Global Pulse

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  • Another suspected case of H5 bird flu as sick bird found in SA

    Another suspected case of H5 bird flu as sick bird found in SA

    Australian agricultural and animal health authorities have detected a second suspected case of the highly pathogenic H5 bird flu strain in South Australia, even as neighboring New South Wales has cleared a recent suspicious testing case, delivering a much-needed relief to local officials.

    South Australia’s Department of Primary Industries and Regions confirmed that the suspected infection was found in an ailing migratory giant petrel picked up at Hardwicke Bay, located on the state’s Yorke Peninsula. The discovery was triggered after a member of the public reported the sick bird to the national Emergency Animal Disease Hotline, and initial screening returned a positive result for the deadly H5 subtype.

    Pending final confirmation of the diagnosis, this incident would mark the second confirmed H5 case in South Australia and the eighth nationwide across Australia. To date, the virus has been confirmed in five wild birds in Western Australia and one giant petrel in New South Wales, found late last week.

    South Australia’s Industries Minister Clare Scriven called the new suspected discovery disappointing, but emphasized that ongoing active surveillance and public participation remain critical to tracking the spread of the virus. “Every report from the community is reviewed, and if H5 bird flu is suspected, our response teams are deployed immediately to collect samples and test,” Scriven explained, thanking members of the public for reporting sick or dead birds they encounter.

    Skye Fruean, chief veterinary officer for PIRSA, noted that state authorities have been building preparedness for an incursion of H5 bird flu for several years. She added that the current suspected case is considered geographically isolated, with no other sick birds detected in the surrounding Hardwicke Bay area. “This is an encouraging sign,” Fruean said. “To date, there is still no evidence that the virus has spread into Australia’s native wildlife populations.”

    Across the border in New South Wales, officials have announced a negative result for a sick cormorant found over the weekend at Narrabeen, which had raised alarm among local response teams. Samples from the bird were tested at the state’s Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institution, which confirmed the bird did not carry the H5 strain.

    NSW Chief Veterinary Officer Jo Coombe said the negative result was publicly released to address widespread public interest in the case. Since activating the state’s H5 response protocol on June 19, Coombe explained, dozens of investigations into sick or dead birds have been completed, with only one positive result confirmed – the giant petrel found near Hawks Nest late last week.

    As of the latest update, Coombe confirmed there have been no detections of H5 bird flu in domestic poultry flocks across Australia, no evidence of spread to local wild populations, and no reports of large-scale animal mortality linked to the virus. She also reiterated that the current risk of H5 bird flu transmission to human health remains extremely low.

  • France’s Le Pen faces pivotal ruling in race for president

    France’s Le Pen faces pivotal ruling in race for president

    As France gears up for its 2027 presidential election, the entire political landscape is hanging on a court decision set to be handed down Tuesday that will make or break far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s bid for the country’s highest office — a contest where her National Rally (RN) party currently holds its strongest ever shot at seizing power.

    The 57-year-old three-time presidential candidate was first convicted last year by a Paris lower court over a decade-long fake jobs scheme that misused European Parliament funds to pay RN staffers based in France. The initial ruling handed down a four-year prison sentence (two suspended) and a permanent five-year ban from holding public office, which would automatically bar Le Pen from running in the April 2027 first round vote. Now, Le Pen, her party, and 10 other convicted co-defendants have appealed the verdict, with prosecutors urging the appeals court to uphold the original five-year ban and a four-year prison term with three years suspended.

    Legal observers have laid out a range of possible outcomes Tuesday, when the ruling will be read from 1:30 pm (1130 GMT). The most damaging outcome for Le Pen would see the court uphold the full five-year public office ban, ending her presidential bid immediately. A middle ground could see the court uphold her conviction but reduce the ban length or replace active prison time with home arrest and electronic monitoring. Even a shorter ban or ankle-tagged house arrest would likely derail her ability to mount a national campaign, Le Pen has confirmed.

