Global Pulse

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  • Zhengzhou restaurant serves up flavors of home

    Zhengzhou restaurant serves up flavors of home

    Tucked away in a quiet corner of a cultural and creative park in Zhengzhou, the capital of China’s central Henan Province, Daodao Guilai restaurant offers far more than authentic Taiwanese cuisine. For visitors and regulars alike, it is a warm harbor of homely comfort, and a quiet, powerful bond that brings together people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

    Founded in 2024 by 46-year-old Lan Wen-chuan, a native of Yilan County, Taiwan, the restaurant carries layers of personal and cross-generational meaning. Lan’s maternal roots stretch back to Luohe, Henan, where her grandparents left decades ago to build a new life and run a family restaurant in Taiwan. It was not until more than 20 years ago, when Lan moved to Zhengzhou for a work posting, that she fully grasped the depth of this family connection.

    “For my family, this wasn’t leaving home—it was coming home,” Lan explained. After years of building an online business and putting down roots in Henan, Lan decided to open the restaurant when friends, both Taiwanese and local Zhengzhou residents, told her the city was missing a spot serving real, traditional Taiwanese flavors. Drawing on decades of her family’s restaurant expertise, she set out to craft a space that feels like a home away from home for anyone who misses Taiwan.

    Every detail of the restaurant’s decor is curated to evoke Taiwanese cultural memory: vintage radios, retro promotional posters, and hand-painted murals line the walls, each small element adding to the warm, familiar atmosphere. “I wanted every detail to tell a story of the shared memories we hold across the Strait,” Lan said.

    The menu centers on beloved Taiwanese street food and home-style dishes: Taipei-style braised pork rice, crispy oyster omelette, chewy beef noodles, aromatic three-cup chicken, and crunchy shrimp crackers. To perfect her oyster omelette recipe, Lan traveled back to Taiwan to train with more than a dozen seasoned night market vendors, refining her technique to match the authentic flavors she grew up with. For Lan, one of the greatest joys of running the restaurant is hearing small, satisfying moments: “One of my happiest moments is hearing a parent say their picky child finished a whole bowl of braised pork rice,” she shared.

    Beyond serving food, the restaurant has grown into a beloved community hub for young Taiwanese people living and working in Henan. Lan makes a point of supporting new arrivals as they adapt to life on the Chinese mainland, helping with everything from applying for residence permits and enrolling in medical insurance to sharing practical career advice. She actively encourages Taiwanese people to come experience the mainland for themselves, instead of forming opinions based on secondhand reports.

    “Don’t understand the world only through what you hear. Come and see it with your own eyes,” she said. Lan notes that many young Taiwanese visitors are caught off guard by how advanced daily life is on the mainland, from the ultra-convenience of mobile delivery apps to the rapid pace of development. “What they see here is completely different from what they heard back home,” she added.

    Xu Chu-qiao, a 24-year-old new graduate from Kaohsiung who got a job at the restaurant after finishing her degree at Zhengzhou University, echoes this view. “For me, coming to the Chinese mainland to study and work is also a process of broadening my horizons,” Xu said. “It’s best if you come and see for yourself — that’s the only way to truly experience and understand.”

    Displayed prominently on one of the restaurant’s main walls is a plaque that reads: “People on both sides of the Strait are one family.” For Hsi Yun-lung, a diner who grew up in New Taipei, that sentiment feels tangible every time he visits. “The familiar decor and flavors remind me of home,” he said. “It feels like being back in my hometown. Being able to eat these dishes in Zhengzhou is truly special.”

    For Lan, food has always been the most natural, approachable bridge between people. “Many dishes from Taiwan originated on the mainland and then developed their own unique local character, much like simplified and traditional Chinese characters,” she explained. “Different in form, but the same at heart.”

