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  • Nepal-Tibet disaster: what we know

    Nepal-Tibet disaster: what we know

    A catastrophic natural disaster along the Nepal-Tibet border has left at least 165 people dead and hundreds unaccounted for, after a collapsing glacier unleashed massive walls of floodwater and debris across both sides of the frontier. The disaster, which unfolded on Wednesday morning, has sparked an urgent international response, with aid organizations and governments around the world stepping in to support search and rescue operations.

    While the full sequence of events is still being pieced together by geologists and disaster response teams, dramatic surveillance footage from the Chinese side of the border captured the raw force of the disaster: a towering surge of mud and water swept over a structures as residents fled for safety. On the Nepalese side of the border, fast-moving floodwaters slammed into settlements along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers, destroying homes, infrastructure and cutting off entire communities.

    In the immediate aftermath of the event, initial descriptions varied: Nepalese officials first categorized it as a major flood, while Chinese authorities labeled it a catastrophic mudslide. The death toll has continued to climb in the days since the disaster: 162 fatalities have been confirmed in Nepal, with three more recorded in Tibet. As of Thursday, more than 350 people are officially listed as missing in Tibet, while Nepal reports 468 unaccounted-for tourists, 393 of whom hold foreign nationalities, alongside 93 missing Nepalese citizens. Foreign nationals missing span the globe, including citizens from India, Ukraine, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia, which has confirmed 34 of its residents are unaccounted for in the affected region.

    Early theories about the cause of the disaster pointed to a small earthquake triggering a landslide that blocked a upstream river, creating a natural dam that eventually burst to release the catastrophic downstream surge. This initial hypothesis aligned with an early reading from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), which detected seismic activity in northern Tibet near the disaster zone. However, further analysis of seismic data from nearby monitoring stations, long-period wave readings and satellite imagery has revised that conclusion. USGS now confirms the seismic signal initially mistaken for an earthquake was actually the event itself: a large-scale glacial collapse and subsequent debris flow, with no tectonic earthquake involved.

    The international community has moved quickly to offer support to response efforts. The United States has committed $500,000 in immediate emergency aid, while the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has released $1.4 million to fund on-the-ground assistance. David Fisher, head of IFRC Nepal, emphasized that reaching cut-off and affected communities is the top priority, with teams working to deliver support to people who have lost their homes, suffered injuries, or been isolated by the disaster. The European Union has activated its Copernicus satellite surveillance system to map damage and guide recovery teams, and stands ready to deploy additional support. The World Health Organization has already shipped emergency medical supplies to the region, and neighboring India has dispatched an initial 10 tonnes of humanitarian aid to support response efforts.

  • Climate change leaves its mark on America’s largest reservoir

    Climate change leaves its mark on America’s largest reservoir

    Perched high on the sunbaked hills surrounding Las Vegas, French tourist Choune Osterero stares out at a stark, unavoidable marker of human-caused climate change: a thick, pale band of mineral-encrusted rock that circles the entire basin of Lake Mead, the United States’ largest man-made reservoir. Known locally as the “bathtub ring,” this chalky line sits 186 feet (57 meters) above the reservoir’s current water surface, a 25-year record of relentless drought that has drained the lake to historic lows. For Osterero, the unmissable geologic clue makes abstract climate talk tangible. “You can see the effects of climate change with the naked eye,” she told Agence France-Presse during her visit. “It’s truly striking; it really makes you wonder.”

    The retreating waters of Lake Mead have exposed hidden relics long swallowed by the lake: sunken boat wrecks, and even scattered human remains, including the body of a man believed to be a victim of 20th-century Las Vegas organized crime. But far beyond these macabre discoveries, the shrinking reservoir threatens the foundational infrastructure that powers and sustains the entire American West.

    The modern development of iconic desert metropolises — from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and Phoenix — was only made possible by an extensive water distribution system tapping the Colorado River. The river, which originates from snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains and flows south through the U.S. Southwest into Mexico, provides drinking and irrigation water to more than 40 million people across seven U.S. states. Two massive hydroelectric dams, built 300 miles apart along the river’s course, created the country’s two largest reservoirs: Lake Mead and Lake Powell. These basins store snowmelt to ensure year-round water access, while the dams’ turbines generate carbon-free electricity for hundreds of thousands of households across the region.

    Today, that entire system is teetering on the edge of crisis. The roots of the vulnerability stretch back a century: the 1922 interstate agreement governing Colorado River water allocations assigned more annual water to the seven basin states than the river actually carries on average. But human-caused climate change has drastically worsened this systemic flaw, altering regional precipitation patterns, extending extreme heat and drought events, and amplifying precipitation volatility across the continent.