    Le Pen has struck a defiant tone in the lead-up to the ruling, dismissing the case as a politically motivated ‘witch hunt’ against her movement. ‘We will never be discouraged, we will always fight,’ she told cheering RN supporters at a party event over the weekend, echoing remarks she made last week where she asserted, ‘I’m not scared. If I can run, I will — as long as I can campaign.’

    If she is forced to step aside, Le Pen has a clear successor lined up: 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, the current president of the National Rally and her long-time lieutenant. The plan for a handover of the party’s presidential nomination has been in place for months, and recent polling suggests the younger candidate could actually outperform Le Pen in some matchups, even as rival politicians acknowledge Le Pen remains a formidable contender.

    The original 2004–2016 scheme, prosecutors argue, was informalized by Le Pen’s father, RN co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, before Marine Le Pen ‘professionalised’ the system of diverting EU funds after taking over party leadership in 2011. Le Pen has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, telling the appeals court the party operated in ‘complete good faith’ and did not run a systemic embezzlement scheme. The initial verdict drew intense backlash from RN supporters, who have targeted the trial judges with violent threats including death threats.

    Le Pen’s political track record sets the stage for the high-stakes 2027 contest: she placed third in the 2012 presidential election, then advanced to run-off matches against incumbent centrist President Emmanuel Macron (who will step down next year after two terms) in both 2017 and 2022, falling short both times but steadily growing the RN’s electoral support.

    Current polling paints a mixed but broadly favorable picture for the far right. Most recent surveys project the RN will place first in the 2027 election’s first round, though projections for the second round run-off vary. A late May Harris Interactive Toluna poll of more than 1,700 registered French voters found Le Pen would beat all three of her most likely centrist and left-wing rivals — hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, former prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe — in a second round. Other polls, however, show Philippe, who has positioned himself to appeal to conservative right-wing voters, would defeat a far-right candidate in a run-off.

    Even opposition politicians have acknowledged Le Pen’s strength as a candidate. ‘This woman is very intelligent, she’s not here by chance. And if she does also run for a fourth time, she won’t be an opponent we can sneer at,’ Mélenchon said recently.

  • Indonesia’s Prabowo and India’s Modi meet to discuss expanding economic and defense ties

    Indonesia’s Prabowo and India’s Modi meet to discuss expanding economic and defense ties

    As economic globalization faces mounting global headwinds, two of Asia’s largest democracies are moving to cement their strategic partnership, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding high-stakes talks with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta on Tuesday. This meeting marks the latest milestone in steadily warming bilateral ties, coming on the heels of Prabowo’s appearance as chief guest at India’s 2023 Republic Day celebrations, and is Modi’s second visit to Indonesia as prime minister following his 2018 trip.

    Modi touched down in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, Monday afternoon to kick off a three-day tour of Southeast Asia’s largest economy — the first stop on a broader Indo-Pacific itinerary that will also take him to Australia and New Zealand. In a clear signal of the priority Jakarta places on its relationship with New Delhi, Modi’s aircraft was escorted into Indonesian airspace by three fighter jets, and President Prabowo personally greeted the Indian leader on the tarmac of Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base.

    Following a formal welcome ceremony at Merdeka Palace, Indonesia’s central presidential office, the two leaders began closed-door discussions focused on six core pillars of cooperation: defense and security, trade and investment, food security, energy security, access to critical minerals, and cross-sector capacity building in health and education. Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, confirmed ahead of the summit that at least eight bilateral agreements and multiple memorandums of understanding would be unveiled during Modi’s visit.

    New Delhi’s top diplomat to Jakarta, Indian Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty, highlighted that defense cooperation will take center stage in the talks, noting that discussions over Indonesia’s potential acquisition of India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile system have progressed to an advanced stage. Beyond arms procurement, the two nations are set to expand collaboration on maritime security, a priority for both states that share overlapping strategic interests along the vital shipping lanes connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

    The summit will also advance digital and economic cooperation: a key event during the visit will be the planned launch of the Indonesia Open Network, a digital commerce platform modeled after India’s widely praised digital public infrastructure framework. Later in the visit, on Wednesday, Modi will travel to the historic Javanese city of Yogyakarta, where he is expected to formally launch an Indian-funded restoration project at Prambanan Temple, Indonesia’s iconic UNESCO-listed Hindu cultural heritage site. The project was agreed in principle during Prabowo’s 2023 visit to India.