  • South Korean fighter jets collided due to pilots snapping pictures, report finds

    South Korean fighter jets collided due to pilots snapping pictures, report finds

    A years-old investigation into a 2021 mid-air collision between two South Korean F-15K fighter jets has finally concluded, revealing a surprising root cause: two pilots were distracted by taking personal photos and shooting video of the flight. The Board of Audit and Inspection of Seoul, which launched the probe following an appeal from the involved pilot, released its full findings in a public report this Wednesday, laying out the full sequence of events that led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

    The collision unfolded during a routine training mission over South Korea’s central city of Daegu, as the two jets prepared to return to their base. The pilot flying the wingman aircraft, who was completing his final flight with his unit before a career transition, had planned to capture commemorative photos of the experience. He had even openly stated his intention to do so during the pre-flight briefing, and the audit board confirmed that informal in-flight photography for personal milestones was a widely accepted, unregulated practice among South Korean Air Force pilots at the time of the incident.

    Pulling out his personal mobile phone to snap photos mid-flight, the wingman pilot abruptly executed an ascent and roll maneuver to position his jet for a better shot. This sudden movement brought his aircraft far too close to the lead jet. In a frantic attempt to avoid an immediate full impact, the lead pilot ordered a rapid descent, but the two aircraft still collided. The lead jet suffered severe damage to its left wing, while the wingman jet’s tail stabilizer was heavily damaged. Miraculously, neither pilot was injured in the incident, but repair costs totalled 880 million South Korean won, equal to roughly $596,000 or £440,500.

    After the collision, the South Korean Air Force suspended the wingman pilot, who later left the service to take a pilot position with a commercial airline. The air force initially ordered the pilot to pay the full 880 million won in repair costs as a fine. The pilot contested this steep penalty, triggering the independent audit investigation to review the case.

    In his appeal, the wingman pilot admitted his sudden maneuver had directly caused the collision, but argued that the lead aircraft crew shared blame: he claimed the lead pilot had tacitly approved of the photo shoot, since the lead crew was aware the activity was taking place and had even decided to film his jet for the video. The audit board ultimately sided partially with the appellant, ruling that the pilot would only be required to pay 10 percent of the original fine – 88 million won.

    The board outlined two key reasons for reducing the penalty. First, it ruled that the South Korean Air Force carried partial institutional responsibility for the incident, due to its failure to implement clear rules and enforcement around personal device and camera use by pilots during active flight missions. Second, the board noted the pilot had an unblemished service record prior to the incident, and his quick action to safely land his damaged jet after the collision prevented far more severe damage and potential loss of life. The publicly released report did not include any information on potential disciplinary action against the other pilots involved in the incident.

  • The tiny, defiant Nile island caught in the heart of Sudan’s war

    The tiny, defiant Nile island caught in the heart of Sudan’s war

    Nestled at the confluence of Uganda’s White Nile and Ethiopia’s Blue Nile, right in the center of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital Khartoum, the crescent-shaped Tuti Island has begun the slow, fragile process of coming back to life. A year after the Sudanese army broke a nearly 24-month paramilitary siege that emptied most of the island’s streets and homes, the deep, unbreakable bond between residents and their ancient land is on full display.

    At 80-some years old, Al-Shubbak is one of the few who never left. When the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) clamped down on the only bridge connecting Tuti to the mainland in June 2023, turning the island into an open-air prison, she refused to flee. “I didn’t even move for the English when they colonised us,” she told AFP, her toothless smile undimmed by hardship. She still recites the generations-old battle cry of Tuti’s defenders: “Our fathers resisted the occupiers with stones. Though they met them with gunfire, they still could not take Tuti the green.”

    The war between Sudan’s national army and the RSF first erupted in Khartoum in April 2023, and Tuti, positioned directly across the river from the first flashpoints of conflict, bore an outsize share of the violence. For nearly two years, no supplies could enter or exit without RSF approval. Islanders were forced to pay exorbitant bribes just to access food, medicine, or fuel for water pumps — and to buy the right to leave. For 34-year-old day laborer Salaheldin Abdelqader, who escaped seven months into the siege and returned after the army recapture, that toll hit 350,000 Sudanese pounds, roughly $90 today, more than double a Sudanese doctor’s average monthly salary.