    Against a backdrop of global record-breaking temperatures in 2026, the Colorado River system is facing dual pressures that have pushed reservoirs to unprecedented lows, explains David Kreamer, a hydrology professor at the University of Las Vegas. An unusually dry winter left the Rocky Mountains with far less snowpack than average — the primary source of the river’s annual flow. At the same time, the record-hot July the U.S. experienced this year has accelerated evaporation from the open surfaces of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, draining stored water even faster.

    “As climate change is affecting things, and it gets more intense, the challenges become greater,” Kreamer noted. Currently, Lake Mead holds only 25% of its total capacity, while Lake Powell dropped to an all-time historic low in August. Both reservoirs are now perilously close to the critical threshold where dam operations for electricity generation become impossible. A further decline could push the system into “deadpool” — a state where water levels drop too low to flow through the dam’s intake structures, cutting off water access for millions across the Southwest. The catastrophic consequences would reach far beyond the region’s big cities.

    “The majority of the winter vegetables in the United States are grown in California, and so if the irrigation systems in Southern California are impacted, it would impact people beyond just the Colorado River Basin, but throughout the United States,” Kreamer explained.

    In response to the deepening crisis, the Trump administration — which has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus around human-caused climate change — released a 10-year management plan this month that imposes deep water use cuts on three lower basin states: California, Arizona, and Nevada. The three states are required to reduce their collective annual water withdrawals by 3.7 billion cubic meters — a volume equal to 1.5 million Olympic-sized swimming pools — while upper basin states including Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico face no mandatory cuts. The unequal burden of the plan prompted Nevada to file a lawsuit against the federal government on Monday challenging the policy.

    The divisive cuts have laid bare long-simmering tensions between water users across the basin, with many pointing the finger at other regions and industries for overconsumption. Bruce Nelson, whose family has owned a marina on Lake Mead for nearly 70 years, argues that Las Vegas has already done more than its share to cut use: over the past two decades, the city has reduced its total water consumption by a third through aggressive wastewater recycling programs, restrictions on lawn watering, and limits on new residential swimming pool sizes. He argues that the burden falls disproportionately on southern Nevada, while other states continue to waste water.

    “Las Vegas has done a phenomenal job in preserving and reclaiming water,” Nelson said. In contrast, he noted, neighboring Utah recycles very little of its wastewater and continues to approve large, water-intensive recreational projects inland, including artificial surf parks in fast-growing cities like St. George. “Maybe they need to think about how they’re conserving water,” he added.

    Waterskiing enthusiast Brian Essex, who was visiting the lake, echoed that frustration. “It’s not our problem, really,” he said. He pointed to two major drivers of unsustainable water use: unregulated rapid real estate development in Phoenix, which is constantly expanding into the desert, and the massive water consumption of California’s alfalfa industry. Alfalfa, a lucrative forage crop for livestock, is one of the most water-intensive crops grown in the Southwest.

    “What do you want to do?” Essex asked. “Do you want to build houses or do you want to sell alfalfa? You can’t do both.”

  • Ruthless Bayern target treble as rivals reboot on Bundesliga return

    Ruthless Bayern target treble as rivals reboot on Bundesliga return

    As Germany’s top-flight football league Bundesliga kicks off its new campaign this Friday, defending double champions Bayern Munich have entered the season with high ambitions of claiming an unprecedented treble, while their closest competitors have executed major offseason overhauls in a bid to close the growing gap on the Bavarian giants.

    Bayern Munich will kick off their title defense at home against Stuttgart, the 2025-26 German Cup runners-up, fresh off a historic domestic campaign that saw the club claim both the Bundesliga and German Cup titles, secure the fourth-highest points total in league history, and set a new goal-scoring record of 122 goals across 34 regular-season matches. Led by star striker Harry Kane, who lined up alongside lethal wingers Michael Olise and Luis Diaz, Bayern dropped just one domestic fixture all last season, with Kane netting a hat-trick to seal the Cup final win over Friday’s opening opponent. The only significant setback of Bayern’s 2025-26 campaign came in European competition, where they bowed out of the Champions League semi-finals in a tight 6-5 aggregate defeat to eventual tournament winners Paris Saint-Germain.

    This offseason, Bayern has reinforced its title-chasing squad by adding Moroccan World Cup standout Ismael Saibari and young German defender Nathaniel Brown, building on a already dominant core. The club’s hunger for silverware remains unquenched, as demonstrated by their recent 2-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund in the German Super Cup. Speaking to reporters after the Super Cup win, Kane made clear the team’s intentions for the new season, framing the early win as a warning to the rest of the league. “We fell just short in the Champions League, but our momentum is to keep pushing, pushing each other, pushing this team to see how far we can go,” the England captain said. “Our aim is to continue to dominate in Germany, and I think winning here is a great statement.”