    In addition to his official summits, Modi is scheduled to address a plenary session of Indonesia’s parliament on Tuesday, before meeting with members of the large Indian diaspora community based in Indonesia at an evening reception.

    Both India and Indonesia hold shared membership in the Group of 20 major global economies and the BRICS bloc of emerging market nations, creating additional alignment on multilateral issues. Speaking ahead of the visit, Chakravorty emphasized the broader geopolitical significance of closer ties between the two leading Global South democracies. “In the recent geopolitical context, closer ties between two leaders of the Global South are very essential so that we give the message to the world that we are together and we work for each other’s strength,” he told reporters.

    After concluding his engagements in Indonesia, Modi will depart for Australia on Wednesday to meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the next leg of his Indo-Pacific tour.

  • Narre Warren South stepfather death: Brothers face murder charges

    Narre Warren South stepfather death: Brothers face murder charges

    A violent assault case in Melbourne’s southeast has taken a tragic turn, with charges against two brothers accused of attacking their estranged stepfather upgraded to murder following the victim’s death from his injuries.

    The victim, 63-year-old Andre Szep from Clyde North, was allegedly ambushed and brutally attacked by his stepsons 21-year-old Connor Harnett and 22-year-old Liam Harnett shortly after 3 p.m. on June 12. The shocking incident unfolded in the open area outside Strathaird Primary School, located in Narre Warren South, a busy suburban neighborhood near a local education campus.

    Immediately after the attack, emergency responders rushed Szep to a nearby hospital with life-threatening severe injuries. Despite medical intervention, the 63-year-old succumbed to his wounds six days after the assault.

    Prior to his death, the two brothers had already been taken into police custody. Connor Harnett, who lists no fixed address, was charged on June 15, while Liam Harnett, a resident of Narre Warren South, was charged two days earlier on June 13. Both were initially charged with the offense of recklessly causing serious injury.

    In an official statement released to the public on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Victoria Police confirmed that the initial charges have now been formally upgraded to murder following Szep’s passing. “Those charges have today been upgraded to murder,” the spokesperson confirmed in the statement.

    The two accused are scheduled to make their next court appearance at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, where the murder charges will be formally laid before the court. The community surrounding Narre Warren South has been left shaken by the violent incident, which occurred near a local primary school frequented by families and young children.

  • It’s decision day in Prince Harry’s final privacy suit against British tabloids

    It’s decision day in Prince Harry’s final privacy suit against British tabloids

    LONDON — After months of high-stakes testimony, explosive contradictions, and years of public conflict between the British royal family and the country’s tabloid press, Prince Harry’s long-running legal battle over privacy invasion is set to reach a pivotal turning point on Tuesday, as a London High Court justice hands down a ruling in his lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Ltd., publisher of the *Daily Mail* and *Mail on Sunday*. This verdict closes the third in a series of high-profile lawsuits Harry has brought against British news outlets over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

    The case unites Prince Harry with six other high-profile claimants, including music icon Elton John, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, anti-racism activist Doreen Lawrence, former lawmaker Simon Hughes, and David Furnish, in a pursuit of substantial compensatory damages. The 11-week legal proceeding has racked up an estimated £40 million ($53.5 million) in total legal costs, making it one of the most expensive celebrity privacy cases in recent British history.

    The core allegation from claimants is that Associated Newspapers oversaw a systemic, years-long campaign of unlawful snooping, leveraging in-house journalists, freelance contributors, and private investigators to tap phones, intercept private voicemails, and obtain sensitive personal information through deceptive means. Hurley laid bare the human impact of the alleged intrusions in her testimony, accusing the outlet of planting listening devices outside her home and stealing confidential medical records. “It is like there is someone peeping into your life and into your home,” she told the court. “My private life had been violated by violent intruders — that there had been sinister thieves in my home all along and that I had been living with them completely unaware.”