    Local elder Sheikh Mohamed Eid, who spent months using community donations to smuggle food to trapped residents to prevent mass starvation, was detained by the RSF for his activism. Thrown into a series of the paramilitary group’s notorious prisons, he watched fellow Tuti inmates die one by one before he was released nine months later. Retelling his story from his home, where a gaping hole in the roof left by an artillery shell still opens to the sky, Eid explained that for Tuti’s residents, leaving the island is not an option. “We’re like fish in the water, we can’t survive outside Tuti,” he said, noting that even former president Omar al-Bashir’s government, which tried for years to relocate the community to make way for luxury real estate developments, never succeeded in severing that tie.

    By the final months of the siege, out of Tuti’s estimated 30,000 pre-war residents, only Al-Shubbak’s family remained, staying behind to care for the bedridden matriarch and guard their ancestral land. “We stayed to guard our soil,” said her daughter Najat al-Nour, a 50-something Quran professor who calls those who fled a mistake. For many others, however, leaving was the only way to survive. Nosayba Saad and her family endured a year and a half of RSF occupation, during which fighters repeatedly broke into homes, stole valuables, threatened residents, and left many dead from stray gunfire. By the time her family paid to leave in October 2024, the RSF had begun seizing even the last of residents’ food stores.

    Today, after the army retook Khartoum and lifted the siege in March 2025, hundreds of former residents have returned. Boarded-up shops have reopened, farmers have walked back to their fertile orchards and vegetable fields that once supplied most of Khartoum’s fresh produce, and Friday prayers draw crowds to the 15th-century red-brick mosque that has stood on the island for hundreds of years.

    Still, the joy of homecoming is deeply bittersweet. Saad’s two uncles remain missing, presumed dead, and every family on Tuti carries the weight of loss. The iconic riverfront spot where the two Niles merge to form the single Nile flowing north to Egypt is now littered with unexploded mines, a permanent reminder of the siege’s violence. To the south, the gutted, bombed-out skyscrapers of central Khartoum loom on the horizon, a constant reminder of the terror the island endured.

    Yet as the sun sets over the Nile, turning the water a glowing orange, small signs of normalcy are returning. A squash farmer trundles home with a heavy sack of his first post-war harvest. A fisherman packs up his rods beside a family picnicking on the cleared waterfront. A young couple on a date asks for a photo, a memento of their first trip home to Tuti. For the first time in two years, the scent of jasmine and incense drifts across the island, a quiet testament to the resilience of a community that refused to let their home be taken.

  • Funding focus moving away from journal fees

    Funding focus moving away from journal fees

    For years, Chinese researchers have watched a growing share of their precious public research funding flow not into lab experiments, equipment or fieldwork, but into the pocket of international academic publishers in the form of soaring article processing charges (APCs) for open-access publications. Now, the country is rolling out a sweeping set of reforms to its scientific research evaluation and funding systems, designed to redirect that money back to actual experimental work and boost the overall quality of Chinese scientific output.

    The shift comes as the global academic publishing industry has undergone a major structural transformation over the past two decades. Traditionally, publishing operated under a subscription model, where institutions and readers paid to access published research, and authors bore no cost to submit or publish their work. The move to open access was intended to tear down paywalls, making cutting-edge scientific research freely available to scholars, clinicians and the public worldwide to speed up knowledge dissemination. But under the dominant open-access model today, the costs of publishing are shifted entirely to authors, and APCs have climbed steadily year after year, putting an unsustainable strain on research budgets.

    Data from the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) underscores the scale of the financial drain. In 2024 alone, the average APC for a single article published in an international open-access journal exceeded $3,000. Chinese scholars contributed nearly one-third of all open-access articles published globally that year, totaling 313,500 papers, and collectively spent more than $909 million on APCs — a 20% year-over-year jump in total spending.