    Kane, who joined Bayern from Tottenham Hotspur in 2023 after years without major silverware in England, has already claimed three domestic trophies and two Super Cup titles with the Bavarian side, following a 61-goal haul across all competitions last season. The 33-year-old also has extra motivation for a strong start to the new campaign: the Ballon d’Or award will be presented in October in his home city of London, and Bayern’s leadership has publicly thrown their full weight behind Kane’s candidacy. “It can only be Harry Kane. We can just give it to Harry already,” Bayern board member Rouven Kasper told AFP. Sporting director Christoph Freund echoed that sentiment, noting “[Kane] deserves to win the Ballon d’Or — he had an outstanding season.”

    Off the pitch, Bayern has also been navigating a health concern for star playmaker Jamal Musiala. The 23-year-old German international, who revealed this summer he is living with a neurological disorder that caused two on-pitch collapses during pre-season, is expected to be gradually eased back into the starting lineup, with Saibari’s arrival providing the squad with enough depth to cover for his slow return. Bayern’s technical staff has expressed confidence that Musiala will return to his best form in due time.

    While Bayern enters the season as the overwhelming favorite, their Bundesliga rivals have all undergone major changes in the offseason in an attempt to mount a credible title challenge. Longtime Bayern challenger Borussia Dortmund, after years of prioritizing established senior players, have returned to their historic model of investing in high-potential young talent, sinking a reported 110 million euros into new signings this summer. That total matches Bayern’s own offseason spending on Saibari and Brown, with Dortmund adding 19-year-old winger Konstantinos Karetsas, teenager defender Joane Gadou, 23-year-old midfielder Giannis Konstantelias, and experienced midfielder Joey Veerman to their ranks.

    For Dortmund head coach Niko Kovac, who won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 2018-19, the gap between his current side and the defending champions remains sizable, even after the summer investment. “A lot must happen to close the gap,” Kovac told AFP. “We must play over our capacities, I would say. And then Bayern Munich play under their capacity. But you can be sure we will try everything.”

    Elsewhere across the league, Stuttgart, who have qualified for the Champions League in two of the three full seasons under manager Sebastian Hoeness, has achieved a rare offseason stability: for the first time since Hoeness took charge in 2023, the club has managed to retain all its top talents despite interest from bigger European clubs, rather than selling key stars. 2023-24 Bundesliga winners Bayer Leverkusen have turned to Spanish manager Carles Martinez Novell to continue the club’s rebuild that began when former coach Xabi Alonso departed in 2025. RB Leipzig, who finished third last season to qualify for the Champions League, has appointed Argentine manager Martin Demichelis to replace outgoing coach Ole Werner, and has seen major squad turnover after selling star midfielder Yan Diomande to Real Madrid for 120 million euros. Despite bringing back fan favorite Christopher Nkunku on a season-long loan from AC Milan, the squad still lacks top-level experience in key positions heading into the opener.

    As the first kickoff of the new Bundesliga season approaches, all eyes will be on whether Bayern can turn their domestic dominance into a historic treble, or if the league’s revamped challengers can finally dethrone the Bavarian giants.

  • Sydney police investigate death of teen girl from suspected choking during sex

    Sydney police investigate death of teen girl from suspected choking during sex

    A devastating tragedy in Sydney has reignited urgent public debate over the growing popularity of dangerous sexual choking practices among young Australians, after a 16-year-old girl died in hospital earlier this week following a suspected choking incident during sexual activity.

    Local emergency responders were dispatched to a private residence in Elanora Heights, a quiet coastal suburb in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, at roughly 5:45 p.m. local time on Sunday. Crews found the teen unconscious at the scene, administered immediate first aid, and airlifted her in critical condition to Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital. Despite medical intervention, the young girl succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday night.

    While formal police reports have not publicly confirmed the exact cause of death or details of her injuries, unnamed law enforcement sources have confirmed to multiple major Australian outlets, including the national public broadcaster ABC and *The Sydney Morning Herald*, that investigators are working from the initial hypothesis that the teen lost consciousness after being choked during sex.

    Public health experts and sexual violence advocates have long flagged that non-fatal and fatal strangulation during sexual activity has become increasingly common among young Australian demographics in recent years, even as the practice carries well-documented life-altering risks: chronic headaches, permanent memory impairment, irreversible brain damage, and in rare but devastating cases, death.

    Chanel Contos, a leading Australian sexual consent activist and founder of the national advocacy group Teach Us Consent, launched in 2021, said the 16-year-old’s death was almost entirely avoidable, and placed direct blame on mainstream pornography platforms for normalizing harmful behavior.

    Contos, who first sparked a nationwide reckoning with campus and school sexual assault in 2021 when hundreds of young Australians came forward to share their own experiences of abuse, argued that mainstream pornography consistently frames sexual violence against women — including choking, slapping, and other physical abuse — as desirable or consensual, misleading young audiences about real risks.

