Global Pulse

标签： Oceania

大洋洲

  • Tanker pays record $5.3 mn to transit Panama Canal: administrator

    Tanker pays record $5.3 mn to transit Panama Canal: administrator

    As a crippling drought driven by the El Niño weather pattern pushes the Panama Canal to implement sweeping capacity cuts, a South Korean energy firm has made global shipping history by paying a record-breaking $5.3 million to secure priority passage for its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker, the waterway’s leadership confirmed Thursday.

    Ilya Espino de Marotta, deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Authority, shared the details of the unprecedented transaction with Agence France-Presse. The vessel in question, the G. Spirit, is owned by SK Gas, a leading energy company based in South Korea. It completed its transit through the key interoceanic shipping lane on September 1, just two days before new El Niño-related restrictions on daily transits went into effect, Bloomberg reporting confirms.

    The crisis at the Panama Canal comes amid a regional dry spell amplified by El Niño, the cyclical weather phenomenon that warms surface waters across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, triggering disruptive shifts in global wind and rainfall patterns. This year, El Niño has also helped push global average temperatures to what is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded. On Tuesday, Panama joined a growing list of Central American nations to declare a national emergency over the climate-driven impacts of El Niño, which have sent water levels in the canal plummeting to critically low levels.

    As one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints, the Panama Canal accommodates roughly 5% of total global maritime trade, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and cutting thousands of miles off travel times for cargo vessels traveling between the two basins. To conserve dwindling water supplies amid the drought, canal authorities have implemented a phased reduction in daily transit capacity: starting September 3, the maximum number of daily vessel transits dropped from 32 to 34, with a further cut to 32 daily transits scheduled for later this month.

    Most vessels reserve transit slots through the canal weeks or months in advance, with unbooked vessels currently facing an average five-day wait to pass through. For shippers in a hurry to move time-sensitive or high-value cargo, however, the canal authority runs a last-minute auction system for priority slots that would otherwise go unfilled. The average winning bid for these auction slots between October 2023 and February 2024 was just under $55,000, a fraction of the record price paid this week.

    This historic transaction marks the second time in months that a high-priced priority transit has made headlines. Back in April, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier paid $4 million to skip the waiting line, as heightened energy demand spurred by the Middle East conflict created urgency for moving vital fossil fuel cargoes through the waterway. The sharply rising cost of priority transits underscores the growing pressure on global supply chains as climate-driven extreme weather disrupts key shipping infrastructure around the world.

  • Sydney’s southwest hit by 3.4 magnitude earthquake leaving homes shaking

    Sydney’s southwest hit by 3.4 magnitude earthquake leaving homes shaking

    On a Friday afternoon in mid-Australia’s New South Wales, a shallow 3.4 magnitude earthquake sent tremors through southwestern Sydney, leaving local residents startled but no structural damage reported. Geoscience Australia confirmed the tremor struck just after 1 p.m. local Australian Eastern Standard Time, with its epicenter located roughly three kilometers underground near the small communities of Douglas Park and Appin, around 50 kilometers southwest of Sydney’s central business district. By late Friday afternoon, close to 400 area residents had filed self-reported experience of the quake through the official government geoscience portal, with many describing sudden, unexpected shaking that mirrored the impact of a vehicle collision or strong gust of wind against residential structures. Security camera footage from a private residence in Menangle Park, later shared publicly by 7News, captured the exact moment the quake hit, showing visible rattling of the property’s interior fixtures. David Baker, a local resident who documents outdoor camping trips on his personal Facebook page, was relaxing in his fifth-floor Campbelltown apartment when the tremor began. “I’ve never felt anything quite like it before,” Baker recalled of the 10-second event. “It felt like the whole block of units was shaking. My wife immediately realized it was an earthquake. Thankfully, nothing in the unit was damaged, but it was definitely quite a shock.” Other locals took to social media to share their jarring experiences, with one user writing, “I thought someone crashed into my front room, everything shook.” Another added, “I felt like a big gust of wind shook my house and realized there was no wind at all.” Geoscience Australia notes that minor magnitude earthquakes are not uncommon in parts of eastern Australia, though large, destructive events are rare in the Sydney region.