    For Prince Harry personally, the lawsuit is far more than a legal dispute. It is the culmination of a decades-long mission to reform what he has called a toxic British tabloid culture, a mission rooted in the 1997 death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a Paris car crash while being chased by paparazzi. He has repeatedly blamed relentless press harassment of his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, for pushing the couple to step back from senior royal duties and relocate to California in 2020. In emotional testimony earlier this year, a tearful Harry told the court, “They continue to come after me, they have made my wife’s life an absolute misery.” He added that persistent press intrusion left him “paranoid beyond belief,” damaged his personal relationships, and inflicted lasting harm on his mental health.

    Associated Newspapers has forcefully denied all allegations, dismissing the claims as preposterous. Defense lawyers argue that the roughly 50 articles at the center of the case relied entirely on legitimate, lawfully obtained sources ranging from palace spokespeople and royal aides to friends and publicists who voluntarily shared information with reporters. Lead defense attorney Antony White told the court that the claimants’ case rests on unproven speculation and biased inferences, and that Harry was quick to assume unlawful activity where none existed. Unlike a previous 2023 phone hacking case against the *Daily Mirror* that resulted in a ruling against the publisher, dozens of journalists have testified in the *Daily Mail* case to defend their reporting, with many confirming they obtained information through official channels or on-the-record sources. Former *Mail on Sunday* editor Katie Nicholl told the court that Harry’s claims of a closed inner circle were unfounded, saying, “I had very good sources in the inner circle.”

    A key sticking point in the trial has centered on the timeline of allegations, many of which date back to the 1990s — long after the six-year legal deadline for bringing such claims expired. Claimants argue they were unaware of the unlawful surveillance until private investigator Gavin Burrows came forward in 2021 to admit his role in the snooping campaign. Burrows, who once publicly apologized to Harry on a BBC documentary for targeting the prince as a teenager, made a stunning reversal during this trial, testifying that he never worked for Associated Newspapers. He claimed the original statement supporting the claimants was fabricated by the plaintiffs’ legal team and that his signature was forged. The defense has argued that Burrows’ reversal completely undermines the claimants’ case, while the prosecution insists a wealth of other evidence ties the publisher to unlawful activity.

    Tuesday’s verdict coincides with a rare visit by Harry back to the UK, where he is in London to attend charity events. What has dominated headlines, however, is widespread speculation over whether Harry will be reunited with his father, King Charles III, who is currently undergoing treatment for an undisclosed cancer. The meeting would mark the first time Harry has seen his father in person since the king’s cancer diagnosis was announced, and would be the first visit from Harry’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, to the UK in several years. The potential reunion remains unconfirmed, as Harry continues to negotiate security arrangements and accommodations; the British government has repeatedly refused Harry’s requests for taxpayer-funded security during his visits, a dispute that has already spawned multiple failed legal challenges from the prince.

    This ruling adds another chapter to Harry’s unprecedented break with royal tradition: three years ago, he became the first senior British royal to testify in a civilian court in more than a century. He already notched two major victories in prior press privacy cases: in 2023, he won a default judgment against *Daily Mirror* publisher Reach plc, where a judge condemned the paper for “widespread and habitual” phone hacking. Just last year, Rupert Murdoch’s *The Sun* issued an unprecedented public apology for years of intrusion into Harry’s life and settled the lawsuit with a substantial damages payment.

  • US needs to move bases from Gulf to Israel, former Centcom commander says

    US needs to move bases from Gulf to Israel, former Centcom commander says

    In a recent webinar hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, retired General Frank McKenzie, the former leader of United States Central Command (Centcom), has thrown his weight behind a radical restructuring of American military basing across the Middle East, arguing that existing positions in the Gulf are dangerously exposed to Iranian missile and drone attacks and should be shifted westward to Israel and nearby regional partners.