    Many researchers argue that this situation amounts to Chinese public research funding effectively subsidizing large international publishing groups, and the systemic impact goes far beyond drained budgets. High APCs entrench existing academic hierarchies, they say, widening gaps in academic discourse power along financial lines: well-funded labs can afford to publish dozens of papers a year, while early-career researchers and teams working at smaller institutions are locked out of high-profile publishing opportunities simply because they cannot cover the fees. Even for established teams, the rising costs eat directly into resources for core research.

    A graduate student at CAS’s Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology told China Central Television that when APCs eat up a large chunk of a research project’s total budget, there is no way to avoid cuts to the experimental work that is the core of scientific progress.

    Prominent CAS academician Yan Ning has been one of the most vocal critics of the current system. Late last year, she took to Chinese social platform Weibo to point out that while the open-access model was founded on good intentions, APCs have grown to excessive levels. Her lab has stopped paying publication fees for journals that charge exorbitant APCs, she said, instead sharing new work as freely available preprints and only publishing in formal journals if fee waivers are granted.

    “It feels like researchers are being exploited, making us suffer. Why should the funding we apply for be taken by middlemen?” Yan told CCTV, noting that most major publishing groups are publicly traded companies driven first by commercial profit. She called for efforts to restore a healthy, equitable publishing ecosystem that serves the global academic community, rather than shareholder interests.

    To break the current deadlock, China is pursuing two interconnected tracks of reform: curbing unreasonable spending on international journal fees, and building up a robust, high-quality ecosystem of domestic open-access academic journals that serve researchers worldwide. One notable new entry is *Vita*, a new open-access journal focused on life sciences and biomedicine, which will launch its print edition in June 2026. The journal’s main content is freely accessible to researchers globally, and the first paper published online in *Vita* comes from Yan Ning’s own research team.

    In a landmark policy shift that drew global academic attention, CAS stopped covering APCs for 30 major international open-access journals — including high-profile titles such as *Nature Communications*, *Cell Reports* and *Science Advances* — using academic funds and central government allocations starting in March 2026, according to the journal *Science*. The policy also prohibits reimbursement for APCs for any articles published in journals suspected of academic misconduct, with the dual goals of strengthening oversight of academic publishing and bringing charges down to reasonable levels.

    Additional national policies have been introduced to encourage researchers to prioritize high-quality work over publication in high-fee international journals, and to support the growth of domestic academic publishing. Revised guidelines for national science and technology awards, issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology, call for a gradual increase in the weight given to major research publications published in domestic Chinese journals. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has introduced a new requirement for all projects funded starting in 2025: at least 20% of a project’s representative research papers must be published in domestic journals to meet funding requirements.

    At the institutional level, many leading Chinese universities are revising their faculty evaluation and recruitment criteria to move away from an overreliance on publication metrics like impact factor and total paper count, creating a more flexible, supportive environment for long-term original research. Tsinghua University now asks faculty to submit up to five works that best represent their actual academic standing — which can include papers, monographs or patents — rather than rewarding quantity or impact factor rankings. Fudan University has launched a special pilot zone for basic research, providing long-term support for original work for up to 10 years with minimal disruptive interim evaluations.

    Zhao Dongyuan, a CAS academician and dean of Fudan University’s Xianghui Academy, emphasized the transformative impact of these new evaluation models in an interview with CCTV. “Over a 10-year period, instead of formal high-stakes evaluations, we organize regular salons and academic activities where researchers present their ongoing work. These presentations allow us to observe the progress of their research firsthand,” Zhao explained. “By fostering such a supportive research environment, we enable them to pursue ambitious work and achieve significant breakthroughs that would not be possible under a pressure-driven, metric-heavy evaluation system.”

  • Experts urge sweeping tax overhaul to scrap stamp duty for land tax

    Experts urge sweeping tax overhaul to scrap stamp duty for land tax

    Australia’s deepening housing affordability crisis has prompted policy experts to call for sweeping tax reform centered on abolishing what they label the nation’s most economically harmful tax, a change that could open homeownership pathways to thousands of aspiring buyers and downsizers alike. The proposal was laid out during recent hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Productivity, convened to identify actionable solutions to Australia’s decades-long housing shortage.