  • Nylastex Tooling bosses in court over worker’s death in landmark Adelaide case

    Nylastex Tooling bosses in court over worker’s death in landmark Adelaide case

    South Australia has made legal history with its first-ever industrial manslaughter prosecution, stemming from the tragic 2024 death of a 28-year-old worker at a local manufacturing facility. The fatal incident unfolded on July 24 at Nylastex Tooling’s Edwardstown plant, where Lachlan Carslake was operating milling machinery when he was reportedly struck in the head by a loose metal object. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he later succumbed to his severe injuries.

    Four defendants — company owners Graham and Winifred Philips, along with two linked entities Nylastex Tooling and Nylastex Holding — are facing the most serious charges in the case: counts of industrial manslaughter and recklessly exposing an employee to lethal risk. A third individual, Nylastex Tooling manager Graham Rowe, has been charged with two lesser offenses: failing to fulfill mandatory workplace health and safety obligations, and knowingly exposing a worker to the risk of death.

    The case made its first official appearance at Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday. During the brief preliminary hearing, all defendants stood together in the dock and were not required to enter pleas or make statements to the court. Prosecutors confirmed that all compiled evidence files had already been handed over to the defense legal teams, after which the judge adjourned the proceeding. None of the defendants addressed reporters from the media as they exited the courthouse.

    This prosecution marks a watershed moment for South Australia’s workplace safety regulations. The charges were brought by SafeWorkSA under a recent amendment to the state’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, which formally added industrial manslaughter as an indictable offense carrying stiff penalties. Convicted individuals face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, while companies found guilty of reckless or grossly negligent conduct leading to a worker’s death can be fined up to 18 million Australian dollars. The case is scheduled to return to court for further proceedings in October.

  • ‘Find your own room’: Japan says can’t handle added Asian Games numbers

    ‘Find your own room’: Japan says can’t handle added Asian Games numbers

    Just one month out from the opening of the 2026 Asian Games in central Japan, local organizers are facing an unprecedented accommodation and budget crisis that has forced them to issue an extraordinary mandate: any extra participants added after initial planning will have to source and pay for their own lodging. The multi-sport continental event is scheduled to run from September 19 to October 4 across Nagoya city and the wider Aichi Prefecture region, bringing together thousands of athletes and officials from across Asia.

    When the host city agreement was first signed, both the local organizing committee and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), the governing body of the continental Games, agreed on a maximum cap of 15,000 total participants including athletes and team officials. That number was already larger than the typical delegation size for a Summer Olympic Games, putting early strain on local planning resources. But last week, the OCA updated the projected participant count to 17,000, splitting the total into 11,000 competing athletes and 6,000 accredited officials, a jump of 2,000 people that organizers say they cannot absorb.

    To cut down on infrastructure costs that have ballooned for large international multi-sport events in recent decades, Japanese organizers opted against building a purpose-built permanent athletes’ village, a common cost-saving strategy for smaller host regions. Instead, they designed a distributed accommodation model that relies on three separate sources: a chartered international cruise ship, repurposed temporary shipping container-style wooden huts, and pre-booked blocks at commercial hotels across the region, with some even booked in Tokyo for athletes competing in the city’s hosted events of swimming, diving and equestrian. Under this model, 4,000 to 5,000 athletes will be housed on the chartered Italian cruise ship Costa Serena, while 2,000 additional participants will stay in the temporary container huts, and the remaining will occupy the pre-booked hotel blocks.

    The increase in participants stems from a decision by the OCA back in March to add two new sports to the 2026 Asian Games program: teqball, a fast-growing tabletop football hybrid sport, and padel, a popular racket sport that blends elements of tennis and squash. While the additions expand the scope of the Games to include increasingly popular emerging sports, they have directly led to the unexpected growth in delegation sizes that caught local organizers off guard.

