Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, was trading at just over $119 per barrel. Open source data from MarineTraffic and United Nations estimates show between 2,000 and 3,000 cargo vessels and oil tankers, carrying roughly 20,000 crew members, remain stranded in the Persian Gulf due to the blockade.
President Trump has claimed in recent public comments that Iran has agreed to allow a small number of third-party oil tankers to pass through the strait, first saying eight to 10 Pakistani tankers would be permitted during a cabinet meeting Thursday, then raising that number to 20 during comments Sunday. But data from the Joint Maritime Information Center contradicts those claims, showing only four large, location-transmitting tankers crossed the strait on Friday and Saturday combined.
When asked about potential ground operations, Hegseth said the administration would not foreclose any military response to Iranian aggression, but declined to share specific operational details during his public briefing. “You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do, or what you are not willing to do — to include boots on the ground,” Hegseth said. “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are. So if we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the president of the United States and this department, or maybe we don’t have to use them at all. Maybe negotiations work.”
Trump echoed Hegseth’s comments on diplomatic progress during remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday, saying talks with Iran are ongoing both directly and indirectly, and that the discussions are “very good.” “We’re doing extremely well,” the president said. “But you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow ‘em up.”
The president has repeatedly issued public threats to bomb Iran’s critical energy infrastructure, and has set a self-imposed deadline of April 6 for Iran to meet all U.S. demands before launching new strikes. On Monday night, Trump shared video of a recent U.S. strike on an Iranian ammunition depot in the central province of Isfahan to his Truth Social platform. But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei denied any diplomatic talks are taking place with the U.S., according to Iranian state news outlet Tasmin News Agency.
U.S. military buildup in the region continues: U.S. Central Command confirmed that up to 3,500 U.S. Marines and sailors arrived in the Persian Gulf region Saturday, bringing total U.S. troop levels in the area to roughly 50,000 — an increase of 10,000 from the standard peacetime deployment of 40,000. Ghalibaf warned Sunday that any U.S. ground offensive into Iran would be met with “severe punishment,” per Iranian state media. For context, the 2003 U.S. ground invasion of Iraq saw more than 300,000 American troops deployed to the region, according to historical archives from the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Trump to watch Supreme Court weigh challenge to birthright citizenship
In an extraordinary, potentially unprecedented move for a sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump will personally attend the U.S. Supreme Court’s oral arguments Wednesday for a landmark case examining the constitutionality of his controversial effort to restrict birthright citizenship.
Shortly after returning to the White House following his 2024 election win, Trump signed an executive order that would eliminate automatic U.S. citizenship for children born in the country to undocumented immigrants and parents on temporary visas. Lower courts quickly blocked the order, ruling it directly violated the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which enshrines birthright citizenship for nearly all people born on U.S. soil.
The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, explicitly states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The only narrow exceptions to this rule apply to individuals not fully under U.S. jurisdiction, such as foreign diplomatic staff and members of sovereign Native American tribes.
When reporters asked Tuesday if he planned to attend the hearing, Trump confirmed simply, “I’m going.” While Trump previously attended the 2017 investiture of his first Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, his presence at oral arguments for a case his administration is actively defending marks an extraordinary break from modern presidential precedent.
The Trump administration’s legal argument hinges on a narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, claiming the provision was crafted exclusively to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, not to children of undocumented migrants or temporary visitors. The executive order is built on the claim that people living in the U.S. without legal status or on temporary visas are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and therefore do not qualify for automatic citizenship.
This narrow reading has already been rejected by the Supreme Court once before. In the landmark 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the high court ruled that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen by birth, even though his parents were not eligible for naturalization under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Many legal analysts expect the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration’s challenge again. Steven Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, noted that the current conservative majority often relies on history and tradition to interpret the Constitution. “It would be a little surprising if, after 150 years, we suddenly discovered we were applying the Citizenship Clause all wrong,” Schwinn told AFP.
The high court currently holds a 6-3 conservative majority, with three justices appointed by Trump during his first term. The administration’s solicitor general, John Sauer, argued in court filings that citizenship requires meeting both criteria laid out in the 14th Amendment: birth on U.S. soil and being subject to U.S. jurisdiction. “Children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens are not ‘subject to’ the United States’ ‘jurisdiction,’” Sauer wrote, adding that a person only meets this requirement if they “owes sufficient allegiance to, and may claim protection from” the U.S. Sauer also claimed automatic birthright citizenship acts as a “powerful incentive for illegal migration” and encourages so-called “birth tourism.”