    “This is not the first tragedy of its kind and it won’t be the last,” Contos warned. She emphasized that contrary to a common misconception among many young people who view the practice as low-risk, there is no safe way to perform sexual choking. “Even when young people believe they are consenting, they’re often uninformed about its potential consequences, which are fatal at worst, and can cause permanent brain injury even when there are no visible signs of harm,” she added.

    Data from recent Australian academic research backs up advocates’ concerns about the rising prevalence of the practice. A 2024 joint study by the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland surveyed 4,700 young adults across the country and found that 57% of Australians between the ages of 18 and 35 had experienced sexual strangulation at least once. The research also found that one-third of respondents who had engaged in the practice first experienced it between the ages of 19 and 21, pointing to how normalized the dangerous act has become among late teenage and early adult demographics. Police are continuing their investigation into the 16-year-old’s death to confirm the exact circumstances surrounding the incident.

  • Bond yields are surging: Here’s why that could spell trouble

    Bond yields are surging: Here’s why that could spell trouble

    Across major global economies from North America to Europe and East Asia, financial policymakers and market participants are growing increasingly uneasy as government bond yields climb to levels not witnessed in a decade or longer. This sharp uptick is pushing borrowing costs higher for every segment of the economy: national governments, private businesses, and ordinary consumers alike.

    At the core of this trend is a toxic combination of ballooning government budget deficits and swelling national debt loads, which have eroded investor confidence in the ability of major economies to restore long-term fiscal sustainability. Compounding this pressure is persistently high inflation across the United States and Europe, which has been further stoked by rising energy prices tied to ongoing Middle East conflict — creating greater odds that central banks will keep interest rates elevated, or even push them higher, in the coming months.

    To understand the current landscape, it is important to contextualize just how far yields have risen. Bond yields move inversely to bond prices, rising when investors demand higher interest returns to purchase or hold government-issued debt. For decades, U.S. Treasury bonds have been viewed as the global gold standard of safe-haven assets, allowing the U.S. government to borrow from international investors at historically favorable rates. But even this market is seeing unprecedented shifts: the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries, a key benchmark for gauging long-term economic confidence, hit 5.34% in mid-August — its highest level since 2007, just before the onset of the global financial crisis. While it has since pulled back slightly to around 5.17%, it remains far above levels seen over the past 15 years.

    The same upward trend is playing out across European bond markets. Germany’s benchmark 10-year bund, the eurozone’s de facto risk-free rate, currently trades around 3.22% — a level not reached since 2011. In France, where the sitting government faces intense pressure to implement unpopular spending cuts ahead of next year’s presidential election, the 10-year government bond yield has hit 4.05%, its highest since 2008 and a full 0.5 percentage points above its yield at the start of 2024. Even Japan, which spent decades grappling with deflation and maintaining near-zero bond yields to stimulate growth, has seen a sharp jump: its 10-year yield has surged to nearly 2.9%, up from just 2.1% in February 2024.

    Economists point to repeated large-scale economic shocks over the past 15 years as the root cause of ballooning deficits and debt. Since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, public debt levels have continued a steady upward climb across nearly all major advanced economies. That acceleration grew even steeper after the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments rolled out massive stimulus packages to prevent economic collapse, and was exacerbated by the onset of new geopolitical shocks, including the Ukraine war, escalating Middle East tensions, and the reversion to tit-for-tat trade conflicts between major global powers. All of these events required extraordinary government spending to buffer domestic economies from the fallout.

    Notably, even countries with a longstanding reputation for fiscal prudence are now facing rising deficits. Charlotte de Montpellier, an economist at ING, pointed out that traditional fiscal conservatives like Germany are no longer immune to expanding budget shortfalls. To fund these ongoing deficits, governments have to issue a growing volume of new bonds, creating intense competition between issuers to attract limited global capital. This competition forces governments to offer higher interest rates to lure buyers, which in turn pushes up overall bond yields across the market.

    Adding to the competitive pressure on capital is a surge in borrowing from large technology companies, which are taking on massive debt to fund the ongoing global boom in artificial intelligence research and deployment. This creates an additional strain on available capital, further pushing borrowing costs higher.

    The most alarming headline comes from the United States, where the U.S. Treasury announced this month that total U.S. national debt has crossed the $40 trillion threshold for the first time in history — doubling the country’s total debt load from just 10 years ago. As yields have climbed, the annual cost of servicing this national debt has ballooned dramatically, consuming taxpayer dollars that could otherwise be allocated to core public priorities including education, health care, and national defense. In 2023 alone, U.S. federal interest outlays hit a staggering $970 billion, up from just $350 billion in 2021.

    Uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy is also amplifying market volatility. With U.S. inflation currently running at 3.7% — nearly double the Federal Reserve’s 2% target — bond investors remain unsure what path new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will take to bring prices under control. De Montpellier noted that Warsh has shifted away from the Fed’s recent practice of clear forward guidance on interest rate moves, adopting a more opaque communication strategy that has left markets guessing. Because U.S. monetary policy sets the tone for global bond markets and interest rates worldwide, this uncertainty has spilled over into markets across the globe.

    For ordinary households and businesses, the impact of rising bond yields is immediate and tangible. Higher government bond yields directly translate to higher borrowing costs for everyday consumers, from home mortgages to auto loans and personal credit. For businesses, higher interest rates mean more expensive borrowing to fund expansion, research, and new hiring — a dynamic that weighs on overall economic activity. Ultimately, this translates to fewer home purchases, fewer business investment projects, and slower overall economic growth. As de Montpellier put it: “It’s clearly not good news” for the global economic outlook.

  • UEFA set to withdraw FIFA boycott threat ahead of Champions League draw

    UEFA set to withdraw FIFA boycott threat ahead of Champions League draw

    As European football’s elite clubs gather in Monaco for Thursday’s 2025-26 UEFA Champions League draw, the long-simmering dispute between UEFA and FIFA over a controversial private investment plan for World Cup commercial operations is set to de-escalate, multiple sources confirmed to AFP.

    The conflict erupted in late July, when news broke that FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s administration had proposed launching a commercial subsidiary under the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) initiative, which would allow private investors to purchase equity stakes in the entity that operates FIFA’s flagship events, including the men’s and women’s World Cup and the Club World Cup.

    The proposal triggered immediate and fierce backlash from UEFA, which controls the lion’s share of global football’s multi-billion-dollar economy through its top club competitions and member association revenues. Led by president Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA slammed the plan in unvarnished terms, calling it a “shady, opaque backroom deal” that threatened the fundamental structure of the global game. The governing body issued a blunt ultimatum: no UEFA national or club teams would take part in any FIFA competition as long as the proposal remained on the table. That hardline stance was widely credited with forcing FIFA to shelve the controversial plan almost immediately.

    Now, ahead of Thursday’s draw, sources close to UEFA’s executive committee and member association talks in Monaco told AFP the threatened boycott will “likely” be withdrawn. UEFA had laid out two non-negotiable conditions for backing down from the threat: a full scrapping of the original investment proposal, and a permanent guarantee that no similar attempts to restructure FIFA’s top event commercial operations would be advanced in the future. One senior source confirmed Wednesday that UEFA has now received the required assurances, satisfying both conditions.

    The decision to drop the boycott threat also removes a major point of internal friction for UEFA, which has pushed for Infantino to step down over the controversy. A split among member associations over a boycott would have undermined the bloc’s unified front calling for the FIFA president’s departure, a risk that is now eliminated. The timing also removes immediate uncertainty for upcoming FIFA events: the Under-20 Women’s World Cup is set to kick off in Poland next month, and European qualifying for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil is already underway.

    With the governing body dispute moving toward resolution, focus has fully shifted to the draw itself, which will set the stage for the new season of Europe’s most prestigious club competition. Defending champion Paris Saint-Germain enters the draw chasing an unprecedented three-peat in the modern era; the French side retained their title last season after beating Arsenal on penalties in the Budapest final, and only Real Madrid, who won three consecutive Champions League crowns between 2016 and 2018, have achieved the three-peat feat in the last 50 years. PSG manager Luis Enrique reiterated the club’s ambitions earlier this month, saying “We have won the last two, which means we can win a third. It will be very hard, but that is our ambition.”

    This season marks only the third iteration of the Champions League’s revamped format, which expanded the competition to 36 teams competing in a single unified league phase, with each side facing eight different opponents before the knockout round. The new format has amplified the growing polarization of European club football, with the wealthiest clubs from the continent’s top four leagues set to dominate participation and capture the bulk of competition prize money. Half of all 36 competing clubs hail from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, and the Bundesliga. The English Premier League leads all leagues with five entrants: Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Aston Villa. La Liga also has five representatives, including Real Betis, who return to the Champions League group stage proper for the first time in 20 years.

    The draw will also feature several historic debuts for underdog clubs who defied expectations to reach the league phase. In Italy, Como, coached by former Arsenal, Barcelona, and Spain midfield star Cesc Fàbregas, will make their first ever Champions League appearance after upending more established Italian sides to qualify. Azerbaijan’s Sabah will also make their debut, having fought through four qualifying rounds starting from the very first preliminary round to earn their spot. Austria’s LASK completes the list of first-time qualifiers, pulling off a stunning late comeback to beat Celtic in the play-off round to secure their place in the 36-team league.