    In press comments this week, Hideaki Omura, president of the local organizing committee and governor of Aichi Prefecture, made clear that the organizing body has neither the extra manpower, available space, nor allocated budget to accommodate the 2,000 extra participants. “The host city agreement specifies a delegation of 15,000 people,” Omura said. “We have not set aside a budget for any more than that. There is simply nowhere for them to stay.”

    Local organizers confirmed this week that they have formally requested the OCA adjust and reduce the projected participant number to align with the original agreed cap. But for any delegations that still choose to send extra participants beyond the initial cap, Omura said, the requirement is clear: “If they still wish to come, they will have to make their own arrangements.”

    Nagoya Mayor Ichiro Hirosawa, acting chairman of the local organizing committee, echoed Omura’s comments in a Wednesday briefing, noting that both time constraints and limited physical capacity make accommodating the extra numbers impossible. “From a cost perspective we are operating on a tight budget and it is difficult,” Hirosawa added.

    Agence France-Presse has repeatedly reached out to the OCA for comment on the dispute, but as of Thursday, no response from the Olympic Council of Asia has been made public.

  • ‘He will’: Wayne Bennett confirms Latrell Mitchell will play in a huge boost for the Bunnies ahead of the finals

    ‘He will’: Wayne Bennett confirms Latrell Mitchell will play in a huge boost for the Bunnies ahead of the finals

    The National Rugby League (NRL) premiership race has been thrown into a new state of flux, as one of the competition’s biggest superstars is set to make his return just weeks out from the finals series, turning a mid-tier Sydney club into an immediate genuine title contender.

    For months, rugby league fans have speculated over when star South Sydney Rabbitohs centre Latrell Mitchell would return from a persistent injury that sidelined him mid-season. Now, three short words from legendary Rabbitohs head coach Wayne Bennett have put all speculation to rest: Mitchell is cleared to hit the field this Saturday.

    Mitchell has not played a competitive NRL match since South Sydney’s Round 11 loss to the Dolphins on May 15. The 29-year-old representative star has spent more than three months recovering from a back nerve issue that eventually triggered a persistent calf problem, forcing him to miss the entire 2024 State of Origin series for New South Wales and sparking widespread fears that he would miss the remainder of the 2024 season.

    Before his injury, Mitchell was in the best form of his decades-long career, notching 11 tries across just nine appearances. That stellar run included a four-try masterclass against the St George Illawarra Dragons that cemented his status as one of the league’s most dominant attacking weapons.

    In Mitchell’s absence, the Rabbitohs have turned in inconsistent results, hovering around the lower edge of the top eight finals positions. But with Mitchell set to link back up with star playmakers Cam Murray and Cody Walker, South Sydney is now being widely tipped as a dark horse that could upend the premiership favourites in the finals.

    Mitchell was originally slated to return last weekend, but was a late scratching as the club’s medical staff exercised extra caution. This week, however, the star centre has received full medical clearance to face the Gold Coast Titans on Saturday afternoon. When asked directly by reporters if Mitchell would take the field, Bennett confirmed simply: “Yes he will.”

    Bennett emphasized that the club has no plans to overwork their returning star in his first match back, noting that the side has held its own without Mitchell’s contribution. “The boys have been great without him, so we just need to get him back playing now and not put him under any unnecessary pressure where he thinks that he’s got to do something special for us because we can handle ourselves pretty well,” Bennett said. “It’s great to have him back and get a bit of condition and contact behind him.”

    Addressing questions about whether Mitchell’s return was a rushed move that hid lingering injury issues, Bennett shut down any concerns, confirming the centre is completely match-fit with no ongoing pain management required. “He’s totally cleared to play,” Bennett said. “There are no needles involved, there are no painkillers involved, there’s nothing. He’s 100 per cent fit.”