    McKenzie, who oversaw all US military operations across the Middle East from 2019 to 2022, questioned the strategic logic of maintaining Centcom’s forward headquarters at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, located just 100 miles from Iranian territory. “No one in their right mind would ever put the Centcom forward headquarters 100 miles away from Iran, yet that’s where it is,” he stated during the discussion.

    During his tenure as Centcom commander, McKenzie revealed that he and a cohort of senior defense officials formally presented a proposal to the Biden administration in 2022 calling for the dispersal of US forces currently concentrated in Gulf states including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The plan advocated moving key command and presence assets west to locations including Israel and Egypt, positions that would be far less vulnerable to pre-emptive Iranian strikes in the event of open conflict. According to McKenzie, the Biden administration “aggressively” rejected the proposal out of hand.

    The former Centcom chief characterized the current American basing architecture in the Gulf as an outdated “artefact” of bygone strategic eras. The network grew out of Cold War-era efforts to deter Soviet expansion into the oil-rich region, and was later expanded to support US counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, he argued, this legacy structure no longer aligns with the core strategic threat facing US forces in the region: advanced Iranian strike capabilities. “[The US] strategy does not match the reality on the ground,” he emphasized.

    McKenzie’s warnings align with a June report published by Middle East Eye (MEE), which cited multiple unnamed former senior US officials and regional analysts who concluded that widespread basing restructuring is inevitable due to the vulnerabilities Iran demonstrated during recent regional conflicts. MEE was the first outlet to report that the US secured access to Saudi Arabia’s Taif Air Base in March, after Iranian strikes heavily damaged the major US facility at Prince Sultan Air Base southeast of Riyadh. Across the Gulf coast, key US installations in Bahrain (home to the US Fifth Fleet), Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE all sustained significant damage from Iranian strikes, effectively pushing American assets away from the Gulf coastline.

    Open source analysts and US officials have long debated the full operational impact of Iranian strikes on Gulf bases, but McKenzie cautioned that publicly available satellite imagery can paint a misleading picture of a damaged base’s functionality. Even if critical underground infrastructure such as fuel systems and runways remain intact after an attack, the destruction of above-ground assets including hangars, radar stations and troop barracks can severely degrade a base’s operational capacity, he explained.

    McKenzie acknowledged the core strategic tradeoff at the heart of the basing debate: proximity to potential adversaries cuts response time for military operations, but it also leaves forces open to devastating rapid strikes that can disable assets before they can be deployed. To balance this tradeoff, he proposed a revised model that retains access to Gulf partner facilities for temporary uses such as refueling, as a show of solidarity with longstanding Arab allies, but shifts permanent long-term presence to more secure western locations including Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.

    For McKenzie, Israel stands out as the most attractive option for new basing for two key reasons. First, it would impose far fewer restrictions on US access, basing rights and overflight permission – collectively referred to as ABO – compared to Gulf Arab states. Second, Israel offers far more robust integrated air defense capabilities to protect bases from Iranian strikes than any Gulf partner.

    The issue of ABO restrictions is particularly consequential, McKenzie explained. When the US first built its Gulf basing network, host nations initially refused to allow American forces to use their territory or airspace to launch strikes on Iran. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE later relaxed these rules to allow US strikes under the Trump administration, The Wall Street Journal has reported that Riyadh later reversed course and vetoed new proposed attacks on Iran as regional conflict escalated. “Of all the countries, one thing that’s significant is the [host] country…they’re going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off,” McKenzie said. “Probably Israel is the place where you’re going to have the fewest ABO restrictions on your aeroplanes. That’s why Israel is a particularly attractive location.”

    This report draws on original independent coverage from Middle East Eye, a publication specializing in in-depth, independent reporting and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

  • China sentences official to death for taking $325m in bribes

    China sentences official to death for taking $325m in bribes

    A court in eastern China has handed down a rare death sentence to a former senior local official convicted of amassing over 2.2 billion yuan ($325 million) in bribes across a 30-year period of corruption, in one of the highest-stakes graft cases prosecuted in recent years.