    The first matchday of the league phase is scheduled for September 8 to 10, with the league phase wrapping up in late January 2026. This season’s Champions League final will be hosted at Atlético Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium on June 6, 2026.

  • CIA director warned Russia not to attack NATO members: US media

    CIA director warned Russia not to attack NATO members: US media

    In one of the highest-level American visits to Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow this week with a core mission: delivering a blunt warning to Russian authorities against any military provocation targeting NATO member countries, multiple major U.S. media outlets reported Wednesday. The revelation came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump sought to frame the high-stakes meeting as a low-key, semi-routine engagement.

    Both The Wall Street Journal and CBS News confirmed that Ratcliffe’s warning was rooted in U.S. intelligence assessments indicating that the Kremlin could move to test the transatlantic alliance’s collective defense commitment with a limited offensive strike against a NATO member within the next several years. The top U.S. intelligence chief’s visit unfolded against a deeply tense backdrop: Russian forces have ramped up their offensive operations across eastern and southern Ukraine this summer, driving a sharp rise in civilian casualties, while U.S.-brokered efforts to jumpstart peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow have completely stalled.

    Beyond the core message on NATO, CBS News, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the closed-door discussions, reported that Ratcliffe also raised tensions around the Persian Gulf during his talks. He issued a clear warning that Russia would face additional U.S. sanctions if it did not allow the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical global shipping chokepoints — to reopen to unimpeded commercial maritime traffic, amid ongoing Iranian actions that have disrupted navigation in the waterway.

    Kremlin officials confirmed the visit on Wednesday, acknowledging that Ratcliffe held formal contacts with Russian intelligence agencies but confirming that he did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin received a full briefing on the outcomes of the talks, but declined to confirm whether the ongoing war in Ukraine was among the topics discussed during the meetings. Peskov framed the intelligence-to-intelligence contacts as a modest positive step in bilateral relations, noting that it was still too early to predict whether the engagement would lead to any broader de-escalation of long-running tensions between Washington and Moscow.

    This week’s trip marked a historic milestone: the first time a sitting CIA director has visited Moscow since former director William Burns traveled to the capital in November 2021, where he issued a direct warning to the Kremlin against invading Ukraine. Just weeks after that 2021 meeting, the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion, sparking the largest continental conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. In recent years, the CIA has also been the lead U.S. agency coordinating high-profile prisoner swap deals with Moscow, including a major multi-person exchange completed in mid-2024.

    Trump pushed back against media reporting of the trip’s core priorities during an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, framing the engagement as semi-routine and emphasizing that the primary goal was to advance discussions on ending the war in Ukraine. “He’s there, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump told Beck. The U.S. president dismissed widespread speculation that the trip covered threats to NATO or escalating pressure on Iran, saying, “He is not in there for any of the things that you said, now something may come out, you know, out of it.” He added, “We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.”

    The White House declined multiple requests for comment from Agence France-Presse on the details of the visit and the reporting of Ratcliffe’s warnings. The ongoing war in Ukraine has now killed hundreds of thousands of people, and the Kremlin has so far refused to back away from its maximalist territorial demands, which include full control over all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and permanent retention of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

  • Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge couldn’t help but ‘crack up’ at one question about Collingwood

    Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge couldn’t help but ‘crack up’ at one question about Collingwood

    Ahead of the highly anticipated AFL wildcard final between the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood Magpies at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a surprising off-field decision by AFL headquarters has dominated headlines, catching the attention of Bulldogs head coach Luke Beveridge. The decision: granting non-tenant Collingwood permission to hold a main training session at Marvel Stadium this week, a privilege long denied to the Bulldogs and other long-term tenant clubs of the venue. Beveridge, who has been focused entirely on preparing his side for Friday night’s do-or-die clash, couldn’t hide his amusement at the lopsided decision when questioned by reporters. “When I heard the news, I almost fell off my chair,” Beveridge told media with a laugh. “It’s just hilarious – a real crack-up. None of the actual tenant clubs can get approval to train on that ground for a main session. The only time we’ve ever been offered access is for a quick captain’s run in just our running shoes, and that’s not even worth the trip down for us.” Collingwood has been forced to hunt for alternative training grounds for much of the 2024 season after unseasonably heavy rainfall left its primary Olympic Park training facility unusable. The club has already made use of local university and school ovals multiple times this year to make up for the poor conditions at its home base, and this week turned to AFL headquarters to request access to the vacant Marvel Stadium surface. Collingwood completed its full main training session at the Docklands venue on Thursday, marking a rare access win for a club that doesn’t hold tenant status at the ground. Beveridge went on to acknowledge that the Bulldogs did not submit their own request for Marvel Stadium access this week, meaning the club was not formally turned down on this occasion. He also acknowledged the end-of-season reduction in event traffic at the venue likely made the approval easier for Collingwood to secure. “We put in requests for access to Marvel Stadium pretty much every year, and I get it – the ground gets a lot of use, so they want to limit extra foot traffic when they can,” he explained. “But the principle of it just gets me: if tenant clubs can’t get on it, why does a non-tenant get the green light? It’s just one of those situations where if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. Obviously there’s less event traffic on the ground this time of year, so it was an easy case for them to make. Collingwood put their request in, made a solid case, and got approved – that’s just how it goes.” The Bulldogs coach declined to be drawn into any further discussion about Friday night’s high-stakes final, choosing to keep focus on his team’s preparation. The match, which Collingwood will face as the away side despite being the higher-ranked team, will kick off at the MCG on Friday evening with a spot in the next round of the AFL finals on the line.