    The timing of Mitchell’s return could not be better for South Sydney. With just two rounds remaining in the regular NRL season, the Rabbitohs hold a two-point buffer over the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs for the last finals spot, and a win over the Titans this weekend will all but lock in their place in the post-season.

    Bennett has already mapped out his game plan for Mitchell’s return: the superstar will come off the bench to play left centre, forcing incumbent utility Tallis Duncan to shift into the back row. Beyond his attacking prowess, Mitchell’s reliable goalkicking is also expected to solve a recent kicking slump that has cost South Sydney close matches in recent weeks.

    For Duncan and the rest of the Rabbitohs squad, Mitchell’s return is more than just a tactical boost – it’s a massive morale boost ahead of the finals. “He brings himself, you know? His X-factor,” Duncan said. “He’s Latrell, so any time you can be on the same field as someone like that, you know he’s a big moments player. When we need a moment, he’ll come up with the footy.”

    With Mitchell back in the fold, the league’s top-four contending teams now face a new, dangerous threat to their premiership hopes, reshaping the final weeks of the 2024 NRL season.

  • Tragedy as man, 34, dies after being trapped under van in alleged hit-and-run in Carlingford

    Tragedy as man, 34, dies after being trapped under van in alleged hit-and-run in Carlingford

    A 34-year-old pedestrian hit in an alleged hit-and-run incident in Sydney’s northwestern suburb of Carlingford has passed away, four days after the crash left him trapped under a vehicle with life-threatening injuries.

    The tragedy unfolded just after 12:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, when Frederick Kipruto became wedged underneath a Nissan van at the intersection of Ferndale Avenue and Edinburgh Avenue. He remained trapped undetected for a period before emergency responders located him, administered on-site first aid, and rushed him by ambulance to Westmead Hospital. Despite urgent medical intervention, Kipruto, who suffered severe critical head trauma, succumbed to his injuries on Thursday evening.

    News of Kipruto’s death was first confirmed by a member of the local community online. Tributes have quickly poured in for the 34-year-old, with close friend Maxwell Kiptanui Keter sharing a message of condolence on social media. “Our heartfelt condolences go to his family, relatives, friends, and the entire community during this very difficult time,” Keter wrote. “May Fredrick’s soul rest in eternal peace.”

    According to New South Wales Police allegations, the driver of the van involved, identified as Jacob Kurui, fled the collision scene immediately after striking Kipruto, running into nearby dense bushland to avoid capture. He was eventually located and taken into custody at Castle Hill Police Station, where police say he refused to comply with a mandatory breath alcohol test.

    Kurui was subsequently transported under armed police guard to Hornsby Hospital to complete the required testing. He has since been hit with three criminal charges: driving while disqualified, refusing to undergo breath test analysis, and failing to provide personal identification and collision details to responding officers.

    The accused made his first court appearance at Parramatta Local Court on Monday, where a judge refused his application for bail. He is scheduled to reappear before the court on September 17 to face the charges against him.

  • Fresh flood warnings for disaster-hit Nepal and Tibet, 1,400 still missing

    Fresh flood warnings for disaster-hit Nepal and Tibet, 1,400 still missing

    A catastrophic glacial collapse along the remote Himalayan border between Nepal and Tibet has triggered a devastating “inland tsunami” of freezing mud and debris that has killed at least 392 people, left more than 1,400 unaccounted for, and forced rescuers to navigate new, urgent flood risks as search efforts enter their third day.

    The disaster, which struck on Wednesday, was initially misidentified as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake by global seismic monitors, but the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) later confirmed it was caused by a sudden glacial collapse that sent a torrent of icy sludge cascading downstream across the border. The debris flow, which traveled roughly 170 kilometers south into Nepal, leveled entire villages, buried homes, crumpled bridges and dams, and swept vehicles away like discarded toys.