    Yang Youlin, 69, held multiple senior leadership positions in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, between 1993 and 2023, with most of his career focused on overseeing the city’s economic and technological development initiatives. Beyond the massive bribery conviction, the Changzhou City Intermediate People’s Court also found him guilty of four additional criminal charges: embezzlement of public funds, abuse of official power, and money laundering to conceal his illicit proceeds.

    Court documents and state media reporting confirm that Yang systematically abused the authority of his various government roles to provide unlawful favors to private and corporate actors in exchange for large cash payments and high-value assets. These favors included helping third parties secure lucrative public engineering contracts, push through preferential land transfer deals, and access approved government-backed financing, according to official accounts.

    In its official ruling issued Monday, the court emphasized that Yang’s criminal acts were of an “extremely serious nature”, noting that his decades of corruption had “caused exceptionally heavy losses to the interests of the state and the Chinese people”. While Yang cooperated with investigators and provided information on other alleged offenders that has in many other cases led to reduced sentences, the court ruled that the scale and severity of his crimes meant this cooperation was “insufficient to warrant a more lenient punishment”. State media reports add that Yang entered a guilty plea during his trial and “expressed remorse in his final statement”.

    Yang’s conviction and sentencing comes as part of the sweeping national anti-corruption crackdown spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which has been ongoing since he took office in 2012. The campaign has targeted corrupt officials across nearly every sector of Chinese public life, from top military leadership to senior banking executives and local government administrations. Critics of the crackdown have previously argued that the anti-graft initiative is also used as a political tool to remove and discipline perceived political rivals within the ruling party.

    Death sentences for financial and white-collar corruption crimes remain extremely rare in China, though they are occasionally handed down in cases involving illicit gains exceeding 1 billion yuan. Recent high-profile precedents include former top state finance executive Lai Xiaomin, who was executed in 2021 after being convicted of taking 1.8 billion yuan in bribes, and former Inner Mongolian senior official Li Jianping, who received a death sentence in 2024 for graft and embezzlement totaling more than 3 billion yuan. In most other large-scale corruption cases, defendants receive fixed jail terms or suspended death sentences, which are typically commuted to life imprisonment after a set period of good behavior.

  • Deloitte forecasts weak economic growth not seen since 1990s recession

    Deloitte forecasts weak economic growth not seen since 1990s recession

    One of Australia’s big four accounting firms has delivered a grim new economic outlook, projecting the nation will enter an extended stretch of stagnant growth not seen since the deep recession of the early 1990s, with another interest rate increase coming this year and no rate cuts on the table until late 2027.

    In its monthly Business Outlook report released Tuesday, Deloitte Access Economics laid out a downbeat assessment that warns Australia’s economy will “limp” through the next two years of weak expansion, capping a slow-burn build-up of systemic vulnerabilities that have become impossible to ignore.

    “To date, 2026 has revealed the vulnerabilities that have developed within the Australian economy over recent history,” said Stephen Smith, partner at Deloitte Access Economics. “Australia is now structurally exposed in ways that have become hard to ignore. Deloitte Access Economics has rarely adopted such a downbeat assessment of the short-term outlook.”

    The firm’s projections call for the Reserve Bank of Australia to implement one final 25 basis point interest rate hike in August, as policymakers continue working to tamed persistent inflation. Following that increase, the central bank is expected to hold the cash rate steady for 12 full months, with the first rate cut not arriving until the final quarter of 2027.

    Inflation has proven far stickier than many analysts predicted: headline inflation currently sits at 4%, and Deloitte projects that rate may hold steady into 2027. Trimmed mean inflation, a key core measure tracked by the RBA, climbed to 3.6% in April, and the firm forecasts this metric will peak in early 2027 and will not drop below the RBA’s 2-3% target band until 2028.

    These persistent price pressures and rising interest rates will act as a major drag on national output, according to the report. Deloitte projects Australia will record annual growth below 2% for the next two full years, marking the longest continuous stretch of sub-2% expansion since the 1990-1991 recession. That downturn saw official interest rates hit 17% and unemployment surge to 2.5 times Australia’s current jobless rate.