    Matthew Bowes, senior associate at leading independent think tank the Grattan Institute, argues that replacing stamp duty — an upfront tax levied on property transactions — with a broad-based annual land tax would deliver two major wins: a fairer taxation system and a $19 billion annual boost to national economic output. “All taxes dampen economic activity to some degree, but stamp duty is by far the most damaging of all taxes levied in Australia,” Bowes explained. He noted that the reform would primarily benefit two groups locked out of flexible property market access: young households saving for their first home, and older Australians looking to downsize to more appropriate accommodation after their children leave home.

    Despite these long-term benefits, Bowes acknowledged that the reform creates significant near-term fiscal challenges for state governments, which currently rely on the bulk of stamp duty revenue collected upfront when a property changes hands. Shifting to a land tax would spread revenue collection over decades, creating an immediate fiscal gap that states have so far been reluctant to absorb. “When you move from an upfront lump-sum tax to a recurring annual tax, you defer a huge share of government revenue,” Bowes said. “That fiscal gap is the single biggest barrier holding states back from adopting this reform.”

    Additional structural barriers to reform also complicate adoption: the current GST distribution framework, designed to deliver horizontal fiscal equalization across Australia’s states and territories, penalizes states that grow their own revenue. If a state’s independent revenue increases after tax reform, its share of federal GST distributions is cut, creating an additional financial disincentive that has discouraged past attempts to change stamp duty policy.

    Beyond tax reform, the inquiry has also shone a light on deep-rooted productivity failures that have pushed housing prices higher and slowed new construction, worsening the nation’s housing shortage. The federal government’s National Housing Accord sets an ambitious target of building 1.2 million new homes by 2029, requiring 240,000 new completions annually to hit the mark. While recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows a strong 29.7% jump in dwelling approvals in February, hitting 19,022 for the month, total approvals over the past 12 months sit at just 196,000 — far below the required annual rate.

    The February growth was driven by a surge in multi-dwelling development: apartment approvals skyrocketed 191.2% to 5,399 units, while townhouse approvals rebounded 73.8% from a sharp January drop to hit 2,981. Even with this monthly gain, however, the national pipeline remains too small to close the gap between supply and strong population-driven demand.

    Housing Industry Association (HIA) managing director Jocelyn Martin told the inquiry that falling construction productivity over the past decade is a major driver of rising housing costs, with excessive regulatory burden the single biggest drag on sector performance. “Residential construction faces multiple overlapping layers of regulation across local, state, and federal levels — everything from planning and zoning rules to environmental approvals and frequent, complex changes to the National Construction Code,” Martin explained. “Every extra layer adds cost, delay, uncertainty, and risk, pulling resources away from actual home building and limiting the industry’s ability to innovate and scale up output.”

    Independent analysis from the Productivity Commission backs this assessment, finding that regulation adds between $135,000 and $320,000 in extra cost to the construction of a single detached home, and between $40,000 and $175,000 for each apartment unit. Martin emphasized that any push to improve productivity does not require cutting safety or quality standards, instead calling for smarter, more streamlined regulatory design. “The goal is to build regulatory systems that meet public policy objectives while allowing the industry to deliver homes efficiently at scale,” she said.

    Martin also noted that Australia’s concentrated settlement patterns amplify existing housing pressures, with strong sustained population growth flowing almost entirely to a small number of major capital cities. “This concentration ramps up pressure on housing markets, infrastructure, and labor supply, while making the productivity challenges this inquiry is investigating far worse,” she added. As the Senate committee continues its work, the dual proposals of tax reform and regulatory streamlining are emerging as core policy options to address one of Australia’s most pressing economic and social challenges.

  • Barbecue, spicy noodles on new job training menu

    Barbecue, spicy noodles on new job training menu

    Against the backdrop of evolving labor market needs and growing demand for industry-aligned professional skills, China’s expansive vocational education network is undergoing a sweeping transformation, adding unexpected niche majors from outdoor barbecuing and spicy snail noodle making to professional training for delivery riders. This shift is part of a broader overhaul of the world’s largest vocational training system, designed to bridge the gap between worker capabilities and evolving requirements from local industries and regional economies.