    Among the missing are hundreds of foreign nationals, many of whom were either trekking through Nepal’s Himalayan trails or completing a sacred pilgrimage to Tibet’s snow-capped Mount Kailash. Nepal’s police force has confirmed 389 recovered bodies within its borders, with 910 people still out of contact—517 of whom are foreign tourists. Beijing adds that another 100 Chinese citizens missing in Nepal are not included in that count. Indians make up the largest group of missing foreigners, with 90 U.S. citizens also reported unaccounted for, alongside nationals from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and South Korea. Across the border in Tibet, Chinese authorities report three deaths and hundreds more missing, while 555 stranded tourists and 499 local residents have already been evacuated from high-risk zones.

    As emergency teams, soldiers, and specialized rescue units race against time to pull survivors from debris fields and locate remains of the missing, their efforts have been significantly complicated by new flood warnings. Enormous piles of landslide debris have blocked mountain valleys, trapping water that has formed new unstable lakes behind the rubble. On Thursday, Chinese state media warned that one of these newly formed lakes faces a “high risk of breaching” that would send a second destructive flood downstream. Nepal’s own Flood Forecasting Division echoed the alert, issuing a special warning that urged rescue teams and local residents to exercise extreme caution.

    For survivors waiting in makeshift hospitals and relief camps, the days since the disaster have been marked by agonizing uncertainty. Kula Priya, a Nepali resident who lost three homes to the deluge and her eldest son who remains missing, told reporters “I don’t care for wealth. I just want my son back. We had three houses, all of which were washed away by the floods.” In Malaysia, 26-year-old Logadarrsiny Raman waits for news of her parents, aunt, and uncle, who were part of a 17-person pilgrimage group that lost contact minutes before the flood hit the area they were traveling through. “I’m very anxious,” she told AFP. “My only hope is to hear back from them that they are safe.”

    Rescue operations have mobilized extensive resources across both sides of the border: Chinese authorities have deployed nearly 800 emergency workers, supported by sniffer dogs, speed boats, satellite imagery and drones to navigate the hard-to-reach mountain terrain, while Nepali soldiers are also using sniffer dogs to locate bodies buried under thick layers of mud. Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who called on the nation to unite in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, toured the hardest-hit regions on Thursday, ordering local officials to prioritize immediate relief for displaced families and clear blocked access routes to cut off affected zones.

    Experts link the rising risk of such glacial disasters to the broader impacts of climate change, which is accelerating glacial melt across the Himalayas and around the world, increasing the frequency of glacial collapses and outburst floods from glacial lakes. Ruth Gamble, an environmental historian at Australia’s La Trobe University, described the sudden debris flow as “like an inland tsunami” that caught communities and visitors off guard. In a message of condolence, exiled Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said he would pray for all those who had lost their lives in the disaster.

  • US court rules Pentagon ban of Anthropic unlawful

    US court rules Pentagon ban of Anthropic unlawful

    In a landmark ruling issued Thursday, a US federal judge has struck down as illegal punitive measures imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration against leading artificial intelligence developer Anthropic, finding the government targeted the company in retaliation for its public criticism of Pentagon policy.

    The legal dispute traces back to Anthropic’s high-profile refusal to grant the US military access to its flagship Claude AI model for two controversial use cases: powering fully autonomous lethal weapons, and conducting mass surveillance of American civilians. The decision drew fierce public pushback from former President Donald Trump, who labeled the AI firm a “radical left, woke company” and “out-of-control” in a February social media post. Shortly after, the administration enacted sweeping sanctions, including an order barring all federal agencies from using Anthropic’s tools, and a designation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that labeled the company a national “supply chain risk” — a classification that prior to this case had only been applied to foreign firms.

    In her 59-page ruling, Judge Rita Lin rejected the administration’s justification for the penalties. “The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” Lin wrote in the decision reviewed by Agence France-Presse. The judge permanently blocked the named federal agencies from enforcing Trump’s executive order, and formally overturned Hegseth’s supply chain risk designation, cementing a temporary suspension of the sanctions that she first ordered in March. The ruling goes into effect immediately, though administration officials have indicated they may still appeal the decision.