    Australian households are already shouldering enormous pressure from cumulative rate hikes, with the average mortgage holder paying an extra $350 per month compared to pre-tightening levels. While recent policy and wage adjustments including tax cuts, nominal wage growth, and increases to award and minimum wages that took effect July 1 have offered some relief, Smith said most gains are being erased by persistent economic headwinds.

    “Renewed inflation pressure, high interest rates and volatile fuel costs were eating most of those gains,” Smith explained.

    Beyond domestic pressures, the report highlights deep structural vulnerabilities tied to Australia’s reliance on commodity exports. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Smith noted, serves as a sharp reminder that Australia, as a small open economy with a concentrated export base, is extremely vulnerable to global geopolitical disruption, swings in international demand, commodity price volatility, and disruptions to global trade routes.

    “The interaction of geopolitical exposure, weak productivity, stretched household balance sheets and a constrained supply side was easy to overlook when interest rates were low, commodity prices were high and population growth kept aggregate growth ticking along,” Smith said. “They are harder to dismiss now that inflation is sticky, investment needs are rising and the global environment is more uncertain.”

  • Belgium thrash USA to end World Cup dream and set up Spain showdown

    Belgium thrash USA to end World Cup dream and set up Spain showdown

    Two dramatic knockout round matches on Monday closed out the 2026 FIFA World Cup round of 16, delivering a lopsided upset for co-hosts the United States and a bittersweet farewell to one of football’s greatest icons, Cristiano Ronaldo.

    First at Seattle’s Lumen Field, a motivated and clinical Belgian side turned in a dominant 4-1 victory over the USA, bringing the co-hosts’ World Cup run to an abrupt end and booking a quarter-final clash with European champions Spain. The match was overshadowed by 24 hours of pre-match controversy surrounding US striker Folarin Balogun, whose eligibility was the subject of a heated international debate after a last-minute intervention.

    Balogun was originally handed a one-game suspension by FIFA, but the governing body reversed the ruling just 24 hours before kickoff following public lobbying from United States President Donald Trump. Named in US manager Mauricio Pochettino’s starting eleven, Balogun failed to make a meaningful impact on the match, failing to register a single shot on target throughout 90 minutes.

    For Belgium, the eligibility controversy only served to galvanize the squad. Belgium captain Youri Tielemans told reporters post-match that the team held an emergency meeting when news of the ruling broke, and agreed to respond to the perceived injustice with their performance on the pitch. That promise translated to an explosive start: Atalanta forward Charles De Ketelaere broke the deadlock for Belgium after just nine minutes with a clinical low finish past US keeper Matt Freese.

    The USA pulled an unlikely equalizer in the 31st minute, when Malik Tillman’s deflected free kick wrong-footed Belgian keeper Koen Casteels to level the score at 1-1. But the hosts’ fightback lasted barely two minutes: just two minutes after the equalizer, De Ketelaere nodded home a second goal from a corner to restore Belgium’s lead. The Belgians extended their advantage in the 57th minute, when Hans Vanaken capitalized on a catastrophic goalkeeping error from Freese. The US keeper charged out of his penalty area to clear a long through ball, but lost possession under pressure, gifting Vanaken an open goal to make the score 3-1. Substitute striker Romelu Lukaku put the final nail in the coffin for the USA, slotting home a fourth goal in second-half stoppage time to seal the rout.

    Post-match, Pochettino admitted his side had failed to show up on the biggest stage. “Today we were not the same team that we have been during the tournament,” the Argentine manager said. “It was a very bad day — it wasn’t our day in a collective and individual way.” For the USA, the defeat brings an end to a campaign that captivated the host nation, falling short of their goal of reaching the first World Cup quarter-final in 24 years. Belgian midfielder Nicolas Raskin said the sense of injustice over Balogun’s eligibility fueled the team’s dominant performance. “There was a sense of injustice within the squad,” Raskin said. “We were determined to respond on the field.”

    In the second late knockout match in Arlington, Texas, Spain edged out Portugal 1-0 to secure their spot in the quarter-finals, in what has been confirmed as the final World Cup appearance of Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo. The 41-year-old five-time Ballon d’Or winner, playing in his sixth consecutive World Cup, was a peripheral figure throughout the tight contest, as Portugal mustered only two shots on target compared to Spain’s six.

    The match remained goalless through 90 minutes, until Spanish substitute Mikel Merino coolly slotted home the winner in the first minute of stoppage time, latching onto a quick free-kick through ball before beating Portuguese keeper Diogo Costa with a low finish. The result brings an end to Ronaldo’s decades-long dream of lifting the World Cup trophy, a honor that eluded him through a legendary career spanning three decades at the top of European club football.

    Speaking after the match, Ronaldo said he would take time to reflect on his future in football, having closed the book on his World Cup career. “It was my last World Cup, yes, but I’ll have time to think about the rest, to be with my family, not make rash decisions, and just get on with life,” Ronaldo said. “That’s football, that’s the life of a footballer. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and you have to move on.”

    Spanish manager Luis de la Fuente praised his side’s gritty performance, calling the tight knockout clash an early final for his side. “It was a fantastic match — a final played early — and, inevitably, we had to sweat it out until the very end,” de la Fuente said. “We put in a complete performance.”

    Belgium will now face Spain in the World Cup quarter-finals this Friday in Los Angeles, with a spot in the semi-finals on the line.

  • AFL 2026: Collingwood coach Craig McRae on melees, Brayden Maynard umpire contact

    AFL 2026: Collingwood coach Craig McRae on melees, Brayden Maynard umpire contact

    An explosive bench-clearing brawl between Collingwood and the Gold Coast Suns at Saturday’s Australian Football League clash has sparked a thoughtful balancing act from Collingwood head coach Craig McRae, who says he wants to bottle the raw ferocity his players displayed – without the costly rule breaches and heavy fines that followed the incident.

    The chaotic scuffle broke out on the halftime siren after Gold Coast forward Ben Long delivered a hard gut punch to Collingwood’s veteran leader Brayden Maynard. Maynard responded immediately to the hit, triggering an all-in confrontation that drew every available player from both teams’ benches and left the AFL’s match review panel handing down multiple fines in the aftermath.

    Speaking after the game, McRae admitted that the intensity and unity his players showed in the moments after the brawl was exactly the kind of fire most coaches spend the entire season trying to manufacture week in and week out. When his squad walked into the locker room at halftime, the sharp, focused determination in their eyes was something that cannot be easily manufactured through team talks or strategy sessions, he said.

    “I think it’s great for the game this growing rivalry between our side and the Suns. Anyone who tuned into watch that match would have been gripped by the energy out there,” McRae told reporters. “Seeing our players walk in at halftime with that real look in their eye and that raw energy, as a coach you just think, ‘How do we get this every single week?’ Sometimes you have to manufacture that intensity, you want your players to be dialled in and hungry – that’s the culture we want to build inside our club. Now, that energy has to stay within the rules, because we don’t want to be coughing up $16,000 in fines every week. That doesn’t make any sense, and that’s not playing the game the right way. If we can walk that fine line, play on the edge without crossing it, we’ll hunt opposition sides every week, and that’s what we’ll aim to do this week within the rules.”

    Maynard, the Collingwood captain, ended up copping fines for three separate incidents stemming from the melee, including a brush with an umpire as he moved to join the second cluster of the scuffle. McRae acknowledged there was room for match officials to issue a formal suspension charge over the umpire contact, but said he agreed with the grading that ruled the contact incidental.

    “Oh look, I thought it was incidental as it was graded. I can see how you’d make a case for wanting to make a stand of protecting the umpires,” he said. “We want to make sure that’s the case too. I know they changed the positioning rules for contact with umpires in recent weeks, and there’s been a clear mandate from all clubs to make sure we look after them. We want to be a part of that, that’s significant in making sure this game operates well, but I do think it was incidental.”

    The incident has shone a light on the growing on-field rivalry between the two AFL clubs, while prompting broader discussion about how the league balances on-field intensity with enforcement of game rules to keep players and officials safe.