    Xu Shuai, a 25-year-old restaurant marketing professional based in Changsha, Hunan Province, represents the growing cohort of workers turning to these specialized programs to advance their careers. After two years of working in customer acquisition and restaurant marketing, Xu hit a professional ceiling: without direct expertise in core product development and operations, sustained career growth felt out of reach. To address this skills gap, he plans to enroll in Yueyang Barbecue College later this year. What attracts him is not just learning how to perfect grilled dishes, but the program’s comprehensive training covering every layer of the barbecue business, from supply chain management and cost control to brand building and customer experience optimization.

    Qiao Binbin, secretary-general of the Yueyang Barbecue Association, one of the college’s founding operators, emphasized that the institution’s mission goes far beyond basic cooking instruction. “This is more than teaching students how to grill,” Qiao explained. “We aim to train students to understand the entire business ecosystem of the local barbecue industry.”

    For Yueyang, the decision to launch a specialized barbecue college is anything but random. Industry data from the association shows that barbecue is a cornerstone of the city’s local economy, supporting more than 2,000 operating outlets and generating annual output exceeding 2 billion yuan ($293.4 million). The college was jointly established in July 2025 by Yueyang Open University, the local barbecue association, and private industry partners, said Jiang Zongfu, vice-president of Yueyang Open University. It was designed to anchor two key local growth drivers — nighttime consumption and urban tourism — while addressing a pressing industry need for greater professional standardization.

    “Many local barbecue practitioners want to expand their businesses beyond Hunan, even overseas,” Jiang noted. “But to do that, they need to transform informal hands-on experience into systematic, standardized knowledge, to move from ordinary informal workers to certified industry professionals.”

    Prospective students at the college span a diverse range of backgrounds: from first-time job seekers and freelance food vendors to employees sponsored by barbecue chains from across China, with most being new entrants to the industry. The program blends academic coursework with hands-on practical training, offering both degree-credited academic programs and short-term skill certification courses. Its curriculum extends far beyond grilling technique to cover all aspects of small business operations, including food safety regulation, cost control, digital marketing, and customer service, with a core focus on preparing graduates for either wage employment or independent entrepreneurship.

    Yueyang Barbecue College is far from an isolated case. Across China, a wave of specialized niche vocational institutions has emerged in recent months, responding to both local industry demand and national policy guidance pushing for more market-aligned vocational education. Examples include a crayfish industry vocational college in Qianjiang, Hubei Province, a Yibin spicy noodle college in Sichuan Province, and a luosifen (spicy snail noodle) college in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Even more specialized programs focused on sectors like bathhouse services and gig work food delivery have also launched in recent months.

    In December 2025, Guangzhou Polytechnic University in Guangdong Province launched China’s first formal “Rider Academy”, officially named the Modern Grassroots Workers Academy. The institution was created to support the growing professionalization of gig delivery workers, offering foundational training in food safety, road safety, and service standards, while also providing pathways for career advancement into logistics management and roles tied to emerging supply chain technologies.

    This growing trend of niche vocational programs reflects a broader shift in China’s vocational education strategy, moving away from one-size-fits-all training to customized programs that directly support local economic strengths and address unmet skill needs in fast-growing emerging sectors.

  • ‘Wipe them out’: Independent Farrer candidate lashes preference deal as Coalition backs One Nation

    ‘Wipe them out’: Independent Farrer candidate lashes preference deal as Coalition backs One Nation

    The race for the vacant federal seat of Farrer, left open by the departure of former opposition leader Sussan Ley earlier this year, has erupted into controversy after the Liberal-National Coalition formalized a preference deal that places right-wing populist party One Nation ahead of Climate 200-supported independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe. The deal, revealed this week, has drawn sharp criticism from Milthorpe, who argues the Coalition’s decision stems from deep-seated anxiety that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will eliminate their candidates from contention entirely.