If the court rejects Trump’s bid, it will mark the second major legal defeat for the president during the current Supreme Court term. In February, the justices struck down most of Trump’s global sweeping tariffs, prompting an angry response from the president. On Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his criticism, calling birthright citizenship one of the “great scams of our time” a day after he posted on Truth Social denouncing “dumb judges and justices.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is arguing in defense of existing birthright citizenship before the court, warned the Trump administration’s request would upend the nation’s core constitutional order. “The government’s baseless arguments — if accepted — would cast a shadow over the citizenship of millions upon millions of Americans, going back generations,” the organization said.
A final ruling in the case is expected by the end of June or early July 2025.
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Australia’s largest wild prawn business collapses, costing 200 jobs
After decades of growth from a small family fish and chip shop to a national seafood industry leader, Australia’s largest wild-caught prawn producer Raptis and Sons Group has collapsed, sending ripples of economic uncertainty through coastal communities across the country and leaving 200 workers unemployed.
Founded in the 1950s by Greek first-generation migrants Anna and Arthur Raptis Snr in Adelaide, the company built a sprawling fishing empire over three generations. It operated wild prawn harvests across four jurisdictions—South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland—and fin fish fisheries in waters off the NT, Queensland and New South Wales. Beyond fishing, the group owned popular seafood brands Agrios, Seaport and Ocean Pearl, ran a processing and packing facility in Brisbane, and distributed its own and third-party seafood to major national wholesale markets including the Sydney Fish Markets, as well as international buyers. Its 19-vessel fleet includes 15 boats based out of the tiny Gulf of Carpentaria town of Karumba, which has a total population of just 500 and relies heavily on Raptis’ operations to sustain its local economy.
Appointed as administrators in March, insolvency practitioners have confirmed that all efforts to secure a buyer for the struggling business have failed. The company first launched a sale process in late 2024, drawing initial interest from multiple prospective investors, but no deal was finalized to save the business. Earlier hopes that a new buyer could inject emergency funding to allow the fleet to participate in the 2025 banana prawn season, which runs from April 1 to mid-June, have also been dashed, after negotiations for interim financing collapsed without agreement.
Financial documents filed by administrator Ben Campbell reveal the full scale of the company’s liabilities. While Raptis holds more than $26 million in equity, it owes $35.2 million to the National Australia Bank. In total, 296 separate parties—including employees, local businesses and government agencies—are owed a collective $31.6 million. Company directors Jim Raptis and Christine Raptis are among the creditors owed $2.7 million in total. At the time of administration, the company employed 196 people: 123 full-time staff, four part-time workers and 69 casual employees, all of whom now face unemployment.
Industry insiders and administrators point to a perfect storm of market and operational challenges that drove the business to collapse. The core triggers cited are a severe oversupply of banana prawns during the 2022/2023 season, followed by two consecutive years of lower-than-expected catch volumes, and rapidly rising operating costs that squeezed profit margins to unsustainable levels. Most notably, a national diesel shortage that followed the global energy price shock drastically increased fuel costs for the company’s fleet, adding further financial pressure.
Veteran federal MP Bob Katter, whose electorate covers Karumba, has blamed Queensland state government policies restricting fishing licenses and the national fuel crisis for delivering the fatal blow to the historic business. He warns that the collapse is part of a broader, decades-long decline of Australia’s domestic fishing industry, driven by restrictive regulation that has already shrunk the Karumba fleet by two-thirds during his political career.
Katter argued that environmental policies supported by green activists have gutted local fishing activity, pointing out that Australia now imports 40 percent of its seafood, a share that is projected to grow as more domestic operations close. “The fuel crisis hitting the once great fishing industry of North Queensland – soon there won’t be any left,” Katter told NewsWire. “The fuel crisis is going to kill what’s left of the fishing industry that’s been killed off by the greenies. I have said continuously we will go without fuel, and now what I am telling my fellow Australians is, ‘you will go without food’.”