    Anthropic welcomed the court’s outcome in a statement Thursday. “We welcome the court’s ruling that this supply chain risk designation was unlawful,” a company spokesperson said. “We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”

    Court documents and prior reporting confirm the US military had already integrated Claude into a wide range of classified and sensitive government systems before the sanctions were imposed. Multiple outlets including the Wall Street Journal and Axios have reported that the AI tool was even used during the January special operations mission that captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The supply chain risk designation, formally finalized in March, immediately canceled all of Anthropic’s existing military contracts and barred other Pentagon contractors from integrating the company’s AI technology into their work.

    Despite the major legal victory, Anthropic’s fight against administration penalties is not yet complete. A second separate sanction imposed by the Pentagon the same day, rooted in public procurement regulations, remains in place as a separate legal challenge proceeds in a Washington DC court, where a judge declined to suspend the measure back in April.

    Tensions between the Trump White House and Anthropic extend beyond the military access dispute, with the administration repeatedly pushing back against CEO Dario Amodei’s consistent public warnings about the existential and societal risks of unregulated advanced AI, including its potential to displace large numbers of American workers. Looking ahead, the AI firm is widely expected to launch its initial public offering on Wall Street in the coming weeks. Industry analysts project the listing could surpass the record-breaking debut of SpaceX back in June, which raised $86.2 billion and set a new benchmark for private-to-public market valuation in the tech sector.

  • Hunt on for newest millionaire as winning Weekday Windfall ticket sold in Adelaide

    Hunt on for newest millionaire as winning Weekday Windfall ticket sold in Adelaide

    A life-changing $1 million lotto prize remains unclaimed in Adelaide, Australia, after a single ticket matched all Division One numbers in this week’s Weekday Windfall draw, official lottery operator The Lott has confirmed.

    The winning entry was bought at Topz Shopz, a small local retailer located on Dorothy Street in Brahma Lodge, a suburban community north of Adelaide’s central business district. The mystery ticketholder is the only Division One winner of draw 4747, which took place on Wednesday, and has not yet stepped forward to claim their windfall.

    Staff at the retail outlet are actively spreading the word among customers to jog the winner’s memory and encourage them to check their entry. Assistant manager Rebecca Schultz told reporters the whole team is buzzing with excitement while they wait for the winner to come forward. “It’s been a few years since this store sold a Division One winning ticket, but we’ve had luck here before – we previously sold two major winning entries, including one worth $13 million,” Schultz shared. “We’re telling every customer who comes through the door to double-check their tickets. A $1 million prize can completely change someone’s life, and we can’t wait for the lucky person to realize what they’ve won.”

    The Lott’s spokesperson Khat McIntyre has issued an urgent appeal for anyone who bought a Weekday Windfall ticket at the Brahma Lodge Topz Shopz location to check their entry as soon as possible. “People often tuck their tickets away and forget about them – that winning slip could be sitting in your car’s glove compartment, buried at the bottom of your purse, or left on your bedside table waiting to be checked,” McIntyre said. The official winning numbers for draw 4747 are 7, 9, 10, 13, 22 and 29, with supplementary numbers 1 and 24.

    This unclaimed windfall marks the 243rd Division One winner across Australia in 2024 so far, and the 21st in the state of South Australia. Lottery officials note that unclaimed prizes are held securely until the winner steps forward, and remind all players that tickets can be checked via the official Lott app, at any retail lottery outlet, or through the organization’s official website.

  • In Zambia, a Shaolin Temple offers a softer face of China

    In Zambia, a Shaolin Temple offers a softer face of China

    Eighteen kilometers north of Zambia’s capital Lusaka, a sprawling cultural complex nestled into the local landscape evokes a striking, unexpected echo of central China. To first-time observers, the golden-roofed pagoda and traditional architecture can almost feel like a mirage – a piece of China transplanted into southern African soil. This is Africa’s very first Shaolin Temple, launched in 2021 to bring the centuries-old Buddhist monastic and martial arts tradition to the continent.