    Farrer’s by-election has shaped up as a tight two-horse race between Milthorpe and One Nation’s candidate David Farley, even as both the Liberal and National parties maintain their own candidates in the contest. In tight marginal contests like this, preference flows between candidates often decide the final outcome, making pre-election preference agreements high-stakes political moves.

    Milthorpe, who grew up in a National Party-voting household in Cootamundra and once supported Sussan Ley in multiple elections, said she never would have considered running as an independent if regional communities had not been consistently failed by successive major party governments. “If we hadn’t been so let down in the regions by successive governments I can easily imagine running under the Liberal or Nationals banner,” she explained. “But I decided to run as an independent because for decades the parties have acted in their own self-interest, not in the interests of our community.”

    Responding to the Coalition’s preference deal, Milthorpe said the agreement served no purpose other than protecting the major parties’ own political standing. “The Coalition has done a deal with One Nation because they are worried One Nation will wipe them out,” she said. “We will never know what One Nation offered the Liberal/National Parties to strike this deal, but what we do know is this isn’t about Farrer. This is a decision made for the good of the Coalition, not for the good of our community.”

    Milthorpe drew a clear contrast between her own priorities and those of her One Nation opponent, noting that Farley would always be beholden to party leadership based in Queensland. “I vow to fight every single day for the people of Farrer and only the people of Farrer,” she said. “My One Nation opponent will have to vote every single time with his party boss from Queensland. The parties have not been listening to us, so I expect most voters will return the favour by not listening to their suggestions of who to vote for.”

    Preference documents published by candidate campaigns lay out the full order of recommendations. Liberal candidate Raissa Butkowski instructed supporters to rank her first, National candidate Brad Robertson second, and Farley fourth. For his part, Farley recommended voters put Robertson second, Butkowski third, and placed Milthorpe second last at 11th on his ranking.

    National Party Leader Matt Canavan, who has campaigned extensively in Farrer in the lead-up to the by-election, pushed back against criticism of the deal in a social media statement. “There is a lot of BS being spread about preferences in the Farrer by election,” he wrote. “But the local news has reported it right. The Nationals are preferencing One Nation ahead of the teal backed candidate because she is backed by people that support net zero and water buybacks.”

    The preference deal comes amid ongoing controversy for One Nation, which has faced sustained pressure in recent weeks over the party’s decision to rehire Sean Black, a man convicted of rape. One Nation leaders Pauline Hanson and former National Party leader Barnaby Joyce have both faced scrutiny over the rehiring decision, though that controversy has not been mentioned in public justifications for the preference deal.

  • Iran’s decision not to participate in US talks in Pakistan ‘definitive’: Tasnim news agency

    Iran’s decision not to participate in US talks in Pakistan ‘definitive’: Tasnim news agency

    TEHRAN – In a clear statement released on Tuesday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency has confirmed that Tehran’s decision to skip the second round of direct talks with the United States, scheduled to take place this Wednesday in Pakistan, is final and non-negotiable. According to the agency, Pakistani authorities acting as the mediator for the planned diplomatic meeting have already been formally notified of Iran’s choice to withdraw from the engagement. The report added that the decision was crafted to uphold and fully protect the sovereign rights and national interests of the Iranian people, closing the door on any last-minute speculation that Iran might reverse its stance ahead of the planned meeting. This development comes amid long-running tensions between Tehran and Washington, with Pakistan having stepped in to facilitate diplomatic dialogue between the two adversarial nations in recent months.

  • ASX plunges as healthcare giant Cochlear and big banks drag down market

    ASX plunges as healthcare giant Cochlear and big banks drag down market

    On Wednesday, Australia’s benchmark stock market suffered its sharpest single-day decline in three weeks, driven by widespread selloffs across two of its largest core sectors: healthcare and financial services. The benchmark ASX 200 plunged 105.80 points, or 1.18%, to settle at 8,843.60, while the broader All Ordinaries index dropped 102.8 points, or 1.12%, to close at 9,074.30. Against this downturn, the Australian dollar gained ground through the trading session, ending the day at 71.72 U.S. cents.