For small regional centers like Karumba, the collapse of the town’s largest employer leaves an uncertain future, with local businesses that rely on the fishing fleet now bracing for secondary economic shocks as jobs and economic activity disappear from the community.
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Lionel Messi shines in what could be his last Argentina home game, a 5-0 farewell friendly win
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Ahead of the 2026 men’s FIFA World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, Lionel Messi delivered a performance for the history books on Tuesday night, turning what is widely expected to be his final home appearance for Argentina’s national side into a masterclass in a lopsided 5-0 friendly win over Zambia.
The 38-year-old Argentine icon, who led his nation to a third World Cup title in Qatar 2022, got the match off to a blistering start, setting up Manchester City striker Julián Álvarez for an early opener in just the fourth minute at Buenos Aires’ iconic La Bombonera stadium. Before halftime, Messi added a goal of his own in the 43rd minute, capping a first-half dominant display that sent the sold-out crowd into a frenzy. The entire stadium rose to its feet in a prolonged standing ovation for Messi, with fans chanting and cheering to urge their star to lead Argentina to another world title this summer.
Two more goals from defenders Nicolás Otamendi and Valentín Barco rounded out the 5-0 scoreline for the defending champions. The commanding win comes as a much-needed confidence boost for Argentina, which left fans and analysts with lingering concerns after a flat, underwhelming 2-1 win over Mauritania last Friday. Ahead of the Zambia friendly, head coach Lionel Scaloni issued a clear warning: a repeat of lackluster performances would lead to major changes to his 26-man World Cup squad, which must be finalized and submitted by May 30.
For this critical pre-tournament home test, Scaloni opted to field a starting lineup largely mirroring the side that claimed the 2022 World Cup trophy with a dramatic final win over France. The most notable absence was midfielder Rodrigo De Paul, who was sidelined as he continues to recover from a muscle injury, following a poor showing against Mauritania last week.
Argentina, a three-time World Cup winner with titles in 1978, 1986, and 2022, will kick off their 2026 World Cup campaign in Group J on June 16 against Algeria. They will then face off against Austria on June 22 before wrapping up group stage play against Jordan on June 27.
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Business sentiments in Japan improving despite Iran worries
TOKYO – The Bank of Japan’s closely watched quarterly tankan survey, published Wednesday, has delivered a fourth consecutive quarter of improving business sentiment among the nation’s large manufacturing firms. The key diffusion index, which measures the gap between companies reporting positive business conditions and those forecasting a downturn, edged up to 17 in March, up one point from the December reading.
This modest uptick comes despite mounting global and domestic economic headwinds, fueled by the ongoing conflict in Iran that has stirred widespread anxiety over energy supply security and broader Japanese economic growth. Unlike the manufacturing sector’s gain, sentiment among large non-manufacturing businesses, spanning retail, hospitality and other service segments, held steady at 36, matching the previous survey’s reading.
While Japan’s overall inflation rate has stayed far more muted than in many other advanced economies, upward pressure on fuel prices and a range of consumer goods has accelerated concerns across markets and households. Geopolitical uncertainty surrounding the duration of the Iran conflict and unpredictable policy signals from former U.S. President Donald Trump have added to market volatility, pushing Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index into sharp swings over recent weeks.
A depreciating yen and soaring energy costs have combined to push up living costs for ordinary Japanese consumers, leading a growing number of analysts to forecast that the Bank of Japan could move to raise interest rates at its upcoming monetary policy meeting. The central bank wrapped up years of negative interest rates, implemented to combat decades of stubborn deflation, when it normalized monetary policy in 2024. It has held its benchmark policy rate steady at 0.75% since the beginning of the year, and its next policy board gathering is scheduled for April 27-28.
Historically, a weaker yen has been a boon for Japan’s export-led economy, which built its global reputation on high-volume shipments of automobiles and consumer electronics. When the yen depreciates, overseas earnings earned in foreign currencies translate back to larger yen denominated profits for exporting firms. But in recent decades, Japan’s economic dynamics have shifted dramatically: as a resource-poor nation, Japan now imports nearly all of its energy needs, along with large volumes of food and critical manufacturing components. A weak yen now raises import costs sharply, eroding household purchasing power and cutting into corporate margins for import-dependent firms. The U.S. dollar has continued its rapid ascent against the yen in recent trading sessions, amplifying these inflationary pressures.