  • Conservationists slam Albanese government’s $145m bird flu spend as deadly virus spreads

    Conservationists slam Albanese government’s $145m bird flu spend as deadly virus spreads

    Australia is facing an unprecedented challenge from the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which has already claimed the lives of native mammals for the first time in the nation’s recorded history. To address this escalating public and environmental health crisis, the Albanese government has unveiled a new $145 million funding boost to strengthen the country’s bird flu response, but conservation leaders have slammed the allocation for wildlife resilience as woefully insufficient.

    Of the total funding package, $125 million will be split equally between the Commonwealth government and state and territory administrations. This portion of the budget is earmarked for immediate national emergency biosecurity operations, including expanded surveillance and early detection systems, enhanced on-the-ground response capacity, and targeted interventions for high-priority threatened species. Conservation groups acknowledge that since the outbreak intensified in June 2024, officials have confirmed the virus cannot be fully eradicated, making these core response activities critical.

    An additional $20 million has been dedicated to expanding and extending on-the-ground work to boost the resilience of vulnerable native species, with a focus on ecologically sensitive locations including federally managed national parks. The federal government is requiring state and territory partners to provide matched funding for this specific resilience allocation.

    Despite the government’s framing of the package as a robust response, leading conservation leaders have harshly criticized the $20 million wildlife resilience allocation as unfit for the scale of the crisis. Invasive Species Council Chief Executive Jack Gough pointed out that the sum amounts to less than 1% of the bailout the government provided to the Tomago aluminium smelter, calling the commitment “deeply unserious.”

    Earlier this month, Gough joined BirdLife Australia Chief Executive Kate Millar in lobbying federal officials in Canberra for a $200 million resilience package – a figure that Gough emphasizes was the absolute minimum baseline investment required to give native wildlife a fighting chance against both the current outbreak and future waves. The requested package would fund long-term protective measures such as invasive pest control, which reduce additional stress on vulnerable populations already impacted by bird flu.

    “Surveillance, testing and carcass removal are essential, but they won’t stop vulnerable wildlife populations being pushed towards extinction,” Gough explained. “There’s a deep understanding across government departments of the scale of this crisis and the devastation it will cause, but the funding committed does not match that understanding. We will need far greater, sustained long-term investment to help wildlife populations recover.”

    Millar echoed these criticisms, arguing that the insufficient funding shows the government is “asleep at the wheel when it comes to nature.” She noted that many practical, effective conservation programs the government had previously invested in – including pest control initiatives – have already been forced to shut down after their funding expired. She warned that the Albanese government is underestimating the anger and political mobilization of Australia’s large birdwatching community, which spans every electorate and all walks of life, if the government continues to ignore scientific recommendations and its conservation obligations.

    Federal officials have pushed back against the criticism, defending the government’s total investment in bird flu preparedness and conservation. Agriculture Minister Julie Collins told ABC News Breakfast that the government, working with state and territory partners, has already invested more than $40 million in preparedness activities for threatened species habitat protection, including biosecurity measures for captive populations of at-risk species held in zoos and wildlife parks across the country.

    Collins added that the government has also invested more than $300 million in the federal Saving Native Species Program overseen by Environment Minister Murray Watt, bringing total national spending on bird flu preparedness to more than $270 million. “The amount of funding is certainly there … we’ll continue to work with all of the experts to make sure that as a government, we’re doing everything we can do,” Collins said, noting the government takes the bird flu crisis seriously.

    Announcing the new funding package, Watt said the additional investment would put Australia’s most at-risk species “in a better position to withstand and recover from the impacts of this virus.” He noted that close to 70 on-the-ground resilience projects are already underway across the country, and the new funding will extend protection to an additional 31 threatened species – ranging from Kangaroo Island’s Australian sea lions to the Christmas Island frigatebird – through enhanced biosecurity for captive breeding populations.