    Of the 11 tracked sectors on the ASX, seven closed in negative territory, with healthcare and financials recording the heaviest losses. The healthcare sector as a whole tumbled 6.01%, led by an unprecedented 40.71% single-day crash for implant manufacturer Cochlear, which erased roughly $4.5 billion in market value to push the share price down to $99.58, its lowest level in a decade. Two core factors triggered the collapse: the company issued a downward revision to its full-year profit guidance, and new policy actions from the Trump administration targeting Medicaid spending have made it significantly harder for American patients to access coverage for Cochlear’s hearing implant devices.

    The downward momentum spread across the entire healthcare sector, dragging other major players into negative territory. Biotech and blood products giant CSL fell 5.7% to $129.19 after announcing the U.S. military would no longer require all service members to receive its flu vaccines. Sleep therapy device maker ResMed slid 2.47% to $30.76, while medical imaging firm Pro Medicus dipped 1.16% to $140.58.

    Australia’s big four retail banks, which are among the most heavily weighted stocks on the ASX, also delivered significant drag on the broader index. Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares fell 2.53% to $175.04, Westpac Banking Corporation dropped 2.11% to $39.40, National Australia Bank slid 2.4% to $40.22, and ANZ Group closed 2.33% lower at $36.41.

    Not all segments of the market ended the day in the red, however. Consumer staple stocks bucked the broader downturn, posting a collective gain of more than 1%. Supermarket giants Woolworths rose 0.87% to $38.15, while rival Coles Group added 0.39% to $23.07. A2 Milk Company closed 0.54% higher at $7.39, giving the consumer sector enough momentum to partially offset losses elsewhere. Two individual large-cap stocks also posted strong gains: Treasury Wine Estates surged 16.5% to $4.72 following its announcement of a major restructuring that will integrate its luxury Penfolds wine brand into a new regional operating model, ending Penfolds’ status as a standalone division. Mining multinational BHP added 1.19% to $56.17 after releasing its quarterly operational update, which revealed record-breaking iron ore production that beat market expectations.
    Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East also continued to hang over global market sentiment, even as oil prices edged slightly lower. Brent Crude dipped to $98 U.S. dollars per barrel after former U.S. President Donald Trump announced an extension of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, noting that Iran’s leadership is currently facing severe internal fragmentation. But Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, warned that the path to a lasting diplomatic resolution remains unstable. “The mooted second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran have fallen through and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, with the markets driving like Thelma and Louise toward a major supply cliff in global energy markets,” Rodda said. He did add, however, that there is still cautious optimism that both sides have incentive to continue negotiations and ultimately reach a peace agreement that could ease energy supply pressures.

  • UK inflation rises in March as prices at the pump spike higher after Iran war

    UK inflation rises in March as prices at the pump spike higher after Iran war

    LONDON – New official data released Wednesday confirms that United Kingdom inflation ticked upward in March, driven by a dramatic surge in fuel prices triggered by widespread energy supply disruptions stemming from the ongoing conflict in Iran.

    The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that the annual consumer price inflation rate climbed to 3.3% this March, up from 3% recorded in February. This upward shift aligned exactly with projections shared by financial market analysts ahead of the data release.

    Market observers now confirm that this unexpected (but widely forecast) inflation spike has erased any remaining hopes that the Bank of England would move to lower borrowing costs in the near term. Before the Iran conflict erupted on February 28, financial circles widely predicted that the central bank would cut its benchmark main interest rate from the current 3.75%. That forecast was built on expectations that inflation would gradually fall back toward the Bank of England’s 2% target by the spring months.

    A breakdown of the inflation data shows that higher motor fuel prices were the single largest contributor to the overall increase. Fuel prices jumped 8.7% between February and March, marking the steepest monthly rise since June 2022 – a period that saw similar energy market volatility shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Beyond pump prices, secondary upward pressure came from airfares and grocery costs, both of which tracked higher as a knock-on effect of the broader energy price spike.