    “This additional funding will support the expansion and extension of bird flu preparedness and response measures for H5 bird flu in wildlife across Australia, including commonwealth-managed national parks,” Watt said. “We will continue to work with all jurisdictions to ensure we’re taking sensible actions to protect our at-risk bird and mammal species, informed by best available evidence.”

    As of the announcement, more than 200 confirmed cases of bird flu have been recorded across Australia, with the first confirmed mammal fatalities pushing the crisis into uncharted territory for the nation’s environmental management agencies. Requests for further comment from the offices of Watt and Collins are still pending.

  • Two of Australia’s biggest banks backflip to predict painful new interest rate hike

    Two of Australia’s biggest banks backflip to predict painful new interest rate hike

    Australia’s stubbornly persistent above-target inflation has prompted two of the nation’s largest lenders to revise their interest rate outlooks, delivering a bleak update for mortgage holders already grappling with years of rising borrowing costs. Both the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and National Australia Bank (NAB) now confirm that additional Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rate increases are on the horizon to cool persistent price pressures.

    NAB’s chief economist Sally Auld has reversed her earlier forecast that rates would remain on hold, now projecting a rate hike as early as the RBA’s September monetary policy meeting. Auld pointed to newly released July Consumer Price Index (CPI) data that came in hotter than RBA leaders had projected just weeks earlier, noting that the central bank’s Monetary Policy Board has repeatedly warned it would take immediate action if inflation risks continued to trend upward. Beyond September, Auld added that the outlook leans heavily toward a second additional hike in November, particularly if broader economic activity data remains resilient in the coming months.

    CBA’s head of economics Belinda Allen shares the expectation of a 2025 rate hike but pushes back the timeline, arguing that current economic data does not yet justify a September increase. Even with a slower timeline, Allen warned that holding rates steady through the November meeting would shock markets and analysts, given the RBA’s laser focus on reining in inflation even as signs of a slowing economy emerge. On a slightly more positive note for struggling mortgage holders, Allen projected that the period of elevated rates could be relatively short: she forecasts the RBA could begin cutting rates as early as May 2027, with a follow-up cut in August, once inflation returns to the central bank’s target range.

    Two other major Australian lenders, Westpac and ANZ, have not yet released updated rate forecasts following the July inflation release. However, independent economic analysts have echoed the big banks’ cautious outlook, arguing that the latest inflation data leaves the RBA with little choice but to resume tightening after its recent pause.

    KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne explained that the RBA’s decision to leave rates unchanged at its August meeting now leaves the central bank playing catch-up on inflation. So far in 2025, the RBA has delivered three rate hikes totaling 75 basis points, lifting the official cash rate from 3.60% to 4.35%, before pausing rate movements in June and holding again in August. “Today’s data supports the view that without policy action we may be in for a long, costly grind to get inflation under control, and the Reserve Bank may have missed an opportunity at the last board meeting to get ahead of the game by raising rates,” Rynne said.

    Russel Chesler, head of investments and capital markets at global asset manager VanEck, put it more bluntly, noting that July’s data shows the “inflation fire is still smouldering” across the Australian economy. “The inflation fight is far from won,” Chesler said. “We remain firmly of the view that inflation is becoming entrenched and has little chance of returning to the 2.5 per cent midpoint of the RBA’s target range by late 2027.”

    To understand why markets and forecasters are bracing for rate hikes, it is important to break down the latest inflation figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). While headline inflation edged lower to 3.6% in the 12 months to July, down from 3.8% in June, the core trimmed mean inflation rate – a closely watched metric that strips out the most volatile price movements to reflect underlying inflation – held steady at 3.6%, well above the RBA’s 2-3% annual target range. Market analysts had expected a sharper decline in headline inflation to roughly 3.2%, making the higher-than-forecast reading an unwelcome surprise.

    Breaking down price pressures, the biggest driver of ongoing inflation was housing costs, which rose 6% over the past 12 months, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages, which increased by 3.2%. Energy prices also continued to distort national inflation data: a sharp 2024 electricity price increase dropped out of the annual comparison, but fuel prices spiked 7.5% month-over-month in July following three consecutive months of declines. The jump in fuel prices was driven by two key factors: rising global oil prices and the partial rollback of the federal government’s temporary fuel excise subsidy, which was cut in half this July.

    ABS head of price statistics Rachael McCririck confirmed that while there has been some progress on lowering headline inflation, much of that progress stems from calendar effects, as the extreme price spikes seen in July 2024 roll out of the 12-month calculation. Following the release of the inflation data, money markets immediately priced in an 87% probability that the RBA will deliver at least one additional rate hike before the end of 2025, leaving millions of Australian mortgage holders bracing for new increases to their monthly